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On April 12 2012 14:50 BluePanther wrote:
Sigh, you're still being intellectually dishonest. I guess I can't debate you if you're just going to pretend your argument is infallible and ignore the obvious flaws in it. It's a self-identified group.
You're arguing that I can't judge a group by the actions and words of its members. By that logic, no group can ever be criticized.
Your position is the one that's intellectually dishonest.
On April 12 2012 13:54 Rainling wrote:
I do not understand why you believe that feminist ideology is inherently sexist because it attempts to achieve equal rights for women and does not typically concern itself with achieving equal rights for men.
I don't. I think feminism is deceptive in this regard, because feminists frequently claim to care about men's rights as well, but this in and of itself doesn't make them sexist.
The reason why feminist ideology is inherently sexist has to do with its core theories, such as patriarchy theory, rape culture, male privilege, and the gender gap. All of these are predicated on sexist assumptions, bad statistics, and blind reasoning. Further, the sexism behind these theories can easily be witnessed when manifested through feminist actons and legislation.
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On April 13 2012 01:37 Liquid`Drone wrote:
The problem is that the term "feminist" has been mislabeled to such a degree that to many, it is now synonymous with "radical, insane man-hater", but you really shouldn't blame feminists for that, you should blame the ones guilty of the mislabeling.
I'm just quoting this here. Because some people ought to read it and think about it for a bit.
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On April 13 2012 06:18 Conti wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2012 01:37 Liquid`Drone wrote:
The problem is that the term "feminist" has been mislabeled to such a degree that to many, it is now synonymous with "radical, insane man-hater", but you really shouldn't blame feminists for that, you should blame the ones guilty of the mislabeling. I'm just quoting this here. Because some people ought to read it and think about it for a bit.
Except it's wrong. Labels and stereotypes don't always spontaneously arise for no reason. Do you really think feminists got that reputation through no fault of their own?
Further, I'd say feminist = radical, insane man-hater is an exaggeration. However, it is not an exaggeration to say that feminists as a group (obviously this means that not all individuals are included) are sexist, statistically challenged, and deceptive (even if for many this is unintentional).
On April 12 2012 19:32 seppolevne wrote:
Equal rights for one half = equal rights for both halves. Meh.
As evidenced by reality, this actually isn't true. Equality encompasses many aspects, and fighting to equalize only the aspects where you are behind while ignoring the rest cannot achieve equality. For example, feminists established a 40% female quota for corporate board members in Norway, but (even leaving aside the incredible sexism and statistics fail of that) you can be sure that they didn't fight for a 40% male quota in professions where they are underrepresented, nor did they do anything about the fact that dangerous jobs are mostly occupied by men.
To use a Starcraft analogy, if Zerg has a weak early game and a strong lategame vs. Terran, and you fight to make the Zerg early game equal to Terran's while leaving late game alone (and even suppressing efforts by Terrans to make their late game better), then you end up with an unequal game.
Fighting sexism against women and ignoring sexism against men is not fighting for equality.
On April 13 2012 01:37 Liquid`Drone wrote:
A feminist literally means; a person advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men.
Feminsts claim to mean that. That doesn't mean it's true.
Political groups of all sorts claim positive goals, but actions speak louder than words.
Neo-nazis claim to be a white civil rights group. Does that mean it's true?
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On April 13 2012 06:21 sunprince wrote:
Further, I'd say feminist = radical, insane man-hater is an exaggeration. However, it is not an exaggeration to say that feminists as a group (obviously this means that not all individuals are included) are sexist, statistically challenged, and deceptive (even if for many this is unintentional).
This seems to be the core of your belief and the basis of everything you write about feminism. Yet you never provide any evidence how feminists "as a group" are this sexist and this deceptive. Pulling out some extreme examples isn't going to cut it, and neither is claiming that all feminists are totally fine with those extreme examples without providing any evidence for it.
Sure, feminism can be taken to an absurd degree (and I agree that quotas can(!) be an example of that), but you seem to be on the opposite spectrum of all this, saying things that are about as absurd as some claims from some extreme feminists.
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On April 13 2012 06:34 Conti wrote:
This seems to be the core of your belief and the basis of everything you write about feminism. Yet you never provide any evidence how feminists "as a group" are this sexist and this deceptive. Pulling out some extreme examples isn't going to cut it, and neither is claiming that all feminists are totally fine with those extreme examples without providing any evidence for it.
My examples only seem extreme because you operate from the assumption that feminism can do no harm. It's a clever little rhetorical tactic: if a feminist does something objectionable, then other feminsts aren't okay with that (even though you fail to show any evidence to show this). What you're effectively using is a no true Scotsman fallacy.
To put it simply, do you disagree that legislative action is indicative of mainstream feminism? If a piece of feminist legislation has enough support to enact it into law, then it's generally fairly obvious that most feminists supported it, no? In that case, the various examples of feminist created/supported/applauded legislation that are blatantly sexist, statistically challenged, and deceptive are legitimate evidence of feminist nature.
Ultimately, actions speak louder than words, and a political group's actions are its advocacy and especially its legislation. Just as you cannot deny that Obamacare is indicative of Democratic nature (even if it doesn't represent 100% of Democrats) and the Bush tax cuts are indicative of Republican nature (even if it doesn't represent 100% of Republicans), you cannot deny that feminist legislation represents feminists.
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Sunprince, I honestly think you are picking a tree out of a forest. Males still very much represent the majority in terms of politics, economics, and I would even argue entertainment. In short, the discrimination against women is systematic. The numbers of professions where males are disfavored is small compared to women. The unspoken privileges most males enjoys discredits systematic discrimination against males. I would argue the so called male discrimination happens more on a case by case basis. For example, primary school teachers and nursing.
Look at the big picture and it would be easier to see why affirmative action is implemented. There are numerous flaws with affirmative action but the alternative is worse. A reality where half of the population starts at a disadvantage in most fields.
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On April 13 2012 07:11 AUGcodon wrote:
Sunprince, I honestly think you are picking a tree out of a forest. Males still very much represent the majority in terms of politics, economics, and I would even argue entertainment. In short, the discrimination against women is systematic. The numbers of professions where males are disfavored is small compared to women. The unspoken privileges most males enjoys discredits systematic discrimination against males. I would argue the so called male discrimination happens more on a case by case basis. For example, primary school teachers and nursing.
Look at the big picture and it would be easier to see why affirmative action is implemented. There are numerous flaws with affirmative action but the alternative is worse. A reality where half of the population starts at a disadvantage in most fields.
Do you realize that biology comes first than society? In the sense that biology determines what is society. The fact women are under-represented in politics or as CEO's doesn't necessarily mean that women are discriminated but that women don't like those types of job. Power for the sake of power is a very masculine thing, which by the way it's mostly not good for anybody except the one that yields power. Women are not natural warriors and that's why they weren't fighting wars in the middleages, it doesn't have to be that they were discriminated, and that is why, why some jobs like CEO's or lawyer where to be succesful you have to have no pity to anybody are not liked by women.
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On April 13 2012 07:11 AUGcodon wrote:
Males still very much represent the majority in terms of politics, economics, and I would even argue entertainment. In short, the discrimination against women is systematic.
You assume this is because of discrimination. Where is your (hopefully not statistically challenged or outright false) evidence that this the case?
On April 13 2012 07:11 AUGcodon wrote:
The numbers of professions where males are disfavored is small compared to women.
The number of dangerous/unsavory professions where women predominate is zero.
On April 13 2012 07:11 AUGcodon wrote:
The unspoken privileges most males enjoys discredits systematic discrimination against males.
Oh, look, sexist patriarchy theory (males = oppressors) in action. Your assumption is that there's no such thing as discrimination against males. Fail.
Contrary to feminist brainwashing, gender privilege is not unidirectional. There are many, many examples of systemic discrimination against men that I've posted throughout this thread. The reality is that females have many disadvantages, and that men have many disadvantages. The fact that feminists like you ignore the latter is blatant sign of your sexism.
On April 13 2012 07:11 AUGcodon wrote:
Look at the big picture and it would be easier to see why affirmative action is implemented. There are numerous flaws with affirmative action but the alternative is worse. A reality where half of the population starts at a disadvantage in most fields.
If/where the disadvantages exist, they can be addressed specifically. Quota systems do nothing to achieve equality and are frequently examples of statistics fail.
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I really dislike going down the biology line because it is terribly difficult to distinguish cultural conditioning and so called biology. I do have some background in biology(Biotech major), and I still very much remain skeptical in fields such evolutionary physiology. My quaffles is mostly about the non-falsifiable experiments but that is a side point.
My main point is, where does the biology begin and where does it end? It is supremely difficult question which I believe no one can answer adequately. We have grown up in a society where certain messages are broadcasted to us since day 1. Truly as an individual, there would be a myriad of factors that goes into a person's decision for a career. Can we really presume, and say to a person's face that you are biologically inclined for a certain career? Everything the person has done since she has been born, who her friends are, where she is, surely are more important factors than so called biology. Moreover, the biology is so vague where it would do us no favor to pinpoint an exact cause. Perhaps I am downplaying biology too much. But I find who we come down as individuals plays a far more significant role in our decisions in life.
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Norway28786 Posts
On April 13 2012 06:21 sunprince wrote:
As evidenced by reality, this actually isn't true. Equality encompasses many aspects, and fighting to equalize only the aspects where you are behind while ignoring the rest cannot achieve equality. For example, feminists established a 40% female quota for corporate board members in Norway, but (even leaving aside the incredible sexism and statistics fail of that) you can be sure that they didn't fight for a 40% male quota in professions where they are underrepresented, nor did they do anything about the fact that dangerous jobs are mostly occupied by men.
actually, I myself found myself instantly getting jobs daycare centres for children precisely because I was a man in an occupation where men were underrepresented, and where it was considered beneficial to have an as equal amount of men and women as possible to give the children an ample supply of both male and female role-models.
Norwegian males who apply for jobs in fields dominated by women will generally find that they are absolutely favourized. The difference is that generally jobs dominated by women won't have that many male applicants, because they generally pay significantly less.
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I really hope that you guys aren't suggesting that we engage in naturalistic fallacy.
Oh, look, sexist patriarchy theory (males = oppressors) in action. Your assumption is that there's no such thing as discrimination against males. Fail.
Strawman fallacy. What you are doing here is basically deflating the term "oppression" so that it applies to everyone. Everyone is oppressed. Therefore, the word no longer has any meaning. If anyone is being honest though, sure, males can be discriminated against. But are they oppressed as a group? To even suggest this is a complete joke. In order to do so one must deflate the definition of oppression to such a degree that it is universal.
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Considering Norway continuously gets rated the most developed country in the world by UNs Human development index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country, I'd say whatever stronghold there is, I'd argue it's a good thing.
Second link, "shut down businesses which don't comply", when did that ever happen?
The company I'm working for has no female board members, and there's no legal problem.
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Somehow this thread became the permanent "debate feminism" thread. Guess that's because the first video is feminism. Personally I find that the least interesting of them all.
I don't think the video even debates feminism so much as it simply states that research shows biological differences between genders while some Norwegian sociologists reject the possibility entirely. The point isn't feminism, it's ideology rejecting scientific evidence.
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On April 08 2012 07:11 Pantythief wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2012 07:03 sunprince wrote:On April 08 2012 06:44 ReturnStroke wrote:
This is far from an isolated case of ideology/personal gain/etc taking priority over actual science. Although it seems to be popping up in social science even more. It's too bad, but at least people are speaking up about it :/ I agree, there are many hypocritical ideologies which attempt to take over science. However, none are as powerful and socially accepted as much as feminism, barring the exception of religion in some places. On April 08 2012 06:51 nymfaw wrote:
If they want things to be equal, everything should be equal right? Sorry for being semi-OT, just a thing I find really annoying. Feminist ideology holds that we all live in an unjust patriarchy that oppresses women, and all men benefit from a unidirectional set of privileges solely due to being male. As a result, feminists will tell you that making things equal for men is definitely not a priority since women have it so much worse, and any advantages that women appear to have are more than outweight by the tons of advantages that men have. On April 08 2012 06:57 Pantythief wrote:On April 08 2012 06:00 sunprince wrote:
Considering that Norway is a feminist stronghold, I'm not surprised that social science there (particularly gender studies) is dominated by ideology rather than science. I hope you're not serious. I'm dead serious. If you disagree, feel free to voice a logical criticism rather than cowardly implying that I'm wrong. "Cowardly implying that I'm wrong.", that's cute. No, thank you, though!
Well, I have to support person A. Norway is, partly, a feministic stronghold. It is quite obvious, when it's in the news and debates all the friggin time. Debate debate and more debate about how women should be just like men. It isn't inherently bad to strive to be better; but they shouldn't strive to be more like men, but strive to be more like women, or whatever they want to be. I find it silly. I find some "feminist" goals should be a no-brainer; like equal pay independent of gender, which is typically not an issue, but what keeps repeating itself is that female nurses are paid less than male nurses, which I personally know nothing about; I just think that, for instance, should be rectified. In other areas, specially in businesses, paygrades are rather individual, but yeah, norwegian feminist politics sticks its collective nose into every nook and cranny looking for discrepancies that have gender as the common denominator, only to make it the political topic of the month. Some of it is good to uncover, while most of it is just showing how dumb the movement to equate women with men actually is.
Safe to say, I haven't watched the news in forever, so I don't have many thoughts about it at anymore. I don't mind that women who want to be just like men get the opportunity to do so. Good for them. But in many ways (no specific examples anymore, sorry. It's been years since I cared) they overstep the political boundaries. Giving special treatment/incentive while calling it a means to make things equal. It is obviously a paradox, yet small incentives can't hurt, obviously; but it get's tiresome. It's like beating a dead horse, it costs money and makes us unhappy. But we can afford it, I guess. I can only immagine what we could accomplish if we didn't try to push things against its natural restraints. If we instead nourished and elevated everything that made us different, so that we could strive for something better, rather than striving for something (an ideology) that isn't natural and is doomed to fail. I'm saying it's certainly worth while to make sure women can feel at home anywhere in society; but it's wrong to base politics on the notion that every woman SHOULD feel at home everywhere in society. It simply isn't realistic; just like every male won't feel at home everywhere in society. Imagine a typical man feeling at home everywhere in society; now where would there be room for typical women with typical female interests? The entire notion of equality is non-sensical and is counter productive to creating a functioning society with happy people feeling at home and doing what they like. Yet we have the money to give it a thorough try -- it seems. As long as there's still oil...
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On April 13 2012 07:57 TheBanana wrote:Considering Norway continuously gets rated the most developed country in the world by UNs Human development index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country, I'd say whatever stronghold there is, I'd argue it's a good thing.
I'd say that you're conflating cause and effect. Norway is a feminist stronghold because as the most developed country in the world, it can afford to do things like enact 40% female board member quotas that have decreased the performance of companies that complied by an average of 20%.
On April 13 2012 07:57 TheBanana wrote:
Second link, "shut down businesses which don't comply", when did that ever happen?
The company I'm working for has no female board members, and there's no legal problem.
The law was specifically applied to 2000 of Norway's largest companies, and some of them dodged it by re-registering as new companies to loophole their way out of it.
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On April 13 2012 07:54 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Norwegian males who apply for jobs in fields dominated by women will generally find that they are absolutely favourized. The difference is that generally jobs dominated by women won't have that many male applicants, because they generally pay significantly less.
That's my point though. No one minds disporortionate representation at low-status opportunities; feminists don't really complain that there are too few women coal miners, and men don't complain there are too few male babysitters. But when it comes to actually desirable things (e.g. higher pay and better opportunities) that are dominated by women, feminists oppose or at least don't support anything to fix it.
For example, women are now disproportionately represented at the undergraduate level in the United States and some other first world nations. However, feminists regard this as proof that women are better students, and suggesting affirmative action to help men get into college (implicitly, at the expense of women) would never be tolerated by feminsts. By contrast, wherever men dominate, feminists view this as proof of discrimination, rather than evidence of superiority or preferences. There's a sexist double standard going on there.
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On April 13 2012 07:54 shinosai wrote:
Everyone is oppressed. Therefore, the word no longer has any meaning. If anyone is being honest though, sure, males can be discriminated against. But are they oppressed as a group? To even suggest this is a complete joke. In order to do so one must deflate the definition of oppression to such a degree that it is universal.
I actually wouldn't argue that men are oppressed are a group. But likewise, I wouldn't argue that women are oppressed as a group either (at least, not in first world nations), and the burden of proof is on feminsts to show that they are (with legitimate facts, not statistics fail like the wage gap), not the other way around.
What I would say is that in modern first-world society, there are still a lot of sex-specific privileges/disadvantages inherent to either sex. That is, men have certain advantages/disadvantages, and women have certain advantages/disadvantages. The key is to work on fixing them for everyone, instead of playing what feminists call the Oppression Olympics (e.g. whining about who's oppressed more).
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On April 13 2012 08:12 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2012 07:54 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Norwegian males who apply for jobs in fields dominated by women will generally find that they are absolutely favourized. The difference is that generally jobs dominated by women won't have that many male applicants, because they generally pay significantly less. That's my point though. No one minds disporortionate representation at low-status opportunities; feminists don't really complain that there are too few women coal miners, and men don't complain there are too few male babysitters. But when it comes to actually desirable things (e.g. higher pay and better opportunities) that are dominated by women, feminists oppose or at least don't support anything to fix it. For example, women are now disproportionately represented at the undergraduate level in the United States and some other first world nations. However, feminists regard this as proof that women are better students, and suggesting affirmative action to help men get into college (implicitly, at the expense of women) would never be tolerated by feminsts. By contrast, wherever men dominate, feminists view this as proof of discrimination, rather than evidence of superiority or preferences. There's a sexist double standard going on there.
In norway things are starting to go both ways lately. It's probably worse, when not only women are encouraged to be "malplaced" but males are aswell. Might be a bad choice of words but whatever. For instance, recently it was decided that every girl has to go to "session" which is what we call our army-enrollment which is mandatory for boys (serving is mandatory in theory, but only 1/3 get chosen basically, yet everyone has to be present at one initial "session"). Which is nothing but another money-sink where now every single girl has to go to these sessions aswell. It is quite obvious, to any sane human being, that viewing every girl as a potential candidate for the military is retarded, in the true sense of the word. Girls just have to show up tho', waste some oil/tax money and be on their way - to no fault of their own ofcourse. After that they can choose wether they want to join the army or not. Boys who want to join the army are sometimes rejected, due to capacity limits; while girls .. well, not so much  ..So it is clear that the norwegian government would rather have women fighting our wars, when they reject boys to accept girls. It works fine while there's peace and oil money. But should there ever be a war for our homecountry (which is one of the biggest reasons to have a military force), wouldn't it be better to recruit people based on other criterias, like strength, agility, perserverance and even accuracy with a weapon, rather than how many girls you can possibly fit in a squad?
Peace times does weird things to us :p
Sociologically I don't mind.. Goo girls, or whatever. But logically it really doesn't compute. It is as with all things. We, specially girls, should feel free and comfortable and at home where ever they want to. Noble notion, paradox in practice, and outright dangerous should things ever get serious.
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Norway28786 Posts
On April 13 2012 08:12 sunprince wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2012 07:54 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Norwegian males who apply for jobs in fields dominated by women will generally find that they are absolutely favourized. The difference is that generally jobs dominated by women won't have that many male applicants, because they generally pay significantly less. That's my point though. No one minds disporortionate representation at low-status opportunities; feminists don't really complain that there are too few women coal miners, and men don't complain there are too few male babysitters. But when it comes to actually desirable things (e.g. higher pay and better opportunities) that are dominated by women, feminists oppose or at least don't support anything to fix it. For example, women are now disproportionately represented at the undergraduate level in the United States and some other first world nations. However, feminists regard this as proof that women are better students, and suggesting affirmative action to help men get into college (implicitly, at the expense of women) would never be tolerated by feminsts. By contrast, wherever men dominate, feminists view this as proof of discrimination, rather than evidence of superiority or preferences. There's a sexist double standard going on there.
There aren't any desireable jobs dominated by women because women have never been in a position where they could assign themselves more prestigeous or desireable jobs.. This is the entire reason why feminism (equality for both genders) has almost exclusively consisted of providing benefits for females; females have historically been, for lack of a better term, shafted by society.
And in norway, following the realization that girls have been doing better at all levels of the educational system for the past 10-20 years, there has been a lot of political focus on how to make boys perform better. It doesn't only go one way.
Feminism deals with equality between both genders. In norway, we're pretty close to achieving it, and we have actually largely moved away from the word "feminist", and we instead use the word "likestilling", which literally means equality. From my perception of american society, you are not yet in a position where changing feminism to equality makes sense, because the historical imbalances between the genders have yet to be erased.
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I can come with an example actually, of how things work in practice. I had my very own 8th grade in science (I'm not an educated teacher, just educated. Nor employed as a teacher), and taking my class to go see Star Trek (2009) was... well, a hazzle. I got a great deal at the local movie-theatre, where we were to pay about 5 bucks per head (which is cheap compared to the typical 18 bucks for a typical ticket). Now collecting 5 bucks per 8th grader, in one of the richest coutnries in the world, is actually illegal. Because we should all be equal, no one is allowed to do anything.
So what we did was, basically, that we had a bakesale at school, so school-children with 1 dollar can buy a slice of cake! Amazing. I bought all the remaining cake-scraps as I figured I'd be the one to pay the remainder anyway, which I was completely fine with. And the remainder, well, I bent the rules. Basically I paid the remainder. Told all my pupils that I'd take care of the rest, but if they wanted they could slip me 2 bucks each so that I potentially wouldn't lose any money on it (I'm just a poor student, but I gladly paid 100 bucks so my class could go see star-trek). I'm not sure if that was actually allowed or not; if the 2 bucks can be viewed as a bribe in our rich and modern society. But atleast no one was excluded. Everyone had equal opportunity to see star-trek for free (read: on my dime). And this has been the trend.
When I went to school this rule did not exist. Yes, school should be free, but activities without school funding were allowed and encouraged if parents stepped in to take the bill. But that was 8 years ago. Now it simply isn't allowed. Collecting money for activities, even 2 bucks for those who would rather see star trek than do school-tasks, creates social differences, where people who can't afford 2 bucks have to stay at school, while the rest go see star-trek. So, norwegian politics decided it be best if no one ever did anything.. My voice in this was that I could fund it. Or we could collectively work to fund things (quite impractical when I only have 2-3 hours every week to teach them science). So for such a rich country, we sure lack basic freedoms to do what we want. All in the name of equality. If not EVERYONE can do it, no one should be allowed to.
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