The Movement Toward Woman Suffrage Answers: Fill & Download for Free

IntroThis could really be answered two different ways so I'll answer bothWhat are the worst arguments that have originated from the feminist movementWhat is the worst issues trolls have managed to trick some feminists into believing inThe Prank That Became A Real IssueTrolls on 4chan have actually come out with a few different pranks where they have made up a completely ridiculous issue and then tried to see how many feminists would believe it was real and advocate for it.Now, the one I'm going to choose is not anywhere close to the worst thing that 4chan trolls have managed to get feminists to do but it's the one I'm choosing because there are still a group of feminists who believe in the cause to this day because they legitimately didn't realize that this all began as a prank. So you will legitimately see feminists arguing these things to this day as a result because it became firmly cemented in the feminist movement.Trolls on 4chan launched operation #freebleeding to declare man-made feminine hygiene products part of patriarchal oppression. Women were encouraged not to let men tell them what body functions are acceptable and to free bleed.Plenty of people fell for it but none more famous than Kiran Gandhi who decided to run the full London marathon free bleeding and then blog about the experience. News outlets picked up on the story and heralded it as a feminist accomplishment.http://www.buzzfeed.com/rossalynwarren/a-woman-ran-a-marathon-free-bleeding-to-take-a-stand-against#.ooNaxX52BzAnd unfortunately period shaming is a thing now. Free Bleeding may not be that popular amongst feminists but period shaming is.Apparently 'Free Bleeding' is a Thing Now and Social Justice Warriors Want You to Know All About itThere was the feminist on Instagram who become enraged that her photos of women menstruating were being removed.It's 2015 And We Are Still Terrified Of Women's PeriodsAnd this teen who described women offering her sanitary napkins after her period started in public "period shaming" her.Teen writes powerful post about being period-shamedThere was the man who released the "Bloody Princess" gallery to show the attitude society has towards women's periods:This Artist Uses Disney Princesses to Call Out Everyday Period ShamingThis is, a thing now. And you can thank 4Chan.Now if you wanted to know my opinion of the absolute worst thing to come out of the feminist movement that is...well there's three actually that have really ticked me off about the feminist movement.Western FeminismFinally there's the fact that many western feminists can't be bothered to talk about or tackle the issues that affect women in other parts of the world. They instead have created more intolerance for Muslim women by starting a huge debate about the hijab and burka and whether women should be allowed to wear them. When they try to make changes and face resistance many have made comments like "I can't help someone who doesn't want to help themselves" which is really just code for "I refuse to help someone who doesn't agree with me" or that they suffer from "internalized misogyny". That's not to say that internalized misogyny isn't a problem however plenty of western feminists have the problem of conflating "equality" with "western values".4 Ways Mainstream Feminism Fails Muslim WomenIslamic Feminism vs. Western Feminism: Analyzing a Conceptual Conflict :: CCSU Theses & DissertationsFeminism and Islam: The problems with applying Western feminist values to Non-Western culturesWomen in Saudi Arabia: Western feminists won't save us - their bullying ignorance reduces us to mere hymenshttp://www.globalresearch.ca/third-world-women-and-the-inadequacies-of-western-feminism/5372515For instance feminists have long since tried to solve the fact that women in Saudi Arabia can't drive. And yet what they found was that many Saudi women don't even want to drive. It seems that after this feminists just sort of gave up. "They don't want help!". Well let's see what one of their most common reasons was:To my surprise, 134 (out of 170) respondents said female driving is not a necessity and that it opens the door for sexual harassmentThe other reasons did have an an edge of sexism and internalized misogyny but this reason was very valid. Safety was a huge concern.Even women who supported driving (about 501) stressed that their support has conditions. Crucially, they stipulated that there must be laws that deter men against sexual harassment and that allow women to drive safely in lanes of their own.Word to the west: many Saudi women oppose lifting the driving ban | Ahmed Abdel-RaheemSo what is the takeaway here? Well, it should be that instead of going into another country and telling people there what they need to do, feminists should listen to what the concerns are for the women who actually live there. But to the contrary, western feminists are more likely to attack, demonize and shout "internalized misogyny" than actually be helpful.Women who come from disadvantage, who come from the lesser developed lands of the world, do not need White, Western women speaking for them. They need to speak for themselves. Their voices are often drowned out not because they do not speak, but because they are intentionally not heard.That is the privilege and power of White, Western feminism – to refuse to hear other women’s voices, especially those who may inherently contradict their fundamental perspectives of womanhood. Sometimes even being as condescending as to claim that women who dissent from their positions have “internalized misogyny and the patriarchy.” And while that is a truth that at times does apply, it should be one that is made with enough deliberation and caution. Otherwise you fundamentally ignore the agency of many women – further oppressing them with your privilege, simply replacing one power holder that oppresses, for another.I Am Tired Of White, Western Feminism (And Here’s Why You Should Be Too)Race and FeminismI primarily critique third wave feminism but this is something that has been bothering me lately and it bothers me even more because I've seen feminists on Quora actually trying to reverse the story and make the feminist movement out to be the victims.Feminism has a very bad track history with racial groups. Feminists supported the civil rights movement early on and began advocating for black men to achieve the right to vote because they believed this meant their turn was next. The notion that feminists were helping black men get voting rights because they were the voice of reason and equality isn't true. There was an underlying motivation for allying with the civil rights movement. And you can see just how skin deep those motivations were when it was realized that the fifteenth amendment would only extend the right to vote to black men.Asked straight out whether she were ‘willing to have the colored man enfranchised before the woman,’ she answered ‘no; I would not trust him with all my rights; degraded, oppressed himself, he would be more despotic with the governing power than even our Saxon rulers are.’ “You can read about the history of racism and the suffragettes here: Elizabeth Cady Stanton Archives -Stanton and Anthony had already butted heads with their old friend Frederick Douglass at an 1866 meeting of the American Equal Rights Association. Their former ally appeared to back down from his earlier commitment to female suffrage, and was now saying that, while the ballot was "desirable" for women, it was "vital" for Black men. In response, Anthony declared, "I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman."Chapter OneSuffragettes were also often known to try and describe their position in society as that of "slavery" to further their agenda.Black Women & The Suffrage Movement: 1848-1923Sister Suffragette: ‘Slave’ T-Shirts Highlight White Feminism’s Race ProblemThe sad thing to see is that some feminists today appear to be adopting a victim narrative about how the civil rights movement abandoned feminism but this should make it clear, feminists joined the civil rights movement for their own gain and when it didn't come to be they were quick to expose what they really thought about black men and their rights to vote.And today feminists are "intersectional" and accepting. I'm happy about that, I am but the fact is feminists advocated a lot more for white women than black women or black men in the past and some are trying to deny it now. And there's still plenty of "white feminism" today.There's "the" gender pay gap, which I'm sure you're aware is 78 cents to the dollar. That however can more accurately be called the white woman gender pay gap because women of color (and men of color!) actually make less.There's no one gender pay gap, there's actually multiple pay gaps that extend through racial lines. But it's often just referred to as "the" gender pay gap when talking about the one faced by white women.Feminism also suffers from trans exclusive feminists as well though I'm not sure how far back that issue extends.Feminism and MenFeminists just can't make up their mind about men's place in the movement and it's detrimental to men's issues. Some feminists believe that feminism is about bringing women equal to men and therefore men's issues have no place in the movement. Other feminists do want to handle men's issues and can't understand why men go to MRAs and others to talk about their problems. And the result is that no matter what men do they either get reprimanded for "distracting from women's issues" within the feminist movement or "choosing the wrong space" within the MRA movement. Just, watch this video:You will literally see one feminist in the video assert that feminism does represent men's needs and then another saying that it's not feminism's job. In the same video two different stances on men and feminism. And this is a constant struggle.There's also feminists who argue misandry and sexism against men doesn't exist because it's not systemic and instutionalized but Karen Straughan absolutely destroys this highly inaccurate notion here:The Intersection Between Race and Men's IssuesHave you ever tried to ask a feminist about false rape accusations? What were their answers? That false rape accusations are rare. That we don't have time to deal with them. That other false accusations are more common.All the above may be true. But the history of false rape accusations is far more sinister because the fact is, false rape accusations were often used as justifications for violence against black men.“Whites could not countenance the idea of a white woman desiring sex with a Negro, thus any physical relationship between a white woman and a black man had, by definition, to be an unwanted assault,” writes historian Philip Dray, describing Wells-Barnett’s argument in his book At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America.Sen. Benjamin Tillman on the Senate floor in 1900.“We have never believed him to be equal to the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him.”Why Racists Use Rape to Defend Racist ViolenceAnd most alarming is that this may very well still be a problem today.Dr. Chenelle Jones at Ohio Dominican University, in the context of this interview about the Central Park 5, says that there is a study (among others) which argues that a very large percentage of the black men who are falsely accused of rape in America are accused by white women.It's not just her who is saying it."Black defendants constitute 25% of prisoners incarcerated for rape," according to the Registry, "but 61% of those exonerated for such crimes."How Often Do Wrongful Convictions Involve Black Defendants?What Wrongful Convictions Teach Us About Racial InequalityIf this is true then it looks like false rape accusations do need to be taken much more seriously as a racial inequality issue.Men of color are also paid less than white men to do the same work. In fact white women complain constantly about only making 78 cents to the dollar but men of color make 71 cents to the dollar.Why do black men earn less?So feminists are intersectional but they don't want to look at or handle men's issues...how does that work exactly? Because they're not systemic? Wait, that's not true. Because they aren't feminism's concern? Then how can you claim to be intersectional?ConclusionThese arguments are ridiculous to me because they are really damaging to the pursuit of equality.

I find this to be a really odd question. There shouldn’t be a personal definition of Feminism, or really anything. There’s the actual definition and everything else is interpretation or lies. To be quite frank, one of the biggest challenges feminists and egalitarians alike are facing on the day to day is people having ‘personal definitions’ of feminism rather than understanding the actual definition.If your personal definition differs, from the actual definition than I’m afraid you are probably something else. The devil is in the details, but to answer your question here is my definition of feminism:the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.Courtesy of the dictionary.Now as for my interpretation of feminism, that might be a little bit more spicy for some.To me, feminism is a woman’s rights movement. It is divided into waves each with slightly different goals that contribute to the end goal of women being equal to men in every facet of society.Most usually don’t disagree with that definition. Though the friction can appear during the clarification:I believe feminism is a women’s rights movement not an equality movement.I believe feminism wants women to be equal to men in every faucet of society (Equality of Outcome) regardless of whether they perform the same as men.It’s possible that you may not understand the conflict in the above statement. What is the importance of feminism being a women’s rights movement? Does that not mean the same thing as an equality movement?Well here’s the thing, the only way for Women’s Rights and Equality to be synonymous is if women were less than men when it came to rights. In the West, that’s simply not the case. In fact, not only do women have more legal rights than men due to their baby making capacity, the rights we share often do not come with the same responsibilities as men historically. The obvious and over cited example is of course the vote.The often forgotten aspect to the fight for the right to vote was that women opposed it. It wasn’t just evil men in office chairs stroking white cats asking how they could impose patriarchy today. No, it was women who were wary of it because of the responsibilities it entailed.IN 1895 the women of Massachusetts were asked by the state whether they wished the suffrage. Of the 575,000 voting women in the state, only 22,204 cared for it enough to deposit in a ballot box an affirmative answer to this question. That is, in round numbers, less than four per cent wished to vote; about ninety-six per cent were opposed to woman suffrage or indifferent to it.-Why Women Do Not Wish the Suffrage (1903)When the vote was finally won, we won it as a privilege not as a right. What’s the difference? Well, a right comes with a responsibility, for men that was bucket duty or the draft. Whereas privilege is something unearned, gifted, and requires no pay, just like the right to vote. It was fought for on the grounds of equality, but ironically was distributed unevenly.Now THAT’s ancient history, so why am I bringing it up? Well, because nothing has changed. Feminism is still looking for Equality of men with the noble idea of ‘Equal Rights’ but asks for privileges. Some of these privileges are things no civilised person would disagree with. I once had a quoran tell me“Women don’t have the right to walk down the street without getting catcalled!” and he was right. No one has that right. It is a privilege that comes with being undesirable. Catcalling is uncouth and lowerclass there’s no doubt, and it is symptomatic of a lack of respect toward women and education. I agree with feminists on that much, what I don’t agree with is legal intervention to enforce such social privileges or the idea that these are rights.I’m all for equality of opportunity, but after having a discussion with a self-identified radical feminist and her friends a while back I realized that we have very different outlooks on what that means.To me, equality of opportunity is giving eveyone the same resources and handouts to work with, regardless as to whether they are rich or poor. That’s the egalitarian idea after all. Then I had this conversation and realized that the women believed some people should get more because they weren’t as clever, or they’re parents were evil, born with an injury, etc. I thought about it, and I was pretty much like, sure, if a charity wants to help people off their own backs what would be the harm? but then I realized 2 other things. The people we had in mind were different. In my head, I was thinking of victims, people injured in accidents, or who grew up in abusive households, something that would rip the rug out from under a person. She was thinking in blocks, black people, women, lgbt people, etc. I found it a little astounding because our minds went in completely different directions. The other difference, was I thought that such aid would be given by charities or tax relief, but she actually wanted the government to just pay these people wages.Now, I can understand the absolute goodness behind this argument. There is no doubt in my mind that most people who think like this are good people who are kind and compassionate. The problem is, that helping people in this way does more harm than good. Why do so many charities in the 3rd world fail? Does anyone know? Are they all secretly corrupt? No, they fail because they create a safety net and the people become reliant on them. There intentions are good, they want to make sure their fellow man is fed and water and looked after. It is the very best intention, humanity at its finest. But they fail.They fail because the people become reliant and they become lazy. The generations that suffered birth new generations that didn’t. Generations that have only known handouts as their saviour. From there it is a downward spiral as the charity keeps pumping money into the situation for a slowly expanding problem. There is an alternative though. Room to Read is a charity that has been a huge success:HomeI would highly recommend reading the book Creating Room To Read because it has fantastic insight on this issue and is heartwarming. Essentially, they give reward based aid where the community puts in half the effort and has to maintain that effort and become self sufficient. Proving there are ways to succeed. There is a balance to be had here.I could go on (and honestly, I have with all the questions I answer on this topic), but my point is this:The definition of feminism perfectly describes what it is.And if you don’t agree with what it stands for than you don’t need to identify as a feminist to believe in Equality.

There are several reasons why a woman would decide to call herself an anti-feminist. Some arguments make sense, others are irrational, but the majority are completely biased by false premises.I would like to answer this question because throughout my adolescence and a large part of my adolescence (let's say until I was 26) I was deeply and categorically anti-feminist.Here were the reasons I have now identified:#1 PrivilegesWhen you are born white, able-bodied, neurotypical and the youngest of a middle-high class family with two working, non-divorced and well-paid parents, it is always more difficult to realize the inequalities and injustices experienced daily by others.Being passionate about politics since I was a very young age, I was obviously grateful to the feminists of the "past" for fighting for our right to vote (and greater financial independence).I obviously had the false impression that "all the causes had all been fought and won" and that each new claim was nothing more than an unnecessary and counterproductive whine.#2 Disconnection from realityAs a young student who has only done small summer jobs with no possibility of promotion and being a person without any professional ambition, I had obviously never been confronted with the problems of experienced workers such as: the glass ceiling, wage gap or the fact to have to work 2x harder to prove that we are as valuable as men.Moreover, when my sociology teacher mention the very poor representation of women in leadership positions, I tended to roll my eyes and mumble, "maybe it's because they simply don't want to be bosses?"As a nulliparous who has almost lived by herself, I had not been confronted with the difficulties of mental workload either because I was doing my household chores alone anyway and did not have a dependent baby.To summarize these 2 reasons: I had the unfortunate self-centred tendency to take my own case, my own experience, my own desires as a social marker of a non-existent problem, since I myself did not experience any of the discriminations/discomforts that women tend to experience, neither in my professional nor in my private life.#3 Lack of depthI tended not to see the implications behind the struggles (for example, the problem of the word "mademoiselle" in French (miss)). The desire to remove that word seemed to me so pointless because, firstly, I did not want to be called "madame", a designation that I felt was too serious and, secondly, I considered that there were no consequences behind that word and that the claim was, therefore, unnecessary and silly.Over time, I have understood that language reflects the world’s reality.The language is political and it isn’t so innocuous to ask women to define their marital status (mademoiselle/madame) but not men (monsieur); or the fact that many misogynous insults are sexualized while their male counterparts are not; or the fact that, as Maria Candea, professor-researcher in linguistics and sociolinguistics at the University of Paris 3 points out:The French Academy accepts the feminisation of jobs at the bottom of the social scale, but not those considered "important" and this without any linguistic consistency. ‘Pharmacienne’ (pharmacist) is listed in the Academy's latest dictionary, but ‘chirurgienne’ (surgeon) is not admitted[1]#4 Internalized misogynyThis one was so obvious that I'm surprised I didn't realize it sooner. But before being anti-feminist, I was mostly anti-woman."Women like to create conflicts, they are boring, have no humour, love gossip" are all friendly descriptions that I used to like to call my pairs.I also tended to judge a woman by her physical appearance, blonde, underdressed and heavily made up? Dirty whore in search of attention or a plain idiot (notice the use of the profession of sex worker as an insult when it is a job like any other). A feminist? Badly fucked, anti-man and possibly lesbian.Yep, it was a freaking intolerance party in my head.Looking back, I now understand that all these prejudices were planted in my brain from an early age and developed step by step. Through the representations of women in the arts, the advertisements and above all: the remarks of my peers.Monkey see monkey do.Especially when your peers lend you :#5 Sh*t literatureWhen your super-educated buddy and PHD student whom you admire for his intelligence encourages you to read well written dung such as Alain Soral's Vers la féminisation and Eric Zemmour's third sex - frankly, what results can you expect on the blank canvas of a 22-year-old girl's brain?For those who have never heard of these French authors, here is the preface to Vers la féminisation (Towards Feminization) :"Women are the future of men." This famous sentence alone sums up the credo of the time, its ideology. That the poet who pronounced it lived in Stalinist and ended up a faggot should nevertheless encourage caution, even reflection. Alain Soral shows that it is, on the contrary, because women are rather the being of political disinterest (literally a man without a collective vision of the future) that the oligarchy has chosen to make them the privileged relay of its power.Far too influential in the past, I have now learned that you can make anyone believe anything as long as you coated it in fancy words and that a good sounding argument does not necessarily mean it’s an acurate argument.#6 Generalities.Another explanation of the anti-feminist mentality that I find so much around me, on the Internet and also on Quora is this tendency to put all feminists in the same basket.As if "feminists" were some kind of massive beehive sharing EXACTLY the same way of thinking and agreeing on everything.Feminism is plural and it is something that most people still don’t get (and I would not blame them, it's complicated).You will always be able to find women who are quite extreme in their way of thinking, and even openly misandrous women claiming to be "feminists" and these women will somehow systematically be taken as spokespersons for the movement and as the irrefutable argument for the evil of feminism.This leads us to the following argument:#7 Feminist = bitc*esIt is an insult that has always existed since the beginning of the movement, men associated feminists with ugliness and/or being "dangerous".—source : Insulting Anti-Women's Suffrage PostcardsIt is still a very recurrent insult that comes back to me very often if/when I have the misfortune to talk about "toxic masculinity", "pink tax" or gender inequalities, even though I also talk about the problems faced by men and without having claimed to be "feminist" in the answer.It usually starts with 'you feminists…' (see #6).For many men, a feminist woman is necessarily a cunt, a castrator who dream of creating sperm factories and milking entire rows of poor men to collect their precious seed for the unstated purpose of obtaining the ONLY thing we dream of: babies.Because spending 48 hours pulling the equivalent of a watermelon out of our pussies and getting our apricot torn off in the process is really the consecration of a lifetime.Out of anguish to "stand out" I know that I adopted exactly the same attitude towards feminists as some of my male friends because I didn't want to be "like them", I was "different", I was "cool" (see #4). So there was this need to draw this line between them and me.The funny thing about this state of mind is that - since I didn't consider men as my equals (but as "complementary") - I tended to feel superior (to deal with the feeling of inferiority that is constantly attributed to my gender). And I felt no shame or remorse for taking advantage of my status as a woman to get what I wanted:Free drinks/meals - and my favourite game was "getting drunk for 0$".And this without any consideration for the person who bought me this drink. I kept telling anyone who wanted to hear it that if men were stupid enough to think that buying me a drink was going to get me to sleep with them, they deserved to be milked.Get me driven where I wanted and brought back.After all, women don't drive well, do they? So it is better to leave the driving to others. That's fine with me....Or allow myself to have some uncomfortable attitudes:To openly mock the techniques of clumsy men flirting with me.Honk the army guys in my town by putting my head out the window and yelling "Mmmh what a FINE ass" (the same sentence men use to catcall me).Objectifying a guy because they objectify us, you see the problem?Hitting a guy's balls when he was disrespectful towards me.While taking advantage of the impunity of my gender, knowing that I will not be hit back because I was a "weak woman".That's it, I hope all these examples have allowed you to understand some of the reasons why a woman would want to claim to be anti-feminist.I really want to point out how all these problematic behaviours disappeared when I became more empathetic, more aware of my privileges and stopped treating men as my inferiors/resource providers but as my equals, my allies, my partners.A respect that is definitely included in the definition of equality promoted by feminism, by the way.