Dating an anti-feminist girl

Post Reply New Topic

I really don't believe many guys believe women are "arm candy, trophy wives, eye candy," all that crap--especially after they graduate high school. They might start believing these notions after "a couple, two, three beers," though.

It's a bunch of idiocy, really, for men to think that way, and indicative of some sort of pathological thought process.

I do have an aesthetic sense of things, and I do admire physical beauty--however, as far as having a relationship with a person, physicality is but a small-medium component. You could be lovely on the outside, but hideous on the inside. You could be Venus outwardly, but Medusa inwardly.

Advocacy must continue--but must not be based upon stereotypical notions of men, similar to how it must not be based upon stereotypical notions of women. I wouldn't want to join up with a person who believes in such notions.

I'm certainly not in the "eye-candy" camp. I'd rather be involved with a Mary Wollstonecraft than one of those supermodels.

From a very early age (I'm talking kindergarten here), women are discouraged from competing with boys, and encouraged towards nurturing-oriented type careers, such as teaching or nursing. Even though women's lib has created more opportunities for women professionally (when I was growing up, there was practically no such thing as a women firefighter or a woman engineer; in fact, I was discouraged - by parents and teachers - from even thinking about going into the hard sciences), as far as the social aspects of any work environment, it is still hard for women to be perceived as equals in those traditionally male fields. Hence, the legendary "glass ceiling."

I would not disagree that some large portion of the female population is interested in having children at some point in their lives. I would not disagree that some portion of the female population would perhaps rather be full-time mothers than career women. That still leaves a whole bunch of us who either chose not to have children or couldn't have children or decided that we could have both children AND a career, and yet we are still being treated as if all we are really good for is staying home and taking care of offspring. That, no matter our age or experience, there's still a slight looking askance from the powers-that-be, as if any woman (including the post-menopausal ones), engineer or surgeon or airline pilot is going to suddenly quit her job to become a full-time soccer mom.

Some men are way better suited to be stay-at-home dads than their wives are. I love that we're seeing more men making that decision. Not all women are nurturing. Not all men are professionally ambitious.

Because it is so uncommon, it also warms my heart when I hear of a man giving up his career in the 11th hour to take care of, for example, an ailing parent, allowing his wife to continue with her own career. It is still all too "traditional" to dump ANY caregiving responsibilities onto the woman, no matter whose relative is ailing.

That's weird, scientitically brilliant female students at my school were as encouraged as their male peers; not sure about their parents but teachers, both males and females strongly encouraged them to pursue scientific paths.

I recall about a female classmate, who was brilliant in both science and literature; ended up choosing the second path; all science/math teachers were upset at her decision.

A timely post:

http://www.upworthy.com/51-pretty-shock ... &c=reccon1

Also? I'm not saying that women don't have more opportunities now than they did when I was growing up. They do, thanks to the original women's lib movement. But let's be realistic, "more" is still not "equal."

what about the millions of women who view men as objects or trophy husbands?

it goes both ways, or I wouldn't see a lot of ads that list the guy must be athletic or see half naked guys every 10 mins on soap operas, or see shirtless guy's in movies, magazines and tv shows. or hear women talk about how sexy the guy on the underwear ad looks and how they'd like to ___________ him.

but yeah sure its only towards women.....

So, I suggest you do what I personally have had to do, and what millions of other women have had to do over the last 50 years - if you are convinced you are legitimately being discriminated against, fight it. Fight discrimination wherever you see it, whether it's directed at you, or anyone else, whether it's gender discrimination or racial discrimination. Don't sit around and complain about how women (or blacks, or Asians, or NTs) get all the breaks - fight it. If all women did was sit around and complain about discrimination, women's lib wouldn't have happened.

Feminism, and certainly the patriarchy it seeks to address, isn't so much about individuals as it is about systems and structure, about societal conditioning, norms and expectations. It's about historical and deeply engrained imbalances of power, which are preserved in attitudes and behaviours, often to a degree that they are little recognised, far less acknowledged.

That is why the hashtag YesAllWomen was such a shock to those who actually listened and thought about what those voices were saying. In many ways the most disturbing commonalities weren't those physical and sexual abuses which are defined and recognised in law as criminal behaviours, but the myriad of more subtle ways in which women make decisions and adjustments in their daily lives. So subtle, so commonplace, that these behaviours are rarely questioned even by the women themselves.

^^ Exactly the point of this (reposting in hopes someone might actually read it - there are things in here I hadn't even thought of): http://www.upworthy.com/51-pretty-shock ... &c=reccon1

^^

Actually, contrary to assertions, I did not ever say that no man ever in the history of the world had experienced gender discrimination; I was talking to one particular poster, betting that he personally had not.

But, YES, what you are saying is absolutely correct. If/when gender discrimination towards men does take place, it is in an entirely different context than what women experience.