What's the haps?

[Ashton]

I went out on a date last night instead of my normal routine. The girl said the magic words: "feminism is stupid." I think I'm in love. Plus she has a nice ass and likes comics, so there's that too.

[SonicDeathMonkey]

"Feminism is stupid" is such an asinine thing to say. People who are against feminism don't really know what feminism is. It's actually a really important movement globally and historically.

[Annubis]

"Feminism is stupid" is such an asinine thing to say. People who are against feminism don't really know what feminism is. It's actually a really important movement globally and historically.

To be fair, the ones we hate are the ones militating for feminism while not knowing what feminism is about.
That and sometimes, I get tired of hearing that my patriarchal self is the bane of womanhood.

[SonicDeathMonkey]

Yeah of course but what you're describing is feminism in its extreme, stupid form.
Feminism as a movement has done too much good for the world to be dismissed just because some people take it too far.

Anyway my haps are mostly all school-related. Finally finishing my B.S. this semester. Awwwww yeah

[Ashton]

Let me posit a question.

Which feminists are the ones that made the Duluth model into law? Which are the ones that caused marriage and divorce law to basically make marriage and divorce government approved indentured servitude and slavery, respectively? Which are the ones that erase millions upon millions of male abuse and rape victims every year? Which are the ones who think that men dying at the workplace at a rate of 20x that of women is just the norm we should accept? Which are the ones trying to expand the definition of rape into things like "visual rape" and "retroactive rape"? Which are the ones saying false rape accusers shouldn't be punished because the accusee "COULD HAVE" been a rapist? Which are the ones that tell men they're 'boo hooing' when men say 'hey that's not cool?'

Now tell me, where are the feminists that are saying 'hey that's not cool'? Nowhere. If you are feminist and you are silent you are complicit in these acts, much like the moderate Republicans are complicit in whatever crap Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich spew out. YOU need to exile the extremists from the group and speak up any chance you have, not just passively say "that's not all of us, man, whatever" whenever issues are presented. It would be different if they were literally fringe crazies like the KKK but they are not. They actively affect public policy and lawmaking.

Feminism achieved its original goals - if you disagree, tell me what fundamental rights men have that women do not. Now feminism needs an excuse to continue existing, so it focuses on nonexistant problems which only cause more suffering, which is why they can raise a stink about Dragon's Crown or teach that "the boy speaking up first in Sesame Street is sexist" in Gender Studies but remain willfully silent about female rapists and abusers.

[Starmongoose]

This can only end in tears.

So in an unrelated note. I am watching a Let's Play of The Last of Us. I'm not a big action game player (as in I don't play them at all), but this game seems to lend itself well to watching. I'm intrigued.

[Dice]

This can only end in tears.

So in an unrelated note. I am watching a Let's Play of The Last of Us. I'm not a big action game player (as in I don't play them at all), but this game seems to lend itself well to watching. I'm intrigued.

Sorry mongoosey...

Let me posit a question.

Which feminists are the ones that made the Duluth model into law? Which are the ones that caused marriage and divorce law to basically make marriage and divorce government approved indentured servitude and slavery, respectively? Which are the ones that erase millions upon millions of male abuse and rape victims every year? Which are the ones who think that men dying at the workplace at a rate of 20x that of women is just the norm we should accept? Which are the ones trying to expand the definition of rape into things like "visual rape" and "retroactive rape"? Which are the ones saying false rape accusers shouldn't be punished because the accusee "COULD HAVE" been a rapist? Which are the ones that tell men they're 'boo hooing' when men say 'hey that's not cool?'

Now tell me, where are the feminists that are saying 'hey that's not cool'? Nowhere. If you are feminist and you are silent you are complicit in these acts, much like the moderate Republicans are complicit in whatever crap Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich spew out. YOU need to exile the extremists from the group and speak up any chance you have, not just passively say "that's not all of us, man, whatever" whenever issues are presented. It would be different if they were literally fringe crazies like the KKK but they are not. They actively affect public policy and lawmaking.

Feminism achieved its original goals - if you disagree, tell me what fundamental rights men have that women do not. Now feminism needs an excuse to continue existing, so it focuses on nonexistant problems which only cause more suffering, which is why they can raise a stink about Dragon's Crown or teach that "the boy speaking up first in Sesame Street is sexist" in Gender Studies but remain willfully silent about female rapists and abusers.

Rape is still committed LARGELY more often by men than women and it is much more violent than women's attempts (specifically cases where women are killed/hospitalized and men are not).  I agree rape is a serious issue for men and women, I can't argue against that, but that sounds more gender-legal issues than gender alone and ignores the fact that women still get raped and definitely something men should argue for.  Your argument about men dying in the workplace is very serious and highly ignored by media in general, but it's not a sexist issue (rather, blame the roles of men/women for relegating men into "mens work" -- which is much more dangerous in the lines on construction and other primary sector jobs -- and women to less dangerous "women's work" in tertiary sector jobs).

I'm gonna whip out the olde Dictionary Tactic:

Merriam-Webster defines "feminism" as

1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes
2 : organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests

I can't underline there but I'm just gonna emphasize the word EQUALITY :D.

Urban Dictionary has a surprisingly good entry on it:

The belief that women are and should be treated as potential intellectual equals and social equals to men. ...The basic idea of Feminism revolves around the principle that just because human bodies are designed to perform certain procreative functions, biological elements need not dictate intellectual and social functions, capabilities, and rights.

So yeah if your girl says it's "stupid" than it does seem somewhat asinine on her part especially if she works and votes and goes to school.  Granted, we've had working, schooling, and voting rights for some time; but feminists still fight due to residual inequalities that still persist, and I hate comments like "feminists are dumb" because while we don't "take up the cross" in this day and age for all of the poor women of the past, it ignores a history where women didn't have those privileges at all.
  
But hey if she's keen to the role of stay at home girlfriend (or mom later on) then right on; work is hard, voting is annoying, and childcare ain't easy or cheap.

Women to this day still perform more house/childcare and still earn less than men (minorities and minority women are also on a league similar to but entirely their own).  Too often, state-provided childcare does little to help women (made worse by singleparent women who can't afford as much as a man can), and no, beyond popstars and whatever TV personalities, women are in no similar "league of power" the way men are.  Look at your CEOs, even the women that are CEOs are still paid less compared to men.

I have seen NO STAT that shows women are "equal" to men, especially financially or with respect to work done around the house.  And if there is equality, it's unequal elsewhere in another bunch of stats.  Is it better?  Yes.  But as little 50-100 years ago [women of the time] were doing unpaid house care in a HIIIIGH majority of numbers and female voting rights were only obtained thanks to "feminist" pushing.  

The "good" Feminism was fighting against stay at home moms who wanted to join the work force but were unequally represented within it because of a society that saw them less fit for work and more fit for the work at home.  They fought for equal rights and not power over men.

I agree rambling feminists who want power over men than equality is silly and an equally hurting and dumb cause (it hurts them more than it helps); I also hate the ones that view every slight or every implicit meaning to every action as "sexist" and socially produced due to the "patriarchal society we live in"... there's really on so far you can go in those arguments before you break down EVERYTHING about what men and women are biologically and socially.

"Feminism is stupid" is such an asinine thing to say. People who are against feminism don't really know what feminism is. It's actually a really important movement globally and historically.

To be fair, the ones we hate are the ones militating for feminism while not knowing what feminism is about.
That and sometimes, I get tired of hearing that my patriarchal self is the bane of womanhood.

I agree, I hate the militant ones (mind you, they were an asset in the 70s toward turning the tables) but....
Name me an equal amount of historical female figures as you can male and I'll agree with you.  Maybe that's going too far (and I hate using that "argument"), but it's hard to deny a very, very unequal proportion of women discoveries compared to men's and the opportunities their lives can land.

Moving on then, women are more unequally seen in temporary and part time work; both pay less and are less stable, compared to men.  A part of the reason is due to child care... a noble cause for the future and all that, but feminism questions why this is "women's work" and why they are more naturally in tuned to it (it takes two to tango, right?).  There are a lot of shitty mothers as there are fathers.  Childcare is fucking hard and anyone who says otherwise has a 20-hour-a-day nanny on the clock or the money to pay for daycare.  Then we get to the long line of argument:  Why aren't women bosses?  Because they work less!  Why do they work less?  Because they take maternity leave!  Why do they take mat. leave?  Because she gave birth to the kids and men earn more than women (so less is lost if she takes the time off; not always, but often).

I don't consider patriarchy the bane of existence, I do think its done some shitty things for women but, more realistically, changed the social world to whatever extent.  I'm not a feminist, but by god it drives me nuts when people don't appreciate what they have thanks to what people fought for (I'm saying this in general; many die in war, or we're privledged the gift to read and have access to a free public library adn schooling, or equal voting rights, or any rights in general).

[Ashton]

Rape is still committed LARGELY more often by men than women and it is much more violent than women's attempts (specifically cases where women are killed/hospitalized and men are not).  I agree rape is a serious issue for men and women, I can't argue that, but that sounds more gender-legal issues than gender alone and ignores the fact that women still get raped.  Your argument about men dying in the workplace is very serious and highly ignored by media in general, but it's not a sexist issue (rather, blame the roles of men/women for relegating men into "mens work" -- which is much more dangerous in the lines on construction and other primary sector jobs).

I'm not ignoring the fact that women get raped (I don't understand where I could possibly have made such an implication), I'm saying that modern feminism is not a good movement. In fact, it is one largely made up of hatred and intolerance (as I have highlighted already - I noticed that you did not - or, maybe, could not - defend against a multitude of other statements I made). There was a year a while back where the male:female workplace ratio death became something like 18:1 instead of the normal 20:1 because of a dip in male workplace deaths that year, and feminists were outraged and saying that women were dying more now or some nonsense - which they weren't, men were dying less. So apparently they think that men SHOULD be dying at 20 times the rate women are, so don't tell me it's not a gender problem, when it definitely is.

Also, feminists keep telling me that women are the majority of violence victims, when in actuality men are the victims of every violent crime much more often - that includes rape if you consider the prison system, which is where the term "rape culture" came from as a means to describe the horrific conditions in prisons, that feminists just took and made all about themselves.

Do NOT tell me that things like the Duluth model, marriage/divorce law, and other things I listed are "not gender problems." They very much are, feminism has just tricked society into thinking they are not.

I'm gonna whip out the olde Dictionary Tactic:

Merriam-Webster defines "feminism" as

1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes
2 : organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests

I can't underline there but I'm just gonna emphasize the word EQUALITY :D.

Urban Dictionary has a surprisingly good entry on it:

The belief that women are and should be treated as potential intellectual equals and social equals to men. ...The basic idea of Feminism revolves around the principle that just because human bodies are designed to perform certain procreative functions, biological elements need not dictate intellectual and social functions, capabilities, and rights.

The dictionary definition defense is weak, largely because I could go on google and type "define: rapist" and it'll say "a man who rapes." Dictionary definitions are used by people who really can't defend something adequately and just want to erase all the bad stuff in a single stroke.

So yeah if your girl says it's "stupid" than it does seem somewhat asinine on her part especially if she works and votes and goes to school.  Granted, we've had working and voting rights for some time, feminists still fight due to residual inequalities that still persist, and I hate comments like "feminists are dumb" because while we don't "take up the cross" in this day and age for all of the poor women of the past, it ignores a history where women didn't have those privileges at all.
  
But hey if she's keen to the role of stay at home girlfriend (or mom later on) then right on; work is hard, voting is annoying, and childcare ain't easy or cheap.

She thinks that modern feminism is basically socially acceptable sexism, which it is. Do not conflate the bigotry of modern feminism with the actual good done by first-wave feminism. It is in NO WAY the same. It's like comparing Anita Sarkeesian to Rosa Parks.

Women to this day still perform more house/childcare and still earn less than men (minorities and minority women are also on a league similar to but entirely their own).  Too often, state-provided childcare does little to help women (made worse by singleparent women who can't afford as much as a man can), and no, beyond popstars and whatever TV personalities, women are in no similar "league of power" the way men are.  Look at your CEOs, even the women that are CEOs are still paid less compared to men.

I have seen NO STAT that shows women are "equal" to men, especially financially or with respect to work done around the house.  Is it better?  Yes.  But as little 50-100 years ago [women of the time] were doing that in a HIIIIGH majority of numbers and female voting rights were only obtained thanks to "feminist" pushing.  

The pay gap is actually nonexistant now, and has been for a long time, women just work less than men do. A study showed that when you make everything equal between a man (including economic situation, personal relationships, work, etc.) - women actually earn more than men, on average. Want the same pay as a man? Work slightly less than he does. You can see this in hospitals too, female interns/residents are given a free pass for 'that time of month' - I wish my cluster headaches gave me the same benefit.

The "good" Feminism was fighting against stay at home moms who wanted to join the work force but were unequally represented within it because of a society that saw them less fit for work and more fit for the work at home.  They fought for equal rights, not power over men.

The problem is that good feminism doesn't exist anymore, and it doesn't need to. Women enjoy all the rights men do. The only group that doesn't are the LGBT crowd who don't have the right to marriage, in which case it's only a matter of time, honestly.

If you want to talk about inequities women face, well, I'll care when they stop doing things that let my abusive exes get away with assault. Before then, feminism will exist as a contemporary movement of hatred in my eyes.

As an addendum, I think RPGFan is one of the few places where this honestly CAN'T end in tears because people here are largely receptive and open to discussion and debate rather than parroting stupid crap, IMO.

[natros]

[Klutz64]

I come to this forum to get away from these debates.

That being said... Marriage/Divorce laws are the way they are out of necessity because the world is full of douchenozzles. And most douchenozzles in these circumstances tend to be men.

[Bytor]

"As an addendum, I think RPGFan is one of the few places where this honestly CAN'T end in tears because people here are largely receptive and open to discussion and debate rather than parroting stupid crap, IMO."


^^^^^^This...even though for the most part I am not political, not religious, and truly don't care much about most issues I do enjoy the fact that I can read stuff concerning those issues here which are well written and form good arguments without devolving into name calling and drivel

[Dice]

I don't even want to reply to half of that.  And you and your exes, dude, get your shit together and fight them back if they're such jerks to you (or better yet, ignore them 100% and stop using them as an argument for why women are heartless monsters against poor men -- I'm going there -- women have their own slew of issues when they're raped and we have a court system that's fucking clueless at the best of times to both sexes and against many problems; men certainly have the problem where their rape is treated as a non-issue, and women may face more lasting problems with STDs or an unwanted pregnancy).   Gender aside, NO ONE SHOULD PUT UP WITH ANY HARASSMENT; I don't care if you're a man, a woman, or hell, even puppies and kitties -- No one!  But the fact you're telling women to stop vocalizing their issues (especially while arguing how men have them too) is pure crap and it's just mean.

I'm not against your "men's rights" stuff, I DEFINITELY agree it's awful when men are given the finger in paternity cases even if the mother is a bitch or hardly has the financial means to support her children, or when a man is laughed at for being raped (though women also have their "blame the victim" problem too though), or the large sum of men who die at work.  But why is it so hard to let it go and agree that MEN AND WOMEN have these problems.  Yes, sometimes it happens more to one than the other (women = rape, men = workplace death for example), but again, it's hard getting into that without going deeper into the rabbit hole about what makes men and women the genders they have come to be and embody or the way society has guided it.  We both have problems that make life shitty.

Also, you keep talking about rights.  I never denied that, and I agreed with it.  Again, I say that we have rights, but pay equity, work representation, and equal social roles (especially with respect to what's considered "feminine and masculine duties") are NOT part of what women have as equal as men.  YOU'RE arguing about rights, I didn't deny we had them, I'm arguing about today's equality, today's "fight". 

Also, men often hold higher positions than women.  Shall we see the cream of crop?
http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-ceos-fortune-1000
Women represent between 4-5% of the Fortune 1000.

http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/statistical-overview-women-workplace#footnote4_6pk985y
Oops.  Not much better when looking away from the Fortune 1000.  It's even more disgraceful when looking at minorities.

This is a search for "women's pay to men's 2012" or "women/men pay ratio", not "why do women earn less" or anything like that.  I'm trying to compensate for unfair phrasing.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/news/2012/04/16/11391/the-top-10-facts-about-the-wage-gap/
http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/23/pf/college/women-men-pay-gap/index.html
http://www.iwpr.org/initiatives/pay-equity-and-discrimination
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-001-x/01201/6036-eng.html 
http://www.parl.gc.ca/content/lop/researchpublications/2010-30-e.htm#a9
http://www.payequity.gov.on.ca/en/about/pubs/genderwage/wagegap.php

There is a wage gap. 

Also, I'm not going to turn this into religion, nor do I want to.  But the fact the Pope fucking said women can't reach his position is worth fighting for on its own.  Who the fuck are men to tell us what we can and cannot earn?  This may be religious, but looking at it from a work perspective isn't much different given how locked out we are from higher up positions.

But yeah, the wage gap is smaller, but it's not based or compensated for "unexplained differences" that reference men and women doing the SAME work, for the SAME length of time, or in the SAME field.  That is hard to do.  Even with that in mind though, women are much more urged and socialized into other fields than health, maths, and sciences, each which earn more and show a larger distribution of men working in them.  This is a socialized problem.  Women earning less is not only because they're pushed into "lib arts" but also in part of that fact many women make the sacrifice to be with their families and take jobs that can "adjust" for family-related issues (sick kid, daycare, or whatever else).  This is why I hated doing research on criminal recidivism rates: Most reoffending criminals are for minor drug charges than murder, two different types of offences (with, arguably, the former being less severe than the latter).  Comparing men and women in the work force is damn hard and have to be appreciated for the apples and oranges they are, their lines of work (although "work") are quite often different (but the Law Office stat in one of my above URLs shows that, while there are many Associates, few make it to Partner).
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/04/16/its-time-that-we-end-the-equal-pay-myth/

The gender wage gap is caused by many factors, such as:

1. Women choosing or needing to leave and re-enter the workforce in order to meet family care-giving responsibilities, resulting in a loss of seniority, advancement opportunities and wages
2. Occupational segregation in historically undervalued and low-paying jobs, such as childcare and clerical work
3. Traditionally lower levels of education (although this is becoming less of a factor as more and more women graduate from all levels of education) 
4. Less unionization amongst female workers
5. Discrimination in hiring, promotion and compensation practices in the workplace

Thank god for #3.  #5 leaves us fucked; #2 is why you see a lot of men dying at work (which, i agree it's foolish if women argue about the 1:20 ratio of women dying at work.... But I'd argue, and a "good feminist" would say why are any people dying at all is problematic); #1 is just the sexist delegation of women needing to take care of kids more than men.

And thanks Google Dictionary for the definition on a 'rapist'.  At least I cited the "more reputable" and task-oriented Merriam Webster dictionary definition than relying on a search engine to do that for me.
(Merriam Webster, by the way, states "an INDIVIDUAL who rapes").

"As an addendum, I think RPGFan is one of the few places where this honestly CAN'T end in tears because people here are largely receptive and open to discussion and debate rather than parroting stupid crap, IMO."

^^^^^^This...even though for the most part I am not political, not religious, and truly don't care much about most issues I do enjoy the fact that I can read stuff concerning those issues here which are well written and form good arguments without devolving into name calling and drivel

It's actually why I'm not embarrassed in whatever social circle I'm in to say "I go to an RPG site!" since the discussion tend to be quite broad and arguments better than skin-deep or of the "fuck you I'm right" varietal.

[Ashton]

I don't even want to reply to half of that.  And you and your exes, dude, get your shit together and fight them back if they're such jerks to you (or better yet, ignore them 100% and stop using them as an argument for why women are heartless monsters against poor men -- I'm going there -- women have their own slew of issues when they're raped and we have a court system that's fucking clueless at the best of times to both sexes and against many problems; men certainly have the problem where their rape is treated as a non-issue, and women may face more lasting problems with STDs or an unwanted pregnancy).   Gender aside, NO ONE SHOULD PUT UP WITH ANY HARASSMENT; I don't care if you're a man, a woman, or hell, even puppies and kitties -- No one!  But the fact you're telling women to stop vocalizing their issues (especially while arguing how men have them too) is pure crap and it's just mean.

I never said anything about women. I was talking about feminism. The two are not the same. I'm for equal rights and I dislike feminism because it actively fights against that. I respect people who fight for equal rights. I don't respect feminism as a movement. Most women think my problems, and the problems many people who are not women, face are important. Feminism doesn't. That's all there is to it. This would be less of a problem if society were willing to say "yeah, both sexes have their problems so we should approach all of them individually," but feminism has bullied most of society into ignoring half of the population. If you want to argue that feminism did good stuff in the past (which it has - but it was an era where we weren't even born and modern feminists weren't either), so we should respect whatever form it takes now as a matter of principle, then I could just as easily turn that argument around and say that all Asians should hate white people because they were sent to concentration camps 70 years ago.

Also, if you think that my problems could've been solved by punching out my exes, I have to wonder if you live in a parallel dimension where the police and court system is not biased heavily against men in cases like mine. You really need to look up the Duluth model. I'm not even sure you're aware how much trouble I could've gotten into if I defended myself. Again, women was not the cause of my suffering. Feminism definitely was.

Wage gap stuff

There's no base wage gap as far as I'm concerned, but there is some truth to the work representation argument IMO (but then nobody ever asks why there aren't more women in construction work or oil rigs). In any case, I'm not saying there aren't inequities that women face, but that feminists are focusing on those to the detriment of all other problems, or creating monsters where there aren't instead of focusing on larger inequities within society. If feminists are all about "equality" why have they not ever campaigned once for issues that affect men and in fact have actively campaigned for legislation and activism that hurts men?

And thanks Google Dictionary for the definition on a 'rapist'.  At least I cited the "more reputable" and task-oriented Merriam Webster dictionary definition than relying on a search engine to do that for me.
(Merriam Webster, by the way, states "an INDIVIDUAL who rapes").

The point is that dictionary definitions, even by 'reputed' dictionaries can be disingenuous. The definition of communism on Meriam Webster also states that communism is a system where property is publicly shared and available to all as needed. However, modern definition of communism is basically thinly-veiled totalitarianism.

Dictionary definitions really do not do a good job in describing social issues because they change with the times.

[Annubis]

(but then nobody ever asks why there aren't more women in construction work or oil rigs)

Errrr... there's tons of campaigns about promoting women in male dominated fields.
Heck, you can even get money from those campaigns by applying to a male oriented job.

(and the golden question is: why aren't there campaigns for men to go in female dominated fields?)

[Bytor]

On a side note. Mom-in-Law brought me my great-grandfathers watch back from the repair shop. He suggested we not clean it (wouldn't add much to the value, and worth @$700 as is), works perfectly and turns out it was made in 1905. We bought a nice little glass dome display case for it and I must say it looks very nice!