What qualifies a man to talk about an issue like feminism?

@aidan,

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It was just a silly talk show

I don't buy that line. They are very slick on mainstream TV. Particularly late at night when we are all a bit dopey. Week after week. You can insinuate an agenda with that.

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Okay, and one example you mentioned where this might be the case had to do with the joke about Sarah Palin's daughter.

It's the only example I know. It doesn't mean there are not others. Maybe many others.

This is even neater-

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. This is just one more guy who couldn't control his urges.

Are you suggesting his urges are the determining factor. What about temptation and willingness on the other side. His urges might have been deliberately stimulated. Which is much more likely than Ms Winfrey jumping the lads.

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@spendius,

You all seem to forget that Letterman owns WorldWide Pants, a major production company.

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@spendius,

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I don't buy that line. They are very slick on mainstream TV. Particularly late at night when we are all a bit dopey. Week after week. You can insinuate an agenda with that.

Well yeah - there was definitely an agenda - money for the network and record company that are owned and operated by MEN!

spendius - do you really continue to give your gender so little credit? A few pages back you spoke of how women should worship you guys. Do you really not believe that some women DO in fact lust after and worship powerful men with no part of their brain operating and manipulating simultaneously to achieve politically feminist advancement?

I think in an odd sort of way, you give women more credit than they're due in terms of how emotionless and clearly thinking and strategic you seem to think they are at all times - even when they are, as you say, the weaker sex and overly emotional and incapable of the same logical sort of thought and action men are.
You make them sound like they could be generals on one hand while on the other they couldn't learn how to change a flat tire.
Make up your mind.

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Are you suggesting his urges are the determining factor. What about temptation and willingness on the other side.

Yes, his urges were the determining factor. She could wear, say, do, whatever she wanted and if he didn't have the urge (as you JUST REITERATED TO DIEST!!! (you know the physical symptom or manifestation of the urge that a man MUST have and CAN'T fake)- it wouldn't have happened.

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His urges might have been deliberately stimulated.

All of us have urges that are deliberately stimulated every single day. We're living in a materialistic, consumer society. We each have to be responsible for which of our urges we give in to - do you not agree with that?
Do you really hold women accountable for every male response?
If you do - by the same token do you hold men responsible for the woman's response? If I said 'Derek Jeter is just so damn sexy when he's fielding a ball,' and used that as my excuse to approach him and accost him sexually - would Derek Jeter be answerable to my feminine innate attraction to masculinity while he's simply being a man and doing his job?
Or would I be expected to restrain myself and curb my urges no matter how good he looked to me?

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Which is much more likely than Ms Winfrey jumping the lads.

That is a funny and unlikely thought actually - 'Ms. Winfrey jumping the lads'. Laughing

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@aidan,

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Well yeah - there was definitely an agenda - money for the network and record company that are owned and operated by MEN!

Why would a coven of devious feminists infiltrate anything owned and operated by women. If women were as good as they claim every company in the land would be owned and operated by women rather them all owned and operated by men who are under the cosh.

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spendius - do you really continue to give your gender so little credit?

Are you kidding? Why do you think Ulysses had himself tied to the mast and his crews ears stopped up when they were sailing past the sirens?

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Do you really not believe that some women DO in fact lust after and worship powerful men with no part of their brain operating and manipulating simultaneously to achieve politically feminist advancement?

Yes. I really do not believe that flapdoodle. I think that if women's brains stopped operating to achieve some practical end the world would come to an end.

I only said women were the weaker sex in relation to lifting weights, running fast, unblocking drains and dropping dead quicker. If they were capable of the same logical sort of thought and action men are we would soon have them by the short and curlies.

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Do you really hold women accountable for every male response?

I think I do--yes. I have heard that some men respond to other men but I find it hard to believe.

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by the same token do you hold men responsible for the woman's response?

As long as they parade their capacity to pay--yes.

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would Derek Jeter be answerable to my feminine innate attraction to masculinity while he's simply being a man and doing his job?

I would allow that you felt validated by expressing that sort of thing and that your target is a mere convenience chosen to render other women envious.

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Or would I be expected to restrain myself and curb my urges no matter how good he looked to me?

Oh yes. It would be a self indulgent betrayal of the sisterhood for you to put yourself in supplication mode. A fundamental betrayal.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

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I was addressing aidan's point. It's a perfectly fair example to draw contrast. She was right, there is a feminist issue present (explicitly not directly).

There can be no point based on inventing Oprah Winfrey having a bunch of lads in the studio. How can it be fair when it hasn't happened compared to this case where it has happened.

You have forgotten my point about men needing to be sexually aroused and women not having that need. They can fake it. And further to that Ms Winfrey is above the age which Ms Greer, and she is an anthropologist, said that most cultures consider sexual relations to be "comical". And I'm informed that she is as white as the driven snow in this respect. You addressed a null point. Which bodes ill for your manner of proceeding.

The Russian Empress, Catherine the Great, is said to have had the Guard of Honour at her beck and call.

There is a feminist interest here. Basic and both explicit and direct.

The opposite could be true too aidan.

Oprah could be called a slut or because she has issues with her weight, the dialog could simply be derogatory jokes about "sleeping with a whale" or something.

I don't think she'd get a bunch of you-go-gurls out of this. I believe Oprah is unwed as well, so the comparisson would be different here too.

When I think about Letterman's story here, I think more of him cheating than him sleeping with coworkers. That, to me, is the central issue.

T
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@Diest TKO,

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When I think about Letterman's story here, I think more of him cheating than him sleeping with coworkers. That, to me, is the central issue

How do you know he cheated? I have not heard what arrangement he has with his wife.

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@spendius,

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If women were as good as they claim every company in the land would be owned and operated by women rather them all owned and operated by men who are under the cosh.

No - this would only be true if women were as good (at manipulating men) as YOU claim they are.

And that's not the case is it? Every company in the land is not owned and operated by women. So what does that tell you?
I doubt David Letterman or anyone else in his position would agree that they're under the cosh.

Sounds to me like David's been having his cake and eating it too for a very long time.
Which woman is it that you think engineered that? Or would even want to engineer that?

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Are you kidding? Why do you think Ulysses had himself tied to the mast and his crews ears stopped up when they were sailing past the sirens?

That's nothing but science - and necessary. You're made the way you are and we're made the way we are - who can you blame that on?

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I only said women were the weaker sex in relation to lifting weights, running fast, unblocking drains and dropping dead quicker. If they were capable of the same logical sort of thought and action men are we would soon have them by the short and curlies.

But I thought that's why women had men by the short and curlies- this amazing ability to think clearly and strategize while in the grips of a passionate sexual attraction that men just do not seem to possess in the same situation.

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I would allow that you felt validated by expressing that sort of thing and that your target is a mere convenience chosen to render other women envious.

Aw - that's sad. So you've never felt that a woman was attracted to you for yourself - who you were - instead of what you could give her?
I'm sorry to hear that. That really is sad.

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Oh yes. It would be a self indulgent betrayal of the sisterhood for you to put yourself in supplication mode. A fundamental betrayal.

I think it's more about my own sense of decorum. As a daughter who loves her father and a mother who loves her son - and a woman who loves masculinity - I can honestly say that I feel no more or less allegiance to women than I do to men.
I think it's a wonderful arrangement - these two complimenting genders.

You should try viewing it as an opportunity for enrichment and cooperation instead of some sort of set up or fixed competition in which you always see yourself as the loser.

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@Diest TKO,

I agree with Hawkeye - I'd be surprised if there was any cheating, as such, involved.

His wife worked on his show. They weren't married for twenty-something years and then suddenly they were- and that was after their child had already been born. The marriage was probably some sort of concessionary move toward her as the mother of his child - and maybe even not toward her. Maybe it was for the child that he married his (the child's) mother. Who knows.

If I were his wife - the public apology is what would make me want to divorce him. Now everywhere SHE goes - everyone will be looking at her and saying, 'Poor thing...'
If he'd been my husband - I'd have asked him not to say a word except 'None of your business and no comment' and let it all unfold in court.

And if he hadn't - because his bosses at CBS told him it'd hurt his job - I'd view that as him choosing their feelings over mine. And that's when I'd lose all respect for him.
I'd rather have an unemployed millionaire husband with some balls than a cowed and sheepish millionaire husband who kept his job at the expense of my privacy. Laughing

(That's a joke - I'm just trying to live up to spendius' very high expectations of me as a woman).

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@Diest TKO,

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Oprah could be called a slut

I don't think this is likely

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or because she has issues with her weight, the dialog could simply be derogatory jokes about "sleeping with a whale" or something.

But yeah -this is almost a certainty.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

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When I think about Letterman's story here, I think more of him cheating than him sleeping with coworkers. That, to me, is the central issue

How do you know he cheated? I have not heard what arrangement he has with his wife.

you are correct hawkeye, I am assuming. He has been married since 1986, I believe, and I've seen nothing yet to make me assume that he was in a poly-amorous marriage. If that is the case, then it would certainly not make cheating the central topic. Until then, I'll assume a conventional marriage situation.

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@aidan,

aidan wrote:

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Oprah could be called a slut

I don't think this is likely

You don't think that if Oprah had multiple (greater than one) sexual liaison with a coworker and it was made public in a similar way, that she wouldn't be receiving that kind of criticism? Perhaps, if not directly saying "slut," I can certainly imagine the implied subtext of many statements that avoid the word specifically.

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@Diest TKO,

He's been in a relationship with this woman since 1986 - a live-in partnership. They only got married earlier this year:
A David Letterman quote:

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"I had avoided getting married pretty good [sic] for, like, 23 years, and ... honestly, whether this happened or not, I secretly felt that men who were married admired me -- like I was the last of the real gunslingers."

Yeah - this is the poor little innocent who's been caught in this feminist web all these years... Laughing

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@Diest TKO,

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You don't think that if Oprah had multiple (greater than one) sexual liaison with a coworker and it was made public in a similar way, that she wouldn't be receiving that kind of criticism? Perhaps, if not directly saying "slut," I can certainly imagine the implied subtext of many statements that avoid the word specifically.

I sincerely don't Diest. I think the pendulum has swung on that issue.
My impression is that it's now seen as fine for a woman to explore her sexuality with numerous partners- and if she's a powerful woman, who, as you stated is technically unattached - it's almost to be expected -just as it is with a powerful man.
And maybe it's the influence of political correctness taking hold - but as I said, I think the difference is there'd be less condemnation - a refusal to apologize for expressing herself sexually as she wanted to - and outright approval- at least from women.

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@aidan,

If you are right, then it does represent some sort of progress. I'm not as convinced as you are though. I'll just have to think about it.

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@aidan,

This is most unfair to Oprah Winfrey. She hasn't done anything.

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No - this would only be true if women were as good (at manipulating men) as YOU claim they are.

And that's not the case is it? Every company in the land is not owned and operated by women. So what does that tell you?

It tells me that the consumers (mainly women) have chosen men, and chosen freely, to deliver the goods and that all the rest is blather. And in choosing Asian goods their choice is for men exclusively.

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I doubt David Letterman or anyone else in his position would agree that they're under the cosh.

Well--they wouldn't would they. Henpecked husbands rarely do agree that they are under the thumb.

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Sounds to me like David's been having his cake and eating it too for a very long time.

There speaks a member of the sisterhood.

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Which woman is it that you think engineered that? Or would even want to engineer that?

His Mom maybe.

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But I thought that's why women had men by the short and curlies- this amazing ability to think clearly and strategize while in the grips of a passionate sexual attraction that men just do not seem to possess in the same situation.

It is women's physical attributes that have us mesmerised. I understood you were trying to deny that women cynically scheme and plot whilst in the grip of passion. Actually, women in the grip of passion do not think at all but that doesn't mean they don't think when in the grip of an asserted passion. It is difficult for a man, especially an inexperienced man, to distinguish between an asserted and acted out passion and the real thing. But it is easy for a woman to know such a difference in men.

"Standing on the waters, casting your bread,
While the eyes of the idol in the iron head are glowin'.
Distant ships sailing into the mist you were born with a snake in both of your fists.
A hurricane blowin'.

Bob sang that into Letterman's teeth. And then when David came up to shake Bob's hand he was flashed that dirty grin which Americans have a name for but which has slipped my mind for the moment.

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You're made the way you are and we're made the way we are - who can you blame that on?

I have no wish to blame it on anything. But you undermine the feminist case with the remark. Demolish it even.

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So you've never felt that a woman was attracted to you for yourself - who you were - instead of what you could give her?
I'm sorry to hear that. That really is sad.

Sad or not it is the case. And it is to do with what a man can bring to the rearing of her children so she is not selfish at all. She is Darwinian.

I've been in the melee a few times Rebecca. I know how it works. It's managed by the government. The licensing of meeting places as an alternative to arranged marriages. It's not an accident you know. The Popes thought it up. Suppose I had never been born. Your theoretical woman would then have had to be satisfied with being attracted to some other bloke for himself and who he was. Yes?

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I think it's more about my own sense of decorum.

Which you have been conditioned to by other women in magazines and other media sources which women have infiltrated in the usual manner. Which is the main point at issue here. Despite all your diversions and filibustering.

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I can honestly say that I feel no more or less allegiance to women than I do to men.

Take her out and shoot her an honest feminist would say to that. My position is based on my allegiance to men. You women have enough going for you as it is. One can't discuss women on the basis of those who seek wellness education. They are a small minority.

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I think it's a wonderful arrangement - these two complimenting genders.

So do I. Absolutely fantastic actually.

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You should try viewing it as an opportunity for enrichment and cooperation instead of some sort of set up or fixed competition in which you always see yourself as the loser.

Oh yeah! Spoken by a woman. That's how the National Lottery sells tickets. You might get lucky. I hope you know that the National Lottery is a feminist organisation and brought into being by pressure from feminist media.

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@aidan,

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I agree with Hawkeye - I'd be surprised if there was any cheating, as such, involved.

There was adultery. There were promiscuous pairings like in monkey troupes. There was anti-Christianity in the very core of it which I am content to maintain passed over into the show's sub-texts. There was cheating if not one baby resulted. I'll revise that statement if David had had the snip or practiced interruptus but if the women had been denatured for his convenience I consider it cheating.

His wife working on the show suggests a degree of favouritism which is, of course, inimical to capitalist theology. So now, if the suggestion has legs, we can add anti-capitalism to anti-Christianity. Such favouritism can be expected to apply to other women who have been useful in ways in which the audience does not participate.

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I'd rather have an unemployed millionaire husband with some balls

That's understanable.

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@aidan,

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Yeah - this is the poor little innocent who's been caught in this feminist web all these years...

Yes but you must remember that secretly feeling that married men admired him and that he was the last of the gunslingers was hardly a scientific statement.

Once, when England were having a bad day on the cricket field, Sir Len Hutton remarked--"They're playing like a load of bachelors". Code for wankers.

And you are forgetting that the web contains Mom and other female relatives.

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@aidan,

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My impression is that it's now seen as fine for a woman to explore her sexuality with numerous partners

Exactly the sort of thing one might learn watching shows where the backrooms are a fetid sink of depravity and corruption.

Where I live they use expressions such as "she's had more pricks than a second-hand dartboard" to clarify the state of women who explore their sexuality, an assumption by the way, exploring wallets might be more accurate, with numerous partners.

But I have to admit than Letterman isn't known by many people here.

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@Diest TKO,

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I already explained. PQ, noted it already too. The fact that they were virgins, created a inequity in the relationship. In both cases, I was conditioned to think I owed them something. Think what you like about sexual exchanges, but these situations are examples of relationships. The notion that one person owes (indefinately at that) the other created a problem for me in the relationship. I did not seek out either person because they were a virgin, I was attracted to each at the time for who they were. I had already been dating for a while before I even found out they were virgins in both cases.

I cannot help but wonder why you are being so vague about this. You were conditioned into thinking you owed them something? Did they drug you and place you in a secret chamber and brainwash you into something?

What comes to mind for me is you couldn't or did not have the patience to be a decent sexual partner to them. Unless you are more forthcoming, this is what I believe.

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We can talk about the sex, but we could also take time to address topics off of sex.

But TKO, you have readily jumped into the topic of David Letterman and affairs.

As for Germaine Greer, I am not speaking of her in terms of worship-- the woman has balls and she's not afraid to lay it out.

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@Gala,

Gala wrote:

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I already explained. PQ, noted it already too. The fact that they were virgins, created a inequity in the relationship. In both cases, I was conditioned to think I owed them something. Think what you like about sexual exchanges, but these situations are examples of relationships. The notion that one person owes (indefinately at that) the other created a problem for me in the relationship. I did not seek out either person because they were a virgin, I was attracted to each at the time for who they were. I had already been dating for a while before I even found out they were virgins in both cases.

I cannot help but wonder why you are being so vague about this. You were conditioned into thinking you owed them something? Did they drug you and place you in a secret chamber and brainwash you into something?

I have a hard time believing you don't understand what I've already said about this, however I'll humor you and spell it out.

In short, the reason I say that I was conditioned to believe I owed them something, is due to direct statements from them to me. When you are in a relationship, you share your feelings and thoughts on things. In these cases, the women I had dated both felt that I was in their debt for choosing to make me their sexual partner. I dated each for 2 and 3 years respectively, and our relationships in both cases ended on terms unrelated to this.

I wasn't brain washed, and I didn't agree with them then or now on this, but it did create a point of confrontation in the relationship, because THEY were caught up in the mysticism of the female virginity. Do you believe that women DON'T mysticize their virginity just like some men do? My experience directly says they do, and second hand from others carries continuity with that it is not just men who do this.

Gala wrote:

What comes to mind for me is you couldn't or did not have the patience to be a decent sexual partner to them. Unless you are more forthcoming, this is what I believe.

What exactly do you think I did here? What wild journey has your imagination taken you on? How EXACTLY did I not show patience to be a "decent sexual partner?"

Better yet, in your opinion, what do "decent sexual partners" do when they enter a relationship with someone and find out they are a virgin? Indulge me.

Your ability to interpret is not one I'd boast about. Seems less like interpretation and poorly guised insults.

Gala wrote:

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We can talk about the sex, but we could also take time to address topics off of sex.

But TKO, you have readily jumped into the topic of David Letterman and affairs.

Not readily. Quite opposite, I didn't see a topic there. aidan found one though and I couldn't disagree it was relevant to discussion. Further, a discussion on how two powerful and popular media personalities (one male and one female) are perceived in terms of their sexual exploits certainly provides a means to contrast how men and women are generalized in positions of power and social permissiveness regarding their choices.

Gala wrote:

As for Germaine Greer, I am not speaking of her in terms of worship-- the woman has balls and she's not afraid to lay it out.

No, not worship, but you've advertised Greer as if she's required reading. As of now, I'll agree she deserves mention in the history and evolution of feminism, but I see more and more how she's out dated.

Henry Ford deserves to be noted for his manufacturing of the Model T, but faced with the decision to by a Model T or a Honda Civic today, the Civic is built with a greater understanding of engineering and materials; it is superior in almost every way. Rejecting Greer's ideas doesn't mean rejecting feminism, nor does it mean rejecting Greer her respect.

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5 Replies

What qualifies a man to talk about an issue like feminism?

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