What aren't women allowed to do that requires the need for feminism??

Question

I read the statement over and over again, "Feminism is about equal rights in eduacation, jobs, owning property, etc."

So would someone please tell me in which of the 50 states are women being deprived of all of these things?? Its a comment thats stated over and over, surely theres proof that in America this is happening. Otherwise isn't feminism unnecessary and really just a grab for dominance??

Answer 1

nothing

feminism is no longer necessary

it should be stopped

its just a wish to effeminate the men and make the women more masculine

and frankly, ick!

Answer 2

Your right. They arent denied anything. Femminists on GWS prefer to harp on some historical events that happened in the west to shame anyone who was born a man by repeating these chapters from history books.

Answer 3

Feminism is not, nor was it ever a "grab for dominence."  This is misinformation of the worst sort, and is a big reason for miseducation of people!

Yes, there have been many advances for women, especially in the past 40 years...but that doesn't mean it's time for us to now rest on our laurels and be complacent. It's now a matter of MAINTAINING those rights and freedoms and also educating people that they have such rights.

You'd be surprised how many women don't know their rights!  For example, some are still told they can't get credit in their own names.  They're still sometimes dissuaded from pressing charges in domestic violence and rape cases because "well, no one is going to believe you" because of their past or whatever. There are women who are STILL being told that if a man beats them, it is THEIR fault! There are women who are STILL being told that to have a career is bad, that they don't love their families if they do. There are women who are STILL being told that they are taking a job away from a man if they pursue a career rather than be a full time stay at home mother...or become one of the many women who are still slaving away at "pink collar jobs" that have little to no advancement potential!

Don't you know that are still those people who would LOVE to roll back on the advances women have made in this past century because they want to maintain the status quo of old?

For example, there are people who would like to see the right to reproductive freedom abolished...that includes not only making abortion illegal again, but ALSO limiting one's access to contraceptives.  Does anyone really want to go back to the days when you couldn't get access to birth control...even if you were MARRIED? or you had to go through a battery of invasive and embarrassing questions in order to get them?  or when women were dying from back alley illegal abortions? or even when talking about such topics or writing on them could get you arrested on obscenity charges?  Think it couldn't happen? Well, think again. RIGHT NOW, there are pharmacists in the USA in 2008 who are refusing to fill prescriptions for contraceptives because they are attempting to impose their anti-woman beliefs on others!

There are some who would like to see fewer women in higher level managerial positions in business, fewer women in academia, and also fewer women involved in government creating public policy...not to mention fewer women in the Armed Forces! It was only a year ago, not 1808, that the former president of Harvard said that women weren't smart enough to become scientists!

As much as we like to think so, it isn't completely a level playing field yet....there is still a lot of work to be done!

There are STILL problems with sexual discrimination in the workplace, including sexual harrassment and unequal pay in a lot of fields. Women are still being discouraged from pursuing careers in traditional men's fields like the sciences and the trades.  Women are STILL underrepresented in both the House of Representative and the Senate, despite have 88 years of the right to vote.

There are still issues with the shortage/lack of day care...and this would include elder care as many women not only have to care for children, they also have to care for aging parents as well!

and don't even get me started with the problems of women in 3d world countries such as female genital mutilation, honor killings, human trafficking, being forced into becoming child brides (as young as 10 in some cases), etc.

For those reasons alone and many more, feminism is still very necessary in this world!

Please take a look at the link, and you will find that feminism addresses a MYRIAD of issues that affect us all, regardless of our gender.  

It's time for some of you to educate yourself on this, rather than having and maintaining the negative attitudes you have based on misinformation, ignorance and just outright prejudice.  

Think of this one:  if not for feminists, many of you wouldn't even BE at yahoo!answers stating your opinions...because remember there are some who feel women shouldn't have opinions, nor should they ever express them!

and as for the person who said that business about dredging up history?  Don't forget what Georges Santayana warned us all "Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat it!"

EDIT

Sorry to come off so preachy (hence the reason I suspect that I'm getting the thumbs downs)...

but I feel very strongly about this topic because I grew up in the times when racism and sexism was very real, and deeply affected my life and the lives of others. I remember when women didn't have some of these rights we now take for granted... and I've not forgotten how hard they had to fight to obtain those rights.  I know personally of women today that for if they had been better educated in their rights, then they wouldn't have gotten into some of the horrible situations they found or find themselves in.  

Just because some of you "didn't need" feminism, it doesn't mean we should ignore or abandon those who might. That's like saying because you personally are well fed and housed or have never been a victim of crime, that everyone else is in the same situation...and then ignore those who are going hungry or may be homeless...or assume that such things will never happen to you.

Answer 4

Great question.  Often wondered that myself.  The "go into combat thing" is really not a good idea.... The average woman is simply not strong enough to carry out your average wounded man.

Answer 5

Dominance has been pretty much grabbed in many countries. The feminist movement has used the issue of domestic violence in order to persecute men. It has pressurised governments all over the world into passing laws that supposedly solve the problem of domestic violence against women. However these laws deliberately ignore the problem of domestic violence against men, so men are doubly abused by these laws e.g.

Mexico: http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnou...

India: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/wo...

The US http://men.typepad.com/mens_hour/2005/07...

And the feminist movement is very proud of this

http://www.unifem.org/gender_issues/viol...

But the truth is that the rate of domestic violence against men and women is equal http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawrevie...

Answer 6

There is nothing worse than a feminist, in my opinion. I love women, but feminists are not women! They are the plague, a scourge on this planet.

3 girls for every 2 boys enter college today. Approaching 70% of college graduates are women. Studies repeatedly show males have higher IQs and are more likely to make a long term commitment to their field of study after they graduate.. So why are more women in school? MEN are now discriminated at in schools, and discouraged. Its horrible. Female doctors tend to retire after ten years, yet they soak up all the scholarships, what a waste!

For the same crime, men will receive harsher sentences.

Children raised by single mothers are more likely to be delinquent than those raised by single fathers, yet women get the custody.

The list can go on for MILES.

The Wage Gap is a proven MYTH. Women *choose* jobs with greater flexibility and less hazard, which, of course, pay less. Men only earn more because they tend to put in logner hours, work higher-risk jobs with less flexibility, and remain at a job for a longer period of time. There is no wage gap due to sexism!

Rape is the number one evil? What about all the boys who we send to their DEATH in wars? The myths surrounding rape are appalling.

If life is so much easier for men, why do men commit the vast majority of suicides?

Patriarchy? Why have I never been invited?

Larry Summers was forced to RESIGN as the president of Harvard, because he simply *suggested* than men and women might, on average, prefer different subjects in school. Summers was replaced by a woman to appease the feminists.

In Europe, companies are being *forced* to have as many females on their boards of directors as men. NO such laws exists to ensure as many men as women.

We used to be able to have all-male colleges. We can't now, but we sure have lots of all-female colleges. Hmm.

I could type all day on this.

I tear feminists apart in debates. I have NEVER met a rational, intelligent feminist. They do not exist. I am a college student, entered with a 2340 SAT, top of my class. Trust me, feminists are the bottom of the barrel when it comes to intelligence and ability to reason.

As a geneticist, I am not even allowed to state the TRUTH anymore that James Watson and Francis Crick elucidated the structure of DNA. Instead we must pretend that a women, Rosalind Franklin discovered DNA. She denied up until the very end that it was a helix! She hijacked the project she worked on, refused to share her data, ditched the project all together in the end, and didn't think it was a helix; yet in my field we have to pretend that she discovered DNA. Preposterous. Watson envisioned the helix before Franklin ever worked on DNA, and Crick is the one who performed all the calculations that proved the structure.

I love women, but not if they are feminists. If I am on a date and a girl tells me she is a feminists its almost game over right then. I would rather a girl who didn't shower than a feminist.

Just an observation: most feminists I have known are bitter about lack of male attention and being single and many openly admit to hating men.

I wish people could know how hard it is for males in school these days with female teachers, profs, and TAs grading our work. I had one Art History teacher who was a rabid feminist. My girlfriend would write a terrible essay IN PENCIL a half hour before it was due, turn it in, and get an A. I would spend four hours writing a beautiful analysis of a work of art and the teacher would begrudgingly award me a B. Its so discouraging...

The only thing we can do is take the higher ground, work hard, and succeed. They will continue to say that "the patriarchy" is responsible for our hard earned work, but at the end of the day, we will know the truth.

Answer 7

I agree with you...about the property issue for example, I live in Mississippi and women have had many rights, contrary to popular opinion, for over 100 years...for example..."a woman could sue her husband. Mississippi in 1839, followed by New York in 1848 and Massachusetts in 1854, passed laws allowing married women to own property separate from their husbands."

I have never needed feminism, my mother didn't need it and my grandmother didn't...we all did just fine with or without a husband...may I point out, if a woman has her own money, she has freedom...

Now when women try to insert feminism into their personal relationships, this is an atrocity...if feminism ever had a use it was to get legal rights that were practical...

Answer 8

There is nothing, I've always said this.

Answer 9

Your question is like saying "What aren't blacks and minorities allowed to do that requires the continuation of campaigning for civil rights? Why don't we just stop renewing the Civil Rights Acts since all the progress has been made and everyone acts fairly towards minorities all the time now?"

Civil rights didn't happen overnight, and everyone in the entire world didn't stop being racist just because the government told them to stop. Rights for women took years and years to acquire, and again, not every business owner in the US started hiring/promoting women just because there were more of them in the workplace.

Blacks are still discriminated against, and still have trouble figuring out what their place in society is after so many years of being treated like second-class citizens. It's the same for women - the intangible prejudices, the looks, the comments, the attitudes they encounter when they want to have both a family AND a career. It's also about expectations - as a black female from a poor family, no one in my rich white hometown really expected much of me. When I was promoted to manager of a local store, I had more than a few condescending "Oh, good for you, moving on up!" comments that betrayed a vein of sexism/racism which still runs through my southern town. There are a million ways to be oppressive; legislation is only one of them.

Even when you yourself post things about how women shouldn't be looked down on for staying home, you are calling on feminism to protect and defend your decisions. Real feminism is about real choice: to go to work without being looked down on, to stay home with your children without being looked down on, to have both kids and a career without being looked down on.

We don't need radical feminism just like Christianity doesn't need the Westbaro Baptist Church. Feminism is not just about equal rights, it's about equal treatment.

Legal =/= socially acceptable.

Answer 10

These days, these things are not being denied to women. Western women, anyway. But you can't deny that feminism had a hand in bringing them to Western women when they were being denied.

Currently, the only thing women really aren't allowed to do is go into combat. But even if that were dealt with, it wouldn't eliminate the need for feminism completely. It's not just about gaining rights. It's also about breaking down intangible barriers (i.e. stereotypes) and keeping them broken.

Answer 11

I've always been kind of conflicted. As an activist, its been important for me to defend womens rights, which includes recognizing their ability to lead. On the other hand, I encountered my share of women with "p***s envy"; individuals who have an agenda which doesnt advance the interests of our group but were trying to prove something.

Answer 12

http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2...

And that's for the relatively privileged women, like me.

Answer 13

Serve on the front lines during war and join the selective service...you don't hear much about those though.

Answer 14

Hit the nail on the head "feminism unnecessary and really just a grab for dominance??" now I'm going to get attacked.

In response to livefreeordie: Comparing feminism to civil rights is like comparing apples and oranges. Its wrong to compare people who were stolen, beaten and though of as less of a human just because of color to, feminism.

Answer 15

In North America most women have equal rights on paper but that doesn't mean that there isn't sexism and disadvantages for women. Women are still at a greater risk for poverty, domestic violence, loss of opportunity and discrimination then men. Yes we have these rights, but if we don't continually fight for equality (the "belief" that women are equal) who's going to step in when our rights start to be taken away.

If women didn't fight hard to be taken seriously in business and government, men will go back to making decisions for us, and ultimately, returning women to the submission they fought so hard to get out of. Feminism isn't outdated but it's need and purpose has changed.

Answer 16

I understand what you are saying, but I think that you are forgetting the problems many women still face in the workplace. i don't know how old you are, but through my experiences and experiences of many other women subtle sexism still exists (many times unconsiously in workplace). many women who hold the same job as their male counterparts STILL receive lower wages!! If this isn't a cause for feminism, then I don't know what is.

Answer 17

Feminism is a tired, old, and irrelevant social movement. Yet, it won't go away as feminists hide behind the "equality" ideal, but in fact only want equality without responsibility.

Feminists hate men.

Answer 18

You obviously do not know what you are talking about. Feminism isn't just for Americans either. You are deluded if you think women have the same opportunities as men.

Feminism is not about hating men!!! It is not just women that are feminists either. Feminism is about equality and whether you accept it or not, women still have a long way to go in society. This ignorance about the issue is so frustrating!!! It's about progression and having the same opportunities.