Is feminism needed to tell women to stop getting...
Feminism! Hooray!
So this probably isn't going to be the most put-together argument as I'm at work and all of a sudden some irrelevant company has decided to ask for our help, so bear with me. But thanks for the positive feedback, same goes to you - I'm enjoying this debate with you, as you're one of the very few people I've been able to discuss feminism with who hasn't resorted to ad hominems or just given up right out of the gate. So thanks for that! Rape Culture This is the problem feminists produce. Instead of ensuring the safety of civilians in general, they focus on women. Men are killed more than women almost worldwide [1], but specifically in North America. In my opinion, death is more serious than rape. If you take a gander at random web pages of murder statistics, it's not that great either. Here [2] is an example of an article that jokes about murder, yet you don't see feminists upset - it explains about half of all murderers won't see the jail time, yet feminists don't notice that - and that if you're a man, you're almost 75% more likely to be killed than a woman, something feminists don't seem to care about. Rape culture is a non-issue. Nobody is advocating rape, and by giving tips as to how to avoid dangerous situations (like all other forms of crime) is nothing but beneficial. Regarding slut-shaming, women do just as much as men [3], as I'm sure this falls into the same ballpark as black people calling each other "n*gga," so whites think it's okay too. This is not a "misogynistic patriarchy" issue, this is a "some people are mean/insecure" issue. And feminists are victimizing women and demonizing men through something that affects both genders [4], and, funny story, people held a double standard in favour of the girls 1% more than the boys. So there is equality written all over that, yet feminists decide to turn it into a "poor women, big bad man" issue - detrimental to society, as it takes away from the male victims and makes women look inferior, as they need a group of people to stand up for only them in an issue that equally affects both genders. So I'm going to assume women choosing dressing sexy, looking good and flirting with men has nothing to do with their own personal choice to do so - but the patriarchy and society objectifying women. I still can't understand how considering a woman (or anyone for that matter) good looking is considering them an object. Look at Kim Kardashian, she basically shows everyone her huge butt in order to get attention. Are you going to tell her to stop objectifying herself? Is feminism needed to tell women to stop getting attention in a way they want? Once again, another reason feminism is detrimental to the whole of society - it's setting unrealistic expectations and standards and basically telling women how to dress - something I thought feminism was against - and men (instead of people in general) not to be mean to women (instead of people in general). I fail to see how my example is any different. I was robbed (something that happens to men more than women) and I was told what to do to avoid it. A woman is raped (something that happens to women more than men) and she is told what to do to avoid it. All of a sudden nobody can treat women like anyone else, and have to take everything they say at face value [5], because apparently not believing a woman 100% without any questions "signals that that women don’t matter and that they are disposable" - an absolutely ridiculous claim which implies men can be disposable at the same time... so once again, detrimental to the whole of society, as it really is asking for special privileges - 100% trust at face value - and the non-necessity of men's well-being. Affirmative Action I'm happy we agree! However, ignoring or not including the feminists that are for affirmative action as a part of feminism is wrong. And having feminists fight with each other isn't really the greatest for feminism anyway. Peer Pressure I completely agree that it's incredibly easy to deconstruct basically all of Anita's arguments. However - Anita's YouTube channel has over 187,000 subscribers and her videos are nearing a total of 18,000,000 views [6]. And judging by the amount of thumbs up, that's a pretty good chunk of people that agree with her and believe in the same type of feminism as her. And considering you believe her views to be flawed and easily deconstructed, this is not a positive thing. The only issue I would say needs addressing would be the hostility toward female gamers, however right off the bat I can tell you there's only a select few guys that are irrationally hostile toward women like that online. Way too often guys "white knight" their way to the girls' hearts and try to befriend them simply because they're girls. Girls also tend to use their sex to get attention, and more often than not I've seen girls join lobbies and openly start harassing other players. If we take into account the amount of girl gamers with headsets (not a lot) to disrespectful girl games, from my experiences anyway, it's pretty high. It's low for guys considering there's so many male gamers with headsets. This is all from personal experience, so if you choose not to believe me, I guess I can't do anything about that. Objectification & Female Nudes Although I agree that bad people should not be invading anyone's privacy (especially to this degree), this is not a feminism issue. The invasion of privacy in general (because this happens to men quite a lot, too) is not the patriarchy and is not part of rape culture and does not facilitate rape. If you wish to make claims like this, you should be able to say the leakage of male nudes also facilitates male rape. And guess what, feminists don't even mention the invasion of men's privacy, or really anything negative against men in general. You say over and over "...women..." "...."women..." "...women..." ...which is just why feminism is detrimental. Victimizing half the population and demonizing the other half is not beneficial to society. Steubenville I would completely disagree that this one instance is "reflective of wider social norms," considering this is the only news station out of the dozens that covered this story to address it in this way. If the media does in fact reflect society's social norms, then you should see that due to the fact that almost every single media source demonized the men, that society does not like rapists or anything of the sort. Just like me bringing up the amount of followers Anita Sarkeesian has to represent that she actually does represent a large portion of the feminist community, you would have to show that this news source has a strong following to show that it actually does represent a large amount of people who "support rape" or are victim-blaming or whatever else. Pay Gap Considering you are unable to provide a source showing that women actually get paid less than men, instead of earning less than men in general, I can still safely say the pay gap is due to the choices that women make, the hours they work, maternity leave, job performance, and much more. There really is absolutely no data supporting the idea that women are paid less than men for performing the exact same job at the same level as those men. The only thing that hints at an actual "pay gap" is the data showing that women earn less in some areas (which can easily be attributed to hours worked, job performance, and much more - it would be up to you to prove it's due strictly to discrimination) and men earning less in some areas, as well. This can all be attributed to personal choice [7], and if you want us to think otherwise, well, you'll need some solid evidence. Conclusion So far I haven't seen a single thing that says feminism is needed and/or would be beneficial to society. And just for some fun, here's a bunch of female privileges that feminists seem to miraculously forget about when discussing privilege in general [8] - I'd appreciate it if you took a look at that, I learned a few things and I hope you would too! Also, notice "in general" being kind of a key term around here. [1] http://www.unodc.org... [2] http://www.economist.com... [3] http://www.wired.co.uk... [4] http://jezebel.com... [5] http://www.washingtonpost.com... [6] https://www.youtube.com... [7] http://www.topmanagementdegrees.com... [8] https://mensresistance.wordpress.com...