Yada, yada, yada
Dec. 7th, 2006 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaI know you're all probably sick of my oral diarrhea.
But I like to write this stuff so, you all get to read it... or skim over it if you don't feel like reading it.
A few things have been bothering me a for the past few days, after a discussion with a good friend of mine, where he tried to convince me that feminism, by focusing on women only, they are only creating more gender segregation and that not only women are oppressed by society and that humanism is a much better term to use in the idealogical battle against oppression of all kind.
Many things about that idea bother me; my biggest bother is the thought that Feminism is the cause of gender segregation and not, ya know, the Judeo-Patriarchal society we currently live in, where the basic idea, one of the first things an Orthodox man says when he wakes up in the morning ברוך אתה אדוני, אלוהינו מלך העולם, שלא עשני אישה (Blessed are You, Adonai, Our God, King of the Universe, Who Did Not Make Me a Woman). And despite the leftist bubble in which I and many of my friends surround ourselves in; it is the people who wake up at dawn and say that, that currently control the institute of marriage and citizenship in Israel.
Domestic violence can be found against men as well, but those who suffer from it the most are the women and the children. Why? Because the percentage of women who still depend on men for everything, from emotional to the economical is still greater than that of women in that position.
There is also domestic violence to be found amongst couples of the same sex, and among children of various ages.
And no, not only women are oppressed; strictly speaking, in an unbalanced society everyone is oppressed, because we must adhere to the strict rules that make our society what it is, that, however, doesn't stop people from having a whole lot of privileged.
I am privileged by being white and coming from an economically stable home and having a family that encourages me to be successful in everything I do.
Many families don't have that and still most families encourage the Son to be successful and the Daughter to find a good husband.
We do not live in a vacuum, there are places in the world women are still considered property, there main victims of human trafficking are women and girls, there is still a glass ceiling under which women work and toil with little to no chance of moving up, because of her sex. More examples are of course, abundant.
Humanism is not an exchange for Feminism, because Humanism is a philosophy to do with rationalism, self-determinism and the affirmation of human-dignity (all very, IMO, general and as I've said, philosophical). Whereas feminism today is, again in my own experience and opinion, more to do with activism and actual action towards bettering the rights of those oppressed in the Patriarchy and to me that means everyone.
I think that by attempting to equalize the footing on which (speaking specifically) women and men stand is a mistake since at the moment, women aren't on equal footing to men and until they are it is going to be “Feminism” and not “Mutualism”, “Equalism” or any other kind of “-ism”.
But I like to write this stuff so, you all get to read it... or skim over it if you don't feel like reading it.
A few things have been bothering me a for the past few days, after a discussion with a good friend of mine, where he tried to convince me that feminism, by focusing on women only, they are only creating more gender segregation and that not only women are oppressed by society and that humanism is a much better term to use in the idealogical battle against oppression of all kind.
Many things about that idea bother me; my biggest bother is the thought that Feminism is the cause of gender segregation and not, ya know, the Judeo-Patriarchal society we currently live in, where the basic idea, one of the first things an Orthodox man says when he wakes up in the morning ברוך אתה אדוני, אלוהינו מלך העולם, שלא עשני אישה (Blessed are You, Adonai, Our God, King of the Universe, Who Did Not Make Me a Woman). And despite the leftist bubble in which I and many of my friends surround ourselves in; it is the people who wake up at dawn and say that, that currently control the institute of marriage and citizenship in Israel.
Domestic violence can be found against men as well, but those who suffer from it the most are the women and the children. Why? Because the percentage of women who still depend on men for everything, from emotional to the economical is still greater than that of women in that position.
There is also domestic violence to be found amongst couples of the same sex, and among children of various ages.
And no, not only women are oppressed; strictly speaking, in an unbalanced society everyone is oppressed, because we must adhere to the strict rules that make our society what it is, that, however, doesn't stop people from having a whole lot of privileged.
I am privileged by being white and coming from an economically stable home and having a family that encourages me to be successful in everything I do.
Many families don't have that and still most families encourage the Son to be successful and the Daughter to find a good husband.
We do not live in a vacuum, there are places in the world women are still considered property, there main victims of human trafficking are women and girls, there is still a glass ceiling under which women work and toil with little to no chance of moving up, because of her sex. More examples are of course, abundant.
Humanism is not an exchange for Feminism, because Humanism is a philosophy to do with rationalism, self-determinism and the affirmation of human-dignity (all very, IMO, general and as I've said, philosophical). Whereas feminism today is, again in my own experience and opinion, more to do with activism and actual action towards bettering the rights of those oppressed in the Patriarchy and to me that means everyone.
I think that by attempting to equalize the footing on which (speaking specifically) women and men stand is a mistake since at the moment, women aren't on equal footing to men and until they are it is going to be “Feminism” and not “Mutualism”, “Equalism” or any other kind of “-ism”.
