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Nichi · December 18, 2013, 03:18:24 PM

Indeed. Just because I like a skirt doesn't mean someone has the right to attack me in any way for refusing to conform to their views of what's acceptable :\

Chocofreak13 · December 18, 2013, 03:22:13 PM

just because I wear a dress or a shortish skirt DOESN'T mean i'm looking to get hit on.

LeaflameSD · December 18, 2013, 04:34:00 PM

There is only so much I can say
other than say that sexism, prejudice and the like are all wrong.

Chocofreak13 · December 18, 2013, 07:01:33 PM

*likes this post*

NejinOniwa · December 30, 2013, 05:12:11 PM

Found a little something on /a/ today which I think sounds rather well-informed for once. And sums up why so many people today hate feminists.

QuoteFirst wave feminism (~1920): Women are people, not property. Women can vote or own property if they want.
Second wave (~1960): Women are equal members of society, not maids or cleaners or typists. Women can do whatever they want just like men.
Third wave (~now): Women are superior to men, men are rapists. Everything bad that happens to a woman is rape. Women deserve special treatment for being women.

Thoughts on this? I'm not gonna say I agree 100% with this either, but I'd agree on the fact that second-wave feminism (which is what I'd say most people think of when they hear the word) is no longer called feminism but "equality" or something diffuse in that vein, whilst "feminism" and its current advocates generally have the third-wave stance described here (with a pinch of salt, of course).

Well, /osc/, what say you?

Nichi · December 30, 2013, 05:50:27 PM

I heard a different meaning for 3rd wave feminism, which is most likely the actual meaning (I don't remember exactly what it was, but I remember it had something to do with breaking the gender binary); if someone could clarify for me, that'd be nice.

But, I'd say it boils down to the radfems ruining it by twisting it into some sort of "real womyn = master race; Earth must become penis-free zone" type of thing.

NejinOniwa · December 30, 2013, 05:52:59 PM

The gender binary thing is a completely different debate, though. It has absolutely nothing to do with feminism aside from being another gender-focused debate, much like pears have nothing to do with oranges other than being another fruit.

EDIT: And delicious.
>Had pear juice for dinner
>Muh vitamins
Brb, to the orange cave.

Bella · December 30, 2013, 10:00:33 PM

Quote from: NejinOniwa on December 30, 2013, 05:12:11 PM
Well, /osc/, what say you?

[walks up to podium and adjusts microphone]

I don't want to sound like i'm tooting my own horn, but I'm almost entirely certain I've spent more time researching feminism and gender issues than most of the folks on OSC (Pitkin is more knowledgable than me; Kari and Pent seem well versed on these matters too. It's funny you bring this up, since I actually did a research paper proposal for this exact subject (Third Wave Feminism) last semester for English class. But I digress.

Interestingly enough, our friends at 4chan managed to describe First and Second Wave feminism reasonably well. But they forgot to mention a fairly important bit about Second Wave feminism: Second Wave feminism was overwhelmingly concerned with the plight of white, middle-class, heterosexual, cisgender women. Lesbians were shunned by mainstream feminists (because of the prevailing "Ew, Gays" mentality of 1960s and 1970s America) and black women were pretty much entirely excluded, causing them to organize the Womanist movement as a rebuttal (unfortunately, I'm not very knowledgable about Womanism so I can't say more about it). Representation for transgender women, disabled women, poor women, non-western women and other underprivileged groups? Forgetaboudit.

Other (not) fun things about Second Wave Feminism: early radical feminist Second Wavers originated a lot of the nasty stereotypes about feminists, the ones we're still hearing about today. Among these, the idea that men and women are fundamentally emotionally and psychologically different (though not necessarily unequal), female supremacy, all sorts of metaphysical woo about ~~women~~ Womyn being more attuned to nature/the earth/etc., sex shaming in its sundry forms (including anti-pornography and anti-sex worker sentiments), regulation of women's bodies / appearance for the feminism cause (SHAVING IS ANTIFEMINIST! SKIRTS ARE OPPRESSION!) and the like. Remember the term Radical Feminism, because I'll return to it in a moment here.

Now, Third Wave Feminism arose in the 1980s / 90s as a response to the inequities present in Second Wave Feminism. Third Wavers are generally sex-positive, pro-sex workers' rights, pro-pornography (although this point varies among individuals - many Third Wavers are against mainstream porn, and any type that dehumanizes or degrades women or queer people), advocates of gay and bisexual rights, and generally try to be inclusive of women of all races, cultures, religions and classes. As well, Third Wave Feminists accept transgender women as their sisters-in-arms, so to speak, and advocate the rights of transgender and genderqueer people of all DSABs (designated sex at birth) and gender presentations. It's certainly not a perfect movement, but Third Wave Feminism is undoubtedly the most accepting and inclusive "wave" of feminism, and probably the largest branch of feminism around today. As for its aims: If Second Wave feminism existed to secure (white, hetero) women legal and social equality with (white, hetero) men, Third Wave feminism can be said to have the ultimate intent of securing social equality for women of all races, sexual orientations and backgrounds.

FUN FACT: Third Wave Feminism is sometimes referred to as "choice feminism" because it puts a premium on the individual and their rights. A third waver would be A-OK with a woman who chooses to wear makeup, dresses, high heels, etc., whereas a radical feminist would accuse this woman of conspiring with The Patriarchy because they believe those things are inherently oppressive and anti-woman.

QuoteThird wave (~now): Women are superior to men, men are rapists. Everything bad that happens to a woman is rape. Women deserve special treatment for being women.

This, on the other hand, describes Radical Feminism.

I won't go in-depth on the details of Radfems, but suffice to say I wouldn't mind seeing the lot of them loaded onto a rocket and shot into space. Radfems have a few good ideas - they have fairly solid criticisms of institutionalized heterosexuality, institutionalized misogyny, sex-positivity, among a few other things - but frankly, those few pearls of wisdom are buried under heaps of smoldering refuse. A few Radfem concepts (condensed for your convenience):

Trans women are just men who are trying to invade women's spaces and seduce and rape lesbians
Trans men don't exist, they're just self-loathing women
To this point: There is no such thing as gender, only biological sex
Men are all rapists. Male biology itself is a weapon of rape, and even consensual sexual contact between men and women is a form of rape/abuse.
There is no biological component to sexuality. All women have the potential to be lesbian, but are "groomed" to be heterosexual by society.
The belief that the genders should be segregated
Policing women's behaviors and appearance: Feminine women collude with the patriarchy, and femininity is inherently a weak and oppressed state of being.

I could go on and on. Radical feminists sound god damn hilarious until you realize that many have social and academic clout and can put their dangerous ideas into action, with transgender women often being targets of their violence and intimidation. Radfems are, in my experience, some of the biggest peddlers of girl-hate and misogyny around, since they generally love to shit on trans women, genderqueer women, bisexual and heterosexual women, femme women, and generally any woman who isn't in lock-step with their ideas about "feminism".

Quote from: NejinOniwa on December 30, 2013, 05:52:59 PM
The gender binary thing is a completely different debate, though. It has absolutely nothing to do with feminism aside from being another gender-focused debate, much like pears have nothing to do with oranges other than being another fruit.

Actually, while gender wasn't really a part of First or Second Wave feminism, it's a major deal in Third Wave feminism.

Chocofreak13 · December 30, 2013, 10:09:54 PM

@nej: bring me back some clementines on the way! :0
@bells: you are such a boob punch for sniping me.

what was going to be my post but i don't see the point now: Show

NejinOniwa · December 30, 2013, 10:15:04 PM

That's actually fairly interesting and informing, B. Thing is, I've never thought of the rest of the gender debate as part of "feminism", because - as you say - the rads have mucked that word up so much that it's now carrying more negative than positive connotations. Even after being informed, I still think I'm going to keep calling what you call "third-wave feminists" something else, to distinguish them from the plague that is radfems. "Sensible people" sounds about right. "Common sensors" also works. I'll probably keep doing this until the possible shift from calling radfems "radical FEMINISTS" to calling them "fanatical idiots" happens. To me right now "feminist" is a pretty ambiguous word with an unclear meaning and a lot of negative connotations; to most others afaik, it's a lot worse.

Bella · December 31, 2013, 02:46:26 PM

Sorry about that Kari!

And yes Nej, mainstream feminism is fairly rational / logical stuff. These days, a lot of younger people are being exposed to feminist ideas via tumblr, which isn't ALWAYS a bad thing ... but it isn't always good either, since Tumblr feminism / social justice in general tends to be a bit skewed and short-sighted. (I've posted my gripes with Tumblr SJ before, but it can be best summarized as "Dangerously black-and-white view of morality"). Using Tumblr as a source of all knowledge about feminism is kind of like using Wikipedia to write a research paper: Often it delivers reputable information and it's certainly a great starting point, but it can be prone to biases and misinformation; you really, really, really have to consult reputable sources and not take everything written there as the undisputed truth.

As for feminism vs. gender egalitarianism / equality, etc., I tend to view the two terms interchangeably, since gender equality IS the end goal of feminism (excluding radfems and explicitly female-supremacist factions, who are a small minority anyhow). I called myself a gender egalitarian for a long time, but changed my label to feminist for a few reasons - for starters, I realized it was cowardly to stay away from a movement just because there are radicals, and stupid to form my opinions of a group based on the idiots and hate-mongers residing at their fringes. I mean, there are assholes in every group - literally, every group, from fandoms and clubs to political organizations and religions - if I stayed away from groups just because assholes are in them, I wouldn't be an anime fan, I wouldn't be an MLP fan, I wouldn't be a liberal, I wouldn't be an agnostic or anything else for that matter. Why would I feel differently about feminism?

As for semantics, I prefer "feminism" to "gender egalitarianism" because it reminds people that women are still not equal with men in many respects. Looking at things from a legal standpoint, in the US there's still a raging debate about whether women should be able to access abortion, and hundreds of anti-abortion restrictions have been enacted in the last couple years (I don't want to debate this point, I'm just giving an example), female contraception is still a taboo subject (and disproportionately regulated / restricted: In China, Mexico, for instance, a woman can buy inexpensive birth control OTC, while it's quite expensive in the States and invasive and unnecessary examinations are required here [as well as Canada, Australia and most of Europe].) Socially-speaking, girls are discouraged from studying math and science (again, this is uniquely Western; in various Asian nations, there's no such correlation between gender and academic performance in math or scientific subjects) resulting in disproportionately few women in STEM careers. These issues vary nation to nation and culture to culture - in many parts of the world, women are denied basic human rights still. It would be hard to argue that feminism isn't needed in those places.

As for gender and Third Wave Feminism: another major theme among Third Wavers is the deconstruction of various gender rolls, and their dismantling in some cases. This isn't to say that Third Wavers want to get rid of masculinity and femininity (again, Radical Feminists are the ones who want to do away with masculinity and femininity, because they believe the former is inherently violent and oppressive, while the latter is weak and oppressed), but Third Wavers want masculinity and femininity to be decoupled from sex and gender. Basically, in a Third Wave "utopia", a person's style of dress, interests, activities, sexual orientation, etc. would have no bearing on their gender, and nobody would be harassed for partaking in activities traditionally associated with genders besides their own.

Nichi · December 31, 2013, 08:03:16 PM

Quote from: Bella on December 31, 2013, 02:46:26 PM
I mean, there are assholes in every group - literally, every group, from fandoms and clubs to political organizations and religions - if I stayed away from groups just because assholes are in them, I wouldn't be an anime fan, I wouldn't be an MLP fan, I wouldn't be a liberal, I wouldn't be an agnostic or anything else for that matter. Why would I feel differently about feminism?

Indeed. There are many things I wouldn't be if I let the assholes get to me :\

NejinOniwa · December 31, 2013, 08:11:08 PM

Still favor 'Equalist' over Feminist since I think it's a more appropriate term. I see where you're coming from with this stuff though - keep it up, everyone! More debaters is (almost) always good. :)

Not to sound cocky, but I think I have a pretty different view on feminism general and how much of it is necessary only due to the fact that I am - objectively speaking, and from my own experiences as well - from a country/culture with a more equal society in general. I'm not saying we're perfect in any way, and there's still plenty of work to be done here as well; still, from what I've seen there's a pretty wide gap between the North in general and people down on the continent, as far as gender equality (and acceptance of hbtq general as well to some part) goes. To distinguish further I'd say that Germanics in general also falls into the same patters as we do to some degree, whilst the latin cultures of south Europe are lagging a bit behind. Academically, women are absolutely dominating every single university and program here, and math-heavy ones like physics are no exception. Law might be, but don't take my word for it. I think there's an "Gender Equality Top List by Country" or something out there somewhere, with some interesting data.
EDIT: Found it.

The question with the US is a bit different; the problem is the rather wide culture gap. For example, the highly non-secular environment adds in as a major factor as far as I can tell; this leads to a higher ratio of conservative families than would otherwise be the case, which subsequently leads to more conservative parents raising children with conservative values - girls included - prolonging the cycle. I'm not an expert on US sociology in any way, so I'm not gonna dive any deeper than that, but that's my 2 cents on the subject.

Bella · January 02, 2014, 02:09:57 PM

Re: Women in academics: Even in the 'conservative' United States, women are the majority of college attendees and graduates, at 56% (according to the latest statistics). I've heard a number of theories as to why this is (ranging from zany ideas about girls/women having better powers of concentration to there being a Vast Femnazi Conspiracy™ against boys in school), but I think the mostly likely is hard, cold economic fact: marriage has transformed from a requirement to an option, and about 50% of women who DO get married will end up divorced. Coupled with an economy that's downright hostile to single-income families and anyone without a college degree, women really can't rely on men to support them like they could Back In The Day. Parents and educators know this, hence the pressure for girls to do well academically and pursue college degrees at a rate slightly higher than that of boys.

Of course, women are also expected to want to get married (to men) and have babies AND also have a career. Conservative talking-heads love to complain about how liberals are destroying the traditional structure of society by expecting women to have careers instead of babies, but this isn't what's happening - we haven't stopped expecting (and pressuring) women to have husbands and families, we've just decided they should have those things AND careers. "Having it all", as it's often billed in the media. (It's an absurd concept, imo - there's nothing wrong with having a career and children, obviously, but a career alone is a major undertaking, and children are also a major undertaking, and not everyone is going to have the fortitude or social/economic means to pursue just one, let alone both.)

That said, there's something like a 1-to-5 female-male ratio in STEM education and careers in the US. In Japan, women only make up 14% of those participating in STEM fields, while in China they make up a reported 37%. Then there's India - women are still a minority when it comes to college participation, but something like 60% of the women enrolled in college are pursuing STEM careers.

NejinOniwa · January 02, 2014, 03:36:08 PM

I'm assuming STEM stands for Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics, because I've never heard the term before but that's what context tells me.

RE: the whole issue with careers, women and family building, I am going to go out on a bit of a tangent here, but hear me out.

In my honest, possibly quite politically incorrect, opinion, we have a problem here. A BIG problem. While obviously it's a huge leap forward when women - and men - have the opportunity to pursue whatever choice in life they want, there's a big risk involved in making this sort of play. Namely: Hitting the cultural idiocracy barrier.

Now I'm not saying "ooh all academics are going to stop reproducing and we're going to have idiots only left". Not by any means. However, the problem is similar, and similarly dangerous: young people in liberal environments are to an exceeding degree - much due to pressure from media and the "entertainment" propaganda industry - being brought up with the notion that the ultimate goals of life are twofold: making shitloads of dough and finding your one true love. These sort of notions play on our lust and greed for power and pleasure, which make them easy to accept because just about everyone can relate to those sort of wishes. However, this makes us sort of miss out on something pretty damn important: ensuring the safety and growth of our culture by making sure there are people being born and brought up in it. Or plain and simple, making sure that your own people doesn't just die out for lack of people.

The issue here is that - as described in Idiocracy - successful and more well-educated people in general, but women in particular, have the tendency to reproduce less and less, whilst less well-educated people/women have strong tendencies to reproduce more as long as they have the means to provide for their offspring; because the secondary fallback of our conservative western culture is "have women stay at home and raise children and tend to the house" that's what they usually end up doing if they don't have sufficient education or ability to get some line of work of their own to keep them busy. Another part of the issue is also the fact that an astronomical majority of all nations in the world have a very skewed view on the responsibilities of the mother vs the father in a relationship; swedish law is only just now starting to reach a somewhat equal level in this respect, with the father receiving actual mandatory time to take off work for child-rearing, but despite the fact that my country is in many ways a forerunner in gender equality there's been public outcry from conservative parties every time something like this has been brought up.
The skewed responsibilities of the mother vs the father in raising the child is an ingrained part of not only western, but human culture, and in modern society this is dumb as all fuck. In the first place, it shouldn't be WOMEN who are expected to have children; MEN should be just as fucking expected to reproduce and fucking take responsibility for their offspring.

Being a woman doesn't make you any less of a man, and being a father is damn well no excuse for being any less of a mother.

The results of this sort of cultural imbalance are twofold. Firstly, the mentioned "fallback" for women without careers (and by extension often without significant education) to have, raise and tend to children, resulting in a higher reproduction rate for undereducated women, and thus for couples in general because let's face it, academics quite often want their match to be academic as well. SECONDLY and more importantly, it means that the cultural minorities that exist in a society - which in the case of immigrants and refugees are often even more inclined toward skewed views on gender equality, imbalanced education between genders and thus have a higher risk to fall into the low-education behavior of "women stay home have children keep house" etc - have a proportionally higher rate of growth than the cultural majority, which leads to enclave formation and cultural transplantation of a less liberal and gender-equal culture, rather than assimilation into the majority.

This is the extent of my racism. I'm not going to claim I'm not racist - that's bullshit whoever says it, because you always have a bias toward people from cultures other than your own. I don't see these people as the problem themselves by any means - immigration is a great thing to supplant the natural growth of a society and its population, provided that it grows enough on its own to outpace the immigration and the immigrants. Which, in many cases - especially Sweden's with its proportionally low reproduction rates and very high immigration - is not the case. So the problem isn't that the immigrants are coming, the problem is that we're not keeping up with them. People often whine about how they "TAKE OUR JOBS!" and so on, but the fact is that that's not the main problem - the main problem is that they're pushing us back, growing faster than we are and supplanting our culture with their own. And thus, slowing down assimilation, causing cultural dissonance and causing a regression into conservative values, preventing the progress of society and the evolution of equality.

This probably sounds pretty bigoted and elitistic to you guys, but in my opinion it's a lot harder to be accepted as a Swede than to be accepted as an American. Because of the simple facts that the US is a heavily decentralized, rather young nation and a country of immigrants to start with, and that you have a very widely circulated culture that most people worldwide have a fairly good grasp on, it's easier for the US to assimilate migrant cultures; while this may lead to first generation immigrants having an easier time to hold on to their old culture and prolonging the existence of cultural enclaves, they seldom fail to assimilate partly into their new culture in the first place; in the long term (for the second and even moreso third generation) most minority immigrants are completely assimilated in due time. In addition, the core values of being "American" is a rather narrow and unclear scope (which depends a lot on where in the US you come from in the first place) that doesn't take up too many slots of your personality, so to speak; you can't just tell someone "I'm American" and expect them to get what sort of person you are from just that, without going deeper into things about precisely what kind of person YOU are - "Conservative", "Liberal", "Democrat", "Irish descendant", etc.
On the other hand, being Swedish is to know a strange language that's reportedly batshit insanely hard to learn, know cultural nuances that you're expected to know without being taught by anyone or anything (because telling someone outright about stuff like that is just rude, and we don't do things that way), being more or less aware of a good part of a millennium of national history, very underrepresented in the global media (because we don't make a whole lot of noise most of the time), and abiding to a whole slew of core values that take up twice and half again as much of your personality as its American counterpart. And in comparison, that's pretty fucking hard to learn, and even harder a mold to fit into once you know where to go. We have a harder time assimilating people into our culture, because our culture is harder to be assimilated into. Simple as that. For that reason, many first-generation immigrants don't assimilate at all, which leads to slower assimilation in general. If I am to use a bit of a metaphor:

To become American is, in my opinion, a bit like taking a bath in the ocean in summer. You don't have to dunk your head or get your hair wet if you don't want to, and if it's a bit cold that day you might not stay in for too long; but while a few people do opt to stay sunbathing the whole time, the majority of people on the beach will get into the water at some point during the day; and if the water's not warm enough today, you can probably come back tomorrow and try again, no biggie. Nobody on the beach is going to judge - there's so many people there that nobody is going to spend any special attention to just you. (Usually.)
In comparison, to become Swedish is like taking an ice bath. You can stay in the sauna and just cool off in the air outdoors if you want to, but if you really want the whole experience you're gonna have to dunk yourself in 0 degree water and freeze your balls off (that's exactly how it feels, seriously) before going back in, and people are going to quietly scorn you and belittle you if you don't do it. Once you've done it, though, it's done, finished, final. There's no half-assing it or just dipping your toes; you go all the way on the first try, or you don't. If you try half-assing it, you just get frostburn on your feet. When you're done, though, the other guys in the sauna will be happy to accept you as one of their own, and share a beer or two with you.

This became a long tangent, but I hope you get my point.

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