args

Feminism is currently helping us reach gender equality in 1st world countries

Now before I get started I would like to point out that I explicitly stated that no rebuttals are allowed in the second round. Pro did not follow this rule. Therefore any rebuttals she made in the second round should be disregarded of. If Pro wishes to restate those rebuttals in this round where they were meant to be, that's fine by me. However anything she said in round 2 that was a rebuttal does not count and the voters should not consider nor read. Ok now onto my rebuttals for Pro's statements. " To first prove this contention, I will briefly define what feminism is: "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men." " This literally proves nothing. This is a terrible and close minded defense of Feminism. Please do not take this the wrong way, I am insulting the argument, not you. This is like responding to someone saying the US is very split by saying "But it's the UNITED states, how can it be split if it's called United? " Words and movements will almost always differentiate from their original purposes and definitions. Feminism's meaning and definition should not be what some person wrote down and instead what their actions reflect. So we are to judge Feminism by it's actions and not by it's dictionary definition. "Need I remind anyone that feminism - that being the advocacy of women's rights - has allowed women to serve in the military and to vote" This debate is about modern feminism. What feminism did decades ago has no relevance in this debate. "both from the black populace and LGBTQAA populace." Gendered issues are incredibly different from race and sexual orientation issues. For example with race it's incredibly different for something I believe is called the tribal effect. What this means is issues with gender are completely different from issues with race because during tribal days men and women had the most intimate relationships, father, mother, husband, wife, brother, sister etc. As a result any issues they have aren't really issues of hate, but issues of stereotypes. For race on the other hand back in tribal days there were no blacks and whites sharing intimate relationships on a mass scale, this lead to tension for the others are different from themselves. This is what some issues are stemmed on. Because of this it's fairly ridiculous to compare gender and race issues as if they were the same thing. "Feminism is also responsible for the social awareness of different double-standards that impact both men and women." Feminism also caused many of the double standards they chose to ignore. Mostly aimed towards men. "Again, feminism is about equality for all genders. " As I have went on and on about in round 2 the movement's actions do not reflect this. You are still yet to prove that feminism actually does this, for all the evidence you have really offered is an irrelevant definition. "http://www.huffingtonpost.com...... " Some of the examples this article gives kind of fascinate me because it's like the author is living in a completely different world. On the other hand some of these issues are spot on and legitimate. However I think it's fairly clear the author tackles the issue with a complete misunderstanding of the problem. For example, some of the things this author talks about really haven't been serious issues for decades. Many of the other issues the author really implies are gendered issues caused by sexism, but in reality the problem really isn't with society but instead the problem is with something deep inside ourselves. Jealousy, insecurity, the list goes on. Why do you think some people will judge others for dressing too revealing or too prude? Is it sexism? No, it's personal insecurities. A lot of these issues just stem from people wanting to be something they're not. Instead of tackling the issue themselves and trying to make themselves better they blame it on sexism. Honestly, it's kind of sad. "I would like Con, as well as the audience watching this debate take place, to look at the following article explaining 23 ways that feminism has better improved the lives of women." So I read the list and have a few things to say. 1. Many of these hold no relevance to this debate for it is not about modern feminism so I have no response to those. 2. So let me call out this one gem in the article. "They called out rape culture." Rape culture, it's been a long time since I have heard those two words. So let me ask you this, do you honestly think we live in a rape culture. I'm legitimately curious. We live in a society that views rape as one of the most disgusting and horrible crimes. In a society that views rape that way, rape culture clearly does not exist and it blows my mind that people think it does. There's a lot of articles/sources you can read up about this, but here's one http://www.usnews.com... 3. Many of these really just aren't true. 4. Many of these are irrelevant to feminism or don't reflect the movement as a whole. 5. The rest of these aren't exactly helping us reach equality or weren't done by the feminist movement. "And then to also take a close look at this next article explaining how feminism is truly an interest mutual to more than just woman - but to men" Interesting. Was feminism mutually beneficial when they painted men as the primary perpetrators for DV which has about equal male and female perpetration? Was feminism beneficial to men and women when they train law enforcement to be biased against men? Did feminism improve the conditions of men when they biased family courts to strip fathers away from their children regardless of whether they were the parent that could offer the best care to their child? No, feminism is not mutually beneficial to men and women. There's only one group of people feminists benefit. Feminists. Not women, just feminists. Now as I stated before no rebuttals were allowed in Round 2 so anything after this point should be disregarded of. Now to extend my arguments. many feminists defend their movement when someone brings up the issues men face is by saying either 1. That feminism helps men's issues by destroying stereotypes. 2. That men's issues are completely separate from female issues. One analogy I heard was "that's like saying someone who cured breast cancer hates the effort to cure lung cancer". Well the reason why both of these defenses are simply wrong is because feminism doesn't just help solve men's issues or do nothing about them. Instead it makes the problem worse and the movement as a whole tries to stop anything from being done about male issues. For example, consider this article/video: http://www.avoiceformen.com............ In this video there is a woman who talks about her efforts to bring awareness to men's issues is shut down and censored by Feminists. Clearly Feminism, as a whole, is not helping us solve men's issues. As I stated before it is making the problem worse. Now a lot of people (probably feminists) will refute this and say "Well not all feminists are like that"or "They aren't true feminists". The thing is I am asking the question of whether the movement as a whole is helping society, not if all feminists are bad. Also the thing about saying they are not true feminists is that people like them represent the face of feminism. They are usually the ones who control the policy in place, they control the movements and they control what the movement actually changes. A perfect example of how feminist policy has hurt society and driven us further from equality can be found here: http://www.avoiceformen.com............ . This article by Karen Straughan talks about how once domestic violence (Let's us DV for short) started getting public attention there were two main approaches to solve the problem. One of them saw it as gender neutral. This was lead by a woman named Erin Pizzey. She founded the first battered women's shelter. What she found while running her shelter was 60% of the women were as violent or even more violent than the men they were fleeing. And then there's the second approach, the feminist one. This model says that men are always the violent ones and are beating their partners to oppress them and to make their partners fear them. This model is based on what is called "patriarchy theory". This model became entrenched and seen as the most common and correct model by law enforcement, social workers and judges. This model is adopted by many of the 1st world, western countries including the US, Canada and the UK. In other words this model is the status quo. Despite being seen as the model that fits almost every case of domestic violence, in reality, it makes up the smallest minority of cases. The feminist model overtook the more benevolent model ran by Erin Pizzey, despite Pizzey's model being far more accurate and helpful. The feminist model has resulted in male victims of DV being seen as a joke and offered little to no help. Feminism did not help the issue. Feminism made the problem worse. Feminism is not helping 1st world countries reach gender equality, hence the resolution. As Karen Straughan put it, "If society was feminists, and blacks were men, they would scream ever louder that blacks are the primary offenders and that other races almost never commit such crimes, that the crime itself stems from "toxic, hegemonic blackness", they would ignore the evidence, suppress the evidence, intimidate or shun researchers who produce the evidence, engage in threats of violence against researchers who publish the evidence, and continue their attempts to entrench their view of blackness being integral to said crime into legislation and policy." To put what she said in other words: The way feminists view men and women in DV is dangerously similar to how racist whites view blacks in crime in a way that justifies systematic oppression. To you pro