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Humanism > Feminism

When we view these two terms in the same light and context as you describe, feminism seems to be exclusionary. It focuses solely on women, and in it's attempt at empowering women so they don't feel like the victims, turns around and makes them the victims of a supposed "Patriarchy". Within these boundaries, it would seem that feminism is a circular argument with selfish goals. But this is only due to the way inequality is handled within the United States and, possibly, the world as a whole. It is equivalent to the way laws are handled, we don't have a way of dealing with a situation until we are faced with that situation, so if you do something that isn't against the law, but it should be, you won't be punished for it. Racism, for the longest time, was considered a holy and correct thing to do. Even when slavery ended, black hatred stayed around because it was commonly accepted that blacks were lower class citizens, and some even believed that blacks were lower forms of humans. Today, for the most part, these ideas would be shockingly racist and hateful, especially now that America has a black president. However, these ideas would likely have never been scrutinized if black people never rose up to defend themselves. It would still be a perfectly normal thing to do to throw rocks into their house windows or beat them up in the street simply because racist parents where teaching their children to think like them, and the children seeing the way blacks are treated, accept this way of thinking as a fact of life. Now, not all children of the times grew up to hate blacks and some even joined the black marches and defended blacks whenever they could, but those types of people were rare compared to the amount of racists on the opposition side. The need to maintain a "status quo" and not get ridiculed by their fellow peers kept far too many secret anti-racists from speaking out, mostly because they didn't know they could. Now, I could have been talking about any type of inequality topic with a few replacement of words. This is because each movement of unequaled people has followed a similar path that was originally blazed by blacks (talking mostly about America right now). Women's rights, Gay rights, Religious rights, Black rights, etc. Each of these groups have had their own extremist sections, such as the blacks Black Panthers, but those groups have done almost nothing to slow down the equalizing of the original movement. They were mostly ignored and treated as outliers by the more moderate activists, often saying, "These people don't represent our cause". Muslims is another example of extremists within their community being the most outspoken and violent of the Islamic cause, making some people have distorted views about what Islam is for and what Muslims's want. The same can be said for Christianity when viewing Fundamentalist Christians as the extreme section of the belief. The impact each of the extremist sections has on the views of the people they supposedly represent is entirely on the person who is trying to make an opinion about them. If everyone viewed the Black Panthers as the face of the civil rights movement, MLK Jr would have been waved off and forgotten about as an extremist idealist, but because there were enough people willing to listen to what he had to say, it was clear to most what the original intention of the movement was and that it was an issue that needed to be addressed peacefully. The point I'm making here is that change doesn't happen over night. Not everyone is aware that there is a problem to be sorted out simply because it isn't a factor in their daily lives. Meat processing is a newish issue that was never thought about as an actual problem until people started looking at the way the cows were being treated and that they, shockingly enough, had to be slaughtered to garner their meat. Now it's in everyone's lives that we mass produce meat to keep up with demand to the detriment of the cows and Vegans have sprung up from that information. It wasn't a problem before because no one thought about it. Someone had to say something, to make a video or documentary, someone had to stand up for animal rights and bring the issue to the public eye. We can say all day how everyone should be treated equally and no one should be excluded from this, but we don't actually know what the problems are until they are pointed out. In the Islamic religion, women are subjugated by men simply because their book tells them it's what their supposed to do. Now, the Muslim women have a problem; continue to be subjugated and keep their religion, or be free women and lose their faith. Anytime you see a Muslim woman with her head covered, no matter how free she looks, she has chosen to continue with her religion and to accept that her head should be covered, because she is a woman. She has chosen religious freedom over her right to wear whatever she wants because that is how her priorities have been set. There is no middle ground she can reach to be equal in both aspects because her beliefs prevent it. Feminism, non-extremist feminism, is simply women standing up and saying, "We have been mistreated by men and we demand equality". Now that the feminist movement has started, people are now aware that there is a problem within the status quo. The only way the public will ever see that men are also being mistreated by women, on occasion because it certainly isn't that often, is by standing up and speaking out about it. Men actually have a harder time of doing this because we are not supposed to be victims, we are not supposed to complain about our situation because, as men, we are supposed to fix the problem. The fact that men can't complain will never be considered a debatable issue until the public sees it as one, and the only way to get the publics attention is to cause a ruckus. As nice as it would be for equality to be a clear and obvious term, it just isn't. Humans don't think that way, we would rather live our lives peacefully and blissfully ignorant of what's going on around us, as long as everything seems hunky-dory. We even invented a word for it, Normal. As long as everything is Normal, there isn't any problems, as soon as we realize there is a problem within our normality, we do whatever we can to fix that problem so we can go back to our previous state. It's up to those who feel victimized and hurt by normal to speak out against it, otherwise, everything just seems... Normal.

Feminism is no longer about gender equality

Now that Pro has redefined the sphere of debate to feminism in the West, which I am happy to accept, I feel that I must shall begin by reiterating the difference between feminism and misandry. Feminism is the belief that women are not inferior; misandry is the belief that men are inferior, and conversely that women are superior. A misandrist often suffers failure of logic through generalisation. For example, Some men are rapists. Therefore, all men are rapists. Therefore, all rapists are men. Pro is unfortunately falling into the same pattern: Some feminists are misandrists. Therefore, all feminists are misandrists. Therefore, all misandrists are feminists. Statistically, many women dislike the term 'feminist' because of it's association with misandry. Only 27% of women would term themselves feminists in the U.S. (http://www.cbsnews.com...) and yet 65% would describe themselves as feminists when the term was specifically defined as 'interested in equality between the sexes' (http://www.cbsnews.com...). Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that every woman who openly terms themselves a 'feminist' in this particular set of polls is a misandrist. (Not true, but simply for the sake of a rough figure here). Let us also assume that every woman who defines themself as a feminist when the non-misandrist definition is offered them, but would not like to be termed a feminist due to the association of the term with misandry, is not a misandrist (Again not necessarily true, but more likely to be so since they are specifically disassociating with the term through it's hostility). That makes it 27% of females who are misandrists; and 38% who are not but who would call themselves feminist. I feel this displays clearly my own contention; the majority of feminists, women interested in equality between the genders, are not misandrists. This of itself is a skewed proportion, since I sincerely doubt that all women who would term themselves feminists are misandrists. As an anecdotal piece of evidence towards that; I woke up this morning and turned the laptop on to check updates, emails etc (something I often do to wake myself up). On considering this debate I turned to my partner and asked, "Love, am I a misandrist?" He laughed, and answered, "Of course not." Yet I have considered myself a feminist all of my life. Further to that, the feminist movement is questioning the misandrists in it's ranks (http://www.feministcritics.org...) and arguing against misandry (http://sexademic.wordpress.com...); as I do myself. However, as long as some Western men consider women inferior, there will be a need for Western feminists to make the case that women are not inferior, separate to and apart from misandrists.

Feminism is for equal rights for all genders not just women.

Thank you, VoiceofEquality, for instigating this debate. Since my opponent is Pro in this debate, he/she has the burden of proof to show that “feminism is for equal rights for all genders not just for women”. In the event that feminism is shown to be for unequal rights in certain circumstances, or in the alternate event wherein my opponent fails to provide arguments to affirm the resolution, the resolution is negated and I win. Negative Case Premise: The myth of gender equality At the biological level, prima facie, it is clear that women, who are anatomically very different to men (e.g. genitals), are not equal in this sense. But the differences run deeper. At the University of Pennsylvania, there was found to be striking differences in the neurological wiring of men’s and women’s brains. Specifically, neurological connection is found to be mostly forward and back with men, whilst women have connections left to right [1]. These differences manifest in ability, such as men being “better at learning and performing single tasks, such as cycling or navigating, whilst women tend to be better at multitasking and problem-solving in group situations. These differing abilities also manifest in preferences. In his book Gender, Nature, and nurture, and as spoken in the documentary ‘Brainwash: The Gender Equality Paradox’, Richard Lippa talks of his survey that collaborated answers from over 200,000 people in 53 counties. They were all asked what they wanted to work with. He found that, “men [were] much more orientated in the thing orientated occupations. Women, relatively, are much more orientated to the people professions… This is consistent across all the countries… Something biological is going on.” [2] [3]. Also found within this documentary is Trond Diseth of the Oslo Univeristy Hospital Research. Trond specifically works with “children with deformed genitals” and tries to work out which sex the children are. He does with the methodology of placing male, female and neutral toys in front of the child. He found that there are “clear differences between what the two gender gravitate towards… Children are born with a clear biological disposition” [3]. A1: Unequal rights in STEM fields Now that it is very clear that there are differences between the genders, why is feminism’s pursuit of equality harmful (i.e. what is the impact?). Programs and organisations that push women towards certain professions, such as the ‘Steminist’ organisation, are a waste of time and money because for the large majority of women, they are not interested in the ‘thing’ orientated professions. But it gets worse. There exists ‘gender quotas’ so that there is a push towards ‘gender equality’ in the workforce. These quotas mean that a certain number of women are required to be accepted into the STEM fields, or else the college will get into trouble [4], of which was backed by U.S President Barrack Obama [5]. BUT IT GETS EVEN WORSE. In 2012, there was serious talk (involving Barrack Obama) of ‘limiting male enrolment into science fields’ [6]. Such blatant misandry is the final stage of feminist rhetoric and is clearly fighting for unequal rights between the genders. The conception of feminist’s equal rights for all genders is plagued by the incorrect premise that the genders are equal (i.e. that there is ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCES between the genders). Such a premise is wholly fallacious and results in feminism fighting for UNEQUAL RIGHTS, due to trying to correct for nonsense like the patriarchy. A1’s example is a clear demonstration of feminism not understanding the inherent differences between the genders, labelling these differences as sexist against women, and thus trying to correct by being sexist against men. Hence, in reality, feminism is for unequal rights between the genders, even though feminists think it is about equal rights. Counter-arguments “Feminism is about gender equality and the reason it is called feminism is because even though it's about gender equality it's women who are underprivileged." As demonstrated under Premise and A1, it is the fallacious presumption that women are “underprivileged” that creates a false premise. When feminists work with the premise that the world is inherently sexist against them, instead of recognising the real, biological inequalities between the genders, policies aimed at correcting this non-existent problem (in the form of gender quotas) are inherently sexist against men. “I want to grow up in a world were women don't get judged if they wear makeup or if they don't wear makeup. I want to grow up in a world were if a boy wants to were makeup he can without fear of being bullied or judged. I want to grown up in a world were if a girl has short hair she isn't stereotyped as a lesbian and if a boy is flamboyant he isn't stereotyped as gay.” Your wants are pure abstraction that do not fit reality, much like feminism does not fight for equal gender rights. A collaborative study by Viktoria R. Mileva (Univeristy of Stirling, Scotland), Alex Jones (University of Bangor, Wales) and Richard Russell (Gettysburg College, USA), showed that women who do not wear make-up are, generally, less attractive [7]. At the biologically level (i.e. the subconscious), women are judged regardless of whether you want them to be, as this is mate selection at play. The reasons for women wearing make-up and not encouraging men to do it, is because make-up was invented to make women look more fertile and or healthy. For example, from roughly 1500-1600 AD, “European women often attempt to lighten their skin using a variety of products, including white lead paint. Queen Elizabeth I of England was one well-known user of white lead, with which she created a look known as "the Mask of Youth”. There is not a reason for men to apply make-up in day-to-day life, hence the stigma against it. A poll, reported in The Telegraph, showed that “men prefer women with long wavy hair” [9]. When women cut their hair short, it is insanity to think that people will not think that there is something wrong with her. Take a look at the following photos and tell me which version looks better and which version is more likely to be considered a lesbian: Likewise, flamboyancy in boys is attributed to homosexuals because homosexuals are, on average, more flamboyant than heterosexual men. It would be like wearing a t-shirt that says “Abortion is murder” but also holding the opinion that abortion is acceptable. Sure, your shirt does not necessarily reflect your opinion, but you cannot blame people for assuming that you are against abortion when you give cues to say that you are. So, the point of addressing each of these points is to show how feminism, in fighting for equal gender rights, fails to recognise or understand the important context in which these gender differences are inspired by, hence the ridiculous conclusions that feminism comes to (women are wholly oppressed by white, straight men; there is absolutely no inherent difference between the genders). “Feminism isn't about hating men and I have to admit there are some people who use the word feminist wrong and think its about women being superior but it's not about that it's about that equality for all genders.” In practice, feminism advocates for unequal rights, as demonstrated with A1. References [1] http://www.medicalnewstoday.com... [2] http://books.google.com.au... [3] [4] http://dailycaller.com... [5] http://www.human.cornell.edu... [6] http://www.amnation.com... [7] http://www.ehbea2013.com... [8] http://cosmeticsinfo.org... [9] http://www.telegraph.co.uk...

Feminism is no longer beneficial to our modern society

Pro: "I would say it [the gender pay gap] doesn't matter anymore because in our society women don't have it much harder and the work they have to do to achieve a similar amount of materialistic success as men." Women earn ~80% of comparable men, maybe ~90% if you're generous. Thus, women have to work 25% or 11% harder in the United States to achieve results comparable to men, simply because they were born female. I do not see how that could possibly be considered fair. Pro: "The minor problem is that the information is rather updated and women gets a paid maternity leave for about a year." 1: My data is from 2010. 2: In many countries, such as the USA, there is no such maternity leave. Furthermore, how does a temporary leave for what amounts to a temporary medical condition resolve the pay gap? Unless women are on maternity leave for 20% of their time 3: In most countries that have a parental leave (to raise the kid), both men and women can use it. The only reason women "benefit" from such a leave is that women are forced into maternal roles. Pro: "The bigger problem is that it is a global data, not fitting with the rules of this debate." 1: My data talks *only* about the USA. Pro: "Boys are also often exposed to sexual harassment and the only reason men are not is because of natural physical advantage which men are slowly losing." 1: I agree. I cited a feminist group that helped redefine rape at the federal level, so that men can now get police assistance with their rapes, because the definition rape disincluded male rape [6]. Feminists just hate men, eh? Pro: "As of birth control and reproductive rights, again, if you read the rules of this debate properly, third world and developing countries are out of the picture and I don't see UK and US having birth control problems right?" 1: In the EU: "The availability of abortion varies across the European Region: almost all countries allow abortion to save a woman’s life and 90% to preserve mental or physical health; 88% of them allow abortion if the foetus is thought to be impaired, or in case of rape or incest. Nearly 80% allow abortion for economic and social reasons, and slightly fewer offer abortion on request. ... In Malta and Andorra abortion is illegal on any grounds. In Poland and Ireland, legal abortion is severely limited in availability" [8]. Yet: "Legal restrictions on abortion do not affect its incidence; women seek desperate measures if they cannot obtain safe abortions. Data from Romania revealed that, when termination of pregnancy was banned by the Ceausescu regime, maternal mortality was more than 20 times higher than today" [8]. 2: In the USA: Just look at the maps [9]. Pro: "You didn't define reproductive rights but I think you meant abortion which should totally be banned. Women should, just like men, be held responsible for their actions." 1: Banning abortion doesn't reduce abortions, and thus doesn't ensure that women be held responsible for their actions. 2: How does allowing abortion reduce responsibility? Pro: "Again, as of rape, we see a loophole, we can strengthen law enforcement but allowing abortion is like twisting the whole system to allow rape." 1: ??? Pro: "As of the second rebuttal, yes, you can say they are not true feminists, but you have to admit that they are indeed sparked by feminism. And feminism is what makes them look appropriate and proportionate to some people." 1: This is just argument by assertion. Where's the evidence that feminism causes these effects? Pro: "Quotes aren't that powerful, I just used a famous one to support my point because I was running out of time." 1: >Pro uses a quote to support case >Con uses 20 quotes to support case >Pro disregards Con's quote, but keeps Pro's quote 2: Prefer my quotes. There's a hella them. Pro: "Do you see any major feminist campaign that 1, doesn't call itself humanist/equalist and 2, provide equal service to both men and women?" 1: ??? Pro: "As of the racism thing, I have a similar view. At first it was great, Martin Luther King did a great job and achieved a lot. But today, if there are still people constantly stressing the fact that blacks don't receive equal treatment which, in some cases is true, I will be solemnly annoyed. The movement was good but if it is pushed any farther, it is a little too much." 1: Why? Blacks are vastly underemployed as a result of societal and historical discrimination, kind of like women. 2: Pro misses my point. Pro talks about feminist extremists; I talk about the average feminist. Just cause feminist extremists are crazy doesn't mean feminism is. Pro: "I apologise for the Japanese example which you seemingly have no experience in (no offense, very few do)." 1: Is fine. Pro: "However, I can prove that I am right. (I am not going to now. If you want me to, you can tell me to in the comments section, I really am not trying to search for excuses, I simply want to stay on topic). In fact, I will post it in the comments section right afterwards." 1: Uh, OK. Pro: "The program will be perfectly fine IF it is not sexist to create a similar program that is boys only. "Pro has yet to demonstrate that such programs are a result of feminism". Umm... They are not, sort of. The fact is, without feminism, there will be no programs like this. Again, I wonder if you read the definitions and rules of the debate. Just read the definition of feminism..." 1: Many programs are turning to equal treatment for both genders. Pro: "Yes, it is true that the commercial didn't paint it in positive light, but that argument can be used on a lot of things. Can you defend ABC by saying Jimmy Kimmel didn't put killing all Chinese people in positive light? The fact that if the person said sorry it's a girl will cause an outcry proves my point. And you can try to prove me wrong in the comments section." 1: Let's say I have a commercial, and in it a neo-Nazi says something in passing and the main character of the commercial gets creeped out. Do I need to apologize for the neo-Nazi? Pro: "Again, what you said is true but you should have read my definition of modern society which is not correct but we have to settle for for the sake of this debate." 1: Actually, killing feminism in developed nations is a sure way to kill it in nondeveloped nations, since much of the support for feminism in Africa and Asia comes from the West. 2: Women still aren't equal in the USA, EU, Japan, or South Korea; there's still impact in "modern society". Pro: "Yah, it wasn't very clear, but what I mean is that we need to be able to oppose feminism without sounding like trolls and keyboard warriors. Right now, this isn't entirely feminism's fault but it seems as if it is immoral to oppose feminism and anyone who is doing so is crazy and adsorb." 1: Thousands if not millions of people oppose feminism without repercussion. Look at the Republican Party. Pro: "In our modern society, again, referring to my definition, feminists are simply too close minded. It seems as though they will just dismiss anyone who disagrees with their ideology as trolls and I think that is part of the reason it developed men hate. Men are less "proficient" at being "brainwashed" by this ideology while women, generally, become immediately attached to the concept." 1: Sources for brainwashing and women-attraction? 2: Why are feminists any more close-minded than, MRAs? [8] euro.who.int/en/health-topics/Life-stages/sexual-and-reproductive-health/activities/abortion/facts-and-figures-about-abortion-in-the-european-region [9] fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/maps-of-access-to-abortion-by-state/

Modern Feminism is Not Needed in America

If Pro wanted to use the common method rather than after the argument he would have followed the guidelines set forth in the new member’s sticky “In addition, when typing your debate argument, there is a common way of citing sources on DDO. In your argument, when you have just typed an argument that references a source, you simply put a number in brackets [1] like so. [1] References the source listed below as #1. This is the same source citing technique Wikipedia uses. [2]” http://www.debate.org... By calling it out he implies that he doesn’t want to put the sources at the end of the round but rather at the end of the argument. It’s poor conduct that he is refuses to bracket the location where the source is used, thereby adding to confusion in his posts. So I will continue to follow the rules set forth at the beginning and link my sources after the arguments rather than at the end of the round. Mutual blame – Pro chose the topics of the debate then he chose my position on those topics. A position which I did not take, and he has NOT proven in any way that these are the prevailing views of feminism. This is a baseless unsubstituted claim that should be dismissed out of hand. Even if it was accepted the debate did NOT require me to take a stance of his choosing so that he has an easy time defeating that stance. On TOP of that in R1 I was already objecting to the Rape Culture, and Pro still used that strawman. Pro has been dishonest throughout this whole debate. Wage Gap “42 minutes less” and “21% less” compares all female jobs against all male jobs. Pro cannot support one as valid data and the other not. To say the 21% wage gap isn’t valid because it’s not specific to the job, but still hold that 42 minutes less a day is valid even though it’s not specific to the job is dishonest. The point being if you don’t believe every job should be paid the same you should believe that every job should work the same number of hours. When both use the same comparison to agree with the parts that support your point of view, while disagreeing with the parts that don’t is dishonest. Either the comparison is valid or it is not. Also, I want to add both of my sources consider several factors beyond job title. The go into background, experience, education, region, and a many more things that define merit. They do NOT simply compare the same job titles. Read either of the articles. Although both articles discuss uncontrolled data, they also discuss controlled data which takes these other factors into account to come up with the 5 – 8% wage gap. Equal Opportunity Pro did not dispute my statements about the opportunity of women to become a CEO. So, the point stands. A specific wage gap but rather the wage gap as a whole? There is only one valid wage gap in my opinion, and that is the wage gap that compares apples to apples. I do not feel that comparing all women’s pay to all men’s pay is a valid wage gap. I’m not sure why you continue with this strawman. I am not, nor have I ever argued that the 21% wage gap is valid. That is not the wage gap as a whole, because… it’s not valid. The 5 – 8% isn’t a specific wage gap… it’s the only valid wage gap. It’s the whole wage gap. Please STOP trying to create a position that you can easily defeat and try to force me to defend it. This is a strawman fallacy, and it is dishonest. If you really felt like the “wage gap as a whole” is 21% you would NOT be on my side of this argument, but you don’t, and you aren’t. Please stop. Rape 2.1/1000 does equal .0021 but that’s not .0021 percent, that’s .21% as I previously showed. As you seem to need a calculator here is a link to one proving you are wrong, and dishonest. https://percentagecalculator.net... Pro did not and has not disputed that women are rape unequally to men. This argument goes to Con. Female Representation Pro has agreed that females are not equally represented in media. (even the media he’s cherry picked) Equality does not exist in any of these forms of entertainment even when women consume more of that form of entertainment. In conclusion, I spent the majority of this debate trying to bring the debate from what Pro wants my position to be to what my position actually is. He has falsified numbers, he has uses sources that both of us agree are invalid, and cherry picked the data all in a dishonest attempt to prove his points. Feminism is defined as equality, so if any of the arguments prove that inequality exists, then Feminism is needed in America. I believe I’ve proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that inequality does exist, and if inequality exists then Feminism is needed.