Maybe what I'm talking about is just a form of humanism with a focus on the values of both genders. Without focus on the defensiveness of feminism and the offensiveness of masculinity and the equality of all race.

I swear I got this from somewhere.

here's all the fallacies i spotted in your post:
nature:
- gender as natural / bound to biological sex
- natural relationship of men and women (very greek metaphysics lol)
individualism:
- power of individual action
- nonexistence of social processes because "society is just individuals"
- conflating personal dealing with abuse with solving societal problems (although I guess this follows from denying their existence)
- true freedom
strawman:
- still sounds like you're criticising a feminism that doesn't exist
invisible man:
- forgetting that man often treated as the default narrative subject (for a long time this was true in basically all english sentences - The Advancement Of Man's Progress etc)
- being unaware of the effects of your male privilege (oggling, for example. i'm told of a woman who openly oogles men and she's often told off for it because it makes men uncomfortable.)

most of these are common beliefs/activities/attitudes, but as a master media/society ignorer, you should make light work of unlearning them.

whatever this is just another thing I don't give a shit about anymore. Feminism doesn't concern me I don't care and I'm not gonna even try on the level you people cling to it its too much stress on my brain. I'm not accepting that my opinion is insignificant because of the way I was born and the society I was born into.

your opinion is very significant, which is why you should think it through. i don't think that continuing the argument you're having is going to be particularly productive, but it would be a shame if you permanently wrote off the sort of feminism you claim to be arguing against. you'd be cutting yourself from the #1 useful source of the gender equality part of the gender equal humanism you said you're looking for. it really doesn't focus only on women or only on suffering, even. all of the best stuff i have read about men and gender comes from that camp of people. the reason women are disproportionately motivated to engage in reexamining gender norms and looking at their effects isn't, I think, that it's a popular fad, or the in thing to do, or a hangover from the feminism of the past. i really think that you're passing up something that could improve your understanding of the world. if you come back and reexamine later you might see that, idk. i have no intention of arguing with anyone here, because i don't usually find sw arguments fun or productive, but i did want to tell you the problems i found with your reasoning. people always accuse me of being a computer. consider it an error message. do with it what you will.

What some might percieve as oggling (I'm not talking about catcalling) to some men is appreciation of a woman's beauty and a biological response to it. How that man handles himself after said woman shows no interest is where mysogony comes into play and whether or not its actually oggling. This is one of the many misconceptions I'm talking about. Like if you look at a handsome dude or a beautiful women if thats your sexuality and your comfortable with your own sexuality. You're going to look at them, it is a biological response regardless of sex and its natural.

Ogling isn't the same as looking at a beautiful person.  It's the looking too long in the wrong ways to the point where it makes women uncomfortable/afraid.  It's something you have to teach yourself not to do because yes, it IS easy to do it without realizing it.  Here's a little more on this subject:
http://feministallies.blogspot.com/2007/06/on-ogling-and-appreciation.html

A woman's empowerment is very important in my opinion. But not in a sense of the world around her bearing down on her and tearing her apart with its cruelty which feminism (to me) seems to focus on almost entirely. But a woman's actual empowerment. Her natural perspective a man isn't born with (this has nothing to do with mysogony or culture), her natural grace and beauty that men aren't born with, and her ability to give life.

What happens if a woman doesn't have the natural grace and beauty you believe she should have?  Also, feminism DOES focus a lot on the beauty of being a woman.  The pride of being a woman.  The thing is, that's not stuff that you have to argue about.  Just because it hasn't come up in this argument doesn't mean it's not there.  This is just one of those things where you don't know enough about the subject.  The SlutWalk is a good example--on the one hand, it is a protest against rape culture.  On the other hand, it's a celebration of women's sexuality.

By the way, the "ability to give life" comment?  Some women aren't capable of giving birth.  Trans women in particular.  In the future, don't define women by having female sex organs.

You're saying I shouldn't say this shit because I'm not a woman. I'm saying women and men are two parts of a whole and you can't have one without the other.  One can't ever seek and find true freedom and acceptance without the understanding and support of the other. Some feminist ideals negate this which is what I've been driving at this whole time. And I'm not specifically talking about sexuality when I say one and the other. I'm talking about the whole way of thinking, physical manifestation, your very existance whether or not you're gay straight black or what comes into two things: man or woman. Trans is still a manifestation to that because its still a mental conformity to the masculine or feminine. Though these things aren't definite and there are varying levels of masculine and feminine.

I don't believe that you have to fit into either man or woman.  That's what terms like genderqueer are for.  You seem to understand that masculine/feminine can be fluid, but you also seem to think that everyone is either a man or a woman, which I don't agree with.

I would GLADLY love to hear a woman tell me what she desires from a man. How she would like a man to act in her presence and treat her, as far as respect or what have you. That is not condescending to me. Thats telling me what she wants and what she finds offensive and not offensive.

Yet your response is to say "woah, stop getting so riled up, why not talk to a working woman and see how she handles misogyny, she lets it make her STRONGER instead of letting it send her into despair!"?  Because that's what you told me.  'Ain't I a woman' ???

This whole. I'll tell you what I think about mysogony and how its demeaning to me but I won't hear the same thing about feminism is ignorant.

It's not a man's place to pass judgement on feminism.  Sorry.

Thats sharing information and beliefs and learning from them. I don't want to tell women what to do or how to carry themselves I just wish there was a less defensive way for them to do that, that didn't exclude alot of people.

What you don't get is that women have every right to be defensive of feminism, because people like you spend all their time trying to tear it down without even understanding it (and I hate to bring this up again but it's pretty hard to call yourself knowledgable about feminism in any way if you think Margaret Atwood is a crazy old lady).  Women are under attack by the society they live in.  We HAVE to be defensive of our rights movement because nobody wants to give us rights.  Tennessee is honestly trying to make it law that the personal information of anyone who gets an abortion must be made public.  For no reason.  I think it was Virginia that was trying to pass a bill saying that women who want abortions have to submit to a transvaginal ultrasound.  For no reason.  Meaning, if you're a rape victim, you're about to have your literal body invaded by a stranger again.  Just so they can punish you for wanting an abortion.  There was no medical reason to do it, a council of old white men were deciding that they were gonna shove metal up in your vagina for no reason.  Our literal BODIES are under attack.  Women can't get the pay they deserve.  They can't get any justice if they are raped (even if you DO get a conviction, jail time is going to be barely anything).  They're raised to be alert at all times because they're told they can be raped at any moment and if they don't fight hard enough nobody is going to take them seriously about it.  They're treated as objects, they're given an impossible standard of beauty they can never live up to not just in fashion magazines and TV ads but in every single piece of media created.  Everything a girl sees tells her "you have to look this way or else nobody ever will give any shits about you".  10 year olds are dieting.  There is no reason not to be defensive about feminism because this is our fucking life.  Feminism is constantly under attack from all angles from people fueled with ignorance and hate.  We HAVE to defend it because nobody's going to do it for us.

I don't give enough of a shit to go out and try to be a male feminist leader. Not because I don't give a shit about womens rights just because I hate arguing about it but I'm tired of seeing the same shit over and over and over again. Its effectively done nothing because MOST WOMEN ignore conventional feminism to that extent (from my experience). And I really doubt thats because of sheer ignorance but the exclusion itself.

I never said you were trying to be a feminist leader.  I said you were trying to tell women how to run feminism in this discussion.  Which you are, considering the whole "stop being so defensive" and "why do you focus so much on THESE things".  I want you to know that just because this is JUST ME for the most part posting, all of the things I've discussed are things I've learned from larger feminist discussions.  These are things I've learned from other women with the same goals and concerns as I have who just want a better life for us and any future daughters we have.  And sorry, we really don't need you telling us how we should be doing things.  We have our own brains and our own ideas of how we need to fight for our own freedom.  Your posts so far have been implying that you really don't give a shit about women's rights, so I find it hard to believe you do.  As for women ignoring feminism, a lot of it IS ignorance, both about the abuse they suffer (it's hard to tell how oppressive the world around you is when that's normal everyday life for you.  A lot of slaves in the past didn't see what the big deal was about being a slave either) and about feminism itself (people don't understand that feminism is about giving women the choice to do what they want.  Some people think that feminists are against women being stay-at-home moms, for example, which isn't true).  Sometimes it's not ignorance, but internalized misogyny.  Also, a lot of women don't label themselves as feminists while still being completely in agreement with feminism.  That's because feminism is a dirty word.  Ever heard feminazi?  Women are terrified of labeling themselves as a feminist for fear of the backlash against both men and women with a lot of internalized misogyny.  I was for a long time, but I changed my mind on that.  Note that because of people like you constantly berating feminism it's even harder to convince women to label themselves as such, again even if they totally agree.

I read somewhere about a new age feminism or a new perception of feminism (developed by women) that focused on this but I can't remember the details or where I got it from. But that kind of empowerment to me as a human being and not a man is so much more powerful than victimizing yourself and blaming society for oppression and not actually finding a way to deal with and overcome it. To me its not dealing with anything its not empowering yourself at all its putting up walls. Like a victim to me can't overcome the thing victimizing her. You have to personally refuse to aknowledge it as a victim in my opinion.

Don't tell women what they do and don't find powerful.  TONS of women have found power they previously didn't felt through the feminist movement.  You cannot base your own experiences on this because (say it with me) | | | you are not a woman | | |.  You're showing how little you truly understood and learned in this paragraph anyway.  "Victimizing yourself" is blaming women for the society that abuses them.  "Blaming society"?  So you think women just up and decided to be oppressed all on their own?  Unless you'd rather I blame men, but that would be inaccurate and I think more objectionable to you anyway.  Or do you think oppression just sort of happens all on its own?  Women ARE finding ways to overcome our oppression.  I guess you just aren't interested in hearing or reading about that, because you'd rather try to pick apart whether or not women are oppressed in the first place.  Also, for someone who was preaching about the beauty of women, you sure don't seem to want women to embrace that and find empowerment as a woman instead of just as a person.  Either way, we're still women, and if we don't embrace that part of ourselves then it's a useless exercise.
 

This whole idea that society is out to get you. Society is a machine, media is a cog, these things in the bigger sense of life aren't as important as actual people and what actual people think and believe about themselves regardless of society and media or their own physical manifestation. That is what needs to be focused on and conveyed through speech, art, individualism. When you define yourself by society and media you're limiting all of that greater meaning and pursuit. Fuck what society and media tells you if you focus on what it tells you less shit gets done.

The actual people are raised in society.  You cannot separate society from its people entirely.  It shapes the very way our brains function.  We have to try to change society, and we do that by changing people.  That's why we have these discussions.  Also you are TOTALLY underestimating media if you honestly think you can just ignore it.  It's subconscious.  You don't KNOW the way it's affecting you when it is, and it's incredibly naive for you to think you're above it.  Nobody is above it.  Especially when it comes to children.  Children see these messages every single day.  They sink in.  There's nothing you can do about it unless you live in the wilderness and never speak to anyone.  It's embedded in our media, it's embedded in our language.  You can't just ignore it.  If you want to DO anything about the media, you have to actually know what's wrong with it or it can't be changed.  Most people don't realize male gaze until it is pointed out to them.  You have to be aware of it to try to fight it and move past it.  You have this idea that feminists just sit around pointing out the problems then taking a nap.  We point out the problems so something can be DONE about it.  There are a lot of daily interactions between men and women that make women incredibly uncomfortable and the men don't even know, because if the roles were reversed it wouldn't bother the men (because the men haven't had the experience of living as a woman).  But, when it's pointed out, they realize it and they are more careful from then on.  That's change.  You can't fight male gaze without knowing about it, you can't fight rape culture without knowing about it, you can't fight slurs without understanding why they're hurtful.  You're focusing too much on just the pointing it out side without focusing on the rest, then blaming feminism for doing the same.  YOU'RE the one reducing feminism to this, but feminism is a lot more than you're giving it credit for.  You don't see the friendly chats between women where they get actual support.  You don't see the conversation that takes place within WOMEN-dominated spaces.  You just see the arguments with men to try to get them to understand why it's even important in the first place.  And you don't.  You've already written it off and decided you don't care anymore because your view of what feminism should be isn't the same as what women think it should be.  Which of these views is more important?

As a last note, I've already explained to you why it's feminism and not humanism.  Of course, that was a link to feminism 101 and you probably didn't read it because god forbid I link to an outside source.  Feminism does not EXCLUDE other types of activism.  I also fight for LGBT rights, I also furiously defend people of color.  I defend the disabled.  I defend everyone I damn well can.  But these all have their own problems.  They all have their own movements and their own struggles.  Just because I'm a feminist doesn't mean I'm not also fighting for them too.  You don't have to just fight for one thing.  Trying to put it under a single humanism struggle is doing them all a disservice.  Being gay is a lot different than being a woman.  Being disabled is a lot different than being a PoC.  They all have their own issues that need to be handled differently, so they've all got their own fights--but you can be in as many anti-oppression armies as you want, and I am.  You should do some reading about intersectionality.  It's essentially the idea that all of these forms of oppression are interconnected, and you really CAN'T just fight one (though how you decide to divide up your effort is up to you).  You can't fight for womens rights without also fighting for LGBT rights, because there are women there.  There are disabled women.  There are black women.  There are asian women.  Heck, even straight and gay men are hurt by the patriarchy, so you can't fight to end that without also helping them too.

There was a woman giving a speech once and at the end she said she'd take 2 more questions.  After those three questions, the women in the audience put their hands down.  The men didn't.  She continued to take their questions without even realizing the problem.  Our society is programmed to value the opinions of men and not women.  Men are told from birth that what they have to say matters and women are told the opposite.  To say that your opinion needs to be heard in matters of feminism is exerting that privilege you've been given.  We've taken enough questions from you Farren, it's time to put your hand down.  It's time for women to be heard for once.


e: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=18uDutylDa4#t=537s here's the story, starting at 9:00 if it doesn't take you there automatically.

Taking my first Driving test. I'm 23... *shrug*

Not exactly too worried about passing. Yet despite that I still have mild jitters.

Good luck!  Are you taking the written test or the actual driving test?  Either way they're not too rough.

"That form of feminism" means "feminism with which I disagree", which happens to be the same view that mainstream feminist authors share. Farren just doesn't really think there's much of a problem at all, and it's just a few bad apples and if you focus on anything more than that, you're just a fossil.

Yeah, I've said it before and I'll readily admit there's not much value to me saying this, but that's just typical. A man who doesn't understand misogyny and doesn't think women have much of a complaint. Nobody's surprised.

Here we have two members of different oppressed groups, Vellfire and Faust, telling Farren that what he's saying is just plain wrong (Faust even gave a ton of examples of how many different forms of oppression exist, and how they should not be conflated) and that was mostly just ignored. I'll say it again: here we have someone who doesn't know what he's talking about flat out claiming that Vellfire and Faust, who both have extensive personal experience, are plain wrong in what they're saying. Even saying there's not much of a systemic problem, period.

It kind of reminds me of political cartoons of obscenely rich people getting their taxes increased and saying to the poor worker that they're going through rough times as well, so they totally understand their despair. Or Donald Trump saying "I have a lot of gay friends, and I think it's fantastic, but I'm against gay marriage." Yeah, in that same way, Farren says "I talk to women about misogyny a lot, and I think it's very important, but I think you should just keep your head down and take it and let it make you stronger."

That's not the attitude of someone who cares.

nice! you're totally dominating farren. yes, yes, tell me how bad he is some more, send me over the edge!!

nice! you're totally dominating farren. yes, yes, tell me how bad he is some more, send me over the edge!!

shut up about this already dude, if you wanna fight with dada do it in pm


Don't discredit valid points about Farren's views of feminism just because you wanna jab at Dada.  This is serious shit.

you're making great points about feminism and misogyny on your own. but dada just waltzed in and for some reason felt the need to tell everyone how bad farren is and dominate him some more. how was this necessary? he introduced absolutely nothing new, so don't act like I'm making light of the subject. posts like that that help keep the point from sinking in. I already PMed him and he seems to have adjusted his language at least, which is an improvement I guess but he still really likes to pound his chest

you're making great points about feminism and misogyny on your own. but dada just waltzed in and for some reason felt the need to tell everyone how bad farren is and dominate him some more. how was this necessary? he introduced absolutely nothing new, so don't act like I'm making light of the subject. posts like that that help keep the point from sinking in. I already PMed him and he seems to have adjusted his language at least, which is an improvement I guess but he still really likes to pound his chest

And your personal problems with Dada have nothing to do with this conversation, so stop it.  He WAS pointing out what Farren was doing and the fact that he had members of two minority groups telling him What's Up and completely dismissing it for his own privileged viewpoints.  His post had far more value than yours which are just berating him.  I don't care what you feel about Dada but don't shit up this discussion just to go "LOL DADA YOU SURE SHOWED HIM ! ! !" when Dada's been contributing a lot of useful stuff to it the whole time.

all of that's already been said, and none of it was necessary to be repeated other than, as I said, in trying to dominate farren some more.

I wasn't pretending to contribute to this discussion, it was a new post about him showing everyone who's got the biggest e-dick. this is the what's on your mind thread. remember, the conversation started between DDay and fuckcrypt because dday called penguins fans fags.

all of that's already been said, and none of it was necessary to be repeated other than, as I said, in trying to dominate farren some more.

I wasn't pretending to contribute to this discussion, it was a new post about him showing everyone who's got the biggest e-dick. this is the what's on your mind thread. remember, the conversation started between DDay and fuckcrypt because dday called penguins fans fags.

It IS pretty important to repeat these things, especially when it's a case of someone refusing to listen.

Maybe the what's on your mind thread isn't the best place to fight with someone though.  This has nothing to do with the arguments, this has to do with bickering between you and Dada and it doesn't need to be public.  It's probably better if you two just ignore each other entirely.

But no, this has nothing to do with e-dicks (huh, interesting, dicks are associated with power...just a side note there for everyone to take note of).  Dada genuinely cares about this issue, this has nothing to do with his ego.  Just stop it.  Don't shit up the forums with bickering this is dumb christ.

I will just drop it, but I don't think my point is invalid. I wish someone else would make it. and yes, I realize the connection with dick and power and pounding your chest and dominance.

Tests in different countries probably differ, in the UK you can drive as long as you have a provisional and someone in the passenger seat who has had a valid license for x number of years.  So this advice might be meaningless but w/e.

I learnt to drive one summer. I only had 17 lessons but I had the benefit of my dad coming home from work then taking me out for 30 minute drives each night (probably to seek peace away from my mother). It was a good experience and the number of hours I clocked up enabled me to pass with 2 minors first time. I guess having lots of hours makes you a lot more confident in the test. It's a lot like playing a video game really!

My driving instructor pulled me over once and he said "Hey Ed, do you know what they invented here?" and I was like "...whaaaat"? and he shouts "DOGGING!". Hilarious. I really hope he doesn't say that to women.