I disagree. Women have sharp nails, eyes and balls are very much a weak spot on a man, plus you don't know how strong the woman is. A female bodybuilder is likely to do a lot of damage to an average man. You've also got to take into account height, a tall woman can easily hold her own against a short man, plus if the man has an existing injury that gives him a weak spot, that too can be used against him.
There are many factors that can affect how much damage a woman can do to a man. A blanket "women are helpless against men" can't be applied because it isn't true.
Disagree. Women can vicious. Men can be beaten by women if they don't fight back because they don't want to get accused of domestic abuse which some female abusers threaten to do. Amber Heard tried to frame Johnny Depp for domestic abuse when in fact she was the one abusing him.
A woman can do the same to a man if she hits a weak point which is normally the back of the head. Again, it's all dependent on the woman in question.
Disagree. This line of thinking is implying that men are choosing to allow themselves to be abused by women because by your logic they can "choose" to stop her. That's like saying an abused woman can "choose" to walk away from an abusive relationship yet "chooses" to stay. And again, what's to stop a woman claiming domestic abuse against a man? If she's gone into a screaming fit and repeatedly hitting him, that's going to take some force to restrain her eg the man grabs her wrists tightly to stop her hitting him. That's likely to leave bruises, something the woman would then use against the man.
So how exactly is he supposed to stop her. Push her? Grab her? How exactly is a man supposed to stop a angry woman from hurting him without some use of force since asking her kindly to stop isn't going to work once she's in a "screaming fit".
It seems like you're trying to justify women hitting men. You're basically say men shouldn't hit women because they could kill them (fair enough) but you're also saying that if a woman hits a man he'll just "get a bit bruised and more pissed off". You're basically paying a game of "that's worse than that so that would be more acceptable than that because the outcome won't be as bad as that".
Again though, you're implying a narrative that "all women are victims to men". This isn't true. A woman can do just as much damage to a man if she is so inclined. Women are more likely to veer towards emotional abuse which in some ways can be even more damaging. Cuts and bruises will heal within days/weeks, emotional scars can last years if not a lifetime. False allegations of rape or domestic abuse can be weaponised against a man and tarnish his reputation. Men can be emasculated, get told to "man up" or "be a man", women don't. Nobody has every told a woman to "woman up".
Who gets to decide what is "harming other women"? A woman might decide to be a housewife, yet a feminist might claim that's endorsing "patriarchy" because it's not what a feminist thinks the woman should be doing.
I don’t want to get into a heated discussion, but after reading this thread it’s clear that you’re misunderstanding the point. Big disclaimer: I know nothing about feminism, I am only trying to explain what I understand from reading
@Myheadsgonenumb post.
@Myheadsgonenumb is not claiming that women are defenseless against men. She is stating a well-established
fact: on average, men are physically stronger than women. Of course, women can fight back and there are counterexamples. In other words, this doesn’t mean that ALL men are stronger that ANY woman and that men will ALWAYS win a physical confrontation with a woman.
However, the main implication of this
physiological fact is that men are capable of causing more damage (or even death) to women IF they allow rage to take over and IF they use their full physical strength against women. This FACT helps explain the “puzzling” double standard that you raised above (male to female violence versus female to male violence). Hence, men need to restrain themselves because they have the “potential” of causing more physical harm to women. This doesn’t mean that women cannot cause considerable physical damage to men (or even win a physical fight). But
on average, the outcome of a man/woman fight favors the man. Hence, restrain is needed…
Think about a different example of the same argument. Our heroine is a superhero who is physically stronger than most people, regardless of gender. Buffy knows this; hence she has to restrain herself when confronting “normal” humans. Take for instance the episode “Ted.” Ted physically assaults Buffy and hurts her, leading Buffy to give into her rage and “choosing” to hit Ted back without restrain, which leads to this “death” (let’s forget about him being a robot). Buffy acknowledges this:
Buffy: I'm the Slayer. I had no right to hit him like that.
Could have Ted killed Buffy? Yes, he could have thrown a lucky punch, knock her out and kill her. BUT, in general, the odds favor Buffy.
So
@Myheadsgonenumb is NOT making a normative statement, she making a positive statement
Positive statement - Wikipedia).” She is NOT justifying (nor encouraging) women hitting men. She is saying that we HAVE to recognize our physical differences, and that in this particular situation of physical confrontation between a man and a woman, these differences
tend to work against women (they might even die).
Going back to my Buffy example, recognizing that Buffy has the advantage DOES NOT mean that we endorse the scenario where we prefer Ted hitting her because he might cause less damage. It only means that Buffy IS stronger than Ted. A fact. But we are only focusing on PHYSICAL strength, this fact DOES NOT say anything regarding other types of violence that can be used by Ted in our example, or by women in your counterargument.
Radical feminists are judging women for their choices, unless they deem it to be an acceptable choice and are then berating them for it if they deem it unacceptable.
Here's the thing, you're implying certain qualities are "male", the same way some groups are claiming certain traits are qualities of "whiteness". Therefore you're saying that a woman can't possess those qualities herself and is in essence pretending to be a man by exhibiting those qualities that you deem "male". It's like how "working hard" is supposedly a "white" trait which implies that black people are incapable of possessing that trait themselves and thus have to take on traits of another race in order to succeed in life.
This then leads to the question of what traits are assigned to which group?
This is making a generalisation though and painting one group as the "enemy". It takes away personal accountability from the individual and again applying a victimhood narrative which suggests that a person is not responsible for their own actions in life and the consequences that come from those decisions. It implies that a person is born a victim due to their gender or race.
By the same token, there are some things women fundamentally don't understand about life as a man.
Again though, you're making a generalisation and painting men as the "enemy" of women.
Also, Titanic is a prime example where men were discriminated against based on gender (which was basically a death sentence) but I don't see feminists talking about that.
Via making a generalisation about a gender group whilst applying a victimhood narrative to women, thus painting men as the "enemy" of women.
But is it about equality? Superiority is not equality. Just because men held the power in the past doesn't mean there should be a "it's women's turn now" mentality.
Now, if I understand correctly, radical feminism doesn’t do what you claim (
“Radical feminists are judging women for their choices”). Radical feminism questions the social structure/environment in which those choices are made. Again, from my understanding, we are talking about the
academic definition of radical feminism, not the colloquial connotation that it might be attributed to the term.
Once more,
@Myheadsgonenumb is only trying to put into perspective our current definition of “strength” or "power." Since we live in a patriarchal society, we define power by assigning it male characteristics. Biologically and physiologically, there ARE differences between men and women. Hence, men cannot fully understand women (and the other way around). But since men are the ones in a position of power, this lack of understanding (of women) leads to social norms where power has mainly masculine attributes.
Now, this is NOT about painting an image of men as the enemy and women as victims. She is saying that throughout history, men have been the dominant group and thus they became the architects of our current institutions (Note: by institutions I refer to gender roles, laws, rules and customs, or more generally to social norms, which might be formal or informal) and by design those institutions cater to men. This happened NOT because men wanted to victimize women, this happened because men are NOT women and hence, they cannot fully understand our needs and wants. Again, it IS NOT about paint us as defenseless, it is only about recognizing that our social structure is the outcome of a long historical process lead mostly by men, and therefore it attaches more value to male characteristics, male needs and male wants. And when we, women, make decisions in this context, our choices and decisions are not completely “free,” they are influenced by the gender roles we are taught, and the customs, the rules of social behavior and the laws prevalent in our society.
(Another note: when I say that men have been the dominant group, I refer to the
history of civilization. Even in Europe and the USA, laws allowing women to own property, vote, make certain personal decisions, etc. are relatively recent, they started passing in the late 1800s if I remember correctly).
So her argument is a
very simple thought experiment: If we were to start from scratch in a society
without preconceived social norms (no laws, no rules, no customs, no gender roles),
how would we define power/strength?
And this IS NOT about superiority of one gender, nor is about wanting to displace men from positions of power. This is about understanding that in our current society, women tend to have worse outcomes (without assigning blame to men, only recognizing that it IS a fact… again, IN GENERAL, we can always have outliers), and the goal of radical feminism is to determine how we can change these institutions in such a way that women’s needs and wants are also reflected in them. Or in
@Myheadsgonenumb words, it is not about tearing men down, it is about pushing women up. And when she says that it is all about women, she DOES NOT mean that radical feminism implies that now it is the turn of women to be in power. She means that the objective of radical feminism is to understand what women are lacking in the current structure and to find a way of incorporating that something that is
missing into our current (or new) institutions.
I think that the best example for this concept comes from BTVS itself. The Watcher’s Council is an institution that was originated with the Shadow Men, when they allowed the violation of a girl by a demon in order to infuse her with the physical strength to fight demons. They went one step further by creating a structure that ensured that every generation would get a new Slayer and that such Slayer would be trained and would follow the rules of the Council in the fight against evil. This institution (the Watcher's Council), however, is patriarchal by design (men created it, men established its laws and rules, men enforced it, and so on…) and favors “male” characteristics: our Slayer is physically powerful (self-explanatory) ,“should” be emotionally detached and a rule follower (i.e. Kendra), devoid of human passions (i.e. Giles words from season 2), alone and hardened (i.e. the first Slayer)… all of them characteristics that are
traditionally associated with masculinity. And hence, BTVS takes us in a journey that shows us that there is also power in having family and friends, that passion, feelings and emotions can be a motor, that sharing the power could make us stronger, and so on… Overall, it is clear throughout the 7 seasons that the Watcher’s Council is outdated and that the needs and wants of the Slayer (who is a woman) should be recognized, honored and incorporated into a new “Council.”
