Women's Issues

Something that complicates matters, I think, is that despite popular belief, feminism is rather mainstream and there are many feminists who are quite a bit more influential than the ones that anti-feminists point to as "mainstream feminists". To name but a few are Michelle Obama, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Oprah, Ellen De Generes, Felicia Day, Joss Whedon, Chris Hardwick, Wil Wheaton, George Takei, and that's just off the top of my head. Anti-feminists making a big deal about "rad-fems" is a similar tactic to, say, the NRA talking about the fringe elements of gun control proponents and saying everyone that wants common sense regulation on ease of acquisition is actually saying They Wanna Take Away Our Guns.

"That wizard came from the moon!"

Re:Wage gap

I don't see the point of arguing whether it is a 23% or 10% difference. The exact numbers are irrelevant and just a nick picking distraction. The fact is that there is a measurable wage gap between men and women and that already is signaling a problem.

It's only relevant only when discussing about what measures work and what doesn't, but that's not the point of the discussion I'm seeing here.

I've posted this before, I think it's related to what you're saying.

I'm Not A Feminist But...

Feminists trying to force their label on others who support their tenets is another reason why many people dislike feminism.

So....

Your not alowed to call something as it is? You cant call a liberal a liberal or a conservative a conservative? No, the world does not work that way.

You dont get to chose what lables apply to you, only your actions that would earn you said lables.

Well... Yes and no. If you're going to define a feminist as anyone who believes in feminist tenets, than a good deal of anti-feminists are actually feminists. However, that's usually not the way these people see it. Many anti-feminists deliberately reject the label of feminism despite believing in feminist tenets as an attempt to distance themselves from a movement that they see as too deeply flawed to want to be a part of (usually citing things such as court biases, a monopoly on government funds for domestic violence shelters, prioritizing women's health issues over men's, etc.)

So when people tell them, "you believe in X, therefore you must be feminist", they get angry because they don't want to be feminist.

I was reading an interesting article the other day about the gender ratio in my chosen profession, veterinary science, and the impact this seems to have had on average pay.

Recent graduates where I am are somewhere around 70,80% female. Being a vet is also not a particularly lucrative career, considering how long you have to study for it.

The question is, is the pay low because of the large amounts of women in the profession? Or are men avoiding the profession because it has low pay? Or both?

People don't seem to be suggesting that it's a matter of people being sexist and deliberately paying women less - just that women are more likely to shrug and accept a below-average-paying position, while men are more likely to reject them.

edited 25th Jul '14 8:22:46 PM by LoniJay

Be not afraid...

Well I imagine Michele Bachmann doesn't like to be labeled as crazy person and John Boehner doesn't like being labeled as a sad tangerine, but when in Rome...

I mean someone has to oil the strings of Nero's fiddle, right?

"That wizard came from the moon!"

Thats too bad for them then, speaking as some one who used to be like that.

You cant deny labels, just like you cant try to claim labels that you dont belong to.

I'll just have to agree to disagree with you there, since it seems we have a fundamentally different view on how labels work.

Regarding that article:

Sounds about right. Telling people "non-feminists are terrible people, so you're a feminist, right? You must be a feminist. You don't want to be a terrible person, do you?" is insulting and counterproductively polarizing. It encourages binary thinking on both self-identifying feminists and others — if you're a feminist and you buy that line of thought, then everyone is either "a feminist" or "a terrible person", while on the other side of the fence, you're either "a radical man-hating calls-everyone-else-a-terrible-person feminist", or "a normal person".

Of course, if you actually believe that women don't deserve equal status with men, then you are a terrible person. But if someone believes in equal rights while rejecting the feminist label, then calling them a terrible person is silly. They already said they believe in equal rights. They're not terrible people, and calling them so is just going to make them angry and defensive, and either argue with you or just walk away, like the guy in the article did. Neither is helpful.

What would be helpful is explaining that "believes in equal rights" is feminism. They're literally one in the same thing. If you believe in equal rights, you are a feminist^note or "feminist ally", depending on who you ask — I've been told that I couldn't be a feminist because I'm male, but that's sort of besides the point, because "feminism" is defined as "believing in equal rights". Anything on top of that, like the stereotypical bra-burning Granola Girl ranting about the evils of the man-centric maleocracy, isn't a necessary part of feminism any more than Soviet Russia is a necessary part of being politically leftist.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Just want to throw in that you have to look out for equivocation. In this case, semantic debates are relevant (though avoidable).
Example: Compare this

from this thread with the equally often quoted definition (just taking the last one as example)

Pour y voir clair, il suffit souvent de changer la direction de son regard www.xkcd.com/386/

We had a discussion about the definition of feminism a bit back, and my conclusion was that people are using the word to refer to two different things. Sometimes "feminism" refers to the philosophy that men and women should be treated equally, but other times it refers to the social/political movement that tries to improve the treatment/status of women. It's entirely possible for someone to be part of feminism (the movement) without subscribing to feminism (the ideology), and vice-versa, so when someone says they're pro- or anti-feminist, it's important to determine which definition of the word they're using.

"It takes an idiot to do cool things, that's why it's cool" - Haruhara Haruko

It's not about coercing someone to self-identify with a movement. It's about people supporting an ideology while pretending not to identify with that ideology's namesake because of presumed and exaggerated stigmas attached to the name of the ideology.

One of the main points of the article (and the reason why I posted it) was to get us away from another tired-ass debate about the meaning and credibility of feminism.

I mean, seriously. Do you guys really want to keep bringing this crap up over and over again?

edited 25th Jul '14 9:41:48 PM by Aprilla

Going from evidence within just this thread (let alone others), I'd say the answer to that question is likely to be... "yes". -_-

edited 25th Jul '14 9:47:10 PM by Euodiachloris

Quite.

I'm going to step over the mangled shards of what used to be horseflesh to talk about what Loni brought up!

I have read several stories that say women graduate from both college and some form of graduate school at higher rates then men, but that men get jobs in their fields faster and at higher pay rates.

Since being a vet is always in demand, I can see why women may have an edge in getting a job equal to a man, but there is no excuse why they should be paid less. None.

And from what I heard, it is harder to get into vet school than medical school. I wonder if that factors in somehow.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

It's as if the "women love animals" trope has kind of overpowered the "science is manly" trope.

The annoying thing? The fact that so many new grads are women seems to have given male vets an advantage in being hired, if anything. Rarity factor, I suppose, and also some crusty old rural folk think farm vets should be men. The reason I started looking this stuff up is that I showed interest in applying for a job somewhere, and was told they were hoping to find a man (also someone with a few more years experience, which is fair enough).

edited 25th Jul '14 10:08:42 PM by LoniJay

Be not afraid...

I know one of the arguments you often hear about having male farm vets is that, well: "upper body strength". My counter to that is "you tell the ruddy bull that men are not as squashable as women — 'cos I don't think he got the memo". <_< When push comes to shove, most farm beasts out-power any human and it always comes down to tactics, anyway.

edited 25th Jul '14 10:12:59 PM by Euodiachloris

Yeah, it's dangerous for ANYBODY to try and manhandle large animals.

The solution to the problem? Drugs, and lots of them =P There is less need to put yourself in danger when you have the right tools.

Which, I guess, plays into the idea that men can sometimes just be expected to tough it out and deal with the danger, even when there is an alternative.

Be not afraid...

I can tell you from personal experience that the one time I've needed actual strength to do anything involving large animals - in this case, gelding a horse - I had to pray that the grips in my shoes didn't slip more than anything else, since I had to hold the horse's top leg back so he didn't smack the doctor in the temple.

Every other thing involved either a lot of patience, drugs, or both. Unless you're wrestling a goat, in which case all you have to do is get good leverage on the horns and you're golden. I've seen women do all that and MORE. Large animal medicine is essentially the same thing for both sexes so long as you can hit a vein and know to move slowly.

edited 25th Jul '14 10:49:19 PM by DuneTheWanderer

And, "beware the pigs".

It is probably more that they feel pointlessly appropriated via genetic fallacy.

For non-feminists the statement 'if you believe in gender-equality then you are a feminist' sounds similar to 'If you believe in treating people with compassion then you are a buddhist'. It is silly because the connotations of Buddhism are much larger than simply treating people with compassion.

All I know is, my gut says maybe.

Vets being having a lower pay relative to amount of education probably a least to some degree has to do with supply an demand. I'm not sure what the current stats are here now, but for many years in a row, that was the most popular line of education. That to me suggests that there are more people wanting to become vets than there are positions open on the market, which would have an effect on the wages.

There's probably also something in that while it requires similar knowledge to doctors, animals are just not worth as much as humans.

Check out my fanfiction!

Both of those are true, although the article did suggest that wages have been getting worse lately.

Thing is, a dog isn't worth as much as a human, but anaesthetic and needles and x-rays still cost the same amount as if you were using them for people *shrug*

edited 26th Jul '14 3:20:36 AM by LoniJay

Be not afraid...