abdulbarijan
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“Feminism is about achieving equality” was what my feminist friends in class used to tell me. This was back in my Bachelor’s degree days where I was just a lazy bloke, and only a few subjects enticed my interest. Sociology was one of those subjects, and all the credit to the teacher who made it interesting enough that even the most dis-interested kids ended up getting involved in the lectures. A great chunk of the time and effort was spent on the subject of feminism. Its different types, narratives etc. and then the class would usually have a long discussion/debate session where everyone was encouraged to join in. And it was in this very discussion session where I brought up gender neutrality brought in to the English language where one shouldn’t write or say “policeman” or ”fireman” etc. instead gender neutral terms (e.g. Police officer/firefighter) should be used following it up with a question;
“How come in today’s world, gender neutrality in the language is strictly observed except for the name for the very movement that is a huge proponent to this very idea i.e. “fem-inism”?…
The whole class went into a brief moment of silence where I saw few of my feminist class fellows struggling to come up with some sort of an argument. Since then, I’ve encountered many answers to this question and explanations over different forums almost all of which boil down to “Feminism is indeed for equality however it's primarily a women’s advocacy group because the gender being denied and oppressed is female.” Going by this explanation, the same feminism that talks of battling sexism and achieving equality, effectively alienates and denies representation to the suffering of nearly 50% of the world population based on … yes! That’s right… GENDER.. Talk about irony!
The idea that female suffrage should take precedence over male suffrage because allegedly one is more important then the other is not an argument that should be made … especially by a movement that claims to be for equality. But how does one determine, if there is inequality in a specific situation. Subjects such as the wage gap, less women in STEM subjects etc. are hot topics because the statistics of the outcomes show a disparity. Let’s take a few of these statistics. A report covering the STEM subject disparity shows that just 14.4% of the STEM (Science/technology/Engineering/Maths) workforce happens to be female. The report establishes this statistic as a “problem”. It then goes out and states another problematic statistic that only 28% of the researcher population of the world is female. However, it talks of Bolivia as a “positive exception” where female researchers account for 63% of the research population.
Based on this case, if the outcomes shown by statistics are not in favor of women, that’s a problem. However, If the outcomes shown by statistics of the SAME CATEGORY are not in favor of men it’s considered positive... Equality right?
Let’s look at some other statistics.. While wage gap is another hot topic in the feminist movement, research (in the west) suggests that women in their 20’s out earn men.. No talks of discrimination there. While equal pay is the talk in sports but the fact that there are fields where the gender wage gap reverses in the favor of women is something I’ve never seen feminists bring up. Add to that these haunting statistics (given at the end of this thread) and the fact that there is literally no representation for these issues, heck the people that try to bring up these issues are targeted and such talks disrupted. Consider the following and you get why less and less people today are identifying as feminists.
Warning: Very Strong language
Statistics:
“How come in today’s world, gender neutrality in the language is strictly observed except for the name for the very movement that is a huge proponent to this very idea i.e. “fem-inism”?…
The whole class went into a brief moment of silence where I saw few of my feminist class fellows struggling to come up with some sort of an argument. Since then, I’ve encountered many answers to this question and explanations over different forums almost all of which boil down to “Feminism is indeed for equality however it's primarily a women’s advocacy group because the gender being denied and oppressed is female.” Going by this explanation, the same feminism that talks of battling sexism and achieving equality, effectively alienates and denies representation to the suffering of nearly 50% of the world population based on … yes! That’s right… GENDER.. Talk about irony!
The idea that female suffrage should take precedence over male suffrage because allegedly one is more important then the other is not an argument that should be made … especially by a movement that claims to be for equality. But how does one determine, if there is inequality in a specific situation. Subjects such as the wage gap, less women in STEM subjects etc. are hot topics because the statistics of the outcomes show a disparity. Let’s take a few of these statistics. A report covering the STEM subject disparity shows that just 14.4% of the STEM (Science/technology/Engineering/Maths) workforce happens to be female. The report establishes this statistic as a “problem”. It then goes out and states another problematic statistic that only 28% of the researcher population of the world is female. However, it talks of Bolivia as a “positive exception” where female researchers account for 63% of the research population.
Based on this case, if the outcomes shown by statistics are not in favor of women, that’s a problem. However, If the outcomes shown by statistics of the SAME CATEGORY are not in favor of men it’s considered positive... Equality right?
Let’s look at some other statistics.. While wage gap is another hot topic in the feminist movement, research (in the west) suggests that women in their 20’s out earn men.. No talks of discrimination there. While equal pay is the talk in sports but the fact that there are fields where the gender wage gap reverses in the favor of women is something I’ve never seen feminists bring up. Add to that these haunting statistics (given at the end of this thread) and the fact that there is literally no representation for these issues, heck the people that try to bring up these issues are targeted and such talks disrupted. Consider the following and you get why less and less people today are identifying as feminists.
Warning: Very Strong language
Statistics:
- Men are 97% of combat fatalities.
- Men make 94% of work suicides.
- Men lose custody in 84% of divorces.
- 80% of all suicides are men.
- 77% of homicide victims are men.
- 89% of men will be the victim of at least one violent crime.
- Men are over twice as victimised by strangers as women.
- Men get 63% longer sentences than women for the same crime.
- Boys face vastly more corporal punishment than girls.
- 60-80% of the homeless are men.
Read more at : http://www.realsexism.com/
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