"Feminism" isn't a bad word, you know.

[Amethyst Hunter]

Much like it seems to have become OK to use the word "liberal" like it's some sort of curse word... :mad:

A thread over on CS inspired this nitpick. While I agree that holding doors/giving up seats/etc. to others is just plain common courtesy and should be done for either gender, it really irks me when people blame a basic lack of manners on "those feminists". Uh, NO. Feminism has done way more good than harm. Women have the right to vote and to control (mostly; ideally it would be 100%) their own bodies. Children don't have to work in coal mines or such anymore. Those women who complain when someone holds a door for them aren't being feminist, they're just being obnoxious.

By and large the majority of feminists aren't the ballbusting hairy-legged man-hating baby-eating demons that media (and biased people) love to make them out to be. Those few that are advocating an "all men must die" attitude are far and few between, if they even exist at all (I'm inclined to doubt this, as I've never met or talked to any feminist who thinks that men should do so).

In short: Feminism is the radical notion that women are people too.

[CancelMyService]

Just like liberalism is the radical notion that having a level playing field and not being a selfish douchebag is a nifty idea.

I always wonder just why would someone be so against the concept of basic fairness that they would turn descriptors like that into curse words.

It makes a little part of me die every time I see a Democratic candidate react to being called "liberal" as if it was the worst slur possible. Such is the legacy of talk radio/fox news/right wing blog idiots.

[Amethyst Hunter]

You *know* if Jesus came back He'd get crucified all over again, even before He got a chance to say one word. Christ is as liberal as liberal gets.

[Sylvia727]

I read something about this somewhere...can't remember where, unfortunately, and it will be driving me crazy, but basically it said that the default should not be masculine, and equal should not be feminine. Both of these terms imply that women are less than men. Think about it...if you promote equality by promoting women, aren't you bringing women up?

I'm a feminist, and will be until "equalist" catches on, but I'd like to see equality brought to both sides of the table. Macho men bragging about their gender's inability to raise children or do housework are actually hurting men. Just look at the statistics for child custody after divorce. The mothers almost always get the bigger half.

I have doors held for me all the time, by both men and women. I've never thought of it as a gender thing. In fact, most of the time I hear the word chivraly is in regards to who pays for dinner.

EDIT: And if one wants to talk about the advancements made by feminists...well, Adam's first wife Lilith gave us the cowgirl position ;)

[Seshat]

I'm feminist. And equalist. And so on and so forth.

I believe that every child should have as fair a chance as possible. If they want to be a Kenyan game keeper or a New York financier, then (barring disability or simple lack of the right personality traits) they bloody well should have the chance to be.

Sure, a kid raised in New York will have to overcome significant geographical and cultural change to become a Kenyan game keeper; and a kid raised among the Masai would have to overcome almost insurmountable cultural change to be a successful New York financier. :D But I believe that children should have the opportunity, as far as is reasonable.

(Digression: The Masai->Wall Street example does raise a really interesting point. I'll sleep on that one, since I think both the Masai and the New York elite have a right to raise their children to their own culture. But I also think the children should be able to swap places in adulthood if they really, really want to. That gets tough!)

Annnnnyway. Back to the point I was trying to make. Both feminism and a majority of the 'liberal agenda' are really just saying "let everyone have a fair go". I honestly don't understand how people object to that.

Well, okay. I can understand people who are saying "my kids should have a better chance than anyone else's". I just see those people as selfish. But other than that, I don't understand the objections.

[CancelMyService]

It's a controversial position to take, but I really believe the heart of conservative republicanism (at least the form popular since the Reagan years) is being a selfish asshole. I mean, traditional conservatism has some respectable views but really this Fox News Conservatism can be distilled to "fuck you, I got mine".

I can respect people with conservative views in terms of say, financial matters, but they've let their side be taken over by people who look down your nose if you don't have the right sex/color/orientation/religion/amount of money.

[Greenday]

It's the same as every other group in existence. Most people are moderate or towards the fence. And then you have some special people who are extremists and have big mouths. I mean, most girls I know think it's nice when I hold a door for them. But then again I also have a few girl friends who believe chivalry is completely gone and get pissed at me when I try to be a gentleman.

[Boozy]

It's a controversial position to take, but I really believe the heart of conservative republicanism (at least the form popular since the Reagan years) is being a selfish asshole.

It absolutely is. It is about taking care of your own and ignoring everyone else.

The problem is that I truly believe that most people are good people. So the trick was to convince them that the poor are at fault for their own situation, and that helping others is somehow a zero sum game; that by assisting the poor you are harming yourself.

[Saydrah]

*shame* I have been one of those people afraid to call myself a feminist for a long time. But I figured out this year (well 2007- in the last 12 month period) that whether I use the f-word for myself or not, I'm a feminist by the way I act and interact with the world.

The problems I have with feminism are that the feminist community is not very inclusive of people with differences beyond the "acceptable" ones. My sister has been a very active feminist- she started the first-ever chapter of NOW on her college campus and performed in the Vagina Monologues twice. She is an ex-stripper, former addict, and a wonderful mother, and her activism has certainly done the world good. But I found when trying to get to know the feminist community that there are a lot of hidden barriers to acceptance- for example, racial differences are fine, and being a lesbian is fine, but bisexual and polyamorous are kind of hard things to be in the feminist community. All bi girls are just doing it for attention, all poly women have low self esteem and think they can't keep a man if they don't let him sleep with other people. WTF? I also see very little inclusion of people of different ability levels in the feminist world. A few bloggers I like have written reams about feminism and disability, which basically boils down to that feminism excludes disability on a few fronts, a major one of which is reproductive rights.

That said, I have realized I don't need to be part of an exclusive feminist "clique" to be a feminist. I just need to look at my day to day life. Who is the breadwinner in the household? Me. Who does the dishes? Male roommate. Who cooks? My primary partner. None of the three of us in my household have any significant attachment to traditional gender roles, and I think that's really the primary benefit of feminist thought through the last century: This generation doesn't feel it NEEDS gender roles. Sure, we joke about how I make a lousy girl and how SO is my housewife, but the reality of day to day life is, had we set up our lives this way in the 50s or 60s, we'd have been incredibly strange and SO would have gotten flak from every man he met for doing women's work. He has friends who are not open minded and caring people who reject stereotypes- in fact, he has friends who are flat out bigoted jerks- and not one of them has ever said anything about the gender roles in our household. It goes unnoticed that when he is out of cash sometimes he asks me for some money, and that I come home and faux-faint from hunger and beg him to make some nummy spaghetti. Those things both would have been taboo not too long ago.

[Seshat]

As an active feminist: you're welcome, Saydrah. :D

I'm not a part of some "feminist communities", but I have personally run a community to support women in a particular non-traditional area. And I've been both lauded and quite unpopular in that community for doing so - the praise and the criticism occasionally even coming from the same people!

To me, the goal of feminism is to dismantle feminism. But only to dismantle it because it's no longer needed.

To dismantle it because homes are gender-neutral in much the way Saydrah described. To dismantle it because the glass ceiling is gone. To dismantle it because any female who can control a firehose and rescue people from a burning house can be a firefighter, and any male insane enough to want to look after a room of toddlers and capable of doing so can get work as a kindergarten teacher. To dismantle it because noone thinks twice about either the female firefighter or the male kindergarten teacher.

The fact that many people, both male and female, can suddenly look at themselves and their lives and go 'oh! I've been feminist all along!' means that we're achieving that goal. It's great!

But I wish the word itself didn't have the bad press it does. :( I wish people didn't keep asking feminists like myself to explain why we 'want' biased hiring practices and politically correct language. It gets repetitive and annoying explaining that we don't.

The one thing I wish society did have, is a better historic record of women's lives. I've met a lot of young women who have no idea that after world war II, women were kicked out of the workforce and back into their houses. Jobs for the boys, you know. Or that my grandmother's generation (their great-grandmother's generations, for some) rarely handled more money than was necessary for the grocery shopping. Paying the bills was the man's job. My grandmother didn't know how to do that - which made being divorced not just emotionally traumatic, but financially extremely difficult. She honestly didn't know how to do the financial side of maintaining a home.

Think about that when you look at the lonely 70 and 80 year old widows in your community. Even some of the ones as young as 50 or 60 may have lived like that all their lives, and only need to do 'the man's job' now their husbands have died.

[IDrinkaRum]

I didn't know my mother was a feminist! :D She's not the breadwinner in the family but she's the one in charge of paying all the bills and balancing the checkbook. Sure, my mom cooks, but really, the only thing my dad knows how to do is cook scrambled eggs, and even those he can mess up on. (I do love my dad so please don't hate me for making fun of his cooking skills).

My husband, I think, would like us to be a more traditional household. Yes, I am a SAHM and he goes to work every day. I do the majority of the raising of our daughter. I'm supposed to cook, clean, etc., etc. But I don't. I ask my husband to help with at least the dishes. (He does have the chores which are: take out the garbage, change the kitty litter & carry heavy objects down the stairs for me). He does help me every so often to "clean" the house (he sits at the dining room table & throws away the paperwork that finds its way onto our dining room table. :p

I knew some hardcore feminists who hated men. They scared me.

I believe in equality for the sexes. I want to be judged for a job promotion because of my work & my ability not because I'm a woman (and vice versa for men). I want my daughter to be able to grow up and be able to go out in the world and be all that she can be even though she's on the low end of the Autism Spectrum.

[Seshat]

I didn't know my mother was a feminist! :D She's not the breadwinner in the family but she's the one in charge of paying all the bills and balancing the checkbook.
<snip>
I believe in equality for the sexes. I want to be judged for a job promotion because of my work & my ability not because I'm a woman (and vice versa for men). I want my daughter to be able to grow up and be able to go out in the world and be all that she can be even though she's on the low end of the Autism Spectrum.

Looks like you're both feminist, then. :D

[myswtghst]

By and large the majority of feminists aren't the ballbusting hairy-legged man-hating baby-eating demons that media (and biased people) love to make them out to be. Those few that are advocating an "all men must die" attitude are far and few between, if they even exist at all (I'm inclined to doubt this, as I've never met or talked to any feminist who thinks that men should do so).

I think this is the key - the same as it is with people who dislike certain religions, in that there are certain very opinionated and very vocal members of the feminist "community" who make the vast majority of the group, who are usually sane and rational, look bad as people tend to stereotype and/or group them together.

To me, the goal of feminism is to dismantle feminism. But only to dismantle it because it's no longer needed.

I believe in equality for the sexes. I want to be judged for a job promotion because of my work & my ability not because I'm a woman (and vice versa for men).

The above 2 quotes pretty much sum up my views. I know that men and women are different, but this is much in the same way that different people are different. I think that we should all be treated as equals, and tend to consider myself much more "equalist" or even "humanist" than I've ever been feminist.

Oh, and I've got nothing against common courtesy/chivalry, no matter who it's coming from. I'm constantly holding doors, saying please/thank you, and just generally being polite, because I was raised well and honestly believe in treating people well, just for the sake of it.

[Seshat]

Oh, and I've got nothing against common courtesy/chivalry, no matter who it's coming from. I'm constantly holding doors, saying please/thank you, and just generally being polite, because I was raised well and honestly believe in treating people well, just for the sake of it.

In the CS thread that inspired this one, I posted my beliefs on door-opening. Which amount to 'whoever it's most convenient for opens the door and holds it for a reasonable number of people to pass through. If the line is long, every few people someone should take the door, so noone gets held up for too long holding it'. I went into more detail - stuff about disabled people, or people with heavy or awkward packages, and so on. But 'most convenient' really covers it.

I believe in courtesy, politeness and behaviour which signals that you accept that other people are people, not furniture. Not just 'for the sake of it', but because it makes everyone's day brighter, and makes everyone happier.

I believe that happiness breeds happiness - you've all seen the difference it makes, I'm sure. A single happy customer goes through a checkout line and brightens the checker's day. The now-happier checker may make a few other customer's days brighter - and they can go on to spread the cheer. Each encounter is only a small difference, but a series of them can make a whole shopping mall happier.

Until a gloom-spreader comes in. Gloom, impoliteness, and discourtesy breed as well. The CS site contains a lot of proofs of that.

(I'm not talking about legitimate grief, by the way. Grief typically shows itself for what it is, and is more likely to spread sympathy and concern than unhappiness.)

Anyway, I'd rather spread happiness than discourtesy and gloom, and if simple courtesy and politeness can generate happiness, why the hell not?

[Alfie]

Much like it seems to have become OK to use the word "liberal" like it's some sort of curse word... :mad:

I became very confused at this comment... And then remembered the cultural differences between us. In Australia, the conservative party is bizarrly called the Liberal party. They are much despised now, so I guess it is a curse word here. The leader of the party has a 7% approval rating, an all time low.

[Seshat]

(Australian history digression)

There's a historic reason that the Liberals (capital L) are named that, despite not currently being liberal (small l).

At the time they were founded, the conservative party was the agricultural party. Big money was in land-owning. Agriculture, mining, fishing. Cities were for artisans, artists, and administrators.

However, the mercantile and manufacturing types were developing money and power. They had new-fangled, radical, liberal ideas about how to make big changes - and so they named their political party Liberals.

Nowadays, of course, those ideas are solidly entrenched and conservative.

(end digression)

If you think about the words 'liberal' and 'conservative', those whose beliefs are towards either end of the liberal/conservative continuum are always going to think the other is crazy.

[DesignFox]

I believe in equality for the sexes. I want to be judged for a job promotion because of my work & my ability not because I'm a woman (and vice versa for men).

That pretty much somes up how I feel about things.

I tend to prefer the term "equalist." I think the word feminist suggests that women are being placed before men.

On a funny note, like some of you, my BF tells me all the time what a horrible "woman" I am. :D He can cook and bake and iron clothing. I'm not real motivated to do those things, and while I can follow recipes pretty well, I won't be the one baking pies. My SO can though!

It was a major breakthrough the first time I baked cookies from scratch. *giggle*

[Seshat]

It was a major breakthrough the first time I baked cookies from scratch. *giggle*

Cookies taste better with the sweet flavour of accomplishment baked in. :D

I'm both a 'girl' and a 'boy'. I can - and do - cook, sew and clean. I can even spin and weave and embroider. I can also sysadmin and program computers, build furniture, and (when my body used to let me) do both heavy and light gardening. Only light nowadays, alas.

[Lace Neil Singer]

This may be an unpopular view, but I believe that women and men can never be equal, not fully anyway. Not from society's viewpoint, but from a biological viewpoint; ie, women can never be equal to men in strength. That doesn't belittle women; men and women should celebrate their differences.

I'm not for one moment saying that women and men shouldn't be treated fairly, but that there are some jobs that men can't do and jobs women can't do cuz of this biological difference and it's actually hurting the cause to try and force both into either cuz of an employer not wanting to be accused of sexism. There are some employers who have to fill a quota; ie, hire equal amounts of men and women, rather than just hiring those who are right for the job.

As far as traditional roles go; I ride a motorbike which some would see as "manly". My boyf is obsessively tidy, which some would see as "womanly". XD

[Boozy]

This may be an unpopular view, but I believe that women and men can never be equal, not fully anyway. Not from society's viewpoint, but from a biological viewpoint; ie, women can never be equal to men in strength. That doesn't belittle women; men and women should celebrate their differences.

When feminists discuss equality, they don't mean "sameness". That's silly, especially considering the obvious fact that women bear children and men don't. That fact alone continually creates differences between men and women throughout their lives.

The average man is physically stronger than the average woman. Of course, with today's technology, that counts for less than it used to in the working world. Women are stronger than men in other areas. They tend to have better memories, better peripheral vision, and are better at multi-tasking.

But so what? For every rule there is an exception. The goal should be to judge each individual on their own merits and on what they are, not on what we think they should be.

[Lace Neil Singer]

There are feminists who do think that, which is probably why the word is reviled. A netfriend from another board always refers to these people as "feminazis" cuz they are closeminded and refuse to listen to reason. Such as in the "women on the front line" Army question; another netfriend says that women don't belong there; not out of sexism, but cuz they are better working behind the scenes cuz large groups of women don't get on with each other the way large groups of men do. She's in the army... and works behind the scenes. That is a biological answer, not a social answer; but some people would still burst a blood vessel at the suggestion.

[Seshat]

This may be an unpopular view, but I believe that women and men can never be equal, not fully anyway. Not from society's viewpoint, but from a biological viewpoint; ie, women can never be equal to men in strength.

That's another argument falsely attributed to (the majority of) feminism. Let's use 'moderate feminism' to distinguish most feminists from the extreme, and 'extremist feminism' for the extremists.

Moderate feminists know that the average woman has less upper-body strength than the average man, and therefore jobs which require upper body strength will, statistically, tend to be dominated by males. However, moderate feminists want women with upper body strength who happen to be interested in (and qualified for) those jobs to be able to get them.

Moderate feminists have managed to get height requirements lowered for some jobs, such as policing, where height is not actually a requirement. But for special forces police work, moderate feminists would actively lobby against any sort of relaxation of necessary requirements.

Moderate feminists do not want:
- silly job requirements, like firefighters who are physically incapable of fighting fires.
- silly 'required ratios'. We call it 'tokenism', and being the 'token female' brought in simply to fill ratios is an insult and a really, really awful place to be.
- silly 'politically correct language'. Yes, we prefer firefighter to fireman, because at that level, language has an unconscious impact. But let's be reasonable about it!
- lots of other silly stuff.


I can illustrate what moderate feminists DO want by pointing to history. So to overgeneralise somewhat:

In the late 1800s, when the Women's Suffrage movement was active, women could not vote, could not own property, could not hold bank accounts. Women were essentially the property of their husbands or fathers. Women could work, but only in certain fields, and their pay was considerably less than a man's.
In the worst cases, women watched helplessly while their daughters were married off to abusive men, to be raped and beaten and potentially even killed. And the rapist would never face charges, because 'you can't rape your wife'. Nor would anyone admit to the beatings. It was 'a strict family'.
(Yes, there were also women who abused and beat their husbands. This was also a shameful secret, but at least the husband had access to the bank account and legal ownership of the property. He could also get work if he fled, whereas women who fled faced absolute poverty.)
The academic history of women is another fascinating topic - worth looking into at some point.

In the first half of the 1900s, women could vote, could own some sorts of property, could hold bank accounts. Gradually, the topics of rape in marriage and domestic violence began to creep into public discussion.

During both World Wars, the Allies had such manpower problems that women were brought in to the workplace. Factories, fields, offices - women were everywhere, doing the jobs 'of men', and doing them well.
However, after both World Wars, women were then kicked out of the workplace. Sorry ladies, the men need work. You don't need 'pin money', so back to the home for you. Lots of war widows lost their sole means of support that way.

The 1960s and 1970s feminists were the children of the women who were kicked out of the workforce after World War II, along with people who'd been through one or both of the World Wars. They'd seen for themselves that women could do the jobs just as well as the men, and seen the injustice of "jobs for the boys" banning women from the workforce. They also became even more active than previous generations regarding divorce, arranged marriage, and domestic violence.

Those of us born in the 60s and 70s are probably the first generation of women who actually had a childhood where we could assume we'd be able to do any type of work we wanted, and with any real feeling of security regarding domestic violence. And even then, we were raised with Fred "No wife of mine will ever have to work!" Flintstone and other such 'role models'.

We're still in our thirties, forties and fifties! The fact that our children - especially our daughters - tend to think of feminism as passe is both a thing of pride, and a thing of concern. We hope it is - we worry that it isn't. We're especially worried when we look at mid and upper level management, government, domestic violence and health.

Personally, I'm hoping that either Obama or Clinton gets in. If a black man or a woman can get the US presidency, it'll make a big impact for every type of 'minority' in every area of world power.

[Amethyst Hunter]

There are feminists who do think that, which is probably why the word is reviled. A netfriend from another board always refers to these people as "feminazis" cuz they are closeminded and refuse to listen to reason.

Those aren't feminists, they're extremists (and, it should be noted, far and few between). On a similar tangent, this is why I refuse to use the phrases "pro-life" and "conservative" to describe anti-choice and right-wing nutjobs - because the ones so often waving these banners almost always exhibit actions that are anything BUT their stated labels. Using "feminazi" is an insult to both real feminists and those who actually suffered under the Nazi regime.

Such as in the "women on the front line" Army question; another netfriend says that women don't belong there; not out of sexism, but cuz they are better working behind the scenes cuz large groups of women don't get on with each other the way large groups of men do. She's in the army... and works behind the scenes.

I'd like to see stats on that one, because it sounds more based on personal experience. I know of at least one female Army veteran who has seen frontline combat and who would probably disagree on that.

And for all that guys do seem to get on well in large bunches, it's because of that pack mentality - and the moment someone steps out of line the pack turns savage, so it's still not a good place to be. Pack mentality is why, given the subject of gang rape, if there's a lone dissenter who isn't keen on going along with the others, he'll do it anyway because the other men will goad him into it or attack him too.

Seshat put it aptly: feminists want equality, not in the sense of filling any particular quotas but in the sense of ensuring that those who have the skills can get the opportunities they want.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I'm not arguing about that; most of what Seshat said was preaching to the choir. I'm just pointing out why feminist is such a bad word to a lot of people.

[lordlundar]

ie, women can never be equal to men in strength.

I can think of a few women rugby players that would disagree with you, and would break every bone in my body if I thought otherwise. :D

My issue isn't with feminism itself, as it was done up to fight the sexism that exits in the world. My issue is that the ones who are screaming they are a feminist don't see destroying sexism as a goal, they see total women dominance as a goal. They don't want to live in a world where they are looked at as a person instead of as a woman, they want to live in a world where they are seen as in charge and men being subjugated for simply being men.

These are the people who cheer when a mother who is destroying her family through drug use or other problems wins a divorce case against a responsible father who was a stable force in her life. Even worse when they cheer after the decision comes down, the child is turned over to the mother with no visitation rights, because you know that assuming the child survives to be an adult, she will be as messed up as her mother. And those radicals will cheer for this. This is the world those radicals fight for. Sexism that favors them, anything else is a crime against nature.

They don't want to fight to have the pendulum neutral, they want the pendulum swung so far in their favor that it breaks.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Men are stronger. Cuz they have more testosterone, and greater muscle mass. True, there are women rugby players who are stronger than male couch potatoes, but you're kidding yourself if you think that the majority of women could fight off the majority of men. Put it this way; pit one of those female rugby players against a male rugby player, and the man is going to come up top every time. It's a fact of life, so there's no point in arguing against it; men and women are different, end of story. However, that doesn't mean that they can't have equal opportunities in jobs that don't require excessive physical strength. Someone earlier mentioned firefighting; that would be one.

[Zyanya]

These are the people who cheer when a mother who is destroying her family through drug use or other problems wins a divorce case against a responsible father who was a stable force in her life. Even worse when they cheer after the decision comes down, the child is turned over to the mother with no visitation rights, because you know that assuming the child survives to be an adult, she will be as messed up as her mother. And those radicals will cheer for this. This is the world those radicals fight for. Sexism that favors them, anything else is a crime against nature.

You know, I hear about these people all the time. But in 27 years, through 5 states, countless message boards, multiple philosophy debate courses at multiple colleges, membership in several activist groups, and a few to many drunken rant sessions at bars, I have never met a single one of them.

They must be hanging out with the women who have three abortions a year, the gay men who want to convert all men to the homosexual path, and the dungeons and dragons players that have the real power.

[Boozy]

You know, I hear about these people all the time....I have never met a single one of them.

I've been involved in women's causes for 15 years now, and I've never met one of these crazy people either.

They make handy strawmen, though. :rolleyes:

[Zyanya]

I've been involved in women's causes for 15 years now, and I've never met one of these crazy people either.

They make handy strawmen, though. :rolleyes:


I'm sure if I searched long enough, I could find one or two like that. With the same amount of effort, I'm sure I could also find a man that suffers from hypertrichosis that has beaten someone to death. Doesn't mean I'm going to cite the existence of such a man as 'proof' hairy men are bestial savages.

[The Shadow]

Just like liberalism is the radical notion that having a level playing field and not being a selfish douchebag is a nifty idea.

I always wonder just why would someone be so against the concept of basic fairness that they would turn descriptors like that into curse words.

I think it might have something to do with the fact that a lot of the ideas concepts advanced under the banner "liberal" or "feminist" or what have you can be pretty objectionable. Now I'm much closer to liberal than conservative myself, but I think conservatives have a valid point when they say there's a difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome, which a lot of liberals/feminists really want. That is coercion and that is not fair. Affirmative action is a good example of this. Defenders of affirmative action like to claim it's a myth that people who benefit from AA policies in employment and education get hired or promoted simply because of their gender/race -- that they have to be qualified. This is a half-truth. For example, two people considered being hired for a teaching position at a local university; one is a white male, the other a female. Both may meet certain minimum standards for qualification, but the male applicant may have more experience that would make him the more desirable candidate. But any university that practices affirmative action (which most North American campuses now do) will always hire the woman over the man. So in a sense, she *is* being hired simply because of her gender. I think these policies are unfair and ought to be done away with. I can't see how they're going to bring about equality and all it seems they're good for is bringing about mediocracy by not hiring the best person and resentment on the part of those who get passed over for jobs/promotions because of this.

I'm all in favour of bringing about equality, but not special privileges and entitlements which a lot (but certainly not all) feminists/liberals seem to want.

Frankly, I fail to see how being against this sort of thing equates to being against basic fairness in the eyes of some people.

[Seshat]

But any university that practices affirmative action (which most North American campuses now do) will always hire the woman over the man.

Only in the cases where it's being done badly/wrong.

I'm all in favour of bringing about equality, but not special privileges and entitlements which a lot (but certainly not all) feminists/liberals seem to want.

Well, we feminists/liberals who have spoken up in this thread have repeatedly said that we don't know any feminists/liberals who want it.

Please, PLEASE: tell us HOW we're giving this impression? So we can somehow STOP!

The only people we've ever heard saying such things are people saying 'feminists want it' - not 'I'm a feminist and I want it'.

Frankly, I fail to see how being against this sort of thing equates to being against basic fairness in the eyes of some people.

And I - and others - in this thread have said that we're against it too. What makes you think we can answer you?

[Sylvia727]

For a high school term paper, I interviewed the director of admissions at a local university on the subject of affirmative action. He admitted- well, less admitted and more bragged- that the university held spots open for minorities. Say the university has 100 spots, and the 95 most qualified individuals happen to be white. 5 of them will be denied a place in the classroom based on their skin color. Also, in some states employment agencies will add points to an applicant's test scores based on race. Off the top of my head, an Asian-American gets 10 extra points, a Latino/Hispanic/Native gets 20, and a black gets 30 extra. So it does happen, even if it's not nearly as often as the strawman arguments would have us believe.

As a feminist, I can say that this sort of thing is against the very idea of feminism- that of equality. In fact, the term paper's thesis was that affirmative action and similiar policies do far more harm than good.