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: Why I'm not a feminist/femen-ist

kseniamarskayasvinka:

So I’ve finally decided to post something really personal. Putting my opinion out here is kinda masochistic. hear me out.

TW: Some swearing

I’ve always been on the fence about gender equality/feminism/men’s rights, the whole schtick.

I always had an amazon complex. I thought women were more beautiful, more capable, smarter and even better biologically built than men were. Women are better caretakers, better at sports and better at everything in my mind and other women assured me of that. That is why I seem to realize with feminism, despite talk of “equality for all” and “we like men too”, there is still a superiority complex and inherent disgust, if not distrust, of men.

Reading modern feminist thoughts and the whole “misandry joke” thing I felt like a true feminist and it reassured my of my feelings of superiority. My disgust of men and glorification of women was completely right, that my paranoia of getting raped or groped walking down the street was perfectly natural. YEAH DOWN WITH MEN!

Often the hype around rape culture incites the thought that men are much more capable of rape and violence than genuine love and that women are simply wonderful vulnerable creatures waiting to be victimized. This is leading many a feminist to the conclusion that “men cannot be raped! (and/or raped by women)” or it’s just not worth considering what happens to men, if they get raped, they deserve it. Men are just so powerful-they are not capable of being raped, and even if they were, they’re so privileged-they can get over it!

However I liked feminism, I felt like there was no real equality and modern feminism at its core was about women’s issues- not equality. Take for instance, reproductive rights. Despite the fact that it takes both a man and a woman to produce a child (or..at least a sperm and an egg), and that child has equal parts of the two people’s DNA-it is the woman’s (and the woman’s ONLY) decision to keep the pregnancy, take full custody of the child if anything happens, and take care of the child-in the pro-choice/feminist view.

Men should not be allowed in the decision process, because as men- they don’t have feelings or form attachments to their own offspring(!) and even if they do, they don’t carry the child so in the end their feelings, their commitment, their love for their offspring doesn’t matter because as implied before, men are just not capable of loving the way a woman can. Their support is not needed and not wanted.

This makes pregnancy a sort of burden that only women are cursed to bear. Puzzlingly, other times pregnancy is used by feminists as the “power of women” to show how superior women are-we can create and nurture life inside of us-you men can only destroy it or abandon it. Motherhood is both rejected and embraced at the same time!

Another thing that bothered me is feminist censorship. The word “slut” is somehow reclaimed but the word “bitch” is evil. Why?? Bitch has become a sort of affectionate term for a powerful woman, and it was never really that bad in the first place, you could take pride in being a bitch. But slut, well it was never positive. Why censor a word women like to use and elevate another? And why the hate on rape jokes? It’s strange because the act itself is not funny. No one thinks actual rape itself is funny, no one wants to commit the act after hearing a joke about it. When we joke about something, we don’t reference the act itself, we reference a theoretical kind of situation or nothing at all. We laugh at something- mock it- because it’s nonsensical-not because it’s real and not because we like it.

And the kicker: I don’t believe in patriarchy. Not the system itself, just the mythical term that feminism has popularized. WHAT is it, exactly? Is it all men, collectively? Is it male leaders or men in power? Is it all fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers and so on? Is it men that have done bad things and the people that support them? I don’t know. As far as the feminist doctrine goes, I can only define it as the ominous male power that caused all inequality in the world. The literal/anthropological interpretation is a familial/tribal system wherein men make most of the decisions and take the responsibility, esp. in a family or in a state. I don’t view male power and fatherhood as negative things or conducive to oppressing women. I do believe in oppression, but it’s more complex than women being oppressed by men and men benefiting from it.

What do I mean by that? Though we vie for them, dream about a women-ruled world, women-leaders usually don’t become the wonderful compassionate people we expect them to be. India has had a few female prime ministers, each have been accused of pretty bad crimes. Margaret Thatcher is still rejected by many people for leaving them in poverty and pain. And the less we say about Sarah Palin the better. The point is, if you believe in true equality, it doesn’t matter if a woman is the leader or a man is. They have the same potential for both good and evil. Again an undercurrent of “women are better than men” is present.

Now to the femen part. Only sort of recently has femen really gained any popularity, it’s kind of been bubbling underneath European apathy. To be honest the same problem lies here as with other “victimhood” scenarios. The women protest topless, I assume using what they feel is their “sexual prowess”(traditional female attributes) to direct the public gaze at serious issues. This isn’t bad in itself, it is just completely ineffective and counterproductive.This assumes that the audience is too stupid and sex-crazed to pay attention to clothed women. The issues take the back stage to the loud “liberation” of the women and often presented in a backwards way. Take the recent “topless jihad”. It brought attention to the issue of “Islamism” or the harshness of the laws in some Islamic countries, but it obviously offended Muslim women because the logic used was “Islam is evil, women are not evil, therefore you are brainwashed into Islam and must be freed from your delusions”. Thus reducing Muslim women’s sense of agency and spiritual choices.

Let me step back into my personal experience-As a “spiritual” person I do not choose to believe anything, I just know. No matter how many times I deny it- I know, I feel, I experience. As feminist-atheists I understand your assertions that religion is evil, but no matter how loud you shout, how many crosses you saw in half, and what symbols you use as shock value- you do not reduce anyone’s “belief” in anything and you are just saying what we already know about countries with harsh laws.

Here again is the problem with modern feminism, the supporters don’t really care what YOU think, what YOUR morals actually are-they just want to you to know “fuck you”.”Fuck you, you’re evil” “Fuck your religion” “Fuck your traditions” “Fuck your values”. This doesn’t empower anyone but them and makes them feel like the best people ever for condemning whoever they want.

I don’t take issue with femen-ists exposing their breasts or gathering in protest. I agree that the stigma around female breasts is ridiculous and exhausting. However the message of peace is not spread with aggression. Standing in front of a mosque, burning a flag, or screaming at people who just want to pray in a mosque is not spreading peace and love and understanding. Love spreads love. Anger only makes your opposition stronger and makes you look the fool.

Why? There is something called audience receptivity, and when you immediately get loud and angry you alienate the audience, Not caring about alienating your audience misses the whole point of a protest or a movement- to get people on your side!

This is why the nonviolent civil rights movement was so successful and accomplished lasting change, it was inclusive and didn’t really get angry or fight anyone. Ghandi marched with whoever would join him, the early feminists sought the support of men. They didn’t try to blame anyone directly. THAT is what I feel we are missing from feminists today, the solution, not the blame.

(via fucknointernetignorance)

momomochi:

Omfg Heaven. Funny thing is, I could probably eat all that.

(via unelefantesebalanceaba)

pleasingbuttocks:

newturkdad:

guys PLEASE do not buy the xbox one

do not buy any video game console that is so anti consumer and one that shuts out small video game retailers

I actually went on the official site and I read the rules

this is actually accurate, very accurate

(via foreverforelsket)

misterwalrus:

apriki:

moses u little shit

I AM THE 11TH PLAGUE

(via gilderoy-lockhart-in-the-closet)

mirandaadria:

pigeonredd:

hobbitfeminism:

blowhan:

potatobeenz:

You get home from a long day at work and turn on the TV. It’s been a long week, so you think to yourself- maybe i’ll take the family to a movie on Saturday. Maybe we’ll even go on a vacation soon! We could visit museums and go to plays and see all sorts of fun attractions. 

When you turned the TV on, nothing happened. There are no actors to entertain you. 
When you went to the movie theater, nothing was showing. There were no advertisements to tell you that anything was showing, so you went to the theater to find out. Nothing playing. There is no one to film and create movies for you. Well at least your vacation will be fun, right? Not like there will be any plays to see and there won’t be anything in the art museums. 
Well at least you have the shack you are living in that you made out of cardboard and sheets.

Not like you could find an architect to build you a house with all the money you’re making as an engineer. 

bless

THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME

THERE WOULD BE NO ROAD SIGNS OR INFORMATIONAL BROCHURES

THERE WOULD BE NO GODDAMN KEYS ON YOUR FUCKING LAPTOP

I WOULD PUNCH YOU IN THE FUCKING FACE BUT WITHOUT GRAPHIC DESIGN HOW WOULD I LEARN TO DO THAT

lol I guess that community college that was completed fairly recently by my dad a county down built itself

thanks nbc

I just sent this tweet to NBC.

@NBCNews If these majors are so useless, then who designed the graphic used to announce this on your show?

I think they meant lowest job availability (which fits all five of those well) but it’s still terrible that they called them “useless.” In my opinion, actuary sciences (you know, like what the picture does) is more useless than architecture.

(via gilderoy-lockhart-in-the-closet)

did-you-kno:

Source

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fazstreetart:

Commentary.

In February, I posted two pieces in Bed-Stuy on Tompkins and Halsey. These two pieces got the most attention of any pieces I’ve put up so far. Within a few days, someone had written his response to the work directly onto the posters. From there, a woman wrote a response to him. And it went on and, on with different hand-written comments creating this kind of interesting discussion. The pieces remained up until a week or so ago, when the phallic image was drawn. That’s when I decided to try to take them down. 

The “Stop Telling Women to Smile” piece remained in tact enough for me to include it in the exhibition. I thought it was important to present in the show, so that people could view these written reactions. 

I love when assertive women scare men to such an extent that they have to resort to infantile shit like this.

They think it will shut women up, but it really just fuels everything further, I hope they know that. 

The “devolution” of the poster is more interesting to me than the originals, which I’ve reblogged before.

The fact that a man decided to comment on the poster physically, and was the first to do so, says a lot. Whenever women defend ourselves we get these counter arguments. We get people in general, and not just men, trying to cut down our personal initiatives. And when women, like on the poster, attempt to hold a real discussion we get the brunt of the “dick solution” where we are told that we hate men, we haven’t had a “dick that was good” or we get a penis drawn on the poster meant to make a social commentary about our “place.”

I’ve reblogged the individual posters before because I understand them as a victim of the suggestions. But I’m reblogging them now to show the attempt to keep women in their societal place in our culture.

An excellent example of men not getting the point about street harassment.

“You find our unwanted projections of our opinions of you to be bothersome? Well … well … well … DICKS, THAT’S WHAT! DICKS!!!”

Serious grade-schooler shit here.  Grow the fuck up.

To me, the posters were ill-received not because it was about feminism, but because they came across as really negative and aggressive. First, the two women that were put on the poster look angry. Next, the posters imply that talking to a woman or simply smiling at them is some kind of personal attack. They take something light and trivial as something way too seriously, like some of the people at fast food restaurants that look like they want to murder you of you so much as smile at them. The guy who first responded was doing what any human with common sense would do when they feel like they’re being judged: he’s justifying. All the stuff after is just people goofing around, and probably shouldn’t be read into anymore than that.

But nobody said anything about it being a personal attack if men smile. No one mentioned men smiling. The poster says “stop telling women to smile.” Women get sick of being told this by random strangers. Nobody owes anyone a smile. The point is, women get unwanted commentary by complete fucking strangers, and while those strangers feel like they’re just being nice and mean well, since they don’t experience it all the time themselves, they don’t understand why women get so irritated. It’s because when you’re told day in and day out to smile by some dumbfuck who neither knows you nor what ‘s on your mind at any given moment, it makes you want to shriek at them to shut the fuck up and mind their own business.

OK, I misunderstood a bit. However, I sitll don’t understand the “Stop Telling Women to Smile” thing. I’ve never heard about anyone telling a woman to smile unless they’re a photographer. Is it something that people say often?

It is. And it’s one of those things that seems harmless, but when you hear it day in and day out as commentary by total strangers, it gets on your nerves.

Like, “You’d be even prettier if you smiled,” (an example that actually happened to me) sounds like a compliment, but given I was minding my own business trying to collect my textbooks for the semester, it was super hot out, and I was waiting in a long line…it was a guy I’d never met who was checking over my school ID. Totally unwarranted commentary. Ok, cool, if you think I’m pretty, fine. But I don’t have to smile if I don’t want to.

It’s more that it’s usually coming from strangers, I think. So, to me, it’s kind of in the same line as, “hey, baby, lookin’ good,” which is more forward and inappropriate, but at the same time, it’s still like…someone demanding something of you?

OK, that makes sense. That does sound pretty frustrating. It’s an unfortunate fact that the society and the history of society that we live in supports strangers commentating on others in inappropriate situations. It also implies in that situation that the only reason they would talk to a woman would just be so he can woo her. It’s unfortunate that some men do so. Thank you for clearing this up for me!

(via jiffy-lannistray)

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