Feminist Rant
If you're offended by women striving to be seen as "people", I would advise you not to read further.
Well now that Omar is making connections in LA and moving his acting career forward, I am awash with the diversity of sausage working together for their "greater goals". They may tell me:
"I'm sorry, Elle, I fully agree with what you're saying. Women should be involved, but that's just not the battle we're trying to fight right now. We're trying to make other kinds of change."
Not that your other kinds of change aren't equally important, but how do you expect to bring about any real change with only 50% of the population working with you toward that goal?
What I'm saying is that we all need to be on the same page.
No more of this, "Women are not welcome because they are a distraction."
My mere presence is a distraction? Am I really so strong of an influence?
Or is the reality simply that you cannot be bothered to control your impulses, like the rest of us do?
I googled images of "women" to use in this post, and the first three tags that came up for refining my search were,
"hot"
"thick"
and "bare".
When I googled "men" I got,
"shower"
"bed"
and "locker room".
Huh... that's funny. The tags associated with women were all adjectives describing desirable women. The ones associated with men were places. Amazing. Admittedly, those locations associated with men are likely sexualized, but the pivotal difference here is that the woman herself is sexualized, while the man is placed in a sexual setting.
I am a person. I go to places. I act and react. I am more than a [insert your visual description of me here] woman.
So why do you think men have such a hard time seeing women as people, rather than objects of sexual desire? Blame it on the media, right? They produce so many sexualized images of women in comparison to the strong, sharp, well-put-together image of a man. But tell me, who decides what the content of these images will be? More men.
So men, we need more from you than just agreement. To agree with the fact that there is a problem is not enough. We need you to act on our behalf, because when you do that, you are also acting on behalf of men, women, and every gender in between. We are all one humanity.
a man is nothing without woman :')
A woman's worth! :)
"Feminist Rant"? First world problems ma'am. I wouldn't understand most of your feminist jingoism but I really can see women dying in my part of the world. Not dying in the soul, or some other figurative dying but actually departing from this earth just because of laws made by men.
But they don't get to make rants and then expect people to disagree with them and stuff like that. They're struggling to break away from the chains of social slavery that has had them bound for centuries. When I see women in the West talk about female objectification and then men retort with how it is reversed on them and female empowerment that has actually got nothing to making women really strong, I laugh at the world. Then I cry a little because while women in the West are busy talking about the privileges they want, women in my country are dying just because they are menstruating
Demonize you? I see the problem here. You just think that your are "entitled" to so much and then people need to agree to you everytime over really vague concepts.
Well, I have been vegan for the last 26 days too but I don't need to show off my body every other day on Steemit. I would be putting my personal self out to be judged by the world, wouldn't I?
I also don't need to post selfies of my progress, but I like to. I am proud of it. I don't see how that is relevant. Go on and try to discredit me for being proud of myself and sharing my pride with others. I'm a proud Cuban woman and nothing you say to me about entitlement is going to change that.
Haha! It's funny because I was actually just looking through my phone's gallery to see if I had any selfies to share.
I didn't. I'll probably take one tomorrow.
You see its really difficult on the men already. They have to learn to differentiate between feminists, feminazis and attention seeking women who play the woman card on social media as per their convenience.
Oh wow. You're right. I hadn't considered how absolutely trying it must be to be a man and have to READ a PERSON in order to figure them out.
Oh wait... women have to read others, and also live in fear. Hang on... it sounds like you're whining.
Hahahaha..playing the woman card quite well. Live in fear?? Opressed much?? Want your own identity??
Maybe you should build something for yourself instead of trying to seek attention on social media. One minute you clamour for all the attention, the next moment you complain about getting the attention.
There are different forms of attention. Some are welcome, some are not. Posting to steemit is much like posting to a personal blog. Whether it gets attention or not is not the goal. The goal is to share things in a blog format. You don't like women. I get that. Just move along.
Hahaha..so assumptious. You're not looking for "followers" on Steemit then? Its so personal for you? You have a problem admitting your fake, attention seeking feminism. Just move along.
Just because the situation is far worse in another part of the world doesn't make it any less of a problem over here. So just because we aren't dying, you want to call us privileged? Because being "allowed" to live is a privilege? I thought it was a human right. Of course, the whole world is fucked, but how can you try to demonize me or make me feel any less just for being human, for expressing my emotion, and for sharing an experience with other humans?
I guess women are equal to men still remains the biggest lie in the history of humankind :P
"You guess". ;) Good to see you admit your ignorance. That's very big of you.
Preach!
You're dead on about the media, but there's much bigger problems. When is a woman at her peak desirability? Not for sex, but marriages. When does a man achieve this? When do those slopes cross? What percent of women die on the job? Consider this too: those Google searches aren't some codified societal norm, they're what people (male or female) searched for in the past. My google search results will be completely different than yours. Your search isn't a reflection of society, it's a look at Google's algorithms and YOUR OWN search history. Look at your wording on steemit. You place your man in "places." Narrow views aren't the solution, they're just a function of Google.
Who cares about desirability? Just stop there. Being desirable is not going to help us reach our individual potentials as human beings. I don't search for much more than food recipes on google. Anything else HE picks up on is influenced by the masses, not me. If Google doesn't have specifics on your searches to go on, where does it draw upon? Other influences. Popular suggestions. Your assumption that I may have searched for any such thing in the past is quite unwelcome and ill informed.
burrrrrrn
Why shouldn't men be MORE upset that google places us in "places"? That's more objectifying by most measures. Ken isn't an actual "doll" he's an accessory to the Barbie doll. This double standard goes way back and if you think women are getting the "short end" of it, you're a part of the problem not the solution.
The Ken doll was created to be Barbie's boyfriend because, duh, women need men (that's sarcasm, just in case you missed it). Your example of a children's toy causing a double standard is amusing, though, so there's that.
I implore men to speak up when they see another man degrading a woman, because that man dehumanizing the woman is not going to listen to a woman, but he might listen to another man.
You are that man that needs another man's influence. With your double standard excuse of an argument. Clearly, a woman is not a person worth listening to in your view.
I know you think you're speaking for all women here, but you're not. There are countless [female] ex-feminists that have moved away from this victim mindset and realised that true egalitarianism is the way forward, not feminism.
"So why do you think men have such a hard time seeing women as people, rather than objects of sexual desire?" - nice generalisation there... but if we're being honest you should be saying why do men and women have such a hard time seeing the opposite sex as people, rather than objects of sexual desire? Because some women do this just as much as some men.
Kind of a vague call-to-action. What exactly is it you want men to do?
Speak out when you see something that women would hope that you "agree" upon in conversation. If a women opens up to you and tells you that she feels like men treat her as an object, make sure you see it the next time it happens in context. It really won't take long before you encounter it. You can't be that much of a shut in not to notice if you really start looking. Why am I vague? Because the context is vast and overarching. It's everywhere. It's when a little girl of 3 is being praised for being beautiful while her four year old brother is being praised for his "bravado" whatever that is. It's when I walk down the street to go to work and I am called out by strangers for being "beautiful". Don't call that a compliment, because I'm sure you are never called out on the street,
"Look at that sexy man, look at his smile" they don't even address the woman when they "compliment" her, so much as they talk ABOUT her OUT LOUD in PUBLIC. It's everywhere. It's not vague. Just pay attention.
Edit: Omar just pointed out to me that a lot of Steemit users may not be from the US, which is where this problem is highly prevalent in the context that I've outlined, so if you are from a different country, then I apologize, and wish to convey that this is a problem that is clearly prevalent throughout the US.
I really dislike the lumping together of women and men. This is collectivism. I am an individual. People like different stuff, some of it has to do with biology/psychology. I don't think all women agree on the same issues.
I speak out when i disagree with something, not when some group wants me to.
I don't get called out on the street. No. But I think women are different in flirting behavior than men. I get looks. Doesn't phase me. I don't feel threatened by that.
Omar was right, I m not from the US.
I won't go white knighting for women. I respect them so much, and think they are equal to the point that they can deal with people talking about them themselves.
As far as speaking out when you disagree with something, it's very likely that you would feel the urge to speak out if you were living in the US and experiencing these issues first hand. We are in a position where men are already in power. For a woman to speak out effectively results in being pushed back down by that power that we are trying to share with men. It's disgusting over here.
I've been called out on the street since I was only 13 years old. And this is daily, unless I didn't go out on a certain day. I don't want to hear that argument that blames women, either, saying that the way we dressed was the reason we were on the receiving end of lude comments starting at only 13 years of age. I was in high school. I wore jeans and a t shirt. I didn't wear make up (I still don't). And even if I did decide that I wanted to look polished, it's still not an invitation. EVERY DAY. Can you imagine? And my experience is not uncommon. Hell, I'd hear these nasty comments while I was crossing the street WITH MY GRANDMOTHER.
You say you aren't phased or threatened by the looks you get, but had you been born a female, you'd automatically be at a far greater risk for being physically overtaken. I only recently noticed that men don't realize the fear women have in their gut when they go out in public alone. We go out in groups because it makes us safer. We hold hands and go to the restroom together to make sure that no one gets knocked out and dragged into the alley out back. We feel intense fear because we know that rape is not only a possibility, it is RAMPANT and VERY LIKELY. More than just being disgusting, cat calling is threatening. It frightens us, and then men often laugh and ridicule our fearful retreat and continue to call out and leer long after we've left their line of sight. They continue to strike fear into us because they know we can still hear them.
Honestly, of COURSE you don't feel threatened!
My point in this whole post is that women are not seen as people by men (and oftentimes, other women). My point is not to tell men everywhere that they need to take action now, it's to tell men that women need their support. And that support can come in a variety of ways, which I'm sure you could come up with on your own. I shouldn't have to tell you how to make a woman feel safer, validated, or human in times when others are making us feel less.
But again, I realize that this problem may be far more prevalent in the US than in your country, so I hope you understand where I'm coming from as well, and I do realize that this may not even apply to you. =)
If you feel threatened, i suggest you take up martial arts.
I get what you are expressing. I really do. I just think the FIRST step should be to work on your own reality, and not the whole world.
Has worked great for me. I'd be interested to hear how it goes for you.
Also, what did you get called out for?
Training all women to defend themselves from physical harm is a bandaid. We need to teach the aggressors to stop.
I got called out for being "hot", "sexy", "beautiful", "gorgeous", "yummy", etc.
I can't force the other people within my reality to change. I don't understand how you propose that I work on my own reality, short of ignoring the men who dehumanize women within my immediate vicinity.
To go back to that phenomenon where you don't feel threatened by looks, but most women do... Why can't you agree that this information was enlightening to you? Or did you already know that and choose to sweep it under the rug?
I understood it like this: most women feel threatened by looks, because they fear getting raped. I get that.
Now assume you knew how to defend yourself. And you knew that if the lusty looking man were to make a move on you and you just choke him unconscious. Would you still be scared?
How are we supposed to change the aggressor? How are YOU supposed to change another person? It's impossible. One can only control ones' own actions.
Assume it became known that rapists get the shit kicked out of them by their potential victims. Do you think that would not deter them? I think it would.
Same as, I don't go rob a bank where I know all customers are armed. I go where guns are not allowed.
So. My conclusion is: from what you wrote I take it that you get scared. I get that. You feel helpless. But the only thing YOU can do is arm up. Learn the techniques.
Yeah I would probably still be frightened of the need to get into a physical altercation.