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[GavJ]

Equal social standing would mean gender roles didn't exist (if one gender has a specific role, then the genders are not equal socially).

Standing =/= behavior. Standing is an amount of respect and power. It does not imply equal individual behaviors.

For example, two different senators might wield what happens to be an equal amount of respect and power, but one does it by applying such and such amount of fearmongering and another one does it by applying such and such an amount of money. These would have different roles and behaviors entirely but (for the time being) equal standing.

Which means that there's no magical melding of souls that happens when equality is reached that somehow makes overshooting impossible or something. The people getting more influential using role X can end up passing by people using role Y, while remaining completely distinct, and then ending up overshooting and becoming the new majority powers.

[Cheeetar]

My bad, GavJ. I had difficulty imagining the exact word to use- I settled on standing because I was not fond of the other choices that came to mind. Perhaps I should have said 'equal social opportunity'?

Urg, yes, of course. My apologies

Well, forgetting my misinterpretation (I hope ) of Cheeetar's post, I'd have to say that that sounds good in principle. In reality, feminists do not all conform to the views expressed as that of the movement. A clear indicator being the rise of the stereotypical feminist. Unfair to many feminists, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Also, unfortunately, numbers do not matter. It is who is louder, and who has more media coverage, and that is what defines the feminist movement to many of it supporters and opponents.

A basic enough definition that does, to me anyway, work is the futherment of women. Because that's what most feminists do agree on, that women are being mistreated in some areas, so they should be furthered along certain paths.

You're right that feminism is quite often misrepresented- I don't agree that because it is misrepresented that we should then focus on the misrepresentation as the most accurate portrayal of it simply because that is what is currently believed by many to be the movement.

Your simplified definition is technically accurate at times- to extrapolate from it (to say that because the definition of feminism is the furtherment of women, they are thus anti-men) is intellectually dishonest, however.

[GavJ]

equal social opportunity

Similarly, two different types of people, using two totally different behavior sets or strategies, can achieve the same set of opportunities available to them.

I don't think there IS a word for what you seem to want to conclude, because I don't think it's a physically realistic situation you're describing (what seems to be some concept that equality = indistinguishability, or something)

I also don't think it's something that any group of feminists desire. Neither equality seeking ones nor militant ones want women to be equal to AND act indistinguishably from men.

[Cheeetar]

equal social opportunity

Similarly, two different types of people, using two totally different behavior sets or strategies, can achieve the same set of opportunities available to them.

I don't think there IS a word for what you seem to want to conclude, because I don't think it's a physically realistic situation you're describing (what seems to be some concept that equality = indistinguishability, or something)

I also don't think it's something that any group of feminists desire. Neither equality seeking ones nor militant ones want women to be equal to AND act indistinguishably from men.

Alright. I wouldn't say that my concept is that genders would be indistinguishable- just interchangeable, I suppose. Anything you can do, I can do, sort of thing. I'm not sure how I would phrase my own definition, but feel free to more properly explain it seeing that mine is lacking.

[TD1]

I didn't quite say that we should see the minority as the movement, I'm saying that the movement is currently very often being defined by it. It isn't as clear cut as your definition. I proposed a common ground, that all feminists want something better for women, to further women in some way.

I didn't say in said definition that they are anti-men, I said they were pro-women.

So, I used this definition in order to demonstrate that feminists wold react negatively to anything perceived to be against the female gender. For example, laying off female teachers so male children can have more male teachers.

[Cheeetar]

So, I used this definition in order to demonstrate that feminists wold react negatively to anything perceived to be against the female gender. For example, laying off female teachers so male children can have more male teachers.

I would react negatively to laying off any teachers who weren't guilty of misconduct- as I understand it, education is lacking severely in many countries. If you did lay off female teachers, there probably wouldn't be male teachers to replace them.

Are there any cases in the current world where you've seen things occur that have been both 'against the female gender' and positive in general to the human race, and that feminists have reacted negatively to?

[GavJ]

Are there any cases in the current world where you've seen things occur that have been both 'against the female gender' and positive in general to the human race, and that feminists have reacted negatively to?

Voting against affirmative action for women in science and engineering fields is I'm sure a real life example that many individual universities have gone through. Which I think fits the description. Bad for women, clearly -- it's always bad for your group not to get as much free stuff, that seems clear. I argue good for society, though, since we want our national experts in things to be the best experts they can be, and affirmative action can undermine that.

I'm not saying women can't make good scientists and engineers. I'm saying that some individuals could make brilliant ones, but they can ALREADY get accepted without affirmative action.

Whereas the majority could also potentially have made great engineers, but the culture in the home from their parents convinced them they can't be and to make different choices of classwork and extracurriculars and hobbies and by the end of high school it may be too practically late. That's where the problem is and where it would need to be solved. Not by just pretending that people were raised differently and prepared for fields differently than they were.

[Cheeetar]

What was the negative reaction?

[GavJ]

College kids protest everything on their campuses. They'd protest chocolate versus rainbow sprinkles in the cafeteria. It's an abstract example, sorry, but surely that's not difficult to imagine.

[TD1]

-Erased post-

I was, in a rather roundabout way, going to mention the exact point GavJ made, right down to the engineering.

Meh, I don't mind the ninja. He probably put it better than me.

[Cheeetar]

College kids protest everything on their campuses. They'd protest chocolate versus rainbow sprinkles in the cafeteria. It's an abstract example, sorry, but surely that's not difficult to imagine.

It's not hard to imagine that, but it's hard to imagine anybody taking the reaction seriously. If one were to say that the feminist movement is harming things, this isn't a concerning example.

[GavJ]

it's hard to imagine anybody taking the reaction seriously.

Why's that?

I'm not imagining they're gonna bring in the national guard or something. But they might give them what they want and change a policy again, that has happened many times -- that's why people protest in the first place. It occasionally works.

[TD1]

Indeed. A protest is always taken seriously by some people, other wise there would be no protest.

[Neonivek]

Sorry to dig this up, but it was buggin' me while I was reading through the thread.

That is the old "Create, Change, and destroy" dichotomy.

A Trichotomy is what that is.

And with that point of pedantry, I'm going to sit and watch where this goes before butting in.

Its no problem, I don't mind corrections. xD

[Cheeetar]

You said yourself that they'd protest anything, and that it was an abstract example (which I assume means you're not able to point to any news coverage of it, or related information as to the size of the protest?) A 'protest' could mean something as little as a student sending in a complaint. I don't see, given that protests are so commonplace, why this one in particular would effect change.