You mean women aren’t just animate slabs of beef that clean the house and you can put your willy inside of? Preposterous!
Source: SparkSummit.com
Edit as of !0/25/2013: Due to the author need to check multiple sources simultaneously while working on these articles, a link to a misleading article regarding women’s pay in the work place was posted in place of a more reliable one. The author apologizes to anyone who might have been confused or offended by this.
One of my favorite past times is to take a topic and debate or disprove its theory in order to test the thinking of the other party or show the holes in their logic. I may not even particularly disagree with them; I just want to flex my brain power and keep others on their toes.
This time, however, I’m actively trying to fight the party in question because Anti-Feminists are some of the most narrow-minded and personally offensive people I’ve ever encountered. I rank them among homophobes and racists as people responsible for holding back social progress. Today, I’ll take my stand by taking some of the most common arguments and philosophies I’ve heard and spiting them back into their slack-jawed open mouths so they can eat their own words.
“Why Is This Still Even An Issue?”
This is a common argument mostly heard from people who think that, just because an issue started years before their time, it’s not their problem and it was thoroughly solved by their parents/grandparents/et cetera.
What you’re displaying here is what I call ‘unperceptive bigotry.’ It’s the notion that just because we’ve made great strives against a problem that it no longer exists. Yes, it’s true that we’ve come a long way in woman’s rights – they can vote, work, and have more reproductive freedom. The problem is that you can’t touch up the paint on wrecked car and call it fixed and you can’t do a little legislation on a generations long social problem and call it a non-issue.
Women still only make 77 percent what men do in the work place, terms like ‘legitimate rape‘ are still being used in common parlance, and people who don’t realize these and other issues still exist are only hurting the process of fixing them. It’s the classic coda of, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”
“Don’t We Have Other Things More Important To Work On?”
Okay, we do have wars, foreign policies, and an economy to work on. I understand that and I try to make allowances for that. But isn’t multitasking (and, of course, insuring even distribution of power) part of the reason we divided our government up into multiple branches and offices ran by large numbers of people?
Even on a personal level, are you saying that you don’t have time to worry about this? Do you know how ineffective I’d be if I couldn’t keep several metaphorical irons in the fire? I wouldn’t be in school, working on the family farm, AND writing this blog if I didn’t have the capacity to share my empathy with multiple issues.
In short, I think we can all sacrifice an hour a day from our daily Facebook binge to consider how an issue affects us and share that thought with someone who can help do something about it. Speaking of how issues affect us…
“Gender Equality Isn’t An Issue That Affects Me.”
Really? Are you suggesting that you have NO gender? Even if you identify as gender neutral, that’s still a gender.
Or perhaps you mean that your gender is unaffected by this debate because you’re a man. Well, wouldn’t that suggest that you don’t care about the well-being of your mother? What about your wife? Your daughter? Are you so content to let them suffer?
Every issue has an effect on EVERYONE – directly or indirectly. Understanding that long web of connections that we call ‘The Big Picture’ is the key to solving any challenges we experience in society.
“Feminism Emasculates And Victimizes Men!”
… How? Tell me it makes you less of a man. You brought it up; now give me your well-thought out factual data, Mr. Unga-Bunga Zug-Zug Macho Man.
This is easily the stupidest argument for anti-feminism I’ve ever heard. I’ve asked the above question of every man who uses this defense and not a single one has given me a reasonable, fact based answer.
Men, hear me now: the world will not end just because you have to share it with the other kids on the playground. Please try to keep things in perspective.
Last thoughts
Before anyone asks or tries to throw my own sex back at me as a counterpoint, no, I’m not saying this just to ‘get in good with women.’ My Coming Out Day Article should have made it clear that I don’t have that particular motive.
I’m just so honestly tired of fighting about something that should be obvious to even the least observant people. Let’s try to be a little more fair in our treatment of people regardless of what our 23rd pair of chromosomes looks like.
Related articles
- Gender Equality – We’re All People. (swayingtotheleft.wordpress.com)
- Focus on gender equality (fijitimes.com)
The Awkward Agent's Archive 
And let’s not forget this question: If the person who birthed you and cared for your well-being for at least 18 years is some kind of sub-human, what does that make you?
Also an excellent rebuttal. XD
FYI, the link you provided for the 77cents on the dollar claim is one of the many thousands of debunks of that claim. It is not supporting it. According to what you linked the real gap is 91 cents on the dollar, and that’s for work in different industries. So yea, even you linked how the 77cents is bullshit, why are we still talking about it?
Thank you for pointing that out. I often compare articles to determine their validity and accidentally posted that misleading link. Thanks for telling me.
That’s just it. It’s not misleading. It is the truth. There is a “wage gap” but it’s not 77cent and it’s not for the same work. It is 91 cents and for different work. If we are not going to have a conversation about the reality of the situation, the conversation isn’t worth having. If we are not going to identify the real factors in the differences in wages we can never even hope to fix the differences in wages.
We seem to be at an impasse; My research has shown more examples of the larger gap and I cannot change your mind because you have taking a definite contrary position. Of course, seeing people defend or refute a position is part of the goal of this blog so I suppose I should thank you for that as well. The fact is that the ‘reality’ is different based on our perspectives; I have seen how women are singled out and you either haven’t or can’t making it impossible to debate between us constructively.
I will say this though, your choice of language clearly displays how defensive your stance is and how eager you are to end the debate (“… the conversation isn’t worth having.”) and I would avoid doing that in the future in debate. Also, running a blog called ‘The Poisonous Language of Feminism’ makes you look biased and look like you have an agenda.
I would also argue that a small gap is still a gap and it needs to be dealt with anyway, so we’re arguing about the entirely wrong thing.
I do agree that a small gap is still a gap and worthy of being dealt with. There is no hope of even considering the possibility of a solution so long as you insist on talking about “Women” making less than “Men” rather than talking about nurses making less than engineers
Okay, if this is an issue of job titles, than how would you determine the value of an engineer over a nurse? Don’t they both provide a necessary service that makes civilized life possible for us? Don’t they both require years of college-level study and personal investment by the individual in question? Why should one be considered superior to the other?Also, what is the ratio of female engineers to male and how does that compare to nurses? Is there large enough of a sample to make a fair assessment of the pay gap?
Both engineers and nurses are very much needed. Both take years of study and personal investment. I consider the two jobs to be roughly equivalent taking similar education dedication and intelligence. I don’t have a good explination for why the slightly harder job (nursing) gets paid less. This is where research and advocacy needs to be focused.
It’s not Men making more than women, but engineers making more than nurses. It’s not men making more than women it’s Lawyers making more than teachers. It’s not men making more than women it’s Doctors making more than social workers.
And yes the sample sizes are plently large enough to do research with. It’s just the research money has been going to prove the confirmation bias of gender discrimination rather than looking at the real cause, the different pay for the different work that males and females gravitate too.
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