Feminism: has it gone to far?

[Rofl-kamikaze]

Ok...I don't want to start a war..or get shouted at...but I really think that feminism has gone a bit to far. I mean that I think that the feminists have done what they set out to do and now they are just trying to make them selves better then men.

Tell me what you think of feminism...and please don't flame me. Please?

Where is this mysterious land of Far you speak of?

Well Done. You get a cookie for that (its in the link, not sure how to post pics. noob poster ftw). Also u win a free internet.

http://technabob.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/super_mario_cookie.jpg

OT: Sure, there have been times and places where 'feminist' groups have gone over the top to get their rights (while still keeping the priviliges that chivalry gave them (btw as Chris Rock said, and I quote: "chivalry is dead, and women killed it")) but, they still deserve the same rights as men, but nothing more. It is perfectly possible for women to be equal to men politically, however women can not possibly be treated as physical equals as men unless, wait for it, they ARE men. Women and men are physically different, but both genders are still part of the human race, and the Human Race should have Identical rights for both genders.

 

[latenightapplepie]

Has the OP heard of something called the Third World?

 

[thom_cat_]

No. It has not.

A cursory glance at the world will show you that most women are not afforded the same rights.

Within the US, the laws technically are supposed to give women the same rights as men. In practice however, women are often treated very poorly by men, in business, in domestic matters and especially in the entertainment industry.

Feminism is a category of humanism. It asserts that women are PEOPLE, just like YOU, and thus, deserve to be treated like people. Many men do not do this. The prevalence of domestic violence is a sign of this - woman get beaten by their husbands far more than husbands ever get beaten by their wives.

Men do not have the right to ever tell women how to live their lives. That is up to them. Men don't like it when they are told how to live their lives, well, I think that most women feel the same way when men tell them how to live theirs.

Feminism has not gone too far - if you think it has, maybe you're just angry because you can't control women. Well, it's morally wrong to try to control women. They are people - human beings, just like you. It's very, very sad that so many men can't realize this incredibly simple fact.

I think that feminism goes to far in a few places, but I think that's just the extremists that appear in every strain of anything.
As for women getting beaten by their husbands more than men, this is mainly due to the fact that men are generally stronger than women and are physically more dominating. But yeah, any person that thinks it's correct behaviour or it's okay to do such a thing to anybody is sick. What can feminists do? Well, sure you can tell everyone it's not okay, but come on, everyone knows this, it's not going to help. Within those areas there is only one way out, the person receiving the abuse must come forward, or anyone who knows about it must do the same. Criminals don't stop being criminals just because it's not a good thing to be doing, or because somebody says it's wrong.

I think this thread is more about issues like women dressing in low cut tops and short skirts, and then saying it's inappropriate for a man to look at their chests or legs. Really, that's not the man's fault.
Or people that take chivalry as "the woman can't do it by herself".
You get what I mean. Feminism occasionally goes to far in areas that equality really isn't needed.
If I was wearing a mankini and some women stared at me this is obviously my fault for dressing this way. But if a woman does it, it's my fault for staring.
Feminism is needed, but it can and has been overused in places where it remains unneeded.

 

[minarri]

Re OP: where is "far" and how am I supposed to know whether or not feminism has gone there?

 

[asinann]

In summary: Equal means equal. I think in the more modern countries, women are equals now, but the annoying thing is that they keep pushing for more rights. They've become equal. What more do they want?

Yeah, they get on average paid less than men for the same work.
They're more likely to be assaulted, infinitely more likely to be raped, and more likely to be killed.
They're encouraged to be sexually repressed, because if you're sexual you're a slut. They're encouraged to be quiet around others because being outspoken is bitchy.
Femininity itself is associated with being vapid (like duh), shallow (all girls think about is shoes!), meek (save me, manly mansome!) and submissive.

Think about it for a moment. When was the last time you seen a woman start one of these 'has feminism gone too far?!' threads? Yeah, because it is almost always guys saying WOMEN ARE TRYING TO BE SUPERIOR NOW.

Err... no. Sorry. Not the case.

Women who actually do the same work as men make MORE than men because the men are expected to do that work while for women it is an extra. Extras get you promotions and raises. A woman takes maternity leave, and they come back without any issues. A man takes paternity leave and comes back to a hostile environment.

A woman refuses to go on a trip of any kind, it's taken as normal. Man does the same thing and he gets bad performance reviews and eventually fired.

See where I'm going yet? Women don't want equality, they want the same pay, but still expect to be treated as princesses for the most part and expect men to pick up the tabs for EVERYTHING while they complain that they aren't treated fairly.

 

[Kortney]

Feminism is (in many ways) awfully silly. Why? Because I have the belief that you can't have it both ways. If you want true equality, if you truly want to be on the equal level in society as men - then you can't complain when you get drafted into the armed forces. You can't complain when you get hit for swearing at someone at the pub. You can't complain when no one offers you a seat on the bus.

You can't use your gender to work in favour of you when it suits you. That's my main gripe about feminism. The feminists I know (admittedly I don't know a lot) are extremely quick to wave their arms and cry when a woman is denied a job opportunity on the basis because she is a woman, yet they seem to ignore it when women are excused from undesirable activities men are made to do.

It seems like it's a double standard thing and, in some ways, almost aggressive viewpoint. It comes across to me 99.9% of the time as whining nonsense.

 

[Axolotl]

I thinkl this thread is proof enough that sexism is far from dead.

 

[raven_glory]

See the issue is that now, in most western countries, men and women are equal in the eyes of the law, in the eyes of men however it is a different story. See it is very hard to forcibly change public opinion even if it is to a perhaps better way of thinking. I believe everyone on this forum can agree that if a man and a woman are doing the same job they should be paid the same. However they are not, so feminists now push for any means they can to improve the situation, as any advocacy group would. I hope this is understandable.

Now in defense of chivalry,
Basically put women have something men want, early stages of relationships, in my view anyway, can basically be simplified to a business transaction. The way our society is structured is that men court women, though i seem to notice that changing as i grow older, guys you have to impress women, you hold doors open, ask her out and pick up the cheque. I feel that most women like it that way, let's be honest who wouldn't, and questioning it makes you look like a cheap bastard so we all go along with it. Honestly guys, come on its fine that way, I mean you might be able to find a girl who realizes that the system seems a bit screwed up and in reality both parties want the end result as much as the other, but in all honesty get into relationship and that distinction soon disappears and displays of chivalry become token.

In more general circumstances, such as holding doors open for strangers or offering seats on buses, i don't think the feminist do complain about this. Think about it, feminists want no relevant distinction between men and women, whereas chivalry only furthers and accentuates that gap. If anyone can find a IN CONTEXT quote of a noted feminist, academic or political only no celebrities, I will happily retract these last two paragraphs, but i'm pretty sure you guys are using straw man arguments here.

Also a quick side note on conscription and feminism, i'm pretty sure most feminist tend to be liberals who in turn tend to oppose the draft, so of course no feminist is going to be out there arguing to get women to be forced to sign up because (they might believe) no-one should be forced to sign up. If no-one is calling for political change then no change happens. Finally it may interest you to know that in about a few countries with the draft women are made to serve, most notably Israel and China.

 

[KarumaK]

I'd say the main problem with Feminism is the name; Feminism.

Name just doesn't seem to be about equal rights so much as female rights. It's a pretty polarizing term. Maybe something like Equalitism or whatever the proper term for such a viewpoint would be following normal naming conventions.

Personal thoughts on feminism; It's a crusade no crusade can ever go to far because no crusade will ever really reach it's goal. Things will never be completely equal for anyone no matter how hard you try. People won't stop fighting wars or animal testing, people won't stop hating. No big deal that's life yo.

So yeah... feminism is still doing what it's supposed to. But hey this is just the two cents of some anonymous douche on the net, so take it as you will eh?

 

[The Ghost]

Well women already have preferential treatment in America in court. Also I'd say not being eligible for the military draft (if it's ever reinstated) is another form of preferential treatment. My 2 cents.

 

[Chewster]

I think that there is still a ways to go with regards to equality (on many fronts, not just this one) and I think that, like most things, people get it in their heads that the few, vocal crazies are somehow representative of the whole.

They are not.

but i/m pretty sure you guys are using straw man arguments here.

That seems to happen a lot in discussions like this...

 

[hyperhammy]

I'm all for equality, but in my opinion, this is fucking disgusting...
Unless I get to wear a dick around my neck... that's just distasteful

 

[Sebenko]

My personal thoughts on feminism?

Well, I think you can guess. I hate women. I just don't get along with them. I have no interest in sleeping with them. They have nothing of value for me (though that could be said about most people).

There's plenty of inequality to fight around the world. Go fight that before screeching in my ear.

Re OP: where is "far" and how am I supposed to know whether or not feminism has gone there?

Far harad?

Spoiler

 

[Phoenixlight]

ok then...I know of one story where a bunch of woman wanted to do a nude calender shot, but the local feminist group stop them from doing it because they said that it was sexist and degrading. And also that in the 1960's thay called playboy empowering and now they call in sexist.

I don't think it's going too far and playboy is just for perverted and morally corrupt males.

 

[Alphavillain]

Feminism hasn't gone far enough. Women aren't feminists in the burning the bra kind of way they had in the 70s. It's simply not feminism any more, but women buying beauty products and pretending it's emancipation. Look at the top jobs, and they're mostly held by men, with women having far lower wages on average.

 

[HijiriOni]

Accept lots of women actually like playboy, it has great articles, the women are portrayed more like models then trashy whores, and their is a lot of development behind it. My wife very much approves of playboy, she also approves of suicide girls as they are basically "Playboy for the punk/alternative lifestyle" her words too.

Back on topic. What's funny about feminists is the notion started because of ye old 1930s "Get in the kitchen woman" thinking, where women were thought to be only good for cooking/cleaning/etc. Basically they didn't want to be forced into this and they wanted a choice. Now they have a choice and women who want to choose to be a mom, a prostitute, a stripper, or some other "not a man's job" position feminists belittle these women for making choices. So now there's the Neo-Feminism movement which is basically trying to tell the feminist movement to go away.

 

[Kenko]

Feminism hasn't existed since the 80s.

Not True Feminism anyway, now its about female Superiority, instead of equality.

Damnit, ninja'd! Yeah what he said.

 

[AlcatrasOnly]

Some people have asked for examples where feminism has gone too far or where the contrary to their thesis does not apply. I can give you some examples.
I live in Germany. Here we have a law that states that in some branches of the public state and in a part of the publicly supported privet sectors a certain quota of females must to be employed completely disregarding the fact that a male employer could be more qualified for the job or the fact that the total number of females applying for it is very low.
There have been publicly released cases where there have been hundreds of qualified male applicators for a job and only a few female which were generally less qualifies (not because of their gender but because their formal education and lack of experience). The employing staffs were forced to hire the females to fulfil the quota and reject the males to avoid the penalties (fines and loss of monetary aid) for not fulfilling it.
On the contrary these are public branches that have a 80% and higher female employments rating.
One such case became public years ago when a female chef of employment stuffs refuses to hire more males (despite equal or higher qualification) because ?they couldn?t do the job nearly as good as woman?. The attitude of this woman was so feministic that when it became public she eventually was fired because of it.
I think feminism has gone too far when equality is not encouraged when reached but enforced ignoring other circumstance that might exist. Like some people said already feminism is nowadays not about equality bur superiority.

 

[Generic_Dave]

Women still earn a large percentage less than men for similar work and employment...they make up substantially smaller proportions of high income earners, CEO's, managers, professors etc...

Look at the world of games design...I can't name a single woman connected to gaming...well Rebecca Mayes...but she doesn't make games.

Feminism will have gone far enough when women form a proportion of business, social and political leaders equivalent to their proportion of society. About 52%, there are more of them than there are of us. From social norms (men are "playas" women are "hos", men are "strong" women are "weak".) to the workplace, feminism needs to work harder.

Feminism has not gone too far. In fact it has not gone far enough.

 

[ethaninja]

Can you name some specific examples of why you think that way OP? Just curious.

Yeah please elaborate. There are many things that cover that that piss me off, but not all things.