Meninism

I had a philosophy prof yesterday who was talking about how there are intellectuals and academics who write articles that really are talking about little to nothing, and are really not that academic anyways. He specifically mentioned people in gender studies and historical/classical studies. He didn't mean to offend, he completely welcomed debate from any of these people. He was specifically talking about sentences with fluff in them.

He was talking about how we had over a 1 hour discussion JUST on the first sentence in the first book in Nicomachean ethics and how in these other disciplines students are expected to read several articles in preparation for class and then somehow they are able to cover all of these articles in one class. Taking it one of two ways, either these articles in these other disciplines are just fluffy bullcrap or that the system doesn't allow enough time to truly host discussions on these topics.

I am in a course that counts towards philosophy, gender and religion and sometimes we are told to read 3 articles and they really are not as sophisticated, there is the odd article that really grabs me because it actually informs me of something I couldn't assume. I feel like it's a mix of fluff and not having enough class time.

But anyways, my point is that this professor found that it is difficult to analyze just once sentence in these articles for an hour like we had with Aristotle.

So I was reading this article about "meninism" written by an arguably feminist author, because I was curious about the thoughts of what people thought about this meninist movement on twitter. It sort of started as a parody of feminism with legitimate non-critical issues men have in society (like not having doors held for them, being judged for being short, etc). Like most things, it angered the feminist community.

Here's the article I read

I've got to say I'm "rolling my eyes" over this article, which is funny  because for some reason whenever I picture a feminist I picture someone just fucking rolling their eyes and the number of times this author mentioned eye-rolling just supports my visualization.

So there was a specific quote that was terrible in this article and it is the entire reason I am writing a blog post about it.

This quote: "Men started tweeting at each other with a cute little Meninist hashtag. It started out as a joke (rolling my eyes so hard right now), and then morphed into an outlet where people with penises could bitch about how hard it is to be a man in the twenty-first century."

ISN'T 21ST CENTURY FOCUSED WESTERN FEMINISM THE EXACT SAME FUCKING THING?

I am sorry, but most feminism in the modern sense is when people with vaginas bitch about how hard it is to be a woman in the twenty-first century. 

Again, as I always state, some places women are not equal and some acts of feminism are required to bring equality, but once we reach a society like the one we have today, most acts of feminism can fuck off. The same issues men are complaining about under the hashtag #meninism are the same or similar to the issues women are speaking of. If we are having a fucking crisis over this meninism and feminism stuff over girls saying that guys have a view on them that is to be skinny and pretty, and that men are complaining over the same thing, this society is not modern and not evolved. An evolved society will not be in this state any longer. 

I actually find the meninism quotes and photos funny on twitter. Here's one:

This is an example of the meninism shenanigans (which again, are mostly jokes, so fuck off if you can't take a joke)

It's a parody of the whole "real women have curves" thing which is actually wandering off because of this:

Which is true. 

What makes me angry about these types of things is just that the people giving opinions are not open minded or critical (sorry for the generalization). I read these tweets that are like "I hate women who support meninism, it's why I don't talk to people" and then I scroll to older tweets and it's just like "I want a heart shaped box of chocolates for valentines day <3". Um. Alrighty. So you think women like me who think meninism is funny are terrible people, but then you earlier stated you wanted special treatment from a man on valentines day. I am assuming she wasn't planning on romancing her crush or boyfriend on valentines day. Meninism. Right there. 

Anyways, my point of this post was to draw attention to that disgusting sentence I pulled from the article I posted above. It actually upsets me to see people are just that unable to look at multiple sides of a situation and not see what they are actually writing. I don't think I took more than a half-hour of time writing this, so even I am falling victim to this. But I know that I thought hard about what I wanted to say. 

I am going to make a statement and attempt not to use generalizations. Many women were recently angry about rape jokes (maybe a few years ago it was really hyped up in online media), which is understandable since rape is terrible. They argued that it encouraged it and whatnot, which I think is ridiculous. I don't go around telling rape jokes or anything but there have been some demeaning jokes towards women that I have laughed at because I am able to understand that it is funny and I know I am not going to be raped for laughing at a rape joke. Anyways. My point with this statement is that recently Tina Fey and Amy Poehler (who I love) are feminists and recently made a rape joke. 

So maybe this whole meninism thing in a few years will be joked about by feminists, just like rape jokes. Who knows. 

What do you think about the hashtag #meninism?

More thoughts on feminism

Frequently in my blog posts I talk about feminism and how I find it almost an unnecessary movement in Western or more specifically, Canadian culture. I am also one of these people who says "What about men?" whenever there is a Women's Appreciation day of some kind or another.

I don't necessarily want to take back any of the things I said, yet I want to re-appropriate them.

I do not think the modern feminist movement is completely useless. Of course I want genders to be equal to each other, and I think we are darn close to, if not, we have reached it but I just openly hate "extremist" feminists.

My personal definition of an extremist feminist is a feminist who:

- Goes out of their way to put down men

- Goes out of their way to bring up women

- Does not work towards gender equality

- Acts irrationally 

- Dedicates their entire life to the feminist movement 

- Outwardly hates men

- Simply just pushes things "too far" by fighting harder than women are being fought against

I think this kind of feminism is completely irrational. Honestly, I do hate the term "feminist". Egalitarianism is more what I would prefer this to be called. 

But I will acknowledge there are many women being mistreated by men. Some of it doesn't even have to do with misogyny though, it has to do with disrespect. Sure, there are tons of accurate and inaccurate social studies that show women are being abused by men but that doesn't directly mean that the abuser is a misogynist, maybe he just can't manage his anger and he is just abusive to all people, even men. Studies aren't reliable.

I think the things that do need to be fought are in our courts and the american courts. Cases in which men get away with beating their wives, women can't use self-defence and the judges and juries are misogynistic. 

Gender equality in the workplace is a battle not worth fighting, unless the inequality is in pay for equal work and when there is equal seniority and experience. Having 50/50 employees in some workplaces doesn't make sense. Men can lift boxes better, more women are librarians. Deal with it. Affirmative action can suck it. 

The only other thing I hate doesn't bug me too much, but it bugs me that it bugs other women. It's guys who shout "blow me" or "suck my dick" or "I wanna fuck you" or "You are cocksucking beautiful" or any derogatory thing men yell at women from their cars, the streets, anywhere. This doesn't bug me (usually) because I either ignore them or yell "suck MY dick" back at them, but there was a time in which this would bug me. I just think it's weird how men shout stuff at women but women don't shout "fuck my vagina!" and embarrass guys over it. I mean, I'm sure that has happened but I just think it's weird. 

Dear Guys, 

Stop being dicks by yelling "suck my dick" at us from your cars. 

Love, 

Your mom (who is a woman who obviously didn't suck dad's dick because you piece of shit were born from my vagina and I don't know where I went wrong when raising you because you turned into a dick).

I am a pretty tough girl. When a guy is being weird to me I am able to ignore it. Girls shouldn't have to feel targeted and subjected at work when a creep is talking to her and she can't walk away because her boss won't let her. I can take it, but not everyone can. I would rather tell girls to "man up" than to tell a guy to "Cut it out" just because of my "fight" response to most things rather than flight, but honestly, this is all so stupid.

I am not a feminist. I am not even a mens-rights activist. I just think everybody should fight for what they want. I am not a liberal in the sense that everything should just workout and be equal, I am more of an anarchist because I think people should literally fight and shoot for what they want. I guess that's why gender equality doesn't concern me as much as it concerns other men and women.

Do you agree or disagree with my thoughts on feminism and/or gender equality?