Feminism is not inherently bad or good. It is the outrage of women who face(d) inequality.
Feminism started as a one-topic movement: Giving more rights to women. When the movements started women didn't have rights such as voting, freedom of choice regarding marriage, childbirth and other things that are pretty much granted these days, so in many aspects feminism is obsolete.

There are still issues in which women are not equal to men in today's society, no doubt.
Yet there are also issues which cause men to be at a great disadvantage as well. Examples would be the lack of rights regarding the choice of being financially responsible for a child, being forced into military service unlike women, being treated differently than women in court, etc (you may disagree that those are issues, yet many men and even women think they are).
I would argue that the problems in today's western world cannot be solved by a movement whose purpose is empowering one group of people.
A good default position is an egalitarian one. See the issues of society and discuss them. Do not see the issues of one gender and discuss them. That is one sided and will cause more problems than it'll solve.

There are still some instances where I think a one-sided movement would be beneficial for today's society.
Homosexuals could use it in many countries for sure.
I also think that feminism still is very important in countries where women are not treated with similar respect as in western countries.

this is the only correct post in this thread

feminism is literally only about equality and if you idiots think otherwise then maybe do a little research before spouting garbage about "tumblr hurr durr"

also

people like you are the scum of this earth

Radical Feminism =/= Liberal Feminism

Please at least quote the points in all of the other pages of posts on this thread where we have resorted to spouting garbage about "tumblr hurr durr" without suitable homage to what you believe to be feminisms true origins and form. You should also provide links to the web pages you have (assuming you are not a hypocrite), according to your post, researched before claiming that others should have done the same before posting. This is an indie-game's discussion forum, we are not obligated to be excessively educated on the subjects we discuss, but if you want to make us do some extra reading you should at least be polite enough to give us links to the sites with the information which you seem to believe is so vital to our participation or understanding of this debate.

I hope I haven't gone overboard in my aggression, to be honest you hurt my feelings a little. :_( Then again at least my thread got into your juvenile attempt at a signature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-wave_feminism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-wave_feminism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-wave_feminism

tbh I'd love to say "if you don't know this much then don't post", but that is mean and everyone is welcome to post no matter how much they know.


Gender roles are not misogyny - you will probably find that they are this way because of reverence of women, not because they hate women...

Feminism is a western movement that tackles western problems, as I said I don't think feminism is the right movement to handle issues outside of the west. Besides that, feminism isn't a movement that targets everything to do with females, let alone everything to do with genders. So can feminism help with that issue? Probably not. Should they? Again, probably not.


A movement to eliminate global gender significance should probably not be named after one gender, and should be a movement that both genders can support, at the very least.



While /in theory/ this may be the case, this isn't true in practice. The vocal majority of modern feminists are anti-men, and often anti-men actions are performed in the name of feminism, or pro-male actions are opposed in the name of feminism. The fact remains that even from those who claim feminism is an equality movement, we see harmful lies being perpetuated, and we do not see any actions that deal with male problems.

Now knowing this, we can say that feminism likes to masquerade as an equality movement, but actions speak louder than words, and when the actions are all pro-women/anti-men, and all the words are of a similar theme (though often far more extreme), it's hard to take the claim of equality seriously.

Just to add some fuel to this discussion other than the aforementioned "tumble hurr durr", what do you guys think about the idea that we should not hit girls? Is it sexism or just chemistry?

And to address the suggestions that women are biologically different to men and therefore can have different, but equally important jobs available to them; please explain how you know, you have provided no clear evidence of your knowledge of how anatomical differences between sexes effect how effective that sex is at specific tasks beyond the bounds of reproductive organs, or of your knowledge of hormonal differences and there effect on the growth or development of the body through puberty (and yes, I obviously mean changes beyond the bounds of sex organs) and throughout later life. To paraphrase, either provide links or stop making unjustified claims.

This is not to say that the reproductive organs and their workings do not make certain types of environment more difficult of one sex or the other (periods and shit like that sound really problematic in environments without a suitable abundance of readily available tampons). Just that you have not even made some attempt to prove your suggestion that in everyday normal life one sex is better at certain things than the other. Once you provide suitable evidence to prove your claim I will happily change my viewpoint to that which you expressed in aforementioned claim.

And why do you attempt to justify your argument with the idea that the tasks suitable of sex have cumulatively equal values? If it is in fact true that women are less good at [insert well known stereotypically manly profession(s) here] as you claim, it does not matter if the women's areas of expertise are any less important to the general greater good because this would be an entirely natural phenomenon. It would be a shame for women (or, from another perspective, for men) because they are tasked with an unequal burden of professional responsibility but it wouldn't change the fact that it was the most efficient way for the world to work. However, the efficiency would not change the moral nature of unequal opportunity so it could well be socially immoral (I tend to avoid moral judgements since the only thing standing between me and nihilism is thousands/millions/billions of years of natural selection (depending on when you consider a complete lack of empathy or sense of spiritual meaning became important to survival, which is not something I would be confident enough to estimate) and being psychologically conditioned my entire life to accept society's belief in morals).

Sorry again for spending too long explaining myself rather than explaining my thoughts on feminism, I feel like if people understand why I avoid commitment to certain beliefs they will be less likely to claim it is as a result of some generic fault of character and subsequently go on to disregard or disagree with the rest of what I say on the basis that they don't like me.

There is no 'feminism'. It's too broad to describe. There are those who want gender equality, which I fully support, and then there are those who hate men and everything about them (or at least appear to feel that way).

I don't know too much on the subject, feel free to argue with me, but I think we humans should all be equal. The modern feminism, the most recent kind, seems like a race. Somebody wants to come out on top. To get ahead of the competition. But there shouldn't be any race or any competition, we should all be humans who love eachother all the same, and treat eachother all the same.

I don't hate women or men, I love everyone, and treat them all the same (Or at least try to.)

To answer the thread's question: (Is feminism important?) YES, it is. It's been important forever. It's a huge movement. I just don't want to lose sight of the GOAL here. If feminism is a group of women who all hate men, then I'm not a feminist. But if it's a group of PEOPLE who want to all be treated the same, then count me in. I'm a total feminist.

Then again, it's a horrible misnomer. I think gender equality would work better. I'm all for gender equality.

Edit: I forgot to add, I don't think it should be an angry thing. I think it should be a good thing, if you know what I mean. Sorry, I'm bad with my words.

On another note, I'm glad discussions like this exist in the community. It provokes thought, instead of SHJZstifying us all and turning us into heartless trolls. We're not the hugest community, but it's nice to think we might be able to change something.

Thanks bro. I will add these to the starter-post after reading them.


My point was mainly to demonstrate the continued existence of misogyny and the subsequent importance of feminism in the modern world. The reason that rejecting female children in developing areas/countries can be classed as misogyny is because a) it probably sometimes happens because parents think females are worse and therefore will be less successful. b) If the parents just realise that the country or area they live in does not provide equal opportunities for success or equal opportunity to gain higher social status (through methods other than marriage) for the different sexes. In my opinion point b) demonstrates cultural gender inequality which would be a suitable issue for the feminist movement to address regardless of where in the world it happens.

The sentiment that "we shouldn't hit girls" leads to the conclusion that "we should hit boys". Is this the kind of behaviour you want to promote? If not, then maybe you should be saying "don't hit anyone".

In the past there has been a craze to predicate actions that should not be predicated. Depending on how this topic develops (and what people claim is/isn't feminism) we may discuss that more, but for now this much should suffice.

Well buddy, time to have your opinion changed

Just one example;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_dif...patial_ability

Also I would have thought that the VAST difference in careers that people pick based on their genders would be a bit of a telltale sign that maybe different genders are different...
http://blog.mccrindle.com.au/Infogra...aphic_2013.jpg
But surely that's just misogynistic glass ceilings right?
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/opir/abst...t_gender_1.htm
Surely an anomaly?
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-006-.../11874-eng.htm
You can confirm yourself by googling demographics of any university FYI.

For bonus fun look at the statistics for high equality countries (eg Sweden) as compared to low equality countries (eg Saudi). You're in for a bit of a surprise if you've never looked up statistics on gender demographics in the work force and choice of study!

There's actually an overwhelming amount of evidence that gender differences go way beyond genitals. I mean when you think about it, the fact that from head to toe there's differences between genders, it doesn't make sense to assume that our brains are identical!

Here's a pretty decent documentary www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiJVJ5QRRUE
It doesn't go too deep, but it mentions a lot of different people and industries so you can learn more easily. Plus he tackles the "it's /all/ environmental" myth which is great.


I come to more or less the same conclusion, but I think my logic is better.

People should do what they want to do. So if on average women go into X field, and men go into Y field, it's not a problem since each individual person is doing what they want to do.

You know what is really tragic? All these programs to force more women into STEM. They aren't doing STEM because they don't want to. Forcing people to do something they don't want to in the name of equality is terrible. I might add that feminism has no such movement to get more men into, for example, nursing or women's studies... It seems once again that feminist equality is a one-way street...


lol I wouldn't worry about that. But I do appreciate that you explain deeply and try and remove ambiguity, and that you aren't afraid to ask for citation. You also claim that you are happy to change your mind, when in practice it's generally considered impossible to change someone's mind through debate, it's noble nonetheless.
-----

You know, you can be pro-equality WITHOUT being part of feminism. Isn't it easier to avoid being associated with man-haters, and just say you want equality?
-----

I don't think it has anything to do with misogyny, and I think you might find this link helpful to understand the situation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_...icide_in_China

Gender inequality does not necessarily mean misogyny, there exists no belief that women are inferior to men, and the practice is purely pragmatic.

I don't think you have addressed my point that feminism, being a western movement, is not equipped to deal with problems from other cultures (let alone one that is thousands of years old).

I have started reading your links, but I will need time to evaluate their legitimacy so I am unable to swap my viewpoint completely at present. For now I am impartial since I feel I have equally persuasive reasons to support both views.

*some time later*

I have gone through the first wiki article (the whole page), It provides points both for and against the idea that intelligence differs and for the specific article the link sent me to (concerning spatial ability) it goes on to say that "Results from studies conducted in the physical environment are not conclusive about sex differences, with various studies on the same task showing no differences. For example, there are studies that show no difference in 'wayfinding'.[68] One study found men more likely to report having a good sense of direction and are more confident about finding their way in a new environment, but evidence does not support men having better map reading skills."

Concerning visualisation of spatial rotation: "Performance in mental rotation and similar spatial tasks is affected by gender expectations.[5][73] For example, studies show that being told before the test that men typically perform better, or that the task is linked with jobs like aviation engineering typically associated with men versus jobs like fashion design typically associated with women, will negatively affect female performance on spatial rotation and positively influence it when subjects are told the opposite.[74][75][76][77] Experiences such as playing video games also increase a person's mental rotation ability.[68][78] A study from the University of Toronto showed that differences in ability get reduced after playing video games requiring complex mental rotation. The experiment showed that playing such games creates larger gains in spatial cognition in females than males." So I am still sceptical of your example of spatial intelligence.

Concerning a study showing differences performance of different sexes in SAT like tests of spatial ability: "These gender differences found are largely in geometry and word problems and tend to be in countries with the highest achieving students and with the largest gender gap in experience.[84] Smaller differences were noted in countries with lower achieving students in mathematics which includes the United States. Moore and Smith state that within the United States, poorly educated female students outperform their male peers, but as the level of education increases, the male advantage in mathematics emerges" Again a lot of the difference appears to be cultural.

I have negated parts of the example you gave because I believe the parts I quoted suitably justify my scepticism of the unquoted parts supporting pig's argument. It has become apparent from reading the article that the parts of the brain used for certain tasks probably differers depending on sex and that hormones can play a part in brain development but that the relationship is very complex (the fact that it was considered too complex for such a detailed and in depth article implies that my interpretation of it would be unreliable without further understanding of the subject.).

Now onto the next link: I am not going to look at it in any sort of detail because I find it improbable that it says any other than "look how many men do the thing people expect men to do compared to women" and vice versa. I am disappointed in your ignorance of the effect of social expectation and pressures on personal life choices. If a society thinks girls should work in medicine, then its treatment of girls will be different, and the placebo effect will also play a factor. In a society where people don't think girls are as good at being builders, there won't be as many girls being builders. I understand that I am proving that you are definitively wrong, but I don't need to, I just need to prove that you are not conclusively right.

Third link: You just made the same point twice, the legitimacy of the evidence is not what I am questioning, I am just sceptical of the application.

Fourth link: "That said, and despite the advances made in recent years,Note4 women remain less likely to choose a career in STEM areas, and more particularly in engineering, mathematics and computer science. This stands in contrast to nearly all other fields of study, where women now represent the vast majority of graduates—especially health and social science programs. Why are women staying away from STEM programs?" basically girls don't go for engineering and stuff as often as boys. To me this is not enough conclusive evidence for me to take the view that women are better or worse at certain carriers as a result of non reproductive based gender physiology because cultural conditioning is, in my opinion, a serious limiting factor in such a test. Too many variables for the results to be accredited to a singular factor.

The video:
I am only addressing reliable sources from the video: Simon Baron-Cohen's study of newborns seems a little inconclusive, I already knew that exposure to testosterone caused autism (mentioned in one of the Oliver Sacks novels I had read). But the fact he uses a mobile to represent interest in mechanics makes me sceptical of the care with with the test was taken. To be honest the only thing which matters is the attention payed to the face as this determines empathy, the mobile simply provides a distraction (or perhaps a control to compare with the face). If the test (on just 100 babies) is to be taken as accurate, then all it proves is that women are more empathetic. In my opinion this is a completely viable argument but it doesn't have enough proof for me to adopt it just yet I am afraid. I would need to read his book "The Essential Difference: The Truth about the Male and Female Brain" to elaborate further on the legitimacy of his experimental results. His language in the interview was far from reassuring and as he said things which did not actually imply anything about gender in a way which made it sound like it supported his claim (not sure about the exact sentence but it was something like "girls exposed to high levels of testosterone in the womb were shown to have a more masculine toy choice" it in fact seemed to me like he was trying to imply that the child was more masculine in behaviour whereas this definition of masculine is entirely based on the study which he was describing at the time (not sure if this is bootstrap or circular logic but I don't like it). Perhaps I am just being paranoid and reading into his terminology too much) this implies that he is not prone to giving an unbias conclusion and the strength of his personal opinion on the matter might cloud his judgement.

Since I don't want to buy a book with a title inclusive of the term "The truth about [insert anything which some people might find vaguely interesting here]" because I would be forced to cringe every time I saw it, I will have to just rely on Wikipedia. Before you start quoting it (I haven't read the article at all yet and will do so after finishing the video) please note "This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject, preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral. Please help improve it by replacing them with more appropriate citations to reliable, independent, third-party sources. (December 2013)"
at the top of the page.

The social evolutionist or whatever the fuck she was called: A lot of what she said was designed to be misleading and a lot of her points were just plain illogical (her "this happens therefore this must be true" points are what I am referring to), however, this obviously does not mean she is necessarily wrong, however, I believe that the larger amount of testosterone in the womb of male foetuses is because this is the male reproductive hormone, not because natural selection favour boys who lack empathy. In other words, I am not buying this social evolutionist shit. Nevertheless, the effect of testosterone can still have a coincidental effect.

Ok, I give up, for now I am willing to believe that men's brains are more likely to have certain aspects similar both in characteristics and causes of those seen in Aspergers syndrome but on a less extreme level. But the whole masculinity of the condition is exaggerated to disgusting lengths by the video. Women are better with people and men are more likely to take an interest in mechanical things as a result of a lack of empathy as a result of an excess of the male sexual hormone. This does not explain all the links you posted about gender abundances in each workplace.

I will look into this issue further because it is interesting. Ok? Until then it seems that I have been hoisted on my own petard.


Now onto you cultural point.
Fair enough, but it was derived from unequal marriage rights. And the want for a boy can't entirely be justified by culture since it is (according to the sources in the article) a result of poverty (derived from unequal marriage rights making girls more expensive) and the idea that they just do it out of habit (but only in impoverished areas) seems far fetched when you look at how the authorities in China condemn it as evil.

I know my logic and impartiality will have heavily lapsed at some points in this post, I have spent more than 2 fucking hours writing it and logic and impartiality is tiring for me to keep up that long. Now I just need to read the article about Empathizing–systemising theory on wikipedia.