"Do Women Really Want Equality?"

TankVet · 2017-04-11T16:23:27+00:00

So I read a book by Phil Martelli, the head basketball coach at St Joe's, and he says treating everybody fairly never meant treating them the same. Some guys need a kick and some guys need a hug and some guys need to be left the hell alone. Doing the same thing for everybody is inherently unfair because everybody is not the same.

Willow-girl · 2017-04-12T02:33:50+00:00

I guess I'm an old-school feminist, from the era when the whole point was to free both genders to pursue their inclinations and aptitudes even if they didn't align with traditional gender roles.

But here's the thing, ladies: just because you want to be a welder doesn't mean your partner will automatically be interested in picking up a share of the domestic chores. It's very likely you will end up wearing both hats (add a third if you're inclined to motherhood). Society, at least American society, isn't inclined to assist you, either. You will have to wrangle a suitable work-life balance for yourself.

Landry86 · 2017-04-11T14:25:24+00:00

Respect, yes. Equality, no.

ivegotsomequestions0 · 2017-04-11T23:52:26+00:00

Feminism in its early days went hand in hand with socialism because people realized that having to toil away at dangerous, dirty, underpaid jobs, where neither employer nor government cared about your welfare, did not promote human dignity or self-actualization, and that both men and women were screwed unless rich. At some point in the 20th century, feminism lost the accompanying socialism. The doctrine became that working a job provided something beyond financial independence—that it is actually fulfilling, and that men are fulfilled when they slog away to take care of themselves and their families. So women have been chasing this mythical fulfillment ever since. As they gained more access to men's work and roles, they rejected the parts that were not fulfilling, still thinking that a) men had a great deal, so b) they should too.

Most feminists and progressives still haven't woken up and seen what it really is to have an equal stake in society. It doesn't really mean self-actualization, and it comes with lots of unpleasantness. The fact that they don't want the bad parts and they STILL insist that they face widespread gendered oppression in Western countries makes many men quite rightly think that they have no idea what they are talking about.

WeCaredALot · 2017-04-11T18:36:27+00:00

I don't think women want to be exactly the same as men. However, I do think there needs to be more respect for 'female roles.' Growing up, I struggled with femininity because it always seemed so devalued compared to masculinity despite people swearing up and down that women needed to be feminine. There seemed to be constant mixed messages around that. For example, I think that more service/caring jobs need to be paid higher wages. I understand that men's jobs tend to be more dangerous and specialized, and for that reason, I respect the decision to allot higher salaries to those kinds of jobs. But jobs like assistants and caregivers in senior homes, teachers, etc. need to be paid significantly more than their current rate if we want to continue with this belief that women's roles and traits like nurturing, caregiving, and support are inherently valuable.

I've also never been comfortable with the idea of motherhood being something so private and unprotected outside of the home. A woman's livelihood should not be dependent on her husband and whether she is on good terms with him. Jobs that allow flexibility to work from home or services that generally aim to support mothers would be useful in providing women with support outside of what they may or may not get from their husbands. I hate this idea that the burden of choosing the right man is on the woman with no recourse so if something goes wrong, she is now reliant on him and his income. If motherhood is so central to a stable society, then there need to be provisions in place to protect women if the family unit breaks down. I understand that people think that's what alimony, spousal support, and child support are doing, but from what I've seen only the richest women are able to get away with financial murder like that. Middle to lower class women often aren't so lucky and are usually tasked with heading back to the workforce with a reduced work history anyway.

En-Zu · 2017-04-11T16:56:23+00:00

In the past with high infant mortality rates, keeping a woman's uterus safe made practical survival sense. In this day, advancements in medical technology and screening have lowered infant mortality rates to the point that we have excess reproductive capacity. There are no longer any practical reasons for women not to have equal opportunity. This is evident as many nations now have female combat soldiers.

FriendFrog · 2017-04-11T19:07:37+00:00

Feminism has always been about women struggling to gain more power in the name of "equality". Once equality has been achieved, feminism should die, but it refuses to, always insisting that women are at a disadvantage & blind to the truth. It's like someone who's broken free of handcuffs pretending that they're still on. Feminists look to Islam because it represents new, tougher handcuffs to break free of, fully knowing they never can. Egalitarianism doesn't have this problem because it's a perpetual balancing act. MRA's are simply the same as feminists, but with the sexes reversed.

Zippityzeebop · 2017-04-11T18:49:26+00:00

Wow. What a great article. Thank you.

bowie747 · 2017-04-11T20:44:15+00:00

Equality is fantastic, everybody agrees that's what we want.

However that does not mean that we should be identical in every way, as some cultural movements would have you believe.

We're equal when we contribute equally to the positive outcomes of each other, society and the earth. Which we used to for the most part.

IMO trouble only started when we lost respect for each other.

unruffledlake · 2017-04-13T20:30:21+00:00

Thanks for sharing this article which I can add to my library of resources on this topic. That led me to discover her other equally thorough and powerful article-- Why Feminism Wants to Dismantle the Family.

artistacat · 2017-04-14T01:19:03+00:00

Honestly, I think it boils down to special privileges, such as being in the military, where 'equality' means lowered training standards, which would mean in an actual battlefield, disaster.

I realize that 'equality' for women and men sometimes comes at the expense of others or entails changing something or a policy to benefit women. This isn't always true, but achieving equality the way it's seen by the modern world in many places is ironic given that something else has to be compromised, which could either work out for good or to a detriment.

artistacat · 2017-04-14T01:19:03+00:00

Honestly, I think it boils down to special privileges, such as being in the military, where 'equality' means lowered training standards, which would mean in an actual battlefield, disaster.

I realize that 'equality' for women and men sometimes comes at the expense of others or entails changing something or a policy to benefit women. This isn't always true, but achieving equality the way it's seen by the modern world in many places is ironic given that something else has to be compromised, which could either work out for good or to a detriment.

[deleted] · 2017-04-18T22:23:41+00:00

There is a huge difference between equality and feminism.

Willow-girl · 2017-04-11T15:27:31+00:00

From the article:

we don’t want to work dirty and dangerous jobs,

Umm, some of us do. And yeah, we kind of expect equal treatment as a result.

It's funny; I used to work as a DHI technician, a job that was traditionally done by men, but now is about 50/50 gender-wise. At a company conference, the keynote speaker was an elderly man who was a bigwig in the industry, and he launched his presentation by commenting on the number of female faces in his audience. The sound of hard-working women gritting their teeth was nearly audible, lol.