Re: OT: Feminism (Was: OT: reality (wasRe: Atlantean))

Quoting Axiem <axiem@...>:

> > I, however, tend to restrict it to people who believe in various
> sociological
> > theories who hold that (Western) society is built more or less purposely
> to
> > repress women, and that sex-based discrimination of any kind is inherently
> > bad. (That the same people with well above average frequency are
> misandrists,
> > if that's a word, is illogical, but not really surprising.)
>
> That's how feminism is usually interpreted in literature, as I understand
> it. As well, some of the feminists I've known have been like that.
>
> However, what I get most from most feminists is that /women/ are the
> superior sex. That is, they seem to want to change the oppressive dichotomy
> from men oppressing women to women oppressing men. I starkly disagree with
> this view, and consider it practically hypocritical.
While I've frequently seen/heard (self-proclaimed) feminists write/speak as if
everything bad in the world was caused by men, and everything good by women,
they IMLE usually nonetheless claim to want a society where men and women*
have equal say.

An interesting half-exception was a teacher who held that, ideally, society
should give men and women equal influence, but before that could be
instituted, we need a few thousand years of matriarchy to nullify the effect
of the patriarchy of the last few millennia. Unfortunately, she combined some
rather more disturbing opinions with a complete lack of a sense of humour, so
having a discussion with her was rather depressing.

* Why does it seem that pretty much every gender pair comes with a fixed
order, and why does the order change from pair to pair? 'Men and women', 'boys
and girls', 'ladies and gentlemen'.

> Misandrist? I haven't heard that, and can't parse the root "and". What I've
> usually heard is "misanthrope" (person who hates people) and "misogynist"
> (person who hates women). You mean person who hates men? As I recall in
> Contact, the main character agonized over that word's nonexistence.
The root's 'andr', from Greek _aner_, gen _andros_, "man". I seem to recall
Modern Greek has mangled it a bit. It's indeed meant to denote someone who
hates men.

                                                            Andreas

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