alimarko

“My first instinct in response to your post was to brush you off and say, “She missed my point entirely, fuck it.” But that’s not really the adult thing to do and I actually honestly would like to fully understand you here.
Anything I have read on feminism, which honestly isn’t much due to lack of resources from libraries and such, has said that feminists want to put themselves above men because they themselves have been oppressed by men. If I am wrong in this assumption, please correct me. 
All I was trying to say in my post was that I think it’s wrong for people to sit there and ask these questions of celebrities. ALL celebrities, not just women, but men too. That these kinds of questions are obscene across the board.  That I have a problem with people only seeing to fight for the women in these situations, and not the men. 
Also; Yes, I could have said “gender identity, ability, and class” but I didn’t. I chose a different way to get my point across. I was not trying to exclude these people in my post, it just hadn’t come to my mind at the time. “

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(submission is in response to this post)

Mainstream media portrays feminists as man-haters and nearly always demonizes the movement as angry women who want men to be treated poorly. So if that’s where you’ve gotten your idea of feminism, I’m not surprised that it’s wrong. But that’s definitely not true, and I highly urge you to read some literature that was actually written by a feminist.

Feminism seeks to lessen and eradicate the oppression of women and restrictive gender roles, and ultimately create gender equality. It’s true that the movement focuses on women or feminine-identifying individuals because they are most hurt by gender-based oppression, however it does not seek to harm men or masculine-identifying folks. (Since we’re talking about gender, I’d also like to mention that the movement also advocates for any individual who is oppressed based on their gender identity or expression, including trans* folks, who obviously experience a far more severe form of oppression.) If you want to know more about feminism, read something written by bell hooks or Jessica Valenti.

I think objectification is wrong in any context, too. But the reason people are more likely to defend women when they are degraded in that way is because it happens all the time to women, and it’s very harmful to women. In advertising, TV, movies, magazines, comic books, and in the everyday experiences of women who are catcalled and oversexualized simply for existing. It’s inappropriate when it happens to men, too. But it seems that when it does happen to men, it’s a joke (as with the example you gave with Ellen) and/or it does no real harm because it doesn’t degrade the man. It makes him desirable and powerful, not devalued as with women. See the difference?

And I specified that it’s more important to not judge people based on gender identity, ability, and class instead of movie/book/car preference because one is acceptable and the other isn’t. I can judge people for their book preference if they like literature that I find poor, and I can judge people for owning large SUVs because they’re terrible for the environment. They choose those things. Things like race, class, gender, etc are things that people are born with and have no choice in, and it is therefore unacceptable to judge them based on that. That’s what I was getting at.

If you have any more questions or want to chat further, feel free. I appreciate your respect and your time, so I hope you respect mine for this answer.