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What exactly is feminism and why do some oppose it?

Cooky

Veteran Member
I was just thinking about how some people feel justified in criticizing men like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and a segment of other similar type men, but some people don't feel justified in criticizing guys like Justin Treadou, Barack Obama and a lot of other intellectual men and I was curious what the root of this is, and I thought something profound...

Guys like Trump and Putin seem to be the opposite of feminists.

...So is it actually true, that Trump, being viewed as the opposite of a feminist, is ultimately his greatest weakness as a Western politician..?

Please remember that this is a nondebate forum.
 
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Lyndon

"Peace is the answer" quote: GOD, 2014
Premium Member
So you're worried about being exposed as.......yourself????
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
There is no one exact type of feminism and no one exact goal within feminism and those who oppose feminism are as varied as humans are in general.
Now I am not going to debate that, I am just going to state that this is how it is, if you study it and don't ask closed questions, but open ones.
 

Cooky

Veteran Member
So you're worried about being exposed as.......yourself????

I'm not the same person I was 10 years ago, and 10 years from now, I'll be different from this.

...Keeping tabs on people is a form of suppression, IMO, and I believe in privacy rights for convicted criminals too, so they can flourish after rehabilitation. I'm all about *growth*. I am an advocate of mercy.
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
I was just thinking about how some people feel justified in criticizing men like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and a segment of other similar type men, but some people don't feel justified in criticizing guys like Justin Treadou, Barack Obama and a lot of other intellectual men and I was curious what the root of this is, and I thought something profound...

Guys like Trump and Putin seem to be the opposite of feminists.

...So is it actually true, that Trump, being viewed as the opposite of a feminist, is ultimately his greatest weakness as a Western politician..?

Please remember that this is a nondebate forum.
There are always some people who will never criticise one of their own. We call them partisan or tribal. They will also always find something to criticise in people of the other tribe/party.

There may be some people for whom feminism is important and who will criticise toxic masculinity.

But the vast majority think of feminism as just one of many things to criticise in Putin or Trump. Given their track record, their toxic masculinity is just a footnote under their mass of other failures.
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Can you cite one time where trump has shown equality to women? I see his ploy is to talk them down, dismiss them out of hand or grope them.

Putin has been known to utter the odd sexist remark or few and runs his government on fairly misogynous lines

I have no criticism of Obama or Treadou on their stance towards women because they have been unbiased and equal to both sexes
 

Daemon Sophic

Avatar in flux
.....

...So is it actually true, that Trump, being viewed as the opposite of a feminist, is ultimately his greatest weakness as a Western politician..?
Perhaps not the “greatest” failing of Teump, but among the many.

That said, a failure in understanding and assistance with feminism is part of a mindset, completely devoid of empathy and understanding, along with a strong and intentional unwillingness to 1. Learn, and/or 2. help, with this, as well as with a myriad of other problems facing our nation, which make the current POTUS completely unfit to be in office as any form of ‘leader’.
 

Cooky

Veteran Member
Can you cite one time where trump has shown equality to women? I see his ploy is to talk them down, dismiss them out of hand or grope them.

Putin has been known to utter the odd sexist remark or few and runs his government on fairly misogynous lines

I have no criticism of Obama or Treadou on their stance towards women because they have been unbiased and equal to both sexes

I agree. I tend to respect people more who aren't extra-masculine, in fact, I've learned quite a bit about life from my wife over the years.
 

Father Heathen

Veteran Member
Feminism is the pursuit of equality and empowerment for women. Of course some feminists are vindictive, kooky misandrists. For example, some oppose paternity test because it "takes power away from women" and some oppose SpaceX because they "spread patriarchy onto space."
 

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
I was just thinking about how some people feel justified in criticizing men like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and a segment of other similar type men, but some people don't feel justified in criticizing guys like Justin Treadou, Barack Obama and a lot of other intellectual men and I was curious what the root of this is, and I thought something profound...

Guys like Trump and Putin seem to be the opposite of feminists.

...So is it actually true, that Trump, being viewed as the opposite of a feminist, is ultimately his greatest weakness as a Western politician..?

Please remember that this is a nondebate forum.

I look at feminism in different ways, depending on what aspect one might be addressing at any given time. For example, feminism might be brought up in terms of legal principles about human rights and equality before the law - anti-discrimination laws, government mandates about equality, etc. All citizens have equal rights.

But then there's aspects of feminism which might be brought up outside of the legal/political/business realm, and more in the realm of social values and private attitudes. Issues such as how to divide up the housework between husbands and wives. Ordinarily, such things would be private matters between individual couples, but people still are inclined to talk about it just the same. Or there might be questions about whether it's okay for a woman to be a stay at home mom, or if they should pursue a career. It's not a question of any actual "law" which requires either, but it's more a matter of personal and societal attitudes.

Some feminism also appears to be directed at men, at least in terms of instructions and guidelines of how we're supposed to conduct ourselves around women. For one, we're not supposed to catcall or anything like that. There may not be any actual law against it (and I'm not sure how it could be enacted anyway), but it's just a general call for men to exercise good manners and etiquette, which seems fair enough on its face. I agree that men should act like civilized gentlemen and not like a bunch of cavemen.

But there are some feminists who are kind of vocal who might go beyond that, so they might get some negative attention - if they come off more like man-haters than egalitarians. Some of them do exist, but I honestly don't believe they represent the majority of feminists. On the other side of that, there are groups of men who seem to think that feminism is some kind of communist plot, and they oppose it on that basis.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
I was just thinking about how some people feel justified in criticizing men like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and a segment of other similar type men, but some people don't feel justified in criticizing guys like Justin Treadou, Barack Obama and a lot of other intellectual men and I was curious what the root of this is, and I thought something profound...

Guys like Trump and Putin seem to be the opposite of feminists.

...So is it actually true, that Trump, being viewed as the opposite of a feminist, is ultimately his greatest weakness as a Western politician..?

Please remember that this is a nondebate forum.
It's a non-trivial question. Feminism seems to have morphed somewhat since my days at college in the 1970s when I, as a man, used to say with some pride that I regarded myself as a feminist. Back then it simply meant someone who thought women should be treated equally with men in all areas of life, including work, home life, sport etc.

Now, it seems to be considered odd for a man to describe himself as a feminist. The term seems to have moved on and become more exclusive and perhaps rather more strident and extreme. I sometimes get the impression some modern feminists have been fitted with the latest grievance-seeking radar. But of course there does remain more to do, as the Harvey Fatberg episode etc. shows, so we still need feminists.

As an aside, back then, there were no women rowers! I even knew a guy who opposed women's rowing on the grounds they would get muscles in all the wrong places and would become "unfeminine". And then of course he complained they would need a changing room and toilets. You wouldn't believe how many things women were excluded from because of the supposedly insuperable difficulty of providing women's toilets! (I occasionally coached, and coxed, our club's first women's eight, in the early 80s.)

This, by the way, is an (unfeminine?) 2012 Olympic gold medal winner:
PRETTY_ATHLETIC_S13_RIVERSIDE_RUN_328-e1559552212824-800x800.jpg
 

ImmortalFlame

Woke gremlin
Feminism is a wide-ranging cultural theory and movement primarily concerned with examining gendered power structures and, specifically, with how those gendered power structures favour men and/or subjugate women, and how these power structures may be present and function in various systems, through history and in art and popular culture.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
I was just thinking about how some people feel justified in criticizing men like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and a segment of other similar type men, but some people don't feel justified in criticizing guys like Justin Treadou, Barack Obama and a lot of other intellectual men and I was curious what the root of this is, and I thought something profound...

Guys like Trump and Putin seem to be the opposite of feminists.

...So is it actually true, that Trump, being viewed as the opposite of a feminist, is ultimately his greatest weakness as a Western politician..?

Please remember that this is a nondebate forum.

Didn't prevent Trump from getting elected. We'll have to see what happens in Nov.

I suspect his greatest weakness will turn out to be his response to Covid-19.
 
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Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
A wrinkle here is that there are dozens of kinds of feminism.
One may oppose some, while favoring others.
Examples...
1) The brand which claims trans women aren't real women.
I can see most of us opposing that.
2) Libertarian feminism. I've read at least one feminist
opposing that because we approve of sex work.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Feminism is a wide-ranging cultural theory and movement primarily concerned with examining gendered power structures and, specifically, with how those gendered power structures favour men and/or subjugate women, and how these power structures may be present and function in various systems, through history and in art and popular culture.

Even that is not all. Some power structures favor some men and subjugate other men, because they don't live up to the narrative of a real man.
 
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