What's the deal with feminist myths?

Started by Galt, Aug 18, 2005, 08:02 AM

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Galt

Quote from: "lkanneg"
I'm surprised at this line of reasoning, which seems to say, If a wife stays home and raises the children instead of working for pay, then she doesn't deserve equality with her husband.  Am I understanding you correctly?  If so, would that also apply in reverse, with a husband who stays at home and raises the children while his wife supports them, he wouldn't deserve equality with his wife?


Ummmm ... my solution has always been to not get into that situation at all.  She'll always come up with good arguments that I have to dispute.  I'm not going to dispute them at all - I'm not going to give any woman the possibility of that.  A smart woman who wants to work - and possibly take a few years out for a child - is for me.

Besides, let's get more specific about "raising the children".  First five years - granted.  If the kids are then in school, yes, I don't care if the man or woman stays at home, there's not much to do besides watching Oprah.

And further - I wouldn't want a woman who has no drive to use that time.  If I were a woman, I wouldn't want a man who has no drive to use that time or do anything in life.

Equalitarian enough for you?  LOL

lkanneg

Quote from: "IMHO"
[ You can create any "factoid" you like, and twist statistics to "confirm" pre-defined assumptions.  


It's true people do that, and it's highly distasteful.  It's also hard work for those of us with lazy streaks to have to sift through the crud and find the real meat, so to speak, lol.

Quote from: "IMHO"
An example: personally I'll make judgements on who to trust/who not to trust based on my past experiences and intuition, not simply by reading dry academic studies on human behaviour (which in any case are subject to bias) - your intuition is going to be far more accurate than using studies and demographics and making assumptions on an individual from such dry analysis. A big part of survival is to learn from, and adapt to your environment.  You don't do that through theory alone.  


;) One learns by reading, a few more learn by watching, and the rest of us just have to pee on the electric fence for ourselves?  

Of course, you're right--personal observation and experience are a very important component of the learning process.  However, they can also be very isolating, very mind-closing--I really think they should be liberally mixed with studies, demographics, reading, and actual physical travel to and speech with groups of humans other than just your own immediate set, kwim?  Slap it all together in a pot and then shake out the most probable truths.  (Naturally not a perfect system, but it seems to cover the most babes, lol)

Quote from: "IMHO"
If I looked at my past experiences, and then if I was to accept conventional wisdom on domestic violence (based on many "facts"), I would have to suffer the symptoms of cognitive disonance :D


;) I'd suffer the same if I looked at my past experiences and then accepted the idea that women have achieved parity with men in the workplace.
quot;Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
--Eleanor Roosevelt

"Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade."
-- Constance Baker Motley

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."
--Janis Joplin

Galt

And ... when I look at the average age of marriage (which is skyrocketing) and the number of kids being born in European countries and America (which is plummeting), I have to think that other men are thinking the same way I do.

lkanneg

Quote from: "Men's Rights Activist"
Men have historically been sent off to war with no choice in the matter.  Even in today's volunteer army America still says that only men can serve in direct front line combat roles on the ground.  So how is getting gassed or blown up by artillery (as some of my relatives have been) male privilege?


Actually, feminists are on the forefront of trying to get women into combat.  The opponents of that are generally antifeminist women and men.  

Quote from: "Men's Rights Activist"
Men are 94% of industrial deaths and injuries so are men who are forced to take the death jobs to support their families, Privileged Partriarchs, or are they, historically, really just industrial guinea pigs?  Here's an old book that gives a glimpse of the historical toll taken on men's lives to build the industry and infrastructure of this great nation.


As women move further and further into heavy manufacturing and industry, that will change--I'm sure it *has* changed in the last twenty years.  At least one very new heavy manufacturing industry--large scale drug production in biotechnology--is 50% women, and at least in my personal experience, serious injury isn't sex-specific there.

Quote from: "Men's Rights Activist"
Men and women have both, historically experienced oppression and privilege in many ways and in differing degrees in different areas throughout history.  Individually, men and women have both experienced privilege and oppression


Very true.


Quote from: "Men's Rights Activist"
and no one gender has an overwhelming amount of overall privilege or oppression[/u] [/b].  


Unfortunately, women have generally been more oppressed, in nearly every culture historically, than men have been.  For a woman and a man of identical race, ethnicity, income, servitude, etc--the women generally had even *less* privilege.  Children historically have been the most oppressed of all.  (Still are, in undeveloped countries--that those kids survive childhood at all amazes me sometimes, in some situations.  And of course, so many of them *don't* survive.)
quot;Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
--Eleanor Roosevelt

"Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade."
-- Constance Baker Motley

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."
--Janis Joplin

Galt

Quote from: "lkanneg"
Unfortunately, women have generally been more oppressed, in nearly every culture historically, than men have been.  


Good point on the "feminist myths" thread.  LOL

Who knows.  If they are given more than they produce, I wouldn't call that "oppressed".

There are artificial structures today left and right - set-asides in the government for women-owned businesses, taxpayers supporting the sham of women's studies professors, women working in air-conditioned offices, with steel-worker husbands providing the real money - and they are "oppressed" LOL, and on and on.

Men have responded with an artificial structure in which women can think they earn the same.  Or they get taxpayer money, funded more likely by men (if you look at tax statistics).

Yup, and female engineers doing some PR thing, while the male engineers are in the back room designing the friggin' thing.  For the same pay - or maybe the woman gets more because they need to show that they have a certain percentage of female engineers - whether they do something or not.  I know how the game works.  Been there.

And you're still complaining.  Sorry, can't help you any further.

lkanneg

Quote from: "Galt"
Quote from: "lkanneg"
Unfortunately, women have generally been more oppressed, in nearly every culture historically, than men have been.  


Who knows.  If they are given more than they produce, I wouldn't call that "oppressed". .


That's kind of an interesting statement...perhaps you could go into that concept in more detail?

Quote from: "Galt"
There are artificial structures today left and right - set-asides in the government for women-owned businesses, taxpayers supporting the sham of women's studies professors, women working in air-conditioned offices, with steel-worker husbands providing the real money - and they are "oppressed" LOL, and on and on..


Not that that's not a topic worth diverging onto, but I thought we were talking about human history overall, of which the past few decades are a very small part?  If not, I apologize, I was confused about the primary statement (lol, not all THAT unusual).

Quote from: "Galt"
And you're still complaining.  Sorry, can't help you any further.


LOL, where did I complain about something?
quot;Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
--Eleanor Roosevelt

"Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade."
-- Constance Baker Motley

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."
--Janis Joplin

Galt

Quote from: "lkanneg"
LOL, where did I complain about something?


"Women have generally been more oppressed ..."

You're not even credible anymore.

lkanneg

Quote from: "Galt"
Quote from: "lkanneg"
Unfortunately, women have generally been more oppressed, in nearly every culture historically, than men have been.  


Yup, and female engineers doing some PR thing, while the male engineers are in the backroom designing the friggin' thing.  I know how the game works.  Been there.


;) Nope, in spite of many efforts by the guys to hog all the fun stuff to themselves and leave me to write meeting minutes and give presentations, I get my time in on AutoCAD.
quot;Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
--Eleanor Roosevelt

"Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade."
-- Constance Baker Motley

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."
--Janis Joplin

lkanneg

Quote from: "Galt"
Quote from: "lkanneg"
LOL, where did I complain about something?


"Women have generally been more oppressed ..."

You're not even credible anymore.


:( Gosh, I'm sorry you feel that way.  A simple, fairly contemporary yet also historic example would be "voting rights."  I really am sorry you don't find me credible, yet I can't figure out any way to regard the human history of voting rights as anything other than a situation where women were oppressed more than men were.
quot;Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
--Eleanor Roosevelt

"Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade."
-- Constance Baker Motley

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."
--Janis Joplin

realman

I think there is much confusion when it comes to the overall scheme of "oppression", rights, responsibilities, etc. in a historical sense.

Historically speaking, typically men made the money, men protected, men provided, men ran the show. Women took care of home and hearth, raised children, and had few other responsibilities. The payoff for men was that in excange for their greater responsibilties, greater risk of injury or death, etc., they also had more freedoms. The payoff for women was that in exchange for their lesser risks and obligations and far greater level of protection, they did not enjoy as many privileges as did men. In it's most highly refined form, this was called chivalry (and as I've commented before, whenever I hear a modern day princess-type harping about how men should be "chivalrous", it's always fun to see the puzzled looks when one suggests that chivalry was a two-way street- women did pay a price for the greater protection, lesser responsibility, and general all-around not having to do things for onesself that chivalry provided).

Now, was this neccessarily what all women would want or consider fair? probably not. Is it what all women want? No. But I'd bet that there were plenty of men in historical context who at times wished they could enjoy the relative safety, stability, and freedom from obligations as well.

To say that being treated as a protected class and in exchange having fewer privileges is "oppression" is at best misleading. To say that women being beaten and raped=oppression or women,  in a society that routinely tortures, kills, and castrates men- is likewise at best a flawed argument.

I certainly will not discount the fact that there are plenty of women in history who have been treated poorly, oppressed, abused, or had few rights or freedoms; but just as many men have lived under the same conditions.

I would prefer a scoiety in which neither men or women are stuck with rigid roles based upon gender, and in which unwarranted brutality is not tolerated by or against either gender. But to suggest that throughout most fo history women were "oppressed" simply because they were confined to certain roles and denied certain privileges, when men were conifiend to their own set of roles and held to greater risks and obligations- nope, not buying it. TRy telling  a boy who was castrated to provide a high tenor voice that women have it worse. Try telling a medieval landowner dying on the battlefield from the blow of a bearded axe that his wife who is safe at hoem watching teh children, should have greater freedom of speech and action. And also keep in mind that in a ruthless and brutal society, there was much that men were simply more suited to do (in terms of manual labor, weilding heavy arms, etc.). Up until recent times it would have been silly to use women as warriors or keepers of the peace. So as a man, you risked life and limb to protect your women folk. As a woman, you enjoyed this protection and in return deferred power to the males that protected you. Of course if men had to be the responsible decision makes and providers and protectors, it likewise means the men had greater need to be skilled and educated, so men typically enjoyed greater levels of acces to education and training. In very few cases did it have anything to do with a conscious effort to repress women. Even in the 1950s "Cleaver family" scenario, it is still based on this same model- mom may have had less power or privilege, but she also had less responsibility, less stress, and while quite different from 1000 years ago, the men folk were still the protectors, providers, and decision makes. I'm not saying housewives should have been entirely happy with their lot, but it would seem that their husbands would have had plenty to grouse about as well. It was simply a system of roles, not a system of opporession of one or the other.

lkanneg

Yes, it is oppression when the party who is being denied both "responsibilities" and "privileges" is not given a choice in the matter.  That's easily shown.  I will take what you've written and replace "men" with "slaveowners" and "women" with "slaves," and guess what..?  It still makes a very sad kind of sense.

"Historically speaking, typically slaveowners made the money, slaveowners protected, slaveowners provided, slaveowners ran the show. Slaves took care of home and hearth, raised children, and had few other responsibilities. The payoff for slaveowners was that in excange for their greater responsibilties, greater risk of injury or death, etc., they also had more freedoms. The payoff for slaves was that in exchange for their lesser risks and obligations and far greater level of protection, they did not enjoy as many privileges as did slaveowners.

Now, was this neccessarily what all slaves would want or consider fair? probably not. Is it what all slaves want? No. But I'd bet that there were plenty of slaveowners in historical context who at times wished they could enjoy the relative safety, stability, and freedom from obligations as well.

I certainly will not discount the fact that there are plenty of slaves in history who have been treated poorly, oppressed, abused, or had few rights or freedoms; but just as many slaveowners have lived under the same conditions.

To suggest that throughout most fo history slaves were "oppressed" simply because they were confined to certain roles and denied certain privileges, when slaveowners were conifiend to their own set of roles and held to greater risks and obligations- nope, not buying it. TRy telling a boy who was castrated to provide a high tenor voice that slaves have it worse. Try telling a medieval landowner dying on the battlefield from the blow of a bearded axe that his slave who is safe at hoem watching teh children, should have greater freedom of speech and action. Up until recent times it would have been silly to use slaves as warriors or keepers of the peace. So as a slaveowner, you risked life and limb to protect your slaves. As a slave, you enjoyed this protection and in return deferred power to the slaveowners that protected you. Of course if slaveowners had to be the responsible decision makes and providers and protectors, it likewise means the slaveowners had greater need to be skilled and educated, so slaveowners typically enjoyed greater levels of acces to education and training. In very few cases did it have anything to do with a conscious effort to repress slaves. It was simply a system of roles, not a system of opporession of one or the other."
quot;Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
--Eleanor Roosevelt

"Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade."
-- Constance Baker Motley

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."
--Janis Joplin

Galt

Quote from: "lkanneg"
;) Nope, in spite of many efforts by the guys to hog all the fun stuff to themselves and leave me to write meeting minutes and give presentations, I get my time in on AutoCAD.


Ummm ... huh?  LOL

AutoCAD is a lot better than what they used to have ... a draftsmen board, that the engineers gave instructions for.

Probably your best shot is to not describe what you do as an "engineer", otherwise people will pick up on what you really do.  Ambiguity is cool.

lkanneg

Quote from: "Galt"
Quote from: "lkanneg"
;) Nope, in spite of many efforts by the guys to hog all the fun stuff to themselves and leave me to write meeting minutes and give presentations, I get my time in on AutoCAD.


Ummm ... huh?  LOL


;) Above response was in response to you saying, "Yup, and female engineers doing some PR thing, while the male engineers are in the back room designing the friggin' thing. For the same pay - or maybe the woman gets more because they need to show that they have a certain percentage of female engineers - whether they do something or not. I know how the game works. Been there."

BTW, another poster from my regular iVillage Feminism board may be popping over for a visit sometime soon...apparently she finds my tales of my adventures over here kinda interesting.  She's rather a bit more of a radical feminist than myself, so brace for impact.  :)
quot;Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
--Eleanor Roosevelt

"Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade."
-- Constance Baker Motley

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."
--Janis Joplin

Galt

Quote from: "lkanneg"
She's rather a bit more of a radical feminist than myself, so brace for impact.  :)


It's only a message board.  If you don't mind, I'm not going to brace myself for any loudmouth feminist drivvle.  I've already heard it.  Over and over.

But I can't handle a strong woman, so I'm going to just shame myself.

Galt

Quote from: "lkanneg"
;) Above response was in response to you saying, "Yup, and female engineers doing some PR thing, while the male engineers are in the back room designing the friggin' thing. For the same pay - or maybe the woman gets more because they need to show that they have a certain percentage of female engineers - whether they do something or not. I know how the game works. Been there."


Then I don't think you even get what I was saying.

Too funny.

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