Feminism and the Disposable Male
Okay, I agree with a lot of things in here, but the generalizing needs to stop right there.
”we fully expect that, if it comes down to a man and a woman in a burning building and you can only save one, the expectation is that you choose the woman every single time”.
No. No, ‘we’ don’t. Who is ‘we’? society? Because last time I checked society was made up of a pretty massive bunch of people, and I’m going to guess that quite a lot of people (myself included) would not feel the need to differentiate between gender when saving a person from a burning building. Because that’s what we are. People. Humans. You might assume it’s the right and proper thing to do to save the woman, and you might assume that the whole of society (‘we’) assume that it’s the right and proper thing to do.Courtesy of a recent post by flossbucket:
”So upon much thinking and many tumblr posts read and thought about, I have worked out why I am hesitant to call myself a feminist.It’s the name. It implies that I am fighting for my rights, because I’m a woman. And that I’m fighting for other people’s rights, because they are women.
And that’s not true. I want to be treated with equality and fairness because I am a human being. Because I am a person.
If you want to judge me, for better or for worse, judge me on my actions, not how I was born.
(I agree with most of what most feminists stand for, but the name has never fit, and this is the reason)”
This is what I’m talking about. The ‘feminists’ you are talking about aren’t really feminists at all. We are not pushing for more attention than men because it’s just not what feminism is about. And the name spoils that. Go back to feminism’s roots and you will find that it all started with wanting equal pay. Equal rights. Equality.
“one life, more valuable than another, and the woman wins every time.”
No. Don’t you see? This is what we are trying to change. We don’t want females to be seen as better than males, or less than males. Can’t we all just be human? I’d like to know what the hell you’d do if you had to save either a transgender person or an intersex person or what.
We are HUMANS.
Pure, living, dying animals. And sure, you might be attracted to just men or just women or both or neither but in the end we’re all just humans and that is what the feminist movement inspired. Equality for females because damn, being oppressed wouldn’t be very fun at all. It was women saying NO to oppression.
So they decided to call themselves ‘feminists’ because why wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t you, in times like those, want to stick together under one banner and one name, because you felt threatened before and you were not going to put up with that shit any longer.” You know, the patriarchy smashers, those righteous avengers of equality”
You speak about fighting for equality like it’s a bad thing.” Feminism’s greatest victories have only reinforced in everyone that society still owes women provision, protection, help and support just because they’re women.”
When? Where? Originally it was for equality. I proudly call myself a feminist and I don’t want help and support just because I’m a woman. If I need help and support I want it because I’m a human in need. I don’t expect men to open doors for me, I don’t expect to be paid for when I go out places because I’m female. About the only thing I expect when being female is that I am going to fucking bleed once a month.
”In its collective dismissal and abandonment of male victims of domestic violence it only reinforces in men that it’s pointless for them to ask for help because men’s needs are of no relevance, and their fear and pain don’t mean anything to anyone. “
I’m sorry, but no. When did this happen? When did every single feminist across the entire planet ‘dismiss and abandon male victims of domestic violence?’ Because I sure didn’t.Now I’m going to go to these two:
“You know, the patriarchy smashers”
”We made our way as humans through a really harsh history and we became the dominant force on this planet, and one of the reasons we were so successful is because we have consistently put women’s basic needs first – their need for safety, support and provision. “
To put patriarchy simply: it valued people, because of gender, over others. That is ultimately what patriarchy is. But I understand, because that is how things were done and it wasn’t thought of twice.
But there is this thing. And it’s called evolution.
We have made our way as humans through a really harsh history. But the bashing of feminism needs to stop because the entire idea behind feminism is equality.In relation to Flossy’s earlier quoted text: We need a new name. Because obviously a lot of people can’t see past the ‘fem’ in feminism, and look deeper into what it all stands for. Women calling themselves feminists and believing themselves to be better than men, or whoever, because they are female do not deserve to call themselves feminists. Because being a feminist means fighting for equality.
The human race will continue to learn, grow, evolve. Why bash feminism when it stands for equality? I think yes, we need a new name for it, but its values are okay with me because I am completely fine with gender equality.
We need equality for humans, everywhere. Regardless of gender or race of financial background or religion. There is no point in bashing another human’s beliefs if all they are pushing for is equality for all humans. “Feminism” may not be an appropriate name anymore, because the human race continues to evolve. But I still believe in its main and original goal.
And that is equality for all humans, everywhere.One: Yes.
Two: Thank you for quoting me :)
Three: A few side notes on all of this, related and unrelated to the original post.
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Saying what ‘society’ thinks is always dangerous, because no-one is ever going to think the same thing. But then again, there is peer pressure, and a lot of unjustified opinions and incorrect facts are spread quickly among people without the resources, time, or interest to educate themselves, which is a shame.
It would be interesting to do a survey on it, of random members of the public, but the ‘would you save a man or a woman from a burning building question’ is one I’d like to see statistical results for. Because while equality as an idea is becoming more and more prominent, there are still lots of people who one, have little opinion on the topic, and two, would say the woman, because that’s what they think society would expect. And I would be very interested to see where the statistics lie on a question like this
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On feminism as a word (again!): The people who are doing it properly - as in, raising awareness of gender issues and inequality, and working to try and fix that - know perfectly well that the concept of feminism has changed since it began. Instead of men having the power and women having little and needing to change that, we are at the point where there is still an imbalance, but it negatively affects both men and women, sometimes for different reasons and sometimes for the same.
But there are also the people who don’t quite get that the focus has changed, and they are also calling themselves feminists. This is also the group that a lot of people think of when they hear the word ‘feminist’. The problem arises when there are two groups under the same name who are actually focusing on achieving different thing, no matter how subtle, and that’s is confusing, and makes it difficult for progress to be made.
And because of this, I think something like gender egalitarianism is a much better term, because the focus isn’t on women, it’s on equality no matter what the gender.
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I think that’s all I have left to say, as Unicorn did a very good job at it, so I’m just going to end with her final words again, because they were so accurate:
We need equality for humans, everywhere. Regardless of gender or race or financial background or sexuality or religion. There is no point in bashing another human’s beliefs if all they are pushing for is equality for all humans. “Feminism” may not be an appropriate name anymore, because the human race continues to evolve. But I still believe in its main and original goal.
And that is equality for all humans, everywhere.
We think we’re protecting our kids by treating all men as potential predators. But that’s not a society that’s safe. Just sick. →
Last week, the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, Timothy Murray, noticed smoke coming out of a minivan in his hometown of Worcester. He raced over and pulled out two small children, moments before the van’s tire exploded into flames. At which point, according to the AP account, the kids’ grandmother, who had been driving, nearly punched our hero in the face.
Why?
Mr. Murray said she told him she thought he might be a kidnapper.
And so it goes these days, when almost any man who has anything to do with a child can find himself suspected of being a creep. I call it “Worst-First” thinking: Gripped by pedophile panic, we jump to the very worst, even least likely, conclusion first. Then we congratulate ourselves for being so vigilant.
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Given the level of distrust, is it any wonder that, as the London Telegraph reported last month, the British Musicians’ Union warned its members they are no longer to touch a child’s fingers, even to position them correctly on the keys? Or that a public pool in Sydney, Australia last fall prohibited boys from changing in the same locker room as the men?
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This queasy climate is making men think twice about things they used to do unselfconsciously. A friend of mine, Eric Kozak, was working for a while as a courier. Driving around an unfamiliar neighborhood, he says, “I got lost. I saw a couple kids by the side of the road and rolled down my window to ask, ‘Where is such-and-such road?’ They ran off screaming.”
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We think we’re protecting our kids by treating all men as potential predators. But that’s not a society that’s safe. Just sick.
Feminism and the Disposable Male
Even today in 2011, we fully expect that, if it comes down to a man and a woman in a burning building and you can only save one, the expectation is that you choose the woman every single time. So honestly: whose humanity are we placing above whose here? We’re not talking about going to work, we’re not talking about getting an education, we’re not talking about having the freedom to decide what you want to be in life. And we’re not talking about getting to take taekwondo. We’re talking seats in lifeboats here. The person in the lifeboat is going to survive no matter how capable or incapable they are of managing their own life, and the person going down with the ship is going to die no matter how independent, self-sufficient and awesome he is. That’s the equation: one life, more valuable than another, and the woman wins every time. So honestly, is there any argument, anywhere, that women’s humanity has always been held in higher regard by society than men’s. To be important to society, a woman merely has to be. A man has to do in order for his life to have any meaning to anyone other than himself.
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And that brings me to feminism. You know, the patriarchy smashers, those righteous avengers of equality, dogged dismantlers of every single gender role. What exactly feminism is doing to dismantle this traditional role of the disposable male? Feminism’s greatest victories have only reinforced in everyone that society still owes women provision, protection, help and support just because they’re women. In its collective dismissal and abandonment of male victims of domestic violence it only reinforces in men that it’s pointless for them to ask for help because men’s needs are of no relevance, and their fear and pain don’t mean anything to anyone. Feminism teaches us to put women’s needs at the forefront of every single issue, political or social – whether that issue is domestic violence law, sexual assault law, institutional sexism, social safety net, education funding, homeless shelters, government funding for shovel-ready jobs that didn’t stay shovel-ready once feminists got wind of them. Everywhere you look – everywhere you look there are feminists pushing their way to the front of the line, demanding women’s “fair share” of all of the goodies, the good stuff, the loot, the booty, the cookies. Even if women don’t need it, even if women don’t deserve it, and even if somebody else needs it and deserves it more. And they get it. Because we give it to them.
Feminism has done nothing but exploit this dynamic of the expectation of men to put everybody else before themselves, especially women. Women’s safety and support, women’s wellbeing and women’s emotional needs always come first.
This is the most stunning piece of society-wide manipulative psychology I think I have ever come across. Feminism has been on the down-low with old school chivalry right from the start and they might seem like strange bedfellows for sure, but they’re not because both concepts are built on a firm foundation of female self-interest. We made our way as humans through a really harsh history and we became the dominant force on this planet, and one of the reasons we were so successful is because we have consistently put women’s basic needs first – their need for safety, support and provision. It was in humanity’s best interest for women to be essentially self-interested and for men to be essentially self-sacrificing, but we don’t need that dynamic anymore. I mean, our species is in no danger of extinction. We’re 7 billion people clogging up the works here! What’s the worst that could happen if we all just collectively decided that men were no more disposable than women and women were no more valuable than men? In fact, the greatest danger I see to us right now is that in our desperation to bend over and give women everything they want and everything that they say they need, we’ve unbalanced society to the point where we’re just in danger of seriously toppling over.
And really, the only difference I see between the traditional role and the new one for men, with respect to disposability, is that maleness, manhood, it used to be celebrated, it used to be admired, and it used to be rewarded because it was really fucking necessary, and because the personal cost to it to individual men was so incredibly high. But now? Now we still expect men to put women first and we still expect society to put women first and we still expect men to not complain about coming in dead last every damn time. But men don’t even get our admiration anymore. All they get in return is to hear about what assholes they are. Is it any wonder they’re starting to get pissed off?
