Hey, this is my first own topic here so you can say I'm making a big first. My friend (a Gaia online forum trawler) found one on sexism which has a large debate right now. Here is the first post:

Grow a sack, women (or: Why I am not a Feminist): by God Emperor Akhenaton

I'd like to dedicate this thread to the thread in which we all know and love, this one. And fpor the record, I'm not saying men have it worse, we obviously don't.

We may not know the entire idea behind feminism, so I will give you an idea. Up until the 1920's women were almost always considered inferior. They were property, they were used as mares for business agreements between 2 kingdoms and laws to protect them were non-existent. The feminist movements never gained a lot of steam until, Congress passed Amendment 19. Which allowed women to vote. After that in the 1920's, the culture of women started to change drastically, they started to expose their legs, swimsuits became skimpy, they started to have jobs, they were allowed to smoke, they could cut their hair short and wear pants. They had a lot compared to the traditional woman. They were comfortable with that and they couldn't be blamed. Then after World War 2, people developed an ideology of family values which involved the man having a job and the women, taking care of the kids, taking care of the household and pleasing her husband at demand. When the baby boomers of the female sex saw the stress women faced, they formed the feminist movement to change that.


The rights women had back then were nowhere near the rights women today have now. The problem isn't in my opinion that women have inequality, it's that women don't know how to be equal to men. Being a man means you are strong, persistent, creative, competitive and can face their problems head on. I'm not saying women can't be like that, but women have been so traditionally inferior to men, that the women today have been conditioned to not take the initiative and not get ahead in life. This is why p***y can describe coward and v****a at the same time. Because most women don't have a mental ballsack. They don't take their problems head on and I will explain why.

Workplace equality
Many women complain about being paid less and strangely enough, the opportunity for them to get ahead is there. More women get into college than men and yet they end up with lower paying this in part is due to the fact that masculine jobs tend to pay more than feminine jobs. An airline pilot gets paid more than a flight attendant, a brain surgeon gets paid more than a nurse, a politician gets paid more than a secretary. It's not that women are less likely to get that job, it's just that women don't pursue those jobs as often. Being a student pilot, I learned that for every woman in the class, there were 50 men. They don't pursue the more lucrative jobs. In the business world, the number of male businessmen outweighs the number of businesswomen by a stronger margin. That's not because men are favored, it's because women don't seem to under the politics of capitalism. It's called survival of the fittest. You have to be a d**k and take risks to get ahead in the business world. Invest and try to take out the competition because for as long as competition is there, you will make less money.

Rape
Though it's true that women get raped more often than men, men get murdered more often than women, but you hardly hear us complaining about it. We as men can only do so much to protect you from rape. It's a first degree felony, they get no probation, the police take it seriously, you can get a restraining order, it's 15 to life. We have done all that we can to make rape occur less often. Now it's your turn to take initiative. When a man gets slugged at a bar, he fights back. When a woman gets raped, she stays there for 10 minutes and showers off the evidence like a moron. We can't help you if you are getting raped. The only person who can help you is yourself. Take defense classes, work out (You won't end up with muscles that make you look like a steroid lesbian. I promise), get a knife, pepperspray or handgun and keep it in your purse and if you do get raped, call the police.

Domestic abuse
This one should be a no-brainer. Many women are victims of domestic abuse. Be it physical, mental or sexual. No matter what the kind of abuse is, you leave him. If he has a problem with that, call the police. Just because domestic abuse happens, does not mean you can't do something about it. If you have nowhere to go, well that's kind of your problem, especially if you decided not to get a job or education if such a thing were to happen. Life isn't filled with second chances. It is filled with risks, rewards and regrets, but hardly any second chances. To be successful, you must be willing to cut people out of your life. You may have respect for them, but if they abuse you, they have no respect for you and they deserve none coming out of you.

Politics
The majority of politicians are male and yet half of the eligible voters are female. This leads to a question. Why aren't there more women in politics? Because women don't pursue aggressively. Yeah there may be bad stereotypes about women, but you could easily get half of the voters to side with you because you share a chromosomal similarity between them. Hillary Clinton almost became president and there are many women who are in congressmen.

Anyway
TL;DR, if women want to have rights that men have, then they should act like men to obtain those rights.


And before you shitstorm and complain about how you can't, then you just admitted to the biggest difference between men and women. Attitude.

Full forum on: http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/extended-discussion/grow-a-s ack-women-or-why-i-am-not-a-feminist/t.63182317/

Pretty much, I'm not really agreeing with this guy. Just want to see your comments on it.

I gotta say this made me laugh. I mean he's got some points I can see and even agree with like teh domestic violence thing, I mena come on leave teh bastard if he hits you, but there are many loop holes in his logic. I dunno, I think this guy is in for one hell of a roast though. I'm a woman and I believe in human rights, but I'm not one of those extremo femmies, not my style at all they've annoyed me many a times. It'll be fun to see how far this goes.

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I don't use "bad" words, I use SENTENCE ENHANCERS.

Well if we were robots, then we could make instant logical decisions like leaving the other person if they beat/abuse you. But psychology ties us down and unless you can understand the brain 100% you can't really make definite judgements on it.

Hm. There are some interesting points in his post. I like and agree to some of them such as standing up for one self and pursuit the dream aggressively. Though traditional mindset is one hard to break, and are felt throughout every culture in vary degrees. But women have female tendencies, so no matter what we can never "become" or "act" like men. I'm a female btw.

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An instant or an eternity. Both are the same, in the passing of an instant lies the beauty of eternity.
-Ginen Shounen

"It is now time to leave-for me to die, and for you to live-though which of us has the better destiny is unclear to everyone, save only to God."
- Plato

you're generalizing too much, but i see the validity of your argument when it to comes to domestic abuse.
Also equality from my point of view means having the same options as a man but not necessarily pursuing those options.

Last edited by eblees at 9:32 pm, Sep 4 2011

Hmm what is the point of this topic?
I know its about sexism.. and other stuff...
but i don't understand why someone would write this...

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*Wonders How To Post A Picture*

I disagree with this guy's statements.

He's completely overlooking the simple biological fact that testosterone and estrogen are very different hormones; testosterone increases aggressiveness and has been extensively tested to prove this fact. And last I checked, men on average have over ten times testosterone than women do. It's only natural that men in general would tend to get ahead in life or fight back against abuse, etc. because men are simply born with more aggressiveness.

Of course, that's not to say women can't be aggressive as well or get ahead in life or that this is the only factor, however the causes for our behavior always come down to two factors, (1) genes and (2) environment. It's clear from his statements that he has only taken environment into account and completely ignored the genetic side, especially with all the research about the very different psychologies of men and women.

Also, I'm a guy. And the information I presented here is easily looked up on Google or some other search engine, in case someone doubts my statements.

I'm glad you don't agree, because I can tell that the people who wrote it is the standard privileged white male, possibly with a side order of men's rights douchebaggery. Also L O L he's basically saying that women aren't equal because we're too dumb to know how to act like men (which is "better" for some reason ) as quoted here: "...women don't know how to be equal to men. Being a man means you are strong, persistent, creative, competitive and can face their problems head on. I'm not saying women can't be like that, but women have been so traditionally inferior to men, that the women today have been conditioned to not take the initiative and not get ahead in life."

So if a woman gets raped it's still partly her fault because she wasn't strong enough? Way to blame the victim. I mean it's not like there's still tons of cases of rape where people say that she was asking for it/she's probably making up false charges...OH WAIT. The part about domestic violence proves that he doesn't know a damn thing about psychology either.

i've g0t n0thing t0 say!!!
LOL

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i'm degradin' in a freakin' simple class.....
0h crap!!!!
h0w shamefuL

Ok, so this fellow needs to grow a brain.

1. Domestic abuse: He makes it seem as though the women are somehow responsible for the domestic abuse, and completely ignores the fear, societal pressures, and psychology that make domestic abuse such a horrible and common thing.

2. Rape: "When a woman gets raped, she stays there for 10 minutes and showers off the evidence like a moron"

Where the hell do I even start with this. It's rather difficult to stay composed when hearing something as hardheaded, ignorant, and asinine as this.

First, in most cases of Rape, with the whole definition of rape being, in short, "forced sex in which there is not consent" he seems to forget that during the whole incident the woman was, unless drugged, probably fighting back tooth and nail. And how the hell can he try to hold a woman accountable for her mental state after being raped

And that isn't even getting into the humiliation, fear, pain, etc, that the woman feels.

Workplace Equality: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1983185,00.html

I assume he thinks the existence of shadowy "boy's clubs" (sounds hilarious when I put it that way ) in companies/hospitals/workplaces are fake. They're not. For the sake of privacy I won't get into it.

"Being a man means you are strong, persistent, creative, competitive and can face their problems head on. I'm not saying women can't be like that, but women have been so traditionally inferior to men, that the women today have been conditioned to not take the initiative and not get ahead in life"

There's a song from Mulan popping up in my head right now

And honestly, I don't think he's ever run into an intelligent woman before.

I will agree though, that many women have been drowned in an idiotic superficial culture that values beauty over intelligence

Overall, I guess how I feel is that this article doesn't seem to have any point. And I assume he is only talking about the "Western" world, because I won't even get into the other dimensions of these problems facing women in other countries.

GOD. There's too much I want to write/say. Sorry for writing so much.
Overall: He generalizes too much, and robotizes people.

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Most of the points are good, but I don't agree with some...

I personally knew women who were verbally abused and even sexually harassed by the people in their workplace, large companies, because they were women. They fought back and did everything they could, but they were ignored because of their gender. In lighter cases, they were denied a pay raise despite working earnestly for many years because they were women. I didn't think that was fair.

But I mean, that doesn't happen all the time. My mom used to work in an office and she was considered the best employee by her boss before she retired she was more hard working than his other employees, even the male ones that had a higher and better education than her. She even had a higher salary than my dad, who had the same education level and was working in the same office under the same boss.

However, many times a woman cannot pursue a good paying job because she can't. In some families, the wife is forced to quit her job and become a housewife. The husband threatens to divorce his wife if she doesn't quit her job or find a new one that doesn't require her to work as much. In many religions and families, divorce is something that's frowned upon and sometimes even forbidden, so the wife has no choice but to follow her husband's orders.

Being a woman isn't as easy as most people would think. In a guy's point of view, we don't really do much and we complain a lot. That's true, but not all the time. I personally know a woman who's a billionaire and worked really hard to get where she is now

Feminist means making sure that men and women have equal rights, not forcing men and women to have equal positions. Giving a woman that complains about not getting a good paying job a good paying job isn't fair to the men who work hard to find jobs. That would be sexist to the man, not feminist for the woman.

It's pretty obviously a trolling post. That or the guy is legitimately that dumb, in which case I feel sorry for him. Some of the points are true enough, but they're either common knowledge or different depending on a person's personality.

Now if you want a real discussion about sexism, tell me why there are services specifically for women. Recently I've been seeing ads on TV for female-only accident insurance. The tagline goes something like "You're a woman, so you need to know you'll be taken care of if you can't work.". Why do women need a specific accident insurance plan? It works exactly the same way no matter what gender you are!

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The guy who wrote that is clearly a complete moron. Firstly, when people complain that women earn less than men, they are often talking about pay equality - that women and men should earn the exact same amount for the exact same job + amount of work - not that on average women earn less than men because of the jobs they choose, which obviously would be skewed because men and women go after different jobs. He is also blaming women not going for higher level jobs as them being cowards - has it not occurred to him that most women do not want to pursue higher level jobs, either because they have their heart set on a career which, though more modest in pay, they would enjoy more, or sexism in the workplace which would make their lives difficult, or traditional maternal responsibilities such as giving birth to and looking after children, which can make jobs with high demands unattractive for women. Furthermore, it is often harder for women to attain these higher level positions even when they want them because, again, of sexism in the workplace. I'm not saying it's the same everywhere and for everyone but it is still a problem.

He also implies in the rape section that it is a woman's responsibility to prevent being raped by taking defence classes etc., rather than the man's to not do it in the first place. So if a guy comes in with a huge gun and shoots you in the face, it's your fault for getting murdered because you didn't have a gun to protect yourself? If you eat a peanut and you die because you had a peanut allergy you didn't know about, is it your fault for not getting tested for it before? "We as men can only do so much to protect you from rape." - No, you can do more, and that is to stop raping people. Men get raped too - it's not solely a woman's problem. The guy who wrote that clearly doesn't have a clue what it means to be violated in that manner, how you can take every precaution and still it can happen to you, the pain people go through, how scared they must be. He states that "When a woman gets raped, she stays there for 10 minutes and showers off the evidence like a moron." - way to make a ridiculous generalisation. Many victims do call the police but this guy clearly doesn't understand the shame, the feeling of defilement etc. that might lead someone to be unable to admit what has happened to them. If they've been threatened with further injury if they tell anyone especially.

Like others have said, he's basically implying that women are inferior and we need to rise up to meet the level of men. But that's not the way it works. Women and men cannot become the same because there are fundamental biological differences between us that have profound effects on every aspect of our lives, personalities, aspirations etc., and then there is the pressure of what society tells us women and men should be and act like that we have grown up with since birth. It's not that easy to break free of that when there are still men telling women to stay "in their place" in what is still a largely male-dominated world with so many double standards between genders. There are men who complain about these things too - that they're expected to be independent and strong, not to be feminine, people make jokes about them if they go into a typically female-dominated job like a nurse or a nanny...

I don't even consider myself that much of a feminist but what this guy said made me pretty pissed off. He's the kind of pompous self-righteous asshole who refuses to take responsibility for anything and makes arguments without any facts to back it up and without having done any actual research on the issues he brings up. What a colossal dickhead.


Last edited by mogiks at 10:34 pm, Sep 4 2011

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世界のどこかに 必ず
キミの居場所が ある筈

Oh yeah, this dude is definitely speaking from a position of privilege. Inequality, in whatever form, isn't as simple as he makes it out to be. If a population is socially oppressed (in other words, if a society is prejudiced against them) that WILL translate into economic inequality. Logically, how could it not? Social inequality goes hand in hand with class inequality. If it didn't, it would be much easier for oppressed people to gain equality. (Social and class inequality feed into one another and as a matter of course work to keep already-oppressed people oppressed.)

Unless you are blind, it is obvious that an element of sexism still exists in society today.

Being a feminist means you think women should have equal rights as men. That's it. The fact that feminism carries some kind of social stigma to it should tell you all that you need to know about the ongoing presence of sexism in society today. (There's already been a few posts that said "I'm not a feminist, but...") Why is being a feminist anything to be ashamed of or something to apologize for? Just because there are some extreme environmentalists out there doesn't mean we should stop caring about global warming. Unless you don't think women deserve equal rights, it shouldn't be a big deal, whether you're male or female, to say, "yes, I am a feminist."

To add one final point: on the topic of rape, ask any woman you know what she does to avoid being raped. Now ask any guy you know the same question. Odds are, the women will give you detailed answers while the men will be confused. To say that women haven't thought about this issue and don't already do what they can to protect themselves is a joke. Also, a lot of rapes occur with foreign objects and not someone's penis. (The point of the crime is to humiliate the victim, not necessarily to derive sexual pleasure from it.) So there just isn't going to be DNA in every rape. Good grief, that's hardly the rape victim's fault.

I'm thoroughly convinced that the original author had intended to start a flame war on gaia, especially since he had named the topic with such a provocative title. The original post on gaia elicited as many responses as to 89 pages of discussions, so I assume he'd fulfilled his purpose.

Judging by the many loopholes in his thesis, I can already tell he wasn't serious about starting a legitimate debate concerning feminism and the inequality between men and women. Therefore I don't feel the need to refute to such a easy bait.

I just wanted to address the title of the topic itself. A friend of mine once pointed out a very valid counterargument to the statement - grow some balls, or in this case, grow a sack. Honestly, why would you want such vulnerable and absolutely useless appendages? If I need more guts, I'd rather grow a(nother) vagina. You know, something that can take a pounding.

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The Deviant