Is Feminism Still Relevant?

[Pearl]

Originally Posted by Jive Turkey

psst, you were the first one who was rude I was just trying to spread the funnies

Initially, I thought that tumblr site sided with those guys. But now I see what the point really was.

Forgive me, but I just came from HuffPo were I literally got into an argument with some guy over VAWA. Apparently, thinking it is good for men to stand up against violence against women makes me a man-hater. So, I'm a bit edgy over his verbal attacks at me.

[Jive Turkey]

Originally Posted by Pearl

Initially, I thought that tumblr site sided with those guys. But now I see what the point really was.

Forgive me, but I just came from HuffPo were I literally got into an argument with some guy over VAWA. Apparently, thinking it is good for men to stand up against violence against women makes me a man-hater. So, I'm a bit edgy over his verbal attacks at me.

Its okay Read how dumb the guys are on the tumblr site. It will make you feel better

[Pearl]

I am 17 years old and I am a feminist. I believe in gender equality, and am under no illusion about how far we are from achieving it. Identifying as a feminist has become particularly important to me since a school trip I took to Cambridge last year.
A group of men in a car started wolf-whistling and shouting sexual remarks at my friends and me. I asked the men if they thought it was appropriate for them to be abusing a group of 17-year-old girls. The response was furious. The men started swearing at me, called me a bitch and threw a cup coffee over me.
For those men we were just legs, breasts and pretty faces. Speaking up shattered their fantasy, and they responded violently to my voice.
Shockingly, the boys in my peer group have responded in exactly the same way to my feminism.
After returning from this school trip I started to notice how much the girls at my school suffer because of the pressures associated with our gender. Many of the girls have eating disorders, some have had peers heavily pressure them into sexual acts, others suffer in emotionally abusive relationships where they are constantly told they are worthless.
I decided to set up a feminist society at my school, which has previously been named one of "the best schools in the country", to try to tackle these issues. However, this was more difficult than I imagined as my all-girls school was hesitant to allow the society. After a year-long struggle, the feminist society was finally ratified.
What I hadn't anticipated on setting up the feminist society was a massive backlash from the boys in my wider peer circle. They took to Twitter and started a campaign of abuse against me. I was called a "feminist bitch", accused of "feeding [girls] bullshit", and in a particularly racist comment was told "all this feminism bull won't stop uncle Sanjit from marrying you when you leave school".
Our feminist society was derided with retorts such as, "FemSoc, is that for real? #DPMO" [don't piss me off] and every attempt we made to start a serious debate was met with responses such as "feminism and rape are both ridiculously tiring".
The more girls started to voice their opinions about gender issues, the more vitriolic the boys' abuse became. One boy declared that "bitches should keep their bitchiness to their bitch-selves #BITCH" and another smugly quipped, "feminism doesn't mean they don't like the D, they just haven't found one to satisfy them yet." Any attempt we made to stick up for each other was aggressively shot down with "get in your lane before I par [ridicule] you too", or belittled with remarks like "cute, they got offended".
I fear that many boys of my age fundamentally don't respect women. They want us around for parties, banter and most of all sex. But they don't think of us as intellectual equals, highlighted by accusations of being hysterical and over sensitive when we attempted to discuss serious issues facing women.
The situation recently reached a crescendo when our feminist society decided to take part in a national project called Who Needs Feminism. We took photos of girls standing with a whiteboard on which they completed the sentence "I need feminism because...", often delving into painful personal experiences to articulate why feminism was important to them.
When we posted these pictures online we were subject to a torrent of degrading and explicitly sexual comments.
We were told that our "militant vaginas" were "as dry as the Sahara desert", girls who complained of sexual objectification in their photos were given ratings out of 10, details of the sex lives of some of the girls were posted beside their photos, and others were sent threatening messages warning them that things would soon "get personal".
We, a group of 16-, 17- and 18-year-old girls, have made ourselves vulnerable by talking about our experiences of sexual and gender oppression only to elicit the wrath of our male peer group. Instead of our school taking action against such intimidating behaviour, it insisted that we remove the pictures. Without the support from our school, girls who had participated in the campaign were isolated, facing a great deal of verbal abuse with the full knowledge that there would be no repercussions for the perpetrators.
It's been over a century since the birth of the suffragette movement and boys are still not being brought up to believe that women are their equals. Instead we have a whole new battleground opening up online where boys can attack, humiliate, belittle us and do everything in their power to destroy our confidence before we even leave high school.
It is appalling that an institution responsible for preparing young women for adult life has actively opposed our feminist work. I feel like the school is not supporting its girls in a crucial part of their evolution into being strong, assertive, confident women. If that's the case for a well-established girls' school, what hope does this generation of women have in challenging the misogyny that still pervades our society?
If you thought the fight for female equality was over, I'm sorry to tell you that a whole new round is only just beginning.

What happened when I started a feminist society at school | Education | guardian.co.uk

Sigh. I just don't understand why so many men everywhere in the world has this obsessive hatred for women. It feels like it is getting worse, maybe because of the Internet. It also makes me scared to bring a kid into this world. If I have a daughter, I'll have to not raise her to be strong but also to prepare for all the misogyny out there. If I have a son, I could try to raise him to respect women with every ounce of my being. But peer pressure could very easily kick in, and he could be another guy with the motto, "bros before hos". Sad to think that even my toddler nephews, cute and funny as they are now, are at risk for turning out this way.

[Pearl]

One in three women experience sexual or physical violence -- most likely from their intimate partner, according to a report from the World Health Organization.
The report, called the first of its kind, estimates the global toll of such violence on women at 35.6%. In a statement, Dr. Margaret Chan, the director-general of WHO, described it as a "global health problem of epidemic proportions."
Women who have been physically and sexually abused are more likely to contract HIV/AIDS, to have an abortion, to get depression, injuries, alcohol use disorders and pregnancy complications, according to the WHO report.
About 38% of all murdered women are killed by an intimate partner (compared with 6% of all murdered men).
Violence against women should not be considered as isolated events, but rather a "pattern of behavior that violates the rights of women and girls," the authors wrote.
They also warned that the figures from the report are likely underestimated.
Opinion: Why domestic violence is never a private issue
Getting accurate statistics on sexual and physical violence remains difficult due to stigma and underreporting, said the authors from the WHO, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and South African Medical Research Council. Also, reporting sexual violence may put women's lives at risk, they wrote.
The report, compiled through global and regional population data, was constrained by the lack of information in places such as the Middle East, central Sub-Saharan Africa, East and Central Asia.
WHO: 1 in 3 women experience physical or sexual violence - CNN.com
Based on the available information, Southeast Asia is the most affected region with 37.7% experiencing partner violence. The data included Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste.
In India, outrage stemming from high-profile rape cases prompted national discussions on the treatment of women and changes in the country's laws.
The other regions of the world reporting higher partner violence were the Eastern Mediterranean with 37% (based on data from Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, and the Palestinian territory) and 36.6% in Africa.
The Americas followed with 29.8%, Europe (Albania, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine) at 25.4% and the Western Pacific (Cambodia, China, Philippines, Samoa, Vietnam) had 24.6%. Higher income countries (which included places like Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Japan, United Kingdom and United States) had 23.2% prevalence of violence.
When factoring in non-partner violence, authors found that 45.6% of females in Africa had experienced abuse. Southeast Asia followed with 40.2%.
Despite such figures, the report authors wrote: "Violence is not inevitable."
"This new data shows that violence against women is extremely common. We urgently need to invest in prevention to address the underlying causes of this global women's health problem," said Charlotte Watts, professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, in a released statement.
The WHO recommended better access to post-rape care and healthcare training. The authors also supported recommendations such as more legal and policy accountability, programs for women, as well as the underlying causes that "foster a culture of violence against women."
"Promising prevention programs exist, and need to be tested and scaled up," the authors wrote.

WHO: 1 in 3 women experience physical or sexual violence - CNN.com

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by Pearl

WHO: 1 in 3 women experience physical or sexual violence - CNN.com

This is utterly outrageous.

[deep]

Paula Deen just got a beating.

[The Sad Punk]

Originally Posted by Jive Turkey

I think this can go in here

http://bitchsandwich.tumblr.com/

This is great.

And, frankly, makes me feel a hell of a lot better about seeing awful misogynistic shit online.

[BonosSaint]

NY Times

July 5, 2013
In Australia, Misogyny Lives On
By JULIA BAIRD

SYDNEY

THE fastest way to lance a country’s anxieties about women and power is to appoint a female leader. For the three years and three days that Julia Gillard was prime minister of Australia, we debated the fit of her jackets, the size of her bottom, the exposure of her cleavage, the cut of her hair, the tone of her voice, the legitimacy of her rule and whether she had chosen, as one member of Parliament from the opposition Liberal Party put it, to be “deliberately barren.”

The sexism was visceral and often grotesque.

There were placards crying “Ditch the Witch,” toys designed for dogs that encouraged them to chew on the fleshier parts of her anatomy, and, most recently, a menu offering “Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail — small breasts, huge thighs and a big red box.” By the end of her term, on June 27, the prime minister struggled to be heard above the sexist ridicule. When she addressed this, she was accused of igniting “gender wars.”

To point this out is not to imply that Ms. Gillard was flawless: far from it.

Her biggest problem may have been the way she became Australia’s first female prime minister. Under the Westminster system, voters elect parties, who are able to change leaders at will. In June 2010, Ms. Gillard, then deputy prime minister, deposed Kevin Rudd, with support from other members of their governing Labor Party, ostensibly because of poor polling. “The government,” she said, “had lost its way.” It was the first time that a sitting prime minister in Australia had been overthrown by his own party during his first term. Meanwhile, Mr. Rudd never left the picture. He stayed in government, and last month — almost exactly three years after Ms. Gillard had pushed him out — he returned the favor, after polls suggested that the party would be annihilated at the coming election.

Uneasiness over the way Ms. Gillard came to power fed deep currents of misogyny throughout her time in power. (She remains a member of Parliament but will retire at the election.)

She was pragmatic and effective, presided over solid economic growth, reduced Australia’s carbon emissions and enacted historic reforms in the areas of education and disability. History will be kind to her.

But she made many mistakes: abandoning a promise not to introduce a carbon tax, being slow to condemn corruption in her party, and negotiating a limp tax that failed to reap significant revenue from Australia’s mining boom.

She lacked canny political instincts and was unable to project her natural warmth, humor and empathy or convince the public of her sincerity.

Women across Australia had clinked glasses at her ascension: at last, the mold was smashed. She was an unmarried red-haired atheist with no children, living with a hairdresser boyfriend who often rose early to tend to her tresses. Yet Ms. Gillard was determined not to let her sex be a distraction. She fought the 2010 election hard, playing politics like the boys, with wit, pragmatism and tough debating skills. She ignored the sneers, the contempt and the catcalls.

Then, last year, her father died. While she was still grieving, a radio shock jock named Alan Jones declared that Ms. Gillard’s father must have died of shame. Shortly afterward, in Parliament, the leader of the Liberal opposition, Tony Abbott, said that Ms. Gillard’s government should “die of shame.” Ms. Gillard delivered a blistering response. She would not be lectured to, she said, by a man who had stood next to placards calling her “bitch,” and who had suggested that men had a better temperament for leadership. “My father did not die of shame,” she said coolly. “What the leader of the opposition should be ashamed of is his performance in this Parliament and the sexism he brings with it.”

“If he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn’t need a motion in the House of Representatives. He needs a mirror.”

As her popularity dropped — especially among men — Ms. Gillard’s failings were unfairly pegged to the fact that she had dared to talk about the perils of female leadership. With gender dominating front pages for months, the media described her daily as a failed experiment. Even her fiercest critics conceded, in the final weeks, that no other prime minister was ever treated with such vitriol.

At her last news conference, Ms. Gillard said being the first woman “does not explain everything about my time in the prime ministership, nor does it explain nothing.” Her voice quavered when she said, “What I am absolutely confident of is that it will be easier for the next woman and for the woman after that and the woman after that, and I’m proud of that.”

The woman who had been known for playing politics like a man had suffered the most extraordinary, foul attacks on a woman we have seen in this country. Both her success and her failure acted like pipe songs, luring the snakes of contempt and woman-hating from their baskets. School students threw sandwiches at her.

Now the demons have settled, if wakefully. Mr. Rudd has revived his party’s chances at the next election, and commentators have turned from misogyny to taxes, carbon, refugees and investment; there is a discomfiting sense of relief that the woman has gone.

But we have all changed for having a female prime minister. Ms. Gillard was unable to control her party or her political narrative; unlike Margaret Thatcher, who silenced critics by staring them down, she seemed to only spur them on. But her steel and stoicism were remarkable.

And the robust discussion we had about archaic attitudes about women has mattered.

A 4-year-old girl from Canberra, when told that Australia had a new prime minister, said: “Really? What’s her name?” This, too, matters.

Julia Baird, the author of “Media Tarts: How the Australian Press Frames Female Politicians,” is writing a biography of Queen Victoria.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/op...gewanted=print

[nbcrusader]

The view from within Australia appears to be a bit different.

[BonosSaint]

A view from inside Australia appears to be a bit different. Your post is from a Conservative opinion writer for context. Just as the post below is from a liberal opinion writer.

10 October, 2012 · 5:45 pm

The Gender Card


Julia Gillard, Feminist Superstar

You have to admit, the world moves in mysterious ways. Overnight, Tony Abbott became an international laughing stock as result of Julia Gillard’s big rant.


The most enthusiastic praise came from US women’s site Jezebel, which described Ms Gillard as “one badass mother—-er”.

“In an impassioned 15-minute smackdown in front of the House of Representatives, the country’s first female leader gave a scathing speech calling out opposition leader Tony Abbott’s extremely misogynistic comments, actions, views on abortion and single women, all while pointing in his face.”

Jezebel also highlighted some of her “choice quotes” including:
- “I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man, I will not. And the government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever. The leader of the opposition says that people who hold sexist views and who are misogynists are not appropriate for high office. Well, I hope the leader of the opposition has got a piece of paper and he is writing out his resignation. Because if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn’t need a motion in the house of representatives, he needs a mirror.
- “I was very offended personally the Leader of the Opposition said abortion is the easy way out.”
- “I was offended when he stood next to a sign that described me as a ‘man’s bitch.’”

Online political magazine Salon said US politicians such as Todd Akin, who said “legitimate rape” did not result in pregnancy, and Allen West, who was blasted after telling a Democrat she was “not a lady”, could learn something from Ms Gillard.

“If only the US could borrow Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard to take on Congress’s misogynist caucus,” Salon said.
“We wonder if Gillard takes requests: Todd Akin, R.-Mo., and Allen West, R.- Fla., to name just a couple, could certainly use a similar treatment.”

And so it went. Germaine Greer, eat your heart out, the world has a new poster-child for Feminism. And yes, Tony Abbott looked a right git toward the end of Gillard’s rant.

Shut Up ‘n’ Take Yer Medicine Tony

Of course today, Tony Abbott’s trying to come back at the rant, trying to characterise it as ‘playing the gender card’.


Mr Abbott said today he would not retreat from his criticism of the Prime Minister.
He called on Labor to stop playing the gender card.
”Just because the Prime Minister has sometimes been the victim of unfair criticism doesn’t mean she can dismiss any criticism as sexism or she can dismiss any criticism on gender grounds,” Mr Abbott said.

The staggering chutzpah of Tony Abbott is that he nary shows that he has to acknowledge he got beat by his own cudgel yesterday, good and proper. Maybe this kind of chutzpah is something admirable to a certain kind of conservative mindset, but I wonder if he’s going to ever overcome the international PR damage of being ‘that guy who had to sit there and take that 15minute rant from the first female Prime Minister of Australia’.

The sad (and decidedly ugly) point about the whole Peter Slipper affair is that Peter Slipper was indeed a one time friend of Tony Abbott, who got sold down the river by Tony Abbott. Peter Slipper – for whatever reasons of his own – made his move to accept the role of Speaker of House if for no other reason than the money and prestige. It certainly damaged the Coalition because it went against the overall aim of destabilising the fragile Parliament where the independents held so much power, however it really must be asked whether it was realistic of Tony Abbott and his front benchers to expect the apple of government to fall on their laps like some gift from the gods.

To this – mostly imaginary, partly mirage-like – end, Tony Abbott has bent his considerable effort at portraying the Prime Minster as a lying witch, bitch slut and whatever else, as well as hunted Craig Thomson into a kind of wilderness where he may never get a fair trial should he ever have to face charges. The utter lack of restraint and the most naked of blind ambitions has made him less of a candidate for the highest elected office of Australia.

Now, he might complain and call all this dressing down he got from Julia Gillard as Gillard playing the gender card, but no, no, no, Mr. Abbott, this is just the beginning. It is fairly clear that the polite, protective rubber gloves are off, and Julia Gillard has stainless steel fists.

Why Does Paul Sheehan Even Have A Job At The SMH?

I know he only writes opinion pieces but really, somebody should tell him the tone of his writing is as low as he accuses others of being.


After sending out two attack dogs, Gutter and Sewer, to do the dirty work, after hiding behind two political zombies, Insufferable and Unspeakable, to stay in power, after using the Minister for Innuendo and the Compromise-General to play the gender card, the mask has finally dropped away to reveal the driver of the politics of hate in Australia.

The mask fell at exactly 2.42pm in the House of Representatives. Looking on were the member for Gutter, Anthony Albanese, the member for Sewer, Wayne Swan, the Minister for Innuendo, Tanya Plibersek, and the Compromise-General, Nicola Roxon, and the independents who will do anything to avoid facing their electorates, Mr Insufferable, Robert Oakeshott, and his fellow regional zombie, Mr Unspeakable, Tony Windsor.

Someone had to set Gutter and Sewer loose. Someone directed Innuendo and Compromise to play the gender card. Someone paid the bill for Insufferable and Unspeakable. Someone’s authority still rests on the vote of Craig Thomson. And someone had to approve making Peter Slipper the Speaker despite his being manifestly disrespected by either side of the house, a low point of political opportunism.

At 2.42 pm on Tuesday that someone rose to speak. The mask fell away. Julia Gillard came out snarling. The Parliament had before it a great issue, the dignity of the house itself, which had been traduced by the scandal that had attached itself to Slipper.

Instead of directly addressing the issue of a discredited speakership which had become engulfed in an expensive and degrading legal action that did no credit to anyone involved, least of all the Attorney-General, the Prime Minister wasted no timing in using misdirection and personal abuse.

That’s all pretty vulgar as he is trying to paint the Prime Minister for daring to point out the blindingly obvious – the reason why the Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott cannot be taken seriously for his motion against Peter Slipper on the basis of misogyny and sexism is that the only way to interpret Tony Abbott’s public utterances and prevarications and qualifications and babble-burble-bicker-banter is that he himself is sexist and a misogynist. And no amount of hauling Abbott’s wife out into the limelight is going to fix that fact – not perception, but fact on the public record. Similarly, no amount of name-calling and belittling of the Prime Minster (for being a woman, I guess) is going to add any moral authority to a man who has made hypocrisy a sport all his life and can’t even tell when he’s doing it.

Paul Sheehan then goes on to argue that Julia Gillard lied about the Carbon Tax.

“Lied”!

Now, regular readers of this blog will well know that I do not approve of Julia Gillard and will not vote for her or the ALP at the next Federal Election. My mind is made up; she cannot persuade me otherwise. This is between me and my political conviction.

All the same, even I know and understand and remember well enough, that what happened with respect to the Carbon Tax was that she had to go ahead with it in order to form government with the one Green MP and the 3 independents. It didn’t matter that she campaigned against it and removed Kevin Rudd in order not to have the ETS. It was the hung Parliament that forced her to agree to the Carbon Tax. To argue that she “lied” given these circumstances is stretching the truth way beyond breaking point. It’s one thing for idiot pundits like Alan Jones and other shock jocks to call this a lie: They’re not smart enough to understand how things went that led up to that point in history. They’re intellectual pygmies (and I’m being un-nice to real pygmies when I say that) preaching to the brain-damaged sub-literate morons who cannot read newspapers nor hold a thought long enough to understand history (but alas as citizens have the vote nonetheless).

However, a man who is paid to write opinion pieces in the Sydney Morning Herald website ought to have a better understanding than calling Julia Gillard a liar. It’s willfully stupid and blind to the facts.

If I had Gina Rinehart’s money to buy Fairfax, I’d make a point of sacking Paul Sheehan too.

Paul Sheehan | The Art Neuro Weblog

I don't know whether Ms. Gillard is a good PM. I don't mind when ( figurative shots) are fired at any politician. But I watch the ammunition.

I don't really expect many men to notice the ammunition. Hell, I expect that a lot of women won't notice it. I'm also not as inclined to call most of it misogyny. I think misogyny is rarer than some other feminists may thin. Sexism, however, is a different story. Like homophobia and racism and xenophobia, it's not as noticeable when you're not the one feeling the effects.

I don't believe in censoring, but I believe in noticing and pointing out now and again.

Nice to see you back, Crusader.

[Jive Turkey]

If you're looking for balanced opinions "Feminist Superstar" probably isn't any more objective than "Conservative Opinion Writer"

[Pearl]

Wasn't she called a c*nt at one point by a Australian lawmaker?

She's got my respect. Hillary Clinton and Margaret Thatcher just held their head up high and kept going. While that's strong and brave of them too, Gillard took it a step further. She held her head up high and kept going after telling sexist men to go fuck themselves.

[BonosSaint]

If you're looking for balanced opinions "Feminist Superstar" probably isn't any more objective than "Conservative Opinion Writer"

My point. Wasn't looking for balance there.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by BonosSaint

My point. Wasn't looking for balance there.

Exactly. The article was presented as an unbiased view from inside Australia. Thank you for pointing it out as a conservative opinion piece.

[Jive Turkey]

Originally Posted by BonosSaint

My point. Wasn't looking for balance there.

Oh, sorry. I missed the second bit of your intro to the piece. In general, articles like this aren't at all helpful, but I see what you did there

[AEON]

My wife still deals with sexism in the workplace. She is not harassed, but there is certainly prevalent view that women are good "organizers" and men are good "leaders".

[Vlad n U 2]

Conservative bloggers are the absolute last people who should be consulted about sexism/feminism.

[nbcrusader]

Originally Posted by Vlad n U 2

Conservative bloggers are the absolute last people who should be consulted about sexism/feminism.

Bloggers tend to be partisan cheerleaders, not journalists. You are not going to get a better or unbiased analysis from a liberal blogger.

[nbcrusader]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

Exactly. The article was presented as an unbiased view from inside Australia. Thank you for pointing it out as a conservative opinion piece.

Actually, I didn't make any such claim, so I'm not sure what you are contributing with your post.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by nbcrusader

Actually, I didn't make any such claim, so I'm not sure what you are contributing with your post.

I was thanking the Australia poster who pointed out the the article was not as you presented "the view" from inside Oz, but rather "a view" from Down Under.