MattAn wrote:This is exactly why I wanted to avoid this thread like the fucking plague of hate-bashing I predicted it would turn into. I confided in Pika in private because my head was in severe pain and I just couldn't stand any of this.
...At least Pika is being respectful, anyway. :/
I stand by my view that I support *equality*, but the answer is NOT, as Memo has depicted, whatever the fuck is going on here. It's horrendously one-sided, it's an attack.
Thanks for that. I've tried to be respectful to you here, and debate your points fairly. If there's something I've said that you're interpreting as an attack on you, then please point it out, as that's something I would want to fix. But if you just want to write it all off as "attacks" then that's your prerogative too, I guess.
I take exception to the claim that anything I (or anyone else in this thread) have proposed is "hardcore extremist feminism". I've seen hardcore extremist feminism, and this definitely isn't that.
MattAn wrote:Matt, you also claimed that "literally no one ever has said that", regarding women who "enjoy being the damsel in distress". Bull. Shit. "When will my Romeo/knight in shining armour come rescue me, oh woe is me.." literally the kind of thing I have witnessed being said.
I think you may have misunderstood Matt there:
Matt isn't saying that no woman has ever said they enjoy the "damsel in distress" trope. The part Matt was responding to was "make the assumption that it's only males that like/want to play that sort of thing" - no-one (possibly hyperbole... but certainly only fringe people and no-one in this thread) has made that assumption.Matt wrote:Literally no one has ever said that.MattAn wrote:Plenty of women love the "damsel in distress" thing. I'm neither here nor there on the whole thing, but don't ever make the assumption that it's only males that like/want to play that sort of thing.
MattAn wrote:Anyway, going back to the GQ thing. There seems to be claims being made in this thread that only women have "forced expectations" of themselves in the media? Fuck. Off. Not every male is Channing Tatum, or Brad Pitt, or Justin Timberlake. [...] Men are put on this pedestal of what all men should look like and I fucking despise it.
Again, no-one is claiming that only women have forced expectations like this. We're claiming that primarily women have forced expectations like this. It happens to men, but it happens much more so to women. And feminism aims to eliminate it for both, but must focus on it for women because that's where more of it is.
Also, those expectations that are forced for men? Decided upon by other men, for the most part. Sure, it's not 100%, but a lot more of the "ideal man" is decided on by men than the "ideal woman" is decided on by women. It's not really a parallel... note that the "ideal woman" is mostly based on physical attractiveness, submissiveness, and the like, while the "ideal man" has a physcal attractiveness component too, sure, but it's also things like strength, power, wealth, success... things that men want to imagine themselves having. To use this as evidence of "the wimmins have too much power over men, z0mg misandry, feminism has gone too far" is just ridiculous... even those components of the "ideal man" that are contributed by women, I'd claim that the vast majority of that isn't by feminism.
MattAn wrote:I find it deeply offensive that I'm immediately thrown off a bridge and labelled an "MRA",
At no point have I called you an MRA, and I don't recall anyone else here doing it either. I think you make a lot of arguments that MRAs also make, and I think a lot of the videos you've linked to in support of your points are made by MRAs, but I haven't applied that label to you. Maybe that's too thin a line, but I make no apologies for it.
MattAn wrote:I must remember that Feminism is the only, one true way and there is literally zero flaws ever at all remotely to exist anywhere within its own movement. NOPE. NOTHING.
Again with the straw man hyperbole. Feminism isn't above reproach. It's just that the particular arguments in the linked video are silly and easily rebutted. But the existance of a stupid argument that feminism is flawed doesn't mean that a good argument for that claim would also be dismissed.
MattAn wrote:GirlWritesWhat did not a very good point about earlier years where men were disposable. Literally disposable. "Women and children first, all men can just.. I'unno, shoot themselves or whatever." I don't like it any more than anyone else here, but simply ignoring that it actually did (and probably still does) happen is mind-numbingly stupid.
Right. That was (and is) a bad thing. Which is why feminists are opposed to it. Don't make the mistake of assuming that just because a scenario happens to fall into women's favour that feminists will support it and ignore the inequality. The idea that women are special delicate flowers that need to be protected at all costs is a bad one, one of the major lynchpins that feminism fights against, and "women and children first" is an effect of that.
MattAn wrote:To be honest, if "Feminism" was less about "It's literally only about women!" as opposed to the "Feminism" I've been more accustomed to thanks to AnyDayHappyDay (from DesertBus chat and my ex-girlfriend..) Which involves LGBT/Queer Theory.
99% of the feminists I've come across in my (relatively limited) travels don't hold the "it's literally only about women!" line... they mostly hold the line that I and others have been saying in this thread - it's bad for both genders, but worse for women, so focusing on women is prudent, but equailty will end with benefits for all. Intersectionality and the rest of it is also a major concern of most feminists I've come across.
Yes, there's the TERFs and their ilk, but as has been pointed out, they're a small fringe component these days that get focused on way more than they deserve.
I'll admit to not being as widly traveled and heavily researched in the field as many others, but I've talked to feminists from a few different spheres (many people on xkcd, people from here, friends-of-friends and friends-of-friends-of-friends on Twitter) and I haven't seen this "it's only about women!" angle you seem to see a lot of. Neither have I seen the "It's this or you suck!" angle, that feminism is some perfect holy unassailable ideal.