To end the perpetuation of gender expectations that, on balance, harm women.
To explain the many ways that sexist stereotypes, double standards, and oppressions harm women generally is beyond the scope of this introductory post, but the reading below should give you some starting links.
Related:
What is feminism?
What is male privilege?
What is the “Gender Gap”?
Isn’t feminism just “victim” politics?
Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog 
[Moderator Note: I’ve copied this comment to this thread because it is off-topic for the Open Suggestion Thread.]
[Moderator note: another comment from the same author copied to this thread, because no matter what other thread Leamas posts on, it always seems to come back to this topic, so the debate should be on this thread.]
OK, despite a history of Leamas responding within minutes on threads that these posts were derailing, there’s been no response for nearly two hours on this thread. Curious.
Anyway:
* “gender parity” – you are the one claiming that feminist calls for full social equality and equity mean some form of enforced numerical parity. I don’t have to argue for rights to support numerical parity when simple numerical parity is not what feminists are actually asking for.
* “rights over another person’s body” – your attempted rebuttal with the example of military conscription by the State fails, as the State compensates the person for the mandatory use of their body financially, with training for their required service, and free medical care in the case of injury during that service, plus pensions for their surviving family in case of death during their service to the State. Start talking about State compensation for forcing women to bear children they don’t want, and then you’ll have an equivalent situation.
Who exactly has made that claim about a full-term viable baby? References, please.
Female autonomy involves more than simple bodily autonomy with respect to reproduction. You always end up ignoring other aspects of feminism to beeline in on abortion.
As to reproductive autonomy: unless you have a better example of compromised bodily autonomy for men than the military conscription model as discussed above, the degree of autonomy over one’s body being asked for by women does indeed exist for men.
“OK, despite a history of Leamas responding within minutes on threads that these posts were derailing, there’s been no response for nearly two hours on this thread. Curious.”
Oh, you sneaky minx!
“* “gender parity” – you are the one claiming that feminist calls for full social equality and equity mean some form of enforced numerical parity. I don’t have to argue for rights to support numerical parity when simple numerical parity is not what feminists are actually asking for.”
If such were the case, citing numerical inequality – i.e. Title IX – would not be the best way to make your argument.
“* “rights over another person’s body” – your attempted rebuttal with the example of military conscription by the State fails, as the State compensates the person for the mandatory use of their body financially, with training for their required service, and free medical care in the case of injury during that service, plus pensions for their surviving family in case of death during their service to the State. Start talking about State compensation for forcing women to bear children they don’t want, and then you’ll have an equivalent situation.”
Well, soldiers’ and Marines’ sexual intercourse doesn’t start the chain of events leading to war(at least not since Paris and Helen) – you gals tend to leave that point out – but their service IS at the demand of the state and compelled control of the body, and if the wages and death benefits were bargained-for compensation, there would be no need for the threat of force for non-compliance. So yes, the state does DEMAND use of men’s bodies – in a manner much more common to lead to maiming and death. I don’t complain (former Marine). If the government gave you a dollar every time you wanted an abortion that was prohibited, would this satisfy you?
“Who exactly has made that claim about a full-term viable baby? References, please.”
I’ll grant that you may not be familiar with American politics, so I’ll just ask that you search “Carhartt” at the first five blogs in your feminist blogroll. Feministe, Pandagon, Feministing, etc.
“Female autonomy involves more than simple bodily autonomy with respect to reproduction. You always end up ignoring other aspects of feminism to beeline in on abortion.
As to reproductive autonomy: unless you have a better example of compromised bodily autonomy for men than the military conscription model as discussed above, the degree of autonomy over one’s body being asked for by women does indeed exist for men.”
I never said that abortion begins and ends the inquiry – nor that “bodily autonomy” is all that concerns you and yours.
A man does not have the social “autonomy” to quit his career to become a stay-at-home dad at will. Patriarchy or not, career women are not stumbling over one another to snatch up all the aimless but handsome men making minimum wage.
The American regime of Divorce Laws comes to mind as well . . .
I clearly indicated on the other threads where I modified your comments that I had pasted the body of those comments over here. How is that sneaky?
I’ll engage with your various misrepresentations later. Got things to do. How do you manage to keep posting around the clock like this?
“How do you manage to keep posting around the clock like this?”
Pssst . . . I live in the states . . . almost bedtime . . .
As for the rest, I’ve been a westlaw jockey as of late, and chained to my desk.
Alec, may I suggest concision? Use words, but sparingly. That way, you can actually pull off the image as a civil litigator in the Porsche, rather than as your mother’s tenant.
“Alec, may I suggest concision? Use words, but sparingly. That way, you can actually pull off the image as a civil litigator in the Porsche, rather than as your mother’s tenant.”
You are othering me, sir.
OKeydokey:
1. Gender equity vs parity:
Disingenuous. Citing large numerical inequalities to demonstrate existing inequity is not the same as demanding absolute numerical parity.
2. State control of person’s bodies (forced pregnancy cf military conscription):
Non sequitur.
Someone bargained for compensation for conscriptees, even if it wasn’t the conscriptees themselves, because coerced bodily service without compensation is slavery, which has been outlawed.
Military conscription involves both the threat of force for non-compliance AND compensation for service. Forced birth as proposed involves only one side of that balance. Seems prima facie inequitable to me.
3. “Carhartt” and the abortion of allegedly viable full-term babies allegedly “at will or whim”
I know enough about that case to know that you are wildly misrepresenting the issue of late-term abortion. Such pregnancies are never aborted “at whim”, they are personal tragedies for families who deeply wanted a child and who had a late-term crisis. I hope you’re not yet another person who misrepresents the nature of “elective surgery” – organ transplants are elective surgery, and no-one has a transplant “at whim”.
4. Social autonomy
If the gender pay gap did not exist, men would not necessarily be the prime breadwinner and men could take their turn in being the stay at home parent – each parent could take one year on and one year off (or whatever) without the family suffering financial hardship as they currently do. Not every couple would necessarily choose to do this, but the option would be there for those who do. Why are you so opposed to having the option of men being stay-at-home dads being a financially viable choice for those who want it?
5. Divorce
Wouldn’t it all be easier without a gender pay gap and with egalitarian parenting? No alimony requirements, although obviously splitting one house into two would still mean a drop in living standards for both partners. Shared parenting would mean equal child support payments as well.
Bruce, I am perfectly willing to concede Alec’s contention that he is wealthy and powerful. That changes nothing about his willingness to live off the mostly unpaid and unappreciated labor of women who buy into caring for him. In fact, the idea that he has power and influence and uses that power to attempt to derail female autonomy speaks more to his misogyny, not less.
And Alec, you’re not being othered, you’re being dismissed as an unoriginal troll incapable of contributing to the debate.
[…] with it, but none more than when I cut and pasted in some words from an anti-feminist who has been hanging around tigtog’s Feminism 101 site lately. Hard to tell which is which, isn’t […]
This has been very interesting, actually. I had the headcold from hell over the weekend, and thus I let some arguments distract me into their framing instead of standing clear on where the issues really (from my perspective) lie. I’d handle these interactions differently another time, I think.
And everybody should read TheGirlGromMarz’s BlogWarBot post trackbacked in comment #13. And cackle.
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