Feminists Are Anti-Choicee

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/feminists-anti-choice-080000945.html

By Linda Chavez | Linda Chavez – Fri, Feb 3, 2012

Horror of horrors! Lego has introduced a new line of gender-specific toys aimed at girls. I might not even have become aware of the controversy had it not been a topic of discussion on the all-female PBS talk show "To the Contrary," on which I frequently appear. That we are still debating the pros and cons of allowing boys and girls to prefer different play choices says a great deal about the failure of the feminist movement.

Lego, which markets plastic building blocks for everything from "Star Wars" fighting vehicles to Egyptian pyramids, has now introduced a line aimed at young girls. The new toys include Butterfly Beauty Shop, Stephanie's Outdoor Bakery, and Olivia's House, all featuring recognizable girl figures with long hair and feminine outlines, unlike the squat, sexless figures that characterize many of the company's other building sets. More importantly, these toys depict girls engaging in traditionally female activities and roles: getting their hair done, baking, caring for children.

The company says that it has introduced the new line because of customer demand. Little girls (or their mothers) apparently aren't lining up to buy Lego's Fangpyre Wrecking Balls or Pirates of the Caribbean. But feminist critics say that the real motive is to reinforce gender stereotypes and limit little girls' aspirations.

In fact, it's the feminists who want to limit women's choices. Their message to girls and young women is: If you're not exactly like men, you don't believe in equal rights.

For much of the last 40 years, feminists have pushed to masculinize women. They have insisted that girls should want to become engineers, firefighters or athletes; that they should be as eager to engage in combat as men; that their careers should define them.

At the same time, feminists have taken on the task of feminizing males. Boys should not be afraid of playing with dolls; they should learn to play nice; they should cooperate rather than compete with others. Men should share child-rearing, cooking, cleaning. They should be sensitive, learn to share their feelings, and value their emotional side as much as their rational one.

The feminist influence on Hollywood has replaced as an icon of female beauty the voluptuous and feminine Marilyn Monroe with the gaunt, well-muscled Hilary Swank, while jettisoning the ruggedly male Clint Eastwood for the softly feminine Jake Gyllenhaal. Feminists have ensured that textbooks depict women as astronauts and fighter pilots and rewrite history to glorify the role of even minor female figures at the expense of eliminating major accomplishments by males.

But despite the feminist movement's almost complete success in refashioning the terms of the cultural debate, feminists have not been able to convince most little girls to want to play with starfighters and missile launchers.

Having been a mother to three boys, a grandmother to six more, and a grandmother to three girls, I know that sex differences in personality, likes and dislikes are usually present from birth. While boys' and girls' preferences range along a broad spectrum, rare is the little boy who doesn't like to build things and then smash them up, and rare is the little girl who is as interested in doing so — especially the smashing-up part.

So why shouldn't a company that hopes to increase its market share take advantage of those differences? What's wrong with creating toys that'll have an appeal to customers who want to bake cupcakes and have their hair and nails done?

As long as we don't tell girls they should never choose the action figure over the princess or tell boys that they must play with guns and not dolls, we're not cutting off options for either gender. Real choice entails letting individuals — even young ones — gravitate toward what they want, not what ideologues wish them to prefer.

Edited May 7, 2012 by Why_Me

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/feminism-became-joke-151308655.html

How Feminism Became a Joke

By Susannah Breslin | Forbes – Thu, Aug 11, 2011

The latest news out of the feminist camp: Gloria Steinem is calling for a boycott of NBC's "The Playboy Club."

In 1963, Steinem famously went undercover at a Playboy Club and wrote an expose that painted working as a Playboy Club Bunny waitress as anything but glamorous. According to Steinem, at that time prospective Bunnies were required to be tested for venereal diseases.

"Clearly 'The Playboy Club' is not going to be accurate. It was the tackiest place on earth. It was not glamorous at all," Steinem said, adding, "It's just not telling the truth about the era."

Meanwhile, the feminist icon gives "Mad Men" a pass "because it shows the world of the early 1960s with some realism."

1. It has no sense of humor.

I'll never forget sitting in a feminist film studies class when I was an undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley listening to the professor explain the placement of a prop in the movie "Working Girl." As I recall, a handle on a piece of workout equipment had been situated near Sigourney Weaver's crotch. This, the female professor explained with grave seriousness, represented Weaver's symbolic #######, and it was for this that her character would be punished.

I wondered what I was doing there. Was this really of such importance? Were feminists so paranoid that they found male threats at every turn? Even if the prop was intentional, couldn't it have been ... a joke?

For feminists, it's never funny. The personal is political, and gender is no laughing matter.

2. It is hypocritical.

Feminism claims to be about empowerment. In fact, over the years, it has increasingly devoted itself to promoting the image of women as victims. Victims of men. Victims of pop culture. Victims of sexism. Victims of discrimination. Victims of other women.

While "The Playboy Club" executive producer Chad Hodge claims the show is "all about empowering these women to be whatever they want to be," Steinem sees the Playboy business as an abattoir in which women are slaughtered like so much chattel.

In Steinem's mind, the program, set some 50 years ago, victimizes women all over again, "t normalizes prostitution and male dominance." The irony is that by positing Playboy Club waitresses as "prostitutes," it is Steinem who victimizes women all over again.

3. No one's buying it anymore.

Feminism was always based on the idea that women have it harder than men. These days, people just aren't buying it. The stock market has gone haywire, unemployment is endemic, and some women are beginning to see that feminism's segregationist, mollycoddling politics have done more harm than good.

Can't get a job? Try telling your prospective employer that it's because you're a woman. That employer will find someone with the can-do attitude you lack. Don't like how women are represented in pop culture? The internet has made it possible for you to make your own media. Still trying to figure out if you're a "feminist" or not? Stop trying.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Couldn't find anything a little more current?

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Couldn't find anything a little more current?

That piece is only three months old. Blame yahoo, they had it on the side bar. But both pieces hit the bulls eye.

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

I find it interesting that your main source of content appears to be drawn from Yahoo News these days.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

I find it interesting that your main source of content appears to be drawn from Yahoo News these days.

Iv'e read yahoo news for years now. It uses the AP, Reuters, ABC, the Blaze, etc...

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

Iv'e read yahoo news for years now. It uses the AP, Reuters, ABC, the Blaze, etc...

It wasn't a criticism as such, I just saw the pattern.

[Dakine10 5,452]

both pieces hit the bulls eye.

Indeed they did, but if you stop to consider the target, it would have been hard to miss.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

I find it interesting that your main source of content appears to be drawn from Yahoo News these days.

I know...right? Like we didn't know feminists are not pro choice. It is pretty clear. Yahoo is reporting the obvious. Next big story...we found sand at the beach!

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

It wasn't a criticism as such, I just saw the pattern.

Thanks for pointing that out.. I thought you were criticizing his choice of news sources, silly me.

[Penny Lane 8,159]

Boys should not be afraid of playing with dolls; they should learn to play nice; they should cooperate rather than compete with others. Men should share child-rearing, cooking, cleaning. They should be sensitive, learn to share their feelings, and value their emotional side as much as their rational one.

I'm not sure I'd consider myself a feminist, but I completely agree with this. I don't see this as "feminizing" males, either.

[Jenn! 918]

"softly feminine Jake Gyllenhaal"

[Ban Hammer 13,551]

Indeed they did, but if you stop to consider the target, it would have been hard to miss.

are you suggesting feminists are fat?

[Dakine10 5,452]

are you suggesting feminists are fat?

Of course not. I'm saying it was a given that these articles would to be a big hit with the target demographic.

Edited May 7, 2012 by Dakine10

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

Seems like if sweeping and inaccurate generalizations were being made about a group of people who just happen to be women, who were grouped not by the adjective "feminist" but instead by their country of birth, there might be a "WHY ARE YOU P!SSING ON ALL _______ WOMEN?????" comment made somewhere.

I don't give a fig what toys kids play with. OH my god? Does this mean that I am LYING or that I am NOT A FEMINIST? Oh ####### I like to bake cupcakes, and do my nails, and WEAR pretty dresses, and MAKE DELICIOUS food for my boyfriend WHAT AM I GONNA DO now? These ANTI-CHOICE feminists whom I call my FAMILY and FRIENDS are all just lying in wait to take my gender expression away from me and make me wear DUNGAREES.

/crai