Yes, women have less rights than men, they make anywhere between 75 to 89 cents off a man's dollar, are often refused jobs because of their gender, and the republican party is trying to tell them that getting pregnant from rape means they secretly enjoyed it (I shit you not, more on this later though). Bad as these issues are, I believe our society is moving steadily in the right direction to fix these issues. Women are far more respected and far less discriminated than they were a few decades ago. Our current president is fighting for women's rights. In a few more decades, I'm willing to bet these issues will be practically nonexistent.
I'm also willing to bet that that there will still be a ton of loud, angry feminists bitching all over the place.
The aforementioned argument started like this. My friend posted a status completely supporting feminism saying that reverse sexism does not exist at all. I reasonably pointed out that sexism against men does in fact exist, although it may not be as prevalent as sexism against women. I respected her right to disagree, but continued to support my point. That's when shit started to hit the fan. All of a sudden, some of her other friends joined in and completely missed the tone of my arguments. I was going for calm and reasonable, how one should be when in a debate. Somehow they mistook that for angry and totally sexist. I was immediately stereotyped by them as the typical "white male" on a mission to oppress women. Here are some of the other points they made.
-One in three girls under 18 living in the suburbs get raped
-Rape is a calculated system designed by men to oppress women
-Males being forced to sign up for the US Selective Service is actually sexist against women, despite the fact that women can join the military voluntarily.
-All guys are constantly plotting ways to get into a girl's pants.
They would concede none of my points that included:
-Men often get the short straw in divorce cases in terms of child custody and child support.
-Innocent men have been wrongly imprisoned for raping a woman on little more evidence than her word.
-Only men are required to sign up for the selective service
-Women can make sexist jokes against men but men cannot make sexist jokes against women (a point I proved when I made a mild PMS joke after reading several "Men think with their dick" jokes.)
Eventually the argument turned into about five angry feminists yelling at me and my friend while we tried fruitlessly to tell them that their rampant anger really isn't helping their case.
After discussing this with my girlfriend, she said that "They just need some chocolate and Ibuprofen".
Finally... Someone said it. I want equality for women so it's safe to say that I'm a feminist. However, one thing I don't need is reverse sexism. I'm an Orthodox Christian and in this article by Sr Nonna Harrison she writes "The virtue of man and woman is one, since also the creation is of equal honor for both, and so the reward for both is the same. Listen to Genesis. "God," it says, "created the human; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" [Gen. 1:27]. And since their nature is one, their activities also are the same; and since their work is equal, their reward also is the same.1
ReplyDeleteSt. Basil is saying that the most important things about men and women, the things that make them fully human, are shared by both alike. These shared characteristics are: creation in God's image and likeness, the capacity for virtue and good works, and the hope of eternal life. Christ died for men and women alike, and all can be saved through faith in Him. If this is what is meant by feminism, the Church's teaching requires us to be feminists." Thankfully you've got a girlfriend with a good head on her shoulders who is sensible and knows what feminism really should be -equality.
How interesting.
DeleteWhat I've come to realize is how many people misinterpret what feminism really is, as I evidently did when I wrote this post. The amount of people that misinterpret it and misrepresent it is staggering, from both inside and outside the movement.
To clarify: ideally, feminism is synonymous with humanism, that is its core. It is people working for equality, focused on gender inequality. Unfortunately, "feminism" is such a broad term that it is easily misused by people following different agendas, for instance, the "feminists" referenced in this post, the ones that give the title a bad rap.
Though I maintain that the ones referenced in this post were indeed blowing certain issues out of proportion, I've learned a lot about movement, and what the actual statistics reflect, and found that these "loud angry feminists" were closer to the truth than I initially understood.
It's also intriguing that you're supporting my points using excerpts from the bible, despite a couple of the most prominent posts here.
http://opiateoftheasses.blogspot.com/2013/02/nothing-proper-about-your-propaganda.html
http://opiateoftheasses.blogspot.com/2013/02/obligatory-religion-post.html
Seriously. Get a grip. The only growth industry we have any more is people being offended. It's getting to the point where you will.need to get a women to sign a waiver before you can buy them a drink. It's too much. And all this 'he touched my bum I've been assaulted crap. It's belittles real victims. It needs to calm down. Women need to stop playing victim all the time. Shit happens...man up for fucks sake.
ReplyDelete