Fucking hate intellectual bigots.

[Kuroimaken]

Or are your vegans something other than just people who don't eat animal products, and more like PETA than Hindus.

Knowing him, probably. No offense Kuro, but your luck is shit.

None taken, SiFir. My personal theory is that luck does enough for me to survive the weird crap I get into that it can't stretch itself enough to cover the other bases.

(click to show/hide)

Only one way to be sure. Kuro, punch a wizard.

If I could find one, I'd ask him to teach me.

And the drama continues, of course.

Midway through the discussion, my original interloper wisely decides to cut it short, after having attacked me on personal grounds several times, which demonstrates some semblance of maturity; I can respect him for that. But then a different person joins the conversation, this one an actual friend of mine, someone I've met relatively recently through my now ex-girlfriend, but that I'd always considered a smart, kind and caring person. The discussion flames anew. And I do mean FLAMES. Cue attempted indoctrination disguised as "education" or "enlightenment", and defended as "the right to express one's opinion and disagree with me". Cue personal attacks on the basis that "I think I own the truth" (which begs the question, is she more afraid that I actually think that, or that what I say might actually hold truth contrary to her beliefs?) and whatnot. I get more stressed out, because my flaming abilities are limited, particularly when I'm up against someone I care for or respect on any level.

I eventually realize that the discussion is going nowhere, and I posit that I am leaving the discussion for good, precisely because neither side is listening to the other, and that I'm doing nothing but stressing myself out on the subject. Cue response that I am attacking someone else's opinion based on "what I think-isms" (like the heavily opinionated myriad texts posted were proof of something) and I stop reading there, then post, "look, I've already said I'm leaving this discussion. I'm not reading your post. Don't waste your saliva."

You know what she replies?

"I didn't expect a different reaction coming from you, [Kuro]. "

My response to that:

"Too bad. I expected a different one from you."

Why does this hit me hard, you ask? I'm not particularly good at making friends. Oh, sure, I can get a few yaks and have a good time with a lot of people. I can talk about a fairly wide variety of subjects. I get how people think sometimes, and I can find common interest with lots of people if I look hard enough. But I don't open up easily. Actual, good friends for me are hard to come by, and on some levels, there are some people I see everyday that I consider more acquaintances than friends whereas there are people on the internet that I consider better friends than some people I've known my entire life. Most people who see me don't really know the first thing about me, besides the fact I come across as a smartass. I try my best to watch my words and not upset people I barely know, more out of self-preservation than anything else - social survival if you will. (I detest doing so, because it feels like lying. I've known many lies in my life, and at one point I even relied on it, constantly, out of fear of the truth. I took a resolution to be as truthful and honest as possible with myself and others, as long as the truth does not put someone in harm's way indiscriminately. It's not easy, but it's very rewarding.)

But I trust my friends to not hate me over what I think. They may disagree, strongly, with what I believe in (and a lot of them do; my opinions are not commonly shared by my peers. Even my closest friends). But none of the people I usually call "friends" actually hate me for it. What this whole thing feels like, at the moment, is betrayal. I'm aware I'm probably being melodramatic (the situation always seems worse at the center after all). But it does hurt.

In respect to the support you guys have given me at times like this, I won't be complaining about how bitching to someone else makes me feel worse, so there's a little bit of personal advancement for ya.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Dang.
The End of a friendship over one internet flame-up is kinda silly.

otoh ... friend of ex-girlfriend might have been getting some flak behind the scenes = forced choice.
You could take advantage of this "possibility" and go to her
and apologize about the flame war ( ... regardless of who is really at fault = bigger person)
AND blather something like "maybe I have unresolved feeling for ex-gf". 
( ... deflecting emotional content onto something usually bigger).

(this might cause a You're Manipulative !! sometime in the future)

Sneak into funeral homes and kick the ass of dead people maybe?  They can't feel anything.


Again I feel it pertinent to mention cats give bad advice...

  ... I thought you said Grampa died of a Stroke ??

[The_Mad_Linguist]

hmm... in many western countries females are actually dominating college enrollment.  I bet you could do a bait and switch argument pretty easily.

[Kuroimaken]

hmm... in many western countries females are actually dominating college enrollment.  I bet you could do a bait and switch argument pretty easily.

I could dominate an argument about feminism in this event rather easily (her arguments are primarily based on texts laden with heavily opinionated, unreferenced statistics, many of which are too high to be true), that's not the point. The point is that I expect my friends to respect me enough NOT to ask me to lie to them about what I think to spare their feelings.

[JohnnyMayHymn]

I hate it when they use the term MALE violence.   

One must be careful not to become that, which (s)he once revolted against with righteous cause.

[Kuroimaken]

I hate it when they use the term MALE violence.   

One must be careful not to become that, which (s)he once revolted against with righteous cause.

My opinion of feminism is relatively simple: there is a gulf between perceived sexism and real sexism, which when allied with political correctness, increases in size and consequence. Sexism has become such a touchy subject (along with others such as racism and social discrimination) that if you so much as SUGGEST that women DO have an advantage over men in any field that is supposedly male-dominated, you're branded as a mysoginist. My opinion is that the movement is in decline, not because it has achieved its goal, but because it has failed to re-evaluate itself (barring a number of socially underdeveloped countries, women and men are more or less on even playing fields in way more things than back in the 70's, for example; yet the argument remains that women are in inferior positions in society and have their privileges undercut by men): it claims to seek gender equality yet continues to seek only the advancement of the female side of the equation. You don't get to even out the balance by adding twice the weight of one side to the other, you get it by evening them out. Anyone ever heard of a guy getting paternity leave? I have, but it's excrutiatingly rare.

[Kajhera]

I'm going to eke some benefits out of being female I think. 

Starting with majoring in computer science. Totally want me there and there's no disadvantaging pay differential like can crop up in other fields. Yeah, that's a benefit of working in a male-dominated field (albeit more like not a disadvantage).

Paternity leave sounds like a thing that should exist, mean I'd be terrified of being left alone with a fragile new person myself ... don't they have it some places?

We've started sounding alarm bells up here over difficulties men are having in relation to women, if that's at all reassuring.

[Kuroimaken]

I'm going to eke some benefits out of being female I think. 

Starting with majoring in computer science. Totally want me there and there's no disadvantaging pay differential like can crop up in other fields. Yeah, that's a benefit of working in a male-dominated field (albeit more like not a disadvantage).

Paternity leave sounds like a thing that should exist, mean I'd be terrified of being left alone with a fragile new person myself ... don't they have it some places?

We've started sounding alarm bells up here over difficulties men are having in relation to women, if that's at all reassuring.

I've heard of experimental paternity leave in some cities in my country, but the legal figure is pretty much fledgling at this point; there's little to no legal precedent to support it, and most companies obviously don't comment on its possibility unless asked. EDIT: They also tend to be significantly shorter than maternity leave. The average span for maternity leave is somewhere between 1-3 months (depending on how generous the company is, whether or not the baby is in good health, among other factors). Paternity leave usually lasts 10-20 days when applied.

This may shock some people, but the concept of treating men and women equally, by itself, creates an imbalance. Men and women are different on many, many, many levels. The biological imperatives are just the icing on the cake: the thought processes, the emotional responses, the very social education we receive is geared differently. So by treating men and women like every response to everything should be the same, you're actually making things WORSE, not better!

Ultimately, we're all human and that's what matters, but a man is a man and a woman is a woman. They are not one and the same, and never will be. And that's the way it SHOULD be. (I'm talking basic nature here. Sexuality is its own different beast and should be treated in its own context.)

And yes, it does make things a little more reassuring. It's comforting to know there are people who aren't so caught up in societal misconceptions that they can afford to see things from a different perspective, and act about it.

As a personal aside, Kajhera, comp science girls are often among the most interesting people I usually meet. 

[awaken_D_M_golem]

I'm going to eke some benefits out of being female I think. 

Starting with majoring in computer science. Totally want me there and there's no disadvantaging pay differential like can crop up in other fields. Yeah, that's a benefit of working in a male-dominated field (albeit more like not a disadvantage) ...

  ... and you get the pick of the litter *.


* may not have been the right choice of words, but subconsciously accurate.

[X-Codes]

This may shock some people, but the concept of treating men and women equally, by itself, creates an imbalance. Men and women are different on many, many, many levels. The biological imperatives are just the icing on the cake: the thought processes, the emotional responses, the very social education we receive is geared differently. So by treating men and women like every response to everything should be the same, you're actually making things WORSE, not better!

Not only do I agree with this, I'll take it one step further: the concept is totally and completely impossible to actually achieve.  There will always be some measurement that can be taken that will make it look like men are doing better than women for some reason or another, but will be explainable, predominantly, by one big, obvious fact: women get pregnant, men don't.  The earlier in life the woman gets pregnant, the larger the long-term impact on anything you can use to measure their "success," such as HS or College graduation rates, decreased wages (and accumulated interest on said wages), delays in promotions because of gaps in work hours, and so on...

I may be the wrong person to talk on this issue, given that I feel I understand math a whole hell of a lot better than I understand people, but the math just doesn't work out for me and anecdotally, I just don't see real, identifiable sexism that often.

[Kuroimaken]

This may shock some people, but the concept of treating men and women equally, by itself, creates an imbalance. Men and women are different on many, many, many levels. The biological imperatives are just the icing on the cake: the thought processes, the emotional responses, the very social education we receive is geared differently. So by treating men and women like every response to everything should be the same, you're actually making things WORSE, not better!

Not only do I agree with this, I'll take it one step further: the concept is totally and completely impossible to actually achieve.  There will always be some measurement that can be taken that will make it look like men are doing better than women for some reason or another, but will be explainable, predominantly, by one big, obvious fact: women get pregnant, men don't.  The earlier in life the woman gets pregnant, the larger the long-term impact on anything you can use to measure their "success," such as HS or College graduation rates, decreased wages (and accumulated interest on said wages), delays in promotions because of gaps in work hours, and so on...

I may be the wrong person to talk on this issue, given that I feel I understand math a whole hell of a lot better than I understand people, but the math just doesn't work out for me and anecdotally, I just don't see real, identifiable sexism that often.

I see my co-workers objectify and lust after women, and oftentimes complain about their work ethics/behavior, but they do the latter to everybody, and the former to every woman they find. They still do not judge women based on gender, but rather their attitudes. Which in some cases I can actually relate to: we DO have some women in our workplace that seem to want to make our lives more difficult for no other reason other than they can (our head of HR is a prime example of this). I find, however, that if treated with the exact same amount of tact I dedicate to my male coworkers, they do not display as much of an attitude towards me as they do towards them.

So it's not really as much of a sexism issue as it is a common courtesy issue. Many of the guys working there live and grew up in very rough neighborhoods so I can understand why they are a bit more rough around the edges, but they're good guys at heart.

[darqueseid]

Kuroimaken, It seems like the problem is not so much feminism as it is the methods that some "activists" use to get thier message across.  Likewise, I wouldnt' be worried about what somone argues on the internet, what I would argue is facts to support your positions.

A common misconception is that ethical points cannot be proven.  If I were to ask you "is wantonly killing people for no reason bad?"  I think people can come up with a multitude of factual statements that would support it as being bad. 
-it hurts others
-destroys families
-reduces working capacity of society
-society can't exist without a prohibition against killing
etc etc etc.
There are very few reasons one can come up with that support wanton killing being a good thing... so the point has been sufficiently proven.

All you need to do is delve into these issues of feminism, bigotry and stubbornness in a logical way and see if your positions are supported by true facts. 
Position #1
Is feminism good or bad?
Good:
it empowers women in a society that has traditionally degraded or marginalized them
Women who have contributions to society can more easily make them because thier contributions are not marginalized.
Women are no longer beholden to husbands to survive(a practice that made marriage similar to slavery in many ways)

Bad:
it goes too far, possibly providing rights to women that don't exist for men
Unscrupulous women can use feminism to destroy lives

Clearly we have to accept some bad here, issues like these are not clear cut, like murder was.  But for me,  in this case I think feminism has been an overall good, because the good arguments outweigh the bad (IE the contributions of women to society outweigh the places where feminism has overreached).

I just used that as an example, you may have different arguments in your head that sway you one way or the other.  People will never agree with you on all subjects all the time, what is important is that you state your case (and the logical reasons why you have such a belief), and if you don't agree just move on.  There have been many times where the logical arguments presented by friends/family/co-workers have caused me to change my position, and many arguments where I have changed the position of others, and there have been many arguments where I have not changed minds. 

I guess what I'm saying is, People are going to believe what they want to believe, they will use whatever reasons they have in thier mind to believe it.  If they state thier facts and their facts end up being opinion, or the facts aren't true, you can easily dismiss thier argument, and thier top-level position, without getting all worked up about it, sure they may not still change thier minds but you don't have to worry because your position is based on truth.   

As to your original post, you obviously have certain positions that you hold fast to, I would encourage you to approach an argument with an open mind, Yes, you will run into many(especially on the internet), that are ignorant and stubborn with thier positions, the best you can do is ask them to prove thier position, and if they can't do it with true facts, ignore them.

As far as my position on sexism and equality goes, I'm for equality for all.  And Feminism, while I think it has been a good, has not achieved that so we need something else.  If you look at the percentages of women in power positions, congress/government and percentages of women in top level CEO positions, you will find that women do not hold 51% of them, so true equality is still not here, and I doubt it'll get here any time soon. 


   

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Kuroimaken, It seems like the problem is not so much feminism as it is the methods that some "activists" use to get thier message across.  Likewise, I wouldnt' be worried about what somone argues on the internet, what I would argue is facts to support your positions.

A common misconception is that ethical points cannot be proven.  If I were to ask you "is wantonly killing people for no reason bad?"  I think people can come up with a multitude of factual statements that would support it as being bad. 
-it hurts others
-destroys families
-reduces working capacity of society
-society can't exist without a prohibition against killing
 

Ah, but all you've done is shifted the question to trying to evaluate the next four statements - which, if you're attempting to determine ethics ex nihilo, obviously don't have a predefined ethical value.

[darqueseid]

Kuroimaken, It seems like the problem is not so much feminism as it is the methods that some "activists" use to get thier message across.  Likewise, I wouldnt' be worried about what somone argues on the internet, what I would argue is facts to support your positions.

A common misconception is that ethical points cannot be proven.  If I were to ask you "is wantonly killing people for no reason bad?"  I think people can come up with a multitude of factual statements that would support it as being bad. 
-it hurts others
-destroys families
-reduces working capacity of society
-society can't exist without a prohibition against killing
 

Ah, but all you've done is shifted the question to trying to evaluate the next four statements - which, if you're attempting to determine ethics ex nihilo, obviously don't have a predefined ethical value.

you are correct to point that out, however,
One must accept certain things to have any argument at all.  Agreed we must accept that the next statements are true and in the example "bad" things.
Of course one can always go all the way back to the meta-physical argument of "are we really here and do we really exist at all?"  But PURELY ex nihilo arguments are usually not helpful for real world discussions.  I guess to clarify the statements, you would have to say;
Given what we know about the earth the universe and the cosmos purely from human observed information; one can say that murder hurts others, destroy's families etc etc. 

Seeing as we are not all-knowing we as individuals can't know from an ex-nihilo standpoint that any of these things are good/bad/indifferent.  But if you accept certian assumptions about the universe, then you accept the statements as true, then the assertions follow.   

[Kuroimaken]

Again, the issue wasn't so much one of who was right or wrong in the argument, or even how it was argued; it was that someone I considered a friend basically up and told me that she'd rather I lie about how I view the world in order to spare her feelings. Which is hipocrisy in my book. Hipocrisy is not something I take kindly to or condone. Living up to your beliefs is hard, and sometimes you do have to relax your standards, but it's something you should be comfortable enough to share with your friends.

I'm not disputing that feminism has allowed great cultural and social advances. I'm not saying that feminism as a whole should be extinct. I'm SAYING that, as with all social movements, it needs constant reexamination so that A) its progress can be measured and B) the bad doesn't end up outweighting the good (I.E. going from one bad extreme to the other). I'll admit that my perception of this may be a little biased because my country as a whole can be very sexist (the fact our current president is female didn't even register next to her political affiliation, and this is coming from a country that has been under military dictatorship for nearly twenty years since the mid-sixties). But I can't help but feel that women DO have their space in society, that they ARE successful as they are now, and that in some ways, women DO have advantages over men - and not only are those increasing in strength, they're also increasing in number.

I'll also admit it's not a subject I keep tabs on. I don't go out of my way to see what the major feminist groups have been doing lately. But at least AS FAR AS I KNOW, they haven't done anything for men lately, and don't seem to have any plans to do so in the future.

[darqueseid]

just tell her you don't lie. <shrug> And anyone who wants to be lied to to spare thier feelings is living with thier head in the sand. 

Sexism is here to stay, women do it to men just as readily as men do it to women.   
it won't be eradicated until everyone drops the notion of men vs women, and starts viewing people as human beings, not as simply thier gender.

[X-Codes]

As far as my position on sexism and equality goes, I'm for equality for all.  And Feminism, while I think it has been a good, has not achieved that so we need something else.  If you look at the percentages of women in power positions, congress/government and percentages of women in top level CEO positions, you will find that women do not hold 51% of them, so true equality is still not here, and I doubt it'll get here any time soon. 

This is an example of a statistic that skews the issue.  The overall population breakdown is about 51/49, but the ratio of people who actually want these positions of power and seriously work for them is still overwhelmingly male.  Yes, you have more women attending college than men now and that's been the case for a few generations, but a lot of people in positions of power are holdovers from the time before that was the case and many of the beneficiaries of the feminist movement are still climbing the ladder.

So no, it's not that more needs to be done, it's that social changes like this take for-freaking-ever to come to their full realization.

[Kuroimaken]

As far as my position on sexism and equality goes, I'm for equality for all.  And Feminism, while I think it has been a good, has not achieved that so we need something else.  If you look at the percentages of women in power positions, congress/government and percentages of women in top level CEO positions, you will find that women do not hold 51% of them, so true equality is still not here, and I doubt it'll get here any time soon. 

This is an example of a statistic that skews the issue.  The overall population breakdown is about 51/49, but the ratio of people who actually want these positions of power and seriously work for them is still overwhelmingly male.  Yes, you have more women attending college than men now and that's been the case for a few generations, but a lot of people in positions of power are holdovers from the time before that was the case and many of the beneficiaries of the feminist movement are still climbing the ladder.

So no, it's not that more needs to be done, it's that social changes like this take for-freaking-ever to come to their full realization.

This. It also aggravates the issue, because a case can be made both because of it and against it (since change is gradual, it is more difficult to notice it, and unless you get rid of the holdovers, the argument becomes that nothing's actually changed). It becomes a vicious circle of "things have improved" versus "nothing has changed".

[Kajhera]

Pay disparities for the same jobs (same work, same time) reasonably aren't something that needs to be resolved by time... though time might help by changing the guard as it generally does, it's not necessary.

For getting into positions of power, yeah that takes time, and the number of women in them isn't a very good indicator of progress (try, rate of change as it relates to normal rate of change). You'd best bet young women won't settle for less than their due though, and *that* indicates yes we've accomplished what we set out to do.

Gender issues today are more complicated than just feminism definitely. I'm speaking from a US perspective, of course, but here at least we're dropping the ball for men and women in different ways. Attempts to seriously limit birth control and abortion are often worrisome to women, and particularly on birth control + comprehensive sex education rather than abstinence the feminist movement should certainly not cede ground. (There are reasonable things to cede on abortion to be honest, but really even if you were teaching abstinence until marriage, birth control is important after marriage too.)

The whole getting paid less for doing the same jobs is an issue, and one luckily not translating into new fields; doesn't mean we should not resolve it for old. Ensuring women are able contribute to their full capability in the military...  Is ... also something we should do.

In terms of men's rights! Our education system is seriously starting to fail you guys up here. More women are graduating from college, more men are dropping out. Men are nine times as likely to be locked up for a crime (and always have been) and rates of incarceration are increasing horrifically, more or less coinciding with a drop in actual crime through the 1990's. Ties into race issues here in a sickening way too, with black males suffering the worst brunt of both trends... Criminal records and a lack of education make job prospects rather dismal. We don't quite socially accept the idea a man can stay home and raise kids either, which is what my grandmother dropped out of college to do... so the issues don't have an easy resolution.

There are probably other things too but mostly pointing out how gender rights these days needs to go both ways. What would the term for that be, androgynist? 

[Kajhera]

Oh also, Kuroi, U.S. of Americans have a serious equality fetish. If you find yourself conversing with people from here or who get their sources from here, realize that we're one of the most conformist diverse societies out there, and there's going to be a cultural shying away from suggestions things should be otherwise than 'equal'.  Tocqueville observed it way back when and it's still not untrue.