[Enkidu22]

I just read this whole topic and I must say I'm surprised that the word "feminism" is now viewed in negative light in the US. In my country it has positive meaning and none of the feminists I met in my life were of the kind that Nyororin described. And with the exception of fundamentalistic catholic conservatists and fev chauvinistic idiots I never heard a person here calling feminism "cancer" or calling themselves anti-feminists. Well maybe modern day feminists in the USA are in majority really a bunch of crazy bitches, but that don't mean it's the same all around the world and it don't mean all US feminists are like that.

Also saying that feminism reached it's goals long ago and it don't have the right to exist today is just wrong. Let me just say that USA was ranked 31 (a fall from 29 in 2006) in 2007 Gender Gap Index, behind countries like Lesotho or Namibia. Women's participation in US politics is around weak 10% while in some european countries it's 40-50%. And in my country feminists are still fighting for things like abortion or government support for lone mothers.

It was mentioned here many times that feminists exaggerate about rape and domestic violence, well look at some facts about rape and domestic violence in the USA:
- around 100 000 rapes are reported in the USA each year and it's one of the most underreported crimes (37% or rapes are reported according to FBI data), and let me add that 2/3 of women's murders have sexual background
- basing on the official US government surveys around 13% of women in the USA are raped at least once during their lifetime, I wonder how those statistics would look if only attractive women were surveyed...
- basing on the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics official data 3/4 of victims of homicide by an intimate partner are women
- 1/3 of all women murdered are killed by their current or former partner (of course, only cases which are solved are included)
- women make up about 85% of the victims of non-lethal domestic violence

And about the "men are as likely to be victims of domestic violence as women" thing, this cites research by Murray Straus, Suzanne Steinmetz, and Richard Gelles, as well as a host of other self-report surveys. Those using this "fact" tend to conveniently leave out the fact that Straus and his colleague's surveys as well as data collected from the National Crime Victimization Survey (Bureau of Justice Statistics) consistently find that no matter what the rate of violence or who initiates the violence, women are 7 to 10 times more likely to be injured in acts of intimate violence than are men.

Also saying that women weren't oppressed in the past is plain wrong. In middle ages women were treated like man's possesion, they weren't human but something lower. To cite the original Ten Commandments, the backbone of christianity: " You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, neither shall you desire your neighbour’s house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour." It clearly shows the women's status in those times. Women weren't allowed education, they couldn't own anything and with marriage they practically became slaves to their husbands. It's true that they weren't expected to fight and die for their country like males were, but the victorious armies regullary raped and abducted women. Also in the primitive agricultural societies women, not men are the main field workers and work much harder than men, not to mention giving birth. The role of women as a full time mother is 18-19th century invention. Before that they were work horses and child-making factories. And I don't even want to start how it looks in fundamentalistic Islam communities.

On the other hand it's true that women aren't really the victims of millennia long male oppresion. Before the rise of Roman Empire and later Christianity women were treated much better. In many ancient societies they had equal or almost equal status as men and many cultures of that time were matrilinear. But the fact is by the time of the middle ages women in Europe were nothing more than man's possesions, and that state lasted for centuries. I won't write how it looked outside of Europe, it would be too much to write.

And it's not like men gave women rights they deserved just because they asked for it. The main factor behind suffragettes success is the First World War, but it's a long topic and I'm really tired of writing.

But anyways I wrote much more than I planned, so I'll end it here.