Men hate woman’s body. Women learn from men to hate their own bodies. Men and media have been busy for centuries advising women what they should look like.
Men hate women’s hair if they are not silky and long. Most women keep their hair long even though many of them feel comfortable having short hair. They use different chemicals to make their hair silky.
Men do not like the color of our skin. So we bleach our skin or get our skin tanned. We spend almost all our money to buy cosmetics so that we can decorate ourselves and become someone men want us to become. We want to make men feel satisfied.
Men do not like us when our hair turns grey. So we dye our hair.
Men hate women’s eyes, eyebrows, noses, lips, cheeks, necks, ears. Women paint their eyes, eyebrows, cheeks, lips. We wear jewelries around our necks, we pierce our noses and ears to wear ornaments.
Men hate women’s breasts if breasts are not round and large. We wear push-up padded bras. We go for breast implants. Implants leak, rupture, burst. We increase our cancer risk. 
Men hate our natural abdominal fat. We almost stop eating to reduce our fat to please men. We suffer from anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders. We become skeletons. We die. 
Men hate us if our hymens are broken. We need to repair our hymens.
Men hate our vagina if the passage is not very narrow or not very tight. We go for surgery under anesthesia to tighten vagina.
Men hate our natural leg hair. We shave our legs to make our legs unnatural. 
Men hate our legs. So we wear high-heeled shoes to make us look taller. Our toes get bruised, our bones get broken, we suffer from sprained ankles and dislocations. We can not walk comfortably, we can not run when needed. But we continue wearing high heels to give men pleasure. 
Men hate our wrinkled skin. So we use all kinds of chemicals or all kinds of anti-wrinkle or anti-aging creams on our faces. I wonder whether people really believe chemicals or creams can stop natural aging process! 
We even go for face-lifting and different plastic cosmetic surgery to look a bit younger. Men can grow older, but they do not like we grow older. 
We tell men that we like them for who they are. They do not destroy their natural body to make us feel happy. They do not implant or reduce anything to please us. There are evolutionary reasons for men to get attracted to women and for women to get attracted to men. But patriarchy, a system artificially imposed on society, causes all the injustices and inequalities against women. Patriarchy is a system in which men dominate, oppress, suppress and exploit women. This system prevents women from being who they really are.
Talk about blatant, biased generalization !
BULL SHIT MOTHER FUCKER, THER ARE OVER 100 BIG TIT MAGS MEN JACK OFF TOO , AND I HAVE BEEN A WITNESS TO THOUSANDS OF MEN RUBBERNECKING BIG TITS. NOT A GENERLIZATION AT ALL. TIS TRUTH ,
Which only proves that men like big tits… not that men “hate women´s bodies” like the idiot who wrote this piece of garbage would have you believe…
So much rage… but a lot of this is women competing against each other. If you think men like fashion models, think again. They are ugly skin and bones. We don’t care about thigh gaps, they are unhealthy and ugly. YET YOU, YES YOU, are obsessed with having one. You have a distorted perception of reality and are filled with rage over your faulty interpretation of the facts. Seek help.
I AM A STRONG BEAUTIFUL CONFIDENT INDEPENDENT WOMAN AND I LOVE MEN! MY DEAR LOST SOUL WHO WROTE THIS ARTICLE- U NEED TO BLAME THE MEDIA WHO WANTS TO MARKET THESE PRODUCTS AND US WOMAN WHO WANT TO IMPRESS EACH OTHER. MEN LOVE OUR BODIES NATURALLY! ANY MAN WOULD MUCH RATHER HAVE A REAL LARGE BREAST THAN FAKE AND HIPS AND THIGHS AND ASS TO ACTUALLY HOLD AND GRAB AND KNOW IT’S REAL NOT SOME SKINNY BARBIE DOLL THEY ARE AFRAID OF BREAKING! GIRL LOVE YOURSELF! YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL NO MATTER HOW GOD MADE YOU. NOONE IS PERFECT. I HATE MY STOMACH IT IS BY FAR NOWHERE NEAR TIGHT OR FLAT HOWEVER, IT’S SOFT AND I LOVE MY BREASTS AND FEEL SEXY AND MEN FEEL THAT WHEN WITH ME AND TRUST ME MY STOMACH IS THE LEAST OF THEIR CONCERN BUT WHEN A MAN IS HOLDING ME AND INTIMATELY RUBBING MY BELLY GUESS WHAT HONEY- I KNOW I AM ALL WOMAN … COMPLETELY NATURAL CONFIDENT AND REAL . IT’S ABOUT ATTITUDE AND HOW U FEEL ABOUT YOU. DON’T BLAME OUR BEAUTIFUL KINGS PLEASE AS THEY CHERISH EVERY PART OF US!!! WHAT THEY DO NOT CHERISH IS SOMEONE WHO US FEEBLE MINDED, SELF CONCIOUS AND NEGATIVE AND NOT PROUD OF WHO THEY ARE AND WHAT GOD GAVE THEM. SURE THERE ARE THE OCCASIONAL SUPERFICIAL DICKHEADS BUT SAME GOES WITH WOMAN BIT THAT’S ONLY A VERY SMALL SMALL PORTION NOWHERE NEAR ENOUGH TO WRITE AN ARTICLE TO BASE UPON! AGAIN WE ARE WOOMAN!! ROAR GIRL ROAR AND MAKE YOUR KINGS FEEL YOU ALL YOU THE REAL YOU!!! AM I RIGHT MY PRECIOUS KINGS OUT THERE????
Men have to shave, keep / remove mustache, keep their hair groomed, look athletic — Inference —- Women hate man’s body …. This is your logic, isn’t it ?
IS THIS a matriarchal society in which women make all the rules, I think not, is this a matriarchal society which jacks off to a certain ideal of which men must live up to, I think not , men do not lose value for being old or having a small dick, women do.
It is a gynocentric society where women choose the kind of man they like. And men must NOT ONLY live up to the big stud physical standards, they must also prove they have a big fat wallet to go along with it. When has a woman been rejected on account of her being broke? Pull your head out of your ass…
some gory pictures there. still the truth.
a woman looks at her best when she smiles.. no ornaments required as extra!
Come on lady…
You seem to carry too much of hatred in your heart. Maybe you cannot be blamed for having gone thru shit in your country
The world is not this bad…
BTW..I also follow you on Twitter and I also see that most of your communication there are so negative as well.
Maybe a few hours of walking the streets of your city and a few hours of some good movie and book is all it takes to make you happy and positive
1. “Men hate woman’s body” – as a straight male, I rather like women’s bodies
2. “Men hate women’s hair if they are not silky and long” – Actually a LOT of men (myself included) find short hair far sexier. (something to do with kissing the back of a woman’s neck possibly?)
3. “Men do not like us when our hair turns gray” – well, I don’t think I’d stop liking someone JUST because their hair turned grey. Like, yesterday, you were funny and clever and entertaining and sexy. But today, your hair has flecks of grey. That’s it, relationship over.
4. “Men hate women’s breasts if breasts are not round and large”. Not true. Individual men find different shapes sexually alluring.
5. “Men hate our natural abdominal fat.” – ok, personally I don’t find fat attractive, but I’m not obsessive about it, and some men do like women who are more voluptuous.
6. “Men hate us if our hymens are broken” – Who ARE these men?
7. “Men hate our feet” – I love women’s feet, knobbly bits and all. High heels or not. Heels aren’t about feet, anyway, they are about legs.
8. “We tell men that we like them for who they are” – sometimes (yes, probably women are more accepting of physical “imperfections”) – but women aren’t immune from physical attraction, any more than are men.
“This system prevents women from being who they really are.” Who are women, truly?
Thanks Fred for expressing your opinions. I do not want to generalize but I think more men find long hair, large breasts, long legs feminine and slim curvy bodies beautiful. We know there are exceptions. Actually I want women to be happy for what they have. But it is hard to stop women from spending billions of dollars to make themselves look different from their original looks. The more beauty products get produced, the more women lack confidence in themselves. Multi-billion dollar beauty industries, and mainstream media are constantly telling women that their bodies are not perfect. Women have been falling into the patriarchal capitalist traps big time.
Most men may prefer more this and less that, but that doesn’t mean they “hate” anything. If given a choice between strawberries and oranges, I will always pick strawberries. That doesn’t mean I hate oranges. I fail to see any basis to your claim about men hating women’s bodies.
“Patriarchy is a system in which men dominate, oppress, suppress and exploit women”. I also fail to see around me anything that even remotely resembles this. No one is forcing women to do these things.
lol. You’re a dude, right?
Of course you don’t see it. You don’t experience it, so it doesn’t exist.
And I am sure that you are so up on knowing anything about men’s existence…of course, life is perfect for men, so you don’t need to dig deeper, amirite?
I know a dude on a blog no matter what the name they use and I see one here.
I am a wimmin and my male/man name belies it with my very words that ache for a better world. I am tethered to Mom Earth and it is this tethering that has me sensitive in a way a doooood can never know.
No name on a blog can mask this as the words that come to you from me are from a wimmins heart that has been tenderized by the hating smash of a hammer that is held tight in the hand of our oppressors.
A dude is a dude and a wimmin is a temple of love and joy and only if the other gender can see this and come to us more as we are and then we can all hug as one.
Do women have any responsibility when it comes to their lifestyles & how they want to live it!!!!
I believe at least in the west they do, yet you are implying that they are weak, imbeciles, with no self determination in general that draw their personal identity & self worth from men!!!????
What an idiotic statement & a belittling to women.
Stacy clearly is one orange I would hate. But, not because I hate oranges rather, just that this example is bruised and rotten.
Beauty is only skin deep.
Ugly goes straight to the bone.(for the deliberately obtuse that refers to an ugly personality)
It sounds like you are a supporter of the often-used (flawed) argument that: if any man raises objection tithe existence of a patriarchy, he is wrong, because, as a man, he cannot notice it. If he shows statistics showing that there is no gender discrimination in whatever case is in discussion, the reply will come that it is there, but in a subtle way that only the women supposedly affected by it can notice. If this is refuted, they say ” how dare you tell us what we notice or not”. The trouble with this is that it is an argument that is impossible to argue against. This means that men could claim that there was a matriarchy, and if they used these arguments (but reversed), it would be just as irrefutable.
Dear Stacy, even if I were a “dude”, what does that have to do with anything? Are you implying that men are less capable of reason or perception of their surroundings? Of course you are not, you abhor sexism. If “patriarchy” is there, it shouldn’t be too hard to show it to me.
If women masking their imperfections to impress men is patriarchy, why isn’t it matriarchy when men mask their imperfections? If a man decides to work twice as hard so that he may interest and impress more women, does that constitute oppression and inequality? If men tell bullshit stories to impress women, does that mean women HATE their personalities?
Men do not destroy their natural body to make women feel happy.. except when they are soldiers, miners, firemen, policemen, fishermen, lumberjacks,…
Really? It sounds to me like a good portion of this blog post is about what men feel. Men would seem to be better qualified to speak on this than others.
You know what I see, Stacey?
Women who like to blame men for their own insecurities. Women who blame men for their own dysfunctional behavior. Women who think women as a whole are so weak, frail, and emotionally impotent that they cant be held accountable for their own behavior or choices. (but simultaneously claim they are “strong and independent”
They are called Feminists.
Seriously, If women don’t want to get breast implants, or wear cosmetics, or sexy clothes, then dont do it. You see, I have this terribly sexist idea of actually holding women accountable for their own behavior and choices. No one is forcing them to do anything.
Men are attracted to physical traits like: large breasts, wide hips, clear skin, full lips,etc. because they instinctively relate information about a females health,fertility, ability to safely deliver and nurse children-breasts and hips-.But its all just that, instincts from the Ice Age.
Women have their own sexual criteria about what attracts them as well.
Women like you are ‘damaged’; there is no other word to describe you. What happened in your and this articles authors life to give you such a wrapped
view of sexuality and gender?
Men hate womens bodies? I think not. YOU HATE MEN, purely and simply.
“lol. You’re a dude, right?
Of course you don’t see it. You don’t experience it, so it doesn’t exist.”
Wait.. I’m a dude therefore I don’t know what I like or hate?
You say you do not want to generalize, but that is exactly what you are doing. Seems to be a common theme, women doing things they do not want to do, but do them anyways. Instead of taking responsibility for their actions you treat women as some kind of victim who is incapable of controlling of their actions, but guess what, men fall “victim” to this same cultural pressure enacted by the matriarchy. With demands that a man be in peak physical condition at all times, or else be seen as weak. Or have a high paying job or else do not expect to have that attractive mate in life. And have status and know important people so she can meet someone more interesting than you so she can upgrade once she has everything she wants from you.
See how ridiculous all this blaming is?
And if a woman wants to do these things to attract the kind of person that sees these things as worthwhile, let them? My suggestion is telling people how they should or should not live by using “big bad man” mentality is less effective than setting an example worth emulating.
“You say you do not want to generalize, but that is exactly what you are doing”
Exactly what I was going to point out. This generalisation has no more value than any other generalisation.
Wemon judge men just as much as men judge wemon, thats how you find your mate. To sit there and point out what men do to wemon and not what wemon do to men is just sexist, I have the best for wemon and men in mind and you only have respect for wemon I feel sorry for your son if, you have one hopeful not.
“Wemon”? That’s demon women, isn’t it?
You MRAs are exactly what you criticize in feminists (at least some of you).
The media is mostly in the hands of men, commercials aimed at women and girls are made by men too (specially white men). So there is a connection between women’s self hatred if they don’t have the “perfect” body and the still male-dominated society. If you grow up with the impression that you HAVE to look pretty and sexy according to those impossible standards, even if you’re strong-willed you’ll fall for that at one point in your life.
I’m NOT demonizing men, NOR saying that they don’t have problems too, but denying the problems that women have is equally unfair.
I feel dumber for having read this.
For a post that contains nothing but generalisations with no factual basis I have a hard time swallowing your later statement: “I do not want to generalize…”
This is just another diatribe written by another feminist who refuses to accept that women have the ability to make their own choices and should take responsibility for these choices.
Nobody forces women to wear make-up. Nobody forces them to get implants. Nobody forces them to wear heels or starve themselves or wear jewellery.
The first experience most girls have in these areas is dress-ups in their mothers clothing. I distinctly remember my sister running around in my mum’s heels and dresses smearing make-up all over her face as soon as she was old enough to get into the wardrobe and reach the dresser.
So if, as a woman, you aren’t going to teach your daughters that they’re good enough without all this stuff then you can’t run around claiming that it’s all the fault of the horrible patriarchal society you despise so much.
You are the problem at the first and earliest instance because their first experiences are of you, submitting to this culture that you decry so much.
And just by-the-by, do you know ANY women who don’t like jewellery?
Everyone likes jewellery. Go to any culture on Earth from any period in time and you’ll find both men and women wearing jewellery.
You complete and total buffoon.
It is all about those which are surving their desires
Sorry but I don’t rally agree on your article. You say that men don’t accept women how they are and force them to change yet women don’t. If you looked at it from a different point of view would would see that men are pressured by society into becoming more feminine friendly and by having a toned, fit body. Not that I have a problem with that but the way your article is written makes it seem as though you blame men for all problems.
Also mentioned in the article are things like men force women to wear heels, jewellery, change their hair, their body and so on. Many women that I know don’t say that “oh I had to change this for my man,” or something like that. Instead they do it by choice and maybe they are affected by men’s preferences but I have never seen someone tell their girlfriend that they need to wear heels or jewellery.
Women may be affected by men’s preferences but it is also a two way street, you can’t just go on bitching about how men make you do this and that, and also generally hating men. For someone to believe something like this they must have had a really weird upbringing and not have learned to think about all different aspects of this issue.
Basically if no one could be bothered reading the above I just want to say where is the love? We are all human and man and women were made for each other so stop bitching about problems and go have fun.
I see all the apologist men gathered here to scream out loud their protest against how wrongly this has been stated. Some are also against feminists. Well, not a new thing to encounter. As a feminist women, I have faced and heard all these bullshit again and again from childhood, denying every single inequality and injustice that has happened and is happening to us every day.
I agree and feel every single word you wrote here, Taslima Nasreen (also being a fan of yours, I value your work so much, which are, needless to say, are to the point and the ugly truth).
We are taught from the childhood to feel shame for our mere existence and own body. It differs in parts of the world but its the same wine in different bottles! We are taught that we are impure when we have our periods. We are taught to hide our body parts, even our head and hair. We were taught to alter our body because if we are not “fairer and prettier” we can’t even fucking get a job, thanks to all the Fair and lovely commertials. Hell, if our vagina has the natural colour, it might be sickening to our husbands(referring to a recent advertisement of “Clean and clear” hygiene product which makes our vaginas cute and pink and pretty! Goddamn it, we even are taught how to smile (shyly) or how to talk (slowly and shyly), how to walk (slowly and shyly) or how to cry( in a corner silently, where no one can hear you)!
Nahhh, lets talk about how abusive and inhumane we women are telling men they are not good enough for us and they are millions of brands and salons making men pretty and beautiful and giving them bikini wax and books on how to be a good working husband/father/son in law and and….
Yes Taslima – completely disregard everything the men here are telling you and kowtow to feminist dogma. Priyanka so happy you self identify as a feminist like it’s a badge of honor, but it’s unnecessary because your first sentence was loud and clear. Listen up twits the beauty, fashion, diet, and media industries dictate what’s hot. Look at the profit they make. I dress and wear my hair like I want and I am not a slave to fashion. Most women dress for women – do you think a man cares what color your nail polish is or what designer purse you carry? Come on grow up! Serioulsy I expected more from a site called freethoughtblogs.com it should be on feminstbsblog.com
This is the main problem with your article and with feminists as a whole, the words “I THINK” is not the same as the words “I KNOW” or “I AM SURE,” just because you “think” something is right doesn’t mean that it is, this means that by demonizing all Men as monstrous beings that oppressed women just because you “THINK” that’s the case, it enforces the idea that all feminists are crazy and unable to think straight. “Multi-billion dollar beauty industries, and mainstream media are constantly telling women that their bodies are not perfect” Multi-billion dollar companies don’t represent what Men think of Women and how Men see Women, so that simple, erroneous idea gives away your ignorance, fanaticism and paranoia all together. there is no war on women, women are not oppressed and you lady, need to take some time to put yourself together because you are only harming yourself with this idiotic ideas. Men love women, and most Men could care less if women use make up or don’t have nice round and hard pair of boobies, most men would want a woman who can laugh and take a joke or tell a joke, I mean… what you’re doing with your radical ideas is separatism, yes…. you are dividing men and women with such ridiculous articles, please stop, please do!
I interpreted Taslima’s words a bit differently. I understood that, because of the desire to please men, because of the disproportionate value placed on being appealing to the opposite gender, women become religious in the extent of their devotion to meeting the arbitrary (as you clearly and correctly pointed out – not at all universal) beauty standards culture imposes on them. The vast difference in cost, effort exertion, and extremeness between men and women’s actions in appealing to one another – because men are by no means immune to the pressure to be attractive to women – speaks of deeply ingrained patriarchy.
My intervening, by the way, is in no way meant to be mean-spirited. I am rather pleased you don’t necessarily feel married to conventional aesthetic ideals.
A lot of what Taslima says, I think, leans more on making an approximate point than a fully blanketing one. So I think it’s just a matter of reading past her generalizations.
Men have to be attractive to women, just in other ways.
Unemployed, meek men get women HAWT.
I couldn’t make up more self-absorption and victimhood on the part of women if I tried. Utterly unreal.
I guess you think it is controversial to say that foot binding was a patriarchal beauty standard of the past in china then? because maybe a dude or two didn’t think it was great? The fact is that countless women broke the bones of their feet and disabled themselves to fit a beauty ideal. Women are told their whole lives that their worth lies in how many dudes want to have sex with them, so they do these things. Women who don’t try are humiliated, they are the butt of jokes or targets for harassment for not caring what men think of their normal bodies. Its a hard life, but all you seem to think about is how this analysis doesn’t make enough disclaimers to include men like you. I don’t really care if it does, while women are having all this surgery for no medical reason, spending all this money while making less than men on average. That is what I am concerned with.
Sigh.
“Countless” women did not practice foot binding.
It was practiced among the elite class.
Only a woman of that class could afford to (and prosper) while barely being able to walk properly.
Have you been to China lately? dragging up centuries old grievances from halfway around the world as if it is even an issue now does not help your case. It just highlights how ill-informed you are.
Did these women have no say in this? I know feminazis will say no they don’t but, today I do not see a group of men forcing women into high heeled shoes yet stores can barely keep them on the shelf.
Consider your response carefully. If you suggest that women are so weak-minded that they must rely on someone else to make up their minds then you are also saying that the suffragettes were wrong and women by virtue of being women should not be allowed to vote. A position I will disagree with.
It goes both ways. Men who don’t have interesting (in other words expensive) lives, suffer the same fate. The lucky ones spend a lot of money on clothes, cars, houses, gadgets, trips, gyms and so on.
“If a man could fuck in a cardboard box, he wouldn’t buy a house” ~Dave Chapelle
You know what’s worst? Women hate men’s bodys.
Oh, you are smart and funny, but you don’t look like David Beckham, you’re too skinny and your teeth are not perfect, therefore I’ll date that guy over there who looks manlier even though he has no other quality whatsoever.
It’s just…most men don’t care that much. Some go to the gym, but most men just wait to be accepted as they are, loved for their personality not for their looks. And watching the women around him sleeping with attractive guys and complaining getting dumped like everyone else.
Well, it’s not always about women, also I like my girls a bit chubby. Heh. Also small breasts are totally fine. But hey, ignore my opinion, I’m not the handsome guy every girl wants.
Sorry for the rant.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Don’t take it personally
If it doesn’t apply to you
What you object to is the commodification of the human (not just female) body. Alas, the sexual marketplace is just that: A marketplace.
At different times, in different places, there have been variant standards used.
I hate to be contrarian, but in a world in which all humans treat all other humans as commodities – and this is what we do, most especially when it comes to mating – then in this world, in which other people have measurable utilities, we need to value them. And we use appearance as proxies for other value estimations.
This is what we do. It’s as useful to complain about this as it is to complain about rain. It’s part and parcel of what we are. All societies value beauty, all societies rank men and women by sexual desirability.
We are a hierarchical primate species, an animal, just like all other large primates. We have far less free will than we think we do. Social patterns are almost all based, on some level, on instinctive behaviors. While the specifics vary, the underlying instincts rarely do.
As such, I see no “male conspiracy” here. In societies where male and female power is unequally distributed, perhaps women need to make pretend about appearance and compete with other females more than men need to.
I would just like to point one thing out, though:
As society has experienced an upsurge in female power, there’s been a radical increase in the social and personal pressures on MEN to adorn themselves.
Be more fit.
Large upper body.
Be tall, or be gone.
The level of superficial attractiveness now demanded from men is substantial, compared to even a generation ago. It’s way and beyond anything seen a hundred years ago.
So your idea that it’s men who hate women’s bodies is absurd. Men like some things, and women compete to match these things. Some of these things are socially programmed, some ingrained, mostly both in a dynamic interaction.
But it applies to men, too. The more equality we see, I predict:
The more fierce, brutal and savage this “sexual marketplace” will become. Indeed, it will drag men down into the competitive cesspool, too.
If you view a woman’s typical desires in a male mate – Social power, wealth or resources, height (instinctive shorthand for social power – our mammalian brain), — then you could successfully argue that women hate men.
Women judge men pretty harshly in the sexual marketplace, too, just by different standards. You cant’ object to those used by men to judge women (and obliging women to compete among themselves for the top mating opportunities), without also objecting to those use by women to judge men (and forcing men to compete, often with tragic results).
I don’t see woman-hating here. I see a savage garden, a sexual marketplace which is unfair, unforgiving and absolutely primal.
Humans are barely removed from our animal forebears, and the illusions of civilization are a layer of paint on a giant ball. Strip the paint away and see the animal.
Ms. Nasrin, I suspect that what you object to here is the proximate result of a much deeper human malaise. It’s the animal, sexual nature of humans in groups.
We’re naturally competitive. We erect hierarchies and are happiest when constructing and deconstructing them (usually to our own advantage). This is as true in a Kibbutz and a commune as it is in a corporate office.
We are monkeys. Ideal visions of gender ineractions are nice, but if you *are* going to target proximate female behaviors designed to establish sexual attractiveness, then you should also go after the same that men must endure.
Gender is a two-way street.
It’s easy to see one side. This isn’t another “What about teh mens” whine.
I mean: See the entire process, the big picture. See the root cause. The specific (makeup, high heels, etc.) are irrelevant. Remove them and they’ll be immediately replaced with something else.
It’s not patriarchy or men hating women. It’s men and women crudely, narcissistically manipulating each other on a nearly subconscious level.
It’s a savage garden.
Should you wish to change these things, I would suggest applying to join another species of animal.
The fact that the situation for women already has improved in many respects over the past decades, renders your fatalist rant moot.
This is the juvenile “everyone is amoral and selfish” argument for acting like a shit. it must be nice to think that there is nothing wrong and that no work needs to be done, but its a foolish delusion that only the privileged can afford to indulge in.
Speak for yourself dude, and look into what a social construction is before you assume that everyone thinks and acts exactly the same way that you do. There is no excuse for attempting to commodify women, especially our sexuality. That hurts women and destroys lives, and does not have to be that way. People can construct sexuality and relationships in a number of ways that you’ve failed to address in your ridiculous post.
You contradict yourself. One minute you say that the situation cant be changed because it is innate, then you say that as womens power has increased so has the pressure on men.
So which is it? Is there no problem with the situation as is because it is natural that women are commodities, or is there no problem because instead of changing the culture so women are not commodities we are beginning to sexually commodify men?
Strawperson.
There it is. What about the menz?? What about meee!?
Taslima “should” go after the “same” that men “must endure?” No. No, she isn’t ethically bound to worry about your problems, middle class white dudebro.
Yeah, ’cause changing “these things” would be totally unnatural. You know, like carrying on a conversation via a series of tubes.
How exactly would you have men change the crazy ass shit that women do to themselves in competition with each other?
These women are trying to compete for 20% of men(the successful, handsome, and tall types) who are the only men with the sexual agency to be picky. The other 80% of guys would just be happy with a woman that loved them and is faithful and doesn’t drop them in the dirt like a used Kleenex when one of the 20% guys shows up at the party.
“Taslima “should” go after the “same” that men “must endure?” No. No, she isn’t ethically bound to worry about your problems, middle class white dudebro.”
If she claims to be seeking EQUALITY, yes she is. Someone seeking equality should seek to raise everyone up not just one segment or knock others down.
This part is a particular gem as it highlights your sexism, class bigotry, and racism in just a few words with this ad hominem, “middle class white dudebro”
You are one ugly individual.
Not to mention illogical. If being white, or a guy, or middle-class automatically invalidates his opinion then, why not extend that to women deserve no input in anything? You ARE supporting invalidating individuals based on characteristics they are born with after all rather than things within their personal control.
Then why is anyone “ethically bound to worry about your problems,” Stacy? It doesn’t affect me, why should I care?
Your right you do not have to care. No one does. Discussion over EH!
“No, she isn’t ethically bound to worry about your problems, middle class white dudebro.”
Racist.
Thanks for clearing that up, dudes! I’m so glad I can stop worrying my pretty painted plucked and perfumed head about living as a woman in a patriarchy.
It is about time you listened to the men here. Now, go make them a sandwich and kiss and make up.
Love what you said, Yessenia! You go sister, go!
Yes, go girl.
I never ever shave or pluck and my husband loves me as I am (yes I am a wimmin)
My armpit carpet is lush and thick as Mom Nture wanted it. Who am I to tell differently.
So, when did he go blind?
And did he loose his sense of smelling before or after he married you?
Wimmin love,
Men are holders of the phallus of that chalice,
of their very swig from Patriarchal cup.
“Mikey Flubb” has no husband.
“Mikey Fluff” is also a member of radfemhub. Go here to see what this person supports.
http://agentorangefiles.com/
Warning: The underbelly of feminism is an ugly thing. I would not advise eating before reviewing this information.
I have a great Idea for you, coming from the patriachal mind of a constructive and productive male. Terms I know that are so utterly unknown to you, but let me try to explain:
You should start your own business on Amazon, selling translation-books to your poems and the rest of the nonsense you say. You need to provide your audience with a way of actually understanding the overtly inflated hyperbole that you dish out in abundance.
It’s a perfect deal, don’t you see?
You make up the gibberish, no normal thinking person could possibly understand, and then sell the translations on the side. That would give you the ability to make some money for yourself, instead of leeching of the goverment programs for obese women, that does nothing else in life, besides watching Oprah and bitching about the men they can’t get.
Whattaya say?-Sweet deal, huh??
PS,
Women, competing with each other, are among the fiercest and most vicious of enforcers of female beauty standards. Frankly, by and large, men wait for women to sort it out and then pick off the women left standing.
The vast majority of men will choose plain jane who’s nice to be with over hot jamama with the makeup and ultra high-heels.
Almost all female beauty is posturing by one set of females over another. I realize that you may not ever hear this perspective, but where you see evil patriarchy, a lot of men, if not almost all, see something else.
They see hyper-competitive females raging like the greatest corporate titans for tiny bits of power and identity. They ostensibly do thisfor male atention, but by and large, from a MAN’S point of view, it appears to be for status within groups of females.
Men pretty much want this:
– Be nice.
– Try not to be fat. Meat is okay. But there’s a lot of variablity that’s also okay in there.
– Like sex.
– eat with me sometimes.
Almost all men will gladly settle for some version of this. Almost all men I know are baffled to the point of mystification as to why women feel the compulsive need to wear makeup, spend crazy money on clothing (?? Most men are clueless) and have no idea why they can’t just age gracefully alongside us.
But from the perspective of the average man, almost all female beauty standards seem engineered either by gay men or by women in competition with other women. Men just want you to stop it and get back down and watch TV with us.
This is why having men blamed for this kind of thing is one of the most shockingly bizarre things men ever experience. In almost every case, it’s women who need to jump through hoops for each other that cause most of the nightmares for others.
BTW, the 10% or so of women who find themselves in the lucky lottery for attractiveness almost never complain, or do so with the most crystalline of crocodile tears.
But in the end, it’s all a winner-takes-all competition for mating opportunities. As sexual freedom opens everything up – free and easy divorce, freely available sex without much relationship investment, etc.–
the sexual marketplace inevitably becomes much more savage. As sex becomes something you can do on a whim, your appearance (being the most superficial of characteristics) becomes all-important. It’s as true for men as women, by the way.
This is the reality of the sexual revolution. While we wanted freedom, it unleashed the most consumerist and commodificationist of impulses in people. No more spirituality and sex, no more deeply held commitments – just random bumpings in the night.
In such a world, ushered in by the heady incense of feminism and female liberation ( and consequent male liberation from the need to provide commitment or resources for sex), the true nature of the human sexual marketplace has been laid bare for all to see.
Casting around for “patriarchy” in this maelstrom is a waste of time and an ideological mug’s game.
The demons unleashed by unfettered sexuality are of an entirely different making, and don’t discriminate on the basis of gender.
Women, competing with each other, are among the fiercest and most vicious of enforcers of female beauty standards.
I’ve heard this sort of comment from other men at various times. Somehow men who say things like this almost always have girlfriends who are obsessed with looking as perfect as possible. They may not be supermodels, but they work hard at it: try to have just the right makeup, just the right hair, just the right body type, etc. And it never comes naturally: they are never the women whose hair just happens to be fashionable or is just lucky in their body type, etc. They are always the ones who work hard at it.
Their boyfriends inevitably notice how hard they are working and make snide comments about how obsessed their girlfriend is and how much they’d like it if they were just more “natural”. But they never get a more “natural” girlfriend when they break up or really encourage their girlfriends to feel more comfortable with their bodies.
I conclude that men use comments like the one quoted to further control women by pretending that all the standards of beauty are really being enforced by women and they (the men) are so much more enlightened…while at the same time keeping women who value their opinions uncertain and uncomfortable with their own bodies by gaslighting.
“I conclude that men use comments like the one quoted to further control women by pretending that all the standards of beauty are really being enforced by women and they (the men) are so much more enlightened…while at the same time keeping women who value their opinions uncertain and uncomfortable with their own bodies by gaslighting.”
Gaslighting. Geez. yet another method to silence those who disagree with you.
Every girlfriend I’ve ever had I’ve asked
1) Not to put on makeup, please; you’re plenty pretty without it and I dislike the paint.
2) Not to wear ridiculous high heels. Please wear flats and runners. We need to walk and I don’t want my lover hobbled.
3) Please wear clothing you’re comfortbale with. Actually, in all honesty I don’t care a whit what you wear, so long as it’s not an issue – socially. Whatever you decide to wear is just fine.
The vast, vast majority of Western men I know hold these opinions. You can characterize this however you want and silence me and all men by calling this whatever you want, but don’t you *dare* call this an attempt to control women.
There’s no way to win against ideological warriors: Either we’re out to control women through shaming or we’re out to deny them their femininity or we’re out to control them through “gaslighting” and using insults.
Being male = Always seeking to control women.
If this is your position, then why do you even bother addressing any male, ever? And here I was thinking that this was a free thought blog series. Instead, we have the hypocrisy of the True Believer.
And incidentally, every woman I’ve been with has criticized any opinion I had on this subject.
– Blamed for enforcing standards of female beauty deliberately and consciously designed to control women
– Blamed for not appreciating women when they meet these standards or try through superhuman effort
– For having opinions about what is and is not attractive in a mate (though this is not a problem for women > men, of course, … only men > women)
– for trying to be sympathetic (lack of respect)
– for lacking understanding (not appreciating the demands society makes, even though the man individually bears no responsibility at all and may in fact oppose those standards).
There’s just no damned way to win.
I must conclude that this is just an attempt to reframe daily life as a type of unending tregedy or victim mindset, in order to gain proximate power in a relationship and silence male opinion.
Males/men should be silenced for a time as we wimmin have been for a generation/s.
Then and only then will that gender be forced to listen as we speak for the first time and then you can hear our herstory thank you very very much!
Mikey Flubb, I really hope you are not serious. Do you think that white people, people who were born after slavery finished and who have never enslaved anyone in their lives, should be chained up, whipped and forced to do unpaid labour for their black neighbours, who have never been slaves themselves?
The son should not be punished for the sins of the father.
Mikey Flubb, people like you make all feminists look bad. You’re not helping the feminist movement with your irrational hate and your ridiculous use of language (herstory??? you’re embarrassing yourself, can’t you see it??)
Feminism should advocate for equal rights, not for vendettas.
Your description of your relationships is a perfect example of what I mean:
You get into relationships with women who, for whatever reason, wear makeup and heels. You don’t date women who don’t wear makeup and heels. My guess is that you’ll claim that they don’t exist. But really, they just don’t exist for you because you’re not attracted to them. You want a woman who is easier to manipulate and one who shows the outer signs of being willing to go with society’s ideal is more likely to be easily manipulated than one who doesn’t play.
When you’ve got a woman interested in you, you make your “sensitive and enlightened male” play and command her to stop wearing heels and makeup. This sounds very enlightened if you don’t stop to think about it–you’re opposing what Taslima opposes!–but you’re limiting your partners’ choices, demanding that she stop doing the very things that originally attracted you. This is confusing and naturally results in your partner questioning her own taste. Perhaps you back it up with a little “negging”: “joking” comments about how thick her makeup is or how poorly she walks in heels. Now she’s even more unsure of herself because the person who supposedly loves her keeps telling her how awful she is and how much she needs to change.
Then for the coup de grace, you play the martyr. “There’s no way to win with women” “I’m not the one enforcing standards” and so on. If you are capable of the slightest self-reflection, think about your past relationships. Why do you always pick women who dress in ways you claim to find unattractive? Why do you always feel the need to change the women you partner with? Why are you so incapable of accepting any responsibility for your situation?
Many thanks, Dianne. You are an enlightened person.
Dianne is an enlightened person only because she agrees with you. Gorbachev wins the argument every time.
Projecting much, are we ???
there is a problem you havent mentioned, dating a woman who leaves alot of room to improve her appearance when she wants to
her hypergamy
women are known to upgrade when it fancy`s them and when you date a girl who wears sweatpants and no makeup alot of the time you end up finding out she is changing at her gf`s place and hitting the bar while your at work for some “fun”,, i have tried this route several times and always with the same result,, i found out that women who look their best,, and im the best they can get tend to stay around for years instead of only months(be aware i would never live with any woman so they stay of their own accord) this realization changed what i find attractive in women for sure,, while i dont ask any woman to change for me i definitely use their upward mobility to gauge how long they will stay before they move on to someone shinier/richer,,
i also find that a womans mind is their most attractive sex organ far from it being their ass or eyes or legs or hair,or or or.
introduce me to a smoking hot(she knows she is a woman, doesnt hide her curves and doesnt make excuses for them) sultry(not slutty)egalitarian woman who has interest in current events and she will definitely have my attention over any Ethiopian bimbo with fake boobs who looks well used by all…’
and remember ladies if you wear the uniform of a slut dont be surprised if your mistaken for one…
@Dianne
“I conclude that men use comments like the one quoted to further control women by pretending that all the standards of beauty are really being enforced by women and they (the men) are so much more enlightened…while at the same time keeping women who value their opinions uncertain and uncomfortable with their own bodies by gaslighting.”
Then quit voting, seriously. If women are that easy to control and brainwash they should not be voting and likely not even driving.
This of course only applies to yourself and other supporters of the “everything is men’s fault camp”.
Your lack of personal accountability is sickening. Reminiscent of the mentally ill that can hurt others and then blame them rather than accept responsibility for their own actions.
Thank you, I think you may have put me on to something inadvertently.
Feminism = Mental Illness.
This is an attack on character, and therefore an invalid argument.
Worse yet, you don’t know the character of the person you are attacking. You simply presume to be right without acces to knowledge to back up your claims.
Dont you just love it? It is the poor innocent men who dont understand why women wear make up or fancy clothes. Its all the nasty wimmins fault. There is no unequal power distribution and mens magazines are full of photos of homely girls with flat chests and no makeup.
The examples in the articles are women choosing to do something to themselves. And then blaming men.
This kind of feminism is blatantly misogynistic. Women are slaves. Men are free agents. Women have no free will. They HAVE to dress in tight pants and makeup because men like that. Men are in control when women are alone in their room choosing what to wear.
How about taking some responsibility for your actions, like, say.. an adult?
If men were using violence to make women wear makeup, I’d agree thats wrong. But they’re not. It’s all free will, and free choice on the part of the women.
The positions in the article (and the defenses of it) are ricidulous. Just stating the thesis baldly shows that.
Wen women are alone, men are forcing them what to do.
When women choose to do something, men are forcing them to make that choice.
W,en cannot resist the demands of men.
When men show no violence or threat, women scramble to obey.
When women compete for the sexual attention of men, it’s because men are oppressing them.
Women don’t really *like* sexual attention from men.
Men are forcing women to compete for their attention.
It’s pathetic.
Likafox, THANK YOU.
And how are women depicted in womens magazines? Made by women, with women, for women. They look worse than mens magazines did 10 years ago.
Blaming men as a group for all evil is narrow minded. And it is juvenile not taking responsabilities for your own actions. Like school kids blaming their bad actions on what their “friends” told them to do. What do you tell that kid? “I don’t care what anyone say to you, the main thing is what YOU did ant what choises YOU made. Now take responsability for your actions.” Right?
You want equality, and that’s exactly what you get. Equality to be an active subject with full responsability for your life. As we men have it. Don’t like that part? Sorry, can’t cherry pic. If you want new genderroles, you can not fall into your own and victimize yourself as week, who need taking care off.
Try to see the process and see past the Patriarchy-obsessed glasses. The social process that devalues people is not linked intrinsically to male domination.
If you can’t see this – then it will cripple your ability to see what’s going on outside your window.
Not all things are male conspiracies.
And it often happens that women are women’s worst enemies – and the same is true for men. All the whining about women that men do misses one big point. Men cause much of the grief for other men, in much the same way that women cause grief for other women.
In a female-dominated society, you can bet your bottom dollar that beauty standards and social hierarchy would be profoundly more important for those who wanted to acquire the top male mates. Which would be all females.
Look: Men and women just aren’t that different from each other. We’re both nasty, commodifying animals.
Stop infantilizing women. Start seeing how women and men are the same as well as different.
“Men hate woman’s body.”
All men, everywhere?
Women are being brainwashed by many men in many places that their bodies are not perfect. Naturally, women want to be perfect.Cosmetic industry has now become a multi-billion dollar industry.
Yes, I have a special hat with a rotating disk on top, with a hypnotic spiral pattern, that brainwashes all the women I pass on the street.
Just doing my part, as you’re doing your part for good skeptical thinking.
No, you’re not doing your part in anything. It’s clear that you think you are being witty, but it looks rather differently from over here.
Most obvious things do, don’t they?
-Especially when they free you from any responsibility or accountability.
In Korea and Japan, where I spend time, cosmetics are also sold for men. Men are often the subjects of plastic surgery. More and more, men are being held to impossible attractiveness standards.
What you’re seeing is women competing for attention from the most attractive men and for accolades from other women.
if a woman is sexually unavailable (or a man is unavailable), by and large almost all men couldn’t care less what a woman looks like. On the other hand, women spend enormous amounts of time competing for sexual interest *among themselves* from the most desirable of men.
What you’re objecting to is the utilitarian mating marketplace, not beauty standards in and of themselves.
I would appreciate the missing logic of your assertions more if you held the same opinions of female standards relative to men.
When women stop valuing height, wealth and social power in men, I’ll be impressed.
Try treating humans like the sexual mammals that they are, and not as ideological purity machines.
And yet you conveniently ignore all the beauty standards put upon men. Last I checked television, movies and magazines aren’t filled with fat, bald short men.
Well, sometimes they are, but where they are, they are relentlessly mocked and belittled.
Taslima when you say things like this, “Women are being brainwashed by many men in many places that their bodies are not perfect. “, you are telling us women are too stupid to vote, drive, enter into contracts, or own property.
IF you statement were true that is. Fortunately, you are full of it and, your statement is patently untrue.
But you know what Santa Claus and a feminist apologizing for being wrong have in common? Both are myths.
I realize that you may not ever hear this perspective,
Oh, my kingdom for a day when I didn’t hear the male perspective on how men are totes not responsible for what women have to deal with.
WELL SAID!
Oh sista agreed,
My real name is that of a wimmin as I am a wimmin. I use this name as a cover only.
Oh I pray for the day that we can say,
Hold high our thin bony hands.
Our babies cry for want of nipple and are denied…
..the rights and dish of of Nature’s well dressed and goddess served,
fish and fruits plucked and snatched form it’s un-raped bounty.
More ‘poetry’,ehh, Mikey??
I see you didn’t take my advise and quit, so I guess you’re still unemployed, right?
I wonder who’s paying your bills while you spew your male hating garbage? -Oh, that would be men, right?
Here’s a universal truth of gigantic proportions to Taslima. It’s coming from another woman, and we all know that women would never lie to eachother, because you gals ‘can sense such a thing’, right???
Women don’t dress/groom etc for men, they do it for other women – to compete for attention.”
-And you’d have to be born blind to not notice.
Kimski says this in reality:
My name is man, I have a Phallus and wield it to and fro,
Wimmin run, disperse as it has begun,
that very sweep and clear.
Drop your baskets in mid June for the equinox can never shield his engorged plate,
So it has begun, this blind wretched flesh from asunder,
Man and Phallus will be the end-of-us,
as it’s bounce and terror switches off Mom Sun.
We hug and cry and die for you sad lonely Phallus,
Yet you sweep and clear ?
While the statements are accurate in general, they’re not universal and they don’t apply on an all-or-nothing basis to any one man. And on some of them, I beg to differ.
—–
Specifically, on long hair. First, long hair hides the face, and often the hidden is more interesting than the revealed. Secondly, and speaking anecdotally, the more effort a person is willing to give in one area, the more likely the person is to to give effort in others (e.g. education, physical fitness, etc.); hair can be an indicator of that, though not a guarantee.
We tell men that we like them for who they are. They do not destroy their natural body to make us happy. They do not implant or reduce anything to please us.
I don’t mean to infer that men are somehow “worse off” or claim victimhood, but the above statement isn’t entirely true. Male pattern baldness and greying can put men at a great disadvantage when dating. Obesity can too – it’s no longer seen as a sign of wealth but rather of poor health, although men are “allowed” to be much fatter than women and still be able to date. Eating disorders are on the rise among men, and some men do resort to ridiculous forms of plastic surgery as well (e.g. hair transplants, “muscle” implants, skin tightening surgery on the arm to accentuate muscles).
—–
Beyond those two points, I generally agree that double standards are a problem and a source of other problems.
But I’d make one amendment: All people tend to prefer people younger than themselves, but the top end of their prefferd age range is always close to their own, sometimes slightly higher. For example, when I was 25, I was rarely interested in or attraced to women over 30. Now in my mid-40s, the visual attraction to young women (early 20s) is still there but my “top range” of women I find attractive can be in the low 50s. I have no doubt that this is equally true for both men and women.
Taslima:
I agree with the nature and the source of the problems you list. That said, I’m glad you told us you didn’t want to generalize…right *after* you wrote a post that generalizes.
I take issue with-once again-your overgeneralization. I’m a male and I don’t hate women’s bodies. In fact, none of the “things men don’t like/hate” applies to men. I’m fairly certain there are many other men out there who would say the same-and that’s just talking about we queer men (what, you didn’t take into account the gay men around the world that are part of the male population you’re being critical of?). Being gay doesn’t prevent you from hating women’s bodies, but I know a lot of gay men who don’t have the issues you describe.
I’m insulted to be lumped in with those people (and I know they are many) that do continue to perpetuate this crap. It is my hope that one day you will stop over generalizing and acknowledge the complexity and nuances of many of the issues you write about.
No. This is over-simplistic. Remember Betty Friedan? ‘A housewife’s purpose is to buy more things for the house’? And Naomi Wolf extending that in the 90s on the beauty industry. (Naomi Wolf doesn’t get everything right but she has some very shrewd things to say about ‘beauty’.) The international beauty industry is not created by ‘men’ because they all hate women. It’s created by corporate interests who know that tapping into, guiding and exploiting existing stereotypes helps to create and control markets. Of course long histories of patriarchy, misogyny, racism and colonial oppression feed into this. But to simplify it to ‘men hate women’ doesn’t begin to really engage with the problematic relationship women have with ‘beauty’.
I’m interested that you use the example of bleaching the skin as an example primarily of sexism. I would interpret this as being primarily an example of the way whiteness is treated as the norm. This attitude is prevalent in the beauty industry in the form of any number of ‘nude’ or ‘natural’ products which are not available in any colour darker than slightly tan, the paucity of products for African hair in mainstream drugstores, the blinding absence of women of colour on women’s magazine covers… But it’s also an example of the intersection of different cultural pressures, since it’s a racist but also sexist pressure, which women but not men are supposed to knuckle down to. Or a sexist pressure that is experienced differently for women of different ethnicities.
Anyway: patriarchy, sexism, racism, persistent harmful stereotypes, skewed media representation, corporate manipulation, the desire to preserve existing power structures…. just labelling it all ‘men hate women’ isn’t really helpful. Even though some clearly do.
I think it’s also important to note that fashions in adornment differ from culture to culture, are not unique to women and are not – IMO – inherently evil. The systems that portray mere fashions in visual presentation as being essential requirements to being taken seriously as a professional/sexual/intelligent/fully human being are harmful. But can’t just be blamed on hateful ‘men’ … see above.
This is obviously true and explains why when I go shopping the supermarket is full of Victoria Beckham clones rather than a random sample of not terribly attractive people, most of whom seem to have partners and children and be getting on fairly well with their lives, without consulting the pages of Vogue…
I’m trying to figure out what this post has to do with free thought, secular humanism or anything else worthwhile. A grotesque and utterly thought-free spew of hatred and division. If this is the direction FTB is heading in I’ll be tuning out.
No shit? You don’t think feminism is worthwhile? The lives of 50% of the people on the planet isn’t worthwhile?
This is barely disguised ideology. Clearly, disagreements are treated as Betrayals of the Faith.
Taslima’s actual reasoning isn’t so much bad, here, it’s actually absent. That’s the problem.
This sort of thing was in its heyday in the 1980’s, when emotive slogans and shouting took the place of carefully reasoned debate. That was the time of the “gender wars” and it ended with a vicious “civil war” among feminists, with Dworkin and Mackinnon and even Friedan on one side and progressive feminists on the other. The divide remains a chasm to this day.
The one side saw the world in marxist terms: classes struggling with each other, individuals as nothign omre than ciphers. it was de rigeur to silence opposition rather than reaosn with them.
Alas, Taslima has gone through a gauntlet of vicious sexism out of the stone age; she’s survived (so far). Her instincts are to go for the ideological taunt and rally supporters.
This may be part and parcel of starting a revolution, but like in the 1980’s, revolutions tend to devour their own children, and the first victim is always objectivity and truth.
There are no end of bona-fine feminists who vociferously disagree with Taslima’s positions here.
No insult to Taslima, but she’s not operating at a very high level of reasoning. it sounds much more like sloganeering for an angry crowd of demonstrators. Hence the hyperbole, the gross exaggerations, the cherry picking of facts, the nearly blinded one-sided ideology, and the unending dismissal of opponents as moral imbeciles.
Once again, as with the helmets blog post, I see no patriarchal conspiracy here. When viewed from a birds-eye view social perspective, you’d have to take into account the mating standards used by women to judge men, as well as cultural variation, before coming to this type of judgment.
And far from “hating” women’s bodies, what this implies is rather that men “hate women’s bodies as they are”, and want women to change them to suit male standards of beauty.
Could it also, therefore, be argued that women hate men? They dislike men as they are (mostly poor and mostly not tall). Therefore, the pressure on men to make money to impress women and buy them things – is this a sign of women hating men?
Once again, Taslima, no disrepsect, but this is a very poorly reasoned position. It may be ideologically convenient and ideologically correct, but it’s weak sauce.
You have no womb to fill,
only things in life to kill,
unlike a whale that must have krill,
You stymie and debase the edge of of the better part of us all.
You are male and have flat eyes of fish,
this is your wish and so say dish,
Do not look our way as we cry.
Okay, that was just horrible, Mikey.
By far the worst one I’ve seen so far.
Whales must have krill…WTF??
What about the whales that eat fish or hunts penguins?
Don’t they have the right of the Divine Goddess, Mother Moon, to be whales or what?
Is this part of some conspirative oppression against whales that doesn’t eat krill??
Kimski,
Whales are fish you idiot!
How can a great fish as this evolve by eating other fish, it’s very own kind??????
The whale has become the greatest most powerful organism in the ocean and on land and there is noooooo way it could be there without doing something right in the first place.
Krill are not fish nor crustacean, they are tiny organisms that en masse serve themselves to whales for the greater good. Whales have a filtering device in their mouths that strain them from the ocean as wimmin in third world countries strain bugs from pons using their handkerchiefs.
Just because one attempts to fashion verse, it does not make one a poet.
BTW – the times they are a changing, sister. Better make the most of the ideological spotlight while you can. Misandry is so twentieth century….
Mikey:
“Whales are fish you idiot!”
No, they are mammals! Calling people “idiot” doesn’t proove your point.
“How can a great fish as this evolve by eating other fish, it’s very own kind??????”
Sharks are very well adapted to their environment. Still they eat their “own kind”.
“The whale has become the greatest most powerful organism in the ocean and on land and there is noooooo way it could be there without doing something right in the first place.”
We have all done something right in the first place. ALL our ancenstors did everything right, so they could breed.
“Krill are not fish nor crustacean, they are tiny organisms that en masse serve themselves to whales for the greater good.”
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Superorder: Eucarida
Order: Euphausiacea
And they do not serve themself. They are prayed upon.
“Whales have a filtering device in their mouths that strain them from the ocean as wimmin in third world countries strain bugs from pons using their handkerchiefs.”
Eccept from tooth-wales which eat fish, octopussies, sea lions and penguins. And Sea otters use a rock to open shellfish (not fish either) just as men have used a hammer though decades. Now, what does that say about anything?
You tagically show the danger by only ascociate in small narrow minded groups of “think a likes”. Go read a book or something.
Only a moron can’t tell the difference between an ideology and it’s worshippers.
Hatred of feminism does not equal hatred of all women, in any way.
Only the mindless fanatical herd creatures that can’t tell the difference, and buys into this s***.
“I do not want to generalize but…”
…but that is exactly what you are doing when you state that women always and only do all of these things for the sake of men. Not true. No, let me make this more clear: NOT TRUE.
First of all, and this is so obvious that I should not have to point this out, many lesbians wear makeup and long hair and high heels, and shave simply because they want to. It has nothing to do with men.
Many hetero- and bisexual women (myself included) wear makeup and dye our hair because we enjoy varying our appearance, playing with the impression we present, and we just enjoy the way we look. We do this to please ourselves and noone else.
We shave because we like the way our legs feel, or in my case, I prefer them not to itch like a bad case of poison ivy. We shave under our arms for personal hygiene. We shave our pubic areas for physical comfort, our own aesthetic pleasure, or because it feels sexy (speaking for myself, all three).
Breast implants: I had the same opinion as you, until a dear friend of my got them and told me her reason. Because every time she looked in the mirror, she did not see a mature woman or a mother. She saw the same little girl she’d been looking at since she was 12. She completely recalibrated my thinking on the subject.
Many men spend as much time and effort on their hair as many women, and probably for the same reasons that we do. Perhaps they are doing it more to attract women (or for gay men, other men), but since I’m not male I really don’t know. But I suspect it’s mostly the former. Many men wear makeup, again, I suspect for the same reasons women do, although for hetero men I won’t discount the fact that many women find a man in makeup attractive. Again, I count myself (my first adolescent crushes were Adam Ant and David Bowie). Three words: Captain Jack Sparrow.
We wear pretty, short dresses or not-necessarily-modest outfits and high heels and jewelry for all the same reasons we wear makeup and dye our hair. I love wearing high heels.
To be fair, you may be writing from the perspective of a woman from a culture that requires/encourages women to greater sublimation of self to men, whereas I am coming from the western (American) perspective of women being free to physically express themselves however they wish. And that’s a significant factor in this discussion. But even taking that into account, your over-generalization for why women do what they do is distressingly simplistic and inaccurate.
Ultimately, with freedom comes responsibility.
I suspect there’s no genuine desire to end this practice among women; rather, as with the bike helmets issue, it genuinely appears to be more muckraking and controversy-creation than anything else.
The a-priori position is that men hate women. They’re locked in a war of oppressoin against women. Therefore, all things that can be turned to prove this point must be demonstrated to do so.
Alas, this style of argument is best suited for large crowds of angry people that move en masse with little thought. Also, it’s best suited to places where those who disagree can be labeled counter-revolutionaries and effectively silenced.
It’s common practice to simply label those who disagree as participating in some dastardly campaign of controlling women —
but just because women end up being partly controlled doesn’t mean men set out to do this, that they want this, or that it even benefits them in any way at all.
This is the danger when proceeding from preordained moral conclusions to analysis. It’s backwards.
While the beauty myth is powerful, we can play the precisely identical game with men. if you think men are under no pressure from a vicious sexual marketplace, you’re fooling yourselves.
The real issue here is Taslima’s very fiesty fighting style ,and how well 80’s – style gender feminism suits her needs. She’s arguing from a South Asian perspective. It’s much less free there; there’s much less debate; and women are genuinely controlled and dominated by men, to an extent not seen in the West for 100 years, and perhaps longer. In that context, sloganeering and obfuscation may work, because it’s designed to activate emotional responses.
But in the West, this ultimately failed. That brand of feminism is both tired and largely ignored. Most of its predictions (porn is the theory , rape the practice, etc.) have been shown to be entirely wrong. The “facts” spouted by ideology have been shown to be false (Superbowl and other sports events attract child trafficking: prostitution actually decreases, as prostitutes’ reports themselves suggest; 25% of women are sexually assaulted; the number is more like 4%, though still far too high; no woman ever makes a false rape claim, or there are very few; most unbiased studies return shocking values of 12-32% for this, with one older study giving 47%; and etc.
Al lof this just shows that women and men are both human, both have severe character flaws, are both equally capable of judging others, being mean, being cruel and being selfish.
The one thing 80’s feminism did in large amounts was reduce women to the status of victims without agency. That may or may not be appropriate in India, but there’s no holocaust against women going on in Sweden or the US. Men do not hate women.
Actual women’s lives by and large involve huge numbers of men, both subordinates and superiors, customers and bosses, children and parents.
So while I understand where she gets her vitriol, by clinging onto an outmoded and largely discredited brand of feminism, she may be hurting her cause, generally.
If the goal is to dismantle the oppression women still feel, there are far better ways than calls to arms for wars that the opposite side isn’t fighting.
If the goal is to dismantle the oppression women still feel, there are far better ways than calls to arms for wars that the opposite side isn’t fighting.
Man Finally Put In Charge Of Struggling Feminist Movement
Taslima.. you forgot one thing.
why do women breathe? men hate women who dont breathe, so they breathe.
Yes, we get it, women are bereft of agency.
My wife’s hair is nearly down to the back of her knees. It’s extremely curly and gorgeous. She hasn’t had it cut since eight years ago when I convinced her to cut it to a length of about an inch. I thought it was sexy as hell, but due to the curl, it was actually higher maintenance than long hair. Drove her nuts.
My wife actually had a breast job about seven years ago. It had taken her years to talk me into it as I’ve always been attracted to small breasted women. I assume that’s something creepy stemming from the fact that my mother was small breasted but I try not to over analyse it. My wife was sure that it would make her more confident and make it significantly easier to buy clothes. It did both of those things. She only went to a B-cup, so it’s not like she went to stripper levels. I will never admit to her that it has also made her less attractive to me, but she’s attractive enough to me that I could handle the hit.
I’ve got to plead guilty on the slim body point. I’m attracted to slimmer women. Preferably athletic.
I also have to admit that I love high heels. She doesn’t wear them often, but when she does, it really stirs something in me.
A few years ago she started getting into makeup. She hadn’t been the makeup type in all the years we’ve been together (a little over fifteen so far). Y’know, I think I like it. A little glamour is fun. Plus, we’re getting a bit older and are having to put a little more effort into staying attractive for each other than we used to. For most of our relationship, I’ve put more effort into my appearance than she has into hers. haha
I agree with quite a bit of what you’ve said, but not in quite the broad manner. I just wanted to raise my hand for roll call. This is me, warts and all. Not so bad, I don’t think.
Sadly enough, the ad that shows up to the right of your post is for cosmetic surgery and shows a woman in a sparkly red bikini. You’re right that there are ridiculous pressures on women. They sap our energy, if we let them.
Wow, the willful lack of comprehension in this thread is breathtaking. Have all the people commenting here been hit on the head with something hard? I don’t always agree with Ms Nasreen, but this here is ridiculous.
No, Ms Nasreen is not claiming that all men force women to have long hair all the time, or wear high heels. Thanks for sharing your personal taste in women to clear that up.
She is employing a form of metaphoric language which summarizes the pressures that act upon women in certain societies, which still have a very strong power imbalance between the sexes, by assigning it to an agent she calls “men” or “man”. She thinks this is justified because the interpretational sovereignty of what constitutes appropriate behavior or appearance for women still dominantly lies with men, as well as most decisions about political and economical power. Women themselves may participate in enforcing these standards, but there is a reason why they are compelled to do so – they do not act in a vacuum but are likewise struggling to function in a still dominantly partriarchial society. Amirite?
Yes, it was much more important that we learn what these men truly find beautiful in women’s bodies than it was for us to discuss the pressures put on women to make themselves conform to the current definition of ‘beauty’ so that they may be attractive to men.
You have been great all over this post, by the way.
Thanks, but it’s nothing really. I was a bit taken aback about Taslimas take on prostitution some time ago and didn’t read the blog closely for awhile, but this here thread was the first thing I saw this morning, and this level pf siwoti on an empty stomach can be very irritating.
Men must learn to obey the very essence of wimmin smells.
By this I mean that pheromones are to be obeyed as is the wiring of a hetero male for this. I wash one time a week and never when I bleed as this is to deny Mom Nature her design.
Okay, that is very likely the real reason you’re single, Mikey.
Stop hating men, and take a bath more often would help a lot.
It might also help if you actually started taking responsibility for your actions, as in not bathing, that is.
Kimski,
Stop stalking me!!!!
Fyi I rub myself in peppermint ochre squeezed from the crushed root of a bulb that grows near a pond where I live. We have sprouted this bulb around the Enclave and it retains our wimmin smell while at the same time has the wonderful smells of the forest AND the moist earth nearby.
Also fyi Kimskittle brain, the smells of the root of that bulb are made stronger as it is passed from one wimmin to the next in the circle.
Whale are not a fish, they are mammals & in regards to “men must learn to obey the essence of smelly women” !!!??? That’s disgusting lady you got ask your doctor to increase the dosage of the anti-psychotic pills everybody says your on. ???plus shave your army bits while you at it. Yuk that’s really disgusting.
Just because you think you are so called liberated feminist doesn’t mean you have to smell like a filthy cow.
She also made this statement, Not Buying It:
“Krill are not fish nor crustacean.”
Krills ARE crustaceans, which just goes to show that our Mikey here ALSO doesn’t know what she’s talking about, when it comes to the rest biology. She is a walking poster child for the reasons to stay away from women of today, and she basically wallpws like a pig, in the mud of her own ignorance and hatred.
As to your personal hygiene, Mikey. I really didn’t need to know that. You just made my top-ten list of most disgusting people I’ve ever had the misfortune of communicating with.
I agree, NBI,-that is just downright disgusting.
YUK!!
So…she couldn’t have just said all that? Ya know, instead of spewing generalizations against a group of people who do not really hold responsibility? If you have to read as far into this poorly written diatribe of bullshit claims pulled directly from her ass as you just did, I tend to think it’s just a diatribe of bullshit claims. But, maybe I just have a reasonable standard for human communication?
Regardless of my short rant, I think that if you have to read that far into what is said in this blog post, it is poorly written…to say the absolute least. Almost no one on this planet knows her well enough to know she meant all that. If she did indeed mean to say all that you noted, then she simply sucks at articulating her thoughts. I think at least that much is unarguable.
Keep up the agitation.
This is one guy who agrees with you and is not threatened by the style you choose for this essay.
And Tigerloaf is an idiot.
URSA MAJOR – Brother, I’m thrilled that you stood up in support of women. Yes, all men are not oppressors – Taslima never said they were – and many women enable the system. I think her point was that that system hurts women most deeply and most often.
I am a woman, and I thank you for your courageous support in not joining the boys’ club that seems to be forming here to bring down Taslima’s voice.
Believe me, women desperately – desperately – need more solidarity from men. Because there are so many attempts to silence us out there. Some you have seen on this very page.
“Yes, all men are not oppressors – Taslima never said they were – and many women enable the system. I think her point was that that system hurts women most deeply and most often”
Then why does she not call out women for their support of this?
Why do men die earlier?
Why do men have far less healthcare funding?
Why are almost all dead soldiers men?
Why are 80%+ men?
And yet, you bitch about “having” to wear make-up? No one held a gun to your head and MADE you. So, “woman the hell up” and take responsibility for your own choices. THIS is why men have excelled where women have not, they are willing to own their stuff, to go against the popular options and do their own thing. What you don’t see is that for every 1 that succeeds 9 fail. Those 9 are the homeless, the mentally ill, the unloved, and unsupported. The men you don’t even see.
EDIT:
*** Why are 80%+ of the homeless men?
Men and boys need more solidarity from men and boys. Manginas and white knights are exempted however.
This is a prime example of a very annoying, hypocritical argument that I often hear from ‘feminists’. Any counter-argument to their claims is labelled as an attempt to ‘silence their voice’. The reason that this is hypocritical is that, in not allowing any debate or counter-argument, they themselves are silencing any voices I dissent.
This is a Poe right?
You have a choice, Neo. Take the red pill and wake up to the wonderful world of the partriarchy, or take the blue pill and go back to sleep as if nothing had happened.
Of course that ‘sleep’ would mean working yourself into an early grave to provide for a woman, who apparent is a victim of you, before she chooses to divorce you, steal your kids and your belongings, and rob you blind in biased divorce courts.
-Or to be send off to die in wars, to provide ressources to the overconsumption of women back home, who apparently are the real victims, while you are being blown to pieces by other men, who are caught in the exact same trap as you.
One major point:
“Believe me, women desperately – desperately – need more solidarity from men. Because there are so many attempts to silence us out there. Some you have seen on this very page.”
Disagreement is not silencing.
You can absolutely, 100% disagree. very actively and aggressively.
But this is in no way “silencing”.
Derailing is not disagreeing. And it is silencing.
What you have done is derail. You have tried to rebut the OP by pointing out that there are also beauty standards for men. This is derailing. The OP was about women, and did not imply exclusivity of beauty standards. Making it “all about men” is derailing, and its a common silencing tactic whenever women attempt to write or speak about feminism or any oppression/discrimination/etc. directed at women.
Your other objection is that even granting the point, beauty standards are simply natural, and therefore we shouldn’t try to change it. That’s the naturalistic fallacy, not even applied correctly (these beauty standards are *not* natural, and you need a lot more evidence if you want to consider that a disagreement). Our natural state as human beings is a world where we have half the life-span we currently enjoy. So don’t talk to me about it being impossible to change “natural” things.
And responding to post calling out oppression by simply saying that it’s natural for women to be oppressed in this way so shut up is, in fact, definitionally silencing behavior.
The OP blames men for women’s inability to think for themselves. The two are related and it is not derailing.
Haven’t noticed you throw your 2 cents in over all the ad hominems against anyone disagreeing with the OP’s flawed theory.
I disagree. It does imply exclusivity because the whole narrative used here to explain why beauty standards exist only explains them for women. She’s either prioritizes provocation over nuance and accuracy or claiming that men don’t have beauty standards or that theirs are completely unrelated.
It’s fine to have a focus, but I object that the title and many parts of the article are claims about what men feel. It’s not derailing for a man to object to being told what his own subjective experiences are. This isn’t just an article about how women are judged on their appearance considerably more than men and thus are under a lot more pressure to look good: it’s an article about how men hate women’s bodies. That’s speaking to the male experience and you have to expect that men will object if they think that their experiences are being represented inaccurately.
You do not like to accept the bitter truth! Why do women try to alter their body? Is it to please a pack of lions or men? In a male dominated society who put the demands?
My point is saying that men or women in general are responsible for something is always going to be false. “Men” haven’t done anything and aren’t responsible for anything. The same is true of women. People aren’t categories. Yes, perceived group membership gives people advantages and disadvantages in a lot of acculturated ways, but that’s not the same thing.
Besides, patriarchy is an emergent system, not a conspiracy. If it’s something that men run to keep women in line, why does it have so many behavior strictures and other disadvantages for men? Who’s making men shave our faces, meaning we have to get up a few minutes earlier each day and sometimes get painful cuts? Who’s saying that men with long hair can be tattoo artists and roadies, but not bank presidents or other respectable jobs? If it’s men, why don’t we just stop and save ourselves the trouble? If it isn’t men as a category, then your framing is all wrong.
To be clear, are you saying that beauty standards are something that men exclusively impose on women to serve men’s desires to the detriment of women? Which men? All of them? Just the jerks? Just the handful of super-rich?
And nowm point by point:
Men hate woman’s body. Women learn from men to hate their own bodies. Media has been busy for decades advising women how they should look like.
This is not metaphorical. It’s written to rally support and cause controversy. It’s demonstrably not true, but is designed as a type of slogan.
Men hate women’s hair if they are not silky and long.
Not true. Many men like short hair. These standards change by place and time. It would be wiser to say that men and women rate women’s attractiveness based on shifting standard, and that a female hierarchy is often deeply influenced by the percetion of attractiveness women have.
Most women keep their hair long even though many of them feel comfortable having short hair. They use different chemicals to make their hair silky.
Reframe:
Men are expected to have hair. Women see bald men as less attractive. Many men suffer hair replacement surgery and wear toupees and dye their hair to appear younger and more virile to women.
Men do not like the color of our skin. So women bleach their skin or get their skin tanned. We spend almost all our money to buy cosmetics so that we can decorate ourselves to something that men want us to be. We want to make men happy.
Women do not like short men. Short men need to ovecompensate to acquire interest from women. Many short men suffer involuntary celibacy and earan far less money than tall men.
The greatest signaller of attraction for women: Tallness in men.
This is a form of oppression, far worse than makeup or skin tone, because it cannot be adjusted.
Men do not like us when our hair turns grey. So we dye our hair.
Again, easily reframeable.
What’s being objected to is the appearance standards – any appearance standards – in the sexual marketplace.
Or perhaps it’s the sexual – status marketplace that’s being objected to. Good luck fighting that. It’s much older than humanity.
Men hate women’s eyes, eyebrows, nose, lips, cheeks, neck, ears. Women paint their eyes, eyebrows,cheeks, lips. We wear jewelries on our neck, we pierce our nose and ears to wear ornaments.
The vast majority of men dislike makeup. In this Red Queen-like runaway selection game, women are largely reinforcing this among themselves for what they perceive as their own advantage. Like any competitive struggle, it runs to extremes.
Men hate women’s breasts if breasts are not round and large. We wear push-up padded bras. We go for breast implants. Implants leak, rupture, burst. We increase our cancer risk. </I.
Option:
Do not engage in these practices and therefore assume the position in the sexual hierarchy genetics has given you.
There's no obligation to get surgery. Please, this is entirely the wish of a woman to alter her state.
The same would be true for men.
The reason women get surgery is
1) It's now cheaper, relatively safe and freely available
2) Women want social status: if they can afford it, they can do it. Same goes for fancy hand bags, cars, jewelry, etc.
3) Sexual attractiveness hierarchies are not imaginary.
The way to escape from this is not to shame men.
It's to accpet the genetic lottery and admit that the current body as it is is what a woman has. And to accept the PLACE in the sexual-social hierarchy that this gives her.
it sounds to me that the real objection is to any social-sexual hierarchy at all. Good luck with that.
Humans are shallow, insensitive animals. And I do mean animals.
Men hate our natural abdominal fat. We almost stop eating to reduce our fat to please men. We suffer from anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders. We become skeletons. We die. </I.
Women hate fat men. Men have to exercise or face social shame and taunting from their women. Fat men are ridiculed on the street.
Look: Both genders hate fat. Deal with it. Fat is not attractive in almost any culture.
If this bothers women, then fat shaming of men and rejection of men as sexual partners for being fat should also bother you.
I suspect it doesn't.
Men hate us if our hymens are broken. We need to repair our hymens.
Men hate our vagina if the passage is not very narrow and not very tight. We go for surgery under anesthesia to tighten vagina.
This is wholly a Virgin-Obsession thing, and is not endemic or even common in North America or Europe. It’s wholly cultural.
It’s a rare American or European who is a virgin past the age of 18; it’s a rare man who expects or even desires his wife to be a virgin.
I would suggest addressing the Muslim and Indian crowds for this one.
(BTW, this is also untrue now for East Asia).
Men hate our natural leg hair. We shave our legs to make our legs unnatural. </I.
Again, shall we enumerate all the ways men and women unnaturally alter themselves to appear more attractive.
Does this imply hatred? Please.
More objection to the existence of sexual standards or the sexual marketplace.
Men hate our legs. So we wear high-heeled shoes to make us look taller. Our toes get bruised, our bones get broken, we suffer from sprained ankles and dislocations. We can not walk comfortably, we can not run when needed. But we continue wearing high heels to give men pleasure.
Men universally are annoy4ed when their women wear these monstrosities. it means the women are crippled. No man wants a useless child as a mate.
Men hate our wrinkled skin. So we use all kinds of chemicals on our faces, all kinds of anti-wrinkle or anti-aging creams. I wonder whether people really believe they can stop aging!
Youth is attractive.
That appears to be hard-wired into men.
Deal with it. That may be an inescapable facet of human sexuality.
That women aren’t so picky about age is interesting and indicatinve of varying programmed standards: Women want social status more than men do. Men seek physical attractiveness before many other things. That too appears to be hard-wired and is wholly cross-cultural.
We even go for face-lifting, plastic cosmetic surgery to look a bit younger. Men can grow older, but they do not like that we women grow older.
And this sectionh I could just not abide.
We tell men that we like them for who they are.
Excuse me?
If any man could chime in, this is absolutely never the story men experience. It just never happens.
Women are as shallow, selfish and demanding as men. Actual human experience demonstrates this every minute of every day.
This is so absurd as to be genuinely insulting of both men and the basic humanity and independence of women. Again,stop infantilizing women. If you know American women, you know that they’re as snippy, argumentative and selfish as American men.
They do not destroy their natural body to make us happy. They do not implant or reduce anything to please us.
I guess this explains hair transplants, hair dying, gyms for older people (men), and the urge to impress women with baubles, money and social status.
Has Taslima ever lived in California? There’s huge amounts of interesting plastic surgery performed on men.
Perhaps not in India.
There are evolutionary reasons for men to get attracted to women and for women to get attracted to men. But patriarchy, a system artificially imposed on society causes all the injustices and inequalities against women. Patriarchy is a system in which men dominate, oppress, suppress and exploit women. This system prevents women from being who they really are.
What Taslima is objecting to very clearly is the exitence of standard which not all women can naturally meet. That women are judged based on appearance.
This is the very core and nature of sexual selection. It’s not just part of being human: it’s the core of being a sexual being in competitoin with others of his or her own species.
It’s also two-sided.
I could object to women considering a man’s surplus wealth when deciding to have sex with him, to ranking males (even casually) in terms of sexual attractiveness, or of impugning social status from handy markers like age, style of dress or behavior.
This is ultimately what makes such complaints absurd. It seeks to undo the very underpinnings not of “cultural patriarchy”, but of the transactional, hierarchical, savage garden of human sexuality.
This is the single most powerful socially determining force in the human psyche. Good luck with that.
Gorbachev has two points. I will respond to both with the power of snark:
Shorter “what about teh menz” Gorbachev: but what about teh menz? Why would you ever write a post about beauty standards for women without also sticking up for teh menz? Don’t you know that every post should be about meeeeeeeeen?
Shorter “evo-psych” Gorbachev: but but but it’s *natural* for men to treat women this way. So why you ever even try to criticize it?
Yes, because everything natural is either good or inevitable.
Also, Gorbachev, I don’t think that evo-psych bullshit is nearly as true as you think. Maybe there’s a reason why evo-psych is dissed by pretty much the entire fucking scientific establishment.
Oh, and economists can’t even figure out how their *actul* field of study works, so, like, maybe you shouldn’t trust what they say about sex and relationships so much.
Ugghh.
When you have a new fresh-born babe that has sprout from a great womb shedding you will maybe understand, oh I forgot you do not have a womb and are wanting one to make a life.
we make life and the menz/males cannot do this and this is what they are in want of crying for that very thing they cannot have.
At the Wimmins Cave Enclave Pagan Wim spoke of this in great length and after my first child I had my womb removed by choice and had it set alight on the Pagan pyre against a blue moon.
You may not understand why but we did not hug-break until dawn all of us there that night.
That was right after you stopped taking your medication, right?
Womb envy Kimski is at it again. A poem just for you.
Kimski cries dry tears that freeze and spike my knave,
Time will tell when he has rung that bell,
Taking his empty coffin right to his grave,
We cry for you and weep asunder and you plow us under,
your well patted Phallus of that called thunder.
We do not weep for you, do not weep for you as you do,
Let us laugh and dance together,
for the first and forever time that is now and will always be.
See, Mikey??
That just does not compute or make sense in any way. You just throw in words there, to fill out some basic understanding of rhyme, while you desperately look for a way to make sense of the words. And you keep failing at it, and miserably so.
You really need to think about that translation manual, for more rational and clearheaded people. These rantings of yours just make you look like a cuckoo, looking for an asylum and a straightjacket.
Womb shedding, blood, tissue & gore ,!!!??
I think I am about to throw up, akkk, yuk woman stop sharing awful disgusting comments.
You are reading too many economics and/or bad evo psych books, comrade. Progress has been made to lift some pressure from women in western countries, for example to conform with the “traditional” gender roles as far as careers and autonomy wrt to child bearing are concerned. Why do you think it so utterly impossible to lift it some more. Our social conventions are not carved in stone. You would have to be completely blind to history to claim that there can never be any progress.
Taslima mam you do reply! There are ur comments!
Yes mam women actually do not have any self respect n they r nt conscious about their value. They want to submit themselves according to men’s conditions and terms. Who are the men to certify them that they r good or bad, their parts are right or not, they are attractive or not. Today the women are so much educated n can earn their own but still they can’t rely themselves can’t consider themselves a comlete human being who does not have the need to be certified by another.The women have to build up the confidence that whatever I am,I am. The parts are not important. What important is the complete parsonality. The men are not any superior that he can judge her that whether she is good or bad. On the opposite women have to concentrate on the merits n demerits of a man whether he can be her partner atall. It does not mean that a man has to shave this or that, to do a sergery or not but it means that a woman has to be cautious about her own value n be careful to choose her partner according to her own intelligence,education n taste.
this is indeed not true cause since time memorial men were so allured by female body and our literature art is a testimony of this! this too much feminism and is unwarranted
woman herself is woman’s enemy.woman compare’s herself with woman n want to look prettier younger than others.
I hate high heals and for the life of me can not work out why any woman would ever wear them. I think most of the pressure for women to dress up comes from other women, most men I know don’t seem to care that much.
Jarrod,
I suspect heels are worn both to increase height and for the effect of making the calves and posterior thighs and hips appear firmer and posture.
Stand with your heels up on a 2″ block (the book Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens works well too). Note the difference in your calves, hamstrings, glutes and posture.
Unfortunately, high heels are absolutely horrible for the feet and ankles, and anything that alters gait sufficiently can cause problems all the way up to the neck as a result.
While there are cultural influences, much of what determines sexual attractiveness is biological. Things like waist to hip ratio, breast size, hair appearance, posture (which is affected by shoes), etc. are indicators of health and ability to produce fit offspring. The same goes for indicators of youth like hair color.
This does not make these things objective indicators of an individual’s value as a person, but even being consciously aware of this isn’t going to change what men find sexually attractive in women.
Hahahahaha no. Just no.
Seriously, if you’re going to try to use evolution or biology to make this argument, actually try to get your facts right.
Culturally determined beauty has varied WIDELY throughout even just the last 100 years. It simply isn’t biologically determined. If it were, the variance would all be within a certain range. But unhealthily skinny is the current beauty standard, whereas quite overweight used to be, and don’t get me started on other cultures. (Seriously, read a book on anthropology. Seriously. Go do that now.) So, no, it has nothing to do with child-bearing or any such nonsense.
Also, all those ratios and sizes and whatnot you quote? Ask any doctor: the current “ideal” woman? Not a healthy body.
“Unhealthily skinny” is the beauty standard set by who? I thought this was about what men find attractive, and I don’t know any men who find women who are “unhealthily skinny” more attractive than ones who are within healthy body fat ranges.
I am well aware of the role in culture in this and variation between times and places and not dismissing that, but it is also a mistake to dismiss the biological aspects of it, and that sexual attractiveness has a lot to do with perception of health and “fitness”.
Also, I suspect what some people consider an “unhealthy” weight often depends on their own. The fatter a person, the higher they seem to think a healthy weight is and the more critical they are of women who aren’t “curvy”.
While it is certainly possible to be too thin and to weigh too little, this is certainly not a problem the majority of women in the US have (I can’t speak for other countries).
You’re just so close, but you haven’t bothered asking yourself why I need to look fertile for hetero men to get that job or get that promotion or get that raise.
In some states, compulsory make-up at work is not considered sex discrimination.
Women who are 15 pounds lighter than average make about 15k more per year. Women who are 15 pounds heavier make 15k less, for a total spread of 30k. Why do I need to have your idealized waist to hip ratio to make a living wage?
That’s what we’re so fucking pissed about. Think about it. Take two minutes out of your busy schedule of mansplaining to pull your head far enough out of your ass to see women as human beings and empathize.
Um, being more attractive increases salaries across the board for both men and women. Thus, you aren’t finding some massive form of sexism or patriarchy here, but are instead merely pointing out looks discrimination.
Thanks for clearing that up! For a minute there, I was worried there was a well-documented wage gap between men and women. PHEW! Gosh, that’s such a relief.
So, are you suggesting that it is this “weight” thing that causes the wage gap between men and women? Please.
Snark is no substitute for having an actual argument and sticking with it.
Wow, you’re kind of dense, huh? Do you think that the wage gap affects an entirely different set of women than the weight gap affects? You really can’t even imagine how they might be connected? Sorry, I don’t engage with ignorant people whose only counter-argument is “nuh UH!”
And yet, you didn’t actually engage my argument, which was that the weight thing was LOOKS DISCRIMINATION and not SEXISM. I argue that they are not the same thing. What’s your reply to that?
It is irrelevant if both overt sexism and overt looks discrimination are part of the wage gap. My argument was that the latter — to whatever degree it might contribute — is not sexism, as it seems you implied. So, either address the comment or cut out the insults and snark.
Thank you for that Verbose stoic, you are talking some real sense here.
Magazines are full of cartoonish facsimiles of women. A normal woman (with body fat, body hair) is a turn off to most men.
Thankfully, all the men in mass media/advertisements are all realistic. LOL
I am a very obese wimmin thank you the advertizing giants that take our money.
My husband loves my round shape and hair everywhere. I have more hair on my arms than he has and I cut my long hair off last summer and do not think I will stop shaving it every week.
Okay, that explains it.
So, how large is his monthly hooker bill, Mikey?
Oh very funny.
We have a loving arrangement fyi.
I know he cannot curb his wanton lust for other wimmin so I surrender twice a week to his “fantasy”. It might sound sick to you but I do as all strong independent wimmin do and compromize with compassion, tolerance and pragmatizm. For a few short minutes I am on all fours with a collar tethered to a “lead” and I smear myself in his Phallus spill.
Laugh away, but at least I have the gutz to admit it. Do you have the gutz to admit you are impressed with my sheer honesty and self revelation? I see nothing on offer from you in this way.
I’m not going to laugh at you over this, Mikey. You provide an abundance of oppotunities in so many other ways.
What I am going to do is pity you even more, than I already do.
Your willingness to denigrate yourself as a human being fits right into the profile, and I’m sure it provides you ample reasoning for your hatred of men.
Have you ever considered saying no, which is perfectly okay, and what most people in charge of their own life would do?
I refuse to believe that you are a mindless slave to these circumstances in your life, and if you want things to change, you actually have to put in the work yourself. No knight in shiny armor is going to come to your rescue, and that’s a reality that the vast majority of men live with every day, for the rest of their lives.
As soon as you wake up to this fact and start taking control over your own life, we might actually be able to discuss these things as grown ups, but if you continue doing what you do, which is nothing besides bitching about it, while not taking responsibility for yourself and your choices, I will continue to adress you as I would adress a spoiled child throwing a tantrum.
And you have given me absolutely no reason NOT to, so far.You just keep throwing the victim card on the table, and it is not OTHER people’s responsibility to change things. It is YOUR OWN.
I Don’t believe anybody normal would utter & type words like ” fyi I rub myself in peppermint ochre squeezed from the root of a tree ,…etc ”
WHAT !! ??
You are delusional lady & in need of some serious residential mental therapy miss & I truly hope you find it.
This is exactly the kind of post that gives feminism a bad name.
Yes, society’s standards for female attractiveness are shallow and a number of men buy into them. (So do many women.) Yes, way too much emphasis is placed on women being physically attractive to men, as if this were the only thing that matters about them. This is based on the idea that the center of a woman’s existence is to find a husband, who will support her financially and run and control her life in exchange for her taking care of his private needs and bearing his children.
THIS kind of reduction of women from independent people to men’s servants is what feminism is against.
To state that “men hate women’s bodies” the way it is meant in this post is just factually wrong: Simply because typical (hetero) men are generally attracted to women’s bodies simply for the fact that they’re female. And a preference for certain traits does not imply a hate for bodies that are not perfect (and the preferences vary wildly between individuals anyway). And some examples are simply over-generalising specific cultural expectations of female beauty: most notably the hymen thing, which is just plain nonexistent in Western culture.
But most importantly, these easily refuted claims of hate just distract from the actual problem: Which is that women are taught that their main quality is being attractive to men in general, and by implication that their ultimate goal is have a husband, and that their worth measured by their success in scoring a “high-quality” husband through their good looks.
The only context in which I could see the title claim — that men hate women’s bodies — making sense is the one related to men trying to control women’s sexuality by making them hide their bodies: Exactly because they are generally attracted to women’s bodies, optimised or not, and see this as a form of power that they don’t want women to have.
Well said. This is a terrible article to publish. This is just some random venting which is fine but not worth publishing.
Excuse me for a minute while I weep over the deminse of good and nice feminism.
But seriously, it is clear that the text is a polemic, not a philosophical treatise, and uses some poetic freedom to get a point across. Even I immediately got she did not imply with this text that I myself personally hate women with shortish legs and without hymens, despite my Y chromosome.
Using the appearance of women with less than perfect (according to certain standards) bodies to insult them or attack them is quite common, ins’t it? Almost as common as attacking tham for having near perfect bodies according to the same standards.
Oh noes, she said something that doesn’t apply to your privileged ass. The horror!
And if they do not conform to this notion of attractiveness? Then Goto 10.
What gives feminism a bad name is its association with women.
Writing a polemic is no excuse for a string of claims that are plain wrong whatever way you look at it, literally, metaphorically or as an exaggeration. The idea that patriarchy is about “men hate women” instead of “men try control women” oversimplifies the complex issue of systematic power imbalance to personal dislike, and so also feminism becomes about hating men back, or trying to change their hate, instead of fighting to get women equal power.
So it’s not about the woman’s body living up to standard or not, it’s about finding anything to insult her about, in order to denigrate her and prevent her from exercising power and agency.
It’s also quite common to more directly insult women’s intelligence, leadership and other qualities. Whatever comes to mind first, really.
Nice try, try better.
When writing a piece about how men universally hate every aspect of women’s bodies, it’s not a good idea to get hung up on things that hinges on one very specific religion, and is totally irrelevant to others.
Then they’re unsuccessful and haven’t attained their goal (they’ll only get a low-prestige husband, or one that wasn’t only going for the good looks, the horror). They’re not hated for that, they just lose in the competition.
But the actual problem is the existence of such a competition at all, not the criteria by which one could win!
Oh, a polemic, right; just like Solanas’ writings were Swiftian satire. **Ahem!**
Right….
Feminists really are their own worst enemy (and they think it is men…)
I think the word “society” would be better than “men”, as I feel it is more of a problem with our whole society. As for those upset about the generalization, I think what Taslima was going for was the broad spectrum for effect. Of course she does not think all men or all of society think this way about women but let’s be honest, Society does put some ridiculous standards on women and what “it” deems as acceptable.
Agreed,
The womb envy dead walkers among us are crazy for their standard issue wimmin to be bought and sold on the market of hatred and bad will.
We can never let this happen sistas, never.
For those of you who might not know, ‘Mikey Flubb’ here belongs to that hategroup of radical feminists that conspire to reduce the male population to 10% in the future. They have absolutely no qualms when it comes to eradicating a huge percentage of the women and children in the process, and can very well be compared to the most radical nazi’s of WWII.
So when Mikey speaks of not hating anyone, she does it with the same understanding of the term, that a 5 year old child has. She is a very disturbed and mentally unstable person, who belongs in a place where someone can take care of her.
And she is a prime example of what feminism has done to 50% of the demographic in the past 50 years.
God help us all and our sons.
I will be going back to your site every 28 days and telling the truth about wimmin whether you like it or not.
And you will be met with a warm welcome commitee, Mikey. I can promise you that for nothing. We have minds immensely superior to mine in there, with more than 40 years of experience in dealing with your kind.
If you really want to put yourself through a masochistic experience like that, I can only say: ‘Go ahead, kiddo’.
It might not as funny as you anticipate, because amongst those minds are some excellent psychiatrists, who knows exactly what is wrong with you, and will be more than happy to inform you what can be done to help you, and what medication you’ll need.
And you just don’t strike me as a person that can handle that kind of truth, Mikey.
For those of you saying it’s women competing with women often, and not always necessarily guys pushing them into “prettying up”…there’s a point here that you miss. Women who compete with one another are doing just that: competing. That means that there’s some incentive, a goal. If you think women are just naturally born with some kind of vanity complex driving them to be the Fairest of Them All, that’s a large misconception, sort of sexist in its simplicity. Women who compete do it because there’s value to be gained in being attractive, because as a culture we elevate women’s worth based on their appearances, and because on some internal level these women know that. It all comes down to being desirable, and it’s not being desirable to the women they’re competing with that women aim…it’s men. I know that when another women flaunts her feathers at me she’s really saying, “Men would like me a little bit better than you.” (In high school I would flaunt back, but nowadays I know what I’m dealing with, and respond in kindness and disinterest.)
I realize I appear heteronormative, by the way. But I’m not trying to, really. I’m just specifically referring to heterosexual social dynamics because I’m not sure the statements I made directly translate to same-sex situations, and for a variety of reasons.
I realize that his is true, of course. And it highlights another issue:
As long as competition for mates exists, in other words, so long as people are heterosexual, there will be a sexual marketplace. As long as different people are valued differently, there will be a hierarchy. As long as there is a hierarchy, there will be standards, and many people will not meet them.
Ergo: as long as people seek to mate, and this will be an ongoing thing, this problem will continue. In effect, heterosexuality is essentially a problem. Mating and breeding is a problem in this analysis.
You would have to eliminate both, which would incidentally also entail eliminating us as a species. We are just mammals, after all. There’s not much special about us, really.
When it comes to mating, we really are just a bunch of large monkeys. We have trouble dealing with this.
What shocks many people s that as women gain more power in the West, instead of ceasing to be commodities, rather its men who are also being commoditized alongside women.
With the discarding of spirituality and the opening of the sexual floodgates, sex has become just another mode of consumption, and other people are nothing more than avenues to consume that which we want.
Its the same for food. At one time, food was both sustenance and an avenue for appreciating the universe. For most people today, it’s a gluttonous repast downed for pleasure’s sake only.
Face it: We commoditize each *other* on a vast scale now. If you actually step back and look at Western culture, this is what equality and plenty has wrought.
It’s just as true in East Asia, the other place I have much experience in. In CHina, it’s certainly true. In Korea, superficial standards rule for both men and women. In Japan it’s even moreso.
This is human nature. With freedom comes the unleashing of all of the least spiritual, least pleasant aspects of the human psyche, always there and usually controlled by various forms of social pressure (often oppressive pressure).
It’s why religions have a loathing and fear of sexuality. It unleashes things that are barely controllable, let along moldable.
What looks like patriarchy is emblematic of something far more disturbing, to those who imagine that we’re civilized and tameable animals.
Women use men as much as men use women. As much as women use women and men use men.
We are, in the end, far more similar, even across gender lines, than these bipolar gender analyses want to admit.
Agreed.
I know I’m not even allowed to mention ev psych but I imagine even the first humans were innately attracted to some women/men more than other women/men. I don’t think I’ve been conditioned to find morbidly obese women unattractive.
That said, outside of Vogue magazine, there seems to be an incredibly broad range of “types” that are considered attractive.
Adam,
I am sorry but your words are like nothing to the wimmin here who really know more about this than you.
Check in the mirror please and you will find patriarchy and no matter how hard you scrub you can never wash it off.
For those of you who might not know, ‘Mikey Flubb’ here belongs to that hategroup of radical feminists that conspire to reduce the male population to 10% in the future. They have absolutely no qualms when it comes to eradicating a huge percentage of the women and children in the process, and can very well be compared to the most radical nazi’s of WWII.
So when Mikey speaks of not hating anyone, she does it with the same understanding of the term, that a 5 year old child has. She is a very disturbed, dangerous and mentally unstable person, who belongs in a place where someone can take care of her. And she is a prime example of what feminism has done to 50% of the demographic in the past 50 years.
God help us all and our sons.
Womb Envy Stalker Kimski is at it again,
I will be going back to your site every 28 days and telling the truth about wimmin whether you like it or not.
While some of the ev.psych stuff makes sense, it misses the point a little by placing the focus on “how do we choose a mate” and “what do we consider an important trait in a mate”.
As opposed to why women’s only focus seems to be mate-finding, whereas for men it’s just one more aspect of their lives: Because the only thing women are seen to be good for is being someone’s wife, and they have no worth or power of their own.
I think this is much more to the core of the problem than the specifics of evaluating a mate’s worth.
“As opposed to why women’s only focus seems to be mate-finding”
So what planet do you come from? It’s quite obviously nowhere near Earth.
Women compete viciously over the attention of a small percentage of alpha males, who will pump & dump them ASAP, after which they will take their hatred and disappointentment out on the rest of MANkind, like spoiled little brats.
Just like it is being done in this line of comments from the vast majority of women.
If you lowered your standards and started to base them on what you yourselves actually have to offer, I’m sure there would be lots of men that would actually stick around.
But right now, with the majority of women basing their worth on an overinflated sense of entitledment, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
Quite the contrary actually, so get used to it.
“Men hate woman’s body. Women learn from men to hate their own bodies.”
Again, generalization does not strengthen your case, it weakens it. Maybe English isn’t your best language, but after it has been pointed out to you that “men” usually means “all men” or at least “most men” and not “some men”, then you should heed this advice. Yes, one can say “all men” and the meaning is clear. However, one can also say “some men” and the meaning is clear, if that is what you mean.
Taslima, please don’t buy into the patronizing “Since English is not your first language” crap. When you said men, it does not mean “all men.” No, forsooth, not even in English. It means you are pointing out a general trend, and you are perfectly right to say “men” or “women” or “Indians” or “Chinese.” It does not mean all members of that group, and it is untrue, and one of the first steps in denial, to claim that it does.
Taslima, you are spot-on – here, as you usually are elsewhere, too. Kudos, and solidarity from a feminist woman who thinks women are just as power-hungry as men, and intrinsically no better – but no worse. And that the system – yea, e’en in anorexia-loving Califunny – is weighted against women almost everywhere you go. Not that stops women from enabling the system. It never did.
There, I said “women.” However, I suspect the olde patriarchs on this page will not now come forward, hearts bleeding, to ask why I am impugning ALL women. For, with the honesty that deserts them, taking flight in a whirr of beating wings when it’s men who are being talked about, they will know perfectly well that not ALL women are meant.
“men” usually means “all men” or at least “most men” and not “some men”
Absolute BS. I’m a native speaker of English and knew exactly what she meant. The only time I’ve ever seen someone insist that “men” (or any other group name) means “all men” is when that person is trying to make a rhetorical point against the original speaker/writer and doesn’t have a substantial argument to make.
Exactly, Dianne! Thanks for joining in to put the “all men” denial-step-one to rest. If Taslima meant all men, she would have said all men.
She did not.
Some readers chose to think she did.
Their problem. Not hers.
“Absolute BS. I’m a native speaker of English and knew exactly what she meant. The only time I’ve ever seen someone insist that “men” (or any other group name) means “all men” is when that person is trying to make a rhetorical point against the original speaker/writer and doesn’t have a substantial argument to make.”
By your “reasoning” it is perfectly acceptable for a man to say that, “Women are vapid, useless airheads” And, then backpedal and say, “I only meant Sarah Palin and Sandra Bernhardt”
Please.
That is a terribly weak stance.
Say what you mean and, mean what you say.
When someone says, “men” they MEAN “men as a group” or “men as a class”. That would be MOST men.
I haven’t meant some men, I meant most men. If some men have practiced patriarchy, and most men haven’t, patriarchy would have gone extinct long ago. Both men and women are responsible to keep the misogynistic system alive for centuries.
Then say “most men”.
(Whether your claims apply to “most men” today is another question.)
However, in general, things can persist even if a majority are against them. If the minority is sufficiently powerful, it can impose its will.
First, prove there is even a “patriarchy” rather than a “matriarchy”.
Men do many things, they do these things to gain approval of women. Therefore, it is in fact women driving men to do much of what they do. Making women the ones in charge.
So all of this whining about a “patriarchy” really is just a bunch of women unhappy with the very things that most women have encouraged in men.
You might be better suited for women to take ownership of their own issues and deal with them like adults.
See what happens when you demand equality, ladies? You brought all this about with your demands for equality. SMH
Gorbachev, you have the worst view of humans I’ve seen outside of the cults that preach we are all sinners and doomed. What a bunch of crap.
What a waste of talent.
You sound very concerned.
More concerned if it was told how
* 1 in 2 wimmin are beaten and raped every decade in this country.
* Wimmin get 56 percent pay as men./males
* Wimmin are twelve times more likely to die from infection in hospitals around the world
* Wimmin effigies in Japan, Greece and Malaysia are burnt in rituals in the public squares of the capital cities for male approval and masturbatory pleasure.
* Wimmin shelters only receive 23 times the funding compared to mens/male shelters. (Men/males are never beaten by their wives)
* Wimmin cry much more than men/males yet the cost of tissues are the same for both genders.
Maybe then there might be a “round” table discussion where both genders can sit down and break bread instead of wimmins hearts souls and minds.
“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a woman in everlasting ignorance — that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”
HERBERT SPENCER
I am watching you very closely and following your movements here on this thread as I suspect you are stalking me.
Gorbachev and Ysanne have said all I need to say. I’ll just emphasize that if you want to see superficiality in the context of sexual attraction, read personal ads. The most common “must have” is size: the man should be taller than the woman. Often, explicit minima in terms of inches or centimetres are mentioned. This preference seems much more common than any male preference. (It also has nothing to do with health and can’t be changed.) As Gore Vidal said, pornography is a mirror of society. Whatever type a woman is, there are men who prefer that. Check it out. But many men don’t really care. While most women might not care as much about appearance of men, they care even more about health (which implies age: if one can become old, one must be healthy—how old was Sean Connery when he was voted “sexiest man alive”?), wealth, status. If you think an ugly woman has a hard time, ask a poor man. .
The most common “must have” is size: the man should be taller than the woman.
My partner is shorter than me and most of my previous partners have been within a centimeter of my height. Therefore you’re wrong and are horribly overgeneralizing and generally victimizing women (/snark, in case it isn’t obvious.)
The sad thing is that it really happens that someone makes a claim which is true about the majority—and never implied that it goes for ALL, just for MOST—and someone else comes along with ONE example and claims that it refutes the claim about the majority. Yes, a claim about the majority, as any claim, can be right or wrong, but it can never be refuted by a SINGLE counterexample.
While most women might not care as much about appearance of men, they care even more about health (which implies age: if one can become old, one must be healthy—how old was Sean Connery when he was voted “sexiest man alive”?), wealth, status. If you think an ugly woman has a hard time, ask a poor man.
Come to think of it, my partner also makes less money than me. **Gasp!**
Incidentally, for both men and women, but more so for women, beautiful=what is hard for a poor person to achieve. If food is scarce, curvy is attractive. If food is overabundant, thin is in. So poor man/ugly woman is a false dichotomy because you’re really saying the same thing in both cases.
I think that in general power of all types is attractive, though patriarchy has reduced and re-formed that (though not eliminated) for women. Some things people do to look good that have negative consequences might be a kind of show-off act, ‘look at me I’m so badass / wealthy / high status I don’t have to care about the negative consequences. Of course, men don’t usually do this anymore, which is a bid odd given how patriarchy used to be stronger.
You, uh, don’t read Taslima?
And it’s funny too, you get all this, “I actually think a little fat on a girl is kinda cute”, “I actually told my wife I like her small boobs”, “I actually told my girlfriend to wear flat shoes”….Who cares what you think is pretty or what you told your wife to do?
Nice comments by Yessenia I thought.
I’m a little bemused at how blythely all the men here who are denying that those things are required for at least them to be attractive is being dismissed when the starting point is, it seems to me, that women have to do this to be attractive to men. Surely, then, men coming here to say that it’s not true for them might help indicate to women that doing that, in fact, is not required to attract men and so that maybe then can, well, stop doing it.
Of course, we’d need studies to show this and show that the men here aren’t just an aberration. But surely men coming here and saying “Meh” should give cause to think that these things aren’t, in fact, actually necessary and that societal standards are imposing something that men themselves don’t actually want.
The issue with competition is that it’s women vying to be the MOST attractive and get the most attention, and so to be able to get the highest status men. This has little to do with whether men would find them attractive if they didn’t go through that effort; in most cases, the men would find them appealing regardless. In fact, since most of the competition aims at meeting the societal standards of attractiveness with are designed for the broadest appeal, some changes will actually lower the attractiveness of the woman for some people. As an example, contacts are often used to get closer to the norm … except that I, personally, prefer women who wear glasses, and so switching out would actually make her less appealing to me. So it depends on what you want: broad appeal or specific group appeal. The former gets you more general dates, but the latter gets more people who find you exceptional.
The problem I see here is that the generalizations drift far too far to be an argument that can be taken seriously. The generalizations of attractiveness are, as many have pointed out, shaky, but at least somewhat credible. The generalizations of motive, however, even if we take “hate” as dramatic exaggeration and rhetoric, seem to wildly miss the mark. There is no doubt that some men feel that way, but it seems inconceivable to me that most men actually do feel that way … and since you’re talking about the internal states of me, we surely have valuable insight into that.
The point that’s consistently missed by the mansplaining Nigels on this thread is that no one ought to have to care what they think is attractive.
The problem isn’t that men think the wrong things are attractive. The solution, therefore, isn’t for men to change what they think is attractive.
What needs to happen is for men’s opinions of women’s appearance to be as utterly irrelevant to women’s lives as women’s opinions of men’s appearance is to men’s lives.
What needs to happen is for women to have real power, so they don’t mutilate themselves or their daughters for the pseudopower of sexuality.
That’s the point of Taslima’s list of examples. Not that all men think this or all men want that. That all men can assume they have the authority and the right to rudely share their opinions of women’s bodies whenever, where ever, however.
If you have an interest in attracting men physically, then you do have to care what men find attractive. Just as men do for women. Since this is the thing that, you know, causes reproduction, you kinda do need to do it.
Which also means that this comment:
is false, at least in its application. Women’s opinions of men’s appearance is, as people have pointed out, becoming INCREDIBLY important to men’s lives, just as important as the reverse. And it has always been the case that what women find ATTRACTIVE in a man, whatever it is that makes her swoon and start thinking of him sexually, have been precisely as important to men’s lives as what men find attractive has been to women. Sex is a major driving force in human behaviour, and so whatever leads to that will be considered important.
But if Taslima simply wanted to get across a message that women shouldn’t care about what men think of their physical attractiveness or some kind of “girl power” message, she didn’t need to make it by trying to demonize male preferences. What good does it to do set up an adversarial argument? All she needs to do is explain why women don’t need to or shouldn’t care about that, or at least not care about it so much that they hurt themselves.
Perhaps she could start by pointing out that for most people, attractiveness is an overall impression that includes an impression of the type of person they are, and so that is more important than the societal standards of “sexiness”.
Oh now I get it, Yessina is mentally handicapped.
“The point that’s consistently missed by the mansplaining Nigels on this thread is that no one ought to have to care what they think is attractive.”
Only a retard could drop that gem and not realize that our outward appearance IS in fact quite important. Have you never heard, “The clothes make the man”?
Would you buy stocks and bonds from a poorly dressed scrawny man that looked to be either sick or abusing drugs?
Me either.
Yet you attempt to fault men for expecting a woman selling stocks and bonds from looking healthy and well groomed? Or for having our own individual preferences in body type for who we find attractive? While women also have this exact same bias?
Menz/males hate us.
We speak of this at the Wimmins Cave Enclave and readings from all gifted wimmins orate there.
It is our “womb space” and no men allowed thank you.
We do not hate those that hate us. If only they can be like us and never feel hatred as we only feel compassion and love for other wimmins.
For those of you who might not know, ‘Mikey Flubb’ here belongs to that hategroup of radical feminists that conspire to reduce the male population to 10% in the future. They have absolutely no qualms when it comes to eradicating a huge percentage of the women and children in the process, and can very well be compared to the most radical nazi’s of WWII.
So when Mikey speaks of not hating anyone, she does it with the same understanding of the term, that a 5 year old child has. She is a very disturbed, dangerous and mentally unstable person, who belongs in a place where someone can take care of her. And she is a prime example of what feminism has done to 50% of the demographic in the past 50 years.
God help us all and our sons.
You didn’t make that up just now, you pasteurized it from what you said earlier on in this thread.
Very observant of you, my dear ‘Watson.
I didn’t need any other reply, because that is really all people need to know about you, in order to understand where your coming from, Mikey.
Whoa! Watch out there, hombre, she’s on fire!
Before writing this you might do some research. You will be surprised that matters are not that simple. You might find out that women pay so much attention to their outlooks as much to impress each other as to please men.
Ask some psychologist.
@Yessenia: I vehemently disasgree. My female counterpart thinks my opinion on her appearances as relevant as I think of hers. That’s called love, you know.
Oh god not this again. Taslima is pretty aware of the problems of mansplaining, overly difficult beauty standards, and numerous other problems. (some of these ones mentioned are, if I am correct, not common among white Americans.)
And a fair number of the male commenters here kind of are getting things wrong.
Unfortunately, the answer really is not ‘womansplaining’.
I really disagree with the whole hate issue. Most natural but well-maintained bodies are NOT HATED, I am reasonably sure. I agree that it is more of some kind of competition to please the male gaze which patriarchy has driven ludicrously out of proportion, while destroying attempts to please the female gize.
I agree that women actually do a lot of the beauty standard enforcing. Not sure if the actual standards (meaning the modern day ones) are caused by men. Certainly infused by the male gaze.
Personally, I favor a culture change that moderately reduces demands on women’s appearances, that increases demands on men’s appearances, that changes beauty standards in both cases to represent health, power, and a more egalitarian approach to sensuality.
Meanwhile, transhumanism is a big thing that’s coming and it’s going to engineer away a lot of human flaws in all of us.
The whole mansplaining charge is just an attempt to belittle and silence men, as if we are moral imbeciles or irrelevant to the debate. It’s reprehensible that the commented resorted to such shameful depths. I always try to remain respectful of other peoples voices; why can’t self-declared “feminists”?
As far as women being obliged to please the male gaze, again, thus us purely a function of biology: our social status largely derives from how attractive the opposite sex sees us. Even if we are nit fishing fir mates, thus remains the social currency. That’s life as a bipedal social primate.
And I’m not disparaging humanity: it’s no shame to admit we are animals in every sense if the word. We are.
Men are judged often on their attractiveness as a mate, too; it’s just that what males a male homo sapiens attractive to a female is not entirely the same as what makes the female attractive to the male. Men are much more visual and care much less about social status. They are also much more interested in sex for it’s own sake. Women consistently key to social status, in men.
It’s not a double standard. Women just aren’t as interested in the opposite sex appearance as men are. Hence the much greater pressure on men to have social status and power.
The problem with all of this blinkered analysis is that it’s not taking inti account the whole social process: it’s entirely limited in scope.
It’s effectively the same as male sexists trying to see issues without considering the bigger picture.
Conclusions like society hates women and men hate wOmen are absurd on their face because the analysis doesn’t take into account the underlying cause–
Which is not sexist in and of itself. The result may be, but recall: the equivalent is not looking at how men deal with their bodies, but at how men must match what women desire.
Women desire height, wealth, power. Men are judged by men and women based on this.
That’s the proper comparison. And I’d like to point out that American society is obsessed with ranking and grinding down men . Dont just look at the top dogs. Look at the rank and file.
For a normal guy, it’s not exactly pie and ice cream either.
I’m nit saying beauty standards are irrelevant, only that coming to hyperbolic, outrageous conclusions to score cultural political points is fundamentally a weak way to approach thus issue.
What taslima has an issue with is how the superficial, human hierarchical instinct plays out on the ground, for women.
Attacking beauty standards alone won’t help anyone. If you want to root out this problem, you need to go to its source. this source is not patriarchy.
It is, alas, the reality that humans are sex and eating machines. All the philosophy in the world might paper over this, but it remains the fundamental truth.
Society is not all that far removed in essence from that of our australopithecine ancestors. We like to think so, but human instinct and desires remain the same.
And while different, men and women are shockingly similar.
If there’s a problem with thus issue, then the real target is what makes people attractive, which means going after human sexuality. Human sexuality is not fluid enough for reform.
What you need to do to do this is take breeding out of the question. Good luck.
Women can do this. Abandon the quest to be more attractive than other females. Abandon the sexuality game.
That’s easy. But no one wants to do that. Plenty of men drop out of the status game for various reasons.
Why cant women?
If you don’t like the game, just don’t play. Just don’t wear heels or makeup.
Men: don’t bother working fir a promotion if only tall guys get promoted. Spend the extra time fishing or whatever.
Women are primarily valued for their youth and beauty. Men are primarily valued for their status and power. Shockingly, this mirrors what attracts men to women and vice versa.
This fact Aline demonstrates that women and men create hierarchies based on sexual market value. Even in you are celibate, others judge you based on your sexual marketability.
Humans are clever apes. Human society is primate society. This is our nature. It’s not unhappy or sad. It just is.
Your premise is flawed.
Women do not dress and make themselves up to please men; they do it for other women.
As proof I offer this simple fact:
If women dressed to please men they would be naked 🙂
West Phyrd.
For what it’s worth, and that may be quite little given what I could get through of the conversation above, I like: small breasts, graying hair, and a bit of fat to hold on to. I do not like high heels and hate makeup. Thankfully my wife of almost 16 years doesn’t wear heels. Unfortunately she feels that she needs to wear make up, though not too much, despite my protests. She did to wear makeup when we met. She will not let her hair go gray, though I’ve tried to convince her to at least give it a try. The unfortunate nature of our societies standards is that she obviously feels compelled to uphold them despite the fact that her husband doesn’t share them. Does she want to catch the eye of other men? This is likely, as most of us appreciate the interest of others even if we have no intention of reciprocating. Does the place these perceived.societal preferences on me despite my protests? Probably, as members of groups get treated as if they are the “average group member” rather than as the individual they are. In the end, whatever the cause or current reality of this perceived preference gone out of control, we all lose. While the bulk of the harm here impacts women I can tell you that the average man does not benefit from this arrangement. To parhrase what was said earlier in the thread, the average guy wants someone who will love him, hang out with him, have sex with him, and do what he likes with him (tv, sports, video games, fishing etc…) from time to time. That’s really about it. The way that entertainment and advertising treat sex and sex appeal disgust us too.
Just wanted to make a note here. Men are hurt by the patriarchy too. Men and women are shamed for their body unless they’re the ideal, the difference being that both are for the man’s power fantasy. On every level both men and women are oppressed with the women getting the heavier hit. Men and women are shamed about being fat, men are shamed for having a fat girlfriend as though it is lesser. Men shame each other if the man isn’t attracted to what the patriarchy has deemed appropriate.
I was so fat shamed about my body that I had a hard time seeing heavy women as attractive. It took a long time to see that for what it was and see it for the problem I have, not the problem women have.
Men and women are hurt by the patriarchy, by the men and women who choose, knowingly or unknowingly, to reenforce it and women always getting hurt the hardest when they do.
I know you don’t mean to generalize and it’s easier to make such arguments but you reenforce the patriarchal line that all men are one way when you do so, and it hurts.
Damn it, but I hate blanket-statements.
The fact that you use them so liberally in this post undermines, in my opinion, the real plight of real women struggling under real patriarchy. All this does is divide the genders rather than unite them.
I’m a man. I’m a feminist. I (try to) take ownership of my mistakes. Stop trying to make me feel guilty for another guy’s stupidity.
Oh dear, a male feminist? You might want to take a red pill for that buddy….
That won’t do the trick.
You are being exploited, buddy, and you need to wake up to that fact. You’ll need a full bottle of red pills, or a swift divorce court rape, whichever comes first.
The latter will usually do the trick, when all your belongings and your kids are given away by a biased justice system, to the same woman you woved to protect and love.
And she’s not going to lift a finger to help you out, when you want to see your kids, I can promise you that.
That makes me think of this comic:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2571#comic
I have a feeling here that a certain subset of the people who claim that they prefer the natural look on women actually mean that they prefer women who are naturally conventionally attractive, and can meet a certain amount of the conditions outlined above without starving themselves or having surgery or spending two hours a day on their hair. In my experience, that’s fairly commonly what people say when what they mean “I like women who don’t diet/wear makeup/style their hair, as long as they’re naturally thin/have clear skin/have hair that naturally doesn’t frizz/stick out at funny angles”.
Also, to those saying that the beauty standards women are expected to conform to are totes fair because men are expected to be rich, why do you think that men are expected by society to make a lot of money? (Hint: It isn’t becuase women are all selfish money grabbing bitchez)
In a hetero relationship, society still expects the man to be the primary breadwinner. Men are still expected to be the one with the real career, the provider, the one to financially take care of the woman. It’s a bit like the MRA argument that child custody is preferentially given to women becuase castratingfeminazibitches when really it’s becuase society still overwhelmingly sees women as the primary caregivers of any children they might have. The answer to that is to change the perception of childcare as “women’s work”, not to blame women. Same thing here.
Get rid of the concept of man = provider and the concept that woman who prioritises career = selfish bitch. Stop teaching girls and women, implicitly and explicitly, that their worth as a human being lies in how many men want to bone them, and that getting hooted at on the street is flattery. Blame patriarchy rather than individual women and men, recognise that individuals may have very harmful beliefs that should be challenged, don’t deny that patriarchy is responsible. None of this happens in a vacuum.
…right on! That comic is perfect for this too!
-And if she has nothing of value to offer, when it comes to her mind, then what??
-What would then constitute a proper response, in your opinion?
I am actually curious if this is actually a ‘men’ thing anymore. Certainly I can’t speak for other men, but for myself personally, I’m not particularly attracted to any of the things you listed. Some would be slight perks, but most are actually more of a turn off. Cosmetic surgery, high heels, excessively skinny, makeup (especially changing skin colour) to me all just seem fake. If it ever comes up when talking to girls I’ve dated, they all act like that’s something wrong with me. I’ve even been accused of not appreciating the efforts that they’ve gone through (I appreciate the effort, just not attracted to those things).
I only have a sample size of one, so I’m mostly just curious if this is truly the way that the majority of men think. Somehow, my own experiences make me wonder if it really is individual men that are still perpetuating that culture, or if women are just being fed the stereotype and assuming that that’s what they need to do.
I expect that it’s a bit of both, and would certainly like to see the culture changed such that women don’t feel they have to do those things. Feel free to tell me that I’m completely wrong.
As others have said what a man likes in a woman depends on the man. I like pretty women but I don’t like women who look like they just rolled off of the assembly line at a pretty girl factory. I won’t list my own preferences but at least three of the things on the list were non-factors for me. Ok, well I’ll list one. I like women with smooth legs and I know more than a few women who prefer men who are clean shaven.
I try hard every day to support feminism and seek to educate others in my vicinity about equality. I support anti-harassment policies at conventions. I enjoy reading posts by Greta Christina, Natalie Reed, Jen at Blaghag, Stephanie Zvan, etc.
But I always have problems reading Taslima’s posts. Especially her views on prostitution/pornography. Her language and format grate on my nerves(I know, she’s not writing to please me).
As she’s stated in the comments, Taslima doesn’t mean ALL men. But she does have a history of generalization, and that’s what informs my interpretation of her posts.
She has over-generalized views on prostitution, and disregards gay prostitutes as well as the objections current/former prostitutes give.
https://proxy.freethought.online/taslima/2012/04/09/sexual-slavery-must-be-abolished/
And then in the next post, she over-generalizes again, this time while removing agency from women.
https://proxy.freethought.online/taslima/2012/04/11/prostitution/
While I do agree that some men(corporate and/or ignorant) cause the majority of these self-image problems, I can see why people are protesting her use of language, she has a history of using black and white language.
Not only you, many people have problems reading my books and my posts.You enjoy reading things that never challenges, rather helps keep the misogynistic patriarchal system. I understand you enjoy women’s articles are speeches supporting sexual objectification and exploitation of women in the name of sexual freedom. women who believe ‘woman power in her cunt’, are not feminists, they are just brainwashed idiots who know nothing about feminism, but learn a lot about how to be slaves of men.
Uh, so you are claiming you’re the only real feminist blogger in FTB?
You know, most of your posts would be much easier to agree with if you didn’t overgeneralize. I’d be with you all the way on the topic of prostitution/pornography/unrealistic social standards, but for your simple views dividing people with hate.
And please don’t take the use of “easy” to mean that it’s harder to pull away from misogyny. What I mean is to stop painting issues with black and white. Remember the idea, “Patriarchy hurts men too”? Easier means I support the facts that Prostitution/Pornography/etc can lead to harm, and do so more often than not.
I realize you come from a society where what you’re saying would apply, but there’s more to the world than just your personal experiences.
Not everyone has been through the same hardships you’ve been though, and I respect that. My hardships are different than yours, but I wouldn’t presume to suppose that mine are harder.
So thank you for bringing your expertise to FTB, it is another perspective that we can appreciate. But please don’t diminish your message/experience by taking overly extremist views.
You are wrong if you think my experiences are based on what I have seen in Eastern or Muslim cultures. I believe women’s rights, like human rights, are universal. If sexual exploitation of women is bad in the East, it is bad in the West too. For your information, all great Western feminists have been vocal against prostitution and pornography. In the comments column of my blogs on prostitution and pornography, Western women who once were prostitutes and porn actresses described the way they were beaten, threatened, exploited and abused, and they were the ones who demanded the abolition of prostitution and pornography.
Okay, then I’m wrong about that.
I agree.
True, but then you would have to draw a line between what is exploitation and what is their personal choice. You have a bad record of assuming any woman who doesn’t agree with you must not be able to make their own choices freely. It’s not their choice unless it’s the same choice you would make.
Okay? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_views_of_pornography shows that feminists don’t all adopt the same philosophy on porn that you do. Abraham Lincoln was a great abolitionist, but that doesn’t mean he was entirely correct on all things regarding equal treatment of minorities.
And Greta Christina’s blog has posts about prostitutes and porn actresses who had positive experiences in the industries. What’s your point? https://proxy.freethought.online/greta/2012/04/23/sex-workers-an-invitation-to-tell-your-stories/
I entirely and freely grant you that pornography and prostitution has major issues it needs to work out. But you’re making it just as hard as the misogynists make it to solve these problems. There is nothing wrong with people enjoying sex, whether they’re getting paid or being filmed.
All wimmins are the prostitutes of the pimp daddy patriarchy.
To deny this is to deny the struggle of our grand sisters in the past as they were shunted off in carts and crates as playthings for the great noble men in great castles far from the stink of rotting serfs below.
Every day I am living in the whore house of patriarchy and this is why I find reflection and solace in the Wimmins spaces where I can find them. These places are my “wombs of love.” and I share my love for my sistas in them.
‘…but for your simple views dividing people with hate.’
I noticed I got warm welcome. Then after my posts on prostitution almost everybody lost interest in me. Quite interesting.
”True, but then you would have to draw a line between what is exploitation and what is their personal choice. ”
Do you really think that prostitution is a personal choice? I quote from prostitution research sites : ‘It is profoundly unjust to declare that prostitution is an acceptable job for
some women – those who are mostly poor, mostly women of color, mostly young.
Prostitution is an intrinsically abusive institution and women stay poor in prostitution (although lots of cash passes through their hands on the way to pimps, strip-club
managers, bartenders, taxi drivers, casino hosts and other predators).
Women deserve equal pay for equal work. There is a lack of adequate housing, and
educational opportunity in the US and elsewhere. Racism limits educational and job
opportunities for people of color, leaving prostitution as the only sustainable alternative for
some young women.
Yet prostitution is an activity unlike any other “work,” which is why we should see
it as the Swedish do: as institutionalized sexual oppression or as a human rights violation.
Women are in legal prostitution for the same reasons they’re in illegal prostitution –
a lack of alternative survival options. Most women in prostitution did not make a choice to
enter prostitution from among a range of other options. They did not decide that they
wanted to be prostitutes instead of doctors, engineers, lawyers,astronauts, journalists, or politicians.
Instead, their “options” were more in the realm of how to get enough money to feed
themselves and their children. If prostitution were really a choice it would not be those
people with the fewest choices available to them who are disproportionately in prostitution.
Such choices are better termed survival strategies.
Few laws make clear what choice and coercion are. An exception is a 2006 Florida
state law that permits women who are coerced into prostitution via exploitation of their
social and legal vulnerability to sue johns and pimps for damages. According to this law,
coercion is defined as restraint of speech or communication with others; exploitation of a
condition of developmental disability, cognitive limitation, affective disorder, or substance
dependence; exploitation of prior victimization by sexual abuse; exploitation during the
making of pornography; and exploitation of the human needs for food, shelter, safety, or
affection.
Prostitution is about not having a range of educational and job options to choose
from. Most women in prostitution end up there only because other options are not available.
They do not have stable housing, they urgently need money to support children or pay for
school, and they often have limited or no education. Prostitution is not labor, it is paid
sexual exploitation. It is often paid rape. It is intrinsically harmful and traumatic. As a
society, we do not allow the sale and purchase of body parts, such as kidneys. This is
because we know that it would be the poor and disadvantaged who would exercise their
‘choice’ to sell body parts for cash. Others would be likely to ‘choose’ to live a healthier
and longer life. A john described prostitution as “renting an organ for 10 minutes.” Why
should we assume that anyone really chooses to rent out her sexual organs?
Women involved in prostitution almost always have backgrounds of abuse, neglect
and disadvantage. Sexual and physical abuse in childhood, running away, poverty and
homelessness, are factors that precede entry into prostitution. These vulnerabilities make it
very difficult for women to escape prostitution. In order to survive, they may have learned
maladaptive behaviors that place them in harm’s way. Accessing public benefits, especially
housing, is very difficult for women who are socially isolated, who may have criminal
records and prison time, and erratic lifestyles.
When prostituted women are asked, consistently around 90% say they want out of
prostitution immediately, but the decision is out of their hands and in the hands of their
pimps, their husbands, their landlords, their addictions, their children’s bellies. A study of
women in street prostitution in Toronto found that about 90% wanted to escape but could
not and a 5-country study found that 92% of women, men and transgendered people in
prostitution wanted immediate help to escape prostitution. If they are there because they
cannot leave, then prostitution is not a freely made choice.
While there are a few women who apparently earn large amounts of money in
prostitution, these women are in an extreme minority. An economic analysis showed that
over the life course, prostitution is a route into poverty for most women. Even women in
legal brothels report having to pay extortionate sums for rent and food. They also pay
pimps inside and outside the brothels. They are not free to come and go as they wish.
Women in prostitution must continually lie about their lives, their bodies, and their
sexual responses. Lying is part of the job definition when the customer asks, “did you
enjoy it?” The very edifice of prostitution is built on the lie that “women like it.” Some
prostitution survivors have stated that it took them years after leaving prostitution to
acknowledge that prostitution wasn’t a free choice because they had to lie to themselves in
order to survive.
There is no doubt that a small number of women say they choose to be in
prostitution, especially in public contexts orchestrated by the sex industry. It is not clear
how many of these women perform sex acts with many buyers each day as opposed to
being protected (often because of race and class privilege) from the usual life of women in
prostitution. It’s also not clear how many of these spokeswomen are actually pimping
other women. Some sexworker advocates have themselves been arrested for pimping:
Robyn Few, Maxine Doogan, Norma Jean Almodovar and Margo St. James. Nonetheless,
they continue to present themselves as sexworkers and not pimps. COYOTE member Carol
Leigh acknowledged in a 2004 debate at UC/Berkeley (with Angel Cassidy and Melissa
Farley): “95% of my friends want out of prostitution.”
Some people choose to take dangerous drugs such as amphetamine. However, even
when some people consent to use dangerous drugs, we still recognize that is harmful to
them, and most people do not seek to legalize amphetamine. In these situations, it is harm
to the person, not the consent of the person that governs how we understand the activity.
When a woman remains in an abusive relationship with a partner who batters her,
or even when she defends his actions, most people now understand that she is not there
voluntarily. They recognize the conditions under which she acquiesced. Like battered
women, women in prostitution may deny their abuse if they are not provided with safety or
meaningful alternatives.”
”..feminists don’t all adopt the same philosophy on porn that you do. ”
I do not think they are feminists who believe in sexual objectification of women. Erotica is about sex, porn is about domination, abuse and violence.
”…blog has posts about prostitutes and porn actresses who had positive experiences in the industries. What’s your point? ”
They simply eroticize women’s oppression. Selling body for money and get fucked by hundreds of unknown men can not possibly be anything positive.
What about you? Would you enjoy your life if you were a poor prostitute?
I’m moving the discussion to a lower post, just to keep the word format accessible.
Generalizing! How’s this for generalizing and these are facts.
Men/males are “generally” boring and lifeless creatures who waft through our day telling us wimmin how to dress and eat and think and walk and talk and love and stand straight and clean and be sex toys of discard one day.
Men/males are “generally” violent things that hurt and smack and kill and rape and murder wimmin and our children, yes our children.
Men/males are “generally” unpleasant smelly lazy creatures who with their beer soaked asses on PS3 chat-rooms do us all no good when they congregate and creep about in porn sites looking for a secret sex receptical.
Men/males are “generally” knowing of this and shame on them for telling us how much they hate us.
“Men/males are “generally” boring and lifeless creatures…”
And yet you spend an infinite aamount of time obsessing and writing about us. Says a lot about your mental state of mind, Mikey.
“Men/males are “generally” violent…”
Have you checked the stats on domestic violence for the past 20 years, Mikey?? You really need to keep in touch with the real world, before making such ridiculous claims.
“Men/males are “generally” unpleasant smelly lazy creatures”
And that’s coming from a person, who can’t be bothered with taking a bath every other day, right, Mikey??
“Men/males are “generally” knowing of this and shame on them for telling us how much they hate us.”
Okay, you got me on the first one, because you are very obviously oblivious to anything, else but the strange world in which you live, Mikey. But as for the hating goes, one has only to look through your post in this thread to see who the real hater is.
You would never be allowed in our Enclave Cave as you would be weeded out at the door. We have had menmalez dress in wimmins clothing in order to infiltrate and we now check newcomers at the door with a glove.
This is just blatant bigotry. Creating a “straw man” of your opponent and then attacking it is shameless. It’s anti-intellectual and morally bankrupt.
Gorbachev and Ysanne have said all I need to say. I’ll just emphasize that if you want to see superficiality in the context of sexual attraction, read personal ads. The most common “must have” is size: the man should be taller than the woman. Often, explicit minima in terms of inches or centimetres are mentioned. This preference seems much more common than any male preference. (It also has nothing to do with health and can’t be changed.) As Gore Vidal said, pornography is a mirror of society. Whatever type a woman is, there are men who prefer that. Check it out. But many men don’t really care. While most women might not care as much about appearance of men, they care even more about health (which implies age: if one can become old, one must be healthy—how old was Sean Connery when he was voted “sexiest man alive”?), wealth, status. If you think an ugly woman has a hard time, ask a poor man.
. . . . .
I have been preoccupied with the article and subsequent conversation for over an hour now. I am forced to admit that my thoughts on the subject have changed regarding what can be done to help with a solution. Any solution must begin with recognizing what the problem is.
While reading the article I caught myself saying “not me, I’m ok there”, “again not me”, “used to be me as a young adult, but ok now”, etc. After some consideration I realize that this is irrelevant for the purpose of understanding the issue.
Evo Psych treatment of the issue can provide valuable insight to some of the basis, but any attempt to use Evo Psych conclusions to explain it away is ridiculous. How many other aspects of our *savage garden* have we pared back? I don’t know enough to state to what extent, if any, our primitive nature may be a contibuting factor, but I concede with limited argument that primitive social structures led directly to patriarchy.
Overt practice of patriarchy may vary between cultures, but this is also irrelevant; it still exists to some extent everywhere. My epiphany was that my self-congratualtory stance of not being ‘one of those guys’ was simply a way to relieve myself of the responsibility of addressing the issue and being accountable when I see it in practice. Shame on me. Not contributing to the problem may do no harm, but does nothing to help change the situation.
Proclaiming that men are also victimized or that women perpetuate the issue among themselves ignores the cause and doesn’t advance the conversation. Although very real, these facets of the issue are typically only cited as excuses to ignore the problem.
I want to know from women what men can do to help. I am not looking for the obvious; i.e. don’t do anything to perpetuate the issue and be vocal with others when I see it in action. Is there more to be done?
@Yessenia: I vehemently disasgree. My female counterpart thinks my opinion on her appearances as relevant as I think of hers. That’s called love, you know.
Thanks for clearing that up, dude! I am unfamiliar with this concept of ‘love.’
This post is naught, but hate, sexism and just plain idiocy.
Articles like this are the reason way the general public think feminism & its adherents are idiotic.
No, We wimmin are struggling every day with a world that spills it’s hating and uncaring eyes on us. We struggle every day. I am not buying what you said and I think you must be a male to say something like this.
You women are the most protected and pampered demographic that has ever existed on the planet since the start of mankind, so I guess you can stop crying now, Mikey.
Tell that to the wimmin who do the real work in the world. It is we wimmin who make the world turn and if it wasn’t for us we would all be dead from wars that you make and peddle.
Pampered???? Look in the mirror to see the real pampered. It is you who sit in a hammock in the warmth of MOM Sun and expect nubile sweaty nymphs to deliver unto you your beer and soft drinks in a coconut shell. A cocanut shell another man has cleaved in two with a steel phallus mind you!!
“Tell that to the wimmin who do the real work in the world.”
It’s pretty obvious that that would exclude you, Mikey. You can’t possibly have the time to be doing anything productive in your life, with all the hate rants, ‘poetry’ and ‘wimmins’ cry sessions all night, when you’re not down on all four with a collar around your neck.
So again you are adressing an issue of which you have no basic understanding. But you actually do that brilliantly, while exposing your gender based hate for all to see. I don’ even think a mirror would make any differnece in your case, because you seem so utterly brainwashed by feministic propaganda, and dysfunctional in almost everything you say, that I wouldn’t believe it, had I not seen it myself.
I read this whole thing and I felt like I traveled through time and space back to some alternative sorority commune in SOHO with a bunch of teenage girls just discovering that they don’t have to be the good little Barbie dolls they thought they had to be. That might have been a break through in thought for little girls 50 years ago but…
Anyone who has been awake in the last 40 years in America has come to realize that being a slave to fashion is a stupid way to live and nobody does it to you, you do it to yourself. Grow-up and take responsibility for your self-image and life-style choices like an adult.
Half the things you listed as men liking most men don’t like or don’t care about and any sane woman would not want to be with a man that valued her for those things. Stop being so gullible as to believe all the stupid images in advertising trying to sell you stuff. That is not men, that is capitalism preying on your neuroses.
What most men, and all mature men like is a woman that likes herself her body and her sexuality, who takes responsibility for her feelings and understands that being a whole human being is about keeping a healthy body and mind.
What I guarantee most men do not like is games of victimization, being blamed for other peoples mistakes or women who think we think what TV commercials tell them. Don’t project your neuroses on a gender.
This essay is man hating and if it really reflected how the majority of women thought and felt, I would be in embarrassed for women.
Maybe I should cut you some slack because you come from a culture that treats women as chattel and ornaments, but I don’t think this kind of self-destructive bigotry does anyone any good. If a Bangladeshi man came here and started talking nonsense about how irrational and stupid women are and how they need to be treated like children I would not put up with his nonsense either.
Taslima Nasreen you see through the smoke and mirrors of the patriarchy machine.
As a wimmin I have fought long and hard for “our day in court” and it’s articles like this one that make it closer.
Recently at the Wimmins Cave Enclave I read out a poem on this subject matter and here it is thank you.
Wimmin of earth gather your flock.
In the mud and rain that burns with pain,
upon our tender skin.
Of oils and lotions and potions that stink,
And shoes that squash and kill the link…
…to our mom Moon.
We pluck and tuck and pass the buck,
to younger crops of sisters blinking in the muck…
…and mire of it all
Please help us we are dying.
I was wrong. This one is worse, Mikey.
When you read this in the ‘Wimmins’ Cave Enclave, -suitable place by the way, -does your audience start crying before you actually start, or is it after?
It might be a hint, you know.
During and after thank you very very much!
We cry together FOR each other WITH each other and before a reading there must be silence yet we all know that inside there is a caos inside us all as we reach out alone at first before the expulsion of brine from our eyes.
We bleed not just every 28 days but also bleed tears in between.
I’m not even going to adress that, Mikey.
Humour is obviously completely wasted on you, and that is exactly the kind of trait that defines fanatics, sociopaths and psychopaths.
The fact that Taslima thinks you’re a brave woman speaks volumes about the general mental state of women in the West, and the fact that you all seem completely unaware of it, is just mindboggling beyond belief. I really, really wish the suffragettes could see what their struggle resulted in. They would be rotating at lightspeed in their graves, before getting up and joining the Mens Rights Movement.
And rightfully so.
Thanks Mikey. You are a brave woman. I am proud of you.
Here’s a little more to be proud of, in your support of Mikey, Taslima:
http://agentorangefiles.com/
It must be incoherend babbling day.
Women do not desecrate their bodies to please men.
Women desecreat their bodies to CONTROL men.
Women are obsessed with power, and women know that they can exploit their sexuality to exercise two kinds of power:
1) Women exploit their own sexuality to control men.
2) Women exploit their own sexuality to intimidate other women.
If you “loved men for who they are”, you would not go to so much trouble to control and manipulate men.
Want to see the solution to your problems? Look in the mirror.
I’m assuming this mirror you’re referring to is like the ones they have in those cop dramas. You know, where the jackass (you) is sitting in the room and the people who are investigating (us) are looking through the mirror to the room.
Is it like that? Cause it feels like that.
Sexuality is the only kind of power women are encouraged to seek. And it’s a false, derivative kind of power, one that relies on a man’s real power to be of any use.
The day you pull your head far enough out of your ass to wonder why that is, to stop resenting women for having even the tiniest piece of gossamer influence over you, is the day you might, MIGHT, start to grok feminism.
Until then, you can please go fuck yourself.
If you honestly think that sexuality is the only kind of power that women are encouraged to have, you should go out and buy a gun and shoot your parents in the head for being the worst parents ever and really messing you up. No, I am not serious about the gun part.
If you think this is what society is telling you, you should quit watching trash TV and and reading glamor magazines and learn to think for yourself.
If I tried to live as a man by the stupid end of pop culture, I would be killing myself with steroid injections, dangling weights from my penis to make it 2 feet long, wasting all my money on lap dances, getting drunk all day, solving every problem with gunfight, hating myself for not being a billionaire and driving everywhere at 120 mph in a red sports car.
Fortunately I am not stupid enough to fall for this stuff and have not been since I was about 7. As an adult I also learned to stop blaming other people for my feelings of inadequacy or powerlessness.
This is not feminism, this is victim identity politics. It is a trap that seriously hurts women by telling them they are puppets of other people rather than humans capable of being autonomous and strong. It lays a guilt trip on the men most likely to be sympathetic and helpful to women, alienates many women from feminism as well as most men, and gives genuine sexist reactionary piles of toxic waste like Rush Limbaugh legitimate gripes.
It creates incredible headaches for people like me who fight every day to break prejudice and gender barriers (in my case prejudice against women in science and math) because when i say I am a feminist (meaning I believe in ending discrimination by gender and enabling each person to pursue what they love and what they are best at) people look at me like I just said I molest dogs. Fake feminists have done this to the word not the reactionary right and you are playing that game.
Whether or not you chose to grow up and claim your power as a human-being, I will continue helping young women get over math anxiety and the unconscious resistance they will face in their careers. Why? because I am a feminist and I care about the wellbeing of people rather than the blame game.
Anthony Zarat, that is a pretty generalized statement. Women exploite thier sexuality for various reasons. Not all women are out to control men.
In my experience many women trade the “sexuality lottery ticket” that they were born with, in return for the dignity and self respect that comes from building their own lives with their own efforts. Such women have no difficulty finding men who love and appreciate them “for who they are.” The reason many women pick the easy way out is because the hard way is … hard.
Why earn your own money, when you can put on makeup, dress like a slut, and have a man buy everything for you?
Taslima,
I have the deepest respect for the work you’ve done. But let me explain why your welcome cooled off pretty fast.
Victorian
It’s this.
You claim to speak for all women and women’s rights. Alas, your claim may work for the big issues that are, in effect, universal human rights. But you’re locked in a gender-war perspective that divided and ruptured the feminist community in the 1980’s.
In effect, a pseudo-Victorian, relatively prudish anti-sexuality and anti-male feminism squared off against a more libertarian, sex-positive feminism.
The first didn’t just single out the “bad” stuff in male culture. it went further: it basically sanctified everything typically considered female and deligitimized everything male; not just the abuse and control, but everything else. Suddenly, sex for its own sake was out the window, unless women were the ones in total control. IF a woman made a decision, it was good, regardless of the choice; is a man did, it was subject to scrutiny.
You can argue this, but sex-positive feminism now represents the majority of self-declared feminists, even if the academy is dominated by sex-control feminists.
What happened, as well, was a categorical rejection among many feminists of the social judgment and shaming and intense social control associated with those like Dworkin, Mackinnon, Binder, et al.
There are scores of hard-core feminists who do not buy the Swedish model or the “objectification” compaint. Here’s why.
– Much of the hysteria – and it is hysteria – over prostitution is based on actually falsified data.
– The hard core abolitionists sound and read much more like delusional religious zealots. You’re familiar with the tone and method of argument, I’m sure, from your exposure to Islam.
The reason they sound like this is that they proceed from moral judgment, not reasoned analysis. They presume a moral certainty, and then fit facts to it.
– Sexuality: It’s not all men raping women and brothels with women chained.
In the West, prostitution largely happens indoors, and there are very few “pimps” controlling women. The majority are independent women acting wholly out of choice.
This choice may be motivated by the need for money, but it’s also motivated by a wish
– not to work in an office
– Not to have to wake up at 7:00 am and work until 6:00 pm
– to choose the terms of workplace empowerment
– to be portable and moveable to any city or country.
It’s also a way to cash in on serious erotic power: Women have sexual power as desirable when both young and pretty. This slips away over time, often quite quickly.
I say this as a man who dated (non-paid) a working girl for almost a year. We were friends, and later lovers. She’s now getting married We had many early discussions about why she did what she did. her reasons:
– “I like the money”. She got about 5x the salary of a typical woman her age. She made more money than most of her clients.
– She liked the work. She enjoyed sex and had no trouble with it.
– She could give away sex for free to some guy who she’d eventually leave or would leave her, or she could be extremely well-paid. She chose the latter. For companionship, she found outlets. I guess I was one.
– She liked her associates.
– She was completely free.
If you prohibit this, you also need to prohibit:
– “Sugar-daddyism”. It’s the hottest trend among young 20-something women in Asia and North America. It’s extremely common.
– Women who marry men for money. Prostitutes are correct when they characterize these women as merely prostitutes exchanging their sex and wombs for money, but in this case they have only one customer.
– Long-term relationships in which there’s no commitment but the male more or less looks after the female financially.
Prostitution is just one element on a broad continuum of female sexual behavior.
Men want sex much more than women. Despite denials, the existence of the sex trade is living proof. Men want sex, need it, it’s a crushing desire. Women like it. There’s a difference. Men who have sex often don’t even enjoy it much: It’s a COMPULSION. It’s programmed into us.
I have personally never paid for sex. However, having met more than one working girl, I can see the appeal at times.
The reason your work gets short shrift from these quarters is simple.
You’re about 25 years out of date in your feminism. MAny feminists will disagree, but there are plenty of “libertarian” feminists and “sex-positive” feminists who love porn, love sex and—
most importantly —
do not want governments or Daddys or Patriarchal States or Matriarchs or *ANYONE* telling anyone else what their sexuality is.
In truth, the Swedes are in deep denial about the failure of the Swedish model. New Zealand is much more successful. They legalized prostitution everywhere, not just in brothels, and the job satisfaction, security and working conditions of prostitutes wildly improved.
it’s a shame that some women are obliged to work in sex if they don’t want to, because they need money. But it’s also a shame that many people need to work in retail, in dirty factories, in coal mines, in many lines of work that are dirty, dangerous or difficult.
That’s just a fact of life.
Many women work as prostitutes who should not.
Many work as prositutes, more or less, and don’t admit it: Models, for example, are body-image prostitutes to a large degree. They just don’t let the men touch them. But this is okay?
Men also work as prostitutes.
Ultimately, this prudish, sex-abhorring feminism wants to tel other men and women how to be intimate. It wants to script the relations between the sexes, to control gender relations, to more or less tell people what they can and can’t do behind closed doors.
By ALL MEANS end slavery. But it’s not sex slavery that’s evil: It’s slavery that’s evil.
A telling fact is that many of the “brown women” rescued by aid workers from whorehouses hate the aid workers for doing this. They go right back to their old jobs, because as lower-class (or even upper-class) women, they have few better options.
They have sexual capital, and they want to sell it.
I ask you one question.
Who gave you, or any other person, the moral authority to decide how others live their lives? Please consider that in some depth.
There is no amorphous “female identity” being trampled, here. A woman owns her own self. ANy choice she makes is wholyl her own.
it means she’s also wholly responsible for the consequences.
Your brand of feminism is wonderful, but for the fact that you continually infantilize women. You treat them as if they’re not agents. They have no agency in your world-view.
This brand of Dworkinite feminism sees women as eternal victims.
A large number of prostitutes feel great power and job satisfaction. Doing their work actually gives them power: power because men desire them.
You may want all women to work in offices the way men do – to be men, in effect, with breasts – but this is not your choice. It’s theirs.
This is the fundamental issue.
many great feminists don’t see prostitution as anti-female or abusive. Many see the *conditions* of prostitution as abusive.
The solution is the same as with sex slavery. Eliminate the slavery, not the sex; eliminate the bad conditions.
New Zealand has moved much along this path. I suggest you consider it.
Eliminate the slavery and you eliminate the wimmin.
I’d rather be a slave like I am than dead thank you very much!
I don’t think there’s a man on the planet willing to buy you, Mikey.
The price is just WAAAYYY to high,
Womb envy, stalker, male AND now pimp!
Hateful bigot, racist, fanatic and now moronic!
TL;DR
The last post was damaged by WordPress. Apologies.
If you want to see a lot of excellent discussion of prostitution from a powerfully feminist but extremely rational and non-ideological position, one that examines reality as it is rather than as social engineers want it to be, then see
Maggie Mcneil:
The Honest Courtesan.
Look that up on Google.
I’m sure much of it will shock you. But the entire world is not a brothel in Calcutta or women running from police and abusive men.
I respectfully predict that people today are less motivated by 1982-style sloganeering and ra-ra feminism than they are by carefully reasoned feminism that takes both genders into account (as most women still want and need to associate with men), and, more importantly, that treats women as fully capable individuals who act out of personal choice and have agency.
If you approach issues with more broad-mindedness and focus on individuals, you won’t make claims like “women wear helmets less therefore society wants them to die more” or “women’s bodies are objects of loathing” or such things.
it’s entirely possible for someone to disagree that prostitution is basically evil, and for that person not to be evil. And for that person to be a woman, in fact. It’s also possible for a woman to change her mind, And change it again.
Give women agency.
This is what many feminists said in the 1990’s.
If you seek out and taste this other brand of feminism – one that celebrates women as fully human, as fully agents, as powerful and equals – though not always the same, unless they want to be – then I think you’ll be much more able to sink your teeth into Western feminism as it is in 2012, rather than in 1981.
“Women who think their power is in their cunts are not feminists”.
Taslima, the reason a lot of feminists will reject your stances is this attitude.
You dismiss other womens’ choices. You dismiss their agency; you dismiss them.
You have a very specific view of what women should be, and like the Mackinnons and Dworkins, you dismiss any woman who disagrees with you.
Ultimately, this comes across as both profoundly arrogant, oppressive, and – in a very strange way – extremely prudish.
You’re going to find “challenges” having these views accepted almost anywhere in the West. Hordes of women – good, bona-fide, self-identified feminists – will reject your position for many reasons, but most of all because–
you deny womens’ agency. You seek to tell women how to be women, instead of letting them make their own decisions based on their own perceptions.
You have an over-arching view of Femininity as being some characteristic that belongs to all women, in terms of sex: in fact, each woman entirely owns her own sexuality. It is no business of mine, yours or anyone else’s how one woman uses it.
She can use it for love, for resources, for nothing but entertainment, or for whatever purpose she desires.
Our culture is now in the throes of a wholesale revolution. Sex is now both cheap and easy: available everywhere. You can date someone for years, or a hundred people, without the slightest hint of commitment. Or you can get married and stay married.
Sex is individual.
Your views are extremely well-educated, and well-informed but very 1985 and extremely, almost rigidly ideological. You’re proscriptive, instead of descriptive or analytical.
Ultimately, you approach these cultural issues from not an analytical but rather a revolutionary / ideological perspective. This is understandable, but it doesn’t endear you to people who want to reflect more deeply on these issues.
Listen to the *female* voices in this field. Ignore the men, even, though I personally think all people have things to contribute.
Just because Mackinnon was smart, doesn’t make her automatically correct. That’s the problem.
Just because someone disagrees with you, doesn’t make her “not a real feminist”.
Excuse me?
A “real” feminist?
The “whore” I dated was about as much a feminist as it’s possible to be and not have it tattoed onto her forehead. She was as hard-core as they come.
Her opinions of your “feminism” in this regard was:
Nanny-state
Oppressive
Judgmental
Dismissive
Prescriptive
Hate-filled (hating that which disagrees)
Ideological without being rational.
You may object to this characterization, but the content, tone and flavor of everything you’ve written on this subject reeks of that distracting 1980’s gender war period. it’s really quite remarkable.
You’re the last major feminist propounding these views outside of the stale, stubborn recesses of the academy. Perhaps your particular experiences in South Asia, where gender relations truly are apocalyptic and genuinely horrible, have colored your views.
But you’re not going to get a firm grasp on feminism in the West without expanding your viewframe.
And that’s just a fact. You will eventually come to realize this.
I say all of this with the deepest respect. I’m just being direct.
I do not call those women feminists, not because they disagree with me, but because they are not feminists. I do not agree with everything Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan,Melissa Farley and 100s of other feminists say, but I call them feminists.
I do not call those women ”sex positive” either, because they are not sex positive. Believing in sexual exploitation can not be anything near to sex positive. We who believe in women’s dignity and rights are against those women and we are not ”sex-negative”. We are very much sex-positive and we are very much against sexual exploitation, oppression and abuse of women.
I rather like to call them misogynists or masochists.
I do not care if those women don’t support me. I am not unhappy for I do not get supports from obscurantists, religionists, chauvinists, misogynists, megalomaniac ignorant masses. After many years of my struggle for women’s equality it’s one of my biggest achievements that enemies of women hate me.
You guys like those women probably because they are not feminists, they only pretend to be feminists. You guys hated feminists and feminist movements. There has been a backlash. Don’t you love to call those women feminists because you want to change the definition of feminism? To you, misogyny is feminism. You get cock suckers, sex toys, sex slaves, woman haters all in your side. We feminists became outlaw decades ago.
Taslima,
You wonder why your reception is so poor, and yet you say these things?
You dismiss the now majority of feminists as not feminist because you dislike their opinions. You give no reasons, just that they don’t respect themselves. What part of personal choice do they not respect?
Is it not respectful to sleep with men for money? I woudn’t do it, but I would *never* judge another person for this.
Is it respectful to pick up peoples’ garbage? To clean their toilets? To handle old people on a daily basis, while having them treat you poorly? Please, Taslima.
Your reception is not bad because men hate feminists. In fact, YOU seem to hate feminists. A very large number of them/
Apparently, there is some Password “real” feminists need to learn.
CSWella is absolutely correct.
You aren’t using either logic or reason. You have come to a
Moral
conclusion, a judgment, and you’re using emotive methods and raw cynicism to ram home a personal opinion. It’s a personal opinion because it’s backed up by nothing.
You dismiss other women’s experiences.
And yet YOU presume, from some high holy ground, from the Church of What Is Right And Proper, to call other people misogynists?
What actual society of real, living human beings do you think you’re addressing, and are women just cattle to be prodded and poked by you into compliance? And dismissed if you don’t like their opinions?
Please.
I was trying to be respectful, but Taslima – you just more or less admitted that you’re as ideologically blinded, rigid, and disrespectful of other women as the misogynists you claim to battle.
In order to free women, you must, at some point, accede to their freedom of choice, their individuality, and their agency.
I know a vast horde of feminists, most of the women I’ve ever met and work with and all of these women are women of power and individuality – and your philosophy is in no way representative of their desire for personal power or social reform.
What precise kind of sex do you intend to allow or disallow?
Do you want anyone in the business of allowing or disallowing anything?
This is why feminism took on the rank smell of the Taliban back in the 1980’s.
Apparently, there’s no room in that very small space for diversity of opinion, for individual agency, for self-respect or for self-direction.
How very sad.
Who’s the feminist now?
TASLIMA,
for a different perspective, go here:
http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/the-odor-of-socks/
This is one of her recent posts. Take a few days and go through her posts. BTW, if you correspond with bloggers like these, you’ll find them most obliging and extremely respectful.
Maggie, as just one of many bloggers writing on this subject, is extremely rational, very respectful, and solidly straightforward. She’s an ex-prostitute who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of prostitution in the West.
I do warn you: If you trad into this territory, many of the core assumptions you have you may realize are just suppositions or illusions.
But you’re very smart person, and have a vein of humility; I suspect that if you try to listen to those you would silence, that you are one of the few who will hear their voices.
Why allow comments, if all serious criticism will be censored?
I’d like to say it’s because of the level of asshole you bring to the discussion, that you have nothing of value to contribute and you win nothing.
But it’s actually because Taslima is busy and can’t be on 24/7 to approve comments. So relax.
Gonna ask again: Do you feel as if, out of all the feminist bloggers on Freethought Blogs, you’re the only true feminist?
You wonder? So what would it take someone to convince you they enjoy the profession they are in? Or are you so damn close minded that you won’t even take their opinion seriously unless it coincides with yours? How unskeptical of you.
If I enjoyed sex and could make decent money with it? Sure! But I’m sure you wouldn’t believe me.
Straw-man much? You are defining those terms to mean what you want them to mean, then turning around and claiming they agree to your definition. You are not skeptical.
So what about the 5%? If your views were accurate, then it should have been 100%.
Yes, quite interesting. On a blog network devoted to skepticism, you are called out for your unskeptical views. Very fascinating.
Depends on the situation. Was it a free choice to exchange sex for money? If yes, then it was a personal/free choice.
I could go around to websites all over the place and pick up quotes supporting religion, about how awful it is that people don’t believe and how tragic lives are ruined by disbelief. I could find quotes about how someone turned their life around and are now infinitely happier now that they know Jesus/Allah/etc. People will say how wonderful it is that such a thing as the Koran exist, and how beautiful the language is.
Quotes are worth shit. Unless there’s scientific data to back it up. Now, since you’ve made the claim that all prostitution is sexual slavery and pornography is exploitation, you’re gonna have to back that up with actual statistics.
Quoting from anti-prostitution sites isn’t scientific or skeptical. If you make a claim that 100% of something is bad, you really need to provide evidence.
It’s no wonder you’re not finding a larger audience here, most of your arguments are just appeals to emotion. Emotion can be good, but if it’s unchecked by logic/skepticism, then it can easily turn around on you.
So please, take a hint. Your outdated ideals are minimizing your potential audience.
I am new here. I have yet to know feminist freethought bloggers. You try to convince me that prostituted women enjoy the ‘profession’ they are in. I am sorry I am not convinced. I think if prostituted women say that they enjoy their lives, they’re either lying or just trying to defend the terrible condition they are in only to give themselves some psychological comfort. No sane person can enjoy her life as a prostitute or her life with an abuser husband, or her life under the burqa. Some prostitution may not sex slavery, some women may ‘enjoy’ prostitution but I am sure they are very very small number of people.
”If you enjoy sex and can make decent money with it”, it is fine if you really want to do it but it is not easy. You never know what a stranger would do to you. He can beat you, bite you, slap you, rape you, abuse you, kill you.
Why do you think accepting sexual slavery or prostitution is skepticism and opposing it not? Actually opposing prostitution is more skeptical than accepting it. In our society, it is an accepted opinion that prostitution is a ‘work’ and women can be happy doing it. But I have a doubt. I do not accept the accepted opinions. I question. I am a skeptic.
You said, ‘quoting from anti-prostitution sites isn’t scientific or skeptical.’ Why do you think quoting from pro-prostitution sites is scientific or skeptical?
I proudly uphold my ideals. I don’t mind losing conventional audience. If I wrote to get a big audience, I would have been a faithhead, a misogynist and a joker. But I have always been taken risks of losing ‘audience’. Didn’t I lose my country, my society, my family already. Please don’t try to make me feel scared of anything.
There is a simple solution that I am sure you will agree is fair. Why don’t you get to know sex workers and talk to them about their lives instead of judging them from afar. You can open up a phone book and call an escort service, go to a strip club or legal cat house in Nevada or contact sex workers rights organizations like:
http://www.sexworkersproject.org/
and as about interviewing sex workers,
There are several issues that need to be untangled here.
1) Slavery is always wrong. No one should be forced to serve another person.
2) Child labor is wrong. Minors cannot protect their interests and make good decisions for themselves.
3) The fact you hate or love doing something has little to do with how all people feel about it.
4) Most people don’t like their jobs particularly the kind available to unskilled workers. Most jobs available to unskilled workers have harsh dangerous conditions or humiliating circumstances particularly if they pay well.
5) The many ways sex workers are abused are made worse because they don’t receive police protection, can’t only unionize and collaborate, have no government regulation and have to hide as part of the black market.
6) If an adult human being is in a desperate situation and chooses prostitution to better their situation, how are we bettering their situation by taking away that choice.
Why do you think if I go to brothels or talk to prostituted women and listen to them, I would start thinking prostitution is good and body should be for sale? I talk with believers everyday. They tell me god exists and god is kind and nice and merciful. After listening to their opinions, I do not start thinking that god exists.
I need logic and evidences to believe in something. FYI, I have a rational logical mind.
You have a logical mind?
Then why do you rely on anti-pornography propaganda sites for information?
You may aswell ask the Pope if Catholicism is the one true religion and take that as “fact”. No vested interest there at all. Anyone of reasonable intelligence is going to know the answer they will receive from such a source before the question is even asked.
Since I’ve seen you refer to “abusive husbands” but not abusive wives I will illustrate one of your readers and possibly your own gross misconceptions.
The FACT of the matter is that women are privileged in society. And, that women are more likely to be violent than men.
“October is domestic violence awareness month. In May 2007, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) published its latest study which found almost one-fourth of relationships had violence, about half of which was reciprocal, and the researchers were “surprised” to find that “in nonreciprocally violent relationships, women were the perpetrators in more than 70 percent of the cases,” and men incurred significant injuries”
One way domestic violence (as in only one person being violent…. 70% of the time it is women doing it)
For reciprocal violence, where both parties assault each other they found that initiation was almost evenly split between males and females. And, further admit that 1/4 of domestic violence resulting in murder the victims are male (these miss poisonings, and contract killings when the wife is never charged).
http://www.eworldwire.com/pressrelease/17670
Another researcher found that women who were seriously injured in domestic violence had a statistically significant common factor.
Care to guess what that was?
They started hitting first. So, the man that injured them is incorrectly charged and labelled a “wife-beater” when all he is guilty of is defending himself from further harm.
“How can we prevent Intimate Partner Violence and injury to women? IPV researcher Deborah Capaldi, Ph.D., a social scientist at the Oregon Social Learning Center, finds that the best way for women to be safe is to not initiate violence against their male partners. ”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-sacks/researcher-says-womens-in_b_222746.html
So, yes women are more violent than men. Women’s violence is directly related to their privileged status. No woman would be so stupid as to walk up to a tiger and start beating it because that would result in her receiving violence in return. Yet, clearly women are comfortable enough in their privileged status to feel quite safe striking a man and expecting no reciprocation. and, THEN crying, “I’m a victim” should any man actually defend himself from her violence.
Taslima,
Again, I write this with all possible respect for what you do and what you’ve gone through.
I am new here. I have yet to know feminist freethought bloggers. You try to convince me that prostituted women enjoy the ‘profession’ they are in. I am sorry I am not convinced.
I’m not saying that you should listen to me. In fact, I would suggest that if you are truly interested in this phenomenon, and don’t just wish to exercise your own narrow prejudices, that you actually do some research.
Of course, drug-addicted prostitutes in prison are unhappy. This is the bulk of the women usually surveyed by prohibitionist “researchers”, like Melissa Farley, are from this pool.
If you survey the McDonald’s workers who are abused by their bosses, forced to work overnight shifts and are regularly beaten by their co-workers, you’re going to get the results you want, too.
The fact is that almost all research that can be credited – and has no ideological bias – shows that in North America, there are:
– Few, if any, pimps. Most “pimps” arrested are husbands or roommates jailed on “living on the avails” charges. In essence, they are people harassed by cops. They may even be relatives or family of the prostitute.
– Most escorts are in the business by choice. They are independent, and on average, they earn *far more* money than their compatriots in the corporate world.
– Many have issues in their past – drugs, home life, etc. These things are almost always not related to what happens to them in prostitution. These things are baggage that they carry with them from their own childhoods.
Are there women who shouldn’t do this? Of course. Are there women who could do something else? Sure.
But this is not Bombay. It’s not Chennai. In fact, in New Zealand, the government has been extremely successful at promotng the safety and livelihood of prostitutes. In Sweden, the government regularly gets caught out making up statistics and lying to the press in order to pretend that its criminalization regime is a sucess.
The truth is that you’re not proceeding on the basis of fact or logic: You have made a determination and you will ignore any information that does not fit your moral compass.
This is not the action of a Feminist, affirming activist: it’s the action of a bully and a prudish, moralizing bigot who reveres ideological purity over listening to actual, real, living women.
This is why your brand of feminism has been largely rejected by living women. You deny women agency. You seek to prescribe what others do, regardless of what they have to say.
The Melissa Farleys of the world have much in common with you: Facts and people matter not at all. Only ideological purity matters.
I would suggest that your stances require some nuance.
I think if prostituted women say that they enjoy their lives, they’re either lying or just trying to defend the terrible condition they are in only to give themselves some psychological comfort.
Really?
They’re not motivated by the huge sums of money? By the fact that they can earn 4-5x what they could in other jobs?
\How many women and men do things for money? All of them.
It just makes such women opportunistic and self-interested – not anti-feminist Stockholm Syndrome victims.
No sane person can enjoy her life as a prostitute or her life with an abuser husband, or living under the burqa.
You have just made three assertions with no basis in reason or fact.
First, you called all prostitutes who enjoy their work crazy. This means you single-handedly dismiss any voice they have: You just won’t listen to these women at all.
Clearly, you object to them using sex to earn a living. YOu may consider this beneath human dignity, but whether or not it is – for them – is entirely their choice. You have no vote, nor SHOULD you have a vote. What part of this don’t you understand?
This might be an East-est problem. Perhaps you’ve imbibed too much Islamic imperialism. Perhaps you’re used to telling others how to be Real Women or Real Humans. This is neither your job nor your right. You should learn this.
Second, you equated domestic abuse, the burqa and prostitution. That you did this shows that you have never actually spoken to prostitutes nor have you any knowledge beyond simple pleasant notions of what constitutes dignity.
That you don’t realize this just goes to show how ignorance is most ignorant of how ignorant it is. If you actually wish to have wel-reasoned and informed opinions on this matter, it would behoove you to do some actual reading, or perhaps meet some prostitutes. And actually *talk* to them, … and *listen*.
Don’t tell them what to think. Listen to what they say.
This is the poison pill of 1985 sex-negative feminism. You seek to tell others what to do.
You haven’t read enough literature post-1990; everything you say reeks of doctrinaire Mackinnon-esque ideology, rather than carefully reasoned thought.
Some prostitution may not sex slavery, some women may ‘enjoy’ prostitution but I am sure they are very very small number of people.
Okay, first you dismiss them as crazy. Now they’re just a small number. Which is it?
Any metho to silence the other side, I guess; is it a core feminist principle to dismiss those who disagree with you without even considering their position?
Who is empowering women, here? You seek to remove all agency from women who disagree with you. Shame on you.
In fact, in the West, the hard, vast amount of prostitution is indoors, not on the street; it’s largely not in brothels, but in individual circumstances.
By and large, and this may be what upsets you most, most of these women don’t want to be rescued. I would suggest you do some real research.
Atlanta is not Calcutta. if you can’t deal with that, perhaps you’re not writing in the right hemisphere. You need reason, research, and fact before you can make gross generalizations and statements.
You may not understand this, given your background and your exposure to the less thoughtful brands of Feminism in the West, but all it does is make a mockery of your previous work in Asia.
”If you enjoy sex and can make decent money with it”, it is fine if you really want to do it but it is not easy. You never know what a stranger would do to you. He can beat you, bite you, slap you, rape you, abuse you, kill you.
This is true. it’s dangerous work. But the stories of prostitutes show that making it legal, making contacts enforceable, and setting up support systems is much much, much better than driving the industry underground.
The Canadian courts recently agreed. They dismissed Farley’s research as farcical and “problematic” – as in, garbage. And they decriminalized it, with the objective to helping women.
You might argue that this degrades women as a whole, but this doesn’t empower you to judge prostitutes. Individuals are individuals: There is no amorphous “Femininity” that is being insulted by the existence of prostitution.
Individuals are individuals. If you refuse to listen to individuals, then you become a tyrant. You should learn from your Taliban enemies what effect this has.
Oppression comes in many forms. Freedom is valuable in and of itself.
Why do you think accepting sexual slavery or prostitution is skepticism and opposing it not? Actually opposing prostitution is more skeptical than accepting it. In society, it is an accepted opinion that prostitution is a ‘work’ and women can be happy doing it. But I have a doubt. I do not accept the accepted opinions. I question. I am a skeptic.
This is not an accepted position at all. Except in a few very enlightened Western coutnries, prostitution is seen as a stigma and a crime: this is as true in Thailand as it is in India.
When middle-class men and women stop judging prostitutes for doing what they do, and allow them to freely ply their trade in a safe and comfortable manner, and stop thinking that their sexuality is being threatened (much of the motivation for middle-class women to assault prostitutes), then there will be a measure of freedom.
If another woman, of her own free will, chooses to do what she does, your place is not to judge her. Period.
What people do behind closed doors is none of your business. Didn’t Islamic thugs not teach you this?
If you doubt that most prostitutes in the West are independent escorts and not drug-addled streetwalkers or brothel slaves, then it just highlights and showcases your profound ignorance It renders you unqualified to discuss this in a Western context, but this doesn’t seem to prevent you from making ideological overstatements.
You said, ‘quoting from anti-prostitution sites isn’t scientific or skeptical.’ Why do you think quoting from pro-prostitution sites is scientific or skeptical?
Pro-prostitution? Why not trying to evaluate research based on its methodology?
Don’t just look to hear what you want to see. This is another problem: You see some pictures of women without bike helmets and then make some grandiose, completely unjustified conclusion based on the need to find problems wherever you look. You miss the underlying issue: Passengers more rarely wear helmets. The real issue was why not more women were riding the bikes and not just passengers, but you missed this completely. It’s ideological blindness or something else acting. You’re just sloganeering.
it’s cheap, weak, 1980’s and not thoughtful.
When it impacts real people – ie, prostitutes and their being hounded by society – then it starts to have real damaging effects. It’s not just quaint and interesting ideological throwbacks.
I proudly uphold my ideals.
Please do. But please don’t be like the Taliban and uphold them in the face of evidence and in judgement over other people’s lives.
I don’t mind to lose conventional audience. If I wrote for audience, I would have been a faithhead, a misogynist and a joker.
Your definition of “misogynist: seems to be : “Anyone who doesn’t agree with my opinions (regardless of facts or people)”.
This does no one any favors.
In fact, especially you. You lose your audience not because they are misogynists or they hate women – but because you are unable to reflect openly on your own views, your ideology is unsubtle and exclusive, and you are unable to listen to competing voices.
Even among feminists.
I strongly suggest you read Maggie’s blog, previously noted. There are literally dozens of others. And you can also do some real research into the Swedish and New Zealand models.
On Porn, determine if there’s a correlation between rape and abuse of women and porn use.
Dworkin and Mackinnon were dead wrong. All research shows that over time, porn accessibility radically (not subtly; radically) reduces abuse of women, rape and assault. Why this would be true is obvious.
Others also suggest it goes a great distance to reducing male need for sex within relationships, too: something many women are now complaining about (in the New York Times, no less). Indeed, a few years ago, Naomi Wofl even noted this, with some dismay.
So what degrades women? is it just notional , or do you have facts?
But I have always been taken risks of losing ‘audience’. Didn’t I lose may country, my society, my people already. Don’t try to make me feel scared of anything.
This is more weak victim-seeking: I hate to use that word, but you’re done it again. In your case, it tragically seems to apply. Don’t make anything I say out to be even remotely a threat. It sounds like Taliban saying Muslims are oppressed by the mere existence of Christians in their midst, which is what much of what they say amounts to.
I am not trying to scare you and neither am I threatening you. Like a religious zealot, if you so strongly believe in your personal ideology, that’s more than fine: but you should understand that this is what it is.
If the mere EXISTENCE of a different point of view, one based on actually listening to women and respecting their choices and agency, is something you find threatening–
then you have far, far more in common with Islamic theocrats than you would like to believe.
Seriously, are you a pimp, paid by sex industry, the fastest growing criminal industry in the world?
Wow. Way to engage him on his arguments instead of attacking him with ad hominems. Yeah, real skeptical.
Women hate men’s penis. So we cut of the foreskin when men are babies with out the aid of anesteshia so women won’t think their natrual dicks are gross.
I can play that game too. I think my victim card trumps your’s.
Nah, this was an own goal.
Routine circumcision is bad enough, without anaesthesia even more so, but unfortunately there’s a female version for this too, which manages to be way more barbaric: It’s roughly equivalent to cutting off the whole glans and scraping out a bit of the inside of what’s left with a razor blade before sewing the whole thing shut.
So not exactly a good example.
Maybe one good point for this one would be that again, such mutilation does not stem from a hate of men’s/women’s bodies from an attractiveness point of view, but from a fear of people, especially women, enjoying and controlling their own body and sexuality.
Please name one industrialized nation where female genital mutiliation is LEGAL.
Got nothing?
OK, please namy ANY country (anywhere) where female genital mutilation is LEGAL.
Still nothing?
Please name any country (anywhere) where MALE genital mutilation is NOT LEGAL.
Your false equivalence exists only in YOUR sexist head.
Single examples, it’s damn late here:
FGM legal and practiced: Mali.
Male circumcision illegal: Finland.
You seem to intentionally overlook, or forget to mention, the fact that FGM are perpetrated by women against other women, in almost a 100% of the reported incidences.
Convenient misrepresentation of facts, don’t you think?
One might even be tempted to think that the exact same misrepresentation of facts is happening in this thread.
It’s easy to see that MGM is actually a bigger issue worldwide, since it’s a) performed far, far more frequently and b) is accepted and even encouraged in much of the world rather than being widely repudiated as FGM is. You don’t see anti-circumcision demonstrations anywhere.
No question, they’re both awful practices. The correct answer is “end all genital mutilation NOW”, not “end genital mutilation for one sex NOW, while ignoring the same problem for the other sex until maybe, sometime, we get around to worrying about it.”
If that’s all the backup men get from feminists, then maybe you can see why we’re not all that interested in self-identifying with you or backing you up on your crusades.
Pardon my language but, you made the claim.
HOW THE FUCK DOES CUTTING A BOY WITHOUT ANESTHESIA HAVE ANY BEARING ON WOMEN CONTROLLING THEIR BODIES?
You are too stupid for word if you thing that cutting tissue from a boys penis and using it for skin cream so old hags can “feel younger” have anything to do with women. Other than as the age old consumers of mens’ pain for their gain.
FGM is illegal in every single 1st world nation and MGM is just standard practice. You would compare a nick from an adult female CHOOSING to shave to a boy having a protective part of his penis hacked off because most women “prefer it that way aesthetically”?
You cannot even be a real person.
What place uses tissue from a boy’s genitals for skin cream? Can you provide sources that back up your claim? In what country does this take place? Circumcision is a religious practice, practiced by some branches of Jewdism. It started in acient times and is mentioned throughout the Bible. Genital mutilation for either gender is wrong and unnecessary.
http://www.alternet.org/story/47421/foreskin_face_cream_and_other_beauty_products_of_the_future
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreskin#Foreskin-based_medical_and_consumer_products
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/12/oprah-foreskin-protests-cream_n_3068851.html
http://www.mommyish.com/2013/01/26/foreskin-skin-cream/
It happens in the west. The US is western country with the most occurrence of male genital mutilation; it isn’t just Jews and Muslims either. Male genital mutilation was enacted in the mid 1800s to diminish sexual pleasure and with that number of sexual encounters; most notably masturbation which requires lube if you’ve had your foreskin brutally cut off, but not if you still have it.
I just wanted to add something about “patriarchy” and circumcision, since I see “patriarchy” talked about in the arcticle.
Feminist usualy define “patriarchy” as a society ruled/controlled by men for the benefit of men. So in this patriarchy we live in men made circumcised penises the norm so women would prefer them, so that men would feel pressure to get them selves circumcised and so parents would with out concent circumcise their sons. If this is how we men use our “patriarchy” to our benifiet, we men are a sadomasocistic lot.
On and on the hamster wheel spins.
If there is one thing that feminism has well and truly fucked up for women, it is their ability to act as agents of their own will, or be anything more than perpetual victims.
How about a little personal accountability, hmm? This whole rise of cosmetic superficiality? That’s on you ladies. Most men have other things to worry about, such as fighting and dying in war, or on the job, or breaking their backs day in and day out to support your entitled asses while you whinge and moan about shit that you do to yourselves.
Oh you poor, poor wimmin. I can see a lot of gender “studies” majors in here. Lmfao.
Nice generalization you got going there.
If you’re going to suggest that each female take full responsibility for this, then I suggest that each male take full responsibility for the recent global economic collapse. You’re 2-0 for over-generalizations, don’t stop now.
And now you’re full blown misogynist. The time and effort it would take to educate your dumb ass isn’t worth even attempting.
Ah yes, “misogyny.” The ever popular feminist appeal to emotion when no method to refute is available. If this were an in person argument, I imagine you would be crying and pointing right now too.
I won’t get into your shot at the economic collapse, because I’m more than sure that a discussion about the aspects of that is well beyond your grasp. Especially considering that you, once again, reduce women (not to be confused with the comparitively small population of feminists) to agentless victims.
The funny thing is, it is your own agency that allowed you to choose to create this non existant “problem” for yourselves! Why do you think there is such a huge marketing push to sell this shit to women? Because you fucking buy it! You spend about 80% of all disposable income in the US because of your vanity, and to turn around now and blame it on men? Are you fucking children? You people are an embarrassnent to those that fought to give women equal rights. Apparently, you need a parental type guardian to keep you from making childish fuckups all your life.
Don’t you just love discussing with a person that presents irrational feelings as facts?
I know I do.
Assuming I’m a female, are you?
Going over your posts, that would be a 100% affirmative.
This blog and every post in defense of it are proof positive that feminists are simply people who like to complain and never grow out of childhood . What an amazing exercise in denial this blog is ! It’s really quite exhilirating watching you radical feminists perform your mental gymnastics for the sole purpose of freeing yourself from the tyranny of personal agency .
Really though … men hate women because women try to impress men . That’s the kernel of author’s argument . Well , two things :
1 – Western women sure aren’t putting much effort into trying to impress men judging by their waistlines and toxic attitudes . Oh sure , they’ll complain about what a challenge it is to keep up with fashion while staving off the aging process but in terms of actually trying to do something about it … well , pay a visit to Wal-Mart sometime and count the cover models . If you run out of thumbs you’ve just witnessed a record being broken .
2 – Women can take %99 of the blame for whatever shortcomings they feel the media has made them feel self-conscious about .
You think men are snapping up copies of Cosmo , writing the nonsense they put in it , or even suggesting their girlfriends and wives flip through a copy of it on occassion ? Guess again . I mean , of course you lot believe that because with you the buck always stops with men but the rest of the world does not suffer from the same delusions .
What makes this all the more hilarious is that when it comes to real privilege , it’s you lot that wallow in it while complaining about how much better you think men have it . Right … because I expect to ever see even one of you break a sweat doing anything demanding . Ha ha … as if .
Seriously though , if any of you had actually bothered to think about any of this for even a moment , you’d realize how absurd feminism has become : You’re arguing that it’s men’s fault that women do things of their own free will .
So either you’re claiming women are generally too stupid to even think for themselves , or that no woman has ever glossed her lips without believing there was a man holding a gun to her head .
Nevertheless … keep up this sort of work . Really . Every time one of you types yet another ridiculous rant like the one in question , the more evidence people have of just how childish and hateful feminism really is . I mean it .
Shut the hell up you misogynistic asshole. You bring nothing of value to the discussion with your broad assertions and generalizations.
Wow what a great rebuttal. You must be a Rhodes Scholar.
What broad assertions you talking about???
You are either retarded or just plain old intellectual hypocrite , cswella
My vote is on retarded, hands down.
Seriously retarded.
Hands down yes. Retarded hands of patriarchy so I am not so sure this counts as your male head is buried in the sand with your eyes closed and heart above the ground never open also.
Im not going to break down the list… all I will say is what I tell my wife constantly. I love you just the way you are, IF you are not happy with some part of you then change it and let me know how I can help you.
If someone claims to love you but wants to change you, they dont love you get rid of them and find someone who can accept the good and the bad that you bring to the relationship.
You are severely misguided if you don’t think this a 2-way street.
Men are expected to be muscular so we workout constantly…
Women find grey hair unattractive so we dye our hair.
Many women have no interest in men of below average height. I’ve had female friends tell me that they would never date a man who wasn’t at least as tall as them with high heels on.
Being pale is seen as unattractive as well. Look at the average male on television, they’re all tanned. What’s the old cliched line for an attractive male again? “Tall, dark and handsome?”
Give me a break.
1. i dont care what color a woman’s skin is as long as its not blue because then she’d be a corpse…
2. most girls i know like to dye their hair not because they are worried men wouldn’t like them, its because they want to express themselves
3. i (and a lot of men i know) prefer natural breasts, i prefer smaller actually because i don’t really care for large breasts
4. i dont care if a hymen is broken or not, not my body not my issue
5. i admit i prefer shaved legs, but then again everyone is can be a little picky
6. women who wear make up and put on anti-aging creams annoy me, granted a like a youthful looking woman i’d prefer if someone was true to themselves and isn’t ashamed of something that naturally happens
you act as if all a woman cares about is pleasing men, as if they don’t have tastes of their own. for example, my ex girlfriend would actually get pissed at me if i shaved my beard.
please pull your head out of your ass and grow up
The main problem with this article, like all claims of modern feminism, is that it works in absolutes. Furthermore, it’s written by a woman who is, without research or significant male testimony, is claiming what men like. How anyone can take this seriously has me scratching my head.
Try reversing the genders.
I did and unfortunately reversed them again. It looks as though I am on the losing side of the gender reversing game.
How very ‘unfortunate’ of you.
Personal gain and/or victim role claiming would of course not be a reason for that little ‘accident’, right?
Because that would very obviously free you of any responsibility or accountability in your life, and as long as you can keep blaming someone else for your own shortcomings, you have everything to gain, and you would only loose the goverment funded money, that allows you to go around and spread your hateful vitriol, while not doing anything to change your life to the better.
-And you would never do such a thing, would you, Mikey??
You know what I hate in a woman? One who feels I need to define her. Weak willed. If they do a bunch of those things I’m not interested – I want a strong woman who knows who she is.
This is coming from an independent dude. I want someone who’s a match, an equal. Not another child or subordinate personality I have to tell constantly this or that – I want another ADULT who has their OWN MIND.
Dear feminist sexists,
If you want to open your eyes and see REAL discrimination, try this experiment:
1) Make a list of the 10 worst things that can happen to a person. You can put anything you want on it. Any kind of violence, any kind of death, any kind of disease, any kind of substance abuse, any kind of accident, imprisonment, suicide, separation from family, whatever.
2) For each item on YOUR list, find out who this happens more to: men or women.
3) Compare your list of the worst things that can happen to people, to the resources (legal, financial, and institutional) that are spent helping men and women. Why are there 600 women’s studies departments, and zero male studies departments? Why are there 2000 women only institutions, and 20,000 woman only programs, in the US alone? Why are there countless laws (VAWA, Obamacare) that offer protection and resources to women, but not to men?
4) Stop fighting against the men’s rights movement, the only true egalitarian gender movement that has ever existed. Also, stop complaining about utterly inane and trivial concerns like body image and cosmetic usage. Have you not compassion, to complain about these banalities while you wade knee deep in a lake of male sweat, male tears, and male blood?
Please explain how the men’s rights movement is the only true egalitarian gender movement that has ever existed. Was the women’s rights movement in the Victorian era sexist? Was the push for women to get the right to vote sexists? Was giving women equal education opportunities sexists? Women’s rights groups did achieve some good in the world. And, I am pretty sure men’s rights groups will also achieve some good.
If you wish for Obamacare to offer protection and resources to men, I would recammend writing letters to Congress or getting involved in politics. I am not dismissing your question, I am only making a suggestion. If you would like to see men’s studies departments in colleges then why not start some? There are boys only Catholic schools in the U.S. Tell me how many male only institutes there are. Have you researched that? Why are female only institutes a threat to you? Perhaps, you should write your local paper on why we need more male only institutes. The energy that you put into writing this comment adressed to sexist feminists as you call them could be put into making the changes you want to see in society. Are all feminists sexist? How many feminists do you know personally?
Why does it matter which gender the worst things happens to the most often? Focusing on that keeps us from helping everyone.
>Was the women’s rights movement in the Victorian era sexist?
Yes, for it went to get rights without the corresponding duties; in other words, privileges over men. Men had the rights to get the children, because they had the corresponding enforceable duty to provide for them. So, if they failed to cough up the money to provide for the children, they could be put in jail. This was not true for women, and the feminists only wanted the privilege to the children; the duties remained with men. Indeed, alimony and child support is directly because women gained the privilege to have the children, but the duty to take care and pay for the children and divorced wife remained with the main. Not equality; privilege based upon sexism.
>Was the push for women to get the right to vote sexists?
Yes, for women did not gain the right to vote, nor did they ever seek the right to vote, they sought the privilege to vote; once again lacking the duties. Indeed, while the feminists claimed they wanted the “right”, the vast majority of women were against getting the right to vote, because they rightfully, but falsely, assumed that with it came the corresponding duty to die on the battlefield, (and this is the reason why women, in particular white women, were the last to get the vote). The duty of being cannon fodder is what men were expected to perform, in order to get the vote. But that’s not what feminists wanted, they just wanted to vote; in fact the suffragettes wanted the vote for rich land-owning women, to hell with the rest of them. Only when it was made clear to the average women that they would get the privilege to vote, above and beyond men, without having to pay with broken bodies, broken psyches and death, did they say, “Oh, well, in that case, yeah, sure.”
Sexist privilege: men have to die on the battle field, not women. Exemplified by Planckhurst being being the white feather campaign: planting a white feather on men in civies, shaming them for being cowards, but not just men, even teenage, underage boys; and teenage underage boys lies at the application and died in WW1; because a feminist had so much uncaring sexism, that having a penis meant you could go die.
>Was giving women equal education opportunities sexists?
Yes. Because the feminists never did, or campaigned for it. Women had equal education opportunities for centuries, it’s just that formal education wasn’t as useful to a woman, so families didn’t waste their money and giving women that education. But they were perfectly allowed entrance into schools. The show how sexist the push to get women equally into higher education; they reached that in the early 80s. But did that stop the campaigns and funding? Nope. Today, 65% of graduates are women, 60% of all students are women, and that number is rising. Is that stopping the women-only scholarships? Nope, in fact, Title IX means that if only a few women are interested, that course will only have 2x a few students in it, even if the capacity is ten times the number… unless that is not enough students to justify the course; in which case it will be shut down. You want to know how men don’t graduate; there you go, the courses they’re interested in, they either not allowed to enter, or it gets removed altogether.
>If you would like to see men’s studies departments in colleges then why not start some?
Actually men’s studies is feminism; a method of demonizing men and marginalizing men. The newly formed studies that actually cares for men is called male studies… but there’s no funding; after reading the above, take a guess why. Maybe you’d like to go do a few google searches on groups trying to establish safe spaces of men on campus; you’ll find one effort that was headed by several people including girls. The student union promptly decreed that talking about misandry was misogyny and therefor male-only safe spaces are banned. The university happily agrees.
>Perhaps, you should write your local paper on why we need more male only institutes.
They won’t be published; they’ll be ignored.
>The energy that you put into writing this comment adressed to sexist feminists as you call them could be
>put into making the changes you want to see in society.
That is what this comment does. If you read the above; you might start to notice a pattern, one that has been going on for thousands of years: men are expendable, women must be protected. Whenever a woman has a booboo throw a few dead male bodies at it, and the problem “gets solved”. To get to the point where we can go, “Yo! Men are having a problem!” and then society and governments looking over, and actually care about the men in question and then help them; you first need to change the entire way that men are regarded by the average person in the streets. Which, at this point in time, is done by telling everyone the truth, over and over again, for months, years, decades, until enough people finally learn to care about the plight of men that applying for a grant would actually work. This, is one such way to get there.
>Are all feminists sexist? How many feminists do you know personally?
I’ve never come across a feminist that didn’t turn out to be sexist sooner or later, more often sooner rather than later.
>Why does it matter which gender the worst things happens to the most often? Focusing on that keeps us
>from helping everyone.
Says the person who lives in a world where women get helped all the time. In other words: shut up! You’re stopping us from helping women! Indeed, if you’ve notice above, whenever a woman has a booboo men and society charge ahead to help them; if a couple of more men have to be thrown on the pile, oh, well, it’s just men, right? Those with privilege? The simple fact is; if you don’t remind everyone again, and again, and again, that women’s suffering, whatever little there is, is nothing compared to what men gets put through; all it will do is throw some more men on the pile to solve the latest tiny booboo women claim they have. Men will never be helped; the way we help women, will be to increase the suffering of men.
Not to mention; if you want to apply resources the most efficiently, wouldn’t you want to apply the least money to solve the most suffering; which you can only do if you know where the most suffering and inequality is.
YOu are aware that women join the military now and are allowed to go into some combat positions. World War I was began in 1914 and ended ub 1918. It is the year 2013 if you haven’t noticed.
Not allowed; MUST!
That would have been one of the contentions if the feminist cared about equality as opposed to privilege. Not only would they have campaigned for the right to vote, they would have campaigned for the DUTY to serve in the military. That “not being allowed” would have to have changed, to the duty to do so, if they cared about actual equality. The year is irrelevant, if feminists were for equality, they would campaigned for it; they didn’t.
By the way, the question is still not whether or not women are allowed, it’s whether they MUST. Men MUST sign up for Selective Service, failure to do so means they will not receive scholarships, government loans, and cannot get employed by the government, that is if they are not incarcerated. Men MUST. Have you heard a single feminist claim that women MUST sign up for selective services as well as long as men have to? Or campaign for men’s duty to sign up be removed?
The answer would be no: because feminists don’t care. Feminists don’t want equality, they want privilege.
Saying shut up is so mature. You can’t comment without being rude? Someone expresses an opinion you disagree with you need to be rude?I Do you say shut up to your boss and coworkers? I was not even commment to you in the first place. My comment was a response to Anthony Zarat.
I am spellbound by the debate that has ensued this flagratly misandric and preposterous article, I would like to express my admiration especially for Gorbachev, whose intelligence and insight into this matter is unrivalled and supremely logical. Evolutionary psychology is the most logical and fascinating explanation of human interplay, anyone who disqualifies it, blaming society for their problems, is doing a great disservice to science, logic, and reasoning. Then again I can’t blame those who do too greatly,for they are, after all, just as I , irrational animals.
“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep any woman in everlasting ignorance — that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”
HERBERT SPENCER
SPENCER had a wife of which he did whip with sticks of switch.
He bate her blue and black and her skin did shine with terror.
Now upon this day that “great” man has had his stay yet never sway from that of the phallus pummel.
Trammel me here and trammel me there and smite my heart of lush,
Kick me hit me with your flesh and fiery wooden brush.
But I will never surrender.
Never ever ever ever ever surrender.
ever.
See, Mikey??
There’s a perfect example of how much money you could make on that translation manual I mentioned.
It would give you something productive to do, and if you started taking a bath once in a while and lost some weight, you might actually be able to do something positive with your life, for once.
Christ, what’s with all the insufferable blowhards in this thread?
It’s just plain rude to post dozens of epic screeds on the same thread. It says to us, “I don’t give enough of a shit about the reader to put any effort into editing for length.”
Brevity is the soul of wit, dudes. This is just puerile bullying.
Or to put it another way:
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Gabby-Beaton.jpg
Yeah, we should leave you feminist KKK types to post your hatred publicly and in peace.
I think not.
Oh, so bullying is a one-sided exchange now??
If you dish it out, ladies, you have to be prepared to receive, without breaking into tears over it. It’s called normal human interaction.
Besides, it would’t be equality if only one gender were allowed to do this, would it??
Men are waaayy behind you precious little darlings, when it comes to denigrating the other half of the demographic, in every single media you have invaded with your hate.
Welcome to the war you started yourselves, and start looking forward to loosing it.
The velvet glove is off, ladies.
It’s time to woman-up and start taking some responsibility for your actions the past 50 years.
Awesome. You made my day.
From Tasmin’s page (I took the the liberty of adding a stanza to try to illustrate her bigotry)
”When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.
When they came for all the men,
I did not object,
for I was not a man and it was what those hateful men deserved.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.”
Go ahead and get right back to us the minute ‘they’ ever come for ‘all the men.’
I’ll be waiting by the phone.
No you won’t.
You know perfectly well that you’ll be sucking up to the nearest man for protection, and you’ll be doing it big time.
Wake up and smell the rose of reality. You’ve been pampered and protected all your lives, and are completely out of touch with a reality of no ressources, no goverment or police to protect you, no hot water,no electricity, and no warm and cozy little homes to hide in.
And that is the reality that are coming swiftly over the horizon, because you gals have removed every single incentive for men to be a part of society any more. The marriage stats are just the first proof you need, to see what is going to happen. It is happening in Japan at a far greater rate than in the west, so you might want to check it out.
We’re done, and you have only yourselves to blame. Feminism is a good idea, but you ladies have taken it way too far.
This is not equality or even democracy.
It is gender fascism in it’s most pure form.
Let me rephrase that last part:
Feminism MIGHT have been a good idea, at some point in the past..
Don’t have much besides hilariously mis-timed threats, eh?
Let me make sure I understand this: When they come for all the men, I will be sucking up to the nearest man for protection, because the men are going to take their balls and their hot water and go Galt in the woods since I won’t marry them.
LOGIC!
that is not a threat, sweetie.
It very real, and you need to wake up, before it ends as I predicted.
You don’t seriously think that all this will continue, when the one half of the demographic that sustains the infrastructure, and provides the ressources just won’t do it anymore, do you?
Uh, sweetie? You’ve got it twisted. Its the men who aren’t marrying you.
Seriously. Look around. Read some of your feminist editorials lamenting all the men not “manning up” and marrying and then busting ass for their wives for the rest of their days.
Why in fucks name would I ever take that risk, when I can get casual sex off of okcupid for free, or watch porn, or play diablo 3 all weekend?
You’re being replaced. You aren’t worth it. Go out and bust ass for your own lot in life. If you feel like getting laid, you can take one of us out and pay for everything, then hope we care enough to bother.
Don’t worry, honeycakes Kimski and sweetiekins DLZ, women don’t want to marry you. We don’t want to be anywhere near you. So, please, do the world a favor and jump off a bridge. K, sweeties? thanks, The Entire World.
What Michalchik said needs to be said again, so I’m reposting it.
Taslima, the reason you are poorly received here on this issue is made absolutely clear by Michalchik.
Here is the post, just posted. Consider this a second of that post.
Stop insulting women by pretending to be a “feminist” and telling others what feminism is. It’s a poor excuse, and as I’ve said before, very, very weak sauce.
You are not the world Nanny or Father or Great Mother: Your job as an activist is to LISTEN to the “subjects” for whom you advocate, not just tell them what to do.
Stop practicing elitist, exclusive feminism. It’s very, very middle-class.
It reminds me of Christian pastors who told their flock or communist organizers who told farmers and taxi drivers what farmers and taxi drivers needed. It ends up with police harassing prostitutes and treating them badly or like infants because a few well-placed, comfortable, self-assured “feminists” know better than the women they seek to emancipate.
Stop being so arrogant.
There is a simple solution that I am sure you will agree is fair. Why don’t you get to know sex workers and talk to them about their lives instead of judging them from afar. You can open up a phone book and call an escort service, go to a strip club or legal cat house in Nevada or contact sex workers rights organizations like:
http://www.sexworkersproject.org/
and as about interviewing sex workers,
There are several issues that need to be untangled here.
1) Slavery is always wrong. No one should be forced to serve another person.
2) Child labor is wrong. Minors cannot protect their interests and make good decisions for themselves.
3) The fact you hate or love doing something has little to do with how all people feel about it.
4) Most people don’t like their jobs particularly the kind available to unskilled workers. Most jobs available to unskilled workers have harsh dangerous conditions or humiliating circumstances particularly if they pay well.
5) The many ways sex workers are abused are made worse because they don’t receive police protection, can’t only unionize and collaborate, have no government regulation and have to hide as part of the black market.
6) If an adult human being is in a desperate situation and chooses prostitution to better their situation, how are we bettering their situation by taking away that choice.
Many of those things are terrible, but the enemy also targets men’s bodies too, with testicle lifting, bicep implants, abdominal liposuction/etching, beard trimmers, male circumcision, hair transplants, shaved heads, ties, Viagra, penile implants, television, Queer eye for the straight guy, and so on. Yea, so something hates all gender’s natural bodies. No country for any one of us.
I came across this and found it relevant:
Michelle Keegan of the show “Coronation Street”, voted the “Sexiest Female” four years in a row by the British Soap Awards, doesn’t think she’s attractive, and considered plastic surgery:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/coronation-street-teen-temptress-michelle-379930
SHE doesn’t like how she looks. MEN clearly do. So, then, it seems reasonable to think that maybe, just maybe, women hate women’s bodies and men, in contrast, LIKE them. And maybe women wouldn’t need to do all of these things if they realized just how broad, at least, what men find attractive really is.
Why do you think if I go to brothels or talk to prostituted women and listen to them, I would start thinking prostitution is good and body should be for sale?
You have made a judgment about bodies for sale being bad. This is a moral judgment: You have made this judgment exactly like religious authorities deciding that something is bad and therefore not listening to those who the judgement effects.
And who said they were selling bodies? They’re selling services. It’s astonishing how often conservative people, like yourself, make moral judgments when something concerns sex, that they would never make if they were talking about something else – like cutting hair, or working in coal mines.
Please show women a modicum of respect – as fully capable human beings.
You are Moralist Deciion-maker. You failed to addresa any of the concerns I made, and are sill acting like some sort of Nanny.
This brand of feminism drove most women from feminism, for very good reasons. It’s not a philosophy. It’s a religion.
I talk with believers everyday. They tell me god exists and god is kind and nice and merciful. After listening to their opinions, I do not start thinking that god exists.
We’re talking about actions, not beliefs.
These women will likely tell you to stop bothering them. But you feel yourself empowered to judge them and create potential social policy to control their lives.
Taslima, if you don’t see that you are setting yourself up as a form of silencing, social control, then all you’ve agreed to do is replace one oppressive moral nanny with another.
And yours infantilizes women as much as any man’s. Give women agency.
Show you respect them.
I need logic and evidences to believe in something. FYI, I have a rational logical mind.
Then if this is how you approach issues, please do engage your rational logical mind.
If you can’t see that you’re becoming that which you claim to hate, then there’s no helping you, indeed.
The reason you get such a poor audience (not just here) for this type of judgmentalism is very clear. But you refuse to see it.
It’s not you that’s being silenced. In fact, “silenced” is nothing like anything that approaches your state.
What you seek to do is silence other women. You are the moral absolutist, here.
You refused to take up my challenge to challenge your views and listen to the voices you seek to silence. When you do this, I’ll be much more impressed with your apparent concern for women.
Stop speaking for what you think are women’s voices and try listening to them for a change.
You said yourself – “I refuse to believe”. You refuse to listen.
Stop pontificating from some Great Mountain of Certainty. Try listening to the women you claim to work for.
Far too often, a Concerned Communist becomes Stalin by assuming he or she knows what’s best for others.
Taslima,
I have never paid for sex neither have I ever, in any way, availed myself of the funds that in any way shape or form came from prostitution.
I just have respect for the choices that women make. Any choices.
I’ve known more than one prostitute, and they all both defy and deeply resent your raging paternalism and sanctimony.
That you can’t see yourself behaving in this manner is all the more tragic.
Lol, feminists are twisting their little panties into a knot because they are no longer able to slander and lie at will, without anyone saying anything.
The mens rights movement:
1) Equal protection under the law for all.
2) Equal protection of government for all.
Feminism:
Hate.
Feminists and misandrists are not the same things. Misandrist definition: hatred of men and boys. Femisnism definition: advocacy of women’s rights and for women to have equality with men.
Feminism gave women the right to vote and many other equal opportunities. There were times in history when women were thought of as property. In acient Greece women had less of an opportunity for education. This article is clearly misandrist. Before you state that feminism equals hate, I suggest that you do some actual research on women’s rights movements and the history of feminism. Also, since you state that the men’s rights movement pushes for equality under the law for all. Why don’t you enlighten the rest of us. Explain how it advocates for equality for all. Explain how feminism equals hate.
So I guess women hate men’s penises because most are mutilated shortly after birth.
Women also must hate men’s faces because we have to put razor’s on them causing cuts, bumps and scarring.
Lastly, no heterosexual man cares about a woman’s purse, yet women pay big money for them. Clear evidence that most of what women do they do to impress and compete against other women.
It’s funny because black men are now being blamed for black women’s high obesity rate.
Hmm. Was it WOMEN who decided to start the custom of circumscion, moron?
Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle says:
June 9, 2012 at 2:23 am
Don’t worry, honeycakes Kimski and sweetiekins DLZ, women don’t want to marry you. We don’t want to be anywhere near you. So, please, do the world a favor and jump off a bridge. K, sweeties? thanks, The Entire World.
Oh, thank you so much!!!
-For a second there I actually thought I was going to end up being fucked in divorce court, in the same way my farther, his brothers, my brothers and all of my married friends have been…By women, just like yourself.
Commence with the beer drinking, little ‘genie’.
Talisma Nasreem is either an idiot, or a lying sack of shit. If men hated women’s (natural) bodies, we wouldn’t have been interested in women before modern technology, and thus the human race would have gone extinct countless millennia ago.
Also, the whole article is talking about what women do to themselves. Newsflash, that means it’s not men’s fault, but women’s fault, women’s own agency, and thought. This article reduces women to pathetic, little children who are incapable of thinking and acting for themselves, and everything they do is merely as a puppet on invisible string controlled by the invisible man.
It is disgusting and insulting.
Oh, I’m a man. Guess what, I love the smaller breasts more than the obvious fake ones. I love the darker skin more than the lighter skin, etc. etc. Even if purely esthetically the work was so good I’d like it more; the moment I find out you are so lacking any self-esteem you had to let someone cut your body up, or destroy your natural skin, I’d turn away in disgust and walk away.
In other words, it isn’t men who make women do things, it’s a beauty industry making you think men want things from women, so they can peddle their product off on you and make money.
And that’s the thing; I’d say moron, but the article and its position is so stupid, morons would consider it stupid, which very much gets us to lying through her teeth, to advertise to the very same women who fall for the industry’s ads, so she can get more readers, by making them feel better about themselves: no, it’s not your own fault you let ads do shit to your body, no, it’s evil men victimizing you.
Your hate list is filled not with *hates* but unfortunate *preferences*, culturally and biologically generated.
Any one of your “hates” can be equally said in reverse (but different criteria)…
-Women hate men for making more than them but cheat with “better” men if we don’t.
-Woman hate us if we psychologically try to control the situation but cheat with a better man if we don’t.
-Woman hate us for dominating them in bed but cheat with better men if we don’t.
-Woman hate us for being stronger than them but cheat if we aren’t.
-Etc. [It is unnecessary exercise in pedantics.]
Those are *preferences* biologically driven.
Now Taslima, you are damaged in some way. And I’m sorry. Men’s Rights types often are too.
The problem is your ilk’s (ie feminism’s) ax to grind *hate* is not being marginalized as hate by the rainmaking powers that be. Meanwhile men are mocked and worse for the same pangs that motivate you (and yours).
And more men suffer than women: at the bottom of the caste structure is where the untouchables/unloved men are; meanwhile low females are still able to find some hope …someone.
That is all bio deterministic, rooted in instincts that formed around “female sexual value”(sperm egg ratio). There is a reason we see no species in nature that reverse the black widow-like sexual social dynamic (where the females eat males).
Also there is the problem of female human lack of big brain scope. Meaning, if there are solutions to these *human condition* problems of have and have not access to the “good life” (of love and joy and peace of mind… in a convertible along the summer coast), it will be high IQ men (in a complex specialist caste structure [competing as always over access to females]) that solves them. At any rate it won’t be wimmins studies nuts or socio-babble sophists.
Burn your political energy on stem cell research and gene therapy etc.
*Moores law* is working on a solution as I type…
and whyou to tell her what to do with her blog? STFU.
All the comments from feminists,misogynists, conservative and progressive people are interesting. I thank you all for participating in debates. I learn a lot from you.
You forgot to thank the misandrists.
YOu want to thank imaginary people? You do realize this is an atheist blog group, right?
..feminists,misogynists,..
You just couldn’t help yourself, could you??
Why didn’t you list that, as it was presented by those who made comments:
..misandrists, misogynists,..?
Oh, wait, you did..!
Feminists equals misandrists, right?
I wholeheartedly support the emancipation of all people, of both genders, everywhere, just as much as I support Ms. Nasreen’s right to rant to her heart’s content in the public square. But I’m still wondering how this kind of post, and much of the commentary it attracts, fits under the rubric of free thought. Where’s the reason, the argument, the evidence? What specific problems are identified? What solutions are proposed?
I was also not too pleased to find some kind of image of a mutilated vagina on my Facebook newsfeed, thanks to another of Ms. Nasreen’s screeds being relayed via the FTB Facebook page.
Is there any way to let FTB know?
That’s easy enough. Go back to Spearhead and stop pretending to be a skeptic.
Thanks for replying to my comment with a nasty ad hominem rather than addressing anything I said. You rather prove my point.
But..but..that is all she had to work with!
Don’t you know that logic and rationality are oppression of women???
This is my first time reading one of these topics. The amount of vitriol being thrown back and forth here is frankly disgusting and guess what, mansplainers? Yes, it’s mostly women getting dumped on. Again. Disgusting, what privilege does to people when they aren’t even aware of it.
Mikey Flubb is an obvious Poe, very likely one of the cleverer MRA types (by which I mean he can probably walk and breathe through his one unblocked nostril at the same time). Why people are taking him seriously is baffling; I can hear the caveman chortles from here.
Taslima, don’t be discouraged! Even if this is more polemic than reporting, it needs to be said, and it needs to be said over and over and over until people GET IT. It may not be the case everywhere but it’s the case in most places, and with the US regressing and the world economy stagnating we may very well lose the last several decades of progress for womens’ rights…and rights, once lost, are near-impossible to regain.
There are times I am very very glad to be a lesbian in a time and place where I’m not likely to be brutally murdered for it just so as not to have to play this game. Honestly, if this is the heterosexual meat market I’m glad not to have to be part of it. It’s insanity. Stop hating and objectifying each other so much! You are minds in bodies, not bodies with incidental minds!
“Mikey Flubb is an obvious Poe, very likely one of the cleverer MRA types (by which I mean he can probably walk and breathe through his one unblocked nostril at the same time). Why people are taking him seriously is baffling; I can hear the caveman chortles from here.”
Sorry to disappoint you there, but “Mikey Flubb” is as genuine a modern day feminist as they come. She has been stalking mens rights blogs for quite some time now, and belongs to a group of radfem’s that are attracted to blogs like this one, like flies are attracted to BS.
Quite telling, considering the topic of removing any responsibility and accountability from women for their own actions, don’t you think?
A smart MRA would more likely call him or herself “The Ghost of Andrea Dworkin” or something like that. Mikey is nowhere near that level of intellect, because she only reads feminist propaganda, which boils it down to sentences with ‘men’ and ‘hate’ included. Her use of a male name is akin to a blind chicken finding a single corn seed, and nothing else.
“There are times I am very very glad to be a lesbian”
Not as glad as most guys I know are. On behalf of them and myself I thank you very much for your choice in sexual preferences.
Dear Taslima
I am a fairly ordinary father od three lovely daughters one son, and husband and provider. I came on this page having come to respect you from your expose of the utter horror of bride burning.
All this seems so trivial and unworthy compared to your excellent writing on that previous page. It makes me a little sad.
This is the most backwater crock I have ever read. This is really stretching it to play the victim.
“We tell men that we like them for who they are. They do not destroy their natural body to make us feel happy. They do not implant or reduce anything to please us.”
I’m sorry, but you’re so filled with privilege that you have no clue what societal standards men actually have to live with.
Please check your privilege before you open your bigoted mouth and tell me about how you’re more of an authority of the pressures I face in life than I myself am.
Replace men with “the fashion industry” and replace “hate woman’s bodies” with “is using marketing tactics to get people to buy things they don’t need using insecurities about appearance” and I think you would be on to something. Men as a group don’t hate woman’s bodies, men have different preferences on what they like and don’t like. I am a little disappointed that more people here aren’t calling this out for what it is. I consider myself a feminist but honestly, this is pretty much a BS misrepresentation.
You’re a feminist the way Sarah palin is a feminist – that is, doesn’t know shit about feminism, but arrogant enough to think your uninformed opinion matters to anyone else.
TIL correcting somebody when they try to tell you that you hate something is arrogant and telling somebody that you don’t hate women’s bodies means that you know nothing about feminism.
The more you know
Sorry to say, but you’re all dumb cunts. We don’t force you to do shit. You pathetic little creatures are blaming men for your rampant consumerism and body destruction.
Women are attracted to criminals, thugs, and bad boys – so male criminals should fault women for their crimes?
Congrats on being a completely uninformed, useless bigot.
Congrats on the green card to la-la land, misandrist.
but i am homosexual and i feel the same pressures coming from my fellow women, although they are more self-imposed than anything
Love the post – 100% accurate. Ignore the whiny crybaby bigot boys infesting this post with bullshit, lies, bigotry and inanity. Just be amused that the genuinely seem to think anyone cares what their ignorant butts have to say.
If you’re worried about how media images affect vulnerable people that see them, you really need to include trigger warnings. Some people are very upset by pictures of bloody cuts or pictures of extreme anorexia. This goes double for the post about FGM.
Well I guess women are getting tatoos all over their bodies today because of men right? Be real. No man is drawn to tatoos or expensive purses. Women adorn themselves to impress theit female peers.
no we actually hate women’s index fingers when they are so busy at pointing it toward other people than themselves. boo hoo. all women’s stupidity and superficiality are because of men. Who should men blame for buying big cars nice suits? Oh yeah, ourselves because men seem to have the rationality not to blame our own problems on other people.
Men are responsible for women’s personal insecurities.
And men are also responsible for their own insecurities; the social expectation of men to be desirable and completely accommodating (financially, emotionally or otherwise) to women could not possibly have anything to do with women themselves, no. The men are responsible.
No. Just no.
You are a feminist, yes? You want to empower women?
Okay, then urge them to take individual responsibility for their insecurities and emotional well-being, just as men are expected to.
Men deal with it. So can women.
I can not describe just how stupid this article is.
Not only does it play to the rad fem notion that all women’s problems are mens fault so are all men’s problems.
It continually talks about men hating essentially every aspect of a woman’s personality and body. laying up this idea that men only want barbie dolls. This is not only untrue its downright stupid.
In every study done on men’s attraction to women its shown that men like women to carry a few extra pounds to have shorter hair and not to plaster themselves with makeup and be more natural.
Its only because of the constant pressure women put on each other and the pressure from the media THEY CHOOSE to read that makes them thing otherwise.
What is being suggested here much like in the fashion industry is that the epitome of female beauty is in fact a 12 year old boy. Men do not think this is attractive at all!
Stop putting words in mens mouths and making us all out to be hateful, narcissistic, bullying thugs. If the writer had spent any time what so ever around real men she might know differently … looks like someone has been spending to much time soaking in rad fem indoctrination and no time in the real world.
Lastly she mentioned about men not doing anything to damage their bodies for women….so the proven fact that men working much harder jobs which on average puts us in a 10 year earlier grave has nothing to do with providing for a partner… nothing at all… no that’s just men oppressing women. Also Its never up to a man to say he is a man, if you hadn’t noticed the only time a man can call him self one is when its decided by women that he is one…so much for women not being able to be themselves! the very worth of a man is based purely on what he provides and how he treats the women in his life… that evil evil patriarchy
Actually, women do all those things to gain a competitive advantage over other women. Most (heterosexual) men don’t care for these things when seeking a sexual partner.
MEN HATE WOMEN
WOMEN HATE MEN
EVERYONE HATES EVERYBODY
LETS ALL HAVE SURGERY
Was this article written by a child?
It is true some force hates the female body; however, it is something far more sinister than the homogeneous grouping of male individuals. Its the media. Its not men that create all these procedures and methods for making women look the ways you formulated above: its media. Ranging from shaved legs to gobs of makeup for the face; generated in the 1900s to sell product. Before then, even till the 20th century, we didnt give a fuck (If you look back before then, ranging from powdered wigs to fancy-schmancy clothing, MEN cared more about their own looks then females.) Back then, men were true badasses (A time I wished I lived in), and when they didnt have all this makeup cares, they didnt give a single fuck. Even today, the men that are worth it give little fucks about all the stuff above. Those “men” who care about these things… are men who agreed that the media feed them their perception of beauty. And those men suck in all forms.
These are MODERN beauty practices from the past fifty years. For hundreds of thousands of years women had no access to such products, yet this didn’t stop men from appreciating female beauty and reproducing BILLIONS of times.
If women stopped with all this superficial beautification crap, they would realize it doesn’t take much to turn a man on. Men are easy to arouse. A simple summer breeze and smell of apple pie can give a man an erection. Women need to take responsibility for their own behavior instead of complaining they are victims of an oppressive society.
I hate crap like this. Its just as bad as the fat introverted unambitious neck bearded loser’s complaining on 4chan that woman do not want them.
Each gender is inherently attracted to certain traits which can give insensitive to the opposite gender to do things which are not particularly fun or healthy.
Gym rat men roid up to feel adequate for woman that like 6 pack men. Men go into engineering or finance doing very hard and stressful work with long hours’s because every one know’s most woman will choose the man with more money all else being equal. I think even crazy men risking there live’s climbing Everest getting in cage fights or going to the south pole is a extension of a man’s need to prove to a woman he has the qualities to be at the top of the food chain and can look after her.
That does not mean woman hate men’s bodies or the level and nature of there utility. Random men or woman do not owe you love and appreciation. If you want to opt out of the game be my guest. But it is absurd to get angry when people are not willing to buy a product they through no fault of there own don’t want.
What a crock of shit! Look into any of those YouTube videos where women document their body weight loss. Almost invariably, men will comment along the lines of “you were hot even before” and women will almost invariably comment along the lines of “fat cow!!!”.
You ladies need to stop blaming men for the things you help create and bring on yourselves, you need to exercising such disloyalty when competing with each other, and – for God´s sakes – you need to give up the self-victimizing speech. It´s giving intelligent, thought-capable people a huge pain in the ass!
Posting on a feminist whineblog.
Can I ask you why you do these things then? Just be who you want to be, if you don’t want to do any of these things or adapt to what you think is what males want, then be your own person for crying out loud. That’s what men do, and it’s working just fine.
If someone tells you to jump off a bridge, would you do it? If the media told you to, you would actually consider it, apparently. Don’t say you’re oppressed if you’re the ones who oppress yourselves.
The the fuck did I just read?
TLDR
Feminism = mental illness
Overweight + Over entitled “Bitch be crazy”
Absolutely!!!
Wow…. these are all results of advertisement companies and media, and women selling products to other women, trying to tell women what men like… which is none of your list. You’re so far off it’s not even funny. What load of shit this site is.
“Men hate woman’s body.”
No, men actually love women’s bodies. However that body has to be attached to an intelligent brain.
“Women learn from men to hate their own bodies.”
No, women observe their own bodies and realize they have problems. However, many women will not address those problems and instead, blame it on the men. I was once over weight. I lost the pounds by making changes In myself and the women started coming around. However, I have known women who had weight problems and did nothing about it. If I should do it, they should too.
“Men and media have been busy for centuries advising women what they should look like”
No, women look at other women and decide what they should look like. Then, they look in a mirror and blame the men.
“Men hate women’s hair if they are not silky and long.”
No, hair is not important as long as it is clean and well kept. Men loved Aubrey Hepburn when she had a short boy cut. Many still like that look.
“They use different chemicals to make their hair silky”
That’s for themselves. A man is not going to kick an attractive woman out of his bed because she doesn’t have silky hair.
“Men do not like the color of our skin. So we bleach our skin or get our skin tanned.”
Men do not kick women out of their beds because of skin tone. I’ve dated china white red heads as well as women who had (American) Indian ancestry. Loved them all and I suspect other men would as well. I’ve seen no evidence to the contrary.
“We spend almost all our money to buy cosmetics so that we can decorate ourselves and become someone men want us to become. We want to make men feel satisfied”
You actually want to attract men. You’ve found that these things will do that. I’ve never told a woman she should do these things and I suspect very few other men have either but it’s our fault, isn’t it?
“Men do not like us when our hair turns grey. So we dye our hair.”
This is self imposed. A woman I went to high school with has been solid grey since her 30’s and she is still a head turner.
“Men hate women’s eyes, eyebrows, noses, lips, cheeks, necks, ears.”
Nope, they are just normal body parts. They come in wide variations and it’s the differences that make the difference.
“Women paint their eyes, eyebrows, cheeks, lips. We wear jewelries around our necks, we pierce our noses and ears to wear ornaments.”
These are all decisions women make. Men like women period. Women decorate their bodies to attract men. Men have no input in it. Now, I wouldn’t date a woman with pierced lips, nose or other places. Just not my style. I also don’t date women with tattoos although they have become common.
“Men hate women’s breasts if breasts are not round and large. We wear push-up padded bras. We go for breast implants. Implants leak, rupture, burst. We increase our cancer risk”
No, I prefer smaller breasts but I don’t reject women with large breasts. My last GF had very large breasts. They were wasted on me. However, I do like “perky” breasts. But, I don’t require them.
“Men hate our natural abdominal fat. We almost stop eating to reduce our fat to please men. We suffer from anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders. We become skeletons. We die.”
Nope. Men tend to prefer curvy women. That means a little fat. But a woman who weighs 300 lb is too much. Likewise, a man who weighs 300 Lbs is not likely to be covered up in attractive women. Is that women controlling men’s bodies?
“Men hate us if our hymens are broken. We need to repair our hymens.”
LOL! I’ve had a lot of experience and think I only had one that still had her hymen intact and she was a pain. Now, I want a woman with at least some experience. I think it is probably women who put too much value on the hymen. I think this belief dates you.
“Men hate our vagina if the passage is not very narrow or not very tight. We go for surgery under anesthesia to tighten vagina.”
The vagina is a sheaf of muscle. Women who have not had sex in a while will have loose vaginas because they haven’t exercised those muscles and they have gotten weak. There are exercises to strengthen those muscles (Google “Kegel”). They work. Strong muscles in the vagina make for a superior sexual experience for the man.
Now, how about women who want a man with a large/long penis? There’s really much a man can do about that. How about a woman who demands her lover be circumcised? Only surgery will provide that.
“Men hate our natural leg hair. We shave our legs to make our legs unnatural.”
Yeah, I’’ accept that. I wouldn’t want to date Grizzly Jones. But, how about women who won’t date bald men? Not much the man can do except wear a rug and the women will tease him about that.
“we wear high-heeled shoes to make us look taller.”
Many men prefer petite women. Look at a dating site to confirm this. They’ll state it. Now, high heels will change the shape of the calves and that is attractive to most men. But they will date women in flats.
“Our toes get bruised, our bones get broken, we suffer from sprained ankles and dislocations. We can not walk comfortably, we can not run when needed. But we continue wearing high heels to give men pleasure.”
Men are not going to reject you if you don’t wear high heels. What they really want is about 3 feet above those high heels. Reminds me of an old joke!
“Men hate our wrinkled skin. So we use all kinds of chemicals or all kinds of anti-wrinkle or anti-aging creams on our faces. I wonder whether people really believe chemicals or creams can stop natural aging process!”
There is no question men want younger women but there are cougars too. It is natural and to be expected to be attracted to younger (potential) mates. That goes for both men and women.
The “chemicals” are purely a woman’s thing. They want to improve themselves to attract men. Women have made these almost mandatory. My last girlfriend (and fiancée) wore virtually none except some eye make-up. She was beautiful despite being in her 50’s.
“We even go for face-lifting and different plastic cosmetic surgery to look a bit younger. Men can grow older, but they do not like we grow older.”
Every woman I have dated in the last 30 years has been older than me. I loved them all and found every one to be sexy.
However, a much younger woman has recently approached me. She wants me to go to Hawaii with her and I’ve accepted. I don’t know but I suspect she’s about 20 years younger.
I’ve seemed to notice women prefer a man who is at least a little bit older and I’m not sure why.
I did have one girlfriend who had cosmetic eye surgery. She thought her eyes looked “baggy/puffy.” I never noticed. I think it was money wasted. I couldn’t see any noticeable difference and she was no more attractive to me after the surgery.
“They do not implant or reduce anything to please us.”
Oh, yes we do. When I was in college, I was “pudgy.” I was not attracting the women I wanted to. I went on a diet and lost 37 pounds and found a girlfriend. That girlfriend had been around all the time but I didn’t meet her requirements until I lost the weight. Was she setting the standards for men? Was she controlling me?
“There are evolutionary reasons for men to get attracted to women and for women to get attracted to men. But patriarchy, a system artificially imposed on society, causes all the injustices and inequalities against women. Patriarchy is a system in which men dominate, oppress, suppress and exploit women. This system prevents women from being who they really are.”
Ridiculous! Evolution and sex drive determines this. Men are attracted to women with large breasts because large breasts imply that the woman will be successful in feeding their offspring. Men are attracted to women of a certain shape because it implies she can carry his babies and birth them successfully. Likewise, women look for men with well developed muscles so they can protect them and their babies. Women look for tall men because the height implies he can be a protector.
Women look for men with hairy bodies because it implies he has testosterone in his veins. Women want a man with large genitalia because they think he will be better equipped to impregnate her.
The pendulum swings both ways.
Short hair fetishes must rock your world then.
I don’t even know what the heck it’d do to you to find out that some men even like curly hair.
and woman don’t? like a man simply coz of his phisical attraction that is…
i have spent a year with a girl as a friend, hanging out with her almost every day. at aome point, the obvious question came to mind: should we take our frendship to the next level.
i admint, i never approached her coz i wanted to date her in the first place. i also wont deny the fact that seeing her dressed in aomething an average woman would wear, instead of stuff that made her look like a kid made a big difference in the way i viewed her.
but anyways, every time we had that conversation the answer was something in terms “i m not ready for a relationship” or “it will just set us apart if we brake up” or “i have a boyfriend”(even if it was a guy she never liked and spent less time wtih him than she did with me). basically, in internet terms, i got friend zoned but she seemed to like spending a lot of time with me… so i assume it wasn’t my personality that was the problem.
well, now she has a jelly(ous) boyfriend who wont let her have contact with her friends and i hear him attack her about who it is evry time she picks up the phone. so here goes… the crap we about not wanting to ruin aour frendship over a relationship and the fact that personality has anything to do with a girl letting a guy be with her.
anyways, not here to moap, just making a point(tho typing/writting stuff helps racionalitze it by my experience).
just trying to show that woman will always fall for a guy that is more attracitve and will defend him from any negative argument against him, even one made by her own reason. so in fact, woman are no different from man when it comes to attraction.
so i m not going to negate your point. yes, man are more attracted to woman who work for it. and i mean work for it, as in excersising, eating right… and i m not going to say i don’t like woman who had (properly applied) plastic surgery. in fact, watching some of the hottest woman of hollywood, almost all of them had plastic surgery in the past.
today, the bar is getting higher. most girls don’t even wan’t to walk out of their house without a bit of makeup by the time they are 18. woman are expected to shave every part their body, while man only shave their face.
but who invented this game?
most men are attracted to healthy woman with the right genes. as some male commenters have pointed out, not all of us are attracted to the same shape and size of boobs/ass. not all of us like tanned and tall. not all of them like long hair(them as in i am a man with a long hair fetish). i m pretty sure that there are man, who like hairy and/or chubby woman. (i know starved isn’t beautiful for sure) so making every woman to look like someones standard is not our idea. nor do tricks like a pushup bra and makeup work(in fact, if there is nothing filling the bra, a man who attracted to big boobs will be turned off by it when he realizes and the guy who likes smaller boobs wont even approach)
…so we blame?
well the industry is the obvious answer. but, like every competition, the lack of moral of it is to blame on the ones who try too hard to be the best. kind of like MMORPGs aren’t to blame for people neglecting their health and social life, its the fact that they can’t keep up with their clan mates unless they play 20h a day. (most of u probably don’t know what i m talking about coz i m a geek)
Can I simply say what a reduction to search out somebody who truly knows what theyre talking about on the internet. You undoubtedly know the right way to deliver a problem to gentle and make it important. Extra people have to read this and perceive this aspect of the story. I cant believe youre not more common since you definitely have the gift.
That’s projection – blaming all men for an industry and situation that is rooted in inter female competition for men that are higher up the league table than themselves and women’s own empowerment of junk media and marketing.
What imaginary world does the author of this article live in??? Women’s bodies are worshiped here in the Western world. Any woman with a healthy-looking body will be admired (and maybe envied) for it.
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Terrible article. The generalizations make my head hurt. ._.
Generalizations tend to fail anyways – but the article is even trying to put words in my mouth and tell me (as a man) what I expect from women.
If the gender roles were reversed in the article, there would be a large number of feminists trashing this article as sexist garbage.
I agree with you. The general stupidity of the article can be summarized in the idea that men determine what women do or don´t do. It´s a pathetic display of the mentality of a woman who is used to regarding herself as a victim. And what´s worse, she´s completely wrong. Men do not place the demands on women. Other women do, and that´s obvious to anyone with half and IQ. Guess that says something about the author of this piece of crap.
So what, aside from a dogma, do you have to support your assertion that it is man that is the agent of all this misery? From observation, I only see self-loathing women. Must it be a man that makes it so? And if it must, what set of dogmas and beliefs do you adhere to that makes you think that way?
All I can see here are women failing to take responsibility for themselves. And if all these women are crazy, then they still have a responsibility to seek treatment. There are therapies for body-image dysphorias.
Incidentally, women seek to remain ever-beautiful and ever-young for they fear their decreased perceived attractiveness, which is the natural consequence of aging, to reduce their influence and control over men. It is that paradigm at the heart of all this business that must be examined and done away with. People who seek to lord it over others are assholes.
why do i even bother clicking on links to this place
This REALLY REALLY pisses me off. I cannot believe that some women believe they need to change themselves for men. I am a guy who absolutely loves tomboys and finds all the makeup and breast implants disgusting, unattractive, and boring. Yeah, fashion is boring to me. I’m pretty much a FUNCTION first kind of a guy.
And I know quite a few guys like me. I thought women did this stuff for themselves, I mean, I complain a little bit to my girl (pause) friends who dress all girly, but they just say they LIKE doing it, as if fashion can be an art. And I don’t want to judge against that, I want to be supportive of them. Fuck, my one friend is dating a guy just like her in the sense that they both really like fashion. I mean this is a miserable relationship based solely on sex. Even though he’s a bit of a self-centered ass, he’s great to talk politics with. But she gets bored by that and then what? They don’t hardly talk about ANYTHING. Such a shallow relationship.
I go for character, I go for depth. I’ve gotten severely depressed before over the sheer lack of women out there who AREN’T obsessed with fashion. I can see them trapped in this media bullshit and I don’t want them to buy it. I certainly didn’t buy it. How can a woman even write about what men think without at LEAST citing “due to recent a survey of over 2,000 men” or along those lines.
On a note particular to breast implants, this is like my biggest pet peeve. I know plenty of guys who like small boobs, in fact in some ironic way my good friend coined the term “DFC”, short for a woman with a “Delicious Flat Chest”. It’s a little weird, I mean he is a bit of a sex hound, and if you want to look at it beyond the sex he’s (despite being a feminist) accidentally objectifying women, but that would just mean he’s objectifying them in the OPPOSITE way as normally perceived. Big boobs are just not my thing, so sue me world. Fuck mainstream.
I know a few girls with anorexia at my high school as well. One of them has been with the same guy for the last 2-3 years, I don’t know I just don’t’ even remember them not being together. And through friends of friends I hear about her relapses and successes in beating anorexia. As far as I know, her boyfriend is extremely caring and supportive in her getting over this disorder. And she does NOT look healthy or beautiful. I mean, it’s difficult because a friend of mine who is a friend of her (and also a girl) does that thing where girls tell each other “you ARE beautiful”, and who would need it more than an anorexic, right? So it’s all backwards but my point is: her boyfriend is supportive, and I do not think anorexia or a girl starving herself does anything but make her physically unattractive.
What I really hate about THIS article is it stereotypes men very ass- backwards when we could be supporting women to break down negative pressure from the media. And also, I’d like to see women do the same for men. Check out those “Trop50” Tropicana orange juice commercials where the sexy man is always the gardener and always slapped by one woman while they all objectify him and degrade him to yell “go women empowerment!” Seriously guys, lets talk about men’s objectification in media for ONCE.
Are men supposed to feel guilty for women’s vanity?
Yes, women find some women and traits more attractive than others. So what?
Women pick men based on various traits as well. Men also go to extremes in order to attract women. Men spend hours a day working out, running, etc. in order to be attractive. Men must also earn a good income to provide security for their partner.
I have yet to see a beautiful and successful woman choose an ugly beggar off the street.
The simple reality of the world is that we are not all equal. Some women are more beautiful than others. Some men are more handsome than others.
This honestly reads like a parody. Towards the end, i thought the author was *mocking* people who use this argument.
That aside, there is always an assumption lurking in the background of ideas like these which is that someday we could live in a society where no one judges anyone and *there are no hierarchies*.
There will always be a standard of beauty. There will always be an “ideal”. Some people will fall short of this standard. Some women will have small breasts when large breasts are desirable, will be dark when pale skin is desirable and some pale when tanned skin is in vogue. I do not see how this is anyone’s fault.
Another point. You seem to be faulting men for have preferences. In your world, no one should be hurt so we shouldn’t have preferences, which is ridiculous. If i like large breasts, so what? If you have small breasts, i won’t find you as attractive as a woman with large breasts. Deal with it.
*But don’t put your insecurity on *me* for having preferences*. What a ridiculous concept.
Lastly, the idea that all these preferences originate from men is just bizarre. Are you implying that women have no say in what the beauty standard is?
Wow. What can one say? These are rantings of a madwoman. Nothing less. Quite incredible. Taslima you have issues that you need to sort.
Men hate women’s bodies?
Thank you Talisma for a wonderfully written article. Men will never admit that they look for women that come right off a porn set or out of Cosmo. WOmen who are airbrushed, put in heels so they can’t walk normally in so their ass sticks out more to encourage ‘fantasy’ penetration.
The men on here whinging are probably porn watchers who have PRECISELY this beauty ideal of women.
Now these dumb dudebros don’t realize that in centuries past, it was sexy for a woman to be overweight (relative to our culture). Of course these idiot males don’t understand the significance of this fact.
It means that these things are socially constructed through patriarchy.
I’m not going to give any of you men who don’t get it ONE IOTA of my time. I’m expressing myself here because I’m tired of men whining about this. Men DO want this KIND of woman that is driven by patriarchal culture.
Good job Talisma.
Brains are for thinking. You should try it someday… it won´t hurt, I promise.
About a year ago I met the most beautiful, intelligent and interesting girl I’ve known. She is such a tomboy that people in her youth orchestra, including her conductor, thought she was a boy. This is nothing new, it’s happened to her through out her life. And I think she is absolutely beautiful.
You are not a man, and CLEARLY do not understand how we think about women. These products are fueled by this obsession with consumerism; big companies lose sight of serving the people and instead cheat them into spending what they don’t need. Individual people can get wrapped up into buying this stuff, and it is at the fault of the companies’ greed and propaganda.
The men I’ve known in my life time don’t notice or care about fake physical appearance, in fact I was just complaining with my friends about how useless make up is just the other day. Men are not pushing this consumerism on women, however I have yet to see a woman that looks for more in man than how much money he makes, and I find it disgusting, such judgment. And that certainly looks like women are pushing consumerism on men.
Feminists need to take a good look at themselves in the mirror, and ask if they want power & wealth at the expense of human society, or love and connection, intimacy. I dearly hope it’s the latter.
LOL. You’re living in a paranoid fantasy land.
How can you possibly be this selfish and manipulative and still under the facade of “social justice”? How can you possibly feel proud of yourself in your hypocrisy?
LOL. You’re such a crazy, paranoid nut-bar. Keep up the good work.
We can thank thunderfoot for bringing his misogynistic groupies over to troll FS board. Pages of endless whining about how oppressed they are by women and how women don’t do enough for them. What a great effort in quoting Stormfront’s anti-feminist rhetoric word for word, good job guys.
Haven´t seen much whinning here, except from delusional women who claim men hate them and the world owes them all kinds of pity and special privileges just for being women. An the Truth is men love women`s bodies. It is women who hate women´s bodies and any claim to the contrary is just a pile of horseshit. When you ladies are mature enough to assume responsibility for your own insecurities, then you might have something to say that may be worth taking seriously.
LOL. If you want endless male snivelling and whining, then read your own comment. Your paranoid, hysterical outbursts are laughable.
You didn´t need to reply. I already knew you had no intelligent arguments of any kind. But thanks for answering, anyway.
You haven’t given me anything to respond to, laugh at, well yes. Here’s a hint, unfounded assertions, straw men, hate speech, name calling, and hysterics are not an argument. Take some medication or what ever you need to deal with reality, but deal with it.
Let me help you with your reading comprehension issues, honey:
1) Women are the ones who commonly attack other women using remarks about physical appareance as a means to hurt their feelings: “fat cow” and other such are part of your average woman´s arsenal of weapons against fellow women. Men rarely ever do that.
2) Practically NO ONE here is saying anything about men being victimized by women. What everyone is saying (writting) is that most women are beautiful as they are and that women also pick men based on their looks. It´s just common sense; that´s the way nature works. You know common sense??? Ever heard of that?
3) Women´s tendency to disloyally compete with each other and women´s insecurities are to blame for all the things on this article. Not men.
If you need any further assistance, please let me know. I know it is hard at the beginning but once you start practicing your reading comprehension, you´ll get the hang of it. I have an assigment that might help you:
Look up “ad-hominem fallacy” and try to synthesize the meaning in your own words. Let me know what else I can do for you.
Jose,
That is the silliest comment ever. I know you are having trouble with this idea, but positions require evidence and you don’t just get to make things up to satisfy paranoid rage. Oh help, women are all evil and involved in malevolent conspiracies! Oh help!
Pffffff… LOL! xD
The evidence is all around you, my dear clueless critic. Hahahaha! Oh, boy! Now you´re the one being funny.
I love to watch YouTube videos that document people´s incursion into fitness and their results. You know, those “body transformation” videos. Almost invariably, men will comment along the lines of “you were hot even before”, “you look great, but you didn´t need to lose any weight”, “you look sooo hot”. Women will normally be the ones that comment along the lines of “you´re still fat”, “disgusting” and all such crap.
There is no conspiracy, my dear gifted friend. It´s just female nature. Not silly as much as annoying, and often times destructive. You can play dumb all you want but that´s the way it is… and I´m sure you know it like everyone else already does. The article is bullshit, period. Don´t try to defend what cannot be defended.
Got another task for you: look up “denial”.
I’ve told my girlfriend to give up waxing. I’m of a “Give up Materialism” kind of guy. While she loves me for it but due to social norms that have now become a habbit, she feels awkward if she doesnt wax, atleast her legs and underarms. She skips the rest of the body. We have learnt too much to love the material aspects and not the soul(the real person). Men love women’s bodies and false attitude and women love men’s power and money. Everybody is loving what the other has. Extreme levels of waxing have now made women intolerant of men’s hair as well, so they’ve started to wax as well. Even nudists who now call themselves naturists, mostly wax(even bikini wax). So I got thinking that this whole thing they say about experiencing nature and spirituality is bull. They want to look beautiful and shiny in the nude, not natural. Its just exhibitionism for the thrill of revolting against society, and becoming flagbearers for new change. The real nudists are the gynosophists of India.
Love the soul please not the body. My girlfriend is quite rich, and I’m not so much(told you im not materialistic, I do with basic needs). But I’m not running after earning too much becoz she never toks bout it. Instead her eyes light up wen I talk philosophy and wen I sometimes praise her, and sometimes wen we talk about travelling to various places together and our kids, etc. And I told you that I don’t even want her to wax or put makeup unnecessarily. I encourage her that it doesn’t matter.
Love the soul and not what the soul has. You will experience undying passion and love, automatic commitment and dedication.
Freethought blogs has really opened my eyes to how totally insane feminists really are. No more benefit of the doubt for feminism.
I will preface by saying that I consider myself a liberal feminist.
As much as it pains me to admit it, I do think that there are reasons why women are expected to be one way and men another. At a basic level, a woman’s function was to bear children, and a man’s was to provide for it. Women have a limited time in which to bear children. Thus, men look for women who are young (hairless, large eyes, no wrinkles, no gray hair, high pitched voice, thin) and have high levels of estrogen (large breasts, clear skin, shiny hair, wide hips). And women look for men who can protect the child (muscular, large, strong) and provide for the child (rich, good job, good house).
We cannot deny that these demands of the opposite sex place a more unnatural and unfair burden on women. Women can falsely (and relatively easily/cheaply if one doesn’t count plastic surgery) create the appearance of youth and fertility, and it inevitably involves physical . Men can only do so much to make themselves seem rich (a facade not maintainable in a relationship).
We know that when it comes to physical manipulation, women spend more money on clothing, makeup, jewelry, hair removal, creams, shoes, manicures, spa treatments, and hair coloring than men. Women undergo more plastic surgery and dermatological procedures than men. Women require more time to get ready in the morning. I have wished, so many times, to be able to wake up, brush my teeth, put on a comfortable pair of jeans with a T shirt and sneakers and walk out of the house like my boyfriend, but I just can’t face the world looking like that. I’ll admit, I have low self-esteem and I am a shitty feminist.
It is true that a man can become old, fat, and balding and he just looks “distinguished” and if he has enough money, can marry a woman half his age. A woman who if fat or gray is expired.
HOWEVER, I think there is hope/doom up ahead. Almost paralleling the upward trend of women becoming protectors (in a world where physical strength is of less importance) and providers and earners, is the increasing trend in men needing to focus on their physical appearance. Women are still the primary recipients of plastic surgery, but more and more men are getting plastic surgery and implants now. Men are beginning to “manscape” and remove body hair. Men also tan, dye their hair, get face lifts, get hair plugs, take steroids or work out obsessively to become muscular (“manorexia”), and even use shoe inserts to increase height. Men are encouraged to buy fancy clothes and get manicures (“metrosexual”). As women move in “men’s sphere” and become job holders and providers, men are beginning to give into the “pressures of being a woman” and needing to look young, athletic, and virile.
I think the end point is a world in which there will be some semblance of equality, but with both parties utterly miserable. Both will be trying to simultaneously attain physical perfection and financial prowess, and spend their lives in a rat race with no finish line in sight.
Lamia, excellent points you bring up. I think you would find a lot of good information on biological-related gender roles and their history,
in the following video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C46rSIfTum4&list=FLBeStzbPWTrYIFe9DE8bDAA&index=1&feature=plpp_video
Thank you for reading and good luck,
– Jack
Personally, even as a woman, I feel that this list is tainted and full of stereotypes rather than facts. I feel that most of the women that I know seriously modify themselves [lots of make-up, constant trips to the salon, purchasing ‘little black dresses’, getting plastic surgery, living at the gym (not literally) and spending hours upon hours at the mall] due to either a low self-esteem or due to publications such as this, Cosmo, and other “Female” magazines and advertisements. Moreover, (although I will not state my age) I will say that I am of fair skin, I am getting grey hair, my breasts are not as perky or full as I would like them to be, I don’t frequently dress up, I am seriously appalled by body hair (which is my thing, not influenced by others), I refuse to kill myself at the gym and I do feel self-conscious about my weight (like every other woman), but get more than enough attention from men. Granted, I do know that there are men out there who are chauvinistic pigs and want the “perfect” woman, but it’s not every man on this planet. In all honesty, we judge men just as bad as this article proclaims (in reverse) if not worse. Either way, it is just my two cents worth of opinion.
Why is it that we in the West always “feel sorry” for women and are scared to lay blame on them? It’s so obvious that women who hate their own bodies have psychological or emotional problems instead of it being the fault of men in general.
If any person hates his or her own body it’s obviously a self-esteem problem which is probably caused by peer-pressure or our media. MEN can have these problems too. But we never hear about because nobody gives a [BLEEP] how men feel. It’s even worse, men get blamed for every little negative thing women experience.
If women are equal, why does nobody hold them equally accountable? Men need are expected to treat women like little poor children but at the same time are expected to see them as equals? Which of the two is it?!!?!?
Well, it´s both. Feminism is about having your cake and eating it, too. It´s not about growing up and actually earning all the rights that an adult deserves. It´s about having stuff “handed to them” by society because society “owes it to them”… that´s the whole reasoning behind it.
According to feminists, women are victims of gender roles and other things man has created. Which is to say, man has been a dominant agent, an active agent, and woman has been a passive agent,a poor and submissive victim.
Yet, when you discuss how society has evolved to the point where it is now, it turns out that all that´s good about society is their merit, and all that´s bad about society is man´s fault. So, in that particular case, they were the sole example of creativeness, leadership, agency and all that shit… even though history credits men with most of the major accomplishments of Humanity.
So, you´re absolutely right to say that Feminists are crazy… but the only problem they do have is that they reason like children or, at best, as teenagers do: victims when it suits them, fighters when it suits them; expectators of History when it suits them, team players when it suits them too… They DO NOT REASON like adults.
How many feminists do you know personally? How much do you know about the history of feminism? Do you know what the definition of feminism?
Every political group or social movement has a branch of extremists. That does not mean the whole group is bad. Women’s rights groups have achieved some good things throughout history. You make a generalization that all feminists reason like children or teenagers. Can you prove that? There are women out there that bash men and blame men for thier problems. However, not all of them are feminists. Feminism is advocacy for women’s rights. Misandry is hatred of men.
Generalizations do not get us any where. I am a feminist and I disagree with this writer. The idea that society owes me anything has never crossed my mind. You should really get to know people before making generalizations. Women can choose how they see themselves. Body image and self-esteme is an issue for both genders. People can empower themselves by reconizing that others’ perceptions do not define them.
I’m now not sure where you’re getting your information, however good topic. I needs to spend some time studying more or understanding more. Thanks for great information I was in search of this information for my mission.
The flip side of this is as a guy who wants to be attractive to women, I have to:
a. weight lift and swim all the time because I don’t keep muscle naturally
b. watch what I eat all the time because I do build fat naturally
c. shave every day because most of the women I know don’t like facial hair on men
d. get a hair transplant because the majority of women in their early 20s don’t like bald guys
e. get moles removed from all over my body because women ALSO like smooth skin
Its not that men are superficial, its that people are superficial. Remember the old song lyric “loving you is easy because you’re beautiful”? What about “love at first sight”? A woman will fall in “love” with a jerk who has good abs, and pass over the nice guy next to him because he has thinning hair.
This was a very well written article. Please ignore the male trolls on here. They have nothing of value to contribute.
But as a liberal feminist I notice that intersectionality plays an important role in oppression as well. The white supremacy, the patriarcy, and heteronormativity all work hand in hand to hurt the progress of humanity and must be destroyed if we have any hopes of surviving as a species.
I mean yes I am an agent of free will and have a great deal of stregth but there is only so much I can do. I know my family will disown me if I come out so I am deeply closeted. This is an act of self preservation, and has nothing to do with my character.
In my experience with dating men, I truly do feel very sorry for straight women. I know straight women probably don’t want my sympathy but men are monsters, pure and simple. I treat them all like wild animals that might go off at any moment. I don’t even make eye contact at the grocery store.
In my adventures with pretending to be straight, I have been belittled, cheated on, pushed around (literally and figuritively) made fun of, and raped.
So basically I have decided to remain single and listen to my mom bugging me for grandkids till the cows come home.
Someday I will feel empowered enough to come out of the closet. That day will be AWESOME. I will find myself a girlfriend/wife and adopt some kids. If I make enough, maybe I will even go the invitro method.
Oh and to all you male trolls out there… I DO work and womens jobs are WAY more dangerous and WAY more back breaking than the wittle man jobs. Oh waaaahhhh I get to make big bucks at a factory or mining but I have to get my wittle hands dirty BIG WHOOP.
I am exposed to MRSA, HIV, staph, various strains of flu and god knows what else as a health care worker. OH and I lift 100+ pounds on a daily basis. I can lift a grown MAN. I also weight about 120 pounds dripping wet.
Oh and as for being soldiers…women HAVE always been soldiers. We have fought in every war. We have worked as nurses on the front lines, and now, we fight on the front lines. And females have always had it worse because not only did they need to worry about the enemy but they had to worry about their so called “allies.” It is a known fact that American men sabataged the plane that women flew in WW2 that would have resulted in their deaths if the women weren’t smart enough to catch it first!
Oh and don’t even get me started on maternal death rates. If giving birth were up to men, the human race would have died out years ago!
So why don’t you pull your trousers up you silly little boy because for all your whining, I bet women can one up you with NO PROBLEM.
Why all the hating?
NONE of us would be here had it not been for BOTH sexes; regardless of whether they are around afterwards or not; plain and simple – NO sperm, NO egg; NO BABIES! Yeah sure you talk of In Vitro; are you going to manufacture synthetic sperm?
Or shall we attempt to manufacture synthetic eggs? – Quite laughable really!
Methinks you’re quite the “Misandrist” Ninjalez!
You people make me as sad as the male chauvinist pig scum in the world make me feel! – You are one and the same because you both perpetuate hate, when the condition can be only helped by Love alone!
I am a 37 year old straight male and have been in a very happy relationship with my best friend for over 11 years, I have striven for – and will always strive for TOTAL equality in our relationship, as has my better half.
We share all of the chores; in fact I do possibly more but it’s OK too!
You sound like you’ve had some pretty awful experiences with “people” in this life; I use the term people instead of separating into gender type as this is how I view the world.
I am not personally one of the “football toting morons” of the world either; I do not seek the company of a single sex majority group; always seemed like a bit of a sausage/ clam fest to me 😉
I also dislike seeing cleavage on women as much as I dislike seeing it on men’s arse cracks – or women’s for for that matter! Honestly, I wish they’d just cover it up; It’s not that I dislike breasts or that I’m a prude, quite the opposite in fact!
It’s just that I wish for a world where Sex isn’t the focus of most people’s minds at all times.
By the way, I believe that the fashion industry is run and operated by a bunch of Misogynist queens that like nothing better than to have their models look like adolescent teenage boys (Pederasty at work here!).
I support a lot of Taslima’s points; I prefer my partner not to wear heels of any sort, as I know they will hurt her, and for what?!
I don’t mind if she doesn’t shave her legs, after all they’re her legs and she can do what she wants with them!
I like most people just the way they are; providing they’re not plastic bimbo’s (either gender!).
Love will set you free; do not fear coming out to your parents; if they love you they’ll understand, even if not immediately.
And if they don’t, then you should disown THEM!
If you’ve been raped, and that is a serious allegation, then you should seek to bring that person or persons to justice, or at the very least shame them publicly!
To finish; I love my partner, friend, lover with all of my heart, I love her body just the way it is, ESPECIALLY her (self perceived) so called “imperfections”, alas I am but one Man, but as a very wise Man once said –
“Be the change you want to see in the world” Mohandas Gandhi
I hope you find peace, love and respect in your life my unknown friend.
Tony
Actually, scientists already created synthetic sperm, and let’s hope they are intellectually honest enough to create synthetic eggs next.
Then all we need is an (implantable) synthetic womb, and we’re all set to ignore each other completely.
You have succeeded in making me feel sorry for you. That´s what you wanted, right? Some fucking symathy like the poor victim who wrote this article?
You women are amazing. You piggy-back ride men all the way up to modern times and then you take this fucking attitud and feed us all this BULLSHIT!
I see you have SEVERE difficulties reasoning logically so let me give you a hand here. You can have it one of two ways but not both:
1) either men are responsible for everything in our culture and in society and women were nothing more than passive victims all through history,
or
2) men and women are equally responsible for everything that´s awful in society all through history.
If 1 is true, then surely men would be to blame for all the awful demands that fall upon women today. But, on the same token, we would also be responsible for everything that is great about society and that has allowed humanity to progress… and you could start by showing some fucking gratitude for that.
If 2 is true, then you have to acknowledge that both men and women are equally responsible for gender roles and their implicit inequities, that both are as much the creators and the victims of the way of life that we followed for thousands and thousands of years. But if that´s true, the you have no business bitching, moaning and whining.
So, you got to choose, my clueless, brainless friend. You are either a passive victim, in which case we would have to wonder why shouldn´t you just stay that way, or you are an active agent and you start taking some fucking responsibility – like all fucking adults do.
Either way, no one here gives a flying fuck what you “think” about men!
This is one of the most biased, disgusting “essays” I have ever read. No data, no interviews, no connection to the natural biology of the human species, no acknowledgement of actual history.
Women do all sorts of things that are beyond my understanding – in all fairness, men also do a lot of strange crap too. But to say that ALL men hate women’s bodies is so ignorant as to warrant a snicker and disdain at best.
But that so many (and now me) have responded as if this were worthy of response, is an indicator of how screwed up we are.
Women are the weaker sex – not physically, but intellectually. They are more easily led, they have not accountability, and their moods dictate their actions and lines of inquiry. This is the opposite of the scientific method. To give voice to this on a “free thinking” blog is very telling about the nature of either a) the state of “free thinking” or b) the nature of this blog.
I will not return here again. This is a very thinly veiled feminist blog and freethinkers who cannot see this are not thinking critically or being honest with themselves.
When you peel back the layers and really look at things for how they are……. this is very true. This is what we have become. Women are partly to blame for this for allowing it and feeding into it. It’s so strange how any form of women’s sexual liberation throughout history has actually backfired and had the complete opposite effect on us. Some of the mens comments on here really show how this blog entry holds a lot of weight. On that note I wanted to point out how this is a blog; someones personal thoughts and feelings. This isn’t a paid journalist writing an article for a magazine or a newspaper- she doesn’t need proven facts or scientific data. I believe a lot of women (some who you would not even think) think about things like this at one point or another. I believe a lot of women struggle with these thoughts consistently. Do men have something like this to complain about or that bothers them this much? Honestly? If they did I believe women would be so much more compassionate towards men about it than men are to women about their struggles. I believe women would want to change it for them and make it go away; it’s how we are. Men do not think or feel the same as us….and that right there is a fact. Yes, we are all equal as human beings and we hold an equal amount of weight when it comes to our evolution and progression. Yes, men build and hunt and fight which has been and is still essential, but don’t forget women carry and grow the next generation in her womb. She nurtures, teaches and provides for the family and society in her own ways. In some distance realm I dream about men and women being seen as equals as human beings, being recognized for their individual strengths and contributions and those things being cherished. Women: cherish that men are strong and they are your providers and protecters and Men: Cherish that women are emotionally strong and their bodies work miracles with carrying and giving life; that they nurture you and your children and tend to your wounds. This will never happen; a place like this doesn’t exist because GOOD IS NEVER GOOD ENOUGH.
Beautiful comment, Stephanie. Thanks for sharing your thoughts…
>When you peel back the layers and really look at things for how
>they are……. this is very true.
>On that note I wanted to point out how this is a blog; someones
>personal thoughts and feelings. This isn’t a paid journalist
>writing an article for a magazine or a newspaper- she doesn’t
>need proven facts or scientific data.
Wha!? Do you even bother to think about you write down. If there’s no proven facts or scientific data, you haven’t peeled back any layers, and as a result, there’s no truth whatsoever to be found.
Also, if she doesn’t need proven facts or scientific data, expect anyone with a functioning brain to bother to take any notice of the flights of fantasy written down here.
But wait, you’re right about this being a blog, but this is FreeThroughBlogs; supposedly a site of skeptics, atheists, you know, those people that value truth, reality, and thus scientific data.
Oh, I forgot, Atheism+ taking Atheists back to believing in Zeus and Christ faster than you can say misogyny.
>This is what we have become. Women are partly to blame for this
>for allowing it and feeding into it. It’s so strange how any
>form of women’s sexual liberation throughout history has
>actually backfired and had the complete opposite effect on us.
>Some of the mens comments on here really show how this blog
>entry holds a lot of weight.
The men’s comments that showed this article to be the ramblings of someone who doesn’t care about truth, reality, and rational thinking. Comments of men saying they preferred both before pictures over the after ones… and that makes this entry “holding weight”.
What!?
>I believe a lot of women (some who you would not even think)
>think about things like this at one point or another. I believe
>a lot of women struggle with these thoughts consistently. Do
>men have something like this to complain about or that bothers
>them this much? Honestly? If they did I believe women would be
>so much more compassionate towards men about it than men are to
>women about their struggles. I believe women would want to
>change it for them and make it go away; it’s how we are.
Oh, really? Men have this up the wazoo; they’re not sensitive enough, but wait now you’re too sensitive, also you’re not tall enough, not aloof enough, not tossing enough money a woman’s way, not enough of a thug… etc. etc. etc.
Then men went to circumvent this problem with varying schools of game.
Women’s reaction? No, it’s not figuring out what the problem is and helping men get passed the problem, no, the reaction was: “You misogynist pigs, how dare you!”
>Men do not think or feel the same as us….and that right there
>is a fact.
Yeah, we actually care and have actually been trying to get you to get passed your own hangups. Again, the BEFORE pictures shows more desirable women than the after pictures!
>Yes, we are all equal as human beings and we hold an equal
>amount of weight when it comes to our evolution and
>progression. Yes, men build and hunt and fight which has been
>and is still essential,
Hunt? No. Build, seeing the jobs disappear in that sector and no help going there, because after all NOW and Obama agree they are just filthy smelly men who don’t need help, not so much anymore either.
And fight, if only all men told the elite and the women that fighting is not essential at all, go fight your own battles, fuck you, war would be over with overnight, and so many less men will be crippled, shell shocked, killed to enrich a bunch rich pigs and their country-wide harems.
But I see what you value men for, their humanity? Nah, their utility, their disposability, their status as a meat shield and cannon fodder.
>but don’t forget women carry and grow the next generation in
>her womb.
The day can’t come fast enough when that no longer has to be the case.
>She nurtures, teaches and provides for the family and society in her own ways.
Actually, the man does the providing, while she usually sits on her ass collecting child support of the men she cast aside. Also, the “families” producing the most dysfunctional children as they grow into adults, statistics show to be fatherless families. So… I guess not.
>In some distance realm I dream about men and women being seen
>as equals as human beings, being recognized for their
>individual strengths and contributions and those things being
>cherished. Women: cherish that men are strong and they are your
>providers and protecters
Ah, yes, good little slave, meat shield and cannon fodder all rolled into one. Awesome how men’s humanity is cherished.
>and Men: Cherish that women are emotionally strong
LOL! You mean like the crybaby from skepchick that got all upset another woman in the crowd of atheists wore a t-shirt saying, “I’m not a skepchick, I’m a skeptic”, cried and whimpered about the “abuse” and the “hostile environment” and ran out of the convention?
Or the women demanding a man is extra nice to her because it’s that time of the month and anything can upset her?
Or hey, the above writer of this ridiculous whiny entry that’s nothing but crying over how women are pathetic and not strong, and have no agency, no self-determination they are entirely the emotionally-weak pathetic flowers and all you men’s fault for hating women’s bodies?
The infantilized, entitlement-princess that is what feminism socialized the average woman in the west to be is “emotionally strong”? You’re joking, right?
>and their
>bodies work miracles with carrying and giving life;
No, there’s nothing miraculous about it, it’s really quite mundane.
Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.
What’s with all the hate?
What are you going to do when you become bored of hate? There’ll be nothing left.
I think this more of ‘men prefer’ rather than ‘men hate’.
Yes, the majority of men prefer women who are slim, have long hair etc. but I really think that a man is almost always won over by a woman’s personality. Some men like charismatic women, some like sultry seductresses, some like sweet girls, but all in all a woman’s character is the one that ensures keeping a man to herself. Even we women have sexual preferences but there is this special guy who we can’t stop thinking about.
I’m a woman and a feminist. The majority of my friends are guys. Not all guys have the same opinion and there is a number of decent guys out there who aren’t shallow losers like I used to think.
Women who go to such lengths such as starving themselves, remove uncomfortably large amounts of body hair, wearing a lot of makeup to impress men are women who lack confidence. They are impressionable and feel that they aren’t good enough for men, and therefore aren’t good enough being themselves. These women needed to be raised since childhood to be confident and happy about themselves, and this could be the parents’ fault. My mother made sure that my sisters and I have enough confidence to never be put down by a random person’s opinions, which I wish most girls need to be taught.
Guys can be jerks but we women need to be more assertive and confident. We aren’t weak children that constantly seek approval, but independent indiviuals who know what’s best for themselves. The respect that men have for us will grow when we do so.
Oh Madogoddess above, this is the first I actually looked at the comments to your article, Taslima. Let me just say, rock on hon. You’ve got a bunch of fool misogynists complaining, but you did good in general with this article.
@Nena: Look, I know what it’s like to play fluffy bunny utopia with this kind of thing, but for real, you’re not fucking helping by refusing to recognize the role patriarchy plays into making the bullshit expectations placed on women. Now, that doesn’t just mean men; women play into patriarchy as well (Which Taslima recognized, I’d point out), but that doesn’t mean we can just say “The parents should have raised these women to be assertive”.
Culture matters. When your culture has a shit ton of messages about how you suck, there’s only so much parents can do. They should do what they can, yes, but they’re not going to succeed as much as either of us might want. Focus on the culture telling women they’re shit, rather than blaming them or their parents for succumbing to their culture.
Our culture does not tell women they are shit, quite the contrary. There’s nothing but wise, great, innocent goddesses everywhere. Women are portrayed as having value merely walking around, and women know this, they show it off. Only women are allowed to wear high heels.
Do you know who used to wear high heels, one and a half centuries ago? Filthy rich men; men so rich, they didn’t need to do any labor. They made money by spending money, investing money and other such endeavors. They showed this off, by wearing ridiculously, impractical shoes; because they could, because they alone barely had to walk and move, and could wear them, without diminishing their ability to function.
Today, men aren’t allowed to wear them, because they considered worthless. Where women are portrayed as great and wise; men are buffoons, idiots, or even outright evil and destructing, and of course, the great smart women needs to solve the problems the buffoon got himself into; or she’s the evil man’s victim.
Women are valued, men are not.
And it isn’t patriarchy that is doing this, there isn’t a patriarchy; it’s a gynocentric, misandric culture, a feminist-approved and pushed onward culture.
Blog post, not article. Christ, I’ve been saying that a lot.
Don’t really understand how so many men are either pretending the social pressures discussed in the OP don’t exist or are apologizing for them. “Women judge men too hurr hurr”. When’s the last time you shaved your pits, buddy? Ever put on any makeup whatsoever? “Women get to make their own choices. This is hypocritical because no one’s making women do anything.” Well, that sort of ignores the fact that we’re born into a culture that sets certain expectations, doesn’t it? Again, are you expected to shave your pits? Do women snigger and point at you if you don’t? (Yeah, I’ve seen men do it to women.) None of us are completely free from cultural conditioning. I remember suggesting to a female friend of mine that it shouldn’t be a big deal if women decide not to shave their legs and she said “ew!” Despite never having had the least expectation that her boyfriend would shave his legs. She didn’t see the double standard until I actually pointed it out.
Taslima, great post. These people are idiots. Don’t sweat it.
That fact that men won’t be sniggered at by females if they don’t shave their armpits or put make up on tells us nothing other than you are a solipsistic moron.
Seriously.
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Article in a nutshell. Most men prefer women who are not fat, with saggy breasts and one inch haircut. Women feel psychologically pressured to change.
And the male comments pretend isn’t true…okay.
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Our culture definitely puts pressure on all of us to live within certain physical and non-physical standards, true enough. Some, specific to gender, others to age, economic standing, race, religion, sexual orientation, species and all manner of other artificial and invisible criteria which serve to create division and inequality.
It’s a fairly old post, but the discussion looked like it’s taking a long while, so I’ll take a stab at it.
The problem in OP post is the use of the term “hate”. As stated by other before, the issue is that of preference. It wasn’t that men hate women’s body, but that it’s a natural consequence of men/women having a preference and choice of who they choose to be their mate.
To be more specific,, a woman will have an ideal of a perfect man, and given a group to select from, will select the one closest to her idea of a perfect man.
(Swap the man and woman above to find the perspective from the man side)
The OP’s post did a good job of pointing out the consequence of this, at least from women, in that in the competition to attract the most perfect man in their view, women are willing to go to extraordinary length to compete against each other. Man are also willing to go to extraordinary length to complete with other man, it’s just that due to woman’s preferences, the damage done by the competition tend to be less visceral (unless you’re talking about war, which is about as big as a dick-waving contest as you could get).
There’s no way around this (at least, no reasonable way). As long as more than 1 woman desire 1 man, woman will have to compete in certain ways to get the man they want (and vice-versa). Media portrayal of impossible woman are part of the problem, but I think they’re mostly symptomatic (the problem inherently exist, the media just exploit it). However, there maybe some way to reduce the hyper-competitiveness or make those competition less harmful (throwing spaghetti at wall here).
1. Promote woman independence: In essence reduce the number of woman in competition for man (although not like China, who did this unintentionally by killing a lot of girls). Promote the idea that woman don’t need to get married to have a life. Less woman to compete for man means less competition among woman who wants a man (the vice-versa part is also true, although it became a game of which gender wants the other gender less is at an advantage… maybe that’s why all the implicit support of misogynist/misandrist came from, reduce competition on their side).
2. Redirect man/woman preference: Advertise/educate man to at least redirect some of the preference to preferences that will cause less “harm” (for example, push for the idea that intelligence is more, or just as, important as physical beauty). In short, broaden man’s preference so that the advantage gained from harmful competition is not advantageous enough to justify the harm. The same preference redirection should/must be applied to woman too, broaden the preferences for the quality they want in man.
The reason for 2 might require more explaining, I’m going to use the woman’s point of view (all the argument can be swapped for the man’s point of view). On the man side it means it makes harmful acts by woman to compete less worthwhile (or that there’re more/better/less-harmful options to compete against other woman). On the woman’s side, it reduce their incentive to always fight for that #1 alpha-male since the #2 best is good enough (or #3, or #4).
For a more condense version for 2, it’s trying to have the Law of Diminishing Return apply on a less harmful scale.
“Promote the idea that woman don’t need to get married to have a life.”
I see your point, but a lot of men and women feel able to relax their standards of beauty when they are in a committed relationship because they are no longer “in the dating game.” An emotional bond is established that can turn sex into a mutual bonding experience instead of gratification for a few hours.
In contrast, when men or women are seeking mutual one-night stands, first impressions become more important than ever. Women wear perfume, men wear cologne. Both genders wear tight shirts to show off breasts/abs and tight skirts or shorts to show off their rear ends and hint at genitalia. These alpha men and alpha women hook up at night clubs and take each other home, presumably with wild sex and all, leaving those more moderately dressed and less physically optimized men and women sitting on opposite ends of the bar in frustration, complaining how women fall for jerks or how there are no nice guys. Or maybe just sitting home alone watching movies or playing video games.
If you promote a combination of “women don’t need lasting relationships” and “women should be free to express their sexuality”, I don’t think your solution will work for very long. You will have to tell people that sexual attraction itself is unimportant, which doesn’t work out so well for abstinence-only sex education.
(Before anyone says I’m complaining that men and women share problems equally, I’m not. What I mentioned above applies to a certain subset of the population–the alpha male/females–and I fully agree that when %95 of the billboards you drive by on the way to work show pale, thin, dolled-up women, that is not equal. In day to day life, even when sexual attraction should be fully irrelevant, women are expected to look good for men, particularly in retail and food service.)
“Redirect man/woman preference: Advertise/educate man to at least redirect some of the preference to preferences that will cause less “harm””
I agree, but I would also like to point out this is already taking place all over. Is it fast enough? Probably not. Are “strong women” who are meant to depict female empowerment also heavily sexualized? Oh yes, definitely. Culture doesn’t change quickly.
Although I don’t agree with everything you wrote, WharGabl, I would like to applaud your post for being one of few (perhaps the only) that is even attempting to offer possible solutions that are not so vague as “down with the patriarchy”. So much of these comments are just name calling.
will you lot just grow up?! please?! if you lot are so concerned about the dating game, simple solution, BE SINGLE! i’ve just had it with the so called gender wars and comparing us to brainless animals! if you can’t get along, just don’t bother dating and have a cat or three for company!
“Men hate this, men hate that…”
Another typical feminist blog blaming men for everything, including their insecurities. I, as a man, could personally care less about any of that stuff, I hate white women with sun-tans, and I L-O-V-E fat chicks!!! Women CHOOSE to do what they want with their bodies, that’s one of feminism’s goals, right? Well, now that you have the choice and have been exercising that choice for years, you’re now unhappy with the results and are blaming US for it again.
You see, it’s people like this that continuously fuel the stereotype that women are NEVER satisfied!
The intense obsession that women have with self image can be seen through the way women change their bodies to please men. I have heard very, very few cases of a man who thinks body hair on a woman is even remotely tolerable, especially on the legs, under arms, and genitals. On a guy? All these things are a-okay. Long hair, makeup, etc all seem to be marks of an attractive woman. It puts us in a box that tells us there is only one form of pretty. It also gives us a mandatory ‘beauty’ regime that will ensure we won’t end up alone.
Why do you think girls are more affected by conditions associated with terrible self image? Why do you think a lot of girls think that they are a failure if they don’t get married or have a boyfriend? Why do girls constantly depend on men to make them happy, yet men count on themselves to make themselves happy? Don’t jump to the conclusion that it’s the girls fault that she can’t ‘make herself happy’. It’s hard bucking a social construct that has been with you since you were born.
I can understand if men feel like they have less emotional freedom than women. But in terms of physical freedom, women are on the losing end. While the article is unquestionably biased and even vicious, it still has some truth to it. If you are a man, try to look at things from an independent woman’s point of view, or accept that we are so different from yourself that you will never quite understand us, and all you can do is respect our opinions, and trust that they have some kind of validity to them.
Actually on the contary I believe that most men (myself included) are far more attracted to more natural looking women as opposed to someone who looks synthetic. Thats not to say that some general normal grooming should go a miss. I wonder if women attracted to men who are unkept, unshaven, balding fat/ skinny men with a small penis I wonder?
Hi Taslima.
There are a lot of things wrong with this writeup starting with the topic. It’s ‘Men hate women’s body’. Also, why do people often assume that misogyny is perpetrated by men? women are just as guilty for acts of misogyny as much as men are, if not more. I mean, why is it that when there is a situation involving a man who cheated on his girl, the woman who is being cheated on always goes to terrorize the lady he cheated with?-that’s misogyny. why is it that women are more likely to criticize their fellow women on basis of style, beauty or sexuality than men are?-that’s misogyny and why is it that women are threatened by another woman who is in charge of her life and sexuality that me are-that’s misogyny.
Plus, if you say that men make women to wear ornaments, shave their legs, get plastic surgery, go on diets, get bleached and so on, then what would you say about the growing number of men who wear ornaments,shave their faces and sometimes legs,get plastic surgery, go on diets to increase their muscle masses? I believe that what ever you do to yourself and your body is a matter of choice rather than a mandatory decision. I mean come on, men make women wear heels? have you ever heard of a situation where a man has said; “Ugh! you don’t have Christain Louboutin heels? I’m so dumping you right now.” but I have heard a woman dump a man based on his bank account and choice of style.
Moreover, i don’t believe real misogyny is practiced in the U.S. and other developed countries. whatever fleet of it there is can be easily ignored. If you want to see true misogyny, why don’t you come to Africa, where I’m residing. The depths of patriarchal roots in my country are enough to make you see red……and it’s mostly unavoidable. Hey, at least in developed countries women can get high-paying jobs, go into egalitarian relationships, take control of their bodies and their sexuality and have total control of their reproductive rights but over here women are as good as cows. Do you know that husbands have total control of their wives and that includes their bodies, the number of kids they want to have, their income and so on.Women virtually have no say when it comes to sexual matters, birth control and contraceptive laws were tightened on the fear that women will have power over their bodies and in an effort to “keep the stability of the home”. Abortion is illegal, sex is taboo, anything that has to do with women’s biological processes is shamed and frowned upon. Women have to take their husbands last name in marriage, male children are preferred over female children and marriage is like a ‘crown on a woman’s head’. The level of misogyny is sickening and the men here even more so.
I find your post really insulting and demeaning. All it does is portray women as jelly-brained zombies who cannot think for themselves and can be easily swayed by any opinion or command that comes their way. Most women follow the beauty standard by choice. Take me for instance, I shave my legs not because it please men but for that smooth feeling sensation, i have multiple pierced ears and i love jewelry not for anyone but just for the sake of them, i don’t use make-up, not only because i don’t believe in beauty standards but because for some reason it can’t stay 2 minutes on my face, i don’t diet and I never done plastic surgery. So there.
Besides, if men really hated women’s bodies there wouldn’t be so many blogs and posts about how most of them love their women just the way they are, not to talk of they wouldn’t have sex with us. Hehe.
Oh and not all women value height and social status in men. Call me crazy but I find tall men a little creepy and I don’t care if a man has a gazillion dollars in his bank account or if his last name is Jobs, if his attitude is crappy or his personality is blah, he can put on some lipstick and kiss my ass. I also don’t believe the theory that says that men are more visually excitable than women, we all love beautiful things and people. Women are just socialized to be financially and socially excitable. I mean, I love beautiful guys but when dating, he doesn’t have to be a George Clooney or a Matt Dallas but good looking so I wouldn’t have to close my eyes when I’m having sex with him. Just saying.
Women hate men’s penis. The foreskin is removed at birth.
If there are dictators, it is because there are slaves. Thus take responsibilities of your choices and stop accusing the other one, the male.
Being a woman, I almost puked while reading it. Such nasty things about men can be said only by a woman with a low self esteem, but who decides to blame everybody else for her misfortune, rather than trying to figure out her own problems and try to resolve them.
If you feel yourself unattractive, don’t blame it on men who “hate women”. If you are an underachiever, it’s your fault, not men’s. If you feel like you don’t fit the ideals of beauty created by the media, then it’s not the blog where you should discuss it, but with your psychiatrist.
If you take such approach that it’s a whole group of the population who is after you and hate you, then you have some sick mania. If you feel unloved, then it’s not other people to blame, it’s you who has to start loving yourself first. Otherwise, you whole post sounds like a rewritten Mein Kampf, where instead of Jews, it’s men who ruin everything.
Get a life and get a medical treatment, woman.
This blogger should be prosecuted for inciting to man-hating .
actually I like my Women short, thick, I don’t care about breast size, experienced, women with short hair.
1, I cant stand hair that is long it gets in my face her face and all over the place.
2, body fat is not an issue as long as they arnt grossly obese but even if they were it wouldn’t stop me from
loving her or being friends with her, women come in all shapes and sizes and its not their body that counts anyway.
3, virginity is nice but a good experienced woman will turn your world upside down.
4. leg hair isnt an issue either nor is armpit hair, my wife cannot shave as razors tend to wreak havoc on her skin
and she turns pimply and gets sores all over the place, which is worse then leg hair could ever be.
5 grey hair? really honestly i hope to grow old with my wife i love her and her quarkyness it drives me crazy in the good way, its the greatest thing about her, when shes old and grey im going to love her just as much as when she was young,
6. makeup is nice but i prefer her face the way it is. besides the most she ever does is wear eyeliner anyway.
7, my wife is half Mexican which means she is brown, i don’t care what color she is she could be neon white or lost African tribe black skin color isn’t the reason i love her.
8. my wife couldn’t wear high heels to save her life, shed break her ankles.
9, my wife has modest breast and they are even uneven, she is more worried about it then i am i love her the way she is, you can fix it but why worry about it, love isnt about her flaws its about having her next to me for the rest of our lives, the flaws give her character and there is beauty in flaws too.
I love my wife, she is not a super model she is not the perfect idea of what a woman should be, she is everything youre blog post says men hate, and want to change, but i wouldnt change anything about her,
you just lost a reader and all of my respect. thanks for making an already tough day worse.
Hate to break it to you, but the last photo, the one under the caption “We even go for face-lifting…” embodies the most pure anti-thesis for your article – that picture is actually of a man who underwent facial reconstructive surgery in order to become a woman.
Go figure! Ironic isn’t it that the whole article tells about how women basically betray nature in order to please men.
But at the same time, there is a huge and growing number of men wishing to become women.
The generalisations used in this blog are so huge as to render the writing meaningless. My wife is getting old. Her breasts are flattened. Her hair is gray. Her tummy has the streachmarks from bearing our children. I love her very much. Yes, some men like plastic breasts (I don’t) or other things. Others prefer to see beauty where they find it. To think this is just a male thing is deeply insulting to men and extremely simplistic. As a slightly overweight, graying man I can tell you not too many women eye me at the bar any more. It is a little sad, but I do not think that they hate me. I am fairly certain that they would be looking if I was taller, younger, more athletic with a luxurious head of hear, an unwrinkled face and a winning smile. Maybe I should sit down and write a blog: Why Women Hate Men.
Your writing is childishly simple and undermines the feminist argument.
Women a the ones who hate women’s bodies. Most men prefer women with a bit of meat and fat on their frame and find excessive surgery and layers of make up slightly disgusting. Men are visually stimulated but they are attracted to women that look like women. It’s women who make each other paranoid about their bodies, bitching about celebrities in magazines, going on anorexic diets to please or intimidate other women. Most men couldn’t care less about all that nonsense and find it unattractive. Men don’t groom themselves any less than women. Hours of pain in the gym every week, steroids, killing themselves at work to try and earn enough money to look rich and powerful to attract women, shaving their face or back to please women’s ridiculous obsession with men looking neat and pretty at all times. If women suffer its because they choose to make themselves suffer. Men don’t care how thin or false tanned or high heeled you are. They’re attracted to all sorts and shapes and fall in love with the personality of a women as much as her body. Wy do you think Jordan is on her fourth marriage! Because she looks like aplastic sex bimbo so of course men are going to get fed up of her and leave once the novelty of marrying a blow up doll wears off. It’s women who oppress and humiliate other women not men. Men like a pert arse and nice pair of jugs, of course they do, but anyone in touch with themselves is attracted to a person for all sorts of reasons. The women who always wear heels and makeup are the ones who are single, or divorced or trapped in an unhappy marriage. The happy women that are in loving stable relationships are the ones who wear trainers and very little or no makeup. They’re the ones who drink pints of beer and have cake and couldn’t care less that their arse is getting fatter as they get older or that they’ve got a few crows feet coming in. Because men love these kind of women. Women with depth, who are so much sexier for all their imperfections and for the confidence and love of life that shines through their flaws, because men are flawed too. Men don’t want a girlfriend or wife who has more cosmetics in the bathroom than a superstore pharmacy, who is terrified to go outside in the rain in case their hair goes frizzy or their makeup smudges. Men want women they can have a drink with, and roll around in the mud with and depend upon to be there for them when they need them, not a china doll who is too afraid to smile in case she cracks a wrinkle. This article is pathetic and absurd. Wear heels, get surgery, slap on the markup, do what you like. Do what makes you happy but you do it because you choose to. It’s your life, no one else’s so stop simpering and pretending all your woes are caused by men. If you’re too obsessed with your appearance or are hurting yourself for no good reason the just stop and be yourself. The only people who are going to judge you are other women who are judging you because of their own insecurities, not men. If you want to make yourselves miserable and judge one another then go ahead but stop pretending that its men who are making you do it. Men inflict shallow expectations on prostitutes and strippers because that’s what fantasy performers are there for but not on girlfriends and wives. If you act like a whore and expect the man who chooses you to love you for you and for that to lead to a happy marriage or relationship then you’re deluded and need to find some better role models. Eating good food and exercising will keep you young and full of energy. Laughing and lobbing life will make your beauty shine through until your dying day. Men can see that. Men love that. Women are the ones who perpetuate this ridiculous competition of shallow values and insecurity. Whew as the last time you saw a man giving women advice of how to do their make up, or what the new fad diet is, or what the sexiest heels this season are. Maybe a gay fashion designer or two but they’re hardly the target market for a single women to impress. It’s women who dole out this shallow body dismorphia advice not men. Grow up, stop bitching at each other and enjoy your life. Look fabulous on a Saturday night, doll yourself up now and then for fun if you want to but don’t kid yourselves that a mans going to fall in love with you for it. The rest of the time just stop worrying and enjoy your life. Men try and stay in shape and look good if they want to but do they really care if they get a belly and grow hair on their back? No not really. They can torture he selves just as much as women over their appearance if they want to and some do but most men don’t care. They’re proud of their beer guts and bald heads and encourage each other to not care. The only insecurity men have comes from women telling them what’s not acceptable or not attractive. Women make women miserable. Women make men miserable. Women are shallow and appearance obsessed. Bt they don’t have to be. Find a new role model. Look for women who champion inner beauty and cellulite and love Black Forest gateau. Women who work hard and have short nails. Women who love their family and only put little or no make up on except for special occasions. These are the women who will spread positive values and who teach all they meet to be themselves and love who they are. Johanna Lumley. Dawn French. Julie Walters. Judi Dench. All those female athletes who won gold medals at the Olympics. That Indian girl who’s risked death to fight for the right to let women have an education, in Pakistan I think it was. These are the women who should be writing articles in magazines and inspiring you, not vacuous and vapid simpletons with a size zero dress size who probably cut themselves at night just to feel something because their life is so empty and unfulfilling. Stop making each to her miserable and stop blaming men. You choose your own fate and you choose you own body image. Take control and stop being victims. When you’ve done that men will love you and find you sexy and powerful and desirable regardless of your wrinkles or grey hairs or wobbly thighs. Look after yourself and feed and exercise your body to stay string and healthy but don’t obsess. Men just don’t care that much to notice the things that you women obsess over. Do most men even notice when you’ve had a new haircut or get a new dress? Of course they don’t because they don’t care. Other women are the corrupting influence, not men.
And just for the record. I’m a man, in my 30s. I’ve shaved my armpits and my legs, in fact my whole body head to foot. And I’ve let it all grow wild and natural. I wear makeup sometimes to make my skin look better. I’ve even gone through fads of wearing eye liner and nail polish. I’ve shaved my head. I’ve grown my hair long. I’ve dyed my hair. I’ve been so skinny I look half starved. I’ve been muscular with a six pack. I’ve been a little chubby with a belly. I’m currently a little of all these things. I go to the gym to stay muscular but I have a slight belly because I think that looks better than a six pack. I have a thick beard and a buzz cut hair style. I wear foundation make up sometimes but not every day. I bleach my teeth. I’m currently very hairy but shave my back and shoulders. I don’t feel bad about my body. I like who I am and I constantly change my appearance and look and my physique is a work in progress which I enjoy. I’m vegetarian but don’t deny myself any food that I like. I’m as subject to social pressures of beauty as anyone. I will probably try Botox eventually because a lot of friends have had it and its made a huge difference but ill do it because I want to, because I enjoy taking control of my own body. But none of these things are going to drive me to harm myself or go under the knife to please someone else or to feel bad about the fact that I’m going bald or don’t fit someone’s idea of the perfect ‘look’. Im me. I’m attractive to some people and not to others and that’s fine. Nothing I do is to make myself more attractive to please other people, its to please me and I don’t blame the urge to control my image on anyone but my own personal choices. And when I am old and wrinkly and hideous I will still be me and I will still be attractive to someone who loves me. I have a good smile and love life and treat people with kindness and respect. I don’t hate my body and I don’t hate anyone else’s body either. My point is I’m as subject to social pressures as much as anyone, as are all men and all women. But I choose what pressures are important and what ones aren’t. I change and groom and augment my appearance as much as any average women feel pressurised to but I don’t pretend that I have to do it because Im forced to by social conventions and I don’t think any less of a woman if I see her without makeup, or looking a bit pudgy, or wearing unflattering but probably practical and comfortable clothes. Who cares? Do women really think men can’t tell when a woman is fake or tarted up? Some men like big breasts, some like small, some like long hair some short, some like slim girls and some fat, some love tall girls and others short. There will always be some people who like you and some who don’t no matter what your shape is so its your choice to focus on the negative feedback or on the positive because there will always be both. Women choose to subject themselves to values imposed on them by other women. I’ve experienced shaving my body and wearing makeup and dying my hair, at first because of insecurity in my own body image when I was young but now just for variation and because I can and mostly I’m happy being my natural self. This week I might grow my beard ginger, next week I might dye it black. People who see it black will also see it ginger. Ive been thin, now i more muscular. I’m also a little fat. In fact i draw far more attraction with a stockier body and I’ve seen women with proper curves draw far lustier advances than women who are stick thin. I’m not hiding anything but I can choose how to groom my body and what shape I want to be because I live in a free country and people are all attracted to different things so no matter what shape or appearance I choose some will like it, others wont. So I do know what it’s like to shave my body and wear makeup and feel insecure because I’m not as thin or perfect or handsome or muscular as the models I see in adverts but with age comes confidence and with time comes acceptance of your own body as it is. If you choose to be insecure for your whole life or to conform to others expectations of how you should look then that’s your choice not something men do to you. If a woman wanted to stop shaving her pits good luck to her. It would probably draw a few comments from people but so what, do you have courage in your convictions or not? if you want to stop shaving them then do and the more women that do it the less of a novelty it will be. Plenty of countries have no convention of women shaving their bodies at all. But make up and heels and being a little fatter and grey hair and all that stuff is such a non issue that none would even notice let alone care. Men don’t hate women’s bodies. They love women as they are. Of course they like a young fit nubile bit of eye candy. Why wouldn’t they? Are women any less excited by a muscular tall handsome adonis type man when they see one? That’s doesn’t mean we’re not all growing old and grey just as fast as each other though. It doesn’t mean men expect everyone to look perfect and young for evermore nor does it mean they are going to love someone just because of how they look. I like a pretty picture and will always enjoy looking at one but I don’t feel the need to take every decent painting I see home with me. I have a friend who’s turned on by someone having a lisp. I’ve got another who loves a fat wobbling belly. I’ve got friends who are attracted to all sorts of characteristics and fetishes and stereotypes but every one is different and they don’t pick their sexual or romantic partners just on the basis of their own quirky tastes. They pick people who are attractive and smile and who are happy and fun, regardless of what their actual shape is because they know that fads and fashions and fetishes come and go and don’t amount to much in the long run anyway. Men don’t hate women’s bodies. They love them. In all shapes and sizes. By all means criticise the shallow nature of our superficial commercial culture and the problems it causes but don’t spout nonsense that its men who are responsible for that or that men don’t feel the same pressure to look somehow perfect. Men are under the same amount of pressure as women but they choose not to respond to that pressure if they don’t want to whereas women constantly bait and challenge each other to meet higher and higher and more unattainable standards. We’re all responsible for the image obsessive culture we live in but if anyone is more to blame for women having low self esteem it’s other women, not men at all. Women hate women’s bodies. Men are quite happy with women’s bodies as they are, just standing on the sidelines watching women give themselves so much grief with a confused expression on their face wondering what all the fuss is about and probably sooner or later being shouted at because they’ve not commented on their girlfriend’s or wife’s fancy makeup or new hairdo or that they’ve lost weight, or whatever other shallow meaningless achievement women are obsessed with attaining but men don’t even care about enough to notice.
Well this is maddening. Seems to me the problem is with women in this essay. Why can’t they stop living for mens approval? Why is it mans job to dictate to women what they want? If 50% of the population doesn’t want to do something, I think they wouldn’t. I feel that women are in competition with each other most times. You could say ultimately it is to be most attractive to please a man, but if you truly don;t like jumping through those hoops to please a man, you won’t be pleased with the man you get by doing that. Women are smart enough to liberate themselves from this, that is, if they even want to be ‘liberated’.
Sorry to break it to you all, but there is A LOT of truth to this blog.
I am a natural woman, who is attractive, well educated, goal oriented, likes men as friends and boyfriends, has strong morals, etc.
Routinely you see old, decrepit men with young women because they covet physical perfection and youth. Listen to the media, women are condemned, as if it were a mortal sin, to age, be ugly, not fit some physical ideal. Men fixate on breasts, buy porn, visit sex clubs, solicit prostitutes. Why do any of these things.
When I was in college, even high school, old men (40s, 50s, 60s) would descend upon campus trying to get sex with women our age, bemoaning the fact that their female peers were all old, ugly, undesirable. They said their male peers felt the same way. I routinely see middle aged married men flirt with and solicit sex from women decades younger. Men seem driven by sex selection and could care less about values, character, etc. . Now that I am getting older, men my age are not interested, preferring women decades younger whereas the men who find me interesting and court worthy are nearly one foot in the grave.
Women today routinely complaint that men want just one thing. I have to say that this attitude is pushed in the media, which seems to revolve around sex. I feel tremendous pressure to look a certain way or be devalued. Unless you conform to a certain ideal, women become invisible, mocked, disparaged. There is blatant misgyny in this culture.
What do they say about Hillary Clinton? She is an incredibly competent politician….BUT no man wants to sleep with her. I disagree with Justice Kagan’s politics, but all anyone fixates are on her looks (or lake thereof). Few women are considered employable unless they are good looking. If they are not, they are hidden away. Black men prefer lighter skinned women.
If you don’t wear make up and are fresh faced, men consider you a dyke or just a tomboy, merely friend material. They hate us for getting older. Don’t think so? Men prefer fresh faced younger women. First sign of wrinkles, older hair, and our shelf life wanes. You may not all want to acknowledge this but it’s true.
Women know that value and power of looking good and being young. Once you start to age, you become invisible, your ideas have less value, you are considered less desirable. The blogger is stating the reality of what life is like for women.
Of course, higher caliber men have higher values…but by and large, the generalizations outlined above are entirely true…and I say this as a well educated women of substance who was born to great beauty and is now aging. I like men but sexism is everywhere. Even married men with young daughters post pictures of scantily clad women their daughter’s age on their Facebook pages ..or news websites as the essence of female.
When are women covered in the news if now for exposing their cleavage, having a “nip slip,” committing the sin of aging so that the masses can throw stones at her. Women are rarely covered in the media or taken seriously outside of purely superficial context. Women leaders are judged almost entirely on their looks, with people fixating on them so much that everything else becomes irrelevant. Sarah Palin became a superstar…and nearly President on looks alone. Hillary, despite her accomplishments and intelligence, is dismissed for her “man suits”
cankles, and unattractiveness. Madeline Albright dismissed for being ugly. Condi Rice never married despite being an accomplished pianist, National Security ADviser, brilliant, beautiful, articulate women. The men in the Bush Administration talked down to her.
Women are not considered authoritative. How often do you see women in the news dressed like professionals? Most are dressed as if they are going to the night club. Most women professionals don’t want to dress like this when reading the news and doing commentary but their male bosses insist upon it, telling them that that is what the public wants to see.
Deny all you want, but the qualities espoused in the blog above are shamefully pervasive in American culture. I don’t agree with them, but acknowledge that this is how the masses think, accounting for the numerous women running around flaunting cleavage, getting breast implants, plastering their faces with make up and getting plastic surgery in an effort to be professionally competitive, to win a man, and to have a voice.
Some women just love to masturbate to the idea of “misoginy”. They just LOVE TO. You quote all these examples of men chasing after younger looking women as if it PROVES that misoginy actually applies to any of the things described in this article.
To the rest of the intelligent, thought-capable people, your examples prove nothing except that some men PREFER younger women. Much like some women PREFER men with status and money (looks are a plus). None of it serves as evidence, let alone as proof, that “men hate women´s bodies”.
Many men – myself included – prefer mature women who are not prone to giving them unnecessary headaches, it doesn´t matter if they are past their tender years and looks. I would dare to say MOST MEN come to a point where they will prefer that kind of woman.
It doesn´t matter how much you toss the word misoginy around, you and the author of this piece of shit are among the few people to whom that concept applies to the things described in this article… and – of course – that alone doesn´t prove that you are wrong. But then again, you have absolutely no arguments to prove that you are right.
We poor, poor victims!!!!!
Unable to get over partriarchy, unable to win in the holy war against man, always victims of strength and brutality. It is a surprise that any woman is alive today. We suffered and suffered and suffered, and by we I mean our female ancestry, while the male ancestry had private parties and fun at soirees.
Oh please. Spare us the mighty victimization. It is old. It is false. It demeans women and makes us little pathetic playthings that are always downthroten and needing help (not from men! Nononono, from Feminists, of course – righteous powerful women that tell the rest of us that we are being brutalized, harassed and constantly raped, even when we aren’t, when we don’t see it, don’t feel it and would much prefer to be around our male friends, relatives, lovers and companions other than spend one second beside a dry sour and lame feminist).
Spare us your cultist struggle. We don’t need it, and we don’t ask for it.
I agree with your generalisation ma’am,
but I don’t understand why women fail to recognize this on their own. I have seen women, capable and opportune enough to break these virtual shackles but don’t. I hope they start to break free, that is why I always advise my female friends to abandon their religion.
They get really angry though, when I criticize their religion. The feminine was sacred to us as Dan Brown wrote in his novel “The Da Vinci Code” but almost all religions have corrupted and demonised the feminine. I wish women start to lead. Sane men are ready to follow.
Great photo post! You must feel really refreshed after that vacation. I once camped next to a farm too. It stormed all throughout the night and you could hear a cow mooing once ever couple of minuets. That poor cow. It was a huge field and I never saw it the whole weekend.
Many men have here commented that women should take responsibility for there actions and decisions. I am inclined to agree. So as a woman, here are the decisions I now make.
I no longer am going to watch tv that is an incessant barrage of women in their underwear and men fully clothed. I am no longer going turn the frustration of being judged, touched, leered at and rejected in my professional life inwards. I am no longer going to pretend Im not really a feminist because I am scared that it will make me unattractive to men. I am no longer going to allow myself to feel disappointed that whilst women are sex trafficked around the developing world, stoned to death for adultery under totalitarian regimes, and divided up and raped as war bounty, men do not stand up for them. That is what hurts the most. That men have stood by and watched, not intervened, made women understand that on some very basic level, they are not human, or not the same kind of human as men.
I will take responsibility and just say, no more men thanks. I can live my life in peace and harmony,provided I am left alone to do it, because maybe really taking responsibility is seeing the truth that women have for too long have not wanted to see. Men, just aint worth it.
Women are not trafficked throughout the developed world, an insignificantly tiny number of women AND men are trafficked around the undeveloped world and between the undeveloped and the developed world.
In those totalitarian regimes, men are killed, murdered, and tortured in all manner of ways for all manner of ridiculous “offenses” in greater numbers than women; and only more men dying on the pile like pieces of meat – aka a war – to change it.
Speaking of war, you’re totally right, men do not stand up for women; that’s because they’re not zombies. It’s a war; by definition that means men do not stand aside and lead the invading army to their women and daughters to be used and raped; no, they fought back and died trying to take as many of the invading army with them. They are DEAD, because they STOOD UP for their country and their families and paid the price for it. And then… usually the young men and boys who remained behind get slaughter and then not only are the women NOT raped, and NOT divided amongst the invaders, they usually are NOT even harmed, and simply left alone.
Oh, by the way, do you remember how the Gulf War expanded to pull in the west? I do. I do. They faked a girl get hurt by Iraqi troops who “managed to escape Kuwait”. When it was just men dying, very few people cared; but the the moment women got hurt; then all of a sudden every men in the developed worked couldn’t wait to risk their or their subjects’ lives to got save the women.
So you can take your “men don’t stand up for women” and shove it where the sun don’t shine.
If you are writing in the name of equality, do not generalize. It promotes insensitivity and discrimination. A broad example is 9/11, generalizations were made from that about Muslims. Even though it is the (incredibly small) minority of Muslims who have any affiliation with terrorism. Making such assumptions about men promotes ignorance. Stop.
As a man I would like to make a few comments about my personal feelings about women (I am heterosexual). I prefer women without makeup, wearing it is not being honest with yourself and others.
How dare you say men hate the color of women’s skin in such general terms? That is… hate-mongering
So all men want women draped in jewellery? Not many do, it shows flamboyance, a woman with excessive jewlery is assumed to expect you to buy her more. This is a generalisation, it is wrong. However it does hold more truth than saying that men force women to cover themselves in jewellery.
Of those two picture of woman with breast, I prefer the one on the left and most men would agree. In the spirit of honesty I would make a confession, if a woman had breast implants for a non medical reason, that is a deal-breaker. Also men do NOT LIKE push up bras. It is lying to us to get our attention.
High heels are pointless, nothing more.
A broken hymen does not faze me in the least.
In short women do these things because THEY do not like how they feel, not because men want the to or force them too. If women want to “be themselves” then they be themselves. No one is stopping them.
You are an idiot !
You would break up with a woman for having breast implants that are not the cause of a medical reason? YOu mean a woman who LOSE her breasts are more untitled than a woman who never had any? You sound like an asshole.
And like men are into cars and football, women like makeup and clothes – not to impress men but as fun and to change their style.
You are as generalising and mean as the people you hate for generalising 9/11.
Im not sure which sex the dislike comes from , but I find from personal experience thay women are more judgemental about appearence and appear to dislike each others natural appearance. I find that men tend to prefer women with less make up. Im not sure about everything else. But sometimes I wonder if women are responsible for the drastic increase in beauty standard’s over recient years. I wonder if women make each other feel bad about who they are as a way of competing with each other. As by the time all these alterations are made, no one can tell who looks like what. From an evolutionary perspective v women might find it to their advantage to get other women to cover the things the other sex might like.
Im a gay woman,I do none of these things to myself and wear short hair. I keep fit though as it is important to be healthy. I prefer natural looking women and find that many women today do not look real by the time they have finished with all this stuff. Women are also the most critical of women who do not do all the stuff. Feminists say its bc women are socialized to pressure each other to do things that benifit the man. But my observation is women compete against each other for men at a quite extreme level. So if men find all this stuff on women attractive, it would not make sense for women to pressure other women to do all this stuff. It would make sense instead for women to be glad when another woman dosnt do the stuff as she is less competition. Unless the whole point of it all is to reduce the confidence of other women.
Men appear to adapt as the look for women changes from decade to decade. As they know the stuff comes off at the end of the day. I think they would adapt to less of this stuff if women were to not do it as much.
Women use the stuff as a form of aggression against other women these days, more then to be admired.
At first an introduction; I am a natural born hermaphrodite (both male and female) with both clear male and female body characteristics.(and yes I have female hips, breasts, ovaries, testikels vulva and penis) So I comply to both female and male assumptions of how we are learned to look or not to look, act and not to act, this is difficult as many seem to contradict eachother. in overall I assume a more female personal image, as my body is more female. I don’t regularly use make up as my face looks more masculine than feminim. I do wear high heels because as a dancer I learned that High heels are actually healthier than any other shoe (if you do daily stretch and strength and flexibility exercises, and if you have no overweight, bone-, muscular, sinew, or nerve afflictions at leastt-IF you you suffer from these no exersice can prevent damage in the long run.). due to this I expereince all diiferences between men and women and their interactions. I not only experience them, but also feel and understand them. the best of both worlds, so to say.
To your article the following;
At first I comply with many of the other writers that you harbor at least some form of hatred to men and in this you thus cannot make clear judgments about any actions ofmen or women against eachother.
Secondly, cultural, sociological and religiuos refference borders mostly clearly (and often also less clearly) state defined differences between men and women. Women are wrong and men are right, women are sinners, men are important, women are a burden, … etc. Men only recently understand the female reproduction and monthly cycle and many regions in the world the still shunt women for their difference. it was only approximately 5000 years BC when humans had only female gods, as women created life. Until men discovered that their actions were responsible for generaring this life, hence the development of male(often more dominant/aggressive/warlike and sometimes knowlowable) gods were created in our spectrum of life understanding. And to this day it is still male dominant backgrounds that “rule” our behavioral. (though it is changing slowly, as men did not bring welfare to humankind, it is the development of women what actually drove men to (very) slowly change the world to a better, more peceful world).
To this the first question of a pregnancy is as always is it a boy (hapy tone) or a girl (less happy tone), instead of; is it healthy. Women cost money through these actions, men provide income. This major difference in mot of the world makes that IF women work, they ALWAYS earn less than a man would in the same or worse conditionsd with the same study/experience background. this is in USA/Europe 10 to 30% less elsewhere in the world up to 100%
Most religions further demonize women, forcing them to wear restrictions in freedom, in clothing, thought, speach etcetera.
Yet in the so-called westen world (USA/Europe/Australia- and some major cities in China/japan) women are more or less free to do as they want, they may wear any clothing, make-up or heels like they wish, they may study, speak and think freely and are less subject to the whims of sexually frustrated men.(This all to this (very) slow resurgence of feminim values and truths, through emancipation, liberation, realization, environmental effects/changes–if it were to men, afraid of not keeping on to a female, we all were still imprisoned literally or by doctrines.)
And we do use these objects, to differtentiate us to others. At first (oldest find 42.000 BC) there was the use of mud and ash and make-up, to enhance/differentiate us from our competition, then there was jewelry, ( oldest find 32.000 BC) and then clothing (oldest find 16.000 BC) (shoes btw are earlier oldest find 23.000 BC). some of these had other useful effects (like protection from sunrays in the eyes, camouflage, warmth/cold, or damages from the environment or predators.) but mainly they were used to make one different from the other, and men and women wore equally stron in the use ogf these materials.
It was the invention of relion that imbued behavioral differences between the genders, but these changed back and forth through the ages (in roman and greek times breasts where shown openly (mosty one breast), in the religious dark ages men and women covered themselves intesively, and later this changed again.
with the coming of freedom women (and lately even men) starting to make their body again a tool to differentiate ourselves from the mass. and this we do for ourselves, not just for men.
Ok one of the goals of this differentiation is to attract a partner and propagate, but the main goal is to win certainty, and difference from the mass.
And yes especially women tend to be the worst judged in this, any where in the world women judge women (and also men) by being too different–and thus hence more succesful in attracting a partner–for we are all so envious and ALL want our (best) chance to propagate, and be cared for. we are ALL (without any exceptions) envious about women (and sometimes men) for having what we do not have (or had). women do this especially with their body, their social network, and size/sort of family while men do this with their possessions (weath/Strength-or knowledge or might/house/women/jewelry like gold/cars/gadgets—all to show of wealth and sexual prowess).
we all are still basically animals following the natural inborn traits of generating the best chances of reproduction, like all species do. Women hate women wo are better in their differentiation, and men do the same in their own obscure way. and we also hate ourselves being conscious for how we still follow these basic instincts And thus we hate the other for accepting our “weakness” in following these instinct and finding our weaknesses, we so bravely try to hide from all others, hence being not too different or different in a way not wished.
I hope to have informed you a bit.
The trouble with this article is it bashes men. Putting the blame on the opposite sex does not help. A better approach to the issue of women feeling they must conform to certain ideals is to write an article that teaches women that they are not defined by others’ standards. An article on empowering one’s self would be informative and helpful. Another option is to write an article on why the media standards for women hurt women. A valid question to ask is does society have higher standards for women then men? Why do you feel that the way the opposite sex percieves you defines you?
Research the root of the issue. Why do some women feel insecure about thier appearence?
I believe that self esteem is nurtured during childhood and adolescenthood. Provieding young people with empowering experiences and teaching them that thier self-worth is not defined by the standards of others can help build thier confidence. Furthermore, we have a choice about how we view ourselves.
Tasleema asks who are these men?
We are hymen breakers.
This is all BS! none of this is true. Women do all this willingly to arouse and pleasure men, to turn them on and to look good for themselves and compete against other women and models in magazines and movies.
I think if we deal with these things by a man…. We need to find a better man that is in love with the person and from that they will fall in love with the looks to…. Don’t feel hopeless..
Lol, so many Pimps and Johns here.
I prefer my women to have a bit of flesh on, I have also found women who are short are bad tempered they get angry easily for little things, however, good looks are deceiving. Just because some women maybe good looking doesnt mean they are nice inside, its only the cover, just a demo. I found good looking women can be nasty and horrible inside, had enough experience to tell you…..better stay single, forget dating and dont even go near marriage, its just not worth the trouble and the hassle.
I am sorry to say this but:
WANTING TO BE DESIRED BY THE OPPOSITE SEX IS NORMAL!
After all, the biggest force in the universe is to procreate, and to do that you need to attract a person of the opposite sex.
Most of the things you mention are just laws of nature. Bigger breasts, healthy hair, clear skin, wide hips etc etc show if a woman is fertile and ready to bear children – so naturally MOST men are attracted to these features (I am not saying everyone is).
Grey hair, wrinkles, unhealthy bodies and so on mean the opposite = UNfertile. It’s the same with a childs body, it doesn’t give out a FERTILE vibe and thus aren’t attractive to most normally functioning people.
Its the same with men.
Most women are attracted to big males who can provide security, both financially and physically. In todays world that means physically strong with a good job. So its not that men don’t have to have certain features to be attractive, they are just different.
It has been this way always and it will never change.
They even do it in the animal kingdom, many female birds decorate their wings with leaves to make them seem bigger and attract a male, some male insects give the female presents! etc etc.
The only reason we do plastic surgery is because our intelligence allow it. If animals could do the same, THEY WOULD.
We all wanna win the genetic lottery, even if we have to cheat!
;o)
(I am a woman btw)
I believe the author was just trying to put the point across that in many societies from past to present, women were treated as second class with regard to a contrast to men. Hence as a result women feel this pressure to want to be more beautiful or to reflect the tastes of their chosen mate in order to be noticed. I think this is the main issue the author was driving at, the “PRESSURE” for women to need to change themselves in order to be loved a certain way.
Women were seen as luxury “goods” for men to ‘enjoy’ in the past. Much like play things or uses to bear children. So much so that like cars, and how men would want to “pimp” their rides, some men would want their women much better looking and they would feel attracted to another woman if she possesses qualities such as “bigger breasts or a lean bodytype” but it is all respective to personal preferences, some men like women with more flesh and a grabbier ass! But all of these qualities put pressure on women to be a certain way or look differently for someone else. However as equality for women progresses, they are more so doing it for themselves now!
We should fight hard for equality in all sectors and countries for women. Which I guess is the impact of this article that the author was putting forth! Women are now trying to change the way men view them, by not being reliant on them. As such we see more women in upper management positions, and more women in doctoral studies.
However, then again, that’s only if you have been given the liberty and finances to do so, in many countries in the present, women are still regarding as second class and forbidden to enjoy things they deserve.
Wow!
I agree with the author. I also see that a few males and females posting here have a “false consciousness” about how much patriarchy socializes what we think, how we think, in terms of our gender and sexualities, especially as it relates to our looks, beyond any notions of our genetic/biological predispositions. This article reminds me of the many debates I’ve had with Christians, Atheists, and Agnostics — and I’m the latter. Few of us in these ideological camps are going to change our minds, beliefs, or perspectives … regardless of the pros and cons of all of them, unless one is so arrogant they believe they’ve acquired all knowledge and experience, the totality of all human knowledge — past, present, and future. I confess I tend to agree with the author, where in other articles I’ve not agree 100%. But then as an African-American male, age 53, college educated up to the masters level in social science, a huge part of it being women and gender studies and feminism, amongst other disciplines, I can “see” concrete evidence of patriarchy daily, even in my own thinking, values, behaviors, and all around me in public, especially the media. As a male, I cannot envision or even conceptualize what a non-patriarchy-society (world-wide) would look like, function like. I cannot even envision what “an equal-society” would look and function like — especially since many social scientist (and laypersons) cannot empirically witness ALL the complexities of the good, bad, and ugly that goes on daily — 24-7/365. Even our stratified random sample or rare-census statistics are suspect because of our collection methods, survey designs, the research questions asked, and our inability to be conscious about our own biases/bigotries — how our imperfect modes of reasoning/analyzing the world is mostly imperfect … never 100% objective. This doesn’t mean that every argument, every anecdote or stat cited has its equivalent or comparable opposite as some on this post argue … meaning patriarchy is concrete, real, and a dominant ideology world-wide. It does favor males — not women, even if the latter have adopted, internalized, all the beliefs/values of patriarchy and “enable” all males to dominate .. quantitatively and qualitative on most levels and in most ways. This doesn’t mean there are no spaces of equality between the genders, especially if we compare historical practices to present-day practices. For example, I’m “black” and I’m not a slave or in chains. But by no means would I ever claim to be 100% emancipated or free or live my life equal to or comparable to every single white-ethnic or light-skin person on the planet or in America — in general, my political-melanin identity is less favored than my lighter-skin human beings, male and female. So as a black-male, I would argue white-supremacy” is very real, universal, and concrete — as race consciousness and especially as racism. When a white-person denies such, I know this person can’t walk in my shoes, past and present, will tend to interpret/filter any stats I present, any evidence I present, through their self-referential-reality — not some objective Vulcan-Paradigm. This doesn’t necessarily make the person intentionally racist but at a minimum “unable to relate” to my reality or some part I’m sharing. This same “blind-spot” (Johari’s Window) exist for all the ISMS — especially sexism. So as a male, I tend to give all feminist (and even non-feminist) more benefit of the doubt, more deference in what they say, their evidence (even if false-consciousness/internalized sexism) than I would to male deniers or our most cherished notions of “innocent until proven guilty” jurisprudence modes of evidentiary proof. I will never walk in a female/women’s shoes/gender/sexuality — never! At best I can only intellectually relate to her experience, seek to use my own negative experiences given my experiences of racism, to bridge my intellectual-emotional-experiential gaps … and even then, this effort will provide imperfect, patriarchy, skewed. This means I’ll tolerate a Phillis Schafly, admire a Gayle Rubyn, and hope to learn more from Taslima … and other women who have an informed consciousness I don’t have and may never have given my identities. And, yes, I’m guilty of “hating” too-skinny-females and too-fat-females … because my notions of aesthetic beauty are 100% learned and reinforced by the Western (American) Patriarchy culture I live in — including all the patriarchy cultures I’ve worked and lived in outside of America … England, Denmark, Germany, Italy, etc. Indeed, I frequently complain to my size heterosexual-female-partner she (size 16) and I (240 lbs obese) need to get to the gym to get back to a size 6-10 for her and comparable for me (120-135/15-20% body fat for her and 165-175/10-15% for me). Surely, this aesthetic complaint-desire is rooted/informed by the patriarchy-culture we live in — fashion industry, media, medical industry, and the pro and con feed-back and looks we get from others … you’re thick or your fat or you’re healthy and so forth … but rarely you’re gorgeous, beautiful, in-shape, fit, etc. The so-called “norm” can be, typical is, a system of reward and punishment — systemic conformity if not coercion … a love/hate dynamic!
Dear Ms. Nasreen,
The statements you make here are akin to all straightforward men thinking that all women are gold diggers and cheats. To us men, a woman’s body is the most beautiful thing on earth. Resorting to basic male instincts, we find women as our better halves.
Do you need to know what all a man has to do to be chosen or get noticed by a woman? Perhaps no. You talk about spending but you don’t know what a man does:
1- He has to ensure that he is earning a bomb; women love gold digging (I have experienced this myself).
2- He has to shave in a certain style, groom his body hair, bear the pain of waxing it it a certain way, comb in a certain style, wear a certain set of clothes, sometimes it is suits sometimes it is casuals.
Women don’t appreciate a man who has a natural look and instead make us go for this and that FOR MEN cosmetics too.
3- If a man is nice, they find us too boring and useless while if a man is mean, women whine. A sincere straightforward man might end up loving his female friend but she will still continue to see him as a ‘friend’ no matter what he does for her and would prefer the ‘bad boy’ who behaves like a nut-whacker.
In short, I can go on listing another 100 things that women always demand from men which are either along the same line as what you have listed, or perhaps even more.
Does it mean we can say ‘women hate men’?
Regards,
Ganesh.
Major thanks for the blog post.Thanks Again. Fantastic.
I sympathize with all the horrific things that women through the ages have put themselves through. However, I don’t believe it is accurate to attribute it to a patriarchal society. If men had such low value of women, would they not have sent the women out into conflicts to be maimed and killed? Wouldn’t they have created a culture where that sacrifices women, rather than giving them priority during a catastrophe? It is not society, but biology which motivates both sexes to take extreme measures in finding the best mate possible. Mother nature has played a dirty trick on us all. Like puppets, we do whatever it takes to get more screaming babies into the world.
“I don’t believe it is accurate to attribute it to a patriarchal society.”
Surely Woo … I doubt females want male “sympathy” but for most if not all males to change, for our world-species to transform, evolve, our patriarchy values, ideologies, laws, institutions, mores, and behavior into a non-sexist/misogynist world-culture. I’m not sure what your “abstract” definition of patriarchy is. But in the “real world” patriarchy (sexist-male-hegemony) doesn’t care about “what if abstract questions”. It acts itself out in barbaric ways 24-7/365 in most spheres of our world-culture — where I would argue that even those romanticist institutions we call heterosexual monogamous married are false-consciousness ways of subordinating and marginalizing women into validating, affirming, and propping up male-hegemony. Why? Because there exist no alternative matriarchy or non-patriarch/non-matriarchy vision, ideology, or advocacy for our species. Most if not all humans take patriarchy hegemony for granted Argumentum ad Antiquitatem. As for your claims about our biological/genetic predispositions, I would remind you that our “cultural socializations” shape and influence our modes of logic and behaviors (the good, bad, and ugly) more so than some reductionist notions of genetic or biological constraint. We humans have the capacity to evolve beyond our biological/genetic animal instincts and predispositions, to not be trapped into self-serving excuses and rationales for screwing each other over based on each other socially-constructed identities — male, female, straight, LGBT, race, age, class, etc.
In short, let’s not give ourselves some legalistic, self-serving, excuse or escape-clause for why we mistreat or hurt other human beings — especially when we know if this hurtful behavior was done to us, we would accept no excuse, especially someone claiming they have no control over their mind/body due to their genes/biology.
Just my own pro and con male-thoughts
Utkarsh Ganesh …
I’m male. I can’t speak for 3.5 billion males in each culture worldwide. I can’t even speak for 48% of the millions of males in America or even the 49% of African American males — a sub group of a sub group of a sub group to which I’m an identity-member. The dating/mating game, within the context of Patriarchy, tends to favor males even if us males (as individuals) have to jump through false-consciousness (internalized-sexism) hoops some females may subject us to — and this assumes the male being subjected to such is highly-evolved, least-sexist, and well-educated about the past and contemporary vulgarities and discrimination of patriarchy.
In other words, there is rarely any equivalency/comparability in those male-claims about how females (as individuals and a group) related to males, in terms of their expectations of males. Yes, false-consciousness, internalized-sexism, does exist — it’s when any subjugated, marginalized, discriminated-against-group has internalized the hegemonic values, ideology, paradigms, and behaviors of the dominant group, when such persons or groups act and think in duplicitous ways. Females, racial-minorities, age-discriminated-against group, the proletariats (non-affluent-classes), LGBT persons, etc … all have internalized what some activists, scholars, and practitioners call a dual-consciousness or false-consciousness. This dynamic is impossible for any discriminated-against person/group to not act-out within the context of hegemonic oppression and systematic (reward and punishment) socialization. And this includes females. So if many males have to jump through patriarchy-hoops to find compatible date or mate, then why blame or scapegoat ALL women for adapting to the content/culture in which they are imprisoned. Why not point out individual acts of false consciousness, internalized-sexism, with a preface that you’re a highly-evolved-feminist-minded male who desires and is striving to unlearn/evolve but find it challenging to do so within the context of patriarchy and in your personal interactions with some or many females, ones you observe to be duplicitous in validating, affirming, patriarchy. Why not focus less on the hoops you have to jump through to find a compliant-patriarchy date or mate but on the many systemic/hegemonic acts of rape, discrimination, that most if not all females are at risk of being subjected to in ways few if any males (as individuals or group) will have to experience. For example, instead of complaining about how much money/income you have to make to be in-demand by a female, how about disclosing how many times you’ve been raped or are at risk of being raped; how often your masculine-visual-gender has been the covert or overt source of employment, education, or any other forms of discrimination on the part of some hegemonic female elite holding most if not all of the cultural POWER?
I’m male, I often get critiqued for not being a “real man” if I don’t wine-n-dine or act in certain ways I have learned to be sexist/patriarchy affirming. I may not like being subjected to this internalized-dynamic. But I understand why these females think and act this way, why they call it chivalry or my duty/role — because past and present, our patriarchy culture has systematically socialized/indoctrinated them to belief such. And guess what, I don’t date these females — I seek out those whom are open to both unlearning our bigotries life-long. The latter efforts to evolve may not get your lots of dates or a mate ASAP but it will make you less culpable for all the world-wide discrimination and hurt and pain patriarch (and all other expressions of bigotry) do to harm our species but especially the targets of this bigotry.
Just My Own Male-Thoughts — Pro & Con
All this crap would make some sense… if it didn´t happen NOT to make any sense at all. See, all this bullshit discourse always happens to trip EXACTLY ON THE SAME STONE, which is the following:
Men didn´t create the so-called “Patriarchy” alone. You got this, genius? In 10,000 years of social evolution since the beginning of the Neolitic Revolution, men didn´t operate alone. Women – contrary to what you and every other gender theorist seems to uphold – are not passive idiots to whom things happen by chance. Fuck that shit! Women are agents in creating their own destiny, and extremely effective ones at that.
So don´t give me this condescending theoretical garbage! Women had absolutely nothing imposed on them. They created the system as it is, because it served them, and that´s the reason why they defend it so passionately. Not because of Stockholm Syndrome or false consciousness or any such Bulshit. You need to pull your head out of your ass…
Jose Pablo Bolanos …
If my argument is:
1. Crap
2. Bull Shit Discourse
3. Condescending Theoretical Garbage
4. My Head Stuck Up My Ass
Then why did you waste your high-evolved-intellect responding to it? Let me guess:
1. Because you cannot engage in a theoretical and/or empirical debate or dialogue?
2. Because 8-billion human MUST view and understand the world (past and present) 100% like you?
3. Because you’re fearful that if my male-view-point or any feminist-views are believed and adopted by most human beings on our planet given their respective locations, then you’ll have to CHANGE/ADAPT/EVOLVE?
In short, if you wish to deconstruct my argument, then please share your wisdom, facts, and experience. But if all you can do (if you’re male) is simply NAME-CALL because you’re emotionally-upset and your ego feels bruise or not affirmed, then such defensive-reactionary-impulses only demonstrated how Neanderthal, how intellectually-bankrupt, how macho-aggressive most males can be and are — online and offline. In other words, Jose, I can think and act like a DUMB-MALE too — ” Yo no hablo español Argumentum ad Ignorantiam”!
Is all of the above SEXIST-MALE-CONDESCENDING enough for YOU?:)
Reading comprehension issues… You seem to have difficulties separating the main idea from other less significant data. So, let me state this clearly for you:
1. Men didn´t create culture by themselves (thus, they did it with the help of women).
2. Patriarchy is a product of the way men and women cooperated to survive their social and natural environment.
3. Men did not impose gender roles on women; gender roles evolved naturally and spontaneously.
3. Patriarchy has been at least 10,000 years in the making and we still have to figure out why the gender roles evolved the way they did (even a genius like yourself doesn´t know that for certain).
4. Claiming that men imposed gender roles on women reduces women to the role of passive spectators, which contradicts everything we know about them and everything Feminism CLAIMS TO BELIEVE about them.
5. Therefore, any argument that puts women in the position of a victim is nonsense.
Now, if you actually have any logical or empirically valid arguments that do not involve self-righteous protests against the way I express myself, let me know. I´d love to read them…
My dearest and clueless friend:
Reading comprehension issues… You seem to have difficulties separating the main idea from other less significant data. So, let me state this clearly for you:
1. Men didn´t create culture by themselves (thus, they did it with the help of women).
2. Patriarchy is a product of the way men and women cooperated to survive their social and natural environment.
3. Men did not impose gender roles on women; gender roles evolved naturally and spontaneously.
3. Patriarchy has been at least 10,000 years in the making and we still have to figure out why the gender roles evolved the way they did (even a genius like yourself doesn´t know that for certain).
4. Claiming that men imposed gender roles on women reduces women to the role of passive spectators, which contradicts everything we know about them and everything Feminism CLAIMS TO BELIEVE about them.
5. Therefore, any argument that puts women in the position of a victim is nonsense.
Now, if you actually have any logical or empirically valid arguments that do not involve self-righteous protests against the way I express myself, let me know. I´d love to read them…
My Dearest Amigo José Pablo Bolaños
I won’t directly comment on your “ad hominem” style of debate … “reading comprehension issues” … “self-righteous protests” …. But I do ask you contextualize or deconstruct your 5 “abstract” claims — for example:
Regarding your 1st claim: Did African Female Slaves “help” create the American Racist-Sexist Patriarchy Institution of Slavery — and do so as “co-equal-partners” with Colonial Males and Females? Were Colonial Females co-equal-partners with Colonial Males in enslaving African Females and Males?
Regarding your 2nd claim: Did African Females and Males “cooperate” with Colonial Males and Females to create a wretched system of human property (the American Institution of Slavery)? Did African Females and Males volunteer to be shipped like cargo on slave ships to the Colonial Americas for the consensual purpose of co-equal surviving the wretched conditions of Slavery because the social and natural environment in Africa wasn’t conducive for FREE Africans?
Regarding your 3rd claim: Colonial Males didn’t impose Slavery upon African Females and Males — the latter volunteer or applied for colonial jobs to create the American Institution of Slavery? Did Colonial Women own property (and African Female and Male Slaves) comparable and co-equal to Colonial Males? ALL women (Colonial and African Slaves) enjoyed the same societal rights, privileges, and power as Colonial Males? Did ALL Males (Colonial in all classes and all races … Native American, Africans) enjoy equal, comparable rights, privileges, and power?
Regarding your 4th claim: I cannot state the genesis of Patriarch or pre-Matriarchy, secular or religious. I do know, however, within the American context, Patriarchy has existed since the conquest of the Americas by Spain, Christopher Columbus and subsequent colonial enslavement of Africans and emergence of agriculture, mercantilism, industrial capitalism, and our contemporary information-age mixed-economy welfare-state capitalism. I’m not genius. I’m a masters educated American citizen. I don’t profess to be GOD, know all, see all, simply because I support the human rights of discriminated-against groups. I also don’t delude myself that discrimination doesn’t exist nor does my 85-year old African American mother born under no civil rights.
Regarding your 5th claim: I never claims MEN impose gender roles on women. To he contrary, I claimed that all 8 billion human beings are systematically socialized into their respective constrained gender roles and other identity roles — along race, class, age, sexuality, religious, etc lines. This systematic socialization takes the forms of family, laws, institutions, mores, etc — and MALES empirically and statistically occupy most of the privileged and power roles/jobs in these systems, including in America. In America, Colonial Males occupied most roles, jobs, positions of privilege and power — where you had different classes of males. ALL women, even affluent women, occupied deferential roles to all men within their classes, where ALL African Females were viewed as human-property by ALL Colonial Males and Females. The historical and contemporary feminist movements NEVER viewed ALL or ANY FEMALE as a powerless spectator. To the contrary, these are your arbitrary words. Feminism has always viewed women as human-agents constrained under discriminatory Patriarchy conditions, agents whom needed to empower themselves in all ways — especially in terms of raising their consciousness to the internalization of male-hegemonic sexist ideology. Don’t confuse a human being “tolerating” conditions of oppression and discrimination with their forever believing they cannot change those conditions — be it Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, or Arab Females protesting religious-patriarch that prohibits and punished little-girls for wanting to ride bikes or a Taliban that shoots little-girls in the head for desiring an education, the same rights and privileges enjoyed by the males/boys in their society/culture.
In short, Amigo, your 5 abstract claims don’t speak to the past and contemporary context and conditions of oppression and discrimination ALL women have suffered under Male-Dominated Societies/Cultures — unless, of course, you’re claiming ALL women desired to be subjected, discriminated-against, past and present, in all the ways you can learn about by studying women’s history, for any nation or geopolitical. Don’t confuse the internalized-sexism (false-consciousness) that all oppressed groups adopt to survive with conferring co-equal rights and privileges or non-coerced-consent. Yes, some African Slaves under American Slavery “helped” the Colonial Masters run this evil-system, what many refer to as “House-Negroes” vs “Slave-Negroes”. Yes, Colonial Females (the grandmothers, aunts, spouses, and daughters) of Colonial Males “helped” their Racial-Male-Patriarchs enslave ALL African Females an Males — as some also “helped” empower these Slaves to seek and obtain FREEDOM … during Slave and Jim Crow Segregation. This oppressed/oppressor duality exist for all discriminated-against groups viz-a-viz the dominant-group. So, yes, all females “participate” in the existence of patriarchy. But participation doesn’t constitute “consent” or “co-equal” privilege, rights, and power.
Your turn Sir Bolanos …to cite any or all historical and contemporary context examples that support your 5 claims, especially if you’re claiming (erroneously) that no prevailing forms of male discrimination existed in the past or exist in the present that prevents most if not all females from enjoying the same, comparable, or equivalent rights, privileges, and power as most if not all males … worldwide. For example, I’m sure you’re going to cite how most if not all females in Saudi enjoy comparable rights as males … and that this exist in India, Pakistan, China, in all nations world-wide … that most males and females are 50/50 equals?
P.S. I’m reading a most insightful book from a female’s perspective: “Sex And The Citadel — Intimate Life In A Changing Arab World by Shereen El Feki … a feminist empowerment book in my opinion and which I doubt most Arab (patriarch) male respect … now why if most males and females worldwide exist as co-equal-helpers?
Oh, God… Seriously??? Is that what you are going with? COMPARING THE CONSTRUCTION OF A NATION THROUGH THE USE OF SLAVERY TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER ROLES? You are actually claiming (with a straight face) that the relationship between white slavers and black slaves is the same as the relationship between men and women when the construction of current gender roles began before there were any kind of written records?
I honestly don´t feel that any kind of rebuttal is even necessary here since you never even began to explain how those two things are even comparable. Have you ever heard of false analogy phallacy?
Listen, my enthusiastic but untalented friend: even if you could actually provide some kind of factual support to the CLAIM that women were already subservient to men 10,000 years ago when the Neolithic Revolution began (thus giving your whole line of argumentation ANY KIND of empirical validity), then you would have to concede that there is a biological basis for that subserviency. In other words, you would have to concede that not everything about our gender roles was taught through socialization (social custom, laws and blah-blah) and, then, you would also have to consider that there may be a natural drive in men and women to uphold that state of subserviency.
But you don´t need to go into that, yet, since you failed to prove that your analogy was even valid in the first place.
Sir Jose Pablo Bolanos,
I cited the American Institution of Slavery and the different gender/race roles because it represents the foundation of how my nation (America) became constructed. I also understand you want to have some abstract argument mythical debate. I claim the latter because you dismiss my contextual example without providing your own, past and present. You keep resorting to some abstract mythical notion of biological predisposition supposed 10,000 years ago — that somehow this date represents the genesis of gender roles and that all gender roles subsequent somehow represent some absolute persistent of this start-date. Now, of course, you and I know this mythical argument is irrelevant to our contemporary debate. You claim my example of how a racist, sexist, patriarchy slave culture/system made live a living hell for African Females, Native American Females, and also Colonial females — although white females were privileged compared to racial-minority females. You some how think the world or nations have come into existence or exist in some one-dimensional reality — that only gender shapes our relations, or only race shapes our relations, as opposed to all forms of identity-discrimination shape our nations, past and present. For example, I’m not only MALE but I’m also Black. I’m not only Black, I’m also over 40 — age 53, which involves age-discrimination. I’m also middle-class versus affluent or working-class or non-working-poor or homeless. My class status also shapes my personal reality.
So again I’ll ask you to cite your contextual examples (past and present), other than this mythological 10,000 year genesis claim — lol, to support your 5 abstract claims in your prior post. In speak somewhat to the empirical realities of America, past and present, though not in the more nuanced, factual, statistical way a PhD historical or sociology scholar can, but still in an informed way. For example, none of America’s Colonial Founding Fathers were female — of any race or class. The absence of any females (or any males of color) in creating the founding documents (Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution) is some 10,000 year biological predisposition, lol. It’s a factual historical example of patriarch, male domination, male supremacy. You can go look at the layperson list of U.S. Constitutional Presidents on Wikipedia to see how all 44 (or 43 if you count them separately) are ALL MALES — and only one a non-white elite male … but ZERO females of any race, and especially no public known LGBT males or females. If you need another example, there is an excellent fiction movie (12 Years A Slave) playing in America, about a free black male kidnapped and enslaved. The move centers around a black MALE but involves gender-roles if one watches carefully. The move profiles all of the identities (race, class, gender, sexuality, age, etc) that shape our human relations, but most important our unequal status, privileges, rights, and power in relation to each as individuals and a group.
I look forward to your contextual real world examples of how gender/sexuality was constructed for a particular political entity (nation) past and present — and your nuanced examples of how other identities (race, class, age, sexuality, etc) also shape our relations, especially gender relations — for example, how black females relate to white females and how these females relate to Latino/Hispanic females and they to Asian females, and all of these females to their intra-group males and external-group males. Or, you can just concede you’re a DUMB-MALE (or false-consciousness-female thinking like a dumb-male) and admit you haven’t a clue about gender relations (past or present) or any other identities that our species has used to rationalize oppression and discrimination of a fellow human being.
Cheers
Sir Ad Hominem Untalented
P.S.
No intellectual insult intended Sir Bolanos, but you need to brush up on what constitutes or doesn’t constitute false logic — a fallacious argument. Here are a few primers, although I concede Aristolean/Philosophical Rhetorical/Argumentation/Critical-Thinking is a challenging study/practice for most non-academics/laypersons. This is why most politicians, ideologues, demagogues, and our 4th Estates (News Media) are expert puppet-masters in duping and manipulation our low-information and non-critical-thinking masses, citizens:
1. http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomine.html
2. http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/person.html
My Dear Still Unconvincing Mr. Cook,
Let me, for the sake of clarity, make a quick summary of the main ideas presented by you in your last reply:
1. The situation of slaves in colonial United States is analog to the situation of women around the world because IT IS. And, also, because it is a rather recent example – as opposed to my “mythical” 10,000 year old example – which is enough to make it relevant to our discussion. AND… THAT´S THE END OF THAT. Uh-huh.
2. For centuries, women were not allowed to take part in the decisions that shaped the destiny of their nation or themselves, either in the U.S. or other societies (founding fathers example); therefore, men are privileged over women… and if the man is white, the it´s double privilege.
I´m not going to get into a discussion with you about the fact that whites are currently privileged over blacks in most of the world. That is a fact. But there are things that ARE NOT facts but rather a matter of opinion. For example:
1. That men are privileged. You see (mostly white) men at the top, yes. Politicians, spiritual leaders, succesful businessmen, Nobel Price winners, etc. I know that. But that´s only a handful of men, Mr. Cook. Look at the bottom. Look at who´s working the shitty and dangerous jobs, making up over 95% of workplace statistics. Look at the penitenciary system. Look at the homeless on the streets. Look at the ones who are not doing any shopping at the shopping malls. Look at the bodies laying on the battlefield.
What do you see, Mr. Cook? Privileged men? What privileged men? The ones who died in the mines extracting the diamonds that the women are wearing? The ones that paid with their lives in WWI for a voting right that women didn´t have to serve for… that women got only by protesting??? The ones that gave up their lives working like horses so their families could prosper? The ones who are being made to pay for child support even though the child isn´t theirs? The ones that are being jailed without due process, based only on the (often false) Domestic Violence or rape accusation of a woman? The ones that are getting their homes and their patrimony taken away on the spot during a divorce process if a woman even claims that he abused her (even if it is a complete fabrication of hers)?
Privileged men would be the ones that didn´t have to work or sweat or bleed for anything… and we are talking about a huge minority. Women, on the other hand… they have always been the ones that society has strived to provide and cater for because they were the ones taking care of the most precious thing we had: our children. This is so extremely well documented that I would EXPECT you to know this stuff if you even want to engage in debate about this issue. Men occupy the very bottom of the social pyramid as well, very contrary to what Feminists love to chant. Women are the ones being provided and catered for. Sure, it must have always been and still be an AWFUL PRISONto be in. One has only to wonder why so many of them still cling to it…
Your discourse on the founding fathers presumes that women had no indirect part in defining the course of their nation. But in a country where men seem to be unable to say no to anything women tell them, I find that hard to believe. I´m afraid you fail to prove your point. So, I think that – spite your first-hand experience and passionate stance on oppression – your opinion on women being oppressed is nothing more than that: YOUR opinion.
Now, you and I both know that I CAN´T describe exactly how gender roles evolved. But I´m gonna tell you a nice little story about our two closes evolutionary relatives, Mr. Cook: regular chimpancees and bonobos. See, Mr Cook, we share most of our DNA with these two species. The funny thing is that the males and females those two species have evolved completely different ways of relating to each other, spite the fact that their DNA is ALMOST IDENTICAL.
Chimpancee society is ruled by males. Males are aggressive and dominant towards females. There is an alpha male and an alpha females that keep everyone else´s behavior checked, often by way of force. The alpha male is the only one allowed to reproduce with the females. Males and females have very distinct roles, where females do almost all caring for the young.
Bonobo society, on the other hand, is ruled by females which keep the males on check through sex. It is one of the most sexual species that exists. There are no clear alphas as in Chimpancee society. Females control male aggressiveness by offering themselves to them when tensions arise. All males are allowed to copulate with females and the offspring belong to the whole community. Males are rather complacent and peaceful, as well as active in caring for the young.
How can two species so similar in their genes have such different relationship patterns between males and females? Well, the answer lies in their environment. Chimpancees live in an environment plagued with predators and must compete with other groups for land and food sources. Bonobos, on the other hand, live in a paradise: a small patch of land where they have plenty of food sources and space.
So, you see, there is A REASON for the way they structure their society. All societies that need to compete rely on male leadership for that. There is a reason why females tolerate male leaders that may sometimes be cruel. But contrary to what´s apparent, females are not helpless. If they simply don´t like an alpha male because it is overly aggressive, they will remove it. I´ve seen this documented on film. So, I have to wonder: who is REALLY in charge???
You can insist ALL YOU WANT in the argument that how gender relationships evolved is unimportant. I will continue to disagree wholeheartedly with you. You would have to be a fool to believe that a society that yielded so much to feminists in such a short period of time is ACTUALLY run by men. But, then again, you´d have to be a fool to believe that women are oppressed by men when men are dying six years earlier than women… when breast cancer gets all attention even though there are at least as many men dying of prostate cancer… where women are getting on average at least 1/3 of jail sentences men are getting for exactly the same crimes… where a big scandal is made if priests sexually abuse children but research on female jail-keepers who abuse 1 out of 10 boys in their care gets swept under the rug.
Yes, Mr. Cook, female gender roles have always been restrictive. But so was male gender roles. How many men had the choice to say they wanted the woman to go out and work for a living? How many of them got to choose staying at home and sending their wives to bottle factories or textile factories? How many of them could refuse going to war without being handed a white feather of shame by a woman? How many of them could protest being circumcised, the way women protest their “genital mutilation”, without being laughed at? And how many of them can seek help and shelter when being victimized by a woman at home, even though 50% of all DV is pepetrated by women? Did you happen to know that, Mr. Cook, or were you unaware of the overwhelming body of evidence that proves that, as well?
I´m afraid I still consider your analogy invalid. And I´m afraid I still consider a piece of junk an article that takes all responsibilty for women fucking up their bodies and trying to place it on men, and then you coming around saying: “oh, yes, women do that themselves but it´s because they have been TRAINED to do so”. I must insist: TRAINED BY WHO?????? THEIR MOTHERS AND GRANDMOTHERS?
Truth be told, Mr Cook, it probably doesn´t matter how much you try to convince me that men are responsible for all this. Because, bottom line, we didn´t make things the way they are. Women and men did that cooperatively. You have offered no arguments that would convince me of the contrary because you have none. PERIOD.
Debate´s over; we both lose.
My Dearest José Pablo Bolaños,
I respectfully disagree that 1) the debate is over and 2) that you and I lose. Why?
1. The debate is not between you and I. The debate, online and offline, includes you and I, but encompasses 8 billion human souls, at present. This debate, this human struggle, didn’t begin 10,000 years ago. It began, for the same of simplicity, when one group of human beings versus another group of human beings, made the ideological decision to deem themselves superior while another group inferior — along the identity lines of race, gender, class, age, sexual orientation, etc. This struggle preceded you and I, was being waged before you an I were born, before our parents were born, before their parents were born, as far back as all human knowledge can recall or reconstruct. Now, present-day, world-wide, this human struggle continues. In my country (America), the struggle takes the form of capitalist free-market oppression, where the affluent classes justify their economic exploitation of the middle, lower, and poverty classes. The tip of the ice-berg that represents ths class-struggle is our political propaganda wears between our GOP and DEM political parties, where the elite politicians in both parties, seek to persuade their bases (proletariat masses) to screw each other over in the name of their conservative or progressive god, secular doctrines of the-haves vs the have-nots, and other puppet-master tricks. We, the proletariat masses, permit ourselves to be duped, manipulated, and pitted against each other — whites against blacks, against Hispanics, against Asians, and so on along the lines of race; males against females along the lines of gender; heterosexuals against LGBT citizens along the lines of sexuality; the young against the older along the lines of age; and religions against religions, be it Christians bashing and demonizing muslims; atheist bashing and demonizing Christians; or agnostics like me rebuking all believers in a supernatural being or all secularist claiming no supernatural beings exist, because neither absolute position is proof-positive. Yes, all of this identity-debate continues, online and offline, in civilized peaceful passionate discourse but also in vulgar, savage, murderous barbaric violent ways.
2) You and I don’t lose — we both win! The debate, the human struggle, is not some zero-sum-game, where all men win or lose or all women win or lose — or all rich people win or lose or all poor people win or lose, or all heterosexuals win or lose or all gays win or lose, or where all Christians win or lose or all Muslims win or lose; and so forth. You and I are but just one voice, one human actor/agent, amongst 8 billion human souls. Yes, each of us as individuals, as members of respective identity groups, are trapped within our respective bubbles of personal/group experience and politiks. Yes, each of us thinks, imagines, deludes ourselves that our respective ideologies, life experiences, and politiks speaks to the totality of the human experience (past, present, and future). But all of these individual and group bubbles cannot determine the open-ended outcomes for 8 billion human souls collectively. The complex dynamics that permit the human species to function 24-7/365 in constant harmony but also conflict will determine our futures — as individuals, as groups, as nations, as diverse socially constructed identities … male and female, straight and gay, lighter skin and darker skin, upper classes and lower classes, younger and older, and so forth. What will these futures be? I don’t know — I don’t claim to be Nostradamas, a Prophet, a GOD,or some PhD inferential statistical probability genius. But I do have faith (both secular and agnostic) that two probable outcomes will prevail:
1. The human species will change, evolve incrementally, beyond its current forms of bigotries … OR
2. The human species will become extinct because our bigotries provoke too many complex struggles and violence, none of which can be pacified or resolved, and so we collectively go the way of the dinosaurs.
In short, Sir Bolanos, all human life is precious an all human love is priceless … past, present, and future. Perhaps you and I (as males) will become one of the few most powerful privileges males (elite patriarchs) on the planet and use that POWER to “help” make our 8 billion person species less bigoted, more multicultural, more prosperous for ALL: http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/
Cheers
SirCharles
Incognito Rank #___ Out of 1342 On Forbes List of World Billionaires
Spite our differences of opinion, perhaps we have more in common than it is apparent. You seem like a good man, Mr. Cook. At least, your faith and optimism convey that about you.
I apologize for my earlier arrogance and condescendence. Please, disregard.
God bless,
José Pablo Bolaños
Ditto …
Sir Jose Pablo Bolanos
SirCharles
P.S.
I also apologize to our gracious blog host the Honorable Taslima Nasreen and all my fellow posters for all words, tones, values, and thoughts (styles or fallacies of communication and substance) that may offend thee for such is never my intention (online or offline), for life is truly precious and love truly priceless, whereas I strive to redeem and evolve my own human shortcomings and expressions of Selfishness, Ignorance, and Negativity (S.I.N.) 16-7/365 (minus 8-hours sleep) in words and deeds, for I cherish our 8 billion imperfect humanity.
I’ve seen stupid feminists all through my life, but this is the first time I have to give it to just one and call her “THE STUPIDEST OF THEM ALL,’ really lady, stop reading all those feminists books and get fucking laid or something, you clearly lack something in your life besides intellect, you lack loving, caring and a good dick!
@Come on now
very good, well said mate 😉
This article gave me a headache. I’m going to explain why this article is so wrong in almost every way. Not to mention, that the author is blaming ALL men for what women do with their bodies, yes, as if women can’t think or act for themselves.
“Men hate women’s hair if they are not silky and long.”
I have to confess, I like women with long hair, but I have been attracted to women with short hair as well. I have seen some women who are damn sexy with short hair. My girlfriend has neither short or long hair, it’s pretty “normal” in my opinion. She wears it the way she likes it.
“Men do not like the color of our skin.”
This one is ridiculous. If I like a white-skinned woman, I’ll get a white-skinned woman. If I like a dark-skinned woman, that’s what I’ll get. I don’t really like it when women wear make-up, I like it when they look more “natural”. I am not forcing any woman to buy cosmetics, in fact, I often tell my girlfriend she spends too much money on cosmetics. Also, women tend to think that they are buying cosmetics to satisfy men, but in reality they are just trying to satisfy their own need to look “perfect”. We don’t care about the little things, if you’ve got breasts and a vagina, we like you.
“Men do not like us when our hair turns grey. So we dye our hair.”
Lets be honest. This applies only to women who actually have grey hair, and unfortunately for you, most women who dye their hair aren’t even old enough to have grey hair. The reason women dye their hair, is because they aren’t comfortable enough with their own hair color, otherwise they wouldn’t change it.
“Men hate women’s eyes..”
This is ridiculuos. Same thing as the make-up bit. I like women who look “natural”. I honestly do not know why women wear so much shit, it’s not a turn on for me. So, again, you are wrong. Men do not hate women’s eyes, noses,etc…
“Men hate women’s breasts if breasts are not round and large..”
FYI, my girlfriends cup size is 32 A. She has one of the tiniest pair of boobs I’ve ever seen. And I completely do not give a single fuck about it. I’m still very much attracted to her. Also, I like women with big breasts, I just like women in general, but not when they bitch and moan about how men are to blame for their unhappiness, that is a major turn off. Any possibility of me being attarcted to this author was automatically killed the second I started to read this article and realized she was blaming all men (including me) for things that women do or want to do. It is time you grew up and learned to be responsible for your own actions.
“Men hate our natural abdominal fat..”
I hate fat wherever I see it, whether it is in my girlfriend’s abdomen or mine. We both have a little though, I’m not going to lie. However, neither of us are stupid enough to become bulimics or anorexics in order to look better. We both have diets and work out to maintain. Now, let me ask you, would you date an obese man? Would you find him attractive? I bet you wouldn’t. This isn’t about women, this is about all men and women together. We all dislike fat (with some exceptions).
“Men hate us if our hymens are broken. We need to repair our hymens.”
This is the worst part of this article, this is so stupid I don’t even know what to say. Women who repair their hymens are idiots or liars. Most women who repair their hymens want to make men think they are virgins, which makes them liars. I do hate hairy legs, but I’m not shaving your fucking legs, you are. You are trying to please men by shaving your legs, and with that, I can say all men all over the world thank you.
“Men hate our wrinkled skin!”
Nobody hates wrinkled skin. It’s normal. We all get wrinkled. Maybe you hate your own wrinkled skin? I wouldn’t ask any girl to get surgery to fix that. Same with plastic surgeris, they are all fucking stupid. Women do them because they are stupid, they wanna be perfect, and sometimes they end up looking so bad.
“We tell men that we like them for who they are. They do not destroy their natural body to make us feel happy. They do not implant or reduce anything to please us. There are evolutionary reasons for men to get attracted to women and for women to get attracted to men. But patriarchy, a system artificially imposed on society, causes all the injustices and inequalities against women. Patriarchy is a system in which men dominate, oppress, suppress and exploit women. This system prevents women from being who they really are.”
My girl likes my face shaved, so I shave it, mostly for her but also for myself, because I like it better shaved but sometimes I’m too lazy to shave. I eat well and work out to look good, for both me and her. You see, unlike you, I am not blaming women for anything. I am not saying that they hate my face when it’s not shaved, that they hate my fat when I drink too much beer, that they hate it when I burp or fart (which I don’t do in front of women for obvious reasons, they hate it). Now, I dare you to tell me how it is that I oppress and exploit women?
Do you want to hear a man tell you what we really hate? Hate is kind of a strong word, more like “dislike”. We dislike PEOPLE (see I used the word people, not women, because there are also men who make stupid arguments like yours) who make all these stupid arguments based on nothing but opinion and feelings. None of what’s in this article is true. Everything is the fabrication of a women who is unhappy and blames men for everything. What you need my friend, is dick. Go out and find a guy to fuck your brains out and enjoy life a little.
I am a man. Who exactly are you to tell me what I hate and what I don’t?
I hate people who blame all their personal issues on other people. If you feel you need to do all the things that you listed in your post to ensure that people like me are attracted to you, even though you don’t want to… then the issue isn’t that I hate you… it’s that you hate yourself. You hate your own natural appearance, and you don’t think that men will desire you unless you change it. Which, even if that were true (and it isn’t for the VAST majority of women), still doesn’t mean that mean I hate you if I’m not attracted to you. Do you hate everyone you’re not attracted to?
Don’t blame it on me.
I dated a model. No, let me rephrase I dated a woman who became a model wile we were seeing each other. She did almost everything described above. In the end she looked like a sister or maybe a cousin to the woman I fell in love with. I hated every bit of it because I felt it took away from her natural beauty and took her from a woman to an object. I cautiously supported her because I loved her and she wanted to do it. To say that I am a man and I hate women because I want to see these changes is a false and a far reaching over generalization. And what I find the most offensive in this is the author obviously touts herself as a feminist in search of equalizing the genders but how can you equalize them by inflammatoraly slandering mine?
I like women who look naturally, they wear all those things because culture have conditioned them to wear it, (a fake need) almost like a reflex, if men were raised to have long hair and use make up and earrings and wear a skirt that’s what you’d see everyday, men not always know what they’re doing, neither women, the culture is so obsolete, it has been designed for medieval people. i hope in the future to see a saner culture, ours its unsane, it’s not a good measure of health to be well adjusted to a sick society, Krishnamurti
Well, I have read a little from all sides here and I have my bit to say.
I am a married female senior citizen (aged 33 years…this is old for women as I understand it) so my position comes from things I have seen an endured. I am not very young or very old…maybe my intro is facetious, but this is how our media and society makes us feel oftentimes; underrepresented and marginalized, ignored.
I can see the men’s side saying that WE (women) are to blame for our body hangups. I agree with this. But, we cannot change what men respond to. All of us married or involved hetero ladies have seen our man, or at the least, some other man gawking at a woman other than the one he is with. To be fair, women look at men too, but we are not usually so brazen with it. In any case.
The men saying they want natural women…I say you are liars. Every day I take my kid to school and there is a lady there that dresses and looks like that Kim Kardashia woman from TV. She dresses up to the 9’s just to bring her kid to school, and you should see the men breaking their necks to get a look of her. I’m talking different hair colors every month, thick makeup, lots of lipstick, lots of eye things, etc. But, are the men looking at the equally pretty women in attractive, clean simple clothing? Wearing minimal make up or none at all, just fresh faced and natural looks? No, they are not. I know this is anecdote, but I feel it merits consideration because any woman will tell you the same thing because we have all observed it. Honest men will tell you they have observed it. So can we please stop the lies? That does not help any of us.
Now, if men like women as they are, why are men not going for the thin or fit women with normal natural hair, small amount of make up or none at all, and dressed in average clothing? No one is asking men to go for some slovenly looking woman that does not care for her appearance, but being realistic about the men saying they like ‘natural’ ladies. Really? I know that we ‘normal’ women are chosen, usually after you see that the high maintenance woman is too much to bear…but be honest, she is the trophy prize and you will stare at her ever chance you get even when you already have a beautiful NATURAL women beside you working to make your life easier. This is why I take offense with men and why I feel Taslima’s post is based in some truth. If men say women are never satisfied, we women can certainly say the same thing about men and it is truthful.
Just remember, she washes the crap off her face at night, and then what?
Well, let’s analyze, shall we? There’s the thing about seeing something occurring and then jumping to conclusions about what is going on.
School, and kids. So how many women in plain clothing with not very makeup would you see there? Quite a few, I imagine. And how many women dressed and made up to draw attention? Just one perhaps? Would it then not be more likely that men are looking at the one dressed to a tee, along with baring the assets that say “I’m sexually available” because she stands out, rather than men are not attracted to women dressing plainly and not having any makeup on?
I would imagine, that late at night in a bar, especially in places like Hollywood; the woman in jeans and no makeup would be the one standing out of the crowd.
So, the question then becomes, how do you make yourself stand out, without standing out? Well, it requires that you surpass what society has been telling you how you should behave, along with a small component of biological programming. It requires that instead remaining entirely passive and requiring that men just come to you, you go to the man and strike up a conversation. Now that you’ve started the conversation he is actually looking at you, instead of looking passed you as just another person blending in the throng of jeans and plain hair.
looks are a deception…
men stare at her beauty, it is only natural to do this but who knows behind her beauty could be uglines, not all women who are pretty outside is the same inside.
Also attention seekers dress in a way so they get mens attention.
“We tell men that we like them for who they are”
absolutely no truth to that statement thats like me saying women like men for their money cars and social status
Haha men are stupid.
I do not fully agree on what the author said on this blog but most of the men on here are retarded
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Men hate womens body because they use their body to drag them inside them using their mind and into their vagina by dressing up sexy so that men will go into them. They are the devils.
An article in the at Free Thoughts Blog http://freethoughtsblog.com examines the difference between the woman and the devil and how she takes a mans life for a ride
This is ridiculous. Talk about blaming men for all one’s problems, along with the obligatory cry of “MUH PATRIARCHY!!”
I find it especially ironic that some early poster said “well show me concrete evidence of the patriarchy” and what he was answered with was “YOU AREN’T A WOMAN YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND”. This blog post is all about a woman’s understanding of men. An understanding that, by the way, is deeply flawed. So, by the same token, how can women possibly understand men if you claim we cannot understand you?
Feminism reeks of preconceived notions about men and what they should be…”men need to be taught not to rape”, “men should be this” and “men should do that”. Who are you to tell us what we should do and what we should be? Whenever men attempt this trick, he’s chased away with more cries of “MANSPLAINING!!!!”
Look on dating sites. Some females set conditions such as “NO SHORT GUYS!!” or “BUFF GUYS ONLY!!” yet for us to do the same is patriarchy and oppressive. Indeed, if we attempt to do this, it’s again “MUH PATRIARCHY!!”
The patriarchy doesn’t exist. The rape culture doesn’t exist. You aren’t oppressed. You have full agency. If you want to make more money, go toil in the mines or the oil rigs like men do. If you don’t want to wear make-up or wear heels, then just don’t. Almost no man will refuse to go out with you if you aren’t dolled up unless you’re so naturally ugly that the only way you can look halfway decent is by slathering your skin with chemicals, and even then, I’m sure some will give it a try all the same. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen an attractive guy with an ugly girlfriend.
When one brings forward that men are expected to be tall, muscular, financially successful, have trendy hair and modern facial hair, feminists say “the patriarchy hurts men too!” Who tells us to be all these things? Other men? Aside from the homosexuals, why should we care what other men want from us? I think the answer is pretty ****ing obvious : women! Women get to dictate what a man is because we need to conform to their expectations to further our genetic lineage, we need to conform to their understanding of “what a man is” to get a girlfriend. Yet, again, when we try to do the same, it’s patriarchy and evil and oppressive.
However, plenty of women will refuse to go out with a guy shorter than she is. Plenty of women won’t go out with a guy unless he’s muscular. Plenty of women won’t go out with a man unless he fulfills her financial conditions.
Feminist theory has gone crazy enough that some women want the presumption of innocence completely removed in cases of rapes and that to even suggest that the vast majority of men aren’t rapists or rape enablers is to “further the rape culture”. How twisted is that logic? I mean seriously? To say that not all men are rapists is to enable rape? But it’s ****ing true! In every feminist’s mind, a man is a rapist until it’s proven otherwise. This is ridiculous and this is enough.
Out-fucking-standing! Thumbs up, my friend.
Women have a choice
If you’re spending a man’s money on any of those things, you will be sad to know that you are not pleasing him. Men don’t care about your mani-pedi’s, your boobjobs, your makeup, or any of the other crap you Ninnies do to feel more human. The reason you do these things is because other women do them to get a small advantage over each other, and then it becomes the standard. I don’t know how many men I’ve heard tell me they hate fake breasts and love natural breasts irregardless of size, they dislike women who wear makeup, and don’t mind bending over a little bit to kiss a woman.
You ignore men’s wishes and spend their money so you can ‘keep up with the Joneses’, the Joneses in this case being vicious women who will drag you down any way they can to get a leg up and get a man who has more resources to spend on them. If your goal was to please a man, rather than pleasing these women, you would definitely never spend HIS money on your fancy high heeled shoes, Prada bags and earrings so you can impress your friends. You certainly wouldn’t emaciate yourself when the majority of men aren’t actually into fashion models at all, and quite a few like big butts, and a decent number even like BBW’s. Frankly, it’s unfair to your man that you spend all of his money to buy this crap that no one needs while he busts his ass and brings you his paycheck every week. You OUGHT to be thankful that there are so many chumps who will do this for you. You OUGHT to realize that they aren’t the ones who perpetuate this behavior, YOU ARE. You OUGHT to realize that by engaging in all of these behaviors and blaming them on men, you are perpetuating the narrative of female hypoagency that keeps women from realizing their dreams. You OUGHT to do these things, but you don’t.
If you’re so convinced that your man is the cause of these behaviors, just keep something in mind. If your man IS the cause of these behaviors, you should not be with him, because he’s hurting you. If your man IS NOT the cause of these behaviors, then you should not be with him, because your being with him is perpetuating a psychotic narrative that is hurting you. Either way, you should not be with him if you believe that he causes you to engage in self-destructive behaviors. So if you think you might become a lesbian or a cat-lady, PLEASE DO. Your man does not deserve to live in the psychotic world of female hypoagency you’re making him live in, and neither do men in general. You want to defy your gender role instead of perpetuating the hypoagency narrative? Fine. There are plenty of men who do also, and don’t care if you wear your hair short. Of course, feminism and shallow society have encouraged you to hate these men, too. So please stay away from them as well. Men need sanity in their lives and money in their wallets, so please stay the FUCK away from them.
Why are you assuming she spends his money? It says a lot. You are making a stereotype out of her.
And your view of feminism is a bit distorted, who is helping defy those stereotypes? Reactionaries? mra who host more misogynist reactionaries than feminism hosts misandrists?
I’d say both moderate extremes of the political spectrum, i’d like to do away with divisive arbitrary cardinal points, disregard and overlook, one the individual force, one the persisting social pressures, expectation and influence, and basically say that almost that anything short of Saudi Arabia now and at least 50 years ago in the west means being in a perfectly ideally free world, where any complaint about cultural influences are victim mentality, except saying in another moment the magic phrase that one isn’t free of consequences, well excuse me consequences are really tied to the freedom we talk of. It’s not binary that because women adulterer aren’t arrested anymore by the law, people are free to be harsher to them than they are to men, calling them thots. Or declaring, not you, but one above you, that flat out rape culture doesn’t exist. Freedom is not absolute, it’s tie to arguing about how part of how society is conditioned to react to something is not the right way, it’s about a sphere of freedom, which depends on acceptance.
On the other hand I see part of your point, we are now more free and have more leeway to fight such pressures and many women also have traditional expectation, it’s certainly not fair to generalize and ignore that many men don’t have such expectation toward women. Same for incels in general (with the due difference with the movement, those who call women femoids, want them redistributed, etc), who ignore the many women who don’t expect Chads and are not turned off by baldness, thinner writs, negative canthal tilt and “currycels”.
Society still have pressures and expectations toward both main genders, more nuanced feminism recognizes this, like more nuanced mra’s. but I’d suggest you the /r/menslib subreddit.
http://www.reddit.com/r/MensLib/
I am a man married to a woman.
I love my wife’s body.
I love her natural hair, I tell her she doesn’t have to use conditioner or other hair products and that she doesn’t have to go to hair salons. I love her the way she is and tell her repeatedly.
I love her skin colour, I ask her not to wear cosmetics much. I tell her she’s the most pretty without. I understand that make ups do wonders and can change her into a totally different person. It’s not that I don’t like that, but I prefer the real her.
I tell her that I don’t want her to dye her hair, that I want us to grow old together and look like an old couple because that’s natural. I tell her that I wouldn’t want her to put botox under her skin or do face lifts. I tell her aging is a natural process and that we should embrace it.
I love my wife’s natural features, I like her small breasts, her love handles and belly fat. It’s not that I have a fetish, I find athletic bodies attractive, I do like big boobs too. But really I like small bobs just as much, probably more. She tries to watch what she eats, and thinks that she should eat less. I encourage her to eat more and not to worry about those things.
My wife was not a virgin when I met her, that didn’t make the slightest bit of difference to way I felt about her.
I find her leg hair cute, and she insists on shaving sometimes when I tell her to leave it. It took me years to finally convince her to stop wearing high heels (she really likes them). I told her that it deforms her feet and it’s harmful to her body. She now wears flats mostly, but she keeps some high heels for days when she just wants to wear them.
I tell my wife that I don’t understand why women put on ungodly amount of products on their body. I encourage her to use less.
Her mother on the other hand, tells her to do the opposite. My wife is usually stressful because her mother keeps on telling her to eat less and lose weight. She tells her constantly that her looks is her worth (my wife is a brilliant woman with a masters degree in economics). Her husband (my father-in-law) is nothing like her. He doesn’t tell her to do any of the things that you claim men do.
My wife’s sister does all of the things that you claim men makes women do. She spends hours before going outside even if to meet family. I finally asked her why she does it, I told her that I think people look better without make ups. She replied “Why do guys always say that?, my boyfriend tells me that too.”
I don’t speak for all men, but I am a man. Other men I know are like me. I am sorry that you’ve met men that made you feel that way. But I want you to know that not all men are like that. In fact, it’s hard for me to find men like that around me.
If anything it’s my wife who teases me about my growing weight and my shoulders getting narrower. Not the other way around.
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