Experiences with Feminists

[DrgoFx]

With the recent thread about feminists, it has me curious. What is everyone's opinion on the Feminist movement based off of their experiences?

For me, personally, I think women's rights is a wonderful thing and it should very well happen. My issue though are the feminists themselves, again from my experiences. Many feminists that I have met are not "pro-women" but rather "con-men." They could care less what happens to women overall, as long as men are brought down.

I'm not saying that every woman is like this or every feminist is, but from my experiences, this is what I encounter. And personally, I'm sick of it. I find that something that doesn't help are the laws that surround certain situations. For example, child support. In theory, this is a great thing and I support this, a man must pay for something he helped create. But in practice child support can very easily be used as a weapon by the woman to punish the man. This I do not support. Men are not better than women and women are not better than men. But thrashing the other does not make us equal.

 

[Colour Scientist]

Let the woman bashing commence! Down with the hive mind of the Evil Feminist Alliance for the Destruction of Men!
It's a good thing everyone on this site has a well-informed opinion on what feminism is!

 

[Gammayun]

There is going to be a very small minority of every kind of faith, movement, religion, belief or philosophy that takes it to extremes. I think feminisms great it has given women the vote, equal job opportunities, and probably most importantly given women a voice, so I?m just going to say everything in moderation.

 

[Valanthe]

-sigh-

Yet another thread from someone who read up on Andrea Dworkin and somehow postulated that one batty lunatic somehow represents the standpoint of an entire, or at least majority share of an organization.

I used to jump into these threads full of fervour, defending the feminist movements and trying to change people's views, but when you find yourself doing this at least once a week... yeah, skip that, I've got better things to do.

Like watching My Little Pony.

 

[Lionsfan]

No way this thread is going to end up in a huge flamewar. No way at all

 

[CrazyBlaze]

Yes there are women out there like that but those are the minority. Just ignore them. They are just like any trolls you find on the internet, ignore them long enough, don't feed them and they are bound to go away. Its like poking a bees nest, your bound to get stung but if you don't poke it and avoid everything will be fine. I do agree with equal rights for everyone but sometimes its too much. 50/50 hireing in companies? That can be hard in some facets as women may not want to go there. Hire the people best qualified and everything should be fine. I'm tired of people pushing for more attention. Here in Canada, where Gay marriage is legal, that Gay Pride parade was up in arms about the mayor not attneding their parade. he wasn't doing it to make them mad but he was taking a vaction to spend time with his family. If the goal of the gay community is to be treated the same then I don't think its a big deal that they mayor didn't attend. That just means that they are excepted as part of a thing that happens every year. You don't see the mayor attending every parade now do you? My point is that the point of equal rights is so that everyone is equal, but do not try and force people to go beyond that.

 

[gazumped]

I've met cool, confident, strong female feminists. I've met down-to-Earth male feminists. I've never met a feminist who didn't respect men, in fact all of the female outspoken feminists I know tend to have more male friends than the females who don't make a point about being a feminist. It is the females I know who identify as feminists who will passionately speak out about injustices towards men (like being seen as having less rights as a parent than the mother).

Personally, I'm a shy and unconfident feminist, with a lot of male friends that I love a lot.

Clever feminists don't slate men, just like anyone who's fighting for equality ought to know that lowering yourself to the level of those who are opposing you (in this case, misogynists, which can be male OR female) will not help your case for why they are wrong and you are right.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

All reasonably minded people are feminists.


I believe in gender equality in all the important areas of life.

Holding a door open for a lady does not make me a misogynist, defending a woman from a male attacker doesn't make me a misogynist.

The people who would claim that, use feminism as a shield to spread their own ingorance and hatred.

Men and women are not the same in a lot of areas. Both genders react differently to different situations, and then individuals within those genders will act differently from others.

I don't treat everyone the same, that's silly.

What I do is treat people with respect until they give me cause to do otherwise, whether they're male, female, black, white, young, old.

 

[Vrex360]

I will only say this.
I am a young man with two older sisters, both of whom are feminists. They are also the best sisters you could ever ask for. They are devoted, loving, funny and great fun to hang out with. Truly the best kind of older sister figure a young man like myself could ask for.
They are what I picture whenever I hear the word 'feminist' and the reason why I'll never be able to see the evil crazy man hating lesbian army that apparently everyone else sees.

 

[Phasmal]

I think its outlived its usefulness as a movement, at least in the west. Its gone from pushing for womans rights like the right to vote to pushing for laws that force companies to employ an equal number of men and women, which is just plain stupid.

--while the ones who just want equal pay are drowned out.

Uhhhh... What?

So, there's no use for it, but you acknowledge that we are still recieving less pay for the same work?

So, there kind of is a use for it, isn't there?

Honestly, this will just descend into woman-bashing, but here we go anyway.

I am a feminist. Always have been. I also have a boyfriend. Holy crap. I don't hate men. I can open my own god-damn doors, too, but I will open a door for you if I get to it first, if you open it for me if you get to it first, I will say thank you, no matter what is between your legs.

Of course, every movement has a minority that is a bit mental. But that isn't the majority.

I will be super happy when I can openly be a female gamer without recieving abuse. And then maybe someday I will be able to be an openly feminist female gamer without abuse.
Ah, one day...

 

[Vault101]

feminism..mabye we should just call it somthing else since its been warped/twisted and turned into a derogatory term that now aparently means "angry man hater"

 

[Zeckt]

Just don't try to run over me with your baby strollers, I seriously flipping hate it when some lunatic woman does that. Uh what is this topic about again?

 

[orangeban]

Outside of the internet, I've never met one of these man-hating feminists (I've met tons inside the internet, but I do go looking for them, so that doesn't really count). Most feminists are friendly people who want equality for women, and often it's the feminists who are well-informed enough to also be concerned about men's rights.

I don't know if my opinions have been coloured from hanging around r/mensrights on reddit, but it seems that some people have decided that the masculinist (pro-men's equality) movement is somehow the enemy of the feminist movement. No, no it's not. In fact, the two movements are fighting very, very similar battles, and would achieve much more if they'd fight together, rather than against each other.

 

[Macgyvercas]

I feel this is a good place to spread the word of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

From the Eight I'd Really Rather You Didn'ts:

3. I'd really rather you didn't judge people for the way they look, or how they dress, or the way they talk, or, well, just play nice, okay? Oh, and get this into your thick heads: woman = person. man = person. Samey = Samey. One is not better than the other, unless we're talking about fashion and I'm sorry, but I gave that to women and some guys who know the difference between teal and fuchsia.

I think that's relavent here...

 

[Phasmal]

Well, the thing about equal pay is the differences in pay between sexes are very minor and when you calculate exactly how much money women lose or win for being women, women are actually in the advantage. But lets not get into that right now.

10.2% seems pretty un-minor to me. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/08/international-womens-day-pay-gap#
But thats data from last year and I'm sure you are going to explain how getting paid less is an advantage and that we should all just shut up and deal with it.

Also, the thing with EQUALITY, is that nobody should have the advantage. Even women, I know! A feminist saying that... I'll get expelled or something.

Snip.

The only issues I have with men's rights movements are the extremists who try to say that domestic violence never happens and that kind of bullshit. I cannot even deal with it.
Also, why would you purposely go looking for man-hating feminists, if not just to anger yourself more against a normally reasonable group of people?

 

[FamoFunk]

Go Women, down with Men!

Not.

Feminism is great, it's helped Women become more equal in the world (Voting, jobs, equality in general) and I think we have a lot to thank them for.

But, like everything in the world you have those few who go to the extreme and those are the people who get in the news and lime-light, and then those who don't like to look things up and see everything Black and White think everyone from that group is evil.

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

Those Feminists man, it's only a matter of time before they claim the world as their own! Yeah, no. In spite of the inevitable vitriol, I don't think an anecdotal account of: 'this one time, at band camp I met a Feminist and...' should really serve as the basis of your outlook on an entire ideology. You may well not agree with what the people you meet are saying and chances are a great deal of Feminists don't agree with those perspectives either. My encounter's with Feminists (or at least those I knew to be Feminists, bare in mind lads, you probably know quite a few it just hasn't come up :3) are admittedly fairly limited, but I've yet to encounter one of these hardline misandrists that people on the Internet like to bewail so much about. I would of thought most reasonable people would agree with the core principle of Feminism; that being to bring gender equality into fruition, just seems like nobody is on the same page about how to go about this. >.>

 

[orangeban]

Snip.

The only issues I have with men's rights movements are the extremists who try to say that domestic violence never happens and that kind of bullshit. I cannot even deal with it.
Also, why would you purposely go looking for man-hating feminists, if not just to anger yourself more against a normally reasonable group of people?

Yeah, extremists are an issue in all movements.

As to why I pursue misandric feminists, not entirely sure. Best guess, some kind of masochistic desire to bask in stupid.

 

[Phasmal]

That fails to take into account things like taxes and years in the military.

I can only speak for Germany (although I imagine its not a vastly different story in England) since its where I took a good look at all of this, but until 2010, women were earning less at the end of the month, yet still coming away with more money for the same amount of work because single men paid more taxes than single women, had to spend 2 years serving the military, and on and on it goes.

I have to admit its no longer relevant because the Wehrdienst got dropped last year, so maybe I need to take another look.

But this is exactly what I am talking about. People see one small statistic in the news that women earn less on average, and shock horror, we get smartass feminists ranting on about it all the time without considering the possibility that there is more to the whole thing than that? From what I can tell, you are one of them.

Look, im not saying we should just leave everything as it is and women should stop moaning. I am saying it would be awesome if BOTH sides, both feminists and sexists, could strain their 2 brain cells just for 5 seconds and actually think about things properly. These threads piss me off to no end too, because both sides are ill informed and paranoid. Im generalizing here, but its hard not to.

Anyway, you may now proceed to call me sexist pig instead of looking further into it. Have fun.

Men in England don't have to spend time in the military, so I imagine it is different in Germany, but I can't really speak on that.

And yeah we certainly are generalising today.
I'm not saying I'm a bloody maths proffessor or that I've taken any time studying it, but any statistics I can drag up seem to show some inequalities, even when studies have taken the bigger picture into account. So obviously more work needs to be done on it. I have absolutely no wish to spend forever arguing about it, or to call anyone any names. But the notion that feminism has no place in the world at the moment is just a silly one to me, especially when there are countries where I wouldn't be allowed to drive cause of my lack of wang. And when older female members of TV journalism get shunted for girls with perkier milk-sacks while their male counterparts enjoy a longer career.

Like I said before, I don't want an advantage, being equal is enough for me.

I'm just tired of this bloody topic on gaming forums making women feel even more like they don't fit in and aren't wanted in this community. Constantly having to defend yourself from a bunch of people who seem to think you are just running around with a pair of scissors cutting off ballsacks and the like is absolutely no fun at all. And then people wonder why women don't play more games.

Snip.

The only issues I have with men's rights movements are the extremists who try to say that domestic violence never happens and that kind of bullshit. I cannot even deal with it.
Also, why would you purposely go looking for man-hating feminists, if not just to anger yourself more against a normally reasonable group of people?

Yeah, extremists are an issue in all movements.

As to why I pursue misandric feminists, not entirely sure. Best guess, some kind of masochistic desire to bask in stupid.

I just hope you keep in mind that's not what most people think.
I prefer to bask in awesome. Looking at people who want me to have less rights is depressing, so I prefer to look at websites and videos (some by women, others by men, all awesome) which are looking to make things better.

 

[Phasmal]

Well, to be fair, I did say the western world. Other areas seem to have some big problems with womens rights, and of course feminism is needed over there. But I was not talking about them, so dont pull them into the conversation, as if I was saying the situation in Islamic countries is fine as it is.

Oh my, I was not suggesting that you think any situation anywhere was anything, as I never said as such...
Did you not see my very next sentance?
`And when older female members of TV journalism get shunted for girls with perkier milk-sacks while their male counterparts enjoy a longer career.`
That happens in the western world. Street harrassment, domestic violence, stalking, sexual assault, ALL happen in the western world. And NO I'M NOT saying these are all soley perpetrated against women by men. What I'm saying is that they are still issues.

EDIT: And with situations in other countries, I also believe that awareness and movements within the western worlds are attempting to help.
I'm in no way trying to antagonise you, I'm not suggesting you think anything of anything, as I don't know you.