Women Are Not Oppressed.

[chicagoY]

Just put this one
together. It's better proofed so most of my stuff as its for something bigger. Its quite unPC so I know that angle isn't warmly appreciated but if it makes any college students think slightly differently or reflect for a moment I'll be happy. I'll respond to anything after work (if need be).

[Darryl_P]

Good read, thanks.

[bills217]

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Good read, thanks.

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[NT!]

your writing is awful. any semblance of credibility you might have gained by piggybacking off the writing of other men is destroyed by your inability to write more than a paragraph without making wild generalizations and ridiculous insults.

[cpk]

Probably would have been a superior effort without all the gratuitous ad hominem. You remind me of Ann Coulter, though seeing what you've written so far you'd probably regard that as a compliment.

[kurto]

Yeah. Weak arguments. Odd attacks and hostility. Also seems like something only a college student who hasn't lived in "the real world" would write.

[bills217]

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Weak arguments.

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Which arguments were weak and how?

I particularly liked the one about the magazines. How can feminists blame Cosmopolitan/SlimFast etc. when women obviously demand these things or else they wouldn't exist?

Pornography as well requires voluntary female participants to exist, and judging from myspace etc. there certainly doesn't seem to be any shortage of those willing, so...who exactly is she blaming??

His argument about relative pay may not be original but I don't think it's weak either. That topic has been discussed ad nauseum and I didn't think there was any serious debate about it anymore (other than by rabid feminists with a desire to be victimized).

The point about the Civil Rights Act was a good point as well.

Which arguments were you talking about?

(It did have a lot of ad hominem but he is simply playing to his audience.)

[NT!]

he doesn't address the substance of any serious feminist critique of body image, pornography, etc. it's a cultural theory that would not deny that women participate in these behaviors - i.e. buying Cosmo - which, in the eyes of feminists, subjugate them. he basically says, 'because a lot of women buy into it, it can't be oppressive or demeaning towards women!' he creates a total straw man and then knocks it down with a retarded argument laced with juvenile ad hominems. it's laughable and the only reason anyone would take it seriously is because they're dying to believe it.

[Blizzardbaum]

The line about the "irritable, discombobulated" viewers of Liftime/Oxygen amused me. Otherwise, I thought it was poorly argued, poorly written and ill-conceived.

FWIW, you construct a strawman of your own from the beginning with your ridiculous title. No, women are not oppressed, but there is a lot of distance between "oppression" and "equality." Women are systematically objectified in society, and that is obvious to anyone alive today.

I know that I am guilty of it. I am more likely to care about how a girl looks than her mind. I am more likely to overlook a girl being stupid if she is attractive. I won't date a girl who isn't thin. etc etc etc. I don't think there is anything wrong with any of that, by the way, but I definitely tend to view women as objects before I see them as human beings. There are only a handful of women I know personally who I don't objectify this way.

[kurto]

At a simple level- "Are women treated as objects in our society? Of course not" First off... I've been working for over 20 years. I've been watching first hand for past 25 years women treated differently in the workplace.

I happen to currently be at a workplace that is much better then many others I've worked at. There is no shortage of companies that do not consider women upper management material.

The wage gap still exists. He even admits it in the article.

Bad logic- He uses paternity examples to show that women aren't treated as objects. One has nothing to do with other. Women can still be the preferred parent yet still be treated as objects. They can still be oppressed in other ways.

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The Duke lacrosse case, in which feminism mixed with the media’s acquiescence to the edicts of political correctness, nearly had dire consequences for the young men cast as villains by the authors of that PC fairy tale. In North Carolina we learned that women certainly do lie about rape and that there is no shortage of men who will believe them

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He gives one example and claims because a woman lied in a case that somehow this proves women aren't mistreated? Horrible, horrible argument.

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Concerning imagery, if women are so inundated with snapshots of perfection in check out lines then they need look no further than to themselves for the placement of blame. Women, as opposed men, are the major purchasers of publications featuring the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Brittany Spears, and Christina Aguilera. Does anyone truly believe that Cosmopolitan, The Star, The National Enquirer, and Shape are written for a male audience?

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Just because the buyers of these magazines are the consumers does nothing to negate the argument that the images sold are harmful.

Notice in here he feels the need to throw in a few ad hominem attacks.

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They are so low functioning they suspect that their peers will binge and purge or suction down a bottle of Prozac every time they see a starlet in a leotard. People just aren’t like that. Most women are either motivated by or indifferent to visual representations.

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Ummm... I'm fairly certain there are fairly extensive studies showing he is wrong.

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Most women are either motivated by or indifferent to visual representations. Were they not, there would not an obesity problem. They could just flip through Women’s Health and never eat pizza again.

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Feminists are not saying this. He's doing the typical sloppy and dishonest tactic of making up what the opposition is saying just to negate it.

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Ms. Dombrowski also does not like the way in which women are represented in film. I have to agree with her here as it seems to me that women are inordinately depicted as heroines and champions while men are portrayed as wimps or psychopaths. Apparently though, she does not see movies I do and brings up the phantom bogeyman of ridicule. I guess she has never heard of Oxygen or Lifetime, cable channels devoted entirely to presenting women as empowered superheroes—a perspective that can be ironically juxtaposed with the channels’ actual viewership which consists of irritable, discombobulated, depressioniacs.

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Note- the existence of Lifetime or Oxygen has NO bearing on the the images of women in film or in the vast majority of media. Another irrelevent weak point. Or pretending that most men are "wimps or psychopaths"... sounds like he's using a very selective filter.

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Oxygen or Lifetime, cable channels devoted entirely to presenting women as empowered superheroes—a perspective that can be ironically juxtaposed with the channels’ actual viewership which consists of irritable, discombobulated, depressioniacs.


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No... that doesn't sound like some childish insult to all the women viewers. Not at all. Just another sound argument from this child.

I could go on but honestly... it not only is poorly written but, at least to me, its not all that interesting. Going over his long rant to correct and point out everything I think is bad just isn't all that worthwhile to me.

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(It did have a lot of ad hominem but he is simply playing to his audience.)

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Eew. Who is his audience then? I shudder to picture who this appeals to. (they the Ann Coulter reference the other poster made is probably on track)