Misogynism

Abhaya Budhil wrote: The things I listed are not inherently female, but they are viewed as feminine.

Rai, it's actually interesting that you mention cooking as a male dominated industry. Cooking is seen as women's work, but men have more of a chance to make a living at it. Same with fashion. It is still a very male-dominated industry, although it is definitely changing more rapidly than other industries.

Couples do share some housework, but they often fall back on gendered norms. Women do more total hours of housework on average.

When I say family care, I'm talking about stay at home dads. This is often not even seen as an option. A lot of families assume the wife will quit her job to care for the kids even if she is making more money. Even with more and more women working, and even with pay equality evening out, the numbers of stay at home moms vs. stay at home dads are not coming much closer.

It is interesting to me that you simply ignored my other point. That it is largely women who ridicule men about the "feminine" things you mention. You never once addressed that point. You seem to blame men for all of the problems of women.

The answer is that people who existed long before us were the cause of the problem, both men and women. So shifting blame around now gets us nowhere. It all comes down to, what are you doing to change that, if your only answer is arguing about it on this forum, or trying to place blame on a group of people, or yelling at people for doing things wrong then it must not be a very important issue for you. If you aren't doing what you can in your life to change things then you have little right to complain, if you are I feel as though you would feel little need to complain.

May the Force be with you,
Rai

When have I ever blamed men for women's problems? I have said multiple times that it is a societal issue that men largely benefit from, but that harms everyone in some way.

No, feminism is not my biggest cause. It is one I care a lot about, and it is one I work on in my life, but I can't fight for everything I care about. I just don't have the time to devote the same amount of energy to everything. But I do work to create awareness, education, and change in the minds of those I interact with. And part of that is posting about these issues on this forum. I also work toward administrative change in the political issues I support and vote for. Most of my time for advocacy is dedicated to queer issues, but that doesn't mean I don't care enough about feminism to do what I can with the time that I have. I also care about other forms of oppression that I can't dedicate my full attention to. I'm willing to advocate in my free time, but I'm not about to drop out of school and become homeless so I can give all of my time to social issues. That just isn't a good decision. My posting here isn't complaining. It's discussing issues that are important and bringing forward things that some people might not have thought of before.

Rugadd, I don't want to ignore your question, but I'm also not sure I'm clear on what you're asking. I don't think people, for the most part, are making conscious decisions to think of femininity as negative. It's largely just ingrained in our society to the point where it's normalized and most people don't even see it as a problem. That doesn't mean it isn't a problem, and that doesn't mean we can't make a change in the way society thinks of femininity, even if it is a very slow process. I don't expect these issues to change overnight. That's why it's important to not just have one conversation and then stop talking about it. We have to keep talking about oppression and questioning our beliefs constantly so we don't fall back into normalizing these things and so we don't stop making progress forward toward true equality for everyone. That's why I don't think we can really blame any one person or group of people. These are problems that go back far before any of us were born. Everyone is hurt by these ideas to some degree, but that doesn't mean certain groups of people don't benefit under these systems. If I haven't answered your question, I might need you to restate it.

No, I think I understand. From that point of view, I think I'm making good progress and I can hope that my example will help others, too. I won't claim to always keep it in mind nor that I've purged bad habits completely from my system, but I'm aware of it and consider it when I think it applies. Thank you.

And the thing is, all we can ever do is try our best. Everyone is going to say and do problematic things sometimes because of how normalized it is in our society. Even I catch myself making sexist jokes around certain people sometimes and have to remind myself that's not cool, and I'm clearly a feminist. I'm definitely not trying to lay blame on anyone. It's a societal problem as a whole.

Abhaya Budhil wrote: When have I ever blamed men for women's problems?

Abhaya Budhil wrote: ...patriarchy...

Patriarchy is a societal system that privileges men and masculinity over women and femininity (in this case because men are equated with masculinity and women are equated with femininity). I said the system was the problem, not the men. And I never said all of women's problems are related to patriarchy. Just that a large chunk of them are. And I definitely never said only women suffer under the patriarchy. Just that they tend to suffer the most.

Abhaya Budhil wrote: I posted plenty of links to other sources that backed up what I said. And you just made up a world that doesn't exist at all. I was talking about a world that does exist in my experiences, in the experiences of quite a few people I know and have talked to, and according to studies, statistics, and other articles out there.

Patriarchy is a societal system that privileges men and masculinity

I definitely never said only women suffer under the patriarchy

Please explain how supposedly privileged people in fact suffer from the system that privileges them.

Also, I personally have never experienced this patriarchy you talk about. Please give me examples in our "societal system" of something which privileges men? Statistics are clear: women rule society because they're a majority and also more likely to vote. Please explain in what way these women have given men privileges which those women did not also give themselves.

There are many studies about many things.
The law shows that men have absolutely no protection against rape perpetrated by a woman, while the opposite has been true for at least hundreds of years.
Police statistics show that women are more likely to be a cause of domestic dispute (as in: they are more likely to commit assault first), yet the vast majority of help against domestic violence is exclusively given to women, even if they are the perpetrator.
Police statistics show that women are more likely to assault a child and that children are the safest when under the supervision of their father. yet women are far more likely to obtain (exclusive) child custody.
Prison statistics show that men are far more likely to be found guilty of a crime they are accused of, and that being male will result in a significantly harsher sentence.

It seems clear to me that, on very basic issues (so basic they're actually human right issues, justice and family rights specifically), men have been and remain at a clear disadvantage. If men are at a disadvantage compared to women, there is no patriarchy, but a matriarchy. One where men have been doing most of the dirty work women don't want to put effort in, and only to be blamed by feminists using bogus hate-fueling statistics for the sole purpose of giving women even more power (http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/03/women-own-1-of-world-property-a-feminist-myth-that-wont-die/273840/)...

Also, women are more likely to use weapons in a dispute, regardless of the man's size, according to statistics. Either side would be wrong for resorting to violence, but, even if the man did nothing and the woman was attacking the man with a weapon, the police are more likely to arrest or take away the man.

ren wrote: Also, I personally have never experienced this patriarchy you talk about.

]

Neither did your hero Gaddafi....

COLONEL Muammar Gaddafi kept a harem of women under lock and key and promoted staff who helped fulfil his veracious sexual appetite, it has emerged.

The former Libyan leader even established an entire government department whose job it was to provide him with prostitutes, according to his former security chief.

Mansour Daw, who served Gaddafi until his death in 2011 and is currently being held in a Libyan prison awaiting trial for war crimes, has lifted the lid on life inside the dictator's compound.
In an interview with French journalist and author Annick Cojean, Daw reveals Gaddafi raped hundreds of women and would call on their services day and night.

While he claims to have kept his distance from such activities or knew about the conditions the women were kept under, Daw said those staff who did participate and know about it were quickly promoted in the government department.

"It fell under the umbrella of the Department of Protocol under the direction of Nuri Mesmari, a schemer who had the gall to parade around in a general's uniform every now and then, and had the nickname 'the general of special affairs' so the only word that was applicable could be avoided."
When asked what that word was he said: "I hardly dare tell you: 'general of the wh---s'! He looked for women everywhere; that was his specialty and his primary function; he would even pick up prostitutes on the street."

Daw also told Cojean, whose book Gaddafi's Harem has been published as an extract on Salon.com, said that he would even take the women and girls overseas under the guise of being his bodyguards.
Cojean, a special correspondent for French news service Le Monde, went to Libya in October last year to document the role of Libyan women in the revolution and to probe claims that rape was used as a weapon of war.

She has already uncovered horrific stories detailed in her book including that of one victim known as Soraya, who says she was kept as a sex slave inside his Tripoli compound for five years where she was abused and repeatedly raped.

Ignorance is bliss. Fighting for it is bigotry.

Adder wrote: Ignorance is bliss. Fighting for it is bigotry.

Well, ignorance can be bliss, but, it can also be harmful. This is because if you knew people were saying things about you, but you were ignorant of whether they were good or bad things, that could lead to unnecessary stress. Also, if you mean by 'Fighting for it' you are talking about an intolerance of those who would oppose their point of view, you would be correct. But, if you mean to say that they are indeed fighting others who would take something of theirs away, that's entirely something different. To me, that's just arrogance. In other words, conceit, pride, self-importance, etc.

It's just the semantics of it that get me.