Wednesday, December 19, 2012

No Such Thing as Feminism

Well, what can I say? you post on feminism and you get feedback. So one more post to try to explain my stance on feminism.

First of all, there is no feminism, because the term itself has been through too much. Originally it meant that women should have the right to vote. It faded for a while and then came back in the 60s and meant, at least from what I could tell, that women shouldn't have to wear bras or follow the same fashion as their mothers did. So, basically, hippies. Then in the 80s it became this thing about equal pay, and how women should become businessmen just like real Men. Why that was desirable to anyone, I'll never know. Then in the 90s it was about how women should be "empowered" like in the 80s but still retain their feminine identities, which doesn't seem possible to me, and that contradiction is still with us today.

Feminism is by now a muddled post-modern mess that nobody can define. The things I hear a lot about lately are that women should have equal pay, they should be better represented in different "non-traditional" fields, and they should never ever be sexualized. Well, unless they want to be sexualized...but not too much, because if they want to be sexy then they are probably suffering from patriarchal brainwashing. In addition to all of that, women should have kids and a family, and we should be ok with pushing those families off onto day care services and nannies.

What we really have in modern feminism is every possible role a woman could ever want to play, all thrown into one big pot and blended up and labeled "feminism".

In fact, feminism isn't actually a thing at all. When you say "feminism", you're basically saying "women exist, and they do a bunch of different things". The shame of it is that we women start thinking that we're supposed to be everything that "feminism" says we can be. And "feminism", or people who claim to be "feminist",  doesn't shy away from telling us that we are supposed to be every possible thing a woman can be, all at once. In fact if you're a woman and you say something like "I want a career, not a family" then feminists will yell at you for suppressing your female nature. If you say you want to be sexy, then they yell at you for objectifying your body. If you take advantage of your sexuality, you're a criminal - but if an established "approved" industry pays you to be sexy then you're ok. And God forbid you say that you don't want a career and that you just want to stay home and raise your children while your husband works.

In short, with feminism, we all lose. Women and men are confused, frustrated, and oppressed. Feminism was supposed to "liberate" women, but all it does is judge us.

Give me "person-ism", where people can be whoever and whatever they want. Leave me, and the gender I happened to be born as, out of your political and business agenda.

SteamBox At Last

You could knock me over with a feather, because the Steambox is finally finally confirmed.

A Steam-powered console has been a rumor for years but now it's coming true. And better yet, it's almost certainly going to be based on Linux. Well, it's certainly not going to be based on Windows, and Valve of course has made headlines lately by porting Steam to Linux, so I'm sure the Steambox will be Penguin-powered.

The bottom line here is that I am not going to have to put up with Sony EVER again. I'd mention Microsoft except that I never was an XBox user anyway.

Yes, this is a good day in gaming history.