Is feminism a joke?

Question

I always tought that the point of gender equality was to make everything between men and women equal yet it seems that some feminists and women who follow them only wants the good and not the bad but at the same time call men sexist when they are against something that benefits them as a woman.
For one why is there not a strong outcry to change selective service laws to include women.
Also I have seen many cases in which a male hires a hitman to kill his wife for insurance money and get the death penalty whereas a woman only get life. Three there is not much anger or outcry from feminist when a woman gets child custody because of her gender and not her qualifications as there is when a man gets a job or promotion over a woman due to his gender.

Answer 1

Yes. I think it started out with good intentions (Women's Suffrage), but took a very wrong turn.

Answer 2

1. Selective service laws -- to be honest, I was really pissed off when my brother had to register for selective service and I didn't. I'd really like it if they included women in that, but I'm not the sort to stage public outcries. Furthermore, as the above poster said, men are the ones who are in charge of making people register for the draft, not women. Many of these men surely think women don't belong in the military, which is why things are the way they are. If a feminist had the opportunity to change the rules, I'm sure she would make it where women had to register too...or make it where no one had to register.

2. Discrepancy in death penalties -- This isn't feminism's fault, it's the fault of the individual doing the sentencing. A lot of people (especially male judges) are lenient on women because they see women as needing "protecting" or something...believe me, I'd be very happy if they were equally harsh on women! Giving us lighter sentences is, in some ways, an insult.

3. Child custody vs. hiring -- Good question. A person's gender, for the most part, has very little bearing on how good of an employee you will be. However, many people believe that a person's gender will have an impact on how good of a parent you can be. This may or may not be true, but the fact that women are still the primary care givers of children even in two parent families surely reinforces this belief.

Answer 3

Uh, no the idea that women are human beings is not a joke.

After suggesting it is, you go on to mention "some feminists" -- so, if you object to SOME feminists, why do you then conclude that feminism itself is at fault?

Women in the military have been pushing for equal treatment, but men run the military, and they deny equal treatment in the military.

Since there's no draft, selective service laws aren't of any practical importance. There have been those seeking to change them, but there's no real reason for a strong outcry. I, myself, oppose the idea that everyone should have to sign up to be available for the military, so I do advocate equality, just in the opposite direction from you.

It's not true that feminism itself is responsible for unfair sentencing, since that's done by judges (who are mostly men, BTW).

Many feminists promote and fight for fairer child custody decisions. Your assumption none do is simply false.

So, no, feminism isn't a joke, but your "question" is.

Answer 4

I think it´s worth saying, that every example you mentioned is slowly changing. Especially custody battles. Courts are looking more and more at parental abilities and less and less at gender. But please realize that the majority was raised by their mother. It´s a biological thing. Women carry their baby inside themselves for 8 months, and then spend several very painful hours giving birth to it, and when the baby finally is born, there are biological and chemical factors that make the woman immediately fall in love with the baby and do everything within her power to protect it. All of these things do not exist in males, hence women generally make the better parent. There are exception, and like I said, courts are now paying more attention to these exceptions.

As for the selective service, I´m against it for both genders (I think most people are). On that note, I think that males have more control over that than females do, thus its males thinking that women can´t cut it in the military that are keeping females out of selective service. I´m also against the death sentence for both genders, but I really don´t see much proof that gender effects a juries decision to sentence someone to death.

Answer 5

A pretty weak joke, my friend. Admittedly, feminism is made fun of for the same reasons kids pick on others for being fat, unattractive, disabled, etc.: it's recognized as an ailment that needs to be coaxed out of the impaired individual. It's a fairly natural reaction for people to make fun of the stupid and ignorant. In a way, I always appreciated the role social pressure and humiliation played in convincing otherwise entrenched individuals out of their silly beliefs/habits. Adults have grown up enough to not make fun of others for things that they can't control (i.e., race, gender, handicap, etc.), but they still make fun of people for stupid things that can be controlled (such as a belief in feminism or most any other -ism). I believe the driving motivation for the behavior, even if not conscious, is to discourage the ill behavior on the part of the teased.

Answer 6

Why is it a joke just because all feminists are not addressing your specific goals? There are women who want to end selective service laws, and plenty of us who, while not actively pursuing that, are in agreement with those who say it's unfair. And there are people who are quite concerned with perceived gender bias in court cases and who conduct studies to determine how big the problem is. Oh, and where are all these people hiring hitmen? Honestly, where is this such a huge problem? You can't take just one or two cases as an adequate representation, and I'd really like to see where there's a huge number of people having their spouses killed, sheesh.

If you've got problems with society, you work on changing them. You. You can't sit around, waiting for other people to do it. If you want to do it within a feminist framework, go for it. I'm sure you can get some feminists to help you out, or to even find a group with some feminists in it already. Jeez, you guys aren't children. I don't understand why so many think feminists hate men; we seem to have a higher opinion of them than many anti-feminists. You do not need us to fix things. You can do it yourselves. You will be able to find feminists who will help you, assuming you don't become abusive and combative towards feminism, but you can't expect other people to do things for you. Hell, beyond a few things, even current feminist groups can't get most feminists to agree on an issue, so I don't know why you think your issues are special.

This is what I see from all you supposed critics of feminism. In reality, you seem to think that you're all a bunch of special, special children. You can't do things on your own, you need mommy to do it for you, but you are so special that what you want and what you need should be paramount. Grow the hell up and take care of yourself.

Answer 7

Feminism made sense during the time of the industrialization, as feminists were the first to identify and demand certain restructuring in laws and social structure to take in to account the changes in the society brought by the industrialization.

Society went ahead further after this and appropriate changes and restructuring were made with or without the intervention of the feminists.

Society has further changed and the adjustments and appropriations regarding the laws and social structure will continue as the roles of men and women continuously change.

Feminists stay put at the original state and their concepts and ideology remain the same even though various manifestations and sects are now present in feminism

This make feminism a joke and fanatical as they propagandize old and invalid beliefs and practices

Answer 8

Actually, the feminists here have been in opposition to any laws that are conducive to gender supremacy of either sort. If there must be a draft, women should be included. If there must be a death penalty, women should be sentenced to it if necessary. Child custody should be given to the best parent regardless of sex. Jobs and promotions should be given to the best applicant regardless of sex. There are no exceptions.

Answer 9

You might want to do a tad bit of research, your gender stereotyping is showing:

As of January /1980: NOW OPPOSITION TO DRAFT AND REGISTRATION (for BOTH women and men):

BE IT RESOLVED, that NOW opposes the reinstatement of registration and draft for both men and women. NOW's primary focus on this issue is on opposition to registration and draft. However, if we cannot stop the return to registration and draft, **we also cannot choose between sisters and brothers**. We oppose **any registration or draft** that **excludes women** as an unconstitutional denial of rights to both young men and women. And we continue to oppose all sex discrimination by the volunteer armed services. http://www.now.org/issues/military/index.html

Congress makes the laws, and refuses to budge on selective service regulations. The Supreme Court refuses to overturn the selective service requirements as well, despite numerous law suits. Call your House and Senate Representative, I have, have you?

Answer 10

I'm a feminist and I agree with you on these things.