I don't support feminist movements

[PureX]

I honestly wish my #MeToo story could go anywhere without bringing toxicity back into my life. I've already separated myself from that person's life in every way though. I just hope that person isn't still hurting others like they hurt me, but there's a high likelihood that they still are. I guess I still talk openly about it. I just don't want to be anywhere, even in a courtroom, with them.

But I think the point is to try and create an environment were women feel empowered to speak out, and to act our against this kind of abuse when it happens. So your speaking out and subsequent action helps create that environment for them. And also all the other women who speak out and take action. I really thing this is what #MeToo is all about. Forcing the whole of society to not only recognize the problem, but to recognize the solutions, too. And those solutions do require that women speak out, and take action. And the more they do so, the easier it will be for other women to do so in the future. Even if men learn nothing, and continue to behave badly, at least the women will learn how to respond, effectively.

 

[Friend of Mara]

What are TERFs again? I think MeToo has probably done much more important good than harm and has maybe made a few more predators a little more afraid about what could happen to them if they do certain things. It might have also increased predators killing off their victims so that they can't talk, seeing as all the trouble people have gotten into when they talk.

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists. Transphobes that try to mask their transphobia with a virtue signaling non-issues with regard to women's safety. They call themselves feminist for sure but the vast majority of feminist are also pro-trans rights. Just like with Nazi's claiming trying to brand itself with Norse Mythology.

#MeToo hasn't really done anything to stop out and out rape on the street. More it has done things to curb the normalized harassments of people at work. Also it has done great work to help remove the stigma of being a victim of sexual assault where the abuser is known. Also a point of note, while #MeToo is very much a feminist talking point it also applies equally to men. One of the biggest wins for the #MeToo movement was Terry Crews coming out about the abuse he suffered by powerful men in control of his career. The only difference is that on average women receive more harassments than men. Though another counterpoint is that men are FAR less likely to talk about the abuse since the stigma is arguably much worse against male victims of sexual assault. This is a place where we need to take further ground and improve.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

I'm late to the party and most everything I would say has been said here but I'll repeat that no movement is a monolith. There is not one type of feminism or one type of unified feminist belief. Feminists in my circle reject TERFs, reject the idea that women can't behave in ways that conform to gender stereotyping *so long as it's their choice to do so and they have the option of doing otherwise,* and use #MeToo to remove shame from speaking up publicly about sexual assault in a world that disbelieved sexual assault was a common occurrence.

In my circles I'm a little unique because I separate 'feminine and masculine' from 'male and female' more than they do and think it's healthier for everyone to have both femininity and masculinity. That dividing these two concepts as mutually exclusive leads to imbalance. Thereby making my 'feminism' being about removing shame or derision for both men and women.

 

[DagonVarunaMitraApolloZan]

Also, this is a video about that therapy I mentioned but hadn't named:

For people with BPD, who often have lots of stories about how they are abused or persecuted (possibly true), since Saint Frankenstein mentioned that Hardwick's ex ruined his career and reputation by some things she said online, but she might also have BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder).

If they are doing this therapy, I'd also love to know what the inside experience of it is like, what they do and say, effective exercises.

So the problem with all this, is that its 100% awesome that crime is getting exposed and criminals being caught, stopped, defeated, but there may be collateral where people wrongfully accuse or use accusations to destroy or harm people they want to get vengeance on or harass them by sullying their reputation due to personal grievances which don't deserve that their livelihoods or reputations or lives are terrorized and ruined or they become totally stigmatized for things they haven't done or said.

It sort of happened to me on Discord when these lunatics started sending around a memo that I eventually discovered which claimed the most absurd things, such as that I shoot fireballs from my hand or claimed to, lol, with no proof I ever said such a thing (and what the heck does that even mean?), but something as totally stupid as that got me harassed and bullied and kicked as I entered from giant networks of hundreds of Discords until I changed my name and pretended to be a girl or something. It appeared that my image of Will Ferrel from Zoolander 2 as Mugatu was deeply offensive to most of the sick people on Discord, and that they would interpret everything I typed calmly as Mugatu yelling at them or something, making me a target for immediate and random seeming insults and attacks as soon as I entered a place and even before speaking.

That is just a dumb example with an internet simulated situation of how in real life, these kind of memos and warnings can be sent out in communities and make life a living hell for people, for the longest time I had no idea what the heck was happening until I was shown by an administrator of a place this crazy memo which had been sent to hundreds, maybe thousands of Discords and with totally made up and absurd claims had me bullied and harassed everywhere I went for months and months until I basically had to delete my account and completely hide or conceal my identity because it was shot, utterly ruined. Chris Hardwick can't as easily just become James Softstick though.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Tell me what it is like. I know you have BPD, I was able to see that (so I must know a little of what I am talking about, especially because I studied it so much and its a topic of huge interest to me), if you could share with me the inside experience of it and what it is and a better way of describing it and the behaviors and actions, I would be extremely interested in hearing about it.

Maybe in another thread. This is off-topic. I wasn't trying to make this about me or mental illness.

 

[DagonVarunaMitraApolloZan]

I'm late to the party and most everything I would say has been said here but I'll repeat that no movement is a monolith. There is not one type of feminism or one type of unified feminist belief. Feminists in my circle reject TERFs, reject the idea that women can't behave in ways that conform to gender stereotyping *so long as it's their choice to do so and they have the option of doing otherwise,* and use #MeToo to remove shame from speaking up publicly about sexual assault in a world that disbelieved sexual assault was a common occurrence.

In my circles I'm a little unique because I separate 'feminine and masculine' from 'male and female' more than they do and think it's healthier for everyone to have both femininity and masculinity. That dividing these two concepts as mutually exclusive leads to imbalance. Thereby making my 'feminism' being about removing shame or derision for both men and women.

I was shown a wikipedia page for TERFS but I'm still having difficulty grasping what this thing is so far (a big problem is my not actually having read the wikipedia page yet, please forgive me) but I want to hear it from someone like yourself personally, as to what you think TERFS are, what it means, what they are stereotypically seen as believing and saying exactly? What do they have to do with feminism, what are the other feminisms, and if you could read my description of my own beliefs on equal pay and rights, am I a feminist or something else? I'd like the correct terms if possible, because I don't know if I qualify or what qualifies exactly.

 

[DagonVarunaMitraApolloZan]

Maybe in another thread. This is off-topic. I wasn't trying to make this about me or mental illness.

Ok, thank you, sounds good!

 

[ADigitalArtist]

I might have liked old style feminists if what @Stevicus is saying is accurate. I'm not a far righter after all.

You might not have liked them after meeting them.

First wave feminists were no less divided as most of the public protests were being held by wealthy white women who absolutely did not care that POC women, lesbians or transwomen (whom they would have accused of being perverted men) didn't have the same sort of access and support that they did.

There was also a lot more violence in extremist feminist movement back then. Stabbing people with concealed knives kept in their large hats (which became a symbol of sufferagettes), bombing buildings. One occasion concealing barbed wire in flower pots to throw police into. Lol.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

They was also a lot more violence in extremist feminist movement back then. Stabbing people with concealed knives kept in their large hats (which became a symbol of sufferagettes), bombing buildings. One occasion concealing barbed wire in flower pots to throw police into. Lol.

Wow, I didn't know that!

 

[Rival]

Wow, I didn't know that!

We learnt about it at school. They threw rocks, too.

 

[DagonVarunaMitraApolloZan]

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists. Transphobes that try to mask their transphobia with a virtue signaling non-issues with regard to women's safety. They call themselves feminist for sure but the vast majority of feminist are also pro-trans rights. Just like with Nazi's claiming trying to brand itself with Norse Mythology.

#MeToo hasn't really done anything to stop out and out rape on the street. More it has done things to curb the normalized harassments of people at work. Also it has done great work to help remove the stigma of being a victim of sexual assault where the abuser is known. Also a point of note, while #MeToo is very much a feminist talking point it also applies equally to men. One of the biggest wins for the #MeToo movement was Terry Crews coming out about the abuse he suffered by powerful men in control of his career. The only difference is that on average women receive more harassments than men. Though another counterpoint is that men are FAR less likely to talk about the abuse since the stigma is arguably much worse against male victims of sexual assault. This is a place where we need to take further ground and improve.

WOAH! THEY have Trans in their name even! Its like they have made war on Trans people!

I've met some of those Norse Nazis or others who are very rude or mean about things and believe strange separatist and exclusionary or whatever things and take on Norse mythology and claim not to be Nazis but also claim that like Ancient Egyptians can't have been dealing with or talking about the same things as Norse people or whatever, I consider them all senseless, barely literate, wackos.

I saw that Terry Crews thing, and also it seems that the Brendan Frasier guy also had something horrible happen to him also.

Do you think rapes will reduce possibly if certain measures come into existence, like harsher punishments for convicted rapists and sexual predators? Or what would you suggest would help a lot to reduce or eliminate rapes possibly and also workplace abuses and relationship type rapes or crimes and other sex crimes between people who know each other?

 

[Sirona]

Don't know whether it was mentioned before, but transwomen can become victims of sex-crimes as well.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Wow, I didn't know that!

There was a suffragette protest in 1910 that ended in police violence that caused a huge riot (sounds familiar)

Some of the suffragette leaders concluded that the only way they would be taken seriously is following in the violent footsteps of men, and they bombed or burned a bunch of conservative owned railways, churches and even houses.

This happened again to a lesser extent in 2nd wave with a conspiracy to bomb out national guard trucks with dynamite.

We largely forget these parts of history because we just want to remember the sufferagettes as admirable people with a single, peaceful goal. But like any piece of history it's rarely that simple.

 

[Friend of Mara]

WOAH! THEY have Trans in their name even! Its like they have made war on Trans people!

I've met some of those Norse Nazis or others who are very rude or mean about things and believe strange separatist and exclusionary or whatever things and take on Norse mythology and claim not to be Nazis but also claim that like Ancient Egyptians can't have been dealing with or talking about the same things as Norse people or whatever, I consider them all senseless, barely literate, wackos.

I saw that Terry Crews thing, and also it seems that the Brendan Frasier guy also had something horrible happen to him also.

Do you think rapes will reduce possibly if certain measures come into existence, like harsher punishments for convicted rapists and sexual predators? Or what would you suggest would help a lot to reduce or eliminate rapes possibly and also workplace abuses and relationship type rapes or crimes and other sex crimes between people who know each other?

I wish there was an easy answer. If we look at rape statistics around the world we have 2 factors that we are measuring rather than 1 which makes things far far far more difficult to create a precise change. For example a country or population might have a very very very low rape rate. Though this is only because they aren't reported. Or we could have Sweden which has an extremely high rape rate but that is an all encompassing sexual assault statistic so its artificially inflated to the actual number of assaults.

I haven't looked it up but #MeToo might have even caused an increase in the rape stats because it encouraged otherwise silent victims to take action. So we don't have any numbers yet that we can point at that show us the real correlation to number of rapes. I would like to think yes. I really would and there is indirect evidence that supports harassment overall is down. Though again the place this has made the most impact is workplace sexual assault. Even if it doesn't bring down the total number of rapes if it destroys the normalization of minor sexual assault this will still be an overall benefit to society.

But again hopefully this does lower rape rates. The problem with abusers is that they know what they are doing is wrong and tend to have a belief that they can control their victims. Its why we have so many other forms of abuse that are clearly illegal and with less stigma still prevalent. Though we do know that the law can directly change the amount of abuse in other forms to a degree. For example Russia recently rolled back protections against domestic violence victims and domestic violence shot up immediately.

 

[metis]

I've decided I don't really support the feminist movement to the extent of being a strong advocate of it.

Here in the States, until gender equality is generally reached, I'll support the feminist movement. It took almost two centuries for them to get the right to vote, but economically they still don't get the same pay for the same jobs and experiences that men do.

 

[Samael_Khan]

I've decided I don't really support the feminist movement to the extent of being a strong advocate of it. They've done some good things. But things like the #MeToo movement which is often promoted by the feminists I've seen, have done an equal amount of destruction and good, and a lot of feminists are TERFs which can be harmful to me as a transgender person. I'm not completely against women speaking out in #MeToo, I just want there to be proof before destroying another person's reputation. And remember, #MeToo supporters can have allegations against them too, as well as feminists.

Well the movement you disagree with wouldn't have existed if women weren't historically oppressed. So it is cause and effect in action IMO.

That being said, I agree with you that the negative effect of the #MeToo movement is that it has created an environment in which men can just be randomly accused of abuse and have there reputation destroyed without any evidence. They are treated as guilty with just an assertion when in fact for all we know the accuser is a liar.

A prime example is the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard situation. She accused him of abuse and people praised her and judged him. Apparently he is no longer Jack Sparrow because of the accusation. Then, a little while after Amber Heard was talking at a feminist event ( I think) an audio recording was released which revealed that she was actually the abuser. Very few people have reported on that though.

I think that the advertising regarding these movements are wrong. #MeToo should be advertised as supporting all those who are abused, which includes women and men. The way the narrative is spun means more than the name of a movement itself and plays a big impact on how we view the situation.

 

[Samael_Khan]

If they have legit grounds to sue, go for it, but this idea that women need to prove it before they speak out is just thoughtless.

The problem here is how do we prevent women who are making false accusations from speaking out. Nobody has a problem with victims of actual abuse speaking out.

 

[Samael_Khan]

Sigh.
People who've been assaulted should be allowed to share their stories without shame. That's what MeToo is about.
There is a harsh backlash against many women and men when they come forward with their experiences, and preventing that backlash is what MeToo is about.

The null default should not be assuming that a survivor is making something up if they come forward.
This does not logically contradict the notion that one should not be legally charged if a crime cannot be proven.

I think that we should accept a person speaking out and not vilify them. But we should also withhold judgement of the accused until they have been convicted.

I do think that the backlash they get is ridiculous. Women often get accused of doing something that caused her to be abused and men are seen as unmanly for being abused.

People shouldn't be so quick to judge others without listening and without understanding them.

 

[ReluctantMathematician]

The problem here is how do we prevent women who are making false accusations from speaking out. Nobody has a problem with victims of actual abuse speaking out.

You treat it the same as any other instance of falsely accusing someone of a crime. Why do we need special extra actions just for when women do it? That is not equality.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

You treat it the same as any other instance of falsely accusing someone of a crime. Why do we need special extra actions just for when women do it? That is not equality.

Seemed to be a slip of the tongue as they also said:

I think that the advertising regarding these movements are wrong. #MeToo should be advertised as supporting all those who are abused, which includes women and men. The way the narrative is spun means more than the name of a movement itself and plays a big impact on how we view the situation.