Feminism

[malice]

Equality will only ever be achieved by critiquing, challenging and tipping the balances of power on a systemic level.

I think this is the crux of the argument - or not even an 'argument' per se - more it's the crucial part of any discussion about inequality, not just feminism.

first and most important, it's necessary to come to an agreement on exactly what 'inequality' means. which I don't think we're able to do just yet.
not as a culture.

the idea of equality is usually thought to mean what's beneficial for everyone - or the most beneficial of a group of variables that exist, i think... like what 'democracy' is supposed to mean, ideally. I think the ideal is that decisions are made and actions are carried out based on choosing the variables that exist which can do the most good for the largest group of people involved. when everyone agrees - or when a majority of people agree, and those actions are taken, we call that democratic - it doesn't always mean that everyone gets what they want or that all individuals reap the same benefit from the decisions. so what's 'equal' on a societal level (the big picture) can still be looked at, and picked on by factions of the society that aren't getting benefits from it, or are having some of their initial benefits lessened...

when I think about what's 'most' fair in terms of women's rights, the ideas of feminism, or however I should term it - I think the biggest issue I see from what snd is saying comes from his belief that young men are having things taken away from them as a result of actions that have been taken to benefit women's rights.

snd, I could be wrong on that count, please let me know if so - I'm uninterested in putting words into your mouth.

I don't know, factually, what things are being taken away from men, young or old, but assume there's something to do with a feminisation of some things that have traditionally been much more... I don't know - masculine??
(not being flippant, it's difficult to articulate this without getting lost in a lot of tiring terminology).

snd argued before that the idea of women in combat was supported with methods that were feminized and therefore could put the men in danger as the women didn't have as rigorous a group of standards to adhere to?

this could be possible. however, if we allow for that, we also have to allow for the idea that the reason it could provide previously absent dangers is because the military has always been run as a strictly male organization, with male standards, and male judgement, and male action taking.

all understandable. I have no qualms with that because that's how the world has developed. and when the military works well, it's extremely efficient and gets shit done - be it rebuliding a bridge or killing people.

the SOCIETAL inequality present in the military towards women is therefore also understandable - women are not men. we do not behave the same as men, and we do not take actions that men take (IN GENERAL) -
I posit that in order for women to be ABLE to contribute equally in a military environment, the fully masculine backbone of the military must die - not the MEN, the DOGMA that the military preaches and lives by in order to perform its job.
but since men have no experience in how to create a fully integrated military force that uses capabilities of women as well as it currently uses capabilities of men, almost ANY action the military carries out right now to 'give women a chance' in traditionally masculine roles is going to skew the perceived balance that exists.

the male practice has always worked (pretty much) so when you start introducing women into the mix, it's going to get fucked up - not because the women are incapable, but because women are not men and do not (or maybe women CAN NOT) adhere to that same male dogma... and in my opinion they shouldn't anyway.

so the problem lies not within the idea of being equal, it lies within the largely unacknowledged fact that men in the society have always had opportunities available to contribute equally because the system itself was already biased to a male experienced world.

the world is set up in such a way that men are always in a position to benefit - not all men do benefit from it, but that's an individual circumstance thing- not a societal one.

I think in order for this to change, we have to decide that gender (or a litany of other things I could talk about) does not matter anymore.
men and women (or black and white, or gay and straight, or- you fill in the blank) need to stop treating each other as genders. until that happens, there is no equality, no matter what 'feminist practices' are put into place, no matter how much of a disadvantage men such as snd seem to feel men are being subjected to with these practices, no matter how much progress women have made in the culture.

it's still about sex, it's still about power, and it's still about dominance.

(and here's where I would just love to launch into my extended thoughts about hierarchical evolution, but I've talked about it many times in the past here, and if you care at all, read Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis Series - it's her writing that I take the idea from, and it makes one hell of a lot of sense to me).

anyway- when harmless says:

Equality will only ever be achieved by critiquing, challenging and tipping the balances of power on a systemic level.

he's right. those are what we must accomplish before anything even vaguely resembling equality can exist, until that happens, and until we can agree what inequality really means, the rest is picking up polished glass and trying to call it diamonds (or some other badly conjured metaphor)

[surfndestroy]

Anyway, that's all I had to say on the matter, I'm not debating anything like this on such a base level as "Men and women are different physically so inequality...". It's just sad that the feminism thread has been taken over by such a macho conversation; I don't think the validity of feminism needs debating by men.

Well if feminism's goal is equality it would be absurd to leave half of the population out of the conversation. And if asking a question regarding biology based inequality is debating the validity of feminism or adopting a macho conversational tone then I think you are just looking for reasons to be hurt. Biological inequalities run both ways.

[surfndestroy]

Wow, well done Malice.

I actually have zero problems with women in the military. I do have an issue with sex based standards. I am all for questioning the standards and the ways we make war and peace, and train a military. Not only are most women excluded but so are a portion of men. I don;t think that's the ideal for the military or for moving to more equitable society.

I do think there are a few trends in education, employment, family structure, life expectancy, mental health issues that should be troubling to anyone who professes to care about feminism's goal of equality. However, as seen here, bringing these issues up get you ridiculed and people questioning facts. I think you would be hard pressed to find any metric where you can show that the educational system is working as well for boys as it is for girls. I care about this stat for the same reason I cared about the stat when schools weren't working for girls, because I don't pick sides and I want equality.

I haven't had a heterosexual male boss this century. My current boss is a female. I work in an environment where I am a minority. I fully support equality but have absolutely disdain for identity politics. I live in one of two countries (I believe) that has absolutely no laws/restrictions on abortion. I'm open to being wrong and evolving on issues but it is tiring that questioning the effect that current systematic strategies and societal trends are having on boys and men is taken as being against women.

[broken iris]

Wow, well done Malice.

I fully support equality but have absolutely disdain for identity politics.

This is the tricky part though... as an educated white male American who went from being born in the lower middle class to living and working in the upper middle class, the system worked for me so it's difficult for me to see why it wouldn't work for others and the hidden ingrained aspects of identity politics, such as gendered classrooms, are invisible to me and people like me so we assume they are not there and reject attempts to change them.

I'm open to being wrong and evolving on issues but it is tiring that questioning the effect that current systematic strategies and societal trends are having on boys and men is taken as being against women.

In the binary world that Harmless suggested, doesn't this have be the case?

[harmless]

Every time you say "But what about the men?" your argument is more than likely about to maintain a status quo which already favours men on a significant societal level. So yes, "people in general" have problems that need to be addressed in society, of course, but the scales are tipped heavily against women in pretty much all areas of public life. That doesn't mean that we don't need to worry about problems facing boys, men, fathers and sons, or whatever, but it does mean that to talk about them in a feminism thread is more than unnecessary and always sounds like an effort to keep things the way they are / maintain the status quo. The same could be said for arguments breaking out in a thread about disability to do with "But what about the rights of able-bodied people?" or, in a thread about race, "What about the rights of white people?" Able-bodied people and white people and men have generally pulled the social strings since year dot. So again, I'd say that boys in school need helping; boys in inner-city schools need better role models, for example. But those problems need not be filed under any "Men's Rights" category, any more than "White People's Rights" or "Able-bodied People's Rights". All of these term are bullshit, in my opinion. Speaking as a disabled person, you as an able-bodied person do not need to worry about your rights always being considered above and ahead of mine in society. They always will, that's just the way it is, because that's how the scales are balanced. And the same goes with women and men. Men can take it for granted that in any situation, their problems are not being superseded by women's problems.

[harmless]

Anyway, that's all I had to say on the matter, I'm not debating anything like this on such a base level as "Men and women are different physically so inequality...". It's just sad that the feminism thread has been taken over by such a macho conversation; I don't think the validity of feminism needs debating by men.

Well if feminism's goal is equality it would be absurd to leave half of the population out of the conversation. And if asking a question regarding biology based inequality is debating the validity of feminism or adopting a macho conversational tone then I think you are just looking for reasons to be hurt. Biological inequalities run both ways.

No. That's the thing, your premise is all wrong. The half which is male is already heavily favoured in society, and has been for hundreds and hundreds of years. The male patriarchy has ruled the roost since forever. So tipping the scales the other way for a while and concentrating on the rights of the oppressed -- in this case, women -- is the only thing that will rebalance the scales to eventual equality. If you want that sexual equality right now, tough, because it doesn't exist right now, and actually it's part of your privilege as a male that you're able to say that you want it. A woman can't say they want things the way they are, because things the way they are are not good enough. People of colour say the same; disabled people say the same; LGBT people stay the same. Equality cannot be achieved just by saying "Can't we all just get along?" and feminism is needed because our society has been so UNEQUAL for so long. In the end, though, the causes of feminism, disabled rights, black rights, LGBT rights etc. etc. etc. will help all of us. For example, at the moment, I know that the problems with disabled people's welfare system in the UK are being caused by rooms full of rich men making decisions for us without including us in them. That is patriarchy. So it's not just women talking about this. I'm convinced that fighting the patriarchal systems of our culture(s) will eventually be the best thing for all of us. And I would hazard a guess that somewhere, it is patriarchy (men with money and power) making it difficult for those boys in inner-city schools to find positive role models. Consider black kids, for example. The vast majority of people in power, political or corporate, are rich white men who hoard money and create economic inequality; they keep people poor: single mothers, people of colour, and disabled people (in our case in the UK, where 70% of disabled people live in poverty). So powerful, good black role models that care about, and are trying to address, poverty and economic instability and ghettoisation, are so scarce. This is why Obama's election has been and is such a big deal for black people (whatever you want to say to criticise Obama's actions, and black people are also doing that). Fighting the patriarchy as a force which repeatedly tips the social scales too far one way will ultimately be the best thing for all of us.

[harmless]

Biological inequalities have very little to do with societal inequalities. I do not have social inequality *because* I have a physical disability. I have social inequality (and immobility) because society will not include me, and will not adequately support and facilitate my involvement in it. Disabled people do not have access to most buildings, jobs, relationships, family patterns, decision-making roles, etc. etc. etc. I am shut out of participation with much of society, particularly decision-making on any wider or public level. To some degree, we all are if we are not rich, but particularly those in social minorities. So again, patriarchy. To talk about who can throw a ball the furthest in a field completely misses the point, because fixed gender roles, or fixed ability roles, do not need to determine how a society runs. But the default roles have defined the way our societies have been running, so we take these roles for granted as "just the way it is", in the same way that people who are into eugenics say that disabled people are just too economically expensive to keep, let's just quietly let them die; the strongest survive, the weakest fall back. Social Darwinism. "That's just the way it is." No, that's systemic, societal prejudice, and it will be really fucking hard work to change, and scales will have to be forced back by disabled people for a while. But ultimately there's no other way we'll all benefit, because the patriarchy hurts all of us.

[broken iris]

The half which is male is already heavily favoured in society, and has been for hundreds and hundreds of years. The male patriarchy has ruled the roost since forever. So tipping the scales the other way for a while and concentrating on the rights of the oppressed -- in this case, women -- is the only thing that will rebalance the scales to eventual equality.

**suddenly I am reminded of my first fight with Tyler Malice**


This perspective may be the root the problem. What you are suggesting is not working towards equality, it's vengeance, giving those in power a taste of their own medicine. But you ignore the fact that a large number of those who would be hurt by this are innocent of their contributions to the patriarchy other than by accident of birth.

Using your metaphor, think of it like a scale with two bowls. There are 10 coins on the male side and 1 coin on the female side. If we want the scale to balance, an assumption, we have several options. We can add coins to female side (parallel social systems), we can remove coins from the male side (dismantle the patriarchy), or we can move coins from the male side to the female side (revenge). Each of these has different impacts on society. Which would you suggest?

[harmless]

I am a white male. I am also born into a patriarchal system, and a racist system, 'by accident of birth'. I am not responsible for many of its ills, but I am *complicit* in them by accident of birth. I don't feel personally guilty for this, I don't need to. But I am aware of it, so I do everything I can to personally redress the balance and help the cause. I have a responsibility, yes, 'by accident of birth.' I've just taken the blinkers off. If what I'm saying reminds you of what Malice said, that's because Malice is right and you're wrong.

[harmless]

Also, this is another problem with the patriarchal societies we both live in: the fact that men do not just assume that women are more likely to be right about the female experience of inequality than they are. I know that I expect them to be, just as I expect black people to know more about what affects them than me. It's an indictment of our patriarchal society that men assume any position and right to speak for and pronounce any knowledge over women's lives at all.

[surfndestroy]

Also, this is another problem with the patriarchal societies we both live in: the fact that men do not just assume that women are more likely to be right about the female experience of inequality than they are. I know that I expect them to be, just as I expect black people to know more about what affects them than me. It's an indictment of our patriarchal society that men assume any position and right to speak for and pronounce any knowledge over women's lives at all.

I will listen to their experience of inequality but equality can only be achieved together. They know no more about equality than men.

[harmless]

Also, this is another problem with the patriarchal societies we both live in: the fact that men do not just assume that women are more likely to be right about the female experience of inequality than they are. I know that I expect them to be, just as I expect black people to know more about what affects them than me. It's an indictment of our patriarchal society that men assume any position and right to speak for and pronounce any knowledge over women's lives at all.

I will listen to their experience of inequality but equality can only be achieved together. They know no more about equality than men.

They absolutely know more about women's experience of inequality than men. You're right, inequality can only be addressed together; that's why I call myself a feminist, because listening and giving priority to women's experience of women's issues is the only way we'll achieve gender equality. My job is a man is to shut up and listen, and then share what women who are smarter than me on those issues tell me. It's about making the correct assumption that the person who is part of the oppressed group will have more of an idea of what needs doing to fix inequalities than I will. In a patriarchal society, we simply do not need men begging to be included. What men need to do is respect what's being written and discussed by women, including trans women, disabled women and women of colour.

[harmless]

'Inequality' isn't an abstract term that we can know about in a vacuum. It's only addressed and learned about by listening and giving full respect to the experiences of those groups that experience it.

[surfndestroy]

Also, this is another problem with the patriarchal societies we both live in: the fact that men do not just assume that women are more likely to be right about the female experience of inequality than they are. I know that I expect them to be, just as I expect black people to know more about what affects them than me. It's an indictment of our patriarchal society that men assume any position and right to speak for and pronounce any knowledge over women's lives at all.

I will listen to their experience of inequality but equality can only be achieved together. They know no more about equality than men.

They absolutely know more about women's experience of inequality than men. You're right, inequality can only be addressed together; that's why I call myself a feminist, because listening and giving priority to women's experience of women's issues is the only way we'll achieve sexual equality. My job is a man is to shut up and listen, and then share what women who smarter than me on those issues tell me. It's about making the correct assumption that the person who is part of the oppressed group will have more of an idea of what needs doing to fix inequalities than I will. In a patriarchal society, we simply do not need men begging to be included. What men need to do is respect what's being written and discussed by women, including disabled women and women of colour.

I'm sorry you feel that as a man you should have no voice at the table on equality. Women only have ideas on how to address their inequalitities, this does not give them any special insight on equality though. My interest is in achieving equality, so I have a seat at the table. You seem happy taking a seat in the audience at the inequality forum and heckle me for sitting at the equality table, saying I have no right to be there. You can explore inequality all you want, it won't help you achieve equality.

We may want to achieve the same thing in the long run but we sure take different paths to it.

[harmless]

I'm sorry you feel that as a man you should have no voice at the table on equality.

I do have a voice, as a man, and I'm using it. My voice is saying "Read and listen to some feminism. Read and listen to some people of colour on racial inequality. Listen to disabled people on their experience of social immobility and exclusion. Listen to LGBT people about what prejudice they face on a daily basis." Without any of this, without being quiet and learning from the oppressed, there will be no equality.

Women only have ideas on how to address their inequalitities, this does not give them any special insight on equality though.

We are in a feminism thread. It is about addressing gender equality, particularly the problem of female / transfemale / women of colour / disabled female inequality. If you don't want to talk about those things, then what are you doing in a feminism thread? Women do have special insight; they have a special insight into how patriarchy and the male bias makes their lives harder to live on a personal and social level, individually and as a group. Men on the whole know nothing about this, and why it sounds ridiculous when you reject feminism and call it equality.

My interest is in achieving equality, so I have a seat at the table.

As a white, straight, cis, able-bodied male, I am almost certain you have access to every "seat on the table" that society has to give.

You seem happy taking a seat in the audience at the inequality forum and heckle me for sitting at the equality table, saying I have no right to be there.

Oh no, I am a disabled person who campaigns for disabled rights personally and publicly. If you as an able-bodied man want to say that my words "Listen and learn" are not part of the conversation towards equality, you can guarantee you're part of the problem. Why would you assume that I don't want to be part of the conversation towards equality just because I'm willing to lay down any notions of my cultural superiority? That's kind of fucked up.

You can explore inequality all you want, it won't help you achieve equality.

What? OK, let's put that another way:

You can explore how car engines get broken all you want, it won't help you be a mechanic. You can explore how your sports team constantly loses all you want, it won't make you a better coach. Stupid, right?

We may want to achieve the same thing in the long run but we sure take different paths to it.

I would hazard a guess that only one of us will achieve anything to change the status quo. What you want is to maintain your comfortable place within it. So good luck with that; maybe you should start a "Misandry" thread.

[Alex]

I'm sorry you feel that as a man you should have no voice at the table on equality.

I do have a voice, as a man, and I'm using it. My voice is saying "Read and listen to some feminism. Read and listen to some people of colour on racial inequality. Listen to disabled people on their experience of social immobility and exclusion. Listen to LGBT people about what prejudice they face on a daily basis." Without any of this, without being quiet and learning from the oppressed, there will be no equality.

Women only have ideas on how to address their inequalitities, this does not give them any special insight on equality though.

We are in a feminism thread. It is about addressing gender equality, particularly the problem of female / transfemale / women of colour / disabled female inequality. If you don't want to talk about those things, then what are you doing in a feminism thread? Women do have special insight; they have a special insight into how patriarchy and the male bias makes their lives harder to live on a personal and social level, individually and as a group. Men on the whole know nothing about this, and why it sounds ridiculous when you reject feminism and call it equality.

My interest is in achieving equality, so I have a seat at the table.

As a white, straight, cis, able-bodied male, I am almost certain you have access to every "seat on the table" that society has to give.

You seem happy taking a seat in the audience at the inequality forum and heckle me for sitting at the equality table, saying I have no right to be there.

Oh no, I am a disabled person who campaigns for disabled rights personally and publicly. If you as an able-bodied man want to say that my words "Listen and learn" are not part of the conversation towards equality, you can guarantee you're part of the problem. Why would you assume that I don't want to be part of the conversation towards equality just because I'm willing to lay down any notions of my cultural superiority? That's kind of fucked up.

You can explore inequality all you want, it won't help you achieve equality.

What? OK, let's put that another way:

You can explore how car engines get broken all you want, it won't help you be a mechanic. You can explore how your sports team constantly loses all you want, it won't make you a better coach. Stupid, right?

We may want to achieve the same thing in the long run but we sure take different paths to it.

I would hazard a guess that only one of us will achieve anything to change the status quo. What you want is to maintain your comfortable place within it. So good luck with that; maybe you should start a "Misandry" thread.

[malice]

The half which is male is already heavily favoured in society, and has been for hundreds and hundreds of years. The male patriarchy has ruled the roost since forever. So tipping the scales the other way for a while and concentrating on the rights of the oppressed -- in this case, women -- is the only thing that will rebalance the scales to eventual equality.

**suddenly I am reminded of my first fight with Tyler Malice**


This perspective may be the root the problem. What you are suggesting is not working towards equality, it's vengeance, giving those in power a taste of their own medicine. But you ignore the fact that a large number of those who would be hurt by this are innocent of their contributions to the patriarchy other than by accident of birth.

Using your metaphor, think of it like a scale with two bowls. There are 10 coins on the male side and 1 coin on the female side. If we want the scale to balance, an assumption, we have several options. We can add coins to female side (parallel social systems), we can remove coins from the male side (dismantle the patriarchy), or we can move coins from the male side to the female side (revenge). Each of these has different impacts on society. Which would you suggest?

I don't think revenge or vengeance plays into this, honestly.
these words are packed with 'malice of forethought' - by using these words, or holding the opinion that they are aptly applied here, you summon ideas in my head of pre-feminist cells, like terrorists- that gathered in the early days of women's lib to hatch a plan to overthrow men and chain them to stoves and ironing boards; force them to wear girdles and high heels, and shave their arm pits, and all manner of torture as payback for the millennia of abuse their foremothers had to suffer before them...

silly, isn't it?

think of it this way instead, and using your example - where do we get the extra coins that women would need to even out the scales? what if there's only 11 coins? in all the world, only those 11 coins are available. because that's where we are right now - all we have are those few coins to use as social currency, due to the world evolving as a hierarchical civilization (largely) - this is where we are.
so, as an ever slouching toward Bethlehem society, looking to improve its own circumstances, what do we do that is most likely to attain a better state of equality?

if men have ten coins, is it unreasonable to ask for maybe three or four of those coins men hold - not even a majority of the coins, because, hey, it's still a hierarchical society after all, but doesn't it seem like a fairly equitable deal?

I dunno, maybe women have gained a couple already - but we certainly haven't done so as part of some desire to MAKE YOU FUCKERS PAY for your sins or whatever.

one of the things that stood out to me, HUGELY, in the PBS broadcast I mentioned earlier in this thread from the other week - about the feminist movement - was the old footage of women talking about reading Betty Friedan's book - The Feminine Mystique and realizing that there was an entire culture of depressed and unfulfilled house wives that always thought it was 'just them' - like there must have been something wrong with them, personally, and not the system that created them to be patronized and condescended to; created them to be ashamed of their intelligence, and desires to make more of their lives than the discovery of the best carpet cleaner and how to starch their husband's shirts...

women in baby boom america didn't know why they were so depressed. they didn't know anyone else felt it too. they thought surely they must be the freak that just couldn't fit in properly -

men were pretty happy. why weren't we?
look at mad men. it's pretty dead on. what did Don Draper do in the first season when his wife was depressed and crying all the time - he called the doctor and asked if there wasn't some pill he could give her to help her out.

what's that tell you?

anything?

and when they finally had it pointed out to them there was like a collective forehead slap, and a collective - OOOHHH!!! it's not me!! it's the society... that could be detected.

just because it doesn't appear to be terribly bad these days for women, and certainly it isn't when compared to 50 years or so back - doesn't mean we don't have a long way to go still. and part of that NECESSARILY MUST include men giving over a few of those closely guarded coins you hold so dearly to your hearts.

because the few we have isn't enough to have a lasting effect.

look at what's happened to access to abortion (yes, yes, we all know you disagree with me about abortion, whatever, the fact remains access to safe and legal abortion is 100 times better than sticking a hanger up your vagina (if you possess one) and bleeding to death.)

access to birth control is better - access to sexual education AND birth control, even better than that.

but these things are still actively opposed, and in many cases have slipped away.

look at how young women behave these days- they are largely as casual about their sexuality as any man could possibly dream of - and it's all a defense in my opinion, because these young women want to possess sexual power, but their only way of doing so in this society, where men still have a large majority of those coins, is to attempt to conform to male attitudes about sexuality, and how women should be.
so miley cirus (as an overt, and ridiculous example) - or porn girls - or 20 somethings on tumblr or whatever. they talk and fuck and display sexuality as routinely as a whore house employee and call that liberation.

this isn't what women 40 years ago were hoping for in demanding equality. they weren't looking to hyper sexualize women. they weren't looking for a place in a man's version of the world.
we don't have that and never will.

they were looking (I think) for changes in the society that would make more of a human's version of the world - something we've never had.
unfortunately for men (if you want to think of it as unfortunate) that will have to include men not holding so much power, both socially and sexually. and that means you gotta give up some of the coins. because until some intellectually illuminated savior comes a long and opens up new avenues of social wealth to us all, we have 11 coins between us, and you guys got ten of 'em, how is giving say 4 of them to women revenge?

[malice]

and who is tyler?

[broken iris]

and who is tyler?

It's quote from Fight Club when the narrator causes massive bodily harm to himself to make his boss appear guilty of something he was not, while recalling the moment of inception of the alternate reality he created to justify his anti-social behaviors. It seemed apt to try and quote something from a story about the rejection of patriarchal society by those who are it's supposed beneficiaries... additioanlly the first argument you and I ever had on this board years ago was over a very similar topic so there was a sense of irony to the quote as well.

But what you describe and what harmless was describing are different in my interpretation. I do not believe it is the intent of Feminism to oppress or exclude males, but it seems like that is part of harmless' view of it should be applied. Constructing a binary system "the way must be male or female" (try and explain why math or physical sciences) and we must "tip the scales the other way for a while" necessitates that conclusion. It's substitution of a male dominated society for a female dominated one since we've biased ourselves by excluding any other possibility, and a don't see how that is a just path in the fight for equality. The same is true for excluding males in decisions that impact females. It's nonsense and exactly like excluding females from decisions that impact males. For example, I would be stupid to reject the opinion of a Swiss male MSF doctor working in Africa when discussing how to address woman's health issues there, because he's not a native black female. My thought's on equality (feminist goal) would be that both voices must be included to bring diverse perspectives and skill sets, but that's not what I am reading here. Same thing with the struggles of minority classes around the world. Black people in the US can't solve their problems alone, they don't live in a bubble, and thus white people who were historically their enemies must be included in developing a solution. Equality being inclusionary, not exclusionary, because exclusionary is just the destructive "eye for an eye" trap. Thus, revenge. Harmless, if have that wrong I am sorry. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, I know people have passionate feelings about topics and sometimes don't get subtle ideas across right on Pearl Jam message boards. Lorde knows I am awful at it.

It's interesting you would mention terrorist cells, because how Feminism is sometimes described is a lot like the GWOT. It has a basically noble but unachievable goal against an ill-defined and nebulous enemy that is not even considered an enemy amongst many parts of the diverse global culture. Don't mean to keep harping on this but the binary concept of everything being gendered either male or female is even somewhat like the "with us or with the terrorists" line. The purpose of the GWOT seems to be a perpetual fight, thus ensuring power to the fighters and I'd like to think that Feminism, conceptually, is not the same thing. In practice I'm not so sure.

And I like your take on the coin/scale thing and it's exactly what I wanted. Do you see the fight as a zero sum game (only 11 coins exist, so we must move coins) and thus some elements of society should be female-driven with others male? Do you see it the "ways" as irreconcilable and thus we need more coins to construct separate but equal systems? Or do you want to see coins removed, in a sense remove the structures of power that give advantages to males but at the same losing those structures because in our binary world if they are not male or female gendered they cannot exist?

[surfndestroy]

look at how young women behave these days- they are largely as casual about their sexuality as any man could possibly dream of - and it's all a defense in my opinion, because these young women want to possess sexual power, but their only way of doing so in this society, where men still have a large majority of those coins, is to attempt to conform to male attitudes about sexuality, and how women should be.
so miley cirus (as an overt, and ridiculous example) - or porn girls - or 20 somethings on tumblr or whatever. they talk and fuck and display sexuality as routinely as a whore house employee and call that liberation.

Maybe this is equality and freedom of choice, and exactly what they want to do. It's just not the outcome you want. I think any time there's an outcome you don't like but has empowered women to pull the "but this isn't equality, no woman could want this, this is a woman trying to be a man" doesn't cut it with me. This is you not treating other women as having agency in their lives and you trying to oppress.

Be a slut, be a whore, be a virgin. I really don't care. Just stop blaming men and society for the behaviour. To a large extent women in North America have the freedom and opportunities to lead a largely oppressed free life. Yes, there is more that can be done but you have the freedom to charter your own life. Now you're bitching about how people use the freedom and are still blaming men. Miley Cyrus is her own person. Whatever she is, it's all on her. Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and others haven't felt the need to act like Miley. Blaming Miley on men, blaming personal decisions on men is playing a constant victim card.

Somehow through it all, I go to work every day and work with well educated, confident, some very powerful women. They know they're treated as equals, that they aren't oppressed. Yes, I've flat out asked. I would guess that 95% of any oppression that occurs now is due to wealth and/or lack of wealth, and an accumulation of a lifetime of decisions. Giving people agency in their lives, watching them through it away and then blaming a patriarchal structure doesn't cut it with me.