Feminism

[guerillablack]

What exactly is feminism?And is it progressive do you find?

[rebelworker]

Feminism is many different things for many different people, just like communism or anarchism.

In general what makes Femminism Femminism is the idea that to varying degrees Women constitute a block with some common interests and that they face opression that is specific to them.

This plays out in many differnet ways, Firstly women have historically had little or no property right, they have also been forced to work in lower paying and less descisional types of positions.

Also the basic division of gender that many people assume, Women`s role is to stay home and tend to the kids and cook for the man who is out workin to "support" his family.
The role as woman caretaker, secondary to male provider...

Sexism plays out on other levels like Sexual abuse/assault or the fact that women are often ignored in conversation, their ideas are taken less serriously.

Most radical feminists (I'm one) see the need for women to be liberated as part of the process to destroy capitalism, Women are not objects as workers to be owned by bosses or as wives to be owned by husbands. Economic inequality plays into deivisions and hierarchies in society, much like racism, and Sexism can not be fully eliminated under such a society.

Feminists are very often critical of organised religeon as they tend to stress the patriarchal family structure as the foundation of a healthy society. They also often include ideas of idsempowrment of women in the area of controll over their bodies, abortion is a womans choice and right. The fate of her body can not be decided by politicians, religeous leaders or men in general.

This is a very breif overview of what i view as femminism, wowmen fighting for their own liberation, the same way all opressed people must do so, autonomus from but united with other movements for justice.

[Abstrakt]

Couldn't have been put better:)

[Dwarf Kirlston]

Feminism is anti-sexism or perhaps just anti-pro-male-sexism... Pro-empowerment of Women.

Some call them feminazis.

[RedStarOverChina]

the struggle for womens liberation is an important part of the struggle for communism---along with workers liberation and the crusade against imperialism.

[RedStarOverChina]

one more thing. in areas of philosophy, feminists believe that the world has never see from a womens perspective as almost all philosophers, historians were men.

I think Marxist-feminism(something i brand myself with) is much more fascinating. It explains the womens social status and possible solutions with dialectical materialism. which means all our inequalities result from our financial differences.

[guerillablack]

In segregation, they seperated blacks and whites, even to the point where they had to have seperate bathrooms? Is men and women having seperate bathrooms and showering areas, discrimination?

[RedStarOverChina]

unless the condition of the bathrooms are different i wouldnt consider it discrimination. clever question tho :D

[Black Dagger]

Is men and women having seperate bathrooms and showering areas, discrimination?

As RedStarOverChina just mentioned, they dont have better or worse facilities, so no, it's not discrimination. Men and women require different bathroom set-ups, because we're different genders, and what's more, a lot of people, men and women, wouldn't be comfortable having to share facilities all the time.



Some call them feminazis.

And such people are called idiots ;)

[guerillablack]

But that's not equal treatment. And if that's your argument i can say woman can't do this because they are a different gender.

[LSD]

But that's not equal treatment.

Sure it is.

So long as those facilities are equal. The fact is there are biological differences and there are practical concerns.

Although personally I have no problem with unisex bathrooms and do acknowledge that bathroom divisions are a resutl of Judeo-Christian-Islamic sexual prusishness. Eventually, we probably will rid ourselves of such useless duplication. Because while I don't think that seperate bathrooms are immoral, I do think that they're waste of resources!


And if that's your argument i can say woman can't do this because they are a different gender.

No, you see because that is unequal. Saying that women cannot do something that men can enforces an obvious discrimination. Unlike seperate facilities, you are talking about freedoms, perhaps more importantly you're talking about priority.

Two genders having equal access to equal facilities is a far cry from limiting the free actions of one of those genders and not the other.

But, again, if you feel that strongly that you want to have unixex bathrooms only, I suppose I could go for it. Again, I do admit that there are no real reasons to divide bathrooms other than traditionalistic superstitious sexual repression.

[guerillablack]

I'm not for unisex bathrooms, i'm just tryna breaksomething down. So what what two races having equal access to equal facilities, do you think that should be allowed? Again, i'm not tryna start nothing, i'm just tryna see what's difference. Cuz when i think about it, a toilet is a toilet. You go into cubicle close, door for privacy whether you male or female. The thing comes down to is the urinals. So basically we are having different bathrooms maybe because and only because a man might feel uncomfortable using a urinal with women around? If so, that's giving men priority over women and maybe that's sexist?

[rebelworker]

I think the most important argument for having seperate bathrooms is that sexism exists,

I personally have no problem going to the bathroom infront of women, I have no problem being naked around women, I do not feel uncomfortable being alone with women...

When you flip things around you get a very different picture for many if not the vast majority of Women. Women have to deal woith day to day realities that are opressive, they are on average phisically smaller, this leads to longstanding abuse issues, women are also much more likely to be sexually assaulted, The last figures I heard was one in four women (yep 25%) are sexually assaulted before the reach the age of 21. The psychological reality of being a women is often one of needeing boundries respected that men don't need or often think about.

Women as a group are terrorized by men, Next time you pick up a newspaper think about all the stories through a womans eyes. They are surrounded in a world that is at war with them(just like people of color or people living in the third world).

Anti sexism is as fundamental to societal change as Anti racism, anti imperialism or anti cpitalism.

Food for thought,

rebelworker

[Lars]

The whole seperate but equal things between men's and womens bathrooms is like the Jim Crow laws except for one thing.... One group doesn't feel excluded from the other. I know that in Europe ther are some both gender showers, but thats is off topic. As for the being excluded thing, there are some men who would want to be in the women's bathrooms, but as a group men do not. Under Jim Crow laws the bathrooms were not truly equal either, and would often be found in very different places. E.X. the "colored" bathrooms would be in the back and would not only be inconvient but unmaintained. This is certainly not the case. If you have ever been in a girls bathroom, you will actually notice they're much cleaner. :lol:

[bezdomni]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid [email protected] 3 2005, 06:01 PM

Although personally I have no problem with unisex bathrooms and do acknowledge that bathroom divisions are a resutl of Judeo-Christian-Islamic sexual prusishness. Eventually, we probably will rid ourselves of such useless duplication. Because while I don't think that seperate bathrooms are immoral, I do think that they're waste of resources!


Go to Holland.

I don't remember seeing any non-unisex bathrooms or dressing rooms there.

Maybe when nearer to the German border, where they are more conservative.

[Jazzy]

"She was created to be the toy of man, his rattle, and it must jingle in his ears whenever, dismissing reason, he chooses to be amused."
~Mary Wollstonecraft
A Vindication of the Rights of Women, circa 1792


Feminism was originally the movement to gain equal rights between males and females, though I think over the years it has been morphed to bring forth an image of a butch man hating feminazi. Women have been struggling for over a century now to gain equal rights to those of their male counterparts, we have come along way but we still have a long way to go.

[OleMarxco]

I am definately for unisexual bathroom, if that's what the whole movement is for. Aslong as there is capitalism..for aslong as THAT will last...there should be equal wages fer woman :P