EDIT: I will ask to have this thread deleted in a few days as it has become useless because of my misunderstanding of the word feminism. If there's anything else you'd like to discuss, please post them here and a good chance I will make a new thread. Thank you.

What was your thought when you read the title? Was it one of scorn, disgust, loathing, or any other negative feeling? What if I was a girl and it said I was a feminist? What I'm getting at is why is it ok for a girl to be a feminist, but if a guy wants to be a male chauvinist, he's abused by men and women alike. Also, if a man gets mad at a girl for being a feminist, he's shot down too. You know, in the good ol' days, America was full of male chauvinists and obedient women...

This post has been edited by solaris32: Mar 30 2008, 10:03 PM

Those women were "obedient" to the chauvinists because most of them were beaten into submission!

True I guess lol. Have you heard the phrase "rule of thumb"? It means you can't beat your wife with anything thicker than your thumb.

I'm also a male & I guess chauvinistic also being 60+++

Our "rule of thumb" was to treat all our Ladies as a sister or our Mom back then.
And God help you if you didn't do so.

What has happened to change that outlook?

I find that when you treat a woman as you would want to be treated with respect and trust, they tend to come back

This isn't about being a male chauvinist, it's about the discrepancies between a feminist and a male chauvinist. Why is it ok for a woman to be a feminist? But a male chauvinist is such a bad guy, even though that's how America used to be 100 years ago.

Uh, I think we need to define our terms:

What is chauvinism?

Definitions from Wikipedia "is extreme and unreasoning partisanship on behalf of a group to which one belongs, especially when the partisanship includes malice and hatred towards a rival group."

There can be both male chauvinism and female chauvinism.

"Feminism" - "comprises a number of social, cultural and political movements, theories and moral philosophies concerned with gender inequalities, and equal rights for women."

Using this definition, I am a feminist.

I would not support a chauvinist whether the person is male or female.

What we've allowed to happen is that we often refer to someone who is espousing female chauvinism as a "feminist".

The old Dave Allen story points this up I think......... Guy decides to sunbake, nude, in his backyard, young lady next door can, quite seriously, call police and has him arrested for indecent expsoure.......if she sunbakes nude in her backyard and he sees her, she can still call police and have him arrested for peeping tomism .huh??

Good point JohnWho, I now see my mistake. I assumed feminism was female chauvinism. But I'd like to point out that not all male chauvinists "hate" women, they just believe them to be inferior.

I think I may be starting to understand your point of view Solaris32.
Sorry to have misdirected the convo.

Thanks JW for the terms edification.

It's when you put the "pig" behind the word "chauvinist" that you really get my dander up.

I am not a feminist of the Bra Burning variety, but I enjoy being a woman. I believe women have all the rights and privileges as men. I have no problem with any woman in any job(for equal pay), BUT if a woman wants to be a piano mover, then by God, MOVE THE PIANO!

I act like a lady and EXPECT to be treated as such.

A further note of interest. Chauvinism had its origin in several plays which caricatured Nicholas Chauvin, a soldier completely devoted to Napoleon and his cause, and became a symbol for a blind, unreasoning patriotism of an exaggerated kind; strictly speaking, its application is political, but by extension and analogy, it can mean a person who believes vehemently in the innate superiority of the male simply because of gender, while placing the female in a secondary and negative role.It may be that male chauvinism has its psychological origins in the negation of Others (as a group, and therefore akin to bigotry) for the sake of feeling superior: THEY are evil, therefore WE are good.

On the other hand, feminism is an attempt to redress the imbalance between women and men in social, legal, and economic spheres, and began, roughly, at the same time as the Negro rights movement in the US. And, while there are certainly caricatures of extreme feminist types because of the stridency of many early feminists, for the most part the movement has taken a psychologically affirmative approach.

Z

Solaris, what leds you to believe that you are in anyway superior to women?

By the way, the "rule of thumb" has nothing to do with what you should or can use to beat your wife.

By definition: The Rule of Thumb is,
1. a method of procedure based on experience and common sense.
2. a general principl regarded as roughly correct but not intended to be scientifically accurate.

I see nothing here that would relate to the beating of a woman or anyone else for that matter and on a personal level I view anyone who beats their wife/husband as being subhuman. There will, by the way be a thread opened soon discussing this particular aspect of domestic violence so I will discuss this matter no further here.

As for the past when women were to be obiedient to their husbands, Piffle!! as Mara would say. A dog can be taught to be obiedient and is expected to be so, I don't consider myself or any woman as being in the same catagory as a dog or anyother animal for that matter. If men and women could start treating each other as equals we'd have alot fewer problems in this world that we share.

The title is meant to be sarcastic and prove a now moot point. I knew it would get misread >.<. While I do have some male chauvinistic characteristics, I don't condone beating or anything like that. And that rule of thumb phrase was just what I heard. Guess I was wrong. Maybe I can make a thread where I discuss what I think is wrong with most women today.

*makes note to steer well clear of that thread*