Philosophical Vegan Forum

Kyron wrote: There are little-no legal-rights that men have that women do not.. As far as I'm aware..)

That doesn't mean there is equality in a society. It's attitudes that matter. There are many ways to get around legal issues in order to discriminate against women.

Kyron wrote:
Labeling things like, pornography, or any sexually-themed photograph/media, sexist. (usually only if it involves a female.) [too many sources to list..]

You don't think there is sexism in porn??!!

Most modern straight porn is very sexist. It focuses primarily on the mans pleasure. and the woman is almost always in a submissive position. I won't even describe the kind of mainstream activities that are now deemed as 'normal' or 'mainstream' porn. These kind of videos used to be regarded as hardcore.
It's having a very negative effect on teenage girls and their boyfriends who want to recreate these acts even though they may be uncomfortable and even painful for the girls.

[quote="DiscreteElite_"] it seems as if feminists have financially elected Anita Sarkeesian by giving her $158,922 for her Kickstarter fund of $6,000. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/56 ... ideo-games She cherry-picks video games to be sexist when they really aren't and she still gets overwhelming support.
quote]
Wow. The vilification of Anita Sarkeesian is highly disturbing since she is only highlighting what is pretty well known about the gaming industries unhealthy portrayal of women.
The fact that almost all female gamers are creeped out by the stereotypes of women in games is proof that it is wrong and needs to change. Thank goodness change is progressing, albeit slowly.
Maybe you should look at things objectively, or from a woman's point of view. Do you know what male privilege is?

knowledge is power wrote: You don't think there is sexism in porn??!!

I didn't say that, not one bit. Please don't misconstrued what I'm saying. I am referring to campaigns such as "No More Page 3" and the general attitude that any consenting woman who chooses to express her body in such ways, and enjoys her craft, is somehow being discriminated against and oppressed - is insulting to the woman and does not promote the idea that women are independent individuals, who can think for themselves and who are genuinely passionate about what they do. I, genuinely have friends who work/aspiring to work in the porn industry. They are incredibly denounced by many feminists online.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_More_Page_3]

knowledge is power wrote:Most modern straight porn is very sexist. It focuses primarily on the mans pleasure. and the woman is almost always in a submissive position.

Having targeted-audience is not sexist. There are many, many types of pornography, fetishes, kinks. The thing about pornography though, is that it is all fantasy, and very, very rarely does it effect a person's judgement and actions in real life.
And actually, male dominance is not the most popular type of pornography. The most popular type of pornography according to Pornhub, is "lesbian". This would actually make the assumption that straight males, generally are more attracted to, not even being a part of the art, and prefer watching women "pleasure" eachother.
The specific type of porn you are talking about is "BDSM".
Pornography, has been shown to have little effect on teenagers. Teenagers are aware that it is just fantasy and most teenagers even use it as a form of sexual education. (though, probably not the best source.) - The worst thing that comes from pornography is self-consciousness. People are worried that they may not be as attractive for their partner. However, this is not directly linked to pornography, more so comparing yourself to others.
The number of sexual assaults per year is always dropping significantly. You'd assume that with the recent, easily-obtainable amount of pornography on the internet, that, if it was effecting people, that rate would have gone up once the internet was introduce, however, that is not the case. There were very similar talks around the time violent video games were introduced, and that it may be effecting their children. Yet, many studies proved otherwise. It's nearly the exact same case.

knowledge is power wrote:That doesn't mean there is equality in a society. It's attitudes that matter. There are many ways to get around legal issues in order to discriminate against women.

Of course there is not true equality in society. But society does not generally favor men over women or vice-versa. In fact, polls show that an estimated 81% of (British) people believe that both men and women should be treated equally in every way. There will always be assholes who feel otherwise. An authoritarian system where we try to control every aspect of society is very distopian and toxic. We should just do the best to our abilities, in conjunction with people's human-rights.

knowledge is power wrote:Wow. The vilification of Anita Sarkeesian is highly disturbing since she is only highlighting what is pretty well known about the gaming industries unhealthy portrayal of women.

Do... I really need to go into that person? She is often very inaccurate and very biased. Her inspiration and idea of feminism is that of Bell Hooks. A very misandrist and sexist version of Feminism.

knowledge is power wrote:Maybe you should look at things objectively, or from a woman's point of view. Do you know what male privilege is?

Male privilege is a very incorrect idea to be promoting. Privilege often does not come in regards to biological sex, it is specific to the individual's position, struggles, financial situation, etc. To throw around the idea that being a male makes you generally privileged (in the western world) in comparison to women, is insensitive, and just plain wrong, and promotes a prejudiced against innocent men that holds them in contempt for actions that are not their own.
Sexism is something that effects many people of both sexes. And it has a lot to do with gender-roles. The idea of being the strong, stupid, protector as a man, and the fragile, intelligent, smooth woman, are often promoted in the media - which is fine, until people start taking it as "that's how things should be" or that they are "rules" rather than specific things on individual levels, that vary among person to person. Correlation =/= causation. These assumptions effect both sexes.
Now, a lot of the time, these gender-role ideals are presented as rules "of god", by religion. However, a lot of the time feminists prefer to blame men and steer clear of religion, because "everyone has the right to believe what they want"... Which I find ridiculous.

Note: Every time I've mentioned "feminsts" here, I'm talking about the feminst movement and people who identify as such. As I mentioned before, the strict definition of feminism is very different to the movement.

Do you know the fucking shitstorms that would happen if TheVEGANATHEIST made such videos? not to mention it would look bad on him, and mkae him look like he only cares about the views rather than the content.
But all that aside, i wanted to focus on the video you sent. First of all, I find it super pathetic that you would give us a video by fucking NateTalksToYou. He doesn't know the first thing about feminism, and it's fucking obvious that he doesn't care about any of the actual real issues that feminists discuss and work against. i mean watch his video about Street Harassment. That video was bombarded from beginning to end with stupid arguments, and half the video Nate just focused on irrelevant arguments. Not to mention that the "feminists" that nate portrayed in that video are not feminists at all. Those are what we call MORONS. There's a fine line between feminism and being a total moron. And THERE ARE ISSUES WITH WOMEN IN THE FIRST WORLD. Harassment, lower wages, sexism by political figures, etc.

If you want to know that you're a feminist, ask yourself this one single question:

Do men and women deserve to be socially equal (same wages, no harassment, etc) in every way?
If you said yes, congrats, you're not a sexist douchebag, and you are infact a feminist. (Just because the word "Feminine" is in the word doesn't mean they only focus on women, mind you)
If you said no, please, get educated and come back.

Sooooooooooooooo any moral person who has empathy torwards others is in fact a feminist. You're probably not tough, from the looks of it.

I know it's not really directed at me, but I'd like to respond also if that's okay?
In regards to VA should not do it because of the shitstorm it'd cause, I disagree. Refer to VA's slogan. "Nobody is immune from criticism"
Truely stupid 'Feminist' comments should be called out as equally as any stupid atheist/theist/vegan/meat-eater. Nobody is special.

Harassment,

Is that a gender/biological-sex specific issue?

lower wages,

You can't correctly say that. There is not enough data to deduce that it has anything to do with gender/biological-sex. However, neither can anyone correctly say that it doesn't. (See my earlier post)

sexism by political figures, etc.

Again, is that a gender/biological-sex specific issue?

Sooooooooooooooo any moral person who has empathy torwards others is in fact a feminist.

Actually, they're an egalitarian. Feminism is strictly women having equal rights to men. It's sort of a sub-label for egalitarians. But yes, you're right. However, the feminist movement is full of "morons" as you have stated. The western movement usually is not associated with feminism the action or belief. Sadly, the most popular campaigns and (as far as I can see) most people within the movemebt promote a very sexist version of feminism that advocates things like, segregation of sexes. (See earlier posts)

RedAppleGP wrote:Do men and women deserve to be socially equal (same wages, no harassment, etc) in every way?

No. Nobody inherently deserves anything. I have a serious problem with deontological moral entitlement.

Please don't make assumptions.
Ask yourself what entitlement, or 'deserving', means, and try to understand the context of those claims, along with their consequences, from a philosophical perspective. Political rhetoric is not useful in philosophy.

Not believing in deontological entitlement doesn't make somebody uneducated.

We should all be equal before the law, because that just works better -- the consequences of that are fairly clear. And to that end, such legal equality is close to a reality, but also complicated by biological differences. I have discussed this at more length elsewhere.

Do not forget that we're all ethical vegans here, and interested in morality. Do not let political ideology bias you to the extent you fail to consider others' positions. The issue is not as simple as you're making it out to be.

Most feminists don't care anything for ethics, but are political ideologues:
http://speciesism-denying-humans.tumblr ... n-feminist

Also, don't make the no true scotsman fallacy with Feminist activists.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman

If they say they're feminists, and are regarded by credible sources as feminists, you have a difficult argument to make in order to claim they are not what they say they are (and are regarded to be).

I'm not inherently against even the raging, man-hating feminists. I'm also not against the MRA. They both have an important role to play in the dialogue that is the very complicated issue of equal rights, even when the discussion is unfortunately hostile.

However, I don't see any point in TVA making a divisive video about these topics, when it's unlikely to serve either veganism or atheism in any conceivable way, and just cause flame wars and a likely loss of subscribers.
Most people are incapable of rational thought where politics are concerned, which is one of many reasons I try to stay well clear of them. I'm much more comfortable with legitimate philosophy than rhetoric.

Kyron wrote:I know it's not really directed at me, but I'd like to respond also if that's okay?
In regards to VA should not do it because of the shitstorm it'd cause, I disagree. Refer to VA's slogan. "Nobody is immune from criticism"
Truely stupid 'Feminist' comments should be called out as equally as any stupid atheist/theist/vegan/meat-eater. Nobody is special.

Kyron wrote:

Harassment,

Is that a gender/biological-sex specific issue?

Mostly for women. Every day in The Western world, women are afraid to out at night due to fear of being harassed by total strangers. Men are far less likely to take offense to such things. 20% of women will have exprienced some form of harassment by the age of 16, so that kinda explains why it's a bigger deal for women.

Kyron wrote:

lower wages,

You can't correctly say that. There is not enough data to deduce that it has anything to do with gender/biological-sex. However, neither can anyone correctly say that it doesn't. (See my earlier post)

Well what about history? Women have been systematically mistreated for over thousands of yeards, and were considered to be less than men. And when women started getting jobs in the western world (America's Roarin' 20s) women started getting jobs instead of being stuck in the house all day cookiing and cleaning and whatnot. Since the sexism against women was still around, and capitalist pigs paid them less than men. This may just be a broad speculation, but I think this was religion's wrong-doing.

Kyron wrote:

sexism by political figures, etc.

Again, is that a gender/biological-sex specific issue?

C'mon, really? In america, women don't even have basic birth rights (if that's what they're called) and in some states they can't even have an abortion, and it's all because of the conservative party. It's funny, because a clump of cells in a womb + life that must be cherished. A women? Eh.. not so much. But that really pisses me off due to the fact that a once a ten year old got raped, and had to keep the fucking baby. Not to mention that some conservatives show blatent sexism. Just watch anything that's not fox news and you'll see what I mean.

Kyron wrote:

Sooooooooooooooo any moral person who has empathy torwards others is in fact a feminist.

Actually, they're an egalitarian. Feminism is strictly women having equal rights to men. It's sort of a sub-label for egalitarians. But yes, you're right. However, the feminist movement is full of "morons" as you have stated. The western movement usually is not associated with feminism the action or belief. Sadly, the most popular campaigns and (as far as I can see) most people within the movemebt promote a very sexist version of feminism that advocates things like, segregation of sexes. (See earlier posts)

you got your facts backwards brudda'!. If you pay attention to feminist movements, they don't only focus on womens rights, they believe that men and women deserve equal rights. I never said that men don't have a rght or two that a women doesn't have (like less jail time), even though they are far less. Feminism is just equal, fair, moral rights for all. I even said that they don't only focus on women! And just to clarify, feminists believe that men deserve fair rights too. Now about the morons thing. I was only referring to the people that complain about manspreading. Feminists want equal right for men and women. They don't complain about how a dude sits on the subway. Western feminsts also tend to focus on events happening in the eastern world, like the Yeminity Womens Union. But if you see a sexist campaign, the people involved are not feminists unless they've been mislead or something. And justa nitpick, bt egalitarians haven't really brought anything new to the table in terms of equality. But hey, that's just me.

Kyron wrote: Actually, they're an egalitarian. Feminism is strictly women having equal rights to men. It's sort of a sub-label for egalitarians.

Not really. There's no such thing as "equal" in many of these situations.

How can you establish equal rights around child birth and abortion? There's an inherent asymmetry there that makes the concept incoherent. All you can do is achieve something like a compromise that neither side is entirely happy with but can accept.

You have to look at it like a negotiation, or even a trial, where there are two essential parties: The defense, and the prosecution.

In order for a decent compromise, or justice, to occur, the relationship has to be somewhat adversarial.

Feminists ARE for women's rights over men's. MRA ARE for men's rights over women's. And that's the way it should be -- the way it needs to be -- in order for things to work out.

The only way to be an egalitarian is to be undecided on these issues, or just staying out of it entirely and hoping the result makes everybody as happy as can reasonably be expected.

There are obvious cases, such as voting and other basic symmetrical legal rights that are within the purview of egalitarianism, but at least in Western societies, we're well past most of those and onto the more difficult issues. Egalitarianism just doesn't cut it anymore for dealing with those.

Which is why I'm an egalitarian, and neither Feminist nor MRA. I'm a spectator, and I hope it works out so everybody is as happy as can reasonably be expected.

@brimstoneSalad
Ok, I definitely could have worded it better. I meant to say something like do you believe that women and men should be equal? I think I over worded it, my bad. Caught in the heat of the moment you know what I'm saying? Ah forget it.

And I know what I know true Scotsman is, & I don't really see how I'm making one here. I'm just saying, in this particular situation, someone who is complaining about men sitting in a weird position on the subway, is not a feminist at all, or rather someone who's just complaining about something so idiotic. Also a women who believe they deserve better rights than a man or what not are not feminists because they don't believe in equal rights. Maybe I'm missing something, I don't know.

I'll finish up this reply tomorrow,and we'll see how it plays out.