Feminism! Here we go!
Before we get into this, few disclaimers: All my opinions and ideas are obviously a work in progress and they have changed and will change again in some ways. I do have a lot of my opinions backed by evidence, real-life stories, or science. I will not post too many of them here. It would be cumbersome, tiring and it would achieve nothing. This is a super complicated topic and I want to simplify it and jot down some ideas I have gathered. I will provide and explain in more detail if asked.
Not really sure what's my aim here. To piss off some of my female friends is the main one. Second, less important, is to make my issues with feminism, and related ideas, clear to myself. Third, most important but improbable, is to make you think. Notice what I'm saying. Pay attention to the general trends and patterns that I try to show here. I could go into specifics of every single idea here but I don't want to get too deep and too long. This is a top-down, generalistic look.
This will be more of a list of random, loosely connected ideas. Definitely not an essay or anything. I will be generalizing and simplifying. I understand that we are all different (yet basically the same!) and there are variations on everything. I'm not going to talk about specific people too much. Why? Because it's not relevant. I'm talking about wider attitudes, about "typical" men and women and I'm talking about things that most people can relate to and identify with. As I said, I plan to generalize and simplify to make my points.
My issues with feminism.
First is the name. I understand the goal is equality for all but the name itself is a bit confusing and a bit off-putting for some people. I much prefer the word "egalitarianism" over feminism. That is all-inclusive.
Second. This is probably the main part of the disagreement. I believe men and women are different biologically, not only socially. We have different sex organs. Women can create a life, men just provide the spark. These are huge, and crucial, differences. We have different body structures, strengths, endurance, etc. We have different hormones that govern our bodies. We have different chromosomes. These are all biological differences. These to me are facts for most of the population. We are biologically pretty much the same but there are differences. These differences also affect the brain. How much and in what way is a difficult question to answer but males and females are not the same.
Then we have differences that are social but with the influence of biology. The role of men and women in societies vary and has varied in the past. But the simple fact is that women generally stayed at home more if only to take care of the kids. Sure, men could have stayed at home and women could have gone out to do whatever was needed but this is not typical behavior. Simply because the women gave birth to the kids and they provide the milk for them. This behavior repeated over many thousands or millions of years will make a difference in the genetic structure. We have been mostly in the same environments and living under similar circumstances but the differences will show over such a long period. I could go on but I only want to make it obvious we are different. Biologically different. The science is clear on this, at least the science I've seen and read. To what degree and in what way we can argue but if you don't agree with this point we have no common ground to talk about. You can absolutely prove me wrong and please do try if you think you can! I absolutely may have missed something.
This is the first and probably the main part of the disagreement. I believe we are different and I think science proves it. What I hear from the feminists and social studies people is that we are the same, the differences are all (or primarily) social, and that we can work with them and change the social structure. Nature and nurture discussion is complicated for people who study all these things but from what I gathered I have the feeling the people who study social sciences often don't know that much about biology and tend to devalue it. They see our behavior as a social issue. Which makes sense and there's nothing necessarily wrong with it. That's what they are interested in. That's what they study. Of course, they'll give it more value and of course, they might not know some views from other fields. I'm absolutely certain the biologists do exactly the same and they tend to see genetics as more influential than society.
I'm not an expert on any of this but I am after all a physics major and an admirer of the scientific method. The one crucial part is that biology is still a hard science and a lot of its areas of study can be quantified and measured objectively. Lots of the social studies interests are subjective and open to interpretation depending on the culture, time, and a specific person. I like facts and data from which we create our opinions. I don't appreciate it when the facts are supposed to fit into the opinions. Western culture is science-based.
What follows from the differences in my view is that men and women function and see the world in dissimilar ways. They have specific qualities and skills. To use spiritual terminology I do believe there are male and female energies and both sexes have their distinct purpose in life. Men are the providers, they take care of the material, the outside world. They invent, they create and their egos are based on respect and being valued. They are more logical and calm. Women take care of the spiritual, they take care of the home, and provide stability for the family. They care about the well-being of the family or the relationships between people. They are more emotional.
Some people would call it stereotypical or old-fashioned but I'd say this is biology and evolution. This is who we are generally. Again, this absolutely does not apply to everyone and completely. Variations are huge but I still think we can still generalize certain things.
This also doesn't mean we can't change it. A lot of who we are is absolutely created by our surroundings and I am aware a lot of the tendencies in our society are fucked up, don't work and we should move forward. Feminism has done a great job with that! And there's still work to be done. I'm just worried we're reaching the biological limits in some areas and we're pushing ideas that are as harmful as the chauvinist ones, but because they are brought up by women, it's ok. I guess...
Our society is patriarchal and I am all up for changing that. Capitalism I think is an extension of the insane materialistic world that mainly men created and it's killing us. Not that women had nothing to do with it and not that they are not supporting but the western society was mainly created by logical, objective thinking scientists and philosophers. Most of them were men. They created a world from men for men. And they excluded women in many ways. This is changing. Women are getting more power in the last 100 years which is great. The question here is: are they changing themselves to fit into a world that was created by men and for men, therefore becoming more manly. Or are they changing the world to be more inclusive for women? Men created this world so they should be happy with it and I guess they generally are. If women accept it and fit into this world better, who's going to change it? If women become more material, less interested in family and relationships is that really a good thing? You could argue that men are becoming more involved in a child's upbringing which is again great but we still live in a patriarchal world and in this sense, I want to see feminism more radical! Take the world down! Let's burn the patriarchy and create a truly equal world for everyone! The reality is that I'm just afraid that the western, capitalist world is so addictive yet so destructive that if we all join it we're screwed. We're spreading it to the rest of the world with incredible speed. If women also accept the rules of the game we might be fucked.
The next point might just be my personal pet peeve but I'm not a big fan of labels. When people put labels onto themselves, when they become part of a certain group, a group mentality takes over. Suddenly, it's us vs them. Suddenly, I am better because I'm part of this group. You can say I'm a privileged white male but I don't think this cultural, racial, or sex/gender identity is that helpful because it creates a barrier between different groups. And while feminism claims to want equality for all it often creates a division because "men are privileged", we don't understand what it's like to be a woman and it puts off a big group of men who are all up for equality but don't like when they are blamed for things they didn't do.
This group identification also sets up a dangerous way of thinking which is the victim mentality. I just joined an ADHD subreddit. I got interested in this topic again because my symptoms have gotten worse lately. I know the reasons and I know the solution, I've been here before but I wanted to get some input from other people. I wanted to learn more about the disease itself. What did I find? People ranting, bitching, and venting about how difficult it is to live with ADD, how people don't understand it, and how nothing seems to work. It was all complaining. This is exactly what I hear from all the different groups being it women, men, black, trans, poor people, or people with various mental diseases. Life isn't fair and life can be hard but it's your life and your responsibility to take it and own it. No one else will. And while others can put you down all the time there are basically two options: bitch about it or do something with it. It's easy to say men have it hard because feminism is oppressing us or that women have it hard because we live in a patriarchal society. It's easy to say I can't be rich because I was born in a poor family because it gives you an excuse, takes away the responsibility and if somebody wants to do that then it's their choice but I don't think these people have much right to complain. The ones who do something and fight for something can complain. IMHO...
That's why I like feminism because it's trying to change things. That's why I don't often like feminists because they complain about how men have it easier while doing nothing to improve their situation. Which says nothing about women. This applies to everyone. Guys do the same and Reddit is full of it. Incels are the absolute ideal of victim mentality. And again, I understand I am incredibly lucky because I'm not ugly (I think), I was born in a somewhat functioning lower-middle-class family in Czech, and I'm fairly competent and healthy. I am aware of that but it's interesting the complaints are often coming from people who don't have it too hard as well. The opposite actually. Self-development is so popular in today's society mainly because we don't have worse things to worry about. We have it so easy compared to the rest of the world and compared to the past. We are spoiled but we don't see it. The basic idea is this: if you can complain you are doing pretty good already. And if you only complain and do nothing to change it then just shut up.
This brings me to the second major disagreement I have found when discussing this. I've mentioned the social vs hard sciences dilemma and the next one is about individualism vs collectivism. I am an individualistic person and I see it as the only viable option when it comes to individuals. It is my life and the only logical solution is to do whatever I want with it. Take it, own it, and use it. For whatever purpose I find valuable. This creates a division. I am not as affected by the norms of society and I try to live independently according to what works for me. I don't think society affects me too much and when it does I try to evaluate the rules and see if I can accept them or reject them. The "social studies people" are affected more, they live their life according to society and they see the structure has more influence on them. They are collectivists and they value society more than themselves or at least they give it more influence on their lives. I don't really have an issue with that. Live however you want until you start to mess with my life. The other way it's not that simple because the collectivists are trying to tell the individuals how we all should be governed and how we all should behave. That's not equality in my view, that's control. Control of the narrative of our life, control of the individual philosophy which should be everyone's free decision. Again, there is a limit. Where does an individual end and society start? I have no answer to that. I could maybe provide some opinion but not here and now.
Similar to the above are the "woke" people. I have, obviously, no objections to social sciences as a whole. I do have a problem with what the knowledge received does to people. When you study something, when you learn more about a certain subject your mind will focus on those topics. You will see them everywhere. So let's say you learn about sex inequality. You learn about the wage gap, discrimination, sexual harassment, and so on. Once you've received this knowledge you will see these problems everywhere. Why? Because everything around us is society. When you are "woke" you suddenly see the scale of the issues you haven't noticed before. So far so good even with me. We have much to improve as a whole. There is a line though and we're crossing over it. Americans did it already in some ways. Western Europeans to a lesser degree I think. The line is for example humor. To me, humor is sacred because humor allows us to point at the issues, to make them known but still laugh about them. We've crossed the line when we started forbidding comedians from performing. You can say that they are truly chauvinist, racist, or whatever-other-ist. You can say they are only worsening the issues by making fun of them and that they are marginalizing the minorities... To that, I say, bullshit. People are just getting offended by anything these days. People are seeing issues where none are existing. I have nothing against knowledge and learning, obviously, but I do care about how this knowledge is used. And if it's used to censor ideas, to shush people because they disagree with what you say I don't think it's fair. This is not what we do in our society. Or is it now? I don't like it when I can't express an opinion because I'm a "white male". I don't like when I can't express disagreement because of my skin and sex because that's exactly what feminism is against, isn't it? I don't think it's fair when I'm accused of being privileged when I try to understand, communicate, and find common ground.
Also, not everything needs to be analyzed and seen through the "woke" view of the world. Let's not assume what other people actually meant by their remarks. Because that is your own assumption of the other's persons opinions, not their real opinion. Let's not see every stupid joke as a sign of something sinister. Let's not scream "discrimination" when a movie doesn't have a strong female hero.
I am saying "you" shouldn't do something but the truth is that I am too woke as well. I see lots of imperfections and I'm glad I do. On the other, my mind is so biased I often have to stop it from creating problems out of nothing. I don't see a reason to condemn a man when he makes a sexist joke. Does a joke prove anything except that the man likes this humor? Same as I don't think it's productive to criticize a movie because it doesn't have enough black characters.
I could go on and on but if I have to stop myself from "seeing too much", are you sure all the injustice in the world is really there? Is it worth your time and emotions? Just be mindful of your brain. Pay attention to the judgments it passes on the world. Is it truly justified? Is it not more often just an automatic response of a brain that's been highly trained and specialized to see the world in one specific way instead of seeing it as a whole?
All right. This is it. Are you offended? Do you consider me a chauvinist pig who needs to open his eyes and learn about the women's struggle? Do you consider me privileged and ignorant? Great! I've done well then!
The truth is that same as with every decent human I am all up for feminism (even though I'd still prefer the term egalitarianism or something). I'm not saying it's a bad ideology and I don't want to ignore all the good it has done. We've gone a long way in the past few decades and I think mainly towards the better. But progress doesn't stop and I'm simply the kind of person who will look for flaws instead of appreciating the good. At least when it comes to the intellectual, philosophical discourse. I am by heart a hater but I like to think I'm a logical and equal hater. I will push and provoke everyone in the same way no matter their gender, race, or nationality. We all suck and we all have too big egos that need to be tickled, knocked down, and sometimes even killed. So it can grow again with different roots. I trimmed my ego and I'm letting it grow again with different rules. It's good, it's healthy. You should try it!
There are many more thoughts that didn't make the cut for this article and all of the ideas here just random splashes with little explanation. If you've read this far, do you think you understand what I was conveying? Good!
Are you sure? Great!
Well, you're most likely wrong!
How can you be sure? If you only read this stupid article but don't ask follow-up questions your idea of what I mean is most likely wrong. Which doesn't need to bother you and it doesn't bother me but let's not pretend we understand each other. I am fully aware of most of the flaws in this article. I am fully aware a lot of it can be misunderstood because I simplified it.
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