How do you view Feminism in Ireland?

Middle Man · 30-08-2017 11:54AM #1

How do men here view feminism in Ireland? I'm posting a poll on this subject, because it's clear that there are significant differences across the forum regarding the perception of feminism and misandry. I think that running an opinion poll would be a useful exercise for all so that each of us are aware of where things stand at this point in time. I have my own view, but for this thread I will just submit my answer and see how things proceed.

PS. Feminism as in what's promoted through organisations and the media etc.

jimgoose · 30-08-2017 11:57AM

I don't take a blind bit of notice of it. I work, meet, interact with women of all ages and backgrounds almost daily, there is a specific, certain woman that I'm not married to, and I treat all of them with respect and courtesy and I get the same in return. With, in one case, extra squeezes.

Blacktie. · 30-08-2017 12:03PM

I view it on the Internet because I have never actually seen it in real life. Much like most of the PC brigade issues people love to go on about.

Sleepy · 30-08-2017 12:15PM

I notice it in the media and on-line and while I occasionally try to break down the brainwashing of some on here it doesn't really bother me all that much until I read about sexist policies being created in government in order to placate the movements followers.

The Feminist movement has out-lived it's raison d'etre in the Western World and the industry that's been built up around it are scrambling to justify their existence in usually hilarious, but sometimes rather scary, ways.

jimgoose · 30-08-2017 12:17PM

Poll is missing the "I don't give a rattlin', scuttery fuck about it and it returns that simple courtesy" option.

Sleepy · 30-08-2017 12:33PM

Where's the "Confused" option? Because I know women (and a few men) who fall into each of those categories yet all of them call themselves a "feminist".

Middle Man · 30-08-2017 12:51PM

Can people see the results after submitting their votes? If not, I'll post an update tonight...

Middle Man · 30-08-2017 01:04PM

Sleepy wrote: »

Where's the "Confused" option? Because I know women (and a few men) who fall into each of those categories yet all of them call themselves a "feminist".

Well the poll is about feminism, so anyone who calls themselves a feminist can be inclusive of men and have regard for their preferences/feelings or can regard men as being stupid, pathetic and of lower class than women. I'm not sure what you're on about...

Now, I don't think feminism is inclusive, but the poll is not about what I think - it's about the collective perception (of feminism) on this forum.

Sleepy · 30-08-2017 02:28PM

My point is that feminism is all of those options because the movement has always placed it's existance and the unity of the self-ascribed members of that movement as being more important than actually defining the aims of that movement. Historically, it's been both one of the movements greatest strengths though I belive it will ultimately lead to it's end. As the egalitarianists of the movement consistently failed to call out the misandrists, extremists and nut-jobs in their midst, the lunatics seem to have taken over the asylum and seem, at this point in time, to have control of the megaphone.

A split seems inevitable to me. There are too many sensible women who still consider themselves feminists for there not to eventually be a schism or splintering of the movement that'll make the Irish Republican paramilitaries look like a cohesive group imho.

Middle Man · 30-08-2017 02:37PM

Sleepy wrote: »

My point is that feminism is all of those options because the movement has always placed it's existance and the unity of the self-ascribed members of that movement as being more important than actually defining the aims of that movement. Historically, it's been both one of the movements greatest strengths though I belive it will ultimately lead to it's end. As the egalitarianists of the movement consistently failed to call out the misandrists, extremists and nut-jobs in their midst, the lunatics seem to have taken over the asylum and seem, at this point in time, to have control of the megaphone.

A split seems inevitable to me. There are too many sensible women who still consider themselves feminists for there not to eventually be a schism or splintering of the movement that'll make the Irish Republican paramilitaries look like a cohesive group imho.

Ok, I get your point - indeed, feminism may actually be a very broad range of opinions and strengths thereof, but the poll itself relates to how us men perceive feminism or at least, where individual men like myself perceive the central axis of feminism to be - to me, the central thrust of feminism is largely orientated towards misandry, but that's just my opinion. However, I would certainly agree with your point about the megaphone - that's undeniable at this stage.

iptba · 30-08-2017 02:58PM

I think people will find it difficult to choose given the wordings. And indeed I see that nobody has voted (from what I can see).

I find the language "exclusive and "inclusive" confusing.

Though I realise it is easy to criticise and I'm not sure what options I would use myself.

Sleepy · 30-08-2017 03:13PM

I think you'd need to simplify the options (and the question) to something along the lines of:

How do you generally perceive Feminism in Ireland?

Strongly Positive
Positive
Neutral
Negative
Strongly Negative

As it's the men's forum, you might want to define the question to something like "How do you generally perceive Feminism's attitude towards men in Ireland?" which I think would probably be closer to what it is you're trying to ask?

Middle Man · 30-08-2017 03:16PM

iptba wrote: »

I think people will find it difficult to choose given the wordings. And indeed I see that nobody has voted (from what I can see).

I find the language "exclusive and "inclusive" confusing.

Though I realise it is easy to criticise and I'm not sure what options I would use myself.

16 people including myself have voted so far. The word 'Inclusive' refers to the practice of including everyone when campaigning for rights - for example, an inclusive feminist movement would strive for equal rights for both men and women. An exclusive feminist movement seeks to push women's rights and sees masculinity as nothing but a problem that stands in their way.

iptba · 30-08-2017 03:17PM

Sleepy wrote: »

I think you'd need to simplify the options (and the question) to something along the lines of:

How do you generally perceive Feminism in Ireland?

Strongly Positive
Positive
Neutral
Negative
Strongly Negative

As it's the men's forum, you might want to define the question to something like "How do you generally perceive Feminism's attitude towards men in Ireland?" which I think would probably be closer to what it is you're trying to ask?

I find these poles more interesting if you break it down by gender i.e. double the options: I'm male and <option>
I'm female and <option>
[I'm afraid I doubt such a poll facility will allow for more than two genders]

Middle Man · 30-08-2017 03:19PM

Sleepy wrote: »

I think you'd need to simplify the options (and the question) to something along the lines of:

How do you generally perceive Feminism in Ireland?

Strongly Positive
Positive
Neutral
Negative
Strongly Negative

As it's the men's forum, you might want to define the question to something like "How do you generally perceive Feminism's attitude towards men in Ireland?" which I think would probably be closer to what it is you're trying to ask?

I can't change my poll now as it would be unfair to those who have already voted. However, why don't you run the above as a poll - I'd be very happy to vote - won't say how, but I would vote!

iptba · 30-08-2017 03:21PM

I would prefer separate polls on misandry and exclusive/inclusive rather than having them combined. Some people could have some negative views about feminism but find it vote for the first three.

Middle Man · 30-08-2017 03:23PM

iptba wrote: »

I find these poles more interesting if you break it down by gender i.e. double the options: I'm male and <option>
I'm female and <option>
[I'm afraid I doubt such a poll facility will allow for more than two genders]

Nice idea - would be all for it!

However, I don't think the mechanism is there to facilitate such...

iptba · 30-08-2017 03:25PM

Middle Man wrote: »

Nice idea - would be all for it!
However, I don't think the mechanism is there to facilitate such...

You just include it in the wording though I realise there is probably a limit to how many options you can have. But I think there's a good chance you can have 10 i.e. it could be done with the current poll.

Middle Man · 30-08-2017 03:33PM

iptba wrote: »

You just include it in the wording though I realise there is probably a limit to how many options you can have. But I think there's a good chance you can have 10 i.e. it could be done with the current poll.

21 people have already voted, so I can't really change anything critical. I can't get in to edit in any case - spent the last few minutes trying to see where I could so that I could reconfigure certain things.

iptba · 30-08-2017 03:35PM

Middle Man wrote: »

21 people have already voted, so I can't really change anything. I can't get in to edit in any case - spent the last few minutes trying to see where I could so that I could reconfigure certain things.

Yes I didn't expect you would be able to edit an existing poll. I was just explaining how to do it in general.

Triceratops Ballet · 30-08-2017 03:36PM

Middle Man wrote: »

16 people including myself have voted so far. The word 'Inclusive' refers to the practice of including everyone when campaigning for rights - for example, an inclusive feminist movement would strive for equal rights for both men and women. An exclusive feminist movement seeks to push women's rights and sees masculinity as nothing but a problem that stands in their way.

I made this point in another thread, but it fits here too, this is not what feminism is, it's got nowt to do with men. Feminism advocates for the rights and concerns of women, and women only. If it was for men too then it wouldn't be called feminism it would be called egalitarianism.

The goal of feminism is to support women and advocate for issues concerning women, some of these things may have a positive offshoot for men, such as maybe shared parental leave somewhere down the line, but that's a happy accident and by no means the goal.

It is entirely possible that a lot of reasonable people who believe in feminism support mens rights but that's not a result of feminism, it's just because they're right thinking folk! In the venn diagram of gender politics they're the ones who stand in both circles and have beliefs common to both

DEFTLEFTHAND · 30-08-2017 04:34PM

I don't support the 3rd wave movement as I feel that it has been corrupted by pseudo intellectualism and pseudo science.

More open to earlier waves. I could listen to the likes of Camille Paglia and Christina Hoff Sommers speak for hours.

Rational, logical, intelligent people.

wordofwarning · 30-08-2017 05:46PM

I honestly have for little time for feminism. I generally find it is a topic loved by well-educated women in cushy corporate jobs moaning about how they haven't been promoted quick enough.

In my experience 'feminists' have little time for working class women who have not been afforded the same opportunities as them in life. You will never see a feminist pushing for greater opportunities for working class women trying to get into higher education or trying to get marginalised women like travellers into the workforce. Feminism appears to be about ensuring women in the same social class, race and religion as you achieve as much as possible with little regards for others. You will rarely hear about feminists in Ireland trying to create opportunties for the most disadvantaged and marginalised women in society

What makes me have little respect for 'feminists' is the fact 99% of them could not give two ****s about transwomen. Even in 2017, trans women are still marginalised, disproportionately affected by suicide, poverty, sex work etc. Yet you will rarely see a feminist trying to fight for their rights. Who cares if 41% of transwomen have attempted suicide? The real injustice in 2017 is the female actress salaries are not on par with their male colleagues and that is outrageous...

Feminism in Ireland is generally about privileged, educated women moaning about not being more privileged despite being incredibly privileged in the first place. I would view feminism in a positive light was about advancing the careers of all women, not just upper middle class females who went to UCD, TCD and UCC...

tigger123 · 30-08-2017 06:17PM

OP, your poll kinda reads like 'on a sliding scale, how awful do you think feminism is, from grand to really awful'.

But anyway.

There's loons, idiots and extremists that are a part of any political movement; the left, right, feminism, socialism, whatever. All too often in these kind of debates the extremists are pulled out as an example and used to tar the entire movement with one brush, when it just isn't the case.

As a guy though, I think feminism is a positive thing for both genders. The more we move away from the traditional male/female roles, the better off everyone in society is IMO.

Galwayguy35 · 30-08-2017 07:25PM

It started out as a good idea at a time when women were treated badly by society but it developed into something that is used to attack men on a daily basis these days.

And it isn't just a few radfems that you can count on one hand either, Una Mullally and Rosemary McCabe have a lot of loyal followers who agree with everything they say.

iptba · 30-08-2017 07:44PM

Triceratops Ballet wrote: »

I made this point in another thread, but it fits here too, this is not what feminism is, it's got nowt to do with men. Feminism advocates for the rights and concerns of women, and women only. If it was for men too then it wouldn't be called feminism it would be called egalitarianism.

The goal of feminism is to support women and advocate for issues concerning women, some of these things may have a positive offshoot for men, such as maybe shared parental leave somewhere down the line, but that's a happy accident and by no means the goal.

Yes, I think this is a good definition of feminism. If this was made clearer all the time, there might be less criticism of feminism.

Middle Man · 30-08-2017 08:28PM

tigger123 wrote: »

OP, your poll kinda reads like 'on a sliding scale, how awful do you think feminism is, from grand to really awful'.

But anyway.

There's loons, idiots and extremists that are a part of any political movement; the left, right, feminism, socialism, whatever. All too often in these kind of debates the extremists are pulled out as an example and used to tar the entire movement with one brush, when it just isn't the case.

As a guy though, I think feminism is a positive thing for both genders. The more we move away from the traditional male/female roles, the better off everyone in society is IMO.

Well there's nothing wrong with what you're saying, but what you're really talking about is 'gender equality'. Modern feminism is not about gender equality IMO, it's more about man hate or at least that's the impression I get every time I hear the feminists screaming on the 'megaphone'!

Middle Man · 30-08-2017 08:30PM

There's nearly 40 votes in - (38 to be precise)...

P.S. Spoke too soon - it's already 40!

tigger123 · 30-08-2017 08:47PM

Middle Man wrote: »

Well there's nothing wrong with what you're saying, but what you're really talking about is 'gender equality'. Modern feminism is not about gender equality IMO, it's more about man hate or at least that's the impression I get every time I hear the feminists screaming on the 'megaphone'!

Gender equality and feminism go hand in hand. And its one of many aspects of feminism that I agree with.

Feminism =\= man hate.

What megaphone? Twitter?

Middle Man · 30-08-2017 08:54PM

tigger123 wrote: »

Gender equality and feminism go hand in hand. And its one of many aspects of feminism that I agree with.

Feminism =\= man hate.

What megaphone? Twitter?

I don't myself believe that gender equality (something that I do support) is the same thing as modern feminism. Perhaps the feminism that I grew up with in the late 1980's and early 1990's ('no reason why women can't do the same things as men') was, but certainly not the type of feminism we have today. Also, the aforementioned 'megaphone' can be the media too!

tigger123 · 30-08-2017 09:10PM

Middle Man wrote: »

I don't myself believe that gender equality (something that I do support) is the same thing as modern feminism. Perhaps the feminism that I grew up with in the late 1980's and early 1990's ('no reason why women can't do the same things as men') was, but certainly not the type of feminism we have today. Also, the aforementioned 'megaphone' can be the media too!

There's women put there that hate men, and are feminists. There's also men out there that hate women and are MRAs. It doesn't follow though that they represent everyone in their movement.

How do you view Feminism in Ireland?

How do you perceive Feminism in Ireland? 132 votes

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