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1. 

   February 4, 2015 Log in to Reply

   TheSmokingPun

   Dear Karen,

   I am a feminist.

   The legal implications that you bring up, about alimony, men serving more time, parental rights, etc. Those are legal arguments, and should most definitely be fixed. This shouldn’t even be an issue on “men’s rights support this but feminism doesn’t” because if you’re a person who uses statistics to argue a claim about how they correlate from group A to group B then you should also logically deduce that the problems stems from a set of legal bias, an individual court case or plea bargain, and a specific judge. The problem here lies not in blaming this on any one gender, but rather working to fix the issue.
   There is nothing inherently “feminist” or “anti-feminist” about wanting to create sentencing equality that isn’t biased by income, status, race, gender, and skin color. That is simply something that should be achieved through common sense and education about the legal system.

   I’m sure it is no surprise to you that our country is in political gridlock, it’s filled with big money on both sides, and there is a great problem of over-incarceration, made up of mostly, men, and from there, mostly black and latino men. If this is such a problem to you, then I hope you can speak out and talk about another real problem that is causing this. Poverty, the government’s failed “War on Drugs”, and the private prison industry. From there, you could stem your argument over to the local levels of law enforcement, where they consistently use excessive force. This is a trend among not just men, however, in the police force, but women as well. However, at this point, I’d like to bring in another logical inconsistency with the police force. There are very few women in the police force.

   A logical fact is that there are still “male-dominated fields” where there are less women and where they are paid at a lesser rate than their counterparts. Logically, the solution is to pay women at the same rate, and likewise to hire on more women. However it happens doesn’t matter, the only thing that matters is that it does and the problem gets remedied. Do you know how that happens? Through legal action.

   Corporations are another thing. Both men and women are being taken advantage through absurdly low wages, wage theft, and both men and women are facing the same problem of trying to pay bills. The logical solution is to make corporations pay higher wages, once again, through the secret of legal action.

   To say that that both men and women both have an equal shot at living a comfortable, safe, crime-free life is somehow classified as something as simple as “feminist” or “anti-feminist” is a very polar argument. It shows that you have not thought about this as a bigger picture to create a functional society where it will be absolute that what you’re trying to achieve will actually hold up indefinitely, but rather only in a way that is “helping men be on an equal playing field” and it’s apparently so important that you classify yourself as “anti-feminist” so you can be heard, because your movement is based in emotion and not facts.

   Moving along to my second point. “Patriarchal privileged” is something that makes sense only when you look at gender roles, perceptions on gender, and the history of how sex organs came about. It is no secret that men were the bread-winners, that both men and women were put in arranged marriages, that women began having kids as soon as they started menstruating, and that men fought in war. Over time, weapons become more developed, men are still making up the most in the military, and women were staying home taking care of the kids. Because that’s what women did during times of war, if they weren’t being raped in it (and this applies on an international level).

   Another tid-bit of information I don’t think you know is the history of the discovery of anatomy, especially of the woman. Now, I am using source here (“An Introduction to Women’s Studies: Gender In a Transnational World.” (2006). Kaplan, C., Grewal, I. Second Edition.) (Grewal, Kaplan. “Section One: Sex and the body.” Oudshoorn, Nelly.) (forgive my citing if it’s not in proper MLA form), and quickly am about to paraphrase what they say. Keep in mind that I realize that this book could be considered biased: however, the facts that are in here are simply snapshots in history to string together a conclusion, but they are not representative of anything more than snapshots.

   In Greece, both male and female anatomy were being based off a “one-sex” model, “characterised by Thomas Laqueur” where the female body was called “male turned inside herself”. The Ovary was not “The Ovary” but rather “female testicle”. Similarities were being noted, because knowledge was limited at the time. Overtime, more and more knowledge about anatomy accumulated, and differences were beginning to be noticed. Like how men did not have a womb.

   We also have to take into account sexualization because just as men are seen in ads all over the world as perfect hunky dudes putting pressure on guys to “have a certain body type”, women are seen as objects for fashion and lust, and also experience pressure have a certain body type. However, let’s look at the history of the sexualization of women, briefly. The skeleton was the first sexualized attribute of the human body. “By the 1750s the first female skeletons appeared in medical textbooks,” where they concluded that women’s skulls were smaller because of an intellectual capacity less than men.”

   So while we were going over our previous legal standpoints, it makes sense that women stayed home, that women were given more money, because women were thought of as not able to take care of their selves. One more brief moment and I’ll move on, and I’ll speed this up, this is lengthy, “By the mid-19th century” [1800s] the essence of femininity went from being the uterus to the ovary, something once called the female testicle, from there that evolved to the sex hormones.

   Now, if men want to have equal parental rights and all the rights we’ve talked about already, then it should only be logical that the train of thought would be to lift women up to where they’re unequal and have a nice level of stability. However, when women have been culturally seen as something as simple as the essence of femininity and that their sole purpose was to have kids, then people need to realize that is not going to happen if women are not making as much money as their male counter part. If she does get a divorce, if you want that alimony to be lower, (excluding what was negotiated in the pre-nups), then you need to make sure that the system is fixed to where women and men are both making the same amount of the dollar, otherwise, that woman who was making less than the man is going to ask for a higher amount. The courts will probably award that to her because courts do fine tooth comb over necessities and determine fees and costs based on the facts.

   On a more interesting note, when a man or woman sues, and is awarded damages, there are two types, punitive and compensatory damages. Punitive are the damages that are meant to serve as a “don’t do this again” court order, where somebody has to pay money because they are in violation of some law, and then compensatory damages where said somebody must pay money to pay for the costs of whatever the remedy the plaintiff will have to take, be it medical bills or auto bills. However, there is something called “tort reform” that puts a cap on the damages, and this protects mostly large money, meaning instead of the 3.7 million they’re being made to pay, they’ll only have to pay 1.2 million, which if the plaintiff needs medical expenses covered, this will not do. This is a problem that affects men, and women. Yet again, it’s a legal problem. It affects those who cannot afford to pay bills, mostly, and therefore, more problems arise.

   With respect to your argument on men not having to pay child support if they do not want to, then certainly I hope you realize that in order to do this, birth control for females must be made accessible. Sex education must be a mandatory thing, to ensure that things like this don’t happen. so men and women can have sex and not have to worry about that problem in the long run. This is a complex issue, especially considering the U.S. Congress does not want to write laws to try and remedy this situation. The Republican G.O.P. is currently attempting to dismantle the ability for women to get birth control and safe access to abortions, and it is not a biased statement to say that the republican congress is made up of mostly males. In fact, most of congress is made up of males. This is not a coincidence. The men in power, while they might not represent all men, are representing males in a negative light.

   If somebody was trying to take away a man’s right to choose to not be circumcised, and I’ll be very honest, I am not up to speed on any one way or the other as I hadn’t considered that before, but you have made it clear that you stand for not circumcising right away, because it’s that individual man’s genitalia to decide what to do with it, you must be able to draw a parallel between what the situation is for women. A group of individuals trying to take away rights toward one’s body that may be a personal or medical choice, and that is not okay.

   It is only logical that an oppressed group (in this case, women), would harbor resentment and bias toward other people of the oppressing group (in this case, men), and unfortunately our government and most jobs are occupied by men, and to make matters worse, low wages and not making an equal amount on the dollar are contributing toward a bias of the oppressing group because they are the people who have the power to change the situation.

   Thus, a bias is born.

   With respect to feminists lobby and gaining the right to vote, in 1830 the Grimke sisters advocated for the abolition of slavery. The abolition of slavery and the advocacy for the right to vote for women go hand in hand. The women who were advocating for the abolition of slavery were the same women who advocated for the right to vote for women. Of course we know that slavery was abolished (theoretically, as there were still harsh laws against the now freed slaves), and women were eclipsed and had to wait almost another 100 years to get the right to vote. And to put it in perspective, it hasn’t even been 100 years since women got the right to vote. And then, of course, it hasn’t even been 100 years since segregation ended.

   Feminist was a new term to describe gaining equal rights as men. At the time, there were different cultural norms, so what seems like it was “inequality” could actually be phrased as lack of education and not as many laws. So a feminist was not a bad thing to do. Violence was of course used, because think about it, cultural norms were different, and a lack of law enforcement and expert technology made the use of violence more attainable, and it made sense to get the attention of people.

   So, what seems like it was violence could simply be put as something that was done to gain the attention of the media and other women. Social media did not exist, and snail mail was the only way of communication, and then eventually telegraphs. So what happened then and what is happening now are on two completely different levels of cultural disobedience. Unfortunately, whining online does nothing, but protesting does. What do people not do a lot of in the U.S.? Vote and protest.

   In conclusion, Karen, your view of the problems of today are resting on a buzzword that is “anti-feminist” because you emphasize with the problems of men. That is not a bad thing. However, when you begin to try and fight for a cause that is getting equal rights for one group while shaming a gender group that you belong to is doing a disservice to logical thinking and equality for all. You need to properly examine the history of both sexes, in detail, down to the bone, and think critically about the cultural, economical, sociopolitical, and familiar roles of different genders. The problems you highlight are not simply something that can be summed up as “feminist” versus “anti-feminist” and if you think in absolutes you are not going to come to a logical and confident conclusion.

   It is important to always consider every aspect of what was going on in tandem with each other to draw a conclusion, otherwise your logic will be slightly biased or flawed, and calling yourself out as something as negative as “anti-feminist” does no good to fight for a cause you believe in, especially when your logic does not add up.

   Finally, I am a feminist because I represent the idea that is giving equal rights to men and women, regardless of any particular race, education level, level of status or money, is important to creating an equal world where you can stop feeling afraid to admit to something that has a negative connotation attached to it at a particular time and just admit that you’re for equal rights and that’s not something to be ashamed of.

   Thanks for reading,

   TheSmokingPun