A Crash Course in Feminism Mk. II (or, why everyone should be a feminist)

[Anthrax ion pusscabe]

personally I think they should of all been dressed in lab coats and button up shirts as well as dress pants purely because of the significants of the event, I mean in laboratory skills (a special course my school did) we had to dress smartly and wear lab coats for our weekly practical procedure.

[Deadlift]

It's less 'men should not have an opinion', the issue comes when men say "That isn't sexist, you're making a big deal out of nothing" while the women are saying "Oi, stop being sexist!". For example in this thread where Deadlift demonstrated said arseholish behaviour wonderfully:


Basically Deadlift looked at all the women who don't like that shirt for very good reasons, dismissed them, and said "Well I don't think it is offensive so get over yourselves."

Basically I looked at the shirt and really don't see the difference between what it represents and either the Dark Eldar or Dark Elves model range. I didn't resort to personally insulting anyone who disagrees with me either. It's funny how the most liberal are also the most willing to resort to name calling.

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Given some of the stupid crap people say it's probably not a bad idea.

So instead of trying to win the debate and win over and maybe educate those you feel aren't completely on board with your ideals, you would prefer they just stfu ? How's the world going to change with that attitude ?
This attitude is everything that's wroung with this thread. You guys would obviously like it restricted to just posters who only agree with exactly what yourselves are saying ?
It's funny in the "real world" I'm one of the most liberal people I know. But in here ? Ha different kettle of fish.

[Morgrim]

Apparently you have managed to miss the many, MANY threads where women complain about the way Games Workshop and other miniature companies portray female characters, then? Because comparing it to models we've complained about for years is hardly an argument that women should be okay with it.

[Psychosplodge]

The woman that made the shirt obviously didn't believe it was sexist.

Also princess leia dad is awesome

[eldargal]

Apparently you have managed to miss the many, MANY threads where women complain about the way Games Workshop and other miniature companies portray female characters, then? Because comparing it to models we've complained about for years is hardly an argument that women should be okay with it.

Also if you look at the Dark Eldar range, the gender split is roughly 50/50, which is good, and the female kabalites are no less armoured than the male kabalites and the male wyches are no less armoured/sexualised than the female wyches. Likewise SoB may have ridiculous breast cups but they are fully armoured and have scars and are actually an army that rwvolves around geting up close and killing stuff well ded, which itself goes against the stereotype of giving women a more long distance combat role. GW aren't perfect but they are far from the worst. Witch Elves certainly are the most sexualised and until recently that was somewhat balanced by armoured female Elves too but those have been dropped leaving the women elves only being scantily clad which is something I've commented on. So to argue that people being critical of this persons shirt is somehow invalid because of GW when we have been offering constructive criticism on how GW treats women for years really is odd. Other companies are MUCH worse and I've been critical of that too, I'm thinking back to the ****storm that erupted when I dared to criticism Kingdom Death during their Kickstarter for relying too much on cheesecake and sexualised women to make money.

So instead of trying to win the debate and win over and maybe educate those you feel aren't completely on board with your ideals, you would prefer they just stfu ? How's the world going to change with that attitude ?
This attitude is everything that's wroung with this thread. You guys would obviously like it restricted to just posters who only agree with exactly what yourselves are saying ?
It's funny in the "real world" I'm one of the most liberal people I know. But in here ? Ha different kettle of fish.

Women and members of other oppressed groups are under no obligation to debate or engage with people who want to turn our lived oppression into an academic debate. We don't need to listen, we don't need to give people a platform to members of the dominant group to express their opinions and we aren't obliged to take those opinions seriously. This thread is here to help educate people about feminism, if they are willing to listen. It's also here to be a safe space for women on BoLS. I would much prefer that people who don't agree with feminism or that something is sexist or not would 'stfu' rather than insist they know better than the people who actually experience the problem, yes. Part of being a male feminist is actually understanding that it isn't about you and your opinions, and that you need to listen and learn and help.

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I’m gonna depress the hell out of all of you. ready? ok go
so, that “stop devaluing feminized work post”
nice idea and all
but the thing is, as soon as a decent number of women enter any field, it becomes “feminized”, and it becomes devalued.
as women enter a field in greater number, people become less willing to pay for it, the respect for it drops, and it’s seen as less of a big deal. it’s not about the job- it’s about the number of women in the job.
observe what happened with biology. it’s STEM, sure, but anyone in a male-dominated science will sneer at the idea of it being ‘for real,’ nevermind that everyone sure took it more seriously when it was a male dominated field. so has happened with scores of other areas; nursing comes to mind
so the thing is, it’s not the work or the job that has to be uplifted and seen as more respectable. it will never work out, until people start seeing women as respectable
but there’s a doozy and who the **** knows if it’s ever happening in my life time

"observe what happened with biology. it’s STEM, sure, but anyone in a male-dominated science will sneer at the idea of it being ‘for real,’ nevermind that everyone sure took it more seriously when it was a male dominated field."
Personal anecdote time! I’m in a biology graduate program. An acquaintance wanted to introduce some guy to me because his son was thinking about becoming an undergrad science major. When he found out I was in the biology department, he grinned and said, “Well, I guess that’s kind of related to science.”
I gave him what I hope was an icy look and said, “Isn’t it strange how men outside the field started saying that right around the time biology majors shifted from mostly male to mostly female?”
The guy got this look on his face like he was about to play the “just a joke” card, and then an older woman who had been standing nearby, talking to someone else, turned to me and said, “The same thing happened with real estate.” She went on to explain that, over the course of the career, the male-to-female ratio among real estate agents had dropped, and the pay and “prestige factor” of that job dropped along with it.

Same thing happened to literature. Used to be poetry was the medium of educated men, and novels were “the trashy, unprofessional writings” of women. The more poetry women wrote, the less esteemed it became, and the more men wrote novels, the more value novels had. Now YA novels are frowned on, and also considered women’s territory. If I could find it, I read a few months ago the personal experiences of a female scifi writer and the bias there. Women are expected to write “less intelligent” soft scifi while hard scifi is for men and considered superior. One is valued more than the other based on the genders that tended to write them, and now men and women are pigeon-holed into those genres and disrespected if they don’t adhere to them.

This is probably like 90% of the reason for the backlash of “Anti-gamers” when it comes to women in nerd culture. Nerd culture isn’t really respected anyway and even though it originated as a massive boys AND girls club (really more a girls club since the first ever sci-fi nerd convention was created by women for their love of star trek) but there’s probably a subconscious knowledge that whatever respect they do have (and it’s getting more respect right now too thanks to nerds growing up into people with money and making movies) that it’ll be “lost” if taken over by women because we’ve been taught over and over again that women ruin everything.
NO GURLZ ALLOWED!!!
Why? Because we live in a society that has been hard wired for centuries that to BE a woman is weak so anything women excel at must be also weak and of no value, hence why we try to keep women out of EVERYTHING and then once they get in people scoff and go “yeah well it wasn’t that hard to begin with that’s the only reason you got in at all…”

I had a pharmacy school professor who would go on and on about how it was SUCH a SHAME that women had entered the profession in such numbers, that we would ruin the profession and that our presence would devalue the profession — that women in pharmacy drag down salaries, make the profession less respected, and basically be the Ruin of Pharmacy As We Know It.

The thing that really grates, though? He didn’t hate the societal attiudes that caused this — he hated women for entering his profession, because the drop in salary, devaluing of the profession, etc., would be *our* fault for entering it — not the fault of people who automatically devalue any profession that has a large percentage of women working in the field

[URL="http://the-feminist-fangirl.tumblr.com/post/102793843662/bronzedragon-onionjulius-typingsdrawings"]Source[/URL]

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On the subject of "we're not subject to it, therefore we can't have an opinion on it". I have never been shot, or been in a warzone. But my opinion that "war is a bad thing and should be stopped" is invalid, because I have never experienced it.

Hell, I shouldn't have any views on animal rights, or be a vegetarian, because I have never been subject to animal cruelty. Just the old regular human cruelty. Ironically at the hands of a female manager. Go figure.

My two pence. (awaits the cannons of rage)

First of all, having an opinion that war is bad is not invalidating anyones experiences. It would be if you had an opinion that people in a warzone experienced it in a certain way and refused to listen to people who HAD experienced life in a warzone and said you were wrong. Secondly, you confuse having views and expressing views. You can have views about something you haven't experienced all you want, but that doesn't mean your views are worth the same as someone who has experienced what you have a view on. Thirdly, no one is saying men don't experience cruelty, we are saying you don't experience systemic, cultural and institutional discrimination based on your gender. Because you don't. Fourth, being a vegetarian is a choice, being a woman is not. Finally, a comparison to animal rights is pointless because animals cannot actually communicate their own experiences.

[Psychosplodge]

In fact the very core tenet of feminism is easy to explain:

A woman should be able to make her own choices and control her destiny inofar as any individual can.

That's it really. To elaborate, though:

Women should have the same political rights and responsibilities as a man.
Women should have the same social and legal rights and freedoms a man enjoys.
Women should be paid the same for doing the same work as a man.
Women should not be subjected to discrimination or abuse simply because they are women.
Women should not be barred from doing something a man can do based solely on their gender*.


Anyone who believes in the freedom to be in charge of their own life insofar as any individual can should consider themselves a feminist.

*So if you are advertising for a new employee and the final choice is between a man and a woman, your decision should be based on their skills, not their gender.

EG you're shouting at people who agree with your original post.
The people who are anti aren't even in here.

[eldargal]

Except I'm not, I'm addressing the points raised by someone who says they agree with the original post, but then insists their opinion on sexism is as valid as someone who actually experiences it when they do not. Men are not bombarded with sexualised male imagery aimed at demeaning and degrading them and reducing them to an object for male consumption in their workplace, so women should be extended the same courtesy.

People also seem to be forgetting where the man responsible realised he behaved inappropriately and gave a sincere, heartfelt apology for which I praised him.

[Psychosplodge]

The man responsible had a storm of twitter hatred and didn't have much option. Equality means a woman would be free to wear the equivalent if she so chose? plus aren't scientists generally eccentric, every one I've met seemed to be.

[eldargal]

He didn't deserve the hatred, but at the time it wasn't known that it was just obliviousness and not malice. You can't blame women, who are routinely on the receiving end of this sort of thing for reacting violently to another, highly public example. Women in STEM fields face much more problems than he does and when this fuss fades he will go along unscathed while women will still be facing immense problems in those fields. Equality would be neither women nor men wearing clothing which sexualises and objectifies the other gender in the workplace.

[Psychosplodge]

It's not women at fault its arseholes, and the medium of twitter.