What is feminism today?

[AzogtheDefiler]

Feminism in America, a traditionally leftist view, has changed, a lot over the past 70 years, and I think it's time we women re-evaluate what it means to be a feminist TODAY and what are and are not doing or what we should be doing. It's been accused of being a white elitist movement, and I have to agree there is an element of truth in that statement. It's also been accused of being out of touch with many women in America and elsewhere. There is truth there as well, at least if you go by the most vocal and politically active elements.

What does feminism mean today? Acknowledging something that, decades ago would have been sacrilege. We, as women, really are the guardians of family, culture, education, community strength and, often unacknowledged - diplomacy over war. IMO (and this is controversial and maybe even sexist) - women are more invested in the long term than men: climate change, global health issues, long term consequences that shape the world their children will inhabit. Feminism needs to move beyond equal rights for largely white corporate American women and needs to recognize that women in all walks of life are part of the sisterhood, regardless of politics, ethnicity, race, religion, nationality. Our outlook needs to focus inward to the community level and outward on a global scale. What is happening to women elsewhere in the world?

We used to have to fight for recognition that we were the equal of men in any job because at the time that was a battle of fundamental rights (and by and large we are equal) but in doing so we also had to deny some fundamental differences and those differences are important in what we should imo be focusing on in feminism.

This is my list:

First off, the global view - supporting our women everywhere and it's fundamental underpinning, freedom of choice and individual autonomy, everywhere in the world. The right to safety from violence, the right to determine whether or not to bear children, the right to an education, the right to choose freely who they will partner with. The right to equal treatment under their justice system. The right to free movement. The right to medical care. All of these things are denied to women in various parts of the world, because they are women.

Second, the community level. What's the use of shattering the glass ceiling when you have to raise your children in a drug and violence infested neighborhood, always afraid the streets will seduce your child or he or she will become another random victim of violence? What's the point if you don't have clean drinking water, or your daughter gets married off at 14, or her denied an education beyond primary school? Feminism shouldn't be looking down on the grandmother who isn't out there in corporate America but is instead investing her energy in family, and maybe she is the primary force behind pushing for an education in her grandchildren so they can get out of the trap, and maybe she is the one providing free baby sitting for a single mother with an erratic schedule who is also trying to go to school. There are a lot of hidden things women do that get looked down upon but are in reality feminism and a quite strength.

Something to think about - what is feminism?

I would be curious to hear other points of view.

You lost this fight when the LGBTQ said that men may identify as women and people have to introduce themselves with preferred pronouns. Thanks for that. Leftists are evil people.

 

[Coyote]

Bottom line--it is one more divisive movement. Each one of these special interest movements are. People are losing sight of the fact that ALL people share this planet and the ONLY movement should be a humanist movement with strict equality at its center. Governments cannot make special accommodations for every group who feels they are not treated fairly. If special accommodations are made for any specific group then there will be a negative effect on some other group as a result. The answer lies in enacting policies that produce the most good for the most people. Inevitably, there will be some that fall between the cracks but then it is up to a benevolent population to help those who are in those cracks. Government cannot be all things to all people. A great man once said, "You can please some of the people all of the time, and you can please all of the people some of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time." That is the reality of life.

The only issue with that is you can not have what you describe and also maintain “strict equality”.

Too often, when left up to the “benevolent“ population…we have discovered it is not so benevolent.

 

[whitehall]

The feminist movement was bogus from the beginning. It was led by radical lesbians and fueled by the abortion industry. Today when we need real feminists to fight for the rights of young girls to be safe from confused boys in skirts or female athletes who are forced to compete against fake women or even the right of women to be safe in the ladies room, true feminists seem to have faded away.

 

[Coyote]

You lost this fight when the LGBTQ said that men may identify as women and people have to introduce themselves with preferred pronouns. Thanks for that. Leftists are evil people.

Is that really such a big deal?

 

[Concerned American]

I wasnt talking to you, chimp. Learn your place, deplorable.

Fuck off, moron. This is a public forum--if you want to have a private conversation, get a fucking room. Also, re: the topic--If I am hiring a new employee, the first thirty or ninety days would be probationary anyway to see what you can bring to my organization. If you want premium pay, you have your opportunity to show them what you got. Jobs ain't welfare--you have to perform. Now run along you whiney-assed snowflake.

 

[Coyote]

The feminist movement was bogus from the beginning. It was led by radical lesbians and fueled by the abortion industry. Today when we need real feminists to fight for the rights of young girls to be safe from confused boys in skirts or female athletes who are forced to compete against fake women or even the right of women to be safe in the ladies room, true feminists seem to have faded away.

There is a certain irony in those who insist “real feminism” is about opposing transgender rights while simultaneously denying women agency over on of our most fundamental rights.

 

[john doe 101]

Fuck off, moron. This is a public forum--if you want to have a private conversation, get a fucking room. Also, re: the topic--If I am hiring a new employee, the first thirty or ninety days would be probationary anyway to see what you can bring to my organization. If you want premium pay, you have your opportunity to show them what you got. Jobs ain't welfare--you have to perform. Now run along you whiney-assed snowflake.

I love it how you switch up your pronouns midstream. You're nothing but a liar.

 

[Concerned American]

The only issue with that is you can not have what you describe and also maintain “strict equality”.

Too often, when left up to the “benevolent“ population…we have discovered it is not so benevolent.

I don't know where you live, but in our neck of the woods, if you have to worry about feeding yourself, it is your own damn fault. Our population (benevolent organizations) feed all that ask, no questions. You want variety? Even in the smallest towns there are multiple choices. Housing and warming centers, battered women and children shelters are in every community. They don't have any restrictions and treat all equally. I think what you are advocating for is "some are more equal than others" but as reality shows, that is not equality.

 

[Concerned American]

I love it how you switch up your pronouns midstream. You're nothing but a liar.

Run along junior, stay on topic or STFU.

 

[AzogtheDefiler]

Is that really such a big deal?

As a father of two girls yeah it’s huge. Imagine if Biden identifies as a woman, you have your first woman president. Obviously an extreme example but hopefully you understand my point.

 

[Coyote]

You seem to be promoting the idea that white women should be doing feminism by proxy: doing it all FOR colored women, and instead of them. I don't think that is how it works: people have to take what they need themselves, not play the victim and get others to do it for them. If black women view certain things as feminist issues, let them get on with working on it. Feminism does not have to march in lockstep.

No, I think we need to widen our scope over what is considered to be women’s issues and not exclude them because they don’t fit the mold. Black women are stopill black women. Why do they to form a separate group for women’s issues? Marching lockstep is at the heart of the problem with feminism today.

I think people in general should stand for themselves, and so I am ashamed of the white, upper middle class girls on that swim team who had a chance to strike from participation in team sports when one of their team was a man. But they gave up their chance to do something really useful for women --- I think they could have stopped this evil trend cold for everyone, so shame on them.

I wouldn’t assume this issue is over and done with, but it also isn’t the only issue facing us or even the most important. The right is blowing it up into the most important issue facing up women today when in reality you are talking a tiny subset (transgender athletes) of a tiny minority (transgenders).

I think third wave feminism went crazy --- even a well-read normal woman can't understand their jargon --- and disappeared into Woke and nuttiness and lesbianism and thus lost most women. Maybe it was a felt lack of issues, probably it was getting munged into the general far-left campus craziness. It has gone nowhere and can't communicate.

I think that is part of it for sure.

A fourth wave is developing on the strange, creepy issue of men wanting to turn into women (I am guessing the reverse is a fad that will fade pretty quickly, a female teenage mental disease the same as cutting and bulimia and anorexia, which are fashions in psychosis that pass) and that IS a feminist issue, and some women have already stepped forward to deal with it, good for them. So the incoherent and transgressive third wave changes into a much more generally popular fourth wave which fortunately has appeal to a lot of men, too.

Another general issue is abortion, always and forever a feminist issue we have with us. I don't recall you mentioned it, but about 40-leven men here did, of course. Feminism IMO started as and has always been and must always be a movement to the cost of men and inevitably they hate it. What we fight for and get we take from them, and abortion is one of these: they want women enslaved by law, at least, to raise their illegitimate get all our lives --- many have no other reproduction strategy except to compel women to do that. So far we are winning, but this society is more into churn than change, and I put more faith in the general trend of all policies being anti-natalist for the last century or so (because of overpopulation, a sort of incoherent general movement away from world-overwhelming births) than I do in the collective power of women to keep forever what we have won so far. Particularly if there is civil breakdown, which seems possible.

 

[john doe 101]

Run along junior, stay on topic or STFU.

I am. I outted you as a liar.

 

[BlackSand]

.​

Is that really such a big deal?

.

One view of the circumstance is no bigger of a deal than the opposing view.
If it's all no big deal, then why are we entertaining it?

.​

 

[john doe 101]

I don't know where you live, but in our neck of the woods, if you have to worry about feeding yourself, it is your own damn fault. Our population (benevolent organizations) feed all that ask, no questions. You want variety? Even in the smallest towns there are multiple choices. Housing and warming centers, battered women and children shelters are in every community. They don't have any restrictions and treat all equally. I think what you are advocating for is "some are more equal than others" but as reality shows, that is not equality.

Oh man not only are you a liar, you can't even comprehend simple English sentences. She wasnt talking about benevolent organizations you dumb hillbilly. You're as dumb as a box of rocks.

 

[Coyote]

In view of today's political environment, would the WNBA or LPGA deny a Trans person the chance to compete? I ain't too sure which way they'd go, but if they did what would that mean for women's sports?

In view of today's political environment, would the WNBA or LPGA deny a Trans person the chance to compete? I ain't too sure which way they'd go, but if they did what would that mean for women's sports?

I think so. There can be alternatives for transgender athletes that don’t involve competing with biological women.

 

[westwall]

Clearly you don’t read what I say.

The only thing that you said was maintain abortion and seek government aid for pregnant and post pregnant moms.

 

[Coyote]

Tell that to female athletes hoping to get scholarships to college. It's going to be all trans boys taking them.

I guess the only place for biological women is in the bedroom, and the kitchen, eh coyote?

Do you NOT understand what I say or do you deliberately misconstrue?

This is issue is a NEW issue and it is far from settled as a given that they will compete with women.

In the mean time women in this country are facing issues such lack of child care, trying to back into the work force, lack of respect for caregiving positions, lack of paid maternity leave, loss of autonomy in controlling their own medical decisions. And that doesn’t touch on other parts of the world where they suffer gender based violence, judicial inequity, child marriage, lack of maternal health care, no agency, etc.

So why is it the ONLY thing you seem to focus on is transgenders?

 

[Coyote]

The only thing that you said was maintain abortion and seek government aid for pregnant and post pregnant moms.

I can’t help you with your reading comprehension skills, it makes any further dialogue useless.

 

[Coyote]

I AM looking at Israel. The ISRAELI studies show that the effectiveness of combat units drops substantially when women are in them. However, like I also said, if they are pilots, or artillery, or some other technical branch the problems are diminished.

Link?

 

[Coyote]

Sadly the dominant brand of “feminism” is focused on eliminating the next generation.

What’s amazing is the abortion industry is the greatest threat to women in human history: Opinion | 160 Million and Counting (Published 2011)

It would be interesting to see a feminist call for tax breaks for women who choose to raise their children.

Sounds like you are saying women being forced to carry a pregnancy against their will is “good” for them. I guess we are just “vessels” after all