Women's Issues

Maine's ball of sunshine of a governor for a prime example.

Though he is partially the result of vote splitting in a 3 way race.

So, a woman who doesn't believe contraceptives work may end up heading the section of HHS that's in charge of providing contraceptives to low income people.

Gizmodo gets a prize for best headline: Trump's Likely Federal Family Planning Pick is Anti-Contraception, Pro Threesomes With God

edited 2nd May '17 7:06:22 AM by Bur

In the course of reading about fourth-wave feminism, I came across the term "reproductive justice", and I have to admit that I cannot make heads or tails of what it exactly entails beyond reproductive rights even after googling. Seriously, the lead section of the Wikipedia article is unusually failing to properly describe what it means by "a concept that links reproductive rights with social justice".

Can anyone explain it to me, please?

Looks to me like "reproductive justice" is basically a movement focused on trying to earn reproductive rights for racial minorities, as to a degree they have been left out of certain feminist circles that were/are "white" dominated.

I do think the term "fourth wave feminism" is a misconception. What we're looking at is more of a post-third wave interstitial period (no puns intended!), where different brands of feminists, given vocal strength by the advent of social media, struggle to figure out where feminism goes from here.

Time will tell if they are able to settle on specific goals, and if so, then we'll have an actual fourth wave.

I kinda agree with the notion that if we're going to view feminism in waves that what we're currently in is no longer the Third Wave per se and more a new wave or its start. While there's still lots of work left to do regarding the intersectional feminism that characterizes the Third Wave, the Third Wave has done its job of letting it out of the genie bottle into the public consciousness, and new subjects of focus are arising alongside it and taking precedence in the same way that feminists born long after the Second Wave continue to promote issues regarding gender roles.

It's kind of why if you see someone whining about Third Wave feminists being too extreme because they're more focused on pay discrepancies and rape allegations than honor killings and acid attacks then you can tell they're full of shit, because anyone who does even basic research on the feminist waves would realize the whole stated mission of the Third Wave was precisely to address those such latter issues in response to the belief that the Second Wave was neglecting them.

So if these anti-feminists were generally concerned about these issues as opposed to using the Appeal to Worse Problems then Third Wave feminists should be their best friends. It's obvious many of them are just using "Third Wave" as a politically correct means of demonizing feminism in general. Meanwhile all this stuff they get sensitive about, like discussions of rape culture, consent, objectification, strong female characters, domestic abuse, etc., that stuff is frequently either a carryover from the Second Wave or post-Third Wave than proper Third Wave (insofar as there even is a Third Wave).

I see. On a different note, have any of you heard of Amazon feminism before?

So an Alamo Draft House decided to hold a women-only screening of Wonder Woman, to celebrate the release of the new movie. As expected, some men are...not taking it well, to say the least. Just curious what everyone thinks about this decision on the part of the theater, and the various reactions to it? Personally, I'm fine with what they're doing. It was intended to be a one time thing for one night, in honor of Wonder Woman finally getting a huge on screen presence, and it's a huge deal to a lot of women that she's finally being represented this way. Is it really a huge travesty towards men that women get to do this? I don't personally think so, and I think all the hate and anger is a gross over-reaction.

I think "meh", I mean it probably runs into some legal issues and I can see how it would suck to be either a guy that wanted to see it there opening night or a women who wanted to see it opening night with a guy (husband, son, father, male friend, ect...).

Actually that's my biggest issue, that there may be some dad's who wanted to take their daughters or sons who wanted to take their mothers that in this instance can't.

edited 31st May '17 12:37:24 PM by Silasw

Except there are other theaters. And other showings in the same theater.

Wait so it's not even the only showing in the place?

Then who cares? I mean legally it's still iffy and I'm not the biggest fan (I'd be packing the place with as many guys as possible, its a big chance culturally to break a lot of barriers) but generally I've got to say "meh".

That's what gets me about this reaction. It's been so huge, but over nothing. There's nothing stopping men from going to the premier. From what I heard, the women's screening is after the actual premier, which is open to everyone, and during the women's screening, other showings will still be taking place. There's been so much hate spewed over such a minor event.

edited 31st May '17 1:02:40 PM by Zanthype

Ironically, the vitriol over this just proves why such a movie and hopefully many more like it needed to be made.

Has there actually been a ton of hate or is it just like 4 angry idiots ranting on Twitter with some bots at their command?

I've read like a dozen mainstream news articles about it, and I've seen a ton of screen caps of Twitter and Facebook posts, and there's talk of a boycott. I can confirm its bigger than four. But I honestly can't say how huge it actually is. It's quite possible that it is indeed a really, really loud and vocal minority.

edited 31st May '17 1:30:42 PM by Zanthype

Annnd yet there wasn't this big of an issue when women were baned from the battlefield 3 launch party

So it's just contained to Twitter and Facebook? Yeah you can't tell anything about the size then. Also number of articles means nothing, the news can make a story out fo one person being a shitlord if they think it will generate clicks. In the end Twitter and Facebook are full of alt accounts, bots, edgelords who say things they don't mean (but are still assholes for saying them) and trolls saying whatever they can get to a reaction.

"Social media is shitty to women" sounds like the only relevant headline here. Now that's wrong and something we need to deal with, but it's not in any way an odd occurrence.

That actually happened? Holy shit.

edited 31st May '17 2:48:07 PM by Silasw

Yuppers, there justification was that it was done to prevent sexual harrasment.

Because obviously the solution to sexual harassment is to boot the people being harrased

that's incredibly messed up. Seriously, screw those people.

Knowing very well the public and the playerbase of Battlefield 3 I am sure that DICE had to choose between a PR clusterfuck of barring women from the event or risking to actually have to deal with at least one criminal case of sexual harassment.

Seriously, I've dealt with the BF series player base for at least 5 years and I say that the Flint's water supply and the Chernobyl NPP reactors are way less toxic than they are.

Come on, when DICE showed a single hint of including female models for the BF 4 multiplayer there was a huge hissy fit over no women in the military of special forces.

On the other subject I am excited to see the Wonder Woman movie, so far the preliminary reviews have been favourable but also is a movie that does represent both women and men favourably working together instead of being men vs women.

Another thing about the Alamo's screening is it's a fundraiser. For Planned Parenthood. Generally I'd be iffy about such gender segregated affairs even if they mean well, but in this case it's a gimmick event to raise money, not a normal screening. They can slap on weird restrictions if they want as long as they're not actively advancing a hostile agenda (and in this case the focus seems more in the spirit of pro-female positivity than anti-male negativity, which i absolutely would take issue with). That they're allowing trans people is a nice bonus though, as it just happens to promote additional good values.

edited 31st May '17 7:15:40 PM by AlleyOop

Wait how is it a bonus? Either they're allowing in trans-women, which is just the basic human decency of respecting a person's gender identity, or they're allowing in trans-men and thus kinda implying that they don't respect such people's gender identity.

As for it being a fundraiser, I mean that kinda saddens me, they're really cutting out 50% of their potential fundraising base? That just seems financially foolish.

Their women-only screenings sold out. I don't think they missed out on any fundraising potential.

Women-only events like that is a complicated subject. Generally speaking, I think that sort of segregation is a bad idea unless there's a legitimate reason for it. Something like women-only train cars in Japan is reasonable because it's a solution to the problem of women being surreptitiously groped using "whoops sorry this car is so crowded haha" as an excuse. Something like "no men allowed because Wonder Woman movie lol" is dumb, though.

Of course, the Battlefield 3 thing is a million times worse, since it claims to be an attempt to solve a sexual harassment problem, but actually just makes it worse for everyone, since it presents the idea that men just can't help themselves so women have to be kept away for their own safety, which is bullshit on several levels.

The women only trains in my opinion is a band aid to the problem, since it gives off mixed signals of making it seem women are to blame for being molested.

I know it's for saftey reasons, but I think the root of the problem is the fact that people are molesting women and the big thing is to crack down on it.

edited 1st Jun '17 9:13:40 AM by firewriter