Feminism is often only incompletely applied even by feminists. They still prefer to be “adored”, “courted”, “hunted” or whatever you would call it.
Ah yes, the old women are hypocrites but men are not argument. I wondered when that would surface. 
Mr He wrote
[quote]Feminism is often only incompletely applied even by feminists. They still prefer to be “adored”, “courted”, “hunted” or whatever you would call it.
[/quote]
Feminism is about choice not replacing one restrictive set of standards and expectations with another. 
Feminism ideally should be about equal rights and responsibilities. The problem with (some) Western feminists is that they want the former but refuse to accept the latter.
Disagree. That kind of thinking just continues to place women in a straightjacket. Why must they be examplars in ways men do not?
What are you talking about? I’m talking about, for instance - equal pay, equal rights in dating. In the modern age men shouldn’t be expected to pay all the costs on dates, or buy their girlfriends gifts. That is tantamount to prostitution on the girl’s part, iif she expects these things. Since we are theoretically equals, then each should pay equally, or at least trade off - I’ll pay this time, you pay next time. I wouldn’t respect a woman if she had it any other way.
Likewise, I expect a girl to show some sort of initiative. I shouldn’t have to do all the work when it comes to courtship. If you want to talk to me, talk to me. Don’t expect a guy to always be the one to break the ice. A lot of guys are uncomfortable “hitting on” strange women because it makes them feel like a “color wolf”, especially if they’re at a sleazy pub/dance club. So if you wait around for a guy to come talk to you, 90% will be pick up artists, not the gentlemen. Many of the genuinely nice guys, especially Chinese guys (who are much shyer than Western guys), are still a little afraid to talk to pretty girls they don’t know. If a guy is confident and not nervous when he’s talking to a babe like you, Erhu, you know he’s a playboy who’s been with dozens of other girls already. Some girls like that kind of guy, though…
And if she doesn’t then she is not a feminist, or deserving of equal treatment?
I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, but these do seem the implications of your argument.
Feminism is about the theoretical equality of men and women. Just as not every individual man is my equal in terms of intelligence, looks, morals, talents, etc, neither is every woman. But feminism means that I would never dismiss someone, or not hire someone, or not take someone seriously simply because she was a woman.
I may not date you if your are dull. I may not hire you if you are talentless. I may not respect you because you are spoiled and use your looks to get what you want. But your sex does not entire the equation.
And that is the whole point of feminism. That one’s sex does not enter the equation.
To me feminism is opposition to sexism, and sexism is discrimination on the basis of sex or gender. Opening a door for a woman is not discrimination - it’s manners.
Treating someone as an equal is not the same as treating everyone ‘equally’, if you’re going to define that as ‘identically’. We can treat someone differently, but still as an equal.
Brian
[quote=“Bu Lai En”]To me feminism is opposition to sexism, and sexism is discrimination on the basis of sex or gender. Opening a door for a woman is not discrimination - it’s manners.[/quote]I forgot who said this now, might have been Churchill or someone like that:
A feminist, feeling a bit patronised: “Did you open the door open because I’m a lady”
Clever bloke: “No, I opened because I’m a gentleman”
Expecting someone to open a door for you because you’re a woman he’s a man is not equality.
Churchill was well known for his tact with women.
[quote]Bessie Braddock:
[quote=“Big Fluffy Matthew”][quote=“Bu Lai En”]To me feminism is opposition to sexism, and sexism is discrimination on the basis of sex or gender. Opening a door for a woman is not discrimination - it’s manners.[/quote]I forgot who said this now, might have been Churchill or someone like that:
A feminist, feeling a bit patronised: “Did you open the door open because I’m a lady”
Clever bloke: “No, I opened because I’m a gentleman”
Expecting someone to open a door for you because you’re a woman he’s a man is not equality.[/quote]
Pssshhh.
Lots of Taiwanese men are extremely sexist. But strangely enough, they’re not big on opening doors for anyone but themselves.
Don’t confuse common courtesy with sexism.
If you tend to open doors for women, it’s because your momma taught you right. You’re probably also the type to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and to buy the first round.
A display of manners is a dumb ass example of what feminism aims to overcome.
Feminism: The belief that society is disadvantageous to women, systematically depriving them of individual choice, political power, economic opportunity and intellectual recognition.
Take a stroll through any toy store some day and notice the PINK aisle. Sexism begins at a very early age.
I’m only a sexist when it comes to sex. Of course I treat men and women differently in the social arena - I’m just trying to get laid. When it comes to dating I’m a chauvinist pig, same as everybody else with a working libido.
But there’s compartmentalization. When it comes to work, work is work, and it doesn’t matter what your genitals are, all that matters is if you can do the job.
If I’m sexually attracted to you, that’s going to get in the way of my treating you the same as a bloke. If I’m not attracted to you (or you’re my best friend’s wife or something that otherwise obviates any sexual sparks), then you’ll get treated just the same as anyone else. Simple as that.
Why should feminism have to mean anything other than equal is equal? It’s the same as anti-racism, though obviously more complicated. Racism I think will eventually die out because it’s bloody stupid - what objective difference does skin color mean to anything? It’s the easiest matter in the world to entirely ignore another individual’s ethnicity or race - most of us do it all the time; black or white or yellow, when it comes down to a personal, man to man level, who gives a fuck? Your best friend can be from a different race and you can see each other for every day without skin color ever coming into conversation between the two of you - it’s only an issue if you want to make it an issue.
However, while a black guy and a white guy being best mates for 20 years without thinking about race, a man and woman can’t be best friends for more than 2 days without sex/gender coming into the equation. Because unlike race/ethnicity, there are real differences between males and females, and not just physically, either - our brains function ever so subtly differently (this has been confirmed recently by neuroscientists - male and female brains have been shown to operate differently on brain scans). So I think that sexism, unlike racism, will always be with us. Ethnicity is a social construct; sexual gender is a biological fact.
[quote]When it comes to dating I’m a chauvinist pig, same as everybody else with a working libido.
[/quote]
Can you explain what you mean here?
I thought it was pretty obvious. The only time I treat men and women differently is when I want to sleep with a woman. So, I am going out of my way to treat her differently because of her sexual gender. I am deeply sexist when it comes to sex.
I thought that’s what you might mean but sexist or chauvanistic implies that you treat woman as inferior, not just different. That’s why I asked before leaping. Half the fights on these boards result from people using loaded terms either incorrectly, or idiosyncratically.
As I see it, feminism is often attacked / criticized by people who only obliquely understand it. The tendency to treat it monolithically is also a common patriarchal bias.
“Feminism” is actually a reductive term, since it includes a huge variety of approaches. For starters, feminist discourse is historically separated into three major waves. The First Wave began with the 1848 Declaration of Women’s Rights and suffrage movements of the early 20th century. The Second Wave began in the 60s with equal rights advocates and those who favored political unity a la “sisterhood.” The Third Wave of the 80s and 90s has been more interested in the intersections of gender with race, class, and sexual orientation. Feminism is also differently approached by French, American, and British feminists. French feminism (esp the “Big 3” - Irigaray, Cixous, and Kristeva, though de Beauvoir and Wittig have also been highly influential) tends to be theoretical / abstract (e.g. Cixous’s notion of “ecriture feminine”). American feminism (Rich, Gilbert and Gubar, Tompkins, Kolodny, Haraway, Butler, Bordo, etc.) are much more interested in effecting social and political transformation. British feminists like Mulvey are more interested in the intersections between gender and class. One of the more influential feminists in recent years has been Judith Butler, who argues that gender is a social construction that is “performed” - she extends the same analysis to sexual orientation.
Despite all the different “feminisms,” there are a number of points that most feminists would agree on.
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There’s a difference between sex (biological, physical differences) and gender (socially learned and performed behaviors). In patriarchy (male-dominated society), sex is simply equated with gender. Traditional gender roles - where men are rational, logical, strong, and women are submissive irrational, and weak - are based on biological essentialism, ie that women are simply biologically inferior to men, or “that’s just the way it naturally is, it’s in the blood/DNA” (much the same has been historically said about race and class).
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Patriarchy promotes and reinforces traditional gender roles in myriad ways - and the codings are powerful. Look at the differences in toys that little boys and girls play with. Look at the differences in occupations and academic fields boys and girls are encouraged to pursue. Look at media portrayals of women and men (especially TV advertizing). Look at fairy tales - submissive woman must wait for strong prince charming to rescue her, her happy ending is marriage, women who are independent are evil and wicked - not good “role models.” Look at sexist language - a man with many women is a stud, a woman with many men is a slut (feminists also call this the “madonna or whore” syndrome). You’ve probably heard that “hysteria” is from “hyster” (womb), the idea that the womb could detach and move around, and that was the cause for female insanity. One historical way of dealing with “crazy women” was the “rest cure” - to have them locked up in some place with no mental, intellectual, or emotional stimulation. And of course in English, a lot of people still say “mankind,” use “he” as a universal pronoun, etc.
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Traditional gender roles are debilitating. Women are taught not to stand up for themselves, not to seek equality, to be content with secondary status (hence the lower-level jobs, less pay in evidence around much of the world). Some women internalize these roles and become “patriarchal women” - i.e. they promote the very same roles that demean them. Traditional gender roles are also bad for men - men are taught they can’t show pain or fear, hence anger and violence become acceptable ways to deal with emotions. These days, feminism is often discussed in the larger rubric of “gender studies,” which also includes “men’s studies” as well as studies of the social construction and performance of sexuality.
Want an interesting implication for Taiwan? If you teach English, take a look at your classes. What’s the male-female ratio at beginning levels compared to higher levels (many years later)? English is a subject “girls do better at” here, whereas “boys are better in the maths and sciences.” No student will cite that as a reason for the developing imbalance, but feminists would say that social pressure is likely to be the main factor. And are the higher level boys really any less adept at English? For that matter, girls at maths and sciences?
The easiest way to test if something is patriarchal is to flip it around, and see if the reverse “works.” I remember seeing an ad in Taiwan for some diet pill where a fat woman eating a celery stick gets mad when her husband starts looking at a sexy woman eating ice cream (she takes the diet pill). What would the effect be if a fat, balding husband gets mad when the wife starts ogling the handsome young guy eating whatever he likes?
So back to the question that opens this thread, it seems to me to show a patriarchal bias. “Feminists” are treated monolithically, whereas they certainly are not. And might you actually be referring to patriarchal women, i.e. women who have been socially “trained” to support traditional gender roles? Or are you saying that this is a biological reaction that all women, feminist or not, share? And might men also wish to be “adored,” “courted,” and “hunted” in the first place - is this really a question of gender (or biology)?
Seems to me if you want to attack feminism, it’s better to take issue with specific arguments / beliefs…
Somebody spent his university years wisely. 
Seriously, though, good post. I hope Fred Smith will read as he seems to think liberal thought, including feminism, is a monolith that has not been cracked, debated, or eevn influenced since the 60’s.
However, now, 3:37, in an ungodly hour to be discussing anything unless one’s been drinking and I am unfortunately out of all alcohol but Kaoliang.
Indeed an ungodly hour, but I can’t sleep, and this post is related to drinking…
This thread has also broached the subject of implications of feminism for men. I read a really interesting article on this subject recently by Robert Connors, thought I’d share some of his main points with you…
Male traditional gender roles are “agonistic,” or concerned with contest, as well as “resistance, self-display, testing, and tacit aggression.” Men have trouble constructing themselves as men: many younger females have no problem referring to themselves as “women,” but many younger males feel uncomfortable calling themselves “men” (and usually prefer the age and gender-neutral term “guys”). Young men tend not to pattern themselves after older men, preferring instead to emulate film stars, sports heroes, or what’s worse, their peers. Men are also discouraged from openly exhibiting emotions other than anger and humor.
Connors argues that just as feminism has illuminated women’s issues, the “men’s studies” movement of the 80s should be developed with the definition of new male roles in mind. He notes, though, that men’s studies is often derided, much in the same way early feminism was. There has been an increase in resources for men in recent years (look at all the men’s magazines, men’s grooming products, etc), but it doesn’t seem that these necessarily offer to define new roles or possibilities.
The most intriguing part of Connors’s article is an essay he includes by a male student. Here it is…
“Horsing Around”
It was a cold winter day and my two friends, Bill and Jim, decided to skip school with me. I got out of bed and acted as if I were going to school, but instead I went to Bill’s house. We sat in his living room drinking alcoholic beverages at 8:00 in the morning, Jim came over at 8:30 to join us.
As we drank beer like fish, we decided we were bored. The three of us had a total of about three dollars, so we could not go anywhere, even out to eat. To help make the time pass, Bill got out his twelve-gauge shotgun and started to clean it. Then a bright idea came to me, so I said, “We have enough guns and ammunition, and we have plenty of wooded area to go shooting in, so let’s go!”
We got in Bill’s jeep and drove down Party Road to get to the woods. Bill and I both had twelve-gauge shotguns, and Jim had a twenty-two rifle. We went out walking in the woods and Jim saw a crow, black as night, land in a tree. He aimed, shot, and killed the crow. I walked over, picked up the blood-soaked bird, and sat it with its wings spread wide in a small twig tree. I loaded my gun, walked back fifteen to twenty feet, turned, and fired. The bird was blown into about twelve pieces, just like a jigsaw puzzle. The ground was covered with powdery snow, so when the bird was shot a blood spray pattern covered that area.
After this adventure, we walked further into the woods where we spotted a horse in an open field, Jim dared me to shoot it, but I told him that the horse was too far away to hit. As soon as I said that, though, the huge black and brown horse slowly trotted toward us. Bill was approximately one-hundred feet away from me, and did not know what I was about to attempt. It was a good thing that he did not know, because he is one of those “follow-the-rules” kind of guys. Then Jim said, “Go ahead, Adam, I dare you.”
Without thinking about the seriousness involved, I raised the gun to my shoulder, took careful aim, and KABOOM! I nailed him right in the left hind quarter and he let out a yelp like a dog getting its tail sliced off. At first I thought I might have killed the animal, but I was too afraid to stick around to find out. All I remember was hearing after I shot the gun was the horse yelping and Bill shouting; going into hysterics about what I had done.
At this time we hurried back to the jeep and drove quickly to Bill’s house without being caught. Needless to say, Bill doesn’t want me to go shooting with him anymore. While in the jeep, Jim was laughing so hard that he wet his jeans. We finished up our unusual and impromptu hunting excursion by cleaning the guns and drinking more beer.
Looking back now, the whole thing seems pretty funny, but I also regret it. I feel bad about hurting the horse and I think the incident probably wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for the combination of boredom, beer, and boyhood.
Interesting? Thoughts? Comments?
slurpcheese
Oh what the hell, one more point about feminism. To feminists, chivalry is patriarchal. Setting women on a pedestal, tossing your cape on a mud puddle, opening doors, etc., does not do anything to deny sexist assumptions or patriarchal biases - in fact, it assumes women are “damsels in distress” in need of saving by men (who naturally know what’s best for them). Just look at Arthurian legend. And the independent types, like Morgan le Faye, Bertilak’s wife, Guinevere, etc. are wicked, evil, and/or flawed. The only notable exception to this is the lady in Lanval, one of the lais by Marie de France.
Opening a door for someone is a gender-neutral courtesy. Where it is gender-based, it is sexist, and definitely not “equal,” whether performed by patriarchal men or expected by patriarchal women…
Feminism is a way for females to redress the many wrongs committed agaisnt them by males throughout history.