M1 Group B Second subject

If you haven't commented on the first subject that's disappointing, here's a chance to redeem yourself.

Second subject is Feminism.

Emma Watson recently made this speech and reignited the debate.

So what do you think to the speech? Where do you think Feminism stands at the moment? Where do you think it will go? Take the discourse where you wish.

To my mind i suppose the speech is structured well and utopian because it aims at causing an earthquake in the prejudices. It's a strategy which consists in aiming the top to obtain a minimum result.
I'm convinced that it's necessary to differentiate the disparities between the various stages of access to the equality of women, west model & the others.

For developing countries, I think she is right when she evokes the access to the education of the girls because to change the mentalities on the long term the education & the instruction are the best weapons. They guaranted that if girls could benefit from the school system, they will be encouraged by their parents. Because they received an education which taught them the value of the school. The difficulty is to reach the generation which will begin this mentality. It is more a question of implemented ways.

For countries in the western model, i believe the problem is more moral because every citizen have access to school system that's why the segregation is more subtle. For her exemple of his teacher, parents and so on believe in her. Nonsense ! Because the teacher will not receive a bonus if she succeeds better so he can bet on their female student. But a manager who want promote one of his agent will be choose a guy will not get pregnant after having obtained a permanent employment contract because he needs a more productive team to reach his goals. So the responsible jobs are less adequate with the idea of a free woman, because if she want succeed she will have to sacrifice the family dimension. On the contrary a man who succeeded has to preserve his image, in the two case the social pressure is the guilty and the source is to use the others as the way to climb the social ladder, woman or man.

Perhaps, one day one the generations will estimate the equality between male and female more priority than the religious war and economic quarrels.

PS: biggest link ever !

JESUS_is_EVERYWHERE wrote:

PS: biggest link ever !

That's what they all tell me.

She made some good points during her speech, especially with the egality in salaries.
Speech for women rights : 30% of the audience were male? This really stigmatize the role of feminists
She may come from "a privileged, upper middle class white girl from England" , this doesn’t mean she cannot speak for the rest. She clearly acknowledged not everyone is as privileged as her. Discrimination against women still very much exist in other parts of the world like Asia and Africa!
Practically all the topics she discusses in the beginning have all being corrected (at least in Europe and Northern America).
Does women work as effective as men ? I think so
Can men adapt to women so we can achieve a perfect gender equality ? I don’t think so.

Like Jesus said I think her model is kind of utopic.

I think she made a good speech but as Jesus "is evrywhere" said its quite utopian because the result depend for the major part of the history of the country where it deal with . Indeed we are in a developped , peace and democratic country for a long time ago and we still have disequalities with salaries or about integration of woman in politic so how can u expect better result in countries where war or decease are present ..
At the beggining we are not equal from a country to an other one , so it would be insane to think the situation would be better about sex equalities

At the beginning of her speech, she says that feminism is for some people (in particular women) a “bad word”, an unattractive word. I quite agree because I find some women today who declare themselves feminist have a saddening behaviour.
If feminists are women who do scandal for any advertising or joke more or less funny which deserve no interest or if they are women who protest naked in the street with slogans written on their breast, I don’t want to be feminist! I think it’s this attitudes that damage feminism.

I think today, women must make a choice between fully concentrate on their career or build a family. It’s unfair but it’s a fact. If we want to have a family we have to stop working for a moment, then we must devote sufficient time to our family for not seem as a "bad mother" while a man more devoted to his work than to his family is seen as quite normal. This notion is implanted in our mind and this is this kind of stereotypes that, as a woman, I would like to change.

Like Amandine I also think "Feminism" have lost its principal meaning. What Emma Watson and true feminists stand for is political, economic and social equality of the sexes. But, while most people agree with this definition, there are also folks claiming to be "feminists" who have a whole other vision of this word. The feminism movement is trending lately and I think it's a good thing, but most people are following it just because it's fashionable to say "I'm a feminist". If there is no actions behind it's useless...

Finally, when we talk about feminism we always end up talking about salaries and the difference between men and women, and I think the problem is more in the social position than in the revenues. Like how many women are at the head of big companies ? How many women preside a country ?
I think this is a mentality problem, for so long some people thought "women can't govern", but I think it is changing now. The US could be the best example with Hillary Clinton who may (or may not) become the first ever woman president of the United State.

Margaret Thatcher?

But is Maggie Thatcher really a woman.. ?

Maxence \"Starsky" Goumard wrote:But is Maggie Thatcher really a woman.. ?

Certainly not now!

I agree with my wife (Emma) when she says feminism is an "umpopular word". When I think feminism, I see woman without tee-shirt that manifest in Sotchi during the winter olympic game 2014. Whereas this action of Emma Watson is a good posture, nowadays it's obvious that women should be equal to men in a modernize world.
In fact, I believe feminism is little bit hypocrite because nowadays in France we honor a "woman days"... It's not really equal, where is the "man days" ? (the other 364 ?).
For all of people be equal we should be change the mentalities but this process is really long and hard, that's why it's important to teach to new generations the basis for equality not just sexe aquality.

Certainly not.
Let's be more serious now. Her speech is great, intense, motivating, she's talking to the UN after all ! To my concern I think she remains rather vague about what to do, about feminism, about Heforshe (I'm still not sure about what it is) but she does it well, SHE'S AN ACTRESS.
Anyway, as some of you already said her discourse is quite utopic, so many mentalities, so many cultural aspects to change, in so many countries at so many various levels.. She's right about the fact that no country in the world can proclaim total equality between male and female even though western countries have evolved to the right way compared to loads of other developping and poor countries. Social changes are slow, they take time, they always have. Remember that we are animals at the very beginning, and it's truely difficult to transform thousands - if not millions - of years of prejudices during which male has been dominant over female.
It's undeniable we progress, at various speed, but we do, but please let us not do it higgledy-piggledy (okay I admit I searched for this one). But there's clearly a problem today and I speak here for myself.
I agree with EMMA ("ADRIIIAAAAN"), Amandine & Quentin when they say feminism has become unattractive throughout the years. I believe we have to emphasize the fact that nowadays two kinds of feminism - properly speaking - are facing each other : the true one serves the interests of the whole community, not only women, promoting liberty and equality above everything else, like she said to allow people to express their true selves.
The other one - may I call it the false one - is the limitless feminism seen "as a bad word", which appeared more recently and seems to be clearly pointless. How can the cause progress when some women claim naked in the streets like furies ? It inspires me more pity than anything else.
The original motivation of Feminism is to make the world better than it is for everybody. Miss Watson supports the true feminism, Femen can go fuck themselves.

Tom Jorigne wrote: where is the "man days" ? (the other 364 ?).

Tom, when you will succeed to give birth to a child you will have a day for you, for sure!

I totally share your point of view Maxence

Hi everyone,
I agree that Emma Watson made a very strong and passionate speech, but I do agree with other students who call it utopian.
Even though she mentioned really good points (as equal salaries, no “glass-ceiling”, equal value of father and mother, inability to express feelings), the rest of the speech seems to me rather naive.
I didn't really got the point about the body as long as today in developed countries neither women nor men are obliged to look according to a strict standard, everyone has a freedom to do whatever he/she wants with her body and style. What she is speaking about, using an example of girls who didn't want to be muscly, is an subjective perception of an attractiveness. At the same time, this example shows, that despite an opportunity to make a sport career, these girls realised their right to look exactly as they want.
Another point that was not clear for me was the definition of the world 'feminism'. What she described as a feminism can be called a 'gender-equality', not a feminism. She is right, today the word 'feminism' has a more negative connotation (which is not surprising, as long as many people imagine feminists as aggressive and rude women, fighting all day long with the world). Today a 'feminism' has a negative image, thanking, for instance, to some representatives as Pussy Riot. So when she speaks about a male right to express feelings, it's not really about a feminism, but abous general gender equality.
But I dud like her point about 'mother/father' equality. The father's role in child's life seems to be underestimated by the society.

Amandine Tiré wrote:

Tom Jorigne wrote: where is the "man days" ? (the other 364 ?).

Tom, when you will succeed to give birth to a child you will have a day for you, for sure!

I totally share your point of view Maxence

Yes, You can! Tom!

The man who has given birth three times

I'm not quite agree with what Emma Watson has expressed in her speech at the UN about the gender equality, but I do agree with the opinion that women and men should have equal rights and opportunities. Instead of using the word "feminism" , I think the word "human rights" express better and less aggressive the connotation of feminism for the flowing reasons.
First of all, the word " gender equality" is Utopian. There are so many physical differences between men and women which make women unable to do heavy physical labor. There are also culture and religion obstacles that will take years to change and develop. What we should pay attention is not gender equality, but help women from maltreat, protect their human rights.
The maltreatment of women start from childhood, sometimes from unborn even. In some undeveloped countries, millions of baby girls were killed or abandoned, they are being denied the right to go to school by their own fathers and brothers, they are being forced of prostituting.
We all have female members in our families. They raise children up, take care of the aged, keep our home clean and warm. Protecting them from threaten of violence both inside and outside home, help them get the respect that they should have is meaningful for all of us.
That's why I prefer to use the word "human rights". If the human rights in a certain country or region can attract so much attention, the human rights of half of our population on the planet deserves no doubt everyone's attention.

Ok this time I find the link

In my mind, man and women are getting equality nowadays for example, we can see more and more women in government accross the world.

To day at school we learn children that there won't be a difference between men and women at work. At home, I think that parents do the same thing at home but there is another problem. The fact that we observe more house wife than house husband is due to (in my mind) the childhood of people. Indeed, we you go to the children's section in a supermarket you can see that toys for girl are kitchen utensil, babies, iron... while toys for boy are weapons, cars, building games (and other cool things). So when people are around 5 years, they are "established" to become what they have to be later. And I'm sure that you might be surprising to see a woman becoming soldier or building site machinery driver as it's not common to see a man hair dresser or a clothes seller.

Finally, I agree with Amandine (do I have the choice ?) to say that it's unfair but it's a fact that boss prefere hire men than women because women could be absent because of pregnancy. Women have to choose between having a family and their career.

I'm with Maxence concerning the real information she provided. What is her advice finally? What should we have to do to change this situation? What she does is spelling some emotional sentences…
The FEMEN are, for me, the reason of the bad image of Feminism. These girls trying to get attention by taking their shirts off and painting on churches are offensive and reflects a really bad idea of what women think. (because yes, there’re supposed to represent women…)
All right, we all agree about the fact that there is a discrimination in several professional sectors. But for me, the reality is not what it seems to be.
First of all, when we talk about the numbers concerning the high responsibilities job which are not equally distributed, the problem is not about a discrimination and it’s not a problem at all. The main reason is that there are way less women who chose to put the priority on their career than men. And we can see that this point is currently being modified ! (General Motors’ CEO, PepsiCo’s CEO, Angela Merkel, OPRAH WINFREY !) More and more women are in the process of being more and more powerful (and rich in the meantime). It’s just a matter of Culture and Culture is changing constantly… Except concerning a few countries which stays a few steps behind the others…
The problem the feminist should focused is the women situation is these countries… Like, randomly Saoudi Arabia !
But anyway, I’m still in love with Emma and I would like to conclude with a FRENCH citation from our famous secret agent OSS 117 :

“shut up and make me a sandwich”

Subject that raises me several feelings : redundant and without purpose. This sounds like a call for help which nobody will respond. It's been a long time that feminism is trying to be heard without meeting his audience. The ideas proposed by Emma are simple, have the same economic and social rights as men. But let's face it, everyone faces the prejudice, it is discriminatory to believe that only women are concerned.

The dichotomy of labor men/woman does not even a place in the debate. Educational paths have never prohibited a woman to be Mason or other. They complain about careers they could have done but their own stereotypes prevented them.

The only thing that bothers feminists is reality. When we look at the events relating to feminism, we understand that this is a fight that concerns only women and "Women".
Feminism is a waste of time, the time they reach an agreement, they have not finished to do the dishes (hahahahaahaah Joke).

LIU Bingchuan wrote:

Amandine Tiré wrote:

Tom Jorigne wrote: where is the "man days" ? (the other 364 ?).

Tom, when you will succeed to give birth to a child you will have a day for you, for sure!

I totally share your point of view Maxence

Yes, You can! Tom!

The man who has given birth three times

Bing are you trying to tell me something about Tom?

I've always thought of myself as a feminist but I don't believe in gender equality.

I believe wholeheartedly that women should have an equal opportunity to do anything that men do. Practically, I have actively encouraged my wife to do all the DIY inside and outside the house . I see no reason why a woman, who has the skills and capabilities should not do any job that a man does and vice versa. As far as remuneration I cannot understand why a woman doing the same job as a man to the same level shouldn't get the same pay - that is not to say that I disagree with different pay where a person (man or woman) does a job better/more efficiently/quicker etc...

However I have never believed that men and women are equal. The "average" man is stronger and faster than the "average" woman, a woman can bear a child, a man can't. there are many differencies, not only physical, between the sexes and these should be celebrated and not denigrated.

Sex is fundamental to life and nature. Human Equality doesn't exist, it's a manufactured idea which goes in the face of Darwinian theory. No two men are equal, no two women are equal, no two people are equal. The best that we can hope for is an equality of fairness and justice and respect.

Long live Gender inequality and let feminists bare their breasts if they so wish!

Admin wrote:

LIU Bingchuan wrote:

Amandine Tiré wrote:

Tom Jorigne wrote: where is the "man days" ? (the other 364 ?).

Tom, when you will succeed to give birth to a child you will have a day for you, for sure!

I totally share your point of view Maxence

Yes, You can! Tom!

The man who has given birth three times

Bing are you trying to tell me something about Tom?

I am trying to tell Tom that if he wants have a man's day, he's definitely capbable of. Base on what Amendine said, and accoding to the article what i have posted.
Tom can give birth undoubtedly

LIU Bingchuan wrote:

Admin wrote:

LIU Bingchuan wrote:

Amandine Tiré wrote:

Tom Jorigne wrote: where is the "man days" ? (the other 364 ?).

Tom, when you will succeed to give birth to a child you will have a day for you, for sure!

I totally share your point of view Maxence

Yes, You can! Tom!

The man who has given birth three times

Bing are you trying to tell me something about Tom?

I am trying to tell Tom that if he wants have a man's day, he's definitely capbable of. Base on what Amendine said, and accoding to the article what i have posted.
Tom can give birth undoubtedly

Because he has had a sex change?