Rebuttal to arguments "against" feminism?
I'm a feminist and I don't see why if you believe in equality you want to argue with me. I believe in equality too. Anyone who says that women's pay and men's pay is equal is misrepresenting the facts. First of all researchers have no access to real data on equal pay that compares oranges with oranges because pay is covered by privacy laws. Therefore they can only look at massive data and make all sorts of pronouncements to explain why women make less and they think this explains it but it doesn't. There are no studies that say there is no discriminatory practices against women and even though there are laws that supposedly protect women from financial exploitation by employers, women can't even get access to the information about what their male colleagues make to even find out what's happening. These are the issues as I see them: Women are murdered by husbands in far too high numbers (3 times more women are killed by their spouses than men) and have been the target of murder mass killings just for being women. Women suffer more objectification in media and with pornography probably more than ever - and the more popular porn is, the worse it is. Women suffer more sexual abuse and rape, slut shaming, victim-blaming and human trafficking (more are women). More women live in poverty and the worst most desperate poverty. More women retire in poverty despite working hard their whole life or retire with much much less. Women earn less. Women do the lion's share of unpaid work in our society with little respect or recognition for it. Mothers pay a huge price for having children - usually 7 to 9% of her lifetime income while fathers suffer little to no income reduction. Mothers suffer discrimination from employers. Women suffer workplace discrimination especially in non-traditional job (where I live most women who try to have a job in the construction field leave this trade in 5 years because of the prejudice they faced). Women are still being restricted in many areas by artificial barriers or attitudes, such as religious institutions. Women's sports is not funded or promoted as much as men's in high school, college or on the pro circuit. Many things like cars and medicines have not properly been tested on women (especially pregnant women) and cause them harm. Women are underrepresented in politics and business and decision making generally.
Is feminist rhetoric borrowed largely from religious dogma?
Uh, no offense, but the popularity of feminism is not diminishing. Like most social movements, it alternates between periods of high activity and periods of lowered activity. The 90s were huge, followed by a decade of lowered activity in which complacency grew and conservatives used that time to mobilize, and now feminism is predictably starting to enter another boom phase again. Also no, there is virtually no similarity between feminism and religion. It is antifeminists who get most of their ideas and ideology from religion - even the "atheist" antifeminists are share virtually their entire ideology with religious people, they just minus out the god and pretend that makes them "freethinking" lol.
Atheist anti-feminists, which is more fun to poke holes in? Theism or feminism?
Theism/atheism is much more boring in terms of the issues. Atheists point out that is't the obligation of those who believe in a god (or anything else) to prove it's existence. Theists say look at the flowers and sky and such. Atheists point out that there are other explanations other than a god, and that's about it. Feminism in contrast claims to be about equality but they constantly fight for policy after policy which is not equal, but favors women. This isn't a single thing but goes on and on with dozens or more issues. We have one notable feminist here who keeps claiming she's a humanitarian who cares about men, but then she'll say men don't deserve access to shelters like women do or that men accused of rape don't deserve the same due process that people accused of other crimes deserve. The hypocrisy is much more multi-faceted when it comes to feminism than with theism and there are many, many more individual issues to talk about. I second Ed's points as well. Region has had some impact us, but for the most part it's voluntary. Feminist polices have enormous negative consequences on boys and men. Atheism is not faith based, is evidence and logic based, which is precisely why they don't believe in any of the thousands of different god myths. There is no evidence proving any of them actually exist.
“People worship thousands of different gods.”This is a shockingly common argument. It’s essentially saying, “People have too many different and contradictory beliefs, so they must all be wrong.” Well, people have different and contradictory beliefs about everything. Scientists have different beliefs about how stars and planets form. Does that mean stars and planets don’t exist? Governments have different and contradictory beliefs on what kind of laws should be put in place. Does that mean we should all live in anarchy?And of course, this extremely illogical argument is often accompanied by an accusation that theists are illogical.
First off most people are theists. Quora and places like NorCal are outliers not the norm. I’m an LGBT person and an advocate for LGBT rights but the left has once again gone too far to impose their will on everyone else. Honestly speaking how many women would be comfortable using the bathroom with a large man? If you want to force a christian bakery to bake a cake for a gay wedding then that also means a gay bakery has to bake a cake for an anti-gay christian wedding. A Jewish bakery has to bake a cake celebrating Hitler’s birthday. A Muslim bakery has to bake a cake celebrating a pig festival. You see where I’m going with this?I oppose Islam because as a gay man Islam is an existential threat to my way of life in my opinion. Please don’t give me that line that its ‘radical Islam’. It’s just Islam. Anywhere where Islam is the dominant religion you see oppression of women (but conveniently western feminists won’t talk about that) and gays. Two gay men in Indonesia where caned in public for making love in their own home. Indonesian men caned for gay sex in Aceh - BBC News In Turkey gays where beaten and gased for trying to celebrate gay pride in Istabul Istanbul Pride march banned by authorities at last minute According to Reza Turkey was supposed to be Islamic poster child of tolerance.So am I overstepping my bounds for opposing something that is a threat to my safety and my life? I’m sure I’ll hear from Quora moderation about this but I hope they allow this to stay as I’ve presented what I’ve said with facts not just rhetoric.
On the face of it, this is an important question and one that needs to be considered. However, when you consider it a bit more deeply, I don't think that it holds up as a solution. Do religions need to change in order to accomodate equal rights? Absolutely. But do we need to get rid of them? Not necessarily (for feminist reasons, anyway. There are other arguments to be made against religion). I say this because, although the Abrahamic religions very sharply divide men and women, they are also, as are many parts of human culture, subject to change. I suppose it's like saying that you have to get rid of Christianity to get rid of slavery in America- the Bible contains lots of references to slavery, and slave owners did indeed use it to justify their actions. However, do (most) modern day American Christians think that slavery is acceptable? Did we get rid of it in order to get rid of slavery (for the most part- there are still reports of people using immigrants for slave labor and young women/kids as sex slaves)? The 'solution', as uncomfortable and imperfect as it is, is to drag religion along by its hair as we continue to progress. It will kick and it will scream, but eventually it will follow, grudgingly, and change into a more socially acceptable form. As many people have learned throughout history, attacking peoples' religions or trying to abolish them is not the way to peoples' hearts.Oh, and it's important to note that many, many feminists are religious people of all stripes. I'm not religious, myself, but living in the South, many of my feminist friends are also Christians who fully believe in equal rights.
New Atheism, as I understand it, can roughly be tied with anti-theism, it’s a more aggressive form of atheism that doesn’t simply settle for the tolerance of atheism, or the promotion of positive atheism and its benefits, but actively criticizes religion and superstition as detrimental.“Atheist feminism” is a Trojan horse by which modern feminists have infiltrated atheist communities. They generally have no interest in talking about atheism itself, and instead divide such groups by turning the focus from atheism to feminism and “social justice”, driving out those who would rather focus on… you know, atheism, usually by making unfounded assertions that they’re sexists, racists, etc.
Christians and Atheists: Pro life and teacher yelled at me?
So everyone knows I'm religious and whatnot, and they don't give me a hard time, they just sometimes jokingly go on about how "holy" I am. Anyway, I am very pro life and I would most likely still be even if I wasn't a Christian. My English teacher is a feminist/strong women's advocate, and today abortion came up. She said she couldn't imagine how anyone could justify taking away reproductive rights. I brought up how those who are pro life believe that an innocent human life should be protected regardless of growth stage. She told me that I thought so only because of my religion, and that I shouldn't impose my ideologies on others. I said that wasn't true, and how there are secular organizations against abortion (ex. secularprolife.org and godlessprolifers.org) I said that one doesn't have to adhere to a specific ideology to recognize the value of human life, which is why murder is wrong in the U.S. regardless of whether your belief thinks it is not. She got really defensive and said that a major issue with my side was that we were always trying to "humanize" a fetus..I was like ???? How is a fetus not human? What else can I say to her? I would really appreciate input from both Christians and atheists. I'm just a little ...freaked, because I've never argued with my English teacher before and she's always been nice.
Are there any great, historical figures that were Atheists?
Not easy to answer as there are likely many millions of people in history who are listed as belonging to a religion when in fact they were atheist -- because atheism was considered heathenistic. Edit: The list, I think, would be longer (naturally) if one also includes all non-adherents which may include agnostics, seculars, irreligious, nontheists, etc. Not sure if what you're asking includes these but I thought I'd throw it out there.