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NESTA
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What are you talking about?
February 3, 2005 - 05:24 AM
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i have heard this talk among a men's group in my country and have thought about it myself. They have argued that the focus on women and women's issues have changed societal values and led to the lack of male role models and father figures in society.
they argue that the focus should be on gender issues and rights or just family issues without entirely focusing on one aspect of issues of a gender.
The developed world has also changed their approach from a women centered to a more gender balanced focus although some people still get the impression that once you mention gender sensitivity, issues or any terms associated with gender you are immediately referring to women.
What are your views on this? Do you feel that the women's movement has led to the degradation of men in our socie
ties?
Should the approach to women's issues be refocused to encompass gender issues or reworded to remove bias?
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Ben
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Re: What are you talking about?
February 3, 2005 - 06:02 AM
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Here in Australia there has been a big shift recently in child custody battles, fathers are getting refused rights to see their children despite doing nothing wrong. i find that a bit hypocritical of teh womens movement, as the bulk of the argument has come from womens rights leaders - and they say that a child should stay with their mother as they can provide a better living environment - which measn either the mother is a stay at home mum (which is opposite of everything womens rights have been trying to achieve) or hire a nanny, which is by no means as good an upbrining than having a fatehr figure around.
Womens issue these days have flooded the market so much that mens rights have been lost along the way. I am not saying that men have no rights, but i am saying that the courts and general public are so intimindated by womens right leaders that instead of arguing they settle, which has come at the cost of mens rights.
I always say ot my femenist friends if the titanic was to occur today is it fair to assume more women would have died? because if womens rights leaders pratcise what they preach then in a situation like that it would naturally be the children first then first in line first serve? would it not?lets say 1000 men died and 100 women died, where as 900 women got away - in an equal society the death rates at the end would be 500 for both. tell me if that is not fair to assume what i just said?
You put a man and women infornt of a screening of teh titanic, the women always relates to teh girl floating on the luggages (who survives), but no matter what man the guy thinks he resembles, chances are he will die at the end of the film - to me that is not romance, it is horror
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Nompumelelo Precious
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women are in control now
February 7, 2005 - 03:01 AM
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Well I feel that women have been oppressed for too long and now that they are taking the stand, men are feeling intimidated and now feel as if they are being degraded.
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Yambwa, Nziya Jean-Pierre
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Should we talk of gender equality or gender dignity?
February 7, 2005 - 03:23 AM
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This is a quiet interesting discussion.Because the issue, while at its beginning was right has become with time biased. And there is a need to recenter the debate and to redefine its direction. It is important because the perspective or view of gender can really affect the world view. I acknowledge that it was important to raise the gender issue because the world has been to phalocratic in the past. But today, the claims want to make it very "venuscratic". Instead of solving the problem we have created another. Males, mutatis mutandis, have dominated and oppressed societies in the past, today females want to take over. Does it solve and fix the problem of gender equality?
What if we refocus the discussion on gender respect and dignity instead of gender equality which is a very slippery concept? Men and women are very different, from the physical to the psychological point of view. But both deserve to be respected and to be treated according to their dignity and difference.
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Lucia
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Woman-man cannot be equal
February 7, 2005 - 04:30 AM
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Clearly, the last poster was not a man.
This topic again...It is illogical (which only stands to reason if you think about it). A woman is not a man, therefore cannot be equal to one. I don't think any woman who is deeply in touch with who she is would want "equal rights," because, gifted with a bit of common sense, she knows that she is different from a man, and unless she does not like the differences she inherently has, she will just be longing to be something she is not and can never be. You cannot make an apple "equal" to an orange, even though they are both fruit - they are just different.
I don't want to be a man and I don't want to be treated like one either. My mother was/is a feminist from the early founding generations of this "feminist" movement (another bit of illogic there in the terminology appropriated for the movement). So-called feminists these days are quite different from her and more seemingly false in their convictions. She was quite sincere in her attitude and still is. Young "feminists" seem more pretentious these days.
Anyway, I don't have personal experience from the male's side of this, but this wretched movement has oppressed me plenty too, because I could not be what and who I wanted to be with my mother or in my life growing up and to this day, I tend to hide my true self from her (and even from many other female people for the same reason) - keep my emotions away from her sight, for example. I don't even want to think about how bad it was for me going through adolescent changes with her around...how to hide everything from her. It's not good. "Feminists" have softened since her generation, but now they seem somehow pretentious to me. I see so-called "feminist" girls flirting a lot and shamelessly flaunting the very things that make girls different and then cry "equality!"
Equality is not the answer, in my widely scoffed at opinion. Respect is the answer. If I were one of these "feminist" people, and even as I'm not, I would want respect and not equality. I would want repsect from men AND WOMEN for the differences that I have naturally, whether by virtue of being me or by virture of being a woman.
Only when there is mutual respect for the differences and similarities between a man and a woman can there be true equality, and especially harmony.
There was another thread just like this, I thought, some time back...I seem to be writing the same things as I wrote in that one.
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eva gatwiri
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Re: What are you talking about?
February 7, 2005 - 06:07 AM
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I have had just about enough of this whole feminist issues. sewotoy, you are right, we are all paying dearly for a noble but misguided cause. What I feel the womens rights movement has conributed to is a decline in moral standards (i.e let us do the evil men are allowed to do because we are equal.) and caused women to deny or hide their feminine side.
These women have to understand that its is okay for a woman to exhibit her feminine traits and get ahead in life. If I want to cry at a movie I will cry, because I feel like it and I cannot feel ashamed because a bunch of women want me to hide my feelings like a man to prove I am equal to one. (I hope I havent lost you there!! :-))
I find many of these women confused as to what their purpose and role is in life. They think that being equal to men is behaving like them and at the same time secretly aspire to fulfil the traditional womens roles, like a wife and a mother. They seem like double faced people to me. You have to hand it to men. They are consistent in their behaviour whether good or bad, even among different cultures. Women on the other hand are their own worst enemies.
For me Gender equality means that women and men are equal but different. i.e. As human beings thay have the same rights (to jobs, healthcare access etc) but at the same time are equally different(physically, emotionally etc) Their roles should complement one another, not be a source of wars and bra-burning parties.
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Dereje Amera
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Woman-Man cannot be equal
February 7, 2005 - 08:38 AM
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I think the problem here is perspective. It is in the sight of some people's mind, they may not be equal, but in the sight of other peoples they are equal, which does not prove neither of the two to be true or false, but they can be considered as human conventions. But in reality, what we need to see is what does it mean by 'equality', if we define and have a clear perspective on what equality means from the perspective of gender issue, it will be clear.
But we are trying to give conclusions out of the practices we had in the past, and seeing the partial current few groups judgement, we cannot reach at the true definition or conclusion. For the conclusions that we all arise due to our own obserbvations are incomplete and may be wrong due to two basic reasons, one is that we as human beings we have our own limitations to understand and visualize the wholesome of any reality in its originality and entirety, and the other is the reality itself is so infinite, that what we can see from the whole is only the part, and from the part we see, it is difficult to arise at a conclusive argument and genealization.
The gender equality is something that we need to the natural, physiological, functional, pschological, emotional and biological make up of the two entitities, for which we found in few aspects thesame, and in another aspect we observe differences. Difference does not mean inequality, for we can observe differences in few aspects within same sex category.
Basically man and women are two different sexes, which has difference in function, but should have equal in terms of rights. This is my understanding of gender equality.
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C. Gudz
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Re: What are you talking about?
February 9, 2005 - 11:07 AM
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I have a very hard time understanding anti-feminist opinions. How is feminism so threatening to you? You are so resistant do it, that I wonder, how is your attitude or lifestyle being affected negatively by the very important work of feminists?
Contemporary feminists understand that inequalities among men and women are not as simple as 'men oppress women.' Feminists understand that race and class, among many other factors complicates gender oppression, and men are not exclusively in positions of power. The point is to recognize how power is distributed, who controls it, and who gets exploited to maintain these systems of power. It is true, men too can be at the bottom of certain power structures, because of low enconmic status, disability, and many more things, but this is less often the case.
Just understand that feminism is not the enemy -- it is a movement for social change that works to improve the lives of ALL human beings. Read TakingITGlobal's monthly theme on women's rights, in particular the section on feminism, to understand more.
http://www.takingitglobal.org/themes/women
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Luke Lieberman
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Re: What are you talking about?
February 9, 2005 - 11:24 AM
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I think the simple simple fact is that anything taken to an extreme is problematic.
Women's liberation movements are necissary - as there is no question that Women as a group have been held down - but there is a reason that alot of people associate feminism with man hating at this point - because there are plenty of feminists who do hate on men - I have certainly met a few - they somehow mistake a kind of bigotry against men with being a strong woman.
And as with any movement it has both positive and negative aspects to it -
Woman's lib gave women the opportunity to pursue their dreams and get out of abusive marrages - there are undeniably positive.
But there is a down side - with the sexual revolution came permiscuity and ALOT of divorces - it is not a coincidence that the divorce rate has skyrocketed directly following this movement.
also at some level I think it is a good thing for Women to excersize more restraint, caution, and self-control in the sexual arena then men are capable of excersizing.
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McGia
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Woman-man cannot be equal
February 9, 2005 - 11:35 AM
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Originally posted by Bitsy
Clearly, the last poster was not a man.
Equality is not the answer, in my widely scoffed at opinion. Respect is the answer. If I were one of these "feminist" people, and even as I'm not, I would want respect and not equality. I would want repsect from men AND WOMEN for the differences that I have naturally, whether by virtue of being me or by virture of being a woman.
Ditto
Sigh. Why couldn't I think of that. 
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David Martin
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Re: What are you talking about?
February 10, 2005 - 03:29 AM
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I feel this is a real issue, becaus there are a lot of men out there that don't feel women are their equals. Many men feel that women aren't capable of doing the things that men can do, for instance high level corporate jobs, or high level politicians. Granted there are many jobs or skills that men can naturally do better than women, but women have just as many unique skills that men aren't suited so well to.
If you want to talk about equality you first need to define what is equality?
In this context equality is referring to respect, ability, and humanity. Men and women should respect each other, if for no other reason that we rely on each other to survive. Without one you can have the other. Secondly, men and women have to potential to perform on the same level as each other in all aspects of society. Finally, men and women are very much alike, we are both human beings.... equals.
I am proud to be a man. I am also proud to be a man with so many wonderful women in my life. My best friend in the world is a woman and I feel that she is a better human being than I on many levels. Sure physically, emotionally, and biochemically men and women are very different and can never be equal in those respects, but as far as societal issues are concerned we are very equal, even if we aren't always treated that way.
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willy oldebring
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Why is is it so difficult for an islamic woman to divorce her man?
February 10, 2005 - 05:21 AM
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I really want to hear more about this, because a lot of women come to west countries and want to start a new life.
But it´s not so easy when they can´t get a divorce in their "old" country.
Of course I have some ideas about this too, but I want to hear what other people have to say about this. Welcome!
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Frank Ruiz
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Womens and Mens equality?
February 10, 2005 - 05:26 AM
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I just read somthing that a person wrote on this thread and I want to believe it, but I can not wrap my mind around it.
I believe that in todays society that equality is over emphasized. I think that if women really want to accomplish the things that they are fighting for, then they should do it!!! What are they waiting for? If they are waiting for an army of followers, they are waiting in vain. Besides, as this person said "men wrote history." And history clearly shows us that in order to make a difference, sometimes you need to make an individual impact so that others can follow.
By all technical terms Men And Women have the same rights. The only thing different here is that men are ruthless and take what they want. History has been a great guide for many thing, but equality is not one and most likely will nver be, until Christ himself comes to deem it so!!!!!
So in closing, Women have a choice to make: Live by the standards placed on them by society or make their own.
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Injy
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Re: What are you talking about?
February 10, 2005 - 05:42 AM
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Khol' Divorce is granted in Islamic Sharia, when a woman is able to divorce herself from her husband, all she has to do is giving him back his dowry.
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Shel
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Women equal to men?
February 10, 2005 - 09:25 AM
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When people talk about equality between the sexes they forget many things. Think about race, class, etnicity,(dis)abilty and even income level, most of all let's not forget about place. Ask one woman from each category what they think equality is and you will get a different answer; I guarantee it. Some women just want food to feed their children, to most Westerners that's trivial. Some girls are not even allowed to go to elementary school, I can't imagine if I couldn't go to school and socialize with kids my own age instead of having to stay home and clean the house, or if my parents only had enough money to feed one child (my brother or me) and I was left to starve and die. Let's all redefine what equality means. It's more than statements like "women should have the same jobs as men, or men should do more housework..." There's a wide world out there...GET OUT OF THE FISH BOWL.
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