Am I a feminist? Well .....

                                                                   

Ok, today is my birthday and I just have to write this.  I have hardly had time to blog on anyone of my  7 blogs over the past year.  (yes I have 7 blogs I keep up, or try to). Plus I try to write articles for several journals, so I do stay busy writing!  Blogging has not been on the top of my to do list to do like it use to be!

Out of all of the facebook friends I have, when I read your posts, I might not always agree with you, and if I do disagree I often will not post a response.  You have the right to your opinion.  When you post YOUR opinion on YOUR page it does not give me the right to argue with you on YOUR page.

 I expect that same respect on MY page. I am totally ok with discussions, no problem unless it gets ugly.  It is my page, I have the right to my opinion on my own page.  And on your page it is your page, you have the right to your opinion.  With that said, I welcome others opinions, will discuss them, but will keep my opinion if I feel strong about something.
Then sometimes....I just have to open my mouth on my page or yours....
As I did yesterday....

Someone posted something about men treating women better...(I am purposefully not going into exact details here so I do not have any identifying comments of the person or persons).

I  continued to read the discussion, and one person posted about rape --on this persons page -and a mans reaction/responsibility.  Next, -a man posted back and said: that rape ---is the fault of both the man and the woman.  His reasoning: that men are visually stimulated, thus the woman holds some responsibility in how she dresses.  He went on to say that most women do not dress sluttish, (wasn't that nice of him to say...).  

The page 'owner' did not ever respond to any of these comments.

The final comment this guy said in his long assessment of how a woman has responsibility in her rape, was "well rape should never happen". It was like that final comment somehow took away the fact that he already said that a woman has to take some of the responsibility for the rape because of how she was dressed and thus since a man is visually stimulated. I took him to mean that this woman,  *sluttish* or not, was responsible for her dress and if it was not modest, it could cause a man to get excited and thus rape her, and then she is responsible, not just him.

I had to say something.  I just had to open my mouth...

I responded with the following to his original comment:

Yes, rape is the mans fault. As a man, control your actions-

EVEN if a woman is not dressed modestly. The man might look on her and lust but it does NOT give that man permission to act. Stop putting mans actions of sexual aggression and sin onto the victim.

He responded with: (and notice he cant even spell my name correctly even with it right in front of him) 

Irena, That's not what I said. I said men are VISUALLY stimulated. By what they see. If a woman is naked, do you really think the woman had no part in the mans reaction ? Come on. And did you even read the last line of my first comment? If you think how a woman dresses doesn't effect how a man looks at her, you are probably a feminist.

Remember his last line of his first comment was that basically no one should get raped, but that comment was buried in his other one, that a woman should also be responsible. 

I guess I am a feminist.  

Definition of a feminist: Someone who supports feminism. 

Definition of feminism:  The belief that women are and should be treated as potential intellectual equals and social equals to men. These people can be either male or female human beings, although the ideology is commonly (and perhaps falsely) associated mainly with women. Feminism is the belief that all people are entitled to the same civil rights and liberties and can be intellectual equals regardless of gender. However, you should still hold the door for a feminist; this is known as respect or politeness and need have nothing whatever to do with gender discrimination.

I do know that some feminist take this further, There seems to be a sort of 'degrees' of/in feminism, Meaning different beliefs- but the basic belief is the above.  

So if you believe that a woman should be treated equally, another words given the same pay if doing the same job, given the same rights in this society, You are by definition a feminist. Wow, did you not know that? 

The word feminist takes on a different meaning depending on who you are.  Sort of like the word evolve. 

Many Christians do not like the word 'evolve'.  That is because they associate it with evolution, and since most do not agree with that theory they throw the whole thing-- including the word--out. 

The word evolve, means changing. Actual definition is: the process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth 

Since some believers do not agree with evolution, They want to the throw the whole word and process out, That's nuts. We can not throw the word out just because we do not agree with evolution. Many animals, and things are always changing, adapting to their environment, Thus evolution is happening all around us and will continue to happen.  That is life, and how the creator has made things to happen.  We also evolve as people.  We are changing, we change in our beliefs and how we function. We evolve to being older-as we age. Evolution is all around us (and for some of us as we age, around us more than we like! )

So my point of all of that is to say, feminist-or being a feminist might not be all bad. Many of us are or would fit in the category of the definition of a feminist. That does not mean you HAVE to believe and agree with ALL they support. 

 Now I can hear some of you saying: well I can not support them at all based on this or that part of their belief.  I am not saying you HAVE to support them, I do not fully support the *cause*, but by definition, I do support equal rights, equal pay, and fair treatment. So by that, if based on that only,I guess I am a feminist. You are too if you support those things. It does not mean we have *joined the cause* of feminism. I do not call myself a feminist.  I never have.  

So back to this guy....

So my husband and I had just gotten to the campground and we sat there in the car as I read to him this exchange.  I was frustrated. Why do some men, and this one was claiming to be a believer like I am, (which actually makes me more frustrated with him that he is responding this way because I hold him to a higher standard), why do some men (people) think they can blame others for their sins? We all sin, and when I do sin, it is MY responsibility, I am at fault, I can not blame others for my actions. 

Why do some men (people) think that a mans action of rape is NOT their responsibility? Again I said THEIR ACTION OF RAPE. Its their action.  Their responsibility. 

So my husband and I sat there in the car talking, as people walked past us...i pointed to two young women and said even if they are naked walking past us it does not give you the right to act on the urge of excitement and rape them.  He agreed and he said the following and I put that up on the discussion. 

"Even a naked woman running past you, does not give you permission as a man to rape her. " my husband said in response to your comments. He said more too, but I am not gonna get into a war with you and your name calling.

Then he (my husband) gave several more examples of how people could be dressed or and have someone respond, I did not share all of them on the page and will not here either, but they were good examples. 

The next example was of a child, what about a child dressed in a bathing suit?  (as we saw a family headed to the pool and the little girl was in her swim suit walking past us) He said this and I posted this to the discussion. 

By your definition: if a child is dressed in something that is not modest, a pedifile (sp?) who rapes the child, is not the only responsible one-that child is also responsible. (Again comment from my husband).
I share his view. If this view makes me a feminist in your opinion , then fine.

The guy did not say anything else, just removed his posts. Good. Hopefully he got it. But I doubt it.  If he did and realized he was wrong in his thinking, he would have responded back or should have responded back with an apology.  He did not. So I doubt he even cared.  

I KNOW that men are visual, and are stimulated by just 'seeing' things, but they are responsible if they act or not. 

I was proud of my husband. His responses were right on. Him and I discussed many more things about this but I will stop now.  I guess I have went on enough.  If you do not agree with me, and especially if you are a man, I only ask you to really really thing about your response before you actually respond. I welcome discussion. 

But first I leave you with this thought:  

"Would you say the same thing about your daughter if she was raped? Would you say: well daughter, you should have not been dressed like that you know men are visually stimulated and so you stimulated that man by how you were dressed and that is why it is now your responsibility for what happened to you." 

 I think not.