I need to explain myself, or rather my feminism. So: tadaa! The explanation: For me, it's about not restraining men or women into gender roles that first of all doesn't fit and second forces women to hold back. A woman isn't allowed to take up the same space as a man. This is a fact of the social life. If she does, she is percieved as manly and too loud. A woman can't initate a sexual relationship. The female sexuality is percieved as something that needs a catalyst. A man. Sex is completely shaped after male desires. A woman who doesn't want children is thought of as only half a woman. She is strange and weird. And if she chooses to have children, but pursues her career anyway, she is a bad mother. In some countries, women do not have the right to their bodies in a much more real sense then just being used as objects, in example female circumsition in some places, or the right to abortion... .. and so on. Now, the problem is not that some people think like this , and some people don't. Thats fine (except for the rights to your own body and other laws, like in the saudies where women aren't allowed to drive a car even). The problem is that these ideas are so much part of our society, that the ones who doesn't want to live like this are percieved as non-women. We are stuck in a role we haven't chosen. Also, I genderbend some, witch just complicates things, but thats part of what I do to try change things. I try to erase the edges between man/woman. I don't mind manly manly men, charisma whise. I like that. Someone who is secure and strong and all that. But I don't want men who aren't like that to be called fags (if people just could stop using homosexuality as a derogatory term!). I don't want men who step out of their pre-destined manly role to have to suffer. Just as little as I want women to do that. If we allowed people more space instead of craming them into a traditionalistic role, the world would be a nicer place. But to get there, to open up the roles, we need to discuss gender roles, we need to deconstruct the patriarchal society and move away from it. And after that, those who wants to use the old roles are free to do that. I mean, a society where we are more equal doesnt harm any one. I fail to see whats wrong with it. So, anycase, this is what I think, and feel free to ask me questions about this here, so I don't have to re-explain it everywhere. ^^
I agree with the first part of this post. Women are still looked down upon and there are horrible double standards in regards to men and women. However, I don't think the solution to getting more equality for women is to genderbend. Making the sexes more unisex isn't the answer. We shouldn't have to do that to get equality. I think it goes against everything that the women before us (the ones who fought for equal pay, for the right to vote, etc) stood for. That's my opinion.
Im with you that genderbending is not the answer. Its just one way of making it more obvious to people. For me it is about experimenting with femininity, you know, dressing extremely feminine, and then not act it and so on, and test the different reactions and discuss it. But no, its not the answer. I don't want the unisex world, but I don't want the gender-uniform either. It would be nice with a world that treated men an women as equal, independent of differences or not. When reading meta-statistics over differences between the sexes, the most striking is that there is no provable differences. They are social, but if we want to keep them, we should, we should just not be looked down upon because of it. Stuff with a female eh feel to it has a negative tone, and that has got to go. Feminine and masculine should be non-value words... Unfortunatly, they are not. ..
Women have been revered and also looked down upon for millenia because of what we are and what our bodies do every month. It's going to be hard to reverse the ingrained notion that women are different because we bleed and because we can have children. It's not easy being a woman when faced with the history of how our gender was treated and how some of the thinking is still in existence today. Women have shown that we're just as capable as men to run countries, to invent things, to make scientific discoveries, yet we're still not treated equally in many cases and we're still not making the same salaries that men in the same jobs make. And don't get me started on the childcare issue and maternity leave. :roll:
I read a really interesting article on womens roles, comparing those who live in the "western" world and those in "traditional" communities (for lack of the right words, as I am very tired right now). It was really interesting as the women who grew up in more traditional communites that we western women believe to be oppressive were more secure in their feminity and roles. Girls in places like Saudi Arabia often cross dress and think nothing of it. They also practice kissing each other, and it does not affect their view of their heterosexuality at all. Stange how those of us who claim to be so sexually liberated find these things kinky. I will try and find it as it was truly one of those readings that make you reevaluate your thoughts. Anyways, it is a shame feminism has become a dirty word. Most young girls would rather be labeled anything but a feminist even when they agree with everything it stands for.
I'm not trying to be difficult Scylla, you have some very interesting points but I do think here are some you may not be unaware of. It's your approach to the problem I take issue with. I feel your approach, was tried here in America and has done a huge dis-service to our young men and women. I do not want to see the sexes more similar, I do think we have a problem in our cultures, you pointed out many valid issues, I just think we need to encourage men to be men, and women to be women. That isn't cramming anyone into a role, it is what they were meant to be, with much variation, within, those definitions. Actually there are MANY provable differences. It has been proven that men and women even think very, differently, and their brains develop differently. I have learned to have a much greater respect for the way men think since I studied that. For instance: (Men tend to have a larger area of the brain devoted to feeling emotions, but many less pathways between that and the speech areas of the brain than women do.) I understand that to mean that they may feel very, very deeply about something but not be able to verbalize it. It's not that they don't want to. There are a vast many more differences, including the way they react to sex, and why it is so very important that a woman not give in to sex before the man has gone though certain levels of commitment stages that trigger different hormonal responses in his brain, if she wants to have a real commitment from him. Because he has certain "bonding hormones" that are only released at certain stages and if he gets to sex too soon it doesn't happen correctly for him to "bond" with that woman. You see a woman who holds back is actually very much in control of her own body and the entire situation. Puberty is also very, very different for men than for women, and a mans formative years tend to have a very lasting influence on the way he thinks. The author of one book I read even went so far as to call it "a wounded brain", when a young man doesn't have the proper masculine roll models at that age. I believe the name of the book where I read the best research on it, was called, "What must he be thinking" I don't remember the authors name and I have the book lent out right now to a young lady who doesn't have a phone, so I'll have to wait to be sure. It really is a fascinating and very scientifically based read. The author talks about high testosterone males and low testosterone males, and high and low levels of hormones in females also. (It is not religious in anyway, nor is it conservative. The author is a psychiatrist I believe.) There is huge variance as to how the brains develop, but if you have a very high testosterone man in your life and you happen to be at the far end of feminine, then you will probably find it, very difficult to communicate. If you have a low testosterone man and you are at the closer end of female you will have other complications.
http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp606581.pdf Its a PDF, so beware. Good reading though. I'm letting that one do the argumenting for me.. The thing with women and men where meant to be women and men.. Yes, that might be true, but our perception of what is feminine and masculine has been colored of living for ages in a society where men have more status. The thing about the saudis.. They are horribly oppressed, they can't even drive cars! To exchange a phone number with a man can lead to being cast away from your family.. They get given away to cousins to marry and raise children, with no saying in who they are marrying.. If women can kiss without being considered homosexual, how hard isn't it then to BE homosexual? If you are such an taboo that it's impossible. I just read The girls from Riyad, I recommend it. When we talk about brains and differences in patterns, we might have to take into consideration how these patterns form? I know that testosteron and eostrogen has different effects on the body, and those are the differences that are very much there. I think most of these patterns form because of how we live, and with that said, we aren't predestined to act feminine or masculine.. we are trained. ^__^ this is really interesting ^__^
