Feminists want all of the opportunities but none of the obligations? Discuss with me.

jakery43 · 2012-04-10T17:14:12+00:00

I would argue that the most implementations of feminist doctrine leave a blind spot for the concessions required for achieving genuine parity of privileges between genders. The people who genuinely work towards female supremacy are likely a very small minority. Likewise, there are genuinely a few men (not necessarily MRA) who work to ensure male supremacy (many religious groups, some old industrial patrons...) People may be ignorant and irrational, but very rarely mean and evil. "Wanting" only the opportunities and disregarding the obligations is clearly a bigoted viewpoint and no sane person would think of him/herself of such without great external pressure.

But as we know very well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

One way of seeing the blind spot is to understand how the political feminism works. The lowest common denominator for ~99% of feminists would likely be "women's rights". Whether you have a female supremacist or an egalitarian feminist, it's likely that everyone can subscribe to that. Political feminism uses this as a premise. Whatever you do, a feminist politician does not hurt women's rights.

But what is considered a privilege for one can be seen as a right for other. From that premise, and voter-base it attracts, you have no such obligation to defend the rights and equal treatment for any other groups. Taking the male-POV into account is entirely optional in feminist doctrines (unlike the female-POV, which is in the core) and since all voters are by average tilted more towards their own self-interest than greater karmic justice (they are usually seen as one), you end up in a point where it's not politically sensible to give up on privilege (say, vote for equal draft) even though it would solve a genuine issue of social justice. You'll just get replaced with another goon who can figure out a rationalization for why absolving a privilege is so-god-damn impossible for the voter-base.

Of course, people are not evil and the people making an influence do want to keep their jobs. So the safest bet is to ignore the issues which might hit their supporters.

I think most thinking feminists know that the current approach has hit a dead-end. The third wave has managed to produce a boatload of social science geeks, bureaucrats, teachers, artists, writers, well educated housewives and a pile of part-time lawyers and doctors. All very good professions who make the world a better place for by existing. But they failed to convince the "emancipated" women to become enterpreneurs, farmers, engineers, coal-miners, plumbers, scientists, welders etc. People who generate the wealth and well-being at the lower levels, people who create jobs and push the society forward. The entire ideal of the "emancipated woman" lies on top of those people and their work.

And I don't believe feminists "don't want the hard obligations" for women. I think they are scared shitless that they can't get women to take those occupations. The society can work without a few writers and artists, but it will break without agriculture and plumbing. The enterpreneurs, farmers and blue-collars are not the ones keeping us in this recession. I'm afraid women are currently standing firmly on the "excessive weight" -side of economic realities and we are approaching the edge pretty fast... I can't see how any feminist or anyone else can see the formation as desirable. But politically they are trapped to keep their mouths shut and hope for the best.

HalfysReddit · 2012-04-10T15:49:07+00:00

The more radical ones yea. It's been my experience that most feminists are really just trying to fix the issues they face due to being women, and it's a very vocal minority that are assholes.

That being said, the two do go hand in hand. If you want all the benefits that comes with being a man, you have to accept the downsides/give up your own privileges too. Men having to sign up for selective service and women getting away with more crimes comes to mind.

SpanishGuy · 2012-04-10T17:04:27+00:00

Some comments here are saying NAFALT. Well, that's the problem with NAFALT:

A couple days ago someone said something like "feminism represents a big spectrum of people". I couldn't agree more. It's SO HUGE that no longer means anything.

A radical feminist who would kill half men if she knew she wouldn't go to jail, calls herself a "feminist".
People who think VAWA is OK even when it breaks the legal principle "every human being is equal under the law" (literal translation), claim they are "feminist".
Some true egalitarian, respectful, honest women that want same rights and opportunities for women and men (and don't believe that "the ends justifies the means") think they are "feminist".

So, what the fuck does "feminism" mean?...

It means fighting for women's rights, but doesn't mean fighting for equality.

Feminism doesn't mean equality because it contains a huge number of female supremacists. If one day they do a good cleaning and kick out every fucking female supremacist, that day "feminism" will be a legitimate thing.

But then again I don't think this cleaning is gonna happen, feminism is already FUBAR, particularly since governments started supporting authoritarian laws like VAWA -or similar in another countries-. That's an inflection point where governments become tyrannies.

Many so-called "feminists" don't know how deep the rabbit-hole goes. If they knew, they wouldn't call themselves "feminists".

anillop · 2012-04-10T20:07:48+00:00

This makes me wonder why more MR advocated don't support bringing back the ERA. The ERA would make treating either gender uniquely illegal. It would resolve many of the current major MR issues by eliminating government sponsored gender inequality in issues like military service, paternity leave, scholarships, gender quotas, etc. It would eliminate many of these perceived advantages that women may have. I am curious what other people here think.

Embogenous · 2012-04-10T15:06:06+00:00

It's certainly not every feminist. There are tons of people that idenfify as feminist and are fantastic, egalitarian people.

However, political feminists tend to advocate for the things that give them rights (good good) but not the things that add to their responsibilities (bad). I would argue that the majority of feminist organizations are sexist based on this. It's no good at all if you lack the abilities conferred on a man (based on his gender); but you don't similarly advocate for those responsibilities; it's total bullshit.

Even back in the first-wave feminist days there were women who tried to be treated equally by the justice system (before it was biased against men); this was a noble cause and those who disagree with the principles involved are pretty sexist.

2012-04-10T13:48:27+00:00

there are as many differences of opinion among feminists as there are among any other political or social movement.

Whisper · 2012-04-10T13:53:42+00:00

I don't know that every single feminist out there wants all of the opportunities. I do know that many of them want a great many opportunities.

I do know that I have never seen or heard a feminist demanding that a woman's obligations be increased or added to.

rightsbot · 2012-04-10T13:48:17+00:00

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SirTrumpalot · 2012-04-10T14:12:38+00:00

You gotta be careful with the wording you use and thats where people often slip up. I'd argue that leading feminists don't think like this, it is just the thought of the female bandwagon that don't actually know much about the subject and decide because it's been a prevalent issue for the past 100 years that they know everything about it.

RodKingsley · 2012-04-10T14:17:17+00:00

It's actually not the feminists in this case. It's wo....um......Errrrr. Hmm.

That's all I can say. Put the pieces to the puzzle together.

Title	Feminists want all of the opportunities but none of the obligations? Discuss with me.
Author	Meatysy
Upvotes	7
Comments	27
Date	April 10, 2012 1:47 PM UTC (14 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/s2ify/feminists_want_all_of_the_opportunities_but_none/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/feminists-want-all-of-the-opportunities-but-none.1024324 https://theredarchive.com/post/1024324

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