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

Adding more two cents, I replied:

> > 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.
IMLE? I don't know that acronym (In My L E?).

And yes, that's my general observation. Claim to want equality, yet act and
proclaim in such a way that (in my opinion) seems to be unequal. I don't
quite get the distinction, although I do know some feminists (my sister
being the one I can think of offhand) who wants equality and acts for
equality, ignoring sex as much as possible.

>
> 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.
That's too bad. And my thought on matriarchies? "Give a woman an inch, and
she thinks she's a ruler". Okay, not my real opinion, but some
(misogynistic) humor nonetheless. Your teacher perhaps has a point, but I
don't think a matriarchy would solve anything. I think it would cause severe
problems, because you also have an entire class of males (who are now
"inferior") who look back at the history where they were superior. I would
predict massive civil disturbances in such an instance. Either that or a
tyrannical Big Brother-esque government. I don't personally like either.

>
> * 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'.
"nuts and bolts", "nook and cranny", "Father, Son, Holy Spirit", "left and
right", "truth and justice", "day and night", "pens and pencils" but "pencil
and paper", "read and write", and so on. I don't think it's a gender thing
so much as a language thing. That is, for any set listed conjunctively,
there is a pattern that a language fixes for no necessarily good reason, but
becomes fixed over time. My suspicion is that it would derive solely based
on rhythm and sounds. But I could also see an argument for a logical
progression (then how do you get "bride and groom"?). I'm sure this occurs
in languages other than English, but the only example I can think of is
"onna no kokoro to aki no sora" (women's heart and autumn sky) in Japanese.

>
> > 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.
Ah. I figured, I just don't know Greek. But if "andro" is the root for
"man", is "androgeny" "man-form"? And is that "andros" man as in male, or
man as in human?

English needs a word that means a person who hates males. In my opinion.

-Keith

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