Is feminism a force for good?

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the intended change doesn't happen, or it happens in an unequal fashion (positive change for some, coupled with respectively negative change for others), and an active opposition is formed when none would even have to exist ("hey what's up with this women's rights stuff? why am i supposed to care about this? i'm an okay guy, and my wife and my daughters are happy. don't women have equal rights already anyway? i'm just trying to have breakfast, geez. i'm not putting up with this")

rule of thumb:
when you care about a cause, you don't try to convince people, you influence them instead

corollary rule of thumb:
if someone is trying to convince you of something, chances are that that's not the actual cause they care about


that too

in short, people get angry when they wouldn't need to be

Again, I have no vested interest in whatever hierarchy results from electing a pope (or multiple popes). Feminists will be free to align with whichever papacy they wish, or be non-denominational. You're actually demonstrating the problem I've raised perfectly with your example. The sex-positive vs sex-negative schism is just one of thousands of distinctions that is used to demonstrate plastic Scotsmen.



I'm not interested in dictating what feminists or feminism should be. I don't have preconceived notion of what the quintessential feminist should be. I'm in agreement with you regarding the Marxist collectivist in-group nonsense that riddles a great deal of feminism, hence my question regarding the sincerity of your earlier post. There is already a huge amount of dogma in modern feminism.



That's certainly one of the more common complaints against feminists. Any movement that claims to be egalitarian should probably function as an individualist meritocracy. However, I'm still not interested in dictating what feminists should be, however constructive my criticism is.



Feminist is not interchangeable with woman. That little bait-and-switch, along with the way it is used to attack others, is another commonly cited problem.



I agree with pretty much all of this, aside from your conclusion which is (again) a femipope tailored to your personal tastes. The point I've underlined, however, epitomises the main objection I have to the kind of feminist most commonly encountered today. The way that many of them appear to revel in their self-infantilisation is nauseating for a variety of reasons. When did 'empowered' become synonymous with 'spoilt'?



An all-too-often ignored lesson we've been taught thousands of times.

I find it lots better when I can relate to a woman on pretty much an equal basis.

I value a woman who speaks her mind. I don't like women who feel reluctant to speak their mind, despite having lots in that mind.

In my mind, a woman who doesn't show the full fruition of her intelligence is exhibiting false modesty at times. This "false modesty," in my experience, has been used as a rhetorical device. I've had women have success with me using this device. It's not a pleasant thing to know that somebody "beat" you while not using, in a fulsome way, her intellectual powers. But, nevertheless, it was a learning experience. One can be clever without showing, outwardly, cleverness.

Rather than using those powers, they used the "social power" instead. The powers of diplomacy, if you will. Power through paradoxically refusing to show power. I find that I should use this device more often. It's diplomatic, it's classy, but it's effective.

It's quite irritating to know, ultimately, that a woman I was conversing with just agreed with me because she feared me in some way. That's very bothersome. Why would anybody fear ME? Anybody who knows me would feel that fearing me makes no sense.

Part of the reason for this, I believe, is because women were forced to use that cleverness, their "wiles" because of their general position vis-a-vis men before the advent of Feminism.

So, when the abolitionists campaigned to end slavery through politics, bad things happened?
When the suffragettes campaigned for womens' right to vote, bad things happened?

Is that really the idea?

Not to me! But the political discourse these days is not on such a high level as it was in those days.

The Punch and Judy/Trump and Hillary Show does not inspire me in the least.

Anyway...I still don't see Trump going all the way to November.

Politics is a very cherry-picking thing these days. The truth, to both sides, is elusive. I would rather just escape to the Adirondacks and forget all this crap.

those were political issues

Equality and freedom are very good. Why we have to reduce it in a resentful manner to the contents of someone's underwear is beyond me, especially when so much fembotism rejects any biological difference whilst basing its identity on . . . biological difference!

Feminism is a thing of the past in most first world countries. Most of the third wave feminism is women victimizing themselves and men being ashamed of being men. I am not a weak woman, so I don't need feminism.

Depends on how you feel about bombs and arson.

My personal opinion here is that while there are people in the movement that go too far (The ones that think all media needs to fit their particular mold of how media should be, for instance), the more negative ideas feminism talks about are ultimately not going to be implemented seriously, and instead what we'll see is more of a compromise position. And, in my opinion, we do need a compromise position.

That said, I am a little worried about the growing focus on flashy (non)issues we see in the world today, over things of greater substance. Feminism itself is actually not that guilty of this, but on the whole we don't see talk of economic policy to the same extent that we see discussion of what a person said somewhere, or of actually fairly small issues on campuses and within the police force in cities, and the social justice movement as a whole has something to do with this. It doesn't have to make things work that way, though.

Most suffragettes eschewed violence.

@AutieUberAlles

- excellently put, thank you very much.

My current stance is that I support women's rights but loathe feminism, so I answered no, far too much involvement in attempting criminalize speech and erode due process rights for me to support it as a movement, to say nothing of the sheer awfulness on the internet.