TED Community » Kathleen Meine

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I'm passionate about

Libertarianism is not objectivism. If you equate followers of Ayn Rand (who HATED libertarians, btw) with Libertarians, I might get angry.

An idea worth spreading

Feminism is not misandry. If you think there are "man hating" feminists who want to turn the world into a matriarchy, you do not understand what feminism is. People who hate men and view women as superior are misandrists, NOT feminists. Please read a book on the philosophy of feminism, or at least the wikipedia article about feminism before you start defining why you disagree with feminism.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +1.00 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A reply on Conversation: What are the cultural and emotional factors that make the idea of women speaking for themselves seem threatening?

  Jun 23 2012: I do not want to assume I know what you're talking about. Can you please elucidate?
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: What are the cultural and emotional factors that make the idea of women speaking for themselves seem threatening?

  Jun 23 2012: J M - I suspect that Barry was talking about the responses on Facebook, which is what the original poster specifically referenced.

• A reply on Conversation: Is feminism right or wrong?

  Jun 20 2012: None taken. However, we are still expected to do the lion's share of the household work, even when working full time. So, really, I view it as more an appropriate example than ironic.
  
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/mar/10/housework-gender-equality-women
  http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2011/08/10/good-question-why-do-women-still-do-most-of-the-chores/
  http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/246566.php

• A reply on Conversation: Is feminism right or wrong?

  Jun 20 2012: I guess I'm missing the play on words? Or are you talking about the irony of talking about doing a household chore in a conversation on feminism.

• A reply on Conversation: Is feminism right or wrong?

  Jun 20 2012: Ah. I see. Since you did not cite sources, I figured that we were in a more casual debate, and anecdotal evidence would be permissible to use. Please feel free to correct my assumption by showing your sources.

• A reply on Conversation: Is feminism right or wrong?

  Jun 19 2012: Rafi Amin - we all have to clean this dirty floor. I can't clean it all by myself. So, I'm going to stick to my corner and call it feminism. I'm sure you've got something to clean yourself, and you can call *your* cleaning humanism if you want.
  
  Point is, if you are working for a specific cause, it helps to have a specific label, so people can identify with what you're working towards.

• A reply on Conversation: Is feminism right or wrong?

  Jun 19 2012: Ah, so, women should give up child bearing in order to concentrate on their careers. I totally agree, since we've overpopulated the planet anyway. But, since a lot of people don't agree with us, do you think that women, who have the entire burden of the childbearing, putting themselves at risk of death, and otherwise damaging their bodies should likewise suffer on a career front? Most countries say no, that a woman should have time to have her child and have an (variable, depending on the country) amount of time to raise it at first, before returning to their career without losing seniority or pay raises.
  
  In addition, managers to this day use your outlook to justify giving men better raises. (He will have a family to support, meanwhile, she will quit to have children and be supported by her husband.) This is despite the fact that the stay-at-home mom is dramatically in the minority, ESPECIALLY in lower income classes, in which women of color are likely to be impacted.
  
  I've personally seen men who have less experience and qualifications than I have get promoted over me. I've personally seen another woman who was less qualified, but more physically attractive get a job that both of us were up for. I've personally seen a woman get sexually harassed (I mean, propositioned for sex in exchange for money by someone in a position of authority over her), and when she went to her manager, the manager complained about how bad she was about spreading rumors.
  
  But yeah, you're right. I'm just being manipulated by people who are "renting space" in my head.

• A reply on Conversation: Is feminism right or wrong?

  Jun 19 2012: People who believe that women should have more power than men aren't feminists. They're misandrists. They may call themselves feminists, but they aren't. Feel free to call them out on it, because they're the most damaging thing to a movement towards equality.
  
  EXTREME feminism is EXTREME equality. Anything else is a pack of lies. Please don't fight the misandrists' battles for them by referring to misandry as feminism.

• A reply on Conversation: Is feminism right or wrong?

  Jun 19 2012: Adam - did we watch the same video? I don't recall her saying that male editors purposefully ignored female issues. What she said was that she doubted that female issues would be reported on as much when lacking a female editor. I really don't think she meant that there was some malfeasance on behalf of the male editors, but rather, just ignorance that there are things that should be reported on, and an ignorant perpetuation of ideas about how men and women interact.
  
  For example, the gang rape of the eleven year old happened close to where I live, and I followed the story very closely. She was quite right, in most of the articles, regardless of publication, the sympathy was clearly with the rapists. That was not any sort of exaggeration. And some of the quotes about how this child were inappropriately dressed were made by women, so it's not like the blame fall solely on the men. And, in my opinion, this is because people are socialized to blame the victim in a rape, particularly if that victim is female. A man might not question this, because we are all socialized into this attitude, and men rarely have to live with the fear of rape that women do. However, an educated woman, who does fear being alone with a man, *is* going to constantly have on her mind how she is dressed, where she is walking, etc, BECAUSE we are told that if we are not perfect we must be at blame. This kind of outlook in an editor would likely cause the editor to take a more sympathetic view of the victim. They might have talked more about how the child was neglected by her parents (which only came out after weeks of victim blaming). They might have talked more about how no one deserves to be raped because of what they are wearing, or the fact that they have makeup on. They might have even talked more about how it doesn't matter how "adult" this girl was dressed, she was known in the neighborhood as a child. But, none of these issues were covered until weeks into the story.
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  A comment on Conversation: What are the cultural and emotional factors that make the idea of women speaking for themselves seem threatening?

  Jun 19 2012: DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT ALL MEN HERE, BUT RATHER A FEW IGNORANT MEN.
  
  Privilege. When men had the right to vote on our behalf taken away, they lost privilege. When men lost the ability to be the sole income earners, they lost privilege. When men were expected to pay their female employees as much as they were expected to pay their male employees, they lost privilege. When a group loses privilege, some within that group feel like they are being attacked, rather than simply ceding some of their extraneous privilege towards the underprivileged.
  
  So, the irrational members of the group that feel this way attack back by trying to limit the underprivileged group's new found freedoms through intimidation. Thus, misogyny in response to feminism.