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Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce
And then this: What I am most interested in (in Trudeau's 'gamergate' 'stand') were his 'I am a feminist' comments. Maybe this needs it's own discussion thread too lol. The dictionary definition of feminism is "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men." If that is the definition, aren't like 99% of us feminists? If I where to be asked if I was a feminist, I would respond by saying I absolutely strongly advocate political, economic and social equality. I don't think that's exactly what Trudeau (or a large portion of those who use the term feminist) mean.
What is it supposed to mean, now, to be a feminist?
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What does it mean today? Whatever someone saying it wants it to mean. For a politician or public figure, it means you want women to like you. For the ideologues of the hard left, it's a club to use against anyone who questions their theories or causes. For dyed-in-the-wool conservatives, it's a way to denigrate an attitude as morally corrosive.
You're right that the overwhelming majority of Canadians today believe women should be able to do anything men can, and should stand as equals under the law and in personal liberty. However, there are fundamental disagreements over the source of enduring gender disparities in all sorts of behaviours and outcomes, and how they should be addressed.
A great many on the left hold to the myth of the blank slate, where we're born in a state of innocence and any differences in behaviour stem only from cultural biases, and if we change those biases we can shape behaviour to be anything we like. To them, differences in children's scores in math and sciences are a cultural relic that can be redressed by encouraging more girls to take an interest in those subjects. Those people tend to remain silent on the issue of why girls far outstrip boys in reading, writing, and overall educational attainment, from kindergarten right through to participation in post-secondary education, nor do you see them championing campaigns to get more boys and young men reading or staying in school.
Then there's the odious and fundamentally illiberal 'check your privilege' model of social discourse, where we are all put into boxes of gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, and then ranked according to a hierarchy of perceived power. Under this model, a feminist is someone who recognizes that in any dispute between women and men, individually and collectively, women are oppressed and thus have the moral high ground. Fortunately, this outlook doesn't extend much beyond university campuses and the more flaky regions of the internet. However, such a threat to the liberal traditions of reason, open discourse, and individual freedom needs to be watched carefully and challenged whenever it creeps into public policy.
Like most ideologies, self-avowed feminists has a tendency to simplify in order to present the starkest possible choices and the easiest answers. So the persistence of income disparity between men and women must stem from patriarchal chauvinism in the hiring process, and not something as complex as marriage and child-rearing choices (single women who have never married earn 98 per cent of what single men who have never married earn), or innate gender differences in risk-taking behaviour (which help explain why the very poorest and the homeless are disproportionately male). Nor are more nuanced looks at things such as who actually spends money as opposed to who earns it welcome among the ideologues.
It's worth noting that a great many women - including liberal women - do not self-identify as feminists, owing to the ideological baggage associated with the movement. I don't know too many mothers of both a boy and a girl who feel any less concerned about their son's future than their daughter's, or who are willing to overlook the challenges facing boys and young men and champion only the interests of their daughters.