What brand of feminism do majority of feminists at Emory subscribe to? Radical feminism (Andrea Dworkin, etc.)? Equity feminism (Camille Paglia, etc.)? Factual feminism (Christina Hoff Sommers, etc.)? Liberal feminism (Gloria Steinem, etc.)? Marxist feminism (no idea) or socialist feminism (no idea)?
I get the feeling that many of the feminists at Emory or on any campus would not neatly describe their point of view using one of those labels.
You know what, put Christina Hoff Sommers under Equity feminism. Oh, and are feminists at Emory generally sex-positive or sex-negative? Any eco-feminists? Too many brands of feminism I can’t keep track.
@bernie12 A good point, I think.
Okay, let me (over)simplify: Do majority of feminists at Emory believe we live in a patriarchy or not?
By the way, any anti-feminists at Emory? Do they tolerate anti-feminist viewpoints? Feminists are not known for their tolerance of opposing views.
@CrispyBullet From conversations I have participated in with those who were either in AA studies or W and G studies (or both), I would honestly have to say yes…for that particular question. However, I think that you’ll find great diversity and complexity among those who openly declare their feminism at Emory (as in ones who often discuss things like gender roles and such issues in conversation or in class) simply because Emory is very diverse and thus each person will bring their own slant to it. Interestingly, I was shocked, when I met a girl that I would not consider feminist (perhaps this a fault of mine and indeed a misunderstood) who came from Alabama and made a comment stating: “I just do not believe that women should be pastors”…I was very interested and surprised (this went down at the Bread Coffee house. If you want to meet interesting people, go there on Thursday. It hosts the RUF ministry, but all are welcome, trust me. And because all are welcome, you will have some very interesting conversations about various philosophical, religious, or political ideas). It led to an interesting debate/conversation among me, some other male friends (who, like me, were taken aback), and the girl. If you can get that at a school as liberal as Emory, imagine the diversity of viewpoints you’ll have among those who consider themselves to hold more liberal ideologies with respect to certain issues. Interestingly enough, I think I have met some “Marxist feminists” before at Emory (I recently learned what this was about 3 months ago to be honest). BTW, that is in general when a woman may sort of view domestic life as essentially an extension of the “market place”. They tend to downplay the role of home life in living a more fulfilling life (and that “breaks” from non-domestic work should not necessarily be time redistributed toward more time with the family). In fact, one writer suggested that domestic work should receive income (not talking maids here, talking about spouses for example).
And your other thread: Beyond the lgbtq community Emory has (which I think is fairly large and supported), I don’t know if the ideology of many males on campus are that “interesting” although they may be more likely to be found among males that subscribe to certain religious beliefs or political ideologies. And keep in mind, that even if they existed, like a racist (not to suggest that either of those categories as nearly as undesirable as this one) would be on Emory’s campus, they’ll likely be awfully silent and you probably wouldn’t know who they are because I suspect that subscribing to such ideas is perhaps less acceptable than being a radical feminist for example.
@bernie12 I assume you meant the first question? Are they generally tolerant of opposing viewpoints?
EDIT: MGTOW and MRAs are often labeled misogynists by feminists and others who disagree with their beliefs, so, yeah, I don’t think they will openly declare they’re MGTOW or MRA, but on College Confidential they are anonymous. Also, MGTOW and MRA aren’t ideologies. Not yet anyway.
@CrispyBullet : Yes, the first question. However, that was among that group of feminists. Keep in mind that many/most women may declare themselves as feminists if you asked and outside of that particular circle, you probably are more likely to find those who oppose that view. And even among those that don’t, they are tolerant. It would merely lead to civil debate more so than strong dislike of a person expressing an opposing view. It’s nothing hostile. Emory students are more likely to be hostile when it comes to issues of race or religion, specially when these overlap with issues of social justice. That can lead to some interesting, and unfortunately, sometimes ugly standoffs or conversations. I especially dislike the “conversations” that occur when the Palestinian-Israel conflict resurfaces as a topic on campus. They usually aren’t fruitful, enlightening, and sometimes not really even evidence based.
As for those labels (regarding males), I view them as ideologies or at least ways of life. Or more specifically, I view such viewpoints as driven by certain ideologies. Maybe the latter view is more appropriate.
@bernie12 I would definitely like to hear what they have to say about the patriarchy. I personally don’t believe the patriarchy exists in the West. There are strong evidence against the idea that we actually live in a patriarchy. For me to accept the existence of the patriarchy would mean that I have to believe in a system that favors men and oppresses women by allowing women access to (but not limited to) more wealth than men, political power (right to vote without potential forced conscription or potential forced servitude of any kind, right to run for political office), more formal education than men, higher legal leniency relative to men, larger number of safe workplaces, debatably (need more data to be over 95.59999% sure) less hostile overall living environment relative to men***.
I will be interested in hearing what sources Emory feminists will provide in support of the existence of patriarchy in the West.
P.S. For the record, I am not a MGTOW or a MRA or a feminist.
Sources:
*http://www.businessinsider.com/infographic-women-control-the-money-in-america-2012-2?IR=T (Women own 60 percent of all personal wealth and 51 percent of all stocks in the U.S.)
[Adding this study by Department of Labor on the gender wage gap just in case: http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf – “Although additional research in this area is clearly needed, this study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers.”]
**http://www.forbes.com/sites/ccap/2012/02/16/the-male-female-ratio-in-college/ (Women outnumber men by about two million, based on the graph)
***http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2144002 {UMichigan Law study. “It finds large gender gaps favoring women throughout the sentence length distribution (averaging over 60%), conditional on arrest offense, criminal history, and other pre-charge observables. Female arrestees are also significantly likelier to avoid charges and convictions entirely, and twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted. Prior studies have reported much smaller sentence gaps because they have ignored the role of charging, plea-bargaining, and sentencing fact-finding in producing sentences…”}
****http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0009.pdf (92% of workplace deaths are male)
*****http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=2221 (Men make up 77% of homicide deaths);
http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5176 {Rape and sexual assault statistic among women aged 18-24: “The rate of rape and sexual assault was 1.2 times higher for nonstudents (7.6 per 1,000) than for students (6.1 per 1,000).”}
http://web.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm (“221 empirical studies and 65 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 371,600.”
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv13.pdf ("Table 5:Prevalence of violent crime, by victim demographic characteristics, 2013: Male, 1,567,070 total victims; Female, 1,474,090 total victims)
https://www.afsp.org/understanding-suicide/facts-and-figures (“In 2013, men had a suicide rate of 20.2, and women had a rate of 5.5. Of those who died by suicide in 2013, 77.9% were male and 22.1% were female.” “While males are 4 times more likely than females to die by suicide, females attempt suicide 3 times as often as males.”)
I am willing to bet you that anyone claiming the existence of a patriarchy in the west would claim that it is evident in institutions more so than anything else. For example, if I were debating you and I claimed that it does exist (I personally don’t think so. It has basically waned. One can maybe claim that remnants of it exist I suppose) would probably claim that the behavioral patterns of males are likely responsible as opposed to institutional biases. In addition, I guess you can claim that some things such as the disadvantages that males see in some of those areas such as suicide and homicides may results of the type of society gives males certain societal expectations and the stresses that come with that (stereotypes such as men being the breadwinner). In other words, patriarchy would not be framed as merely male dominance over females so much as it is traditional gender roles that resulted in unequal access to certain institutions and opportunities based upon gender identity. It is always interesting to see how evidence can be spun or interpreted and how terms such as “patriarchy” can also be spun or re-framed for a specific context. Ironically, as a freshman (you are an incoming freshman to main right? I forget things), you’ll be coming in the new QEP and stuff that is about evidence. Hopefully they’ll have some events or whatever that show you how messy it can be. Of course, you are displaying that you kind of already understand that.
Let me be shady and frame your presentation of statistics (as in how it lacks context) in terms of things I love to be shady about on CC. Is Stanford in a worse position than Vanderbilt or Washington University because its SAT scores or lower? Get the point…the stats can correlate with or be caused by a myriad of things that may have nothing to do with the phenomenon or status of which you are to prove or disprove. Or they can be connected to the issue you are exploring in ways that actually do not support your hypothesis. With the issue of patriarchy, I certainly do not know enough, but I can easily look at those statistics and come up with potential counterarguments or propose research questions that may begin to lead to an answer (as in, I would want to look inside of those statistics, explain them and see if the explanations provided or hypothesized have any potential link to patriarchy). Sometimes, you have to be more nuanced even with “evidence”. You must also be willing to be disproven in some areas.
I remember I used to be on here and used to say things basically like: “Emory’s science courses are not on par with other institutions” and would base it on things like med. school admit rate and personal dissatisfaction with some of the courses. However, this evidence was flimsy and hardly put to the test. Needless to say my opinion has been revised and has become more nuanced once I actually accessed the course materials at some of the peer institutions. This at least means that admit rate isn’t because of the courses (could be advising, diminished returns because we have like 300+ people applying, a number most peers don’t come close to) and that personal dissatisfaction with some courses is not evidence, and even if it is, it is not relevant if my question is framed in a comparative context versus another institution. My “evidence” lacked the necessary research and context to allow me to come to that initial conclusion.
@CrispyBullet : If I was right and you are an incoming freshmen on main, you seem like you would be a good fit for that debate competition I mentioned 
in the opportunities thread. I think you may enjoy or benefit from peers who are like-minded and engaged enough to join the competition in the first place. Could meet some more intellectual friends through it.
In that sense, why should I believe feminists have it right, or anyone else have it right? I could be wrong, they could be wrong. The difference is that feminists INSIST the patriarchy exists. So the burden of evidence is on them to prove beyond reasonable doubt that patriarchy actually exists.
Maybe the primary reason there are more men in power is because women like powerful men (goes to your “behavioral patterns of males”, which is heavily influenced by behavior patterns of females), who knows, but that’s a very complex issue with no simple answer. But just because there are more men in power does not mean those men are there to represent other men. Politicians aren’t there to represent only the people that share the same genitals. So the feminist claim that “there are more men in power is evidence that the system is more oppressive towards women” is false. Or so I think.
You are right, evidence can be spun, which is why I try to stick to reputable, unbiased sources as much as I can (no Huffington Post or Jezzebel, for example) and always list the sources so people can read it and judge for themselves (i.e., always providing the link instead of just stating, “According to the Department of Evidence, …”). I just state my opinions, I don’t assert them as the (whole) truth. I know can prove against myself that patriarchy actually exists based on a different interpretation of patriarchy if I wanted to. The important thing is to always leave room for error/doubt and always be willing to change one’s opinion if one is shown to be wrong or if new evidence is presented. My default stance is that I could be wrong about anything.
I guess the process is more important than the result.
I am not a freshman. Moving to Clairmont Campus in the Fall. Stayed out of the whole feminist vs. MGTOW vs. MRA vs PUA vs. antifeminist issue until several months ago.
Do you personally know any of the Latter at Emory (MGTOW and MRA). That would be as interesting as that girl I mentioned…
No, I don’t. There aren’t very many of them in the U.S. relative to the population as a whole.
Almost forgot: I am not an antifeminist or a SJW either. I’m not taking sides on very complex and controversial topics like gender equality until I know more. Much, much more. Meaning at least until a few years later…
Oh, I wasn’t judging you @CrispyBullet, I was just curious because I never met such a person when I was there (I don’t think at least), but I figured maybe someone had because if I happened to meet a girl who proclaimed that women shouldn’t be pastors, anything is possible at Emory, regardless of how liberal it is overall.
@bernie12 I know you weren’t judging me. It was not specifically directed at you. I mentioned it 'cause I neglected to do so in #7, in case someone else thinks I am an antifem or SJW 'cause I didn’t claim I wasn’t one. Sorry for the confusion, I should’ve drawn a line to separate the two paragraphs. From what I hear, Toronto, Canada is the “capital” of MGTOW in the world. Toronto also has a strong feminist presence. The strongest feminist-influenced country on Earth, however, is Sweden*, but I don’t know how many MGTOW are there.
*“Feminism Comes to the Forefront of Swedish Politics” http://time.com/3319652/feminism-comes-to-the-forefront-of-swedish-politics/