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Over-extended Feminism

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Do you think feminism is getting over-extended in the West?
yes 39%  39%  [ 14 ]
no 61%  61%  [ 22 ]
Total votes : 36

Master_Pedant
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04 Apr 2011, 8:15 pm

Telekon wrote:
Quote:
Women's "natural" role has always been closely-tied to children and the home.


You think ovaries, birth canals, umbilical chords, breast milk et al might have something to do with that?


After the nursing period there really is not biologically constrained reason for why women should rear the children. As a matter of fact, ancient hunter gatherer societies from around the dawn of Homo sapiens probably raised children communally after the age of 3 or so. Sure, it was probably a female-driven activity then, but it shows how "unconstrained" the family unit in general is. Furthermore, there's really no evidence that men make poorer primary care parents than women.


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Bethie
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04 Apr 2011, 9:00 pm

Telekon wrote:
It has persisted for all of recorded history. But why would anyone have these notions? The people who say that sex roles are social constructs or whatever never explain their origin.

Probably because for most of human history men have via physical strength been the arbiters of who does what.
Regardless of their origin, it remains that gender roles are restrictive and often very harmful.
Quote:
Women's "natural" role has always been closely-tied to children and the home.

You think ovaries, birth canals, umbilical chords, breast milk et al might have something to do with that?[/quote]
No. I don't think women possessing wombs justifies confining them to baby making and the home at all.


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04 Apr 2011, 9:03 pm

Bethie wrote:
AceOfSpades wrote:
Beauty can't be pure social construction either. There has to be some biological reasons behind it.

Sure. There's biological reasons for men to be attracted to women with a certain hip-waist ratio, for instance, because it is truly indicative of fertility.
Fat-phobia? High-heels? Tight, colorful clothes and flashy jewelry? Makeup being so compulsory it's a requirement for women to leave the house? Not so much.
Also, for future reference, declaring that something "has to" have a basis in nature, unqualified, is fallacious.
Make up accentuates features that men find attractive so it is still relevant to biology. Lips are a sign of health and fertility and high heels arch your back so it makes your ass stick out more. Jewelery is irrelevant to attraction, it's more of a social status thing. And obesity is less healthy so it's only third world country that consider it attractive. Everything else like skin colour, hair colour, etc. leans a lot more towards social construction.

AceOfSpades wrote:
Bethie wrote:
Men shooting up steroids and women being anorexic has to do with the fact that people size themselves up to celebrities and develop self-esteem issues. It doesn't prove anything about gender roles one way or the other. All it proves is how much people look up to celebs. Self esteem issues when it comes to people sizing themselves up to celebs pertains to a lot more than just gender roles.

People size themselves up against celebs because celebrities represent current beauty ideals.
I understand that but self-esteem issues are irrelevant to whether beauty is socially constructed or has a basis in nature.

AceOfSpades wrote:
Bethie wrote:
Women have trimmed or shaved body hair since ancient times. It became more common after 1915 (IIRC?) after they started wearing clothes that showed their legs more.

Um. Right. And their body hair was considered unacceptable because....?
An old silly gender role is still a silly gender role, and antiquity isn't synonymous with naturality. These customs are constantly in flux, and vary enormously across the world. They are not inherent.
Not all cultural differences are cuz one culture finds one thing more attractive than another. It makes sense that women would start shaving body hair after sleeveless tops or skirts became more popular.

Bethie wrote:
It's a tradition in many Muslim households, as well as Orthodox Jewish ones. It's because women's menstruation is considered "unclean".
That particular gender custom being unfamiliar to you doesn't make it more ridiculous and harmful than what is expected of women and men in the west.
Ok so it's a perceived issue of hygiene not a threat to the woman's femininity.

Telekon wrote:
Bethie wrote:
A centuries-old notion that women are less-suited for combat (true in some instance, but not in the modern world),
and that a woman's domain was the home?


It has persisted for all of recorded history. But why would anyone have these notions? The people who say that sex roles are social constructs or whatever never explain their origin.
Exactly, social constructs don't come outta nowhere. They either have a basis in nature or are created to fulfill a natural need. Rights for example are created to fulfill our need as social beings to get along in some way.



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04 Apr 2011, 9:23 pm

AceOfSpades wrote:
Bethie wrote:
AceOfSpades wrote:
Beauty can't be pure social construction either. There has to be some biological reasons behind it.


Sure. There's biological reasons for men to be attracted to women with a certain hip-waist ratio, for instance, because it is truly indicative of fertility.
Fat-phobia? High-heels? Tight, colorful clothes and flashy jewelry? Makeup being so compulsory it's a requirement for women to leave the house? Not so much.
Also, for future reference, declaring that something "has to" have a basis in nature, unqualified, is fallacious.


Make up accentuates features that men find attractive so it is still relevant to biology. Lips are a sign of health and fertility and high heels arch your back so it makes your ass stick out more. Jewelery is irrelevant to attraction, it's more of a social status thing. And obesity is less healthy so it's only third world country that consider it attractive. Everything else like skin colour, hair colour, etc. leans a lot more towards social construction.


Heels and make-up are not required for women to be attractive.

In fact, I have moral hang-ups over make-up. I should not be viewed as slovenly because I think wearing make-up is the same as lying about your stats online.


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LKL
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05 Apr 2011, 3:52 am

AceOfSpades wrote:
LKL wrote:
AceOfSpades wrote:
I didn't say all women were girly or all men are manly.
{emphasis mine}.
Did you mean, "I didn't say all women were womanly..."? Because as it stands, you are describing the statistical agregate of feminine traits using a word that indicates immaturity.
Whatever word makes you happy, but when people wanna indicate immaturity they usually say "like a little girl" rather than "really girly". Girly is usually used to describe how feminine something is. I'm 19 so keep in mind I usually have women of my age in mind.

That excuse would only work if you hadn't juxtaposed 'girly' with 'manly.'

http://editorial.autos.msn.com/article. ... tid=788126
For your age group, men experience 9.2 crashes per 100 million miles driven; women experience 5.3 crashes over the same distance. The ratio of crashes per mile driven is higher for men in every age group except those 60-69.

Quote:
No it isn't a small minority who is affected by the culture of poverty.

data?

Quote:
Make up accentuates features that men find attractive so it is still relevant to biology. Lips are a sign of health and fertility and high heels arch your back so it makes your ass stick out more. Jewelery is irrelevant to attraction, it's more of a social status thing. And obesity is less healthy so it's only third world country that consider it attractive.

Flushed lips are a sign of fever or of chapping. High heels are self-handicaps, and fall into a long-standing category of self-handicap fashions that range from the 'hobble skirt' to the deliberately crushed (sometimes called 'bound' feet) feet of the Chinese. Obesity is generally unhealthy, but overweight women can actually be more fertile than thin women; more than one professional model has literally dropped dead from malnutrition, hardly a 'healthy' attribute.
Quote:
AceOfSpades wrote:
Bethie wrote:
Women have trimmed or shaved body hair since ancient times. It became more common after 1915 (IIRC?) after they started wearing clothes that showed their legs more.

Um. Right. And their body hair was considered unacceptable because....?
An old silly gender role is still a silly gender role, and antiquity isn't synonymous with naturality. These customs are constantly in flux, and vary enormously across the world. They are not inherent.
Not all cultural differences are cuz one culture finds one thing more attractive than another. It makes sense that women would start shaving body hair after sleeveless tops or skirts became more popular.

There was this picture of Katherine Hepburn in Time magazine once, in a retrospective on her life. She was considered one of the most beautiful women ever to go through Hollywood. In the picture, she's wearing a knee-lengh dress, sitting on a rock outside somwhere, and it's clear that she didn't shave her legs.
http://www.ehow.com/facts_5340337_histo ... -legs.html

Quote:
Exactly, social constructs don't come outta nowhere. They either have a basis in nature or are created to fulfill a natural need.

Unfortunately, neither social nor biological evolution is always so functional.



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05 Apr 2011, 10:16 am

AceOfSpades wrote:
Make up accentuates features that men find attractive so it is still relevant to biology.

Cool story, bro. Persian kings wore eyeliner to accentuate their own eyes. That was likewise a fad.
TEGH makes my point- makeup is not considered "extra", it is considered NECESSARY for a woman to not be considered a slob in many cases, while no such onus is placed on men. That's a gender role.
AceOfSpades wrote:
Lips are a sign of health and fertility

Well, that's good, since most people have lips.
AceOfSpades wrote:
and high heels arch your back so it makes your ass stick out more.

Right, because that's related to evolution....how? :roll:
You'd think there'd be some other way to promote that feature other than virtually hobbling women.
AceOfSpades wrote:
Jewelery is irrelevant to attraction, it's more of a social status thing.

Which, curiously enough, not many men wear in comparison to women.
AceOfSpades wrote:
And obesity is less healthy so it's only third world country that consider it attractive.

Never heard of the Venus of Willendorf? It is only extremely recently fat-phobia became popular. Throughout the vast majority of our history, it is people whose bodies retained fat who were considered the best mates, because throughout that history scarcity of food and death were rampant.
AceOfSpades wrote:
I understand that but self-esteem issues are irrelevant to whether beauty is socially constructed or has a basis in nature.

Modeling oneself after those considered the paragons of attractiveness is not a "self esteem issue"- it is a near-constant,
and yes, the fact that those ideals are constantly-changing does, indeed, prove the concept of beauty is socially constructed.
AceOfSpades wrote:
It makes sense that women would start shaving body hair after sleeveless tops or skirts became more popular.
Because....?
AceOfSpades wrote:
Ok so it's a perceived issue of hygiene not a threat to the woman's femininity.

It's the perception that women's natural bodily functions are unclean. :roll:
AceOfSpades wrote:
Exactly, social constructs don't come outta nowhere. They either have a basis in nature or are created to fulfill a natural need. Rights for example are created to fulfill our need as social beings to get along in some way.

Here you are again insisting that something "must" have a basis in nature or be natural- that's the second time you've asserted such, prima facie, with no evidence.
I've highlighted several examples, and could go into thousands more, of silly gendered expectations which we see nothing REMOTELY close to in species besides our own.
Can you not at least agree that men and women suffer from being expected to fulfill these roles,
and in being confined to them?

Such is the principle question which makes this all relevant to the philosophy and movement to free people from them,
and if you refuse to address it yet another time,
I'll cease banging my head against the wall.


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ToughDiamond
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05 Apr 2011, 10:54 am

Long and short of it, I'll take modern feminism seriously when something gets done about CLASS equality. Damned if I'll willingly empower anybody if they're just going to leave me at the bottom of the pile. I voted yes. My true position is more complcated than that, but it was the only way I could show my disgust.



Bethie
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05 Apr 2011, 11:35 am

ToughDiamond wrote:
Long and short of it, I'll take modern feminism seriously when something gets done about CLASS equality. Damned if I'll willingly empower anybody if they're just going to leave me at the bottom of the pile. I voted yes. My true position is more complcated than that, but it was the only way I could show my disgust.


That's like not supporting racial equality advocates because they haven't single-handedly brought down the class system. :roll:


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05 Apr 2011, 11:38 am

Bethie wrote:
ToughDiamond wrote:
Long and short of it, I'll take modern feminism seriously when something gets done about CLASS equality. Damned if I'll willingly empower anybody if they're just going to leave me at the bottom of the pile. I voted yes. My true position is more complcated than that, but it was the only way I could show my disgust.


That's like not supporting racial equality advocates because they haven't single-handedly brought down the class system. :roll:


What class system, people can be born poor and end up very wealthy if they put their minds to it. This isn't India with their class system.



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05 Apr 2011, 11:52 am

Inuyasha wrote:
Bethie wrote:
ToughDiamond wrote:
Long and short of it, I'll take modern feminism seriously when something gets done about CLASS equality. Damned if I'll willingly empower anybody if they're just going to leave me at the bottom of the pile. I voted yes. My true position is more complcated than that, but it was the only way I could show my disgust.


That's like not supporting racial equality advocates because they haven't single-handedly brought down the class system. :roll:


What class system, people can be born poor and end up very wealthy if they put their minds to it. This isn't India with their class system.



I truly have no words for how delusional you are, Inuyasha. Do you live in a bubble?


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05 Apr 2011, 12:35 pm

Inuyasha wrote:
Bethie wrote:
ToughDiamond wrote:
Long and short of it, I'll take modern feminism seriously when something gets done about CLASS equality. Damned if I'll willingly empower anybody if they're just going to leave me at the bottom of the pile. I voted yes. My true position is more complcated than that, but it was the only way I could show my disgust.


That's like not supporting racial equality advocates because they haven't single-handedly brought down the class system. :roll:


What class system, people can be born poor and end up very wealthy if they put their minds to it. This isn't India with their class system.


lol


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TeaEarlGreyHot
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05 Apr 2011, 12:36 pm

Bethie wrote:
ToughDiamond wrote:
Long and short of it, I'll take modern feminism seriously when something gets done about CLASS equality. Damned if I'll willingly empower anybody if they're just going to leave me at the bottom of the pile. I voted yes. My true position is more complcated than that, but it was the only way I could show my disgust.


That's like not supporting racial equality advocates because they haven't single-handedly brought down the class system. :roll:


I agree. Seems to me ToughDiamond is a bit classist, actually.


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05 Apr 2011, 1:34 pm

Bethie wrote:
Here you are again insisting that something "must" have a basis in nature or be natural- that's the second time you've asserted such, prima facie, with no evidence.
I've highlighted several examples, and could go into thousands more, of silly gendered expectations which we see nothing REMOTELY close to in species besides our own.
Can you not at least agree that men and women suffer from being expected to fulfill these roles,
and in being confined to them?

Such is the principle question which makes this all relevant to the philosophy and movement to free people from them,
and if you refuse to address it yet another time,
I'll cease banging my head against the wall.
Yes men and women do suffer from trying to be caricatures.



Bethie
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05 Apr 2011, 4:05 pm

AceOfSpades wrote:
Bethie wrote:
Here you are again insisting that something "must" have a basis in nature or be natural- that's the second time you've asserted such, prima facie, with no evidence.
I've highlighted several examples, and could go into thousands more, of silly gendered expectations which we see nothing REMOTELY close to in species besides our own.
Can you not at least agree that men and women suffer from being expected to fulfill these roles,
and in being confined to them?

Such is the principle question which makes this all relevant to the philosophy and movement to free people from them,
and if you refuse to address it yet another time,
I'll cease banging my head against the wall.
Yes men and women do suffer from trying to be caricatures.


That's not what I asked:

Do you not agree that the plethora of gendered rules restrict individual freedom and in some cases harm people?


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05 Apr 2011, 5:18 pm

No, if a gender role is not enforced by law it is the individuals own responsibility to do as they please. If women suffer for makeup they should remove it the only thing stopping them are their own desires and perhaps fears.

You say there are gender rules but the only power that really matters is not enforcing them so there is no justification for calling them rules.



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05 Apr 2011, 5:27 pm

ikorack wrote:
No, if a gender role is not enforced by law it is the individuals own responsibility to do as they please. If women suffer for makeup they should remove it the only thing stopping them are their own desires and perhaps fears.

You say there are gender rules but the only power that really matters is not enforcing them so there is no justification for calling them rules.


That's rather short sighted. I suffer in every area of my life because I do not wear make-up. Choice or not, the role hurts me.


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