h3ero_yuy's Journal

Feminism, Sexism, Gender, Masculinity, Femininity, and more!
Before I begin, I'd like to get all the necessary disclaimers out of the way. I'm sure this post will have errors, feel free to politely let me know if you find a factual error or misrepresentation of a viewpoint. If you disagree, that's fine, all of this stuff is just my opinion. This isn't meant to be a critique of feminism or masculinity, or act as an educated attempt at summarizing arguments for/against/about either of them, it's only meant as a screed for me to adequately express my opinion. Feedback and thoughts are appreciated. All these disclaimers apply throughout, and won't be mentioned anywhere else, they are always assumed.

I never really understood feminism. Maybe I still don't. I recently read a number of articles regarding feminism, masculinity, and gender identity. These put forth some interesting things I'd never heard mentioned. Up until that point, I'd really only vaguely understood feminism, and usually associated it with the female-supremacy ideologies. Turns out, it is not. So this is going to explain my viewpoints on these topics.

We all have different privilege and background. Being a white male from a middle class suburban upbringing means I have a lot of privilege and I haven't seen a lot of things. I can't relate to a lot of things. I can't always empathize with people, only sympathize, and that's life, and that's okay. I don't think that anyone should have to apologize with what we're born into, and also none of us should have to apologize for not dedicating our lives to creating true equality. You can't do that. You can't sacrifice who you are for an ideal, no matter how noble that idea is.

But feminism doesn't have to be about that. To me, from what I read, feminism is far more about understanding the trials women go through as a group in a male-dominated society. So even if I don't understand women, perhaps I can start to see what they go through. They go through a lot.

Women are expected to be pretty, expected to show they "want it" more than men do for the same thing, expected to be "attractively" stupid while also capable of performing many tasks, expected to dress up for men, expected to obey men, expected to be submissive and needy but at the same time not annoying. There's so many conflicting views of how women should be, and most of them don't come directly from women, though they are often mediated by women on each other which is evidence of societal pressure. How many men think they own women? How many men think they deserve a woman? Not just physically, but her attention? How many men don't really understand that no means no, not just physically, but attention-wise? How many men will BADGER THE SHIT out of a woman to get or keep her attention? More than a few, I guarantee.

But it's more than just those obvious things, it's also the more subversive and subtle things, like language. Male pronouns are the standard for "gender-neutral" pronouns. This isn't in and of itself a bad thing, but the fact is that in our society this just reinforces what we already have. In a society where gender equality was the norm, this wouldn't be a problem, and we all do this, not just men, not just women, everyone does this sort of thing in some way, but it is a problem. Another is how women are seen as objects or in areas they aren't historically participatory they are treated as a stereotype and joked about.

Feminism has some legitimate gripes. Even if people can't see it, they do, there is a hell of a lot of issues women face even if you don't see it because of your privilege, they do face it. Equality is not here, it's better, but it isn't here.

Then on the other hand, we do have the ultra-feminist-female-supremacy people. Women are not superior to men, that is bunk. Men are not superior either. There are also a few points of view I very much agree with. Equality, socially, is a positive thing, but assuming gender is meaningless is stupid. Gender is an important identifier in human existence, and there are two genders, male and female, and then a lot of in betweens, and then we also have two physical sexes, male and female.

The reality is gender, as an identity, is a lot more of a spectrum than an absolute, just like homosexuality and heterosexuality. Someone who is physically male my identify as female, or male, or both in different circumstances. The reality is that everyone has these "female" and "male" traits, and these traits are largely culturally determined, but we all poses a mixture. This is something that a lot of people disagree with or don't get, but in my view it's a simple truth.

Physical sex versus gender is also an important distinction as I stated earlier, and there are biological differences. It may turn out that there are even differences in the brain that make one physical sex more apt to a certain profession or ability. I'm not saying these absolutely exist, but what I"m saying is I admit the possibility. My problem is with people who refute these possibilities. The reality is if we have facts that tell us one thing, we can't ignore them because it doesn't mesh with our social ideals. You can still have social and societal equality and acknowledge there are inherent differences. This isn't to say everyone is like this, but I know a number of people who hate facts that disagree with their agendas.

Lastly, we have masculinity and femininity. These are both societally defined, but in our society there is a crisis, because classical western masculinity is (righteously) being realized as a contributory factor in a lot of sexism. Why is this? Plenty of reasons. Males are meant to be dominant, in charge, in control, forceful, powerful, always in control, masters of their domain. In extreme cases, this becomes machismo, but even I see these qualities in myself, all males will, in varying amounts. Women have a similar problem with the feminine expression, as it seems to often promote the societal agenda of sexism. This isn't to say women are at fault for what happens and how they act in this regard, they aren't, this is socially programmed, but it is something that must be considered as well. So the question is how can both women and men create a new identity, one that promotes equality? We can't throw away our social programming, but we can adapt it, learn, and try to retain our historical gender identities despite their faults by trying to remove that which is harmful and keep that which is good. We can also encourage people of both physical sexes to express whatever gender they feel is appropriate to them. Distinction is not bad, it is not necessarily the enemy of equality. So the key is balance, as it is in most things. This is something we have yet to find I think, but in time we may, as our views of masculinity and femininity evolve towards one promoting equality but still each maintain unique aspects that do not belittle one another.

These are my thoughts.

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