For The Professor
Having just read Professor's "Do Stickman Readers Hate Women?", I felt compelled to write a quick response in the interests of balance.
By his own admission, Prof has "lived in Asia for many years now" and is basing his opinions on a flying visit to the US[i].
This does not stop him writing, however,
"Several writers to this website use a phrase feminazi, which I personally find morally repugnant…"
And do you, sir, find it equally morally repugnant to refer to white supremacists as neo-Nazis? "Nazi" has long ceased to reflect its proper meaning of "National Socialist" and come to be used to refer to those who would exalt a group defined by accident of birth above all others, and it is in this sense that it is used in the term[ii]
"feminazi". By no means all feminists can be so defined: it refers to a small (but strident) group of extremists – and that group richly deserve the title.
"… They seem to equate a woman's desire to be treated equally, and receive equal pay for equal work with a militaristic party that claimed tens of millions of lives in one of the worst bouts of warfare the world has ever seen"
You are either guilty of Aristotelian thinking[iii] here, or are possibly seeing the first symptoms of late-onset
PCD
[iv]. Or possibly you are simply being disingenuous… This sentence is wrong on multiple levels:
1. You are clearly equating "feminist" and "feminazi", while most writers here (and, I suggest, most readers, though I hesitate to make that sort of generalisation) understand the distinction between the two
2. You then make the false deduction that those writers must be opposed to equal rights for women
3. And then later in your submission that "several writers" morphs into "the readers"
A number of the more rational feminist commentators have admitted that in almost all areas of life, discrimination against women has effectively disappeared[v].
This does not, however, stop a small minority of extreme feminists from agitating for ever more special treatment of women: "positive discrimination", quotas, and other mechanisms which would give an advantage to women over equally qualified
men in the workplace and in other aspects of society.
I refer you to my definition of the current meaning of "Nazi" above… By definition, that small minority who will not be satisfied until women are automatically preferred above men in all things have earned the soubriquet[vi]
"feminazi". And, yes, this is a small minority even amongst those women who refer to themselves as feminists – but the fact that they are a small minority does not stop the majority of women taking advantage of the preferential treatment they
have secured.
Consider: to reach the highest levels of management within an organisation requires commitment and hard work. I work for a multinational company, and the entire senior management team is male. Does this mean women are discriminated against? I would assert that it does not; there's not a single one of those men who has less than 25 years continuous experience in business, working long hours and making sacrifices in their personal life to achieve their position.
How many women have this level of work experience to draw on? Without periods of maternity leave or reduced hours due to childcare requirements? The number is smaller, because many women have made a free, personal, choice to have a family. The famous feminist fantasy that "you can have it all" – career, family, and "still look fabulous" is just that – a fantasy.
In real life, people make choices and while many – men as well as women – trying to deny it, they have to live with the consequences of those choices. To demand equal representation for women in senior roles would draw its female candidates from a much smaller pool than its male candidates, thus discriminating against men.
By the way – my immediate superior is a man, but his boss is a woman, and her boss is a woman also. I have worked for female bosses, and on the whole when comparing like with like in terms of experience and ability there is absolutely no difference between working for a man and working for a woman. It is largely when women have been overpromoted to ensure "equal representation" and finish up in jobs they lack the experience to do that there are problems… usually for men.
Men come to Thailand (and read Stickman) for many reasons. At least one of those reasons is to escape the sense of frustration and powerlessness to stem the onward march of the special rights for women in the West… And if, from time to time, that leads them to overstate the problems of Western society and the shortcomings of Western women, well, I will simply replay your own statement to you
"[H]ow many of us have not erred and sometimes gone a bit overboard in pursuit of something we hold particularly dear?"
Because some others, you see, actually do believe in equal opportunity!
Chok Di
[i] Which, I would assert, places him in the same category as Westerners who spend a three-week vacation in Thailand and decide this makes them experts on all things Thai.
[ii] Not "phrase" – I may be being pedantic, Prof, but given your choice of handle that would seem to be appropriate!
[iii] I refer you to Science and Sanity by Alfred Korzybski for a definition; if you want to understand why this is a Bad Thing, read the whole book. You can find the entire text online fairly easily.
[iv] Political Correctness Disorder – a dreadful mental illness, second only to Silly Lefty Syndrome in its debilitating effects. If you suspect you have this, consult your brain care specialist immediately!
[v] The “almost" and "effectively" are there because I am sure that given enough time you will be able to think of an example where this is not true, and claim that this "proves" something.
[vi] Another alternative to the incorrect "phrase".
