Hey, it looks like it's time for another visit from everyone's favorite feminazi!
It's funny when a woman slaps a man, it's horrifying when a man slaps a woman. My mother throws all sorts of childish fits whenever she pleases and my dad just has to watch her flip out and wait.
If she's mentally ill in some way, then that's an entirely different thing than a gender divide. I'm saying this particularly because I think different forms of childishness are encouraged in stereotypical masculinity and femininity; you know, there's also the thing where men can go to the age of 30 or higher wearing their inability to cook or "do women's work" as a badge of pride, whereas women are more permitted to cry over stupid things/be manipulative about it, like 3-year-olds.
It's "funny" when a woman slaps a man because the idea of her being able to hurt him is seen as ridiculous (which is, ya know, ridiculous). I actually told my current boyfriend that I would never joke about hitting him partially because I've been in a lot more physical altercations than he has. "Haha, you can slap me for that" becomes a lot less funny that way.
(Note: I don't advocate unasked for violence in relationships at all. I don't care who's stronger and who's weaker, it's still disgusting)
Euld, get used to it. You are a Privileged White Male. You have the privilege to be expendable and worthless, the privilege to give a woman your seat, to defend them, to be accused of rape, to pay for everything.
These are all old standbys from the days when women were the property of their male relatives (not so much on the being accused of rape thing). It's like your favorite shirt. Someone fucks it up and you're not going to go "Okay, shirt, take care of yourself!" No, that's ridiculous! You'd better punch the guy, because they're messing with something that belongs only to you!
Similarly, if a woman was making a third of what you were and was using most of her salary to dress up fancy and please you (i.e. the situation until very recently), you sort of obviously were expected to pay for her dinner. The idea was "get used to how much it's going to cost to support a wife." You pay her money, she provides you with a uterus (note: spousal rape wasn't illegal until 1993--access to a uterus was considered the right of the husband! So yes, back then you were kind of paying for a sex-servant).
In the modern world, I think it's nice for one person to cover dinner on one night, and the other on another. You get the feeling that you're taking care of each other without the gender inequality issues. On the other hand, if one of you is a secretary and the other an engineer, and you're dating at all seriously, the engineer should probably do most of the paying for restaurant dinners (or any equivalent low- high-paying job combo). In general, I as a woman was also told that when someone asks you out to dinner and pays, and they seem fairly trustworthy, you can offer to cook them dinner or make baked goods (so they don't get the idea that they're paying for sex with dinner, which is unfortunately a kind of widespread problem). There's an expected evenness of exchange that I think a lot of MRAs don't really recognize.
As a working example, think of the often-cited sex inequalities in clothing. Women can wear trousers and suits (tradionally masculine clothing) without too much social censure (assuming you're not in a highly conservative area) and still be free to wear feminine clothing with all the accessorising they want. Men cannot wear dresses and other feminine without being derided as deviant freaks, according to mainstream social norms we're basically stuck in fucking jeans, t-shirts and jackets our whole lives.
Part of the problem here is that we're still living in a male-gaze, masculine-slanted culture. What I mean is that there's still a viewpoint that Everything Feminine is Bad (considering the following insults: bitch, pussy, c***, wuss, girly, effeminate; note the lack of paired words to things like "emasculate;" oh, and I found
these essays interesting). There's also a viewpoint that men aren't objects of desire. They're the actors, not the passive recipient of the gaze--unlike women, who are expected to dress up and make themselves into objects of attraction,
no matter what it takes.
That's only this specific thing, but I guess what I'm saying is that this is a problem which the current wave of feminism knows about and is working on fixing. The wave we're in recognizes that to fully free women, we must also fully free men. It asks for new social roles for men, as well, partially because many of the rules for masculine formation of social identity form themselves in opposition to and domination of the feminine. Why the heck would we be for this?
One issue that really bugs me is how male genital mutilation is still done widescale in the US, but people are horrified by female genital mutilation.
For one thing, making circumcision illegal would cause an enormous religious-practices problem. I'm not saying it's right, but what I'm saying is that hopefully we'll get a little farther away from WWII and be able to discuss these things with clearer heads.
For another thing, I wasn't aware that American men were systematically having their penis completely removed or stabbed with hot needles so that they couldn't experience sexual pleasure at all? If so, then that IS a horrific practice exactly on scale with FGM!
(By the way, the surgical clitoral removal model is more of the stereotypical African version, which is partially seen as barbaric for obvious reasons, partially due to xenophobia--the hot needle model was practiced by the Victorians).
What I'm saying is that circumcision may be a horrific practice. I wouldn't really know, because I don't know a damned thing about foreskins. However, it really doesn't seem to belong on the same scale as the FGM being practiced today. If it is a problem and not merely a matter of cosmetics, then by all means it should be ended--but I don't really think that the appropriation of castrative experiences is the right way to discuss it.
The thing is, society still treats women as if they are poor delicate little flowers, in need of constant protection. Feminists want "equal" rights, they want the perks with none of the down sides. If a woman hits me, assaults me, want to know what society expects me to do? Take it like a man. If a woman accuses me of rape, without any proof, society will overwhelmingly take her side, even withholding information that could proof my innocence. Do you see any feminists saying women should have to sign up for the draft? No, you don't.
You do know that when folks instate a draft, that usually means that women are being drafted to have a hell of a lot of babies with whoever makes it home alive... right? And that there's a lot of looking the other way about rape by returning soldiers and so on and so forth?
(Frankly, as a pacifist, I prefer a universe where we don't have a draft. If it's a war worth fighting, people will go fight it. Otherwise they won't. This seems very simple to me. If women want to join the armed forces and meet reasonable qualifications, then they should be able to do it)
Also, it's not exactly like women want to be told every moment of single day "You're powerless and your life depends on my clemency." I'm all for people protecting each other--I think the reaction to this of "this means we must all go our own way" is ridiculous, too, because it doesn't create anything like community. People need each other... acting like women are the only needy ones is really dishonest.
What's more, the "take it like a man; men are always guilty of force" meme falls into the same old problems of
a. assuming that being a man is a Fundamentally Good Thing, rather than value-neutral (the phrase implies "don't take it like a girl")
b. assuming that women are childlike in their innocence (or, in the case of "she must have been asking for it," which is also breathtakingly common--whores, devils, temptresses)
Basically, what I'm saying is this: I feel like men are starting to realize that they aren't exactly getting a fair shake either, but rather than blaming the social structures in place (as in 3rd-wave feminism), they're blaming the opposite sex (as in 2nd-wave feminism). And furthermore, I don't feel like we've gotten too
much feminism so much as
too little; but because some men associate feminism with a loss of absolute power at the top of the hierarchy and they recognize difficulties and confusions with their own roles, they're getting childishly upset with the loss of their control rather than at the society that demands that men always be on top of everything. The secret is that men were never fully in control in the first place... they may have had a certain societally sanctioned control of women, but they had no ability to control things like the weather. They were always subordinate to their environments. They were always raised from children by adult caretakers; they always had part of their lives when they needed to be protected (and we only like to pretend that human beings stop being vulnerable once they've attained the age of majority).
So yeah, the expectation that men be Masters of Everything is deleterious, harmful, and absurd, and I'll be more than happy to help dismantle it in favor of a more reasonable viewpoint. For all of us.
I'd like to think we live in a gender equal society, but please, do change my mind.
I'll start by citing the continuing misogyny about things like women and their ability to do mathematics, or their capability for rational thought in general.
Also, there's this. Statistics!Oh, and in case anyone needs help figuring out if something is feminist or not, I'm linking this helpful tumblr:
Is This Feminist?
Author
Topic: An Essay on Male Suicide (Read 26231 times)