Feminism, Sexism and Other Misunderstood Things

[Sara NoH]

I am a feminist.
I am heterosexual.
I occasionally wear dresses.
I usually shave my legs and underarms, unless I'm in a hurry.
I believe in equality for all.
I believe every person has basic rights.
I don't believe a fetus is a person. I believe it's a potential person which should be more valued than say, a dog; but less valued than an existing person.
I don't believe anyone is superior to anyone else.
I don't believe all____ are inherently_____. People are different, there are usually exceptions.

At it's core, I think feminism is about equality. It's not about superiority, it's not about man-hating. What do you think feminism is about? What do you think makes a feminist? Why are you or aren't you a feminist?

[adam c smith]

So if a state had 74% of businesses owned by women you'd say men were being discriminated against, right?

[Charlotte Gislam]

A year late but hell gonna dive in here

There is something in the system called 'the glass roof'. Now the comment below dicusses the mother staying at home and the father going out to work. Although now this can be applied to life it can be switched so that the father stays at home. There rights have been equalled. It is when women go into the work place were inequalities happen. The 'glass roof' which i mentioned earlier is a metaphorical barrier women face when trying to get a top job. If you see how many women are in top jobs in top companys you'll see there an inequality exists.

Also even now in 2010 there are findings which show in many top companies women get paid less than men for the same jobs

thankfully this is not accepted and when this inequality of pay is brought out there is an uproar and things change. However there will always be cases where this happens sadly.

In answer there is nothing directly in governmental legislation but as in many cases companys flout laws because they can get away with it.

You cant argue however that it hasnt improved because it vastly has

XD

[Nicole Wilwerding]

Um. You can totally argue that it hasn't VASTLY improved. It has improved. A bit. But not VASTLY.

Women still get 75 cents for every dollar a man makes. Women's magazines still tell women what they need to improve on in order to make a man happy (dirty happy and just generally happy). There's still a stigma against pursuing a career--career women are single, or bound for divorce, and lead sexually frustrated lives. The difference is women have also acknowledged that being a housewife doesn't necessarily provide the ultimate fulfillment they are seeking in life, so now amongst women there's also a stigma against being a stay at hone mom. We can't have both without making sacrifices men don't have to make at home or at work, but if we have either or than we're missing out on even more.

Read The Feminine Mystique. The inequality is still all around us. 

[Mike T. Hunt]

They deserve 20 cents for every thousand dollar a man makes because we actually do all of our work instead of spending our boy friends money you glold digga! I bet u read those magazines while you make sandwhiches in the kitchen where you belong!

[Michael Lee]

i dont think its so much the rights, but the enforcement of those rights.

[Anne Savage]

It's stereotyping, not actual government rights.

[Sophia Gerstle]

Well, the right to full control of your own body.

Abortion is legal in most states, but constantly under attack, so...

[Aluzky Irezumi]

"Would you mind telling me all the rights that men have that women don't?"

"Ayan said: there are lower expectation for women in schools than for men, especially in the maths and sciences."

Actually man are better at math than girls, is a genetic thing so is not our problem woman are not equal to man on math. Still I'm not saying girls should be discriminated just because they may be worse at some jobs that requires math.

Woman are also better than men on other things, again thanks to genes.

[Mady]

"man are better at math than girls, is a genetic thing so is not our problem woman are not equal to man on math."

Please, find me the study that proves this. I know plenty of women who are better at math than men, and vice versa. People are all different. As far as women being better than men at other things, what other things? all I can think of is:
-menstruating
-getting pregnant
-carrying and giving birth to a child
-breastfeeding
...most things concerning lady parts. Because except for some hermaphrodites and sex change patients, men don't have lady parts.

[Übereil]

Actually, they've proved that women are just as good as men at math. However, when the teacher claims a test is difficult women all of a sudden start to preform much worse. So the problem here isn't that women are worse at math, the problem is that there's a prejudice (in most pepole) that women are. So women are treated in a "you won't be able to do this" manner (by everyone, including themselves) and therefore won't bother to try.

[adam c smith]

The other poster is actually correct. There are studies that point out we (both sexes) use different parts of our brains better than the other gender. I think creativity is one area in which women excel. Studies have shown Asians do better overall in school than any other race, so why would it be hard to believe one gender is better suited in certain areas than the other?

[Übereil]

The other poster is actually correct.

All I could see was a claim that men are better than women on math, a claim that is just false (source).

There are studies that point out we (both sexes) use different parts of our brains better than the other gender.

That's interesting, but unless there's also studies to show that this ensures that men and women functions better or worse in certain situations these studies doesn't mean anything in the big picture. As far as I know no such thing has been showed yet.

To that study after study shows that the difference within the genders is greater than the difference between them. Being a woman doesn't guarantee that you'll be weaker than all men, or even the majority of men. Therefore it's very difficult to draw conclusions on what individual women is suited for compared to men. There are plenty of jobs that we thought men/women couldn't do that it turned out men/women were just as suited as women/men to do and that it was just culture that made us think they were somehow worse. How do we know that culture isn't the answer to all preceived differences between the genders? And how do we know which differences are based on genes and which are based on culture?