Why are so many people anti-feminist?

It's my impression that "When it comes to a difference between the guys job and the girl's job, the guy's job gets priority" is still the default circumstance mind you.

So you think that in fitness tests, men and women should be held to exactly the same standard concerning, for example, body fat percentage?

Yes. But I don't think body fat percentage should be part of a fitness test. If you can do the run, pushups, situps, pullups, whatever, to the proper standard, your BMI/BFP shouldn't really matter.

Does this mean certain careers might be a bit more difficult for women, as they might have trouble maintaining the standards set down? Yeah, it might. But those jobs demand a physical standard for a reason, and that means you're going to get exceptional women more often than not.

edited 2nd Jan '11 2:28:19 PM by Barkey

I don't really see why there needs to be any restrictions.

Applications to job positions have gender blind requirements. We make sure the people hold a gender neutral mentality. People who aren't qualified don't get the job.

Women will never be willing or able to do men's jobs until men become willing to do women's jobs.

Men can have both a full-time job and a family and nobody looks down on them. Women often end up having to choose one, because they just can't juggle both parents having jobs and raising kids at the same time. And if one parent has to stay home, chances are it will be the mother.

If a woman is a stay at home mother, nobody will think that odd. But if a man stays at home to look after the kids, it's not as well regarded. People will probably say 'he's unemployed and leeches off his girlfriend'. Because there is still that idea that housework and childraising are not men's jobs.

But those jobs demand a physical standard for a reason,

Of course. The question is whether, in all cases, that reason is because the job actually requires it...or because the standards were formulated under the assumption that men (and not women) would be doing it. Centuries of male domination have done a pretty good job of setting things up so that areas in which women typically excel men are deemed much less important than the reverse.

^

I don't know about other jobs, but the military standard is there because it's necessary. The better your fitness, the better you'll be at this job. The standards aren't high because it's designed to discourage women, the standards are high because it ensures higher quality employees.

Well I find it is starting to change. A lot of people starting families now do half/half for maternal/paternal leave to care for the baby. I think the government just needs to make sure the avenues remain open for both men/women to do each other's jobs.

And these opinions about income inequality are examples of the thought process behind an anti-feminist position?

It was thread derailment after that.

edited 2nd Jan '11 3:01:10 PM by Grain

And these opinions about income inequality are examples of the thought process behind an anti-feminist disposition?

See, now you've got me started on the wage gap, which means you're going to be in for a Motor Mouth Character Filibuster from me.

First off, it's a bit of a generalization to say that women earn less than men. While it's true when you take the average of the whole population, when you look at certain groups of women, for instance young, single, childless women and female CEOs, they out-earn men.

The 2009 american time use survey reveals that women, on average, spend about 2.85 hours per day on their careers to men's 4.26 hours. The same survey reveals that women do fully 3.5 times the housework and twice the childcare per day than men do. This, accompanied by the fact that young, childless women earn more than men do, leads me to believe that one factor in the wage gap is that women are occupied with other areas, such as housework and childcare, which take time away from work.

There's also the fact that men predominate fields that are worth more, such as engineering and finance, while women predominate fields such as teaching and nursing, which are worth financially less.

On the other hand, certain fields, such as secretary, veterinarian, and psychologist have decreased in value as women moved into the field, again suggesting that discrimination may play a role. But of course, this is merely a correlation. On its own, this far from proves that the wage gap is due to discrimination.

Some have also argued that the wage gap is due to men taking more dangerous jobs than women do. I find this argument unconvincing, as some analyses have shown that manual labor/physical danger doesn't cause a job to have higher pay.

But, yeah, discrimination exists as well, and contributes to the wage gap. In one study, videos of male and female actors working the exact same jobs and doing the exact same things were shown to subjects. The subjects rated themselves more satisfied with the man's performance, even though the script was the same for both of them. And in the implicit association test, a test created to measure unconscious bias, people were shown to have an unconscious association between "men" and "career" and between "women" and "family."

Leigh takes it home once again <applause>

Why are so many people anti-feminist?

As a troper said before Vocal Minority is an important part in this as the stereotypical "man hating, dyke feminist" has a priority in the media above moderate/rational feminists.

Also the perception of feminism in general plays a role too, firstly whilst feminists argue for sexual equality the name of the movement has inbuilt inclusion and exclusion based on sex with many men feeling excluded. Coupled with the majority of the media influence focusing on readdressing issues mainly pertaining to women, can cause the men to feel that it lacks true sex equality (not combating issues double standards that affect men etc) and are jaded.

Personally if those in favour of sexual equality just called them "Equalitarians" or something similar and made sure to broadcast their opposition to sexual inequality in relation to men and women equally there would be less disdain for the whole thing.

edited 2nd Jan '11 4:26:46 PM by IanExMachina

"Personally if those in favour of sexual equality just called them "Equalitarians" or something similar and made sure to broadcast their opposition to sexual inequality in relation to men and women equally there would be less disdain for the whole thing." - IEM

This sounds about right, since "feminism" if only for its name sounds like something that is exclusively on behalf of women. Egalitarian sounds better, though I don't think equality is a realistic goal either... I'd go with "treating people as individuals above all else" but that would be "individualism" which is associated with free-market ideology.

Egalitarian. The word is «egalitarian».

Equal opportunity in an employment sense should be achievable, determine what you need for the job, then judge the candidates based upon that with sex playing no part.

To tackle issues that are deeply part of current society; such as certain jobs being women's job or the fact real men shouldn't be seen to show emotions; would take a lot of work and could be achievable but it would take radical overhauls/reshaping of society and/or a long time.

edited 2nd Jan '11 4:32:15 PM by IanExMachina

I'm not going to argue the wage gap, but I would like to argue that it's really, really stupid to argue that the word "mandibles" is sexist because it has "man" in it. (And yes, I've actually encountered that argument. It was my very first experience with feminism, in fact, as part of an essay called "The Man in the Moon is a Woman.")

If there was one what was the suggested alternative name for mandibles?

Girldibles? Femdibles? I dunno, they both sound stupid.

Thank you for re-railing my thread.

Vaginables. No, that sounds like cereal.

/rerail: I'm anti-feminist. You know why? Because we're equal now, legally. The feminist movement is now going towards backing women exclusively. Have you ever seen the ads for "Herway?" ('real men do it Herway (TM)? That's what feminism is now. It doesn't mean equality any more, it means women having the advantage, and frankly I think this is utter *Bullshit.*

Jawbones?

Herway's a dating site.

Which will be forever associated with the henway joke in my mind.

edited 2nd Jan '11 6:05:26 PM by TZETZE

Sometimes some groups take a thing too far and then they are seen as the sole representatives of a larger conglomerate entity c.f. Everywhere in the world, ever.

Diamonnes: I've been waiting to hear from a plain anti-feminist! Your comment has expanded my knowledge. Thank you.

Mandible is derived from the Latin mandibula, and is completely separate from the Latin word for man, vir. In fact, mandibula is a feminine noun.

edited 2nd Jan '11 6:07:49 PM by Grain

Sure feminist are percieved as working more for females than males but you can only do somehthing about issues you know of and it's easier to find them if you are a victim of them and since most "active" feminists are women they see more of the "anti-women" issues. And while somethings are equal there are more things that are slanted(?) agaist women than against men. Or at least that's how I see it 5 hours past bedtime.

I used to be a feminist, but I'm not anymore. This is because, after researching the issues, I found that certain statistics that feminists commonly used were distortions. Also, because I think men suffer just as much sexism as women do, and most feminists belittle and dismiss men's issues and the presence of discrimination against men. Another reason is that some feminists take issue with any woman expressing a submissive preference.