Feminism

The Pessimist wrote: please don't tell me that you haven't been publicly groped or cat called before

Heh, I'm a guy and even I've been cat-called before.

I'm called a cat pretty often :\

I thought people knew what cat calling was in relation to this subject

The T wrote: I thought people knew what internet idiocy means in relation to answers in a forum

Touché sir I forgot that this wasn't Question Time for a minute...

Dean wrote: So the statistics used in the TED Talk video, while being wholly correct are stated without explanation, for example she says that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be raped or beaten in their lifetime. So, where does this 1 in 3 "World-wide" figure come from? Moreover, how do they know this? It comes from a WHO report of 15 sites in 10 countries, the countries were:  Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, Japan, Peru, Namibia, Samoa, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand and the United Republic of Tanzania... (that list alone is hardly a representative sample of the whole planet), how they arrived at that figure is pure extrapolation and is highly speculative - they took a study of 24,000 women from those 10 countries and extrapolated it to the 3,500,000,000 women in 193 countries - simply take the incident rates of all violence directed at women (whether sexual or otherwise) from those 10 countries and multiply it with the average female lifespan... so if 33% is the final result, divide that by 73 years and the annual incident rate is 0.46% or 109 women of the 24,000 interviewed or 1 in 219 ... But 1 in 3 is a far more emotive number.

This is what annoys me about a lot of feminism, the often cavalier and disingenuous use of so-called "statistics" and not putting facts quoted into context. If Laura Bates is so misleadingly quoting those WHO figures, what else can she not be believed about? Feminism doesn't seem to be big on intellectual rigour.

A UK women's organisation had to revise their figures on the number of rapes in the country a while back, after it was worked out that if what they were saying was true, one in three British men was a rapist. No doubt they recalculated them into something slightly less ridiculous but just as spurious.

Dean wrote: The Pessimist wrote: Kati wrote: I only read the topic and to be honest I find it very silly. To me as a women that lived in Holland for many years felt no discrimination, equally lived in South Africa also no discrimination, now live in Mozambique and actually am doing very well in terms of my career. Thus I cannot relate to this topic, never understood the purpose of Feminism really. I think we have more important equal rights to fight for i.e. gay marriage and in other countries the equal rights for women. http://everydaysexism.com/ These women (and a few men) disagree. Also, did you watch the original video? Oppression goes far deeper than equal rights. There is still a barbaric mentality across the world that women are somehow men's property (Kati, please don't tell me that you haven't been publicly groped or cat called before), and the only way to solve that problem is by creating a stigma. In the UK, racism is seen as a stigma to a point where if anyone is racist to another human being, they are berated mercilessly. That is exactly How it should be for sexism. Women are not the property of men, nor are they less valuable, less intelligent or less capable. I get where Sonia is coming from and I agree with her.  Using the umbrella term "feminism" for all gender related issues is silly, just as using the term "masculism" is silly (and ambiguously inaccurate). "Feminism is the fight for equal rights and equal social treatment of women; masculinism is the fight for keep the patriarchy intact. What exactly is so ambiguous about this terminology? Equality is a different issue to equal-opportunity, which is a different issue to sexism, which is a different issue to sexual harassment, which is a different issue to sexually violent crime, which is a different issue to domestic violence, which is a different issue to objectification, which is a different issue to pornography - none of which are "feminism" in the modern man-hating use of the word. The modern man-hating version of feminism isn't feminism at all. I'm beginning to think I'm repeating myself on this forum, but Feminism is not only a movement for opportunity, but it's also a movement against women being treated as sexual objects, or property, which is exactly the cause for most sexual assaults, most cat-calls, the word bitch (think about that one for a second), "slut" being a negative and "stud" being a positive, most domestic violence, etc etc etc, the list is endless. Pornography is the same. It is mostly focused around women. Worldwide women are seen as sexual objects and the property of men. Even down to stupid things like the term "friendzone"... Like the woman is somehow obliged to have sex you because you are being nice to her? Silly silly silly... Feminism is the movement for making it very clear that these behaviours are not acceptable. These issues should be addressed separately and dealt with separately because when we bundle them all together in one handbag nice... any rational objectiveness flies out of the window. All of these things are caused by the same thing though. That's like saying that we can't lump racial discrimination in employment, race related verbal abuse and racist attacks. They come from the same thing, so lumping them together is perfectly logical It can even be the subject of gender itself that clouds the issue. Feminism is a subject of gender. It's the subject that generally (there are plenty of exceptions, and I respect you all) men see women as sexual objects and/or property. Most of the time it goes under the radar, but if you open your eyes to it then it really is absolutely everywhere. The media doesn't exactly help either... In my lifetime I have been publicly groped and "cat called" (among other things) - of course this isn't seen as threatening when a woman does it to a man, in fact most people would respond with "and you're complaining because...?", but we cannot ignore that it happens, as does domestic violence towards men. The percentages are lower and the degree of threat is less, but it is there none the less. When a woman uses their sexuality to coerce or influence it is sexist behaviour. I have a big problem with this. You are labeling something that is essentially sexual manipulation with the same word that is used to describe something that is the result of thousands of years of oppression. Sexism is a result of oppression (like racism and homophobia), and men, as a collective, have never been oppressed for there gender. You cannot be sexist towards a man. You can discriminate against him for his gender (this rarely happens on balance), you can even sexually manipulate him, but these things are very different and much narrower than sexism, which is a form of oppression. When in the UK a national TV campaign on domestic violence tells us that 'Abuse in relationships isn't always physical' then we have to admit that non-physical psychological abuse isn't always directed at women either. Of course, I'm not disagreeing with you. Sexism is not the sole province of the male of the species Yes it is, it's just that women are far better at it than men Please explain what you mean by this... are and men are far nastier with it. And men are also the main proprietors. My evidence is prosteriori, so feel free to throw some domestic abuse statistics at me that show a balance between genders, although I suspect you'll struggle to find them. When it comes to equal opportunity the issue is no different for unreasonable discrimination against someone for their gender as it is for their race, colour, creed or sexual alignment Of course, the issue is not to promote equality through positive discrimination (which is plain daft) Yep but to end inequality through negative discrimination (which is just plain wrong) Agreed also. As my partner quite rightly says "I'm happy for a man to hold the door open for me, providing that he also does it for everyone other man and woman as well". Equality means being treated equally, it does not mean preferential treatment (as a certain person here has suggested) Absolutely. Here even Laura Bates in the TED Talk got a little carried away with numbers rather than the issue - the imbalance of 1 in 5 women being in politics is not a Power-Point presentation bullet-point to raise audience incredulity, it is a reflection many things, of which party selection policy is only one. In employment, no matter what the profession is, there will never be parity of numbers, and that is nothing to do with hiring policy or education or opportunity, it is just the natural order of things, the sexes are different for a reason (Vive la différence!), fewer women go into politics, fewer of those that do will win seats in elections - and that last point is a matter of voting preference, with universal suffrage half the voters are women yet they do not vote specifically for women candidates. It's a bit like asking why so many singers are women as opposed to men... Could it be that women are naturally wired to sing, or could it maybe be that growing up as a little girl there is an enormous amount of pressure to be feminine (put there mostly by men), and thus they look to the feminine idols in the media, who are most likely singers or actresses? Call me conspiratol, but this is deeply suspicious. I know a female trombonist who would roast most male trombonists, so ability difference in gender is complete BS. I would argue the same for politicians too. A woman is pressured every day by the media and by her male peers to be attractive and "hot". This is not equal opportunity, nor equal treatment I'm afraid! I'm not saying that discrimination does not happen, far from it, it is just the expectation of what zero-discrimination will actually achieve is unknown, it certainly will not be complete 1 for 1 parity. Of course, but feminism is an ideal just like any other movement. However, the closer we get to it the better. And again this is true for race, colour, creed or sexual alignment. So the statistics used in the TED Talk video, while being wholly correct are stated without explanation, for example she says that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be raped or beaten in their lifetime.  A bold claim and a unpleasantly disturbing one, in fact I found it so disturbing and upsetting I actually found it hard to believe, nay, impossible to believe... just think about it: 1 billion women over a 73 year period, or stating that closer to home: your sister, your mum, your wife/gf/significant other - statistically one of those could be raped or beaten in their lifetime... And that's not a ridiculous assumption to make when you have a probability as high as 0.333 - that is no longer a figure of chance, it is a figure of inevitability. Looking at it another way: 1 in 3 MEN will rape or beat someone in their lifetime Discounting serial offenders then I presume? Sorry, I know it's irrelevant to your whole point but it was bugging me. - that's you, your dad or your grandfather/brother/uncle - or 10 of the 30 men who posted in this thread - could rape or beat someone in their lifetime... and to that I say Bollocks! (or Fallopians! if you prefer).  So, where does this 1 in 3 "World-wide" figure come from? Moreover, how do they know this? It comes from a WHO report of 15 sites in 10 countries, the countries were:  Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, Japan, Peru, Namibia, Samoa, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand and the United Republic of Tanzania... (that list alone is hardly a representative sample of the whole planet), how they arrived at that figure is pure extrapolation and is highly speculative - they took a study of 24,000 women from those 10 countries and extrapolated it to the 3,500,000,000 women in 193 countries - simply take the incident rates of all violence directed at women (whether sexual or otherwise) from those 10 countries and multiply it with the average female lifespan... so if 33% is the final result, divide that by 73 years and the annual incident rate is 0.46% or 109 women of the 24,000 interviewed or 1 in 219 ... But 1 in 3 is a far more emotive number. Wholly agreeing with you here, although the statistics in the video aren't really the important part of the general point. If we were to take a hypothetical census on every human being that had been raped since the dawn of our species, ow many do you think would be women and how many do you think would be men? This question is, of course, rhetorical, but the answer outlines the general point I'm making. Violence against women is abhorrent - violence against any person is abhorrent, even if this figure was 1 in 3.5 billion it is still unacceptable. Agreed. There are a million other points flying around in my head, but these will do for now. Same, keep 'em coming Dean

Pessimist:  I don't agree that all problems of discrimination are linked or one and the same, i.e, that lack of equal opportunity and molestation/rape are somehow linked and have a common solution.  I earlier expressed my skepticism over whether ensuring equal opportunity alone would somehow eradicate criminal tendencies in men (of which molestation is one facet).  Sexism can take many forms, some latent and rather benign at that.  A musician friend of mine staunchly believes that the male voice is inherently more versatile than the female voice while generally claiming to be in favour of equality.  I have tried to disabuse him of such notions (that is, that it is simply his personal preferences and nothing more) and given up but such a bias is probably more harmful to him, if at all, in his capacity as a smalltime musician than to any women in particular.  Molestation is more about the need felt by a man to assert his power over another person he sees as both sexually attractive and physically weaker.  Whereas discrimination that denies equal opportunity to women has more in common with racial or caste-based discrimination (whereby the person presumes that the racial/religious/caste identity of the person automatically disqualifies him/her for something).  That is a little easier to address than the issue of physical abuse or offensive behaviour like catcalls or lewd remarks for that matter.

rogerthat: I understand if it seems like the issue is more complicated than I'm making it sound, but it really depends how deeply you look into it. You're arguing that sexism that denies equal opportunity comes from a different place to that of the sexism that evokes lewd remarks and molestation... However when anyone or anything is molested in such a way - whether it be a woman, a child or in some cases even an animal - it is almost always a display of the power the molester has over the molestee. Not only is it a display, but it's also an enforcement of that power. I would argue also that for example, women not being able to vote 100+ years ago was also a trait of mankind that was just another enforcement of the former. In both examples, it's a power thing. In both examples, it's men seeing women as objects of reproduction and nothing more. I mean, just look at the old school family image... Man going to work 9-5 while the woman stays at home to look after the children, being sure to have the man's tea ready by 5.30. This is probably the most obvious display of a patriarchy, and it ALL stems from sexual authority.

Cactus Choir: Yes I can quote statistics from other countries, but I won't because there is no need. I find the UK actually comparatively quite good in regards to bigotry, albeit only recently. However, I speak from personal experience that most victims of domestic violence/rape/molestation that I know don't actually own up out of fear (where this fear derives from is probably obvious). It's quite similar to a playground bullying scenario actually. Considering statistics are essentially based on convictions, this leaves most statistics on this matter quite flimsy I find.

Sorry for the rantings folks!

Dean I insist! :)
You took your grumpiness to another level here. I was a social economic consultant and have done quite significant research on oppression and spousal abuse matters. Statistics accumulated around the whole world, 89% of women have suffered some form of mental or physical abuse, these studies were done by the UN. The rate of physical spousal abuse towards men are only 1.7% compared to 89% towards women, although spousal abuse to men is equal as serious, the numbers are certainly more alarming towards women abuse.