Men hate woman’s body


Men hate woman’s body. Women learn from men to hate their own bodies. Men and media have been busy for centuries advising women what they should look like.

Men hate women’s hair if they are not silky and long. Most women keep their hair long even though many of them feel comfortable having short hair. They use different chemicals to make their hair silky.

Men do not like the color of our skin. So we bleach our skin or get our skin tanned. We spend almost all our money to buy cosmetics so that we can decorate ourselves and become someone men want us to become. We want to make men feel satisfied.

Men do not like us when our hair turns grey. So we dye our hair.

Men hate women’s eyes, eyebrows, noses, lips, cheeks, necks, ears. Women paint their eyes, eyebrows, cheeks, lips. We wear jewelries around our necks, we pierce our noses and ears to wear ornaments.

Men hate women’s breasts if breasts are not round and large. We wear push-up padded bras. We go for breast implants. Implants leak, rupture, burst. We increase our cancer risk.

Men hate our natural abdominal fat. We almost stop eating to reduce our fat to please men. We suffer from anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders. We become skeletons. We die.

Men hate us if our hymens are broken. We need to repair our hymens.
Men hate our vagina if the passage is not very narrow or not very tight. We go for surgery under anesthesia to tighten vagina.

Men hate our natural leg hair. We shave our legs to make our legs unnatural.

Men hate our legs. So we wear high-heeled shoes to make us look taller. Our toes get bruised, our bones get broken, we suffer from sprained ankles and dislocations. We can not walk comfortably, we can not run when needed. But we continue wearing high heels to give men pleasure.

Men hate our wrinkled skin. So we use all kinds of chemicals or all kinds of anti-wrinkle or anti-aging creams on our faces. I wonder whether people really believe chemicals or creams can stop natural aging process!

We even go for face-lifting and different plastic cosmetic surgery to look a bit younger. Men can grow older, but they do not like we grow older.

We tell men that we like them for who they are. They do not destroy their natural body to make us feel happy. They do not implant or reduce anything to please us. There are evolutionary reasons for men to get attracted to women and for women to get attracted to men. But patriarchy, a system artificially imposed on society, causes all the injustices and inequalities against women. Patriarchy is a system in which men dominate, oppress, suppress and exploit women. This system prevents women from being who they really are.

Comments

    • tashina strongbow says

      BULL SHIT MOTHER FUCKER, THER ARE OVER 100 BIG TIT MAGS MEN JACK OFF TOO , AND I HAVE BEEN A WITNESS TO THOUSANDS OF MEN RUBBERNECKING BIG TITS. NOT A GENERLIZATION AT ALL. TIS TRUTH ,

      • José Pablo says

        Which only proves that men like big tits… not that men “hate women´s bodies” like the idiot who wrote this piece of garbage would have you believe…

      • Phil says

        So much rage… but a lot of this is women competing against each other. If you think men like fashion models, think again. They are ugly skin and bones. We don’t care about thigh gaps, they are unhealthy and ugly. YET YOU, YES YOU, are obsessed with having one. You have a distorted perception of reality and are filled with rage over your faulty interpretation of the facts. Seek help.

    • Precious says

      I AM A STRONG BEAUTIFUL CONFIDENT INDEPENDENT WOMAN AND I LOVE MEN! MY DEAR LOST SOUL WHO WROTE THIS ARTICLE- U NEED TO BLAME THE MEDIA WHO WANTS TO MARKET THESE PRODUCTS AND US WOMAN WHO WANT TO IMPRESS EACH OTHER. MEN LOVE OUR BODIES NATURALLY! ANY MAN WOULD MUCH RATHER HAVE A REAL LARGE BREAST THAN FAKE AND HIPS AND THIGHS AND ASS TO ACTUALLY HOLD AND GRAB AND KNOW IT’S REAL NOT SOME SKINNY BARBIE DOLL THEY ARE AFRAID OF BREAKING! GIRL LOVE YOURSELF! YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL NO MATTER HOW GOD MADE YOU. NOONE IS PERFECT. I HATE MY STOMACH IT IS BY FAR NOWHERE NEAR TIGHT OR FLAT HOWEVER, IT’S SOFT AND I LOVE MY BREASTS AND FEEL SEXY AND MEN FEEL THAT WHEN WITH ME AND TRUST ME MY STOMACH IS THE LEAST OF THEIR CONCERN BUT WHEN A MAN IS HOLDING ME AND INTIMATELY RUBBING MY BELLY GUESS WHAT HONEY- I KNOW I AM ALL WOMAN … COMPLETELY NATURAL CONFIDENT AND REAL . IT’S ABOUT ATTITUDE AND HOW U FEEL ABOUT YOU. DON’T BLAME OUR BEAUTIFUL KINGS PLEASE AS THEY CHERISH EVERY PART OF US!!! WHAT THEY DO NOT CHERISH IS SOMEONE WHO US FEEBLE MINDED, SELF CONCIOUS AND NEGATIVE AND NOT PROUD OF WHO THEY ARE AND WHAT GOD GAVE THEM. SURE THERE ARE THE OCCASIONAL SUPERFICIAL DICKHEADS BUT SAME GOES WITH WOMAN BIT THAT’S ONLY A VERY SMALL SMALL PORTION NOWHERE NEAR ENOUGH TO WRITE AN ARTICLE TO BASE UPON! AGAIN WE ARE WOOMAN!! ROAR GIRL ROAR AND MAKE YOUR KINGS FEEL YOU ALL YOU THE REAL YOU!!! AM I RIGHT MY PRECIOUS KINGS OUT THERE????

  1. Rebel says

    Men have to shave, keep / remove mustache, keep their hair groomed, look athletic — Inference —- Women hate man’s body …. This is your logic, isn’t it ?

    • tashina strongbow says

      IS THIS a matriarchal society in which women make all the rules, I think not, is this a matriarchal society which jacks off to a certain ideal of which men must live up to, I think not , men do not lose value for being old or having a small dick, women do.

      • José Pablo says

        It is a gynocentric society where women choose the kind of man they like. And men must NOT ONLY live up to the big stud physical standards, they must also prove they have a big fat wallet to go along with it. When has a woman been rejected on account of her being broke? Pull your head out of your ass…

  2. Deepak says

    Come on lady…

    You seem to carry too much of hatred in your heart. Maybe you cannot be blamed for having gone thru shit in your country

    The world is not this bad…

    BTW..I also follow you on Twitter and I also see that most of your communication there are so negative as well.

    Maybe a few hours of walking the streets of your city and a few hours of some good movie and book is all it takes to make you happy and positive

  3. FredBloggs says

    1. “Men hate woman’s body” – as a straight male, I rather like women’s bodies
    2. “Men hate women’s hair if they are not silky and long” – Actually a LOT of men (myself included) find short hair far sexier. (something to do with kissing the back of a woman’s neck possibly?)
    3. “Men do not like us when our hair turns gray” – well, I don’t think I’d stop liking someone JUST because their hair turned grey. Like, yesterday, you were funny and clever and entertaining and sexy. But today, your hair has flecks of grey. That’s it, relationship over.
    4. “Men hate women’s breasts if breasts are not round and large”. Not true. Individual men find different shapes sexually alluring.
    5. “Men hate our natural abdominal fat.” – ok, personally I don’t find fat attractive, but I’m not obsessive about it, and some men do like women who are more voluptuous.
    6. “Men hate us if our hymens are broken” – Who ARE these men?
    7. “Men hate our feet” – I love women’s feet, knobbly bits and all. High heels or not. Heels aren’t about feet, anyway, they are about legs.
    8. “We tell men that we like them for who they are” – sometimes (yes, probably women are more accepting of physical “imperfections”) – but women aren’t immune from physical attraction, any more than are men.

    “This system prevents women from being who they really are.” Who are women, truly?

    • says

      Thanks Fred for expressing your opinions. I do not want to generalize but I think more men find long hair, large breasts, long legs feminine and slim curvy bodies beautiful. We know there are exceptions. Actually I want women to be happy for what they have. But it is hard to stop women from spending billions of dollars to make themselves look different from their original looks. The more beauty products get produced, the more women lack confidence in themselves. Multi-billion dollar beauty industries, and mainstream media are constantly telling women that their bodies are not perfect. Women have been falling into the patriarchal capitalist traps big time.

      • Guest says

        Most men may prefer more this and less that, but that doesn’t mean they “hate” anything. If given a choice between strawberries and oranges, I will always pick strawberries. That doesn’t mean I hate oranges. I fail to see any basis to your claim about men hating women’s bodies.

        “Patriarchy is a system in which men dominate, oppress, suppress and exploit women”. I also fail to see around me anything that even remotely resembles this. No one is forcing women to do these things.

        • Stacy says

          lol. You’re a dude, right?

          Of course you don’t see it. You don’t experience it, so it doesn’t exist.

          • says

            And I am sure that you are so up on knowing anything about men’s existence…of course, life is perfect for men, so you don’t need to dig deeper, amirite?

          • Mikey Flubb says

            I know a dude on a blog no matter what the name they use and I see one here.

            I am a wimmin and my male/man name belies it with my very words that ache for a better world. I am tethered to Mom Earth and it is this tethering that has me sensitive in a way a doooood can never know.

            No name on a blog can mask this as the words that come to you from me are from a wimmins heart that has been tenderized by the hating smash of a hammer that is held tight in the hand of our oppressors.

            A dude is a dude and a wimmin is a temple of love and joy and only if the other gender can see this and come to us more as we are and then we can all hug as one.

          • Not buying it says

            Do women have any responsibility when it comes to their lifestyles & how they want to live it!!!!

            I believe at least in the west they do, yet you are implying that they are weak, imbeciles, with no self determination in general that draw their personal identity & self worth from men!!!????

            What an idiotic statement & a belittling to women.

          • Raven01 says

            Stacy clearly is one orange I would hate. But, not because I hate oranges rather, just that this example is bruised and rotten.

            Beauty is only skin deep.
            Ugly goes straight to the bone.(for the deliberately obtuse that refers to an ugly personality)

          • Voiceofreason says

            It sounds like you are a supporter of the often-used (flawed) argument that: if any man raises objection tithe existence of a patriarchy, he is wrong, because, as a man, he cannot notice it. If he shows statistics showing that there is no gender discrimination in whatever case is in discussion, the reply will come that it is there, but in a subtle way that only the women supposedly affected by it can notice. If this is refuted, they say ” how dare you tell us what we notice or not”. The trouble with this is that it is an argument that is impossible to argue against. This means that men could claim that there was a matriarchy, and if they used these arguments (but reversed), it would be just as irrefutable.

          • Guest says

            Dear Stacy, even if I were a “dude”, what does that have to do with anything? Are you implying that men are less capable of reason or perception of their surroundings? Of course you are not, you abhor sexism. If “patriarchy” is there, it shouldn’t be too hard to show it to me.

            If women masking their imperfections to impress men is patriarchy, why isn’t it matriarchy when men mask their imperfections? If a man decides to work twice as hard so that he may interest and impress more women, does that constitute oppression and inequality? If men tell bullshit stories to impress women, does that mean women HATE their personalities?

            Men do not destroy their natural body to make women feel happy.. except when they are soldiers, miners, firemen, policemen, fishermen, lumberjacks,…

          • says

            Really? It sounds to me like a good portion of this blog post is about what men feel. Men would seem to be better qualified to speak on this than others.

          • Bluestar says

            You know what I see, Stacey?
            Women who like to blame men for their own insecurities. Women who blame men for their own dysfunctional behavior. Women who think women as a whole are so weak, frail, and emotionally impotent that they cant be held accountable for their own behavior or choices. (but simultaneously claim they are “strong and independent”

            They are called Feminists.

            Seriously, If women don’t want to get breast implants, or wear cosmetics, or sexy clothes, then dont do it. You see, I have this terribly sexist idea of actually holding women accountable for their own behavior and choices. No one is forcing them to do anything.

            Men are attracted to physical traits like: large breasts, wide hips, clear skin, full lips,etc. because they instinctively relate information about a females health,fertility, ability to safely deliver and nurse children-breasts and hips-.But its all just that, instincts from the Ice Age.

            Women have their own sexual criteria about what attracts them as well.

            Women like you are ‘damaged’; there is no other word to describe you. What happened in your and this articles authors life to give you such a wrapped
            view of sexuality and gender?

            Men hate womens bodies? I think not. YOU HATE MEN, purely and simply.

          • simulacrum says

            “lol. You’re a dude, right?

            Of course you don’t see it. You don’t experience it, so it doesn’t exist.”

            Wait.. I’m a dude therefore I don’t know what I like or hate?

      • John says

        You say you do not want to generalize, but that is exactly what you are doing. Seems to be a common theme, women doing things they do not want to do, but do them anyways. Instead of taking responsibility for their actions you treat women as some kind of victim who is incapable of controlling of their actions, but guess what, men fall “victim” to this same cultural pressure enacted by the matriarchy. With demands that a man be in peak physical condition at all times, or else be seen as weak. Or have a high paying job or else do not expect to have that attractive mate in life. And have status and know important people so she can meet someone more interesting than you so she can upgrade once she has everything she wants from you.

        See how ridiculous all this blaming is?

        And if a woman wants to do these things to attract the kind of person that sees these things as worthwhile, let them? My suggestion is telling people how they should or should not live by using “big bad man” mentality is less effective than setting an example worth emulating.

        • mike says

          “You say you do not want to generalize, but that is exactly what you are doing”

          Exactly what I was going to point out. This generalisation has no more value than any other generalisation.

      • M.R.A. says

        Wemon judge men just as much as men judge wemon, thats how you find your mate. To sit there and point out what men do to wemon and not what wemon do to men is just sexist, I have the best for wemon and men in mind and you only have respect for wemon I feel sorry for your son if, you have one hopeful not.

        • APH says

          “Wemon”? That’s demon women, isn’t it?
          You MRAs are exactly what you criticize in feminists (at least some of you).
          The media is mostly in the hands of men, commercials aimed at women and girls are made by men too (specially white men). So there is a connection between women’s self hatred if they don’t have the “perfect” body and the still male-dominated society. If you grow up with the impression that you HAVE to look pretty and sexy according to those impossible standards, even if you’re strong-willed you’ll fall for that at one point in your life.
          I’m NOT demonizing men, NOR saying that they don’t have problems too, but denying the problems that women have is equally unfair.

      • Say What Now? says

        I feel dumber for having read this.

        For a post that contains nothing but generalisations with no factual basis I have a hard time swallowing your later statement: “I do not want to generalize…”

        This is just another diatribe written by another feminist who refuses to accept that women have the ability to make their own choices and should take responsibility for these choices.

        Nobody forces women to wear make-up. Nobody forces them to get implants. Nobody forces them to wear heels or starve themselves or wear jewellery.

        The first experience most girls have in these areas is dress-ups in their mothers clothing. I distinctly remember my sister running around in my mum’s heels and dresses smearing make-up all over her face as soon as she was old enough to get into the wardrobe and reach the dresser.

        So if, as a woman, you aren’t going to teach your daughters that they’re good enough without all this stuff then you can’t run around claiming that it’s all the fault of the horrible patriarchal society you despise so much.

        You are the problem at the first and earliest instance because their first experiences are of you, submitting to this culture that you decry so much.

        And just by-the-by, do you know ANY women who don’t like jewellery?

        Everyone likes jewellery. Go to any culture on Earth from any period in time and you’ll find both men and women wearing jewellery.

        You complete and total buffoon.

      • Fred says

        Sorry but I don’t rally agree on your article. You say that men don’t accept women how they are and force them to change yet women don’t. If you looked at it from a different point of view would would see that men are pressured by society into becoming more feminine friendly and by having a toned, fit body. Not that I have a problem with that but the way your article is written makes it seem as though you blame men for all problems.
        Also mentioned in the article are things like men force women to wear heels, jewellery, change their hair, their body and so on. Many women that I know don’t say that “oh I had to change this for my man,” or something like that. Instead they do it by choice and maybe they are affected by men’s preferences but I have never seen someone tell their girlfriend that they need to wear heels or jewellery.
        Women may be affected by men’s preferences but it is also a two way street, you can’t just go on bitching about how men make you do this and that, and also generally hating men. For someone to believe something like this they must have had a really weird upbringing and not have learned to think about all different aspects of this issue.

        Basically if no one could be bothered reading the above I just want to say where is the love? We are all human and man and women were made for each other so stop bitching about problems and go have fun.

      • Priyanka says

        I see all the apologist men gathered here to scream out loud their protest against how wrongly this has been stated. Some are also against feminists. Well, not a new thing to encounter. As a feminist women, I have faced and heard all these bullshit again and again from childhood, denying every single inequality and injustice that has happened and is happening to us every day.
        I agree and feel every single word you wrote here, Taslima Nasreen (also being a fan of yours, I value your work so much, which are, needless to say, are to the point and the ugly truth).
        We are taught from the childhood to feel shame for our mere existence and own body. It differs in parts of the world but its the same wine in different bottles! We are taught that we are impure when we have our periods. We are taught to hide our body parts, even our head and hair. We were taught to alter our body because if we are not “fairer and prettier” we can’t even fucking get a job, thanks to all the Fair and lovely commertials. Hell, if our vagina has the natural colour, it might be sickening to our husbands(referring to a recent advertisement of “Clean and clear” hygiene product which makes our vaginas cute and pink and pretty! Goddamn it, we even are taught how to smile (shyly) or how to talk (slowly and shyly), how to walk (slowly and shyly) or how to cry( in a corner silently, where no one can hear you)!

        Nahhh, lets talk about how abusive and inhumane we women are telling men they are not good enough for us and they are millions of brands and salons making men pretty and beautiful and giving them bikini wax and books on how to be a good working husband/father/son in law and and….

        • MsCarol420 says

          Yes Taslima – completely disregard everything the men here are telling you and kowtow to feminist dogma. Priyanka so happy you self identify as a feminist like it’s a badge of honor, but it’s unnecessary because your first sentence was loud and clear. Listen up twits the beauty, fashion, diet, and media industries dictate what’s hot. Look at the profit they make. I dress and wear my hair like I want and I am not a slave to fashion. Most women dress for women – do you think a man cares what color your nail polish is or what designer purse you carry? Come on grow up! Serioulsy I expected more from a site called freethoughtblogs.com it should be on feminstbsblog.com

      • JNXO Mtta says

        This is the main problem with your article and with feminists as a whole, the words “I THINK” is not the same as the words “I KNOW” or “I AM SURE,” just because you “think” something is right doesn’t mean that it is, this means that by demonizing all Men as monstrous beings that oppressed women just because you “THINK” that’s the case, it enforces the idea that all feminists are crazy and unable to think straight. “Multi-billion dollar beauty industries, and mainstream media are constantly telling women that their bodies are not perfect” Multi-billion dollar companies don’t represent what Men think of Women and how Men see Women, so that simple, erroneous idea gives away your ignorance, fanaticism and paranoia all together. there is no war on women, women are not oppressed and you lady, need to take some time to put yourself together because you are only harming yourself with this idiotic ideas. Men love women, and most Men could care less if women use make up or don’t have nice round and hard pair of boobies, most men would want a woman who can laugh and take a joke or tell a joke, I mean… what you’re doing with your radical ideas is separatism, yes…. you are dividing men and women with such ridiculous articles, please stop, please do!

    • Annie says

      I interpreted Taslima’s words a bit differently. I understood that, because of the desire to please men, because of the disproportionate value placed on being appealing to the opposite gender, women become religious in the extent of their devotion to meeting the arbitrary (as you clearly and correctly pointed out – not at all universal) beauty standards culture imposes on them. The vast difference in cost, effort exertion, and extremeness between men and women’s actions in appealing to one another – because men are by no means immune to the pressure to be attractive to women – speaks of deeply ingrained patriarchy.

      My intervening, by the way, is in no way meant to be mean-spirited. I am rather pleased you don’t necessarily feel married to conventional aesthetic ideals.

      A lot of what Taslima says, I think, leans more on making an approximate point than a fully blanketing one. So I think it’s just a matter of reading past her generalizations.

      • Varus says

        Men have to be attractive to women, just in other ways.

        Unemployed, meek men get women HAWT.

        I couldn’t make up more self-absorption and victimhood on the part of women if I tried. Utterly unreal.

    • says

      I guess you think it is controversial to say that foot binding was a patriarchal beauty standard of the past in china then? because maybe a dude or two didn’t think it was great? The fact is that countless women broke the bones of their feet and disabled themselves to fit a beauty ideal. Women are told their whole lives that their worth lies in how many dudes want to have sex with them, so they do these things. Women who don’t try are humiliated, they are the butt of jokes or targets for harassment for not caring what men think of their normal bodies. Its a hard life, but all you seem to think about is how this analysis doesn’t make enough disclaimers to include men like you. I don’t really care if it does, while women are having all this surgery for no medical reason, spending all this money while making less than men on average. That is what I am concerned with.

      • Raven01 says

        Sigh.
        “Countless” women did not practice foot binding.
        It was practiced among the elite class.
        Only a woman of that class could afford to (and prosper) while barely being able to walk properly.
        Have you been to China lately? dragging up centuries old grievances from halfway around the world as if it is even an issue now does not help your case. It just highlights how ill-informed you are.

        Did these women have no say in this? I know feminazis will say no they don’t but, today I do not see a group of men forcing women into high heeled shoes yet stores can barely keep them on the shelf.
        Consider your response carefully. If you suggest that women are so weak-minded that they must rely on someone else to make up their minds then you are also saying that the suffragettes were wrong and women by virtue of being women should not be allowed to vote. A position I will disagree with.

      • Guest says

        It goes both ways. Men who don’t have interesting (in other words expensive) lives, suffer the same fate. The lucky ones spend a lot of money on clothes, cars, houses, gadgets, trips, gyms and so on.

        “If a man could fuck in a cardboard box, he wouldn’t buy a house” ~Dave Chapelle

    • Bernd Lauert says

      You know what’s worst? Women hate men’s bodys.

      Oh, you are smart and funny, but you don’t look like David Beckham, you’re too skinny and your teeth are not perfect, therefore I’ll date that guy over there who looks manlier even though he has no other quality whatsoever.
      It’s just…most men don’t care that much. Some go to the gym, but most men just wait to be accepted as they are, loved for their personality not for their looks. And watching the women around him sleeping with attractive guys and complaining getting dumped like everyone else.

      Well, it’s not always about women, also I like my girls a bit chubby. Heh. Also small breasts are totally fine. But hey, ignore my opinion, I’m not the handsome guy every girl wants.

      Sorry for the rant.

  4. Gorbachev says

    What you object to is the commodification of the human (not just female) body. Alas, the sexual marketplace is just that: A marketplace.

    At different times, in different places, there have been variant standards used.

    I hate to be contrarian, but in a world in which all humans treat all other humans as commodities – and this is what we do, most especially when it comes to mating – then in this world, in which other people have measurable utilities, we need to value them. And we use appearance as proxies for other value estimations.

    This is what we do. It’s as useful to complain about this as it is to complain about rain. It’s part and parcel of what we are. All societies value beauty, all societies rank men and women by sexual desirability.

    We are a hierarchical primate species, an animal, just like all other large primates. We have far less free will than we think we do. Social patterns are almost all based, on some level, on instinctive behaviors. While the specifics vary, the underlying instincts rarely do.

    As such, I see no “male conspiracy” here. In societies where male and female power is unequally distributed, perhaps women need to make pretend about appearance and compete with other females more than men need to.

    I would just like to point one thing out, though:

    As society has experienced an upsurge in female power, there’s been a radical increase in the social and personal pressures on MEN to adorn themselves.

    Be more fit.
    Large upper body.
    Be tall, or be gone.

    The level of superficial attractiveness now demanded from men is substantial, compared to even a generation ago. It’s way and beyond anything seen a hundred years ago.

    So your idea that it’s men who hate women’s bodies is absurd. Men like some things, and women compete to match these things. Some of these things are socially programmed, some ingrained, mostly both in a dynamic interaction.

    But it applies to men, too. The more equality we see, I predict:

    The more fierce, brutal and savage this “sexual marketplace” will become. Indeed, it will drag men down into the competitive cesspool, too.

    If you view a woman’s typical desires in a male mate – Social power, wealth or resources, height (instinctive shorthand for social power – our mammalian brain), — then you could successfully argue that women hate men.

    Women judge men pretty harshly in the sexual marketplace, too, just by different standards. You cant’ object to those used by men to judge women (and obliging women to compete among themselves for the top mating opportunities), without also objecting to those use by women to judge men (and forcing men to compete, often with tragic results).

    I don’t see woman-hating here. I see a savage garden, a sexual marketplace which is unfair, unforgiving and absolutely primal.

    Humans are barely removed from our animal forebears, and the illusions of civilization are a layer of paint on a giant ball. Strip the paint away and see the animal.

    Ms. Nasrin, I suspect that what you object to here is the proximate result of a much deeper human malaise. It’s the animal, sexual nature of humans in groups.

    We’re naturally competitive. We erect hierarchies and are happiest when constructing and deconstructing them (usually to our own advantage). This is as true in a Kibbutz and a commune as it is in a corporate office.

    We are monkeys. Ideal visions of gender ineractions are nice, but if you *are* going to target proximate female behaviors designed to establish sexual attractiveness, then you should also go after the same that men must endure.

    Gender is a two-way street.

    It’s easy to see one side. This isn’t another “What about teh mens” whine.

    I mean: See the entire process, the big picture. See the root cause. The specific (makeup, high heels, etc.) are irrelevant. Remove them and they’ll be immediately replaced with something else.

    It’s not patriarchy or men hating women. It’s men and women crudely, narcissistically manipulating each other on a nearly subconscious level.

    It’s a savage garden.

    Should you wish to change these things, I would suggest applying to join another species of animal.

    • Tyrant of Skepsis says

      The fact that the situation for women already has improved in many respects over the past decades, renders your fatalist rant moot.

    • says

      I hate to be contrarian, but in a world in which all humans treat all other humans as commodities – and this is what we do, most especially when it comes to mating – then in this world, in which other people have measurable utilities, we need to value them. And we use appearance as proxies for other value estimations.

      This is the juvenile “everyone is amoral and selfish” argument for acting like a shit. it must be nice to think that there is nothing wrong and that no work needs to be done, but its a foolish delusion that only the privileged can afford to indulge in.

      Speak for yourself dude, and look into what a social construction is before you assume that everyone thinks and acts exactly the same way that you do. There is no excuse for attempting to commodify women, especially our sexuality. That hurts women and destroys lives, and does not have to be that way. People can construct sexuality and relationships in a number of ways that you’ve failed to address in your ridiculous post.

    • Mary2 says

      You contradict yourself. One minute you say that the situation cant be changed because it is innate, then you say that as womens power has increased so has the pressure on men.

      So which is it? Is there no problem with the situation as is because it is natural that women are commodities, or is there no problem because instead of changing the culture so women are not commodities we are beginning to sexually commodify men?

    • Stacy says

      As such, I see no “male conspiracy” here

      Strawperson.

      Ideal visions of gender ineractions are nice, but if you *are* going to target proximate female behaviors designed to establish sexual attractiveness, then you should also go after the same that men must endure

      There it is. What about the menz?? What about meee!?

      Taslima “should” go after the “same” that men “must endure?” No. No, she isn’t ethically bound to worry about your problems, middle class white dudebro.

      Should you wish to change these things, I would suggest applying to join another species of animal

      Yeah, ’cause changing “these things” would be totally unnatural. You know, like carrying on a conversation via a series of tubes.

      • Jeff says

        How exactly would you have men change the crazy ass shit that women do to themselves in competition with each other?

        These women are trying to compete for 20% of men(the successful, handsome, and tall types) who are the only men with the sexual agency to be picky. The other 80% of guys would just be happy with a woman that loved them and is faithful and doesn’t drop them in the dirt like a used Kleenex when one of the 20% guys shows up at the party.

      • Raven01 says

        “Taslima “should” go after the “same” that men “must endure?” No. No, she isn’t ethically bound to worry about your problems, middle class white dudebro.”
        If she claims to be seeking EQUALITY, yes she is. Someone seeking equality should seek to raise everyone up not just one segment or knock others down.
        This part is a particular gem as it highlights your sexism, class bigotry, and racism in just a few words with this ad hominem, “middle class white dudebro”

        You are one ugly individual.
        Not to mention illogical. If being white, or a guy, or middle-class automatically invalidates his opinion then, why not extend that to women deserve no input in anything? You ARE supporting invalidating individuals based on characteristics they are born with after all rather than things within their personal control.

      • Queen Latifah says

        Then why is anyone “ethically bound to worry about your problems,” Stacy? It doesn’t affect me, why should I care?

      • Kimski says

        “No, she isn’t ethically bound to worry about your problems, middle class white dudebro.”

        Racist.

  5. Yessenia says

    Thanks for clearing that up, dudes! I’m so glad I can stop worrying my pretty painted plucked and perfumed head about living as a woman in a patriarchy.

    • Who Knows? says

      It is about time you listened to the men here. Now, go make them a sandwich and kiss and make up.

    • Mikey Flubb says

      Yes, go girl.

      I never ever shave or pluck and my husband loves me as I am (yes I am a wimmin)
      My armpit carpet is lush and thick as Mom Nture wanted it. Who am I to tell differently.

      • Kimski says

        So, when did he go blind?

        And did he loose his sense of smelling before or after he married you?

        • Mikey Flubb says

          Wimmin love,
          Men are holders of the phallus of that chalice,
          of their very swig from Patriarchal cup.

      • Raven01 says

        “Mikey Flubb” has no husband.
        “Mikey Fluff” is also a member of radfemhub. Go here to see what this person supports.
        http://agentorangefiles.com/
        Warning: The underbelly of feminism is an ugly thing. I would not advise eating before reviewing this information.

        • Kimski says

          I have a great Idea for you, coming from the patriachal mind of a constructive and productive male. Terms I know that are so utterly unknown to you, but let me try to explain:

          You should start your own business on Amazon, selling translation-books to your poems and the rest of the nonsense you say. You need to provide your audience with a way of actually understanding the overtly inflated hyperbole that you dish out in abundance.
          It’s a perfect deal, don’t you see?
          You make up the gibberish, no normal thinking person could possibly understand, and then sell the translations on the side. That would give you the ability to make some money for yourself, instead of leeching of the goverment programs for obese women, that does nothing else in life, besides watching Oprah and bitching about the men they can’t get.
          Whattaya say?-Sweet deal, huh??

  6. Gorbachev says

    PS,

    Women, competing with each other, are among the fiercest and most vicious of enforcers of female beauty standards. Frankly, by and large, men wait for women to sort it out and then pick off the women left standing.

    The vast majority of men will choose plain jane who’s nice to be with over hot jamama with the makeup and ultra high-heels.

    Almost all female beauty is posturing by one set of females over another. I realize that you may not ever hear this perspective, but where you see evil patriarchy, a lot of men, if not almost all, see something else.

    They see hyper-competitive females raging like the greatest corporate titans for tiny bits of power and identity. They ostensibly do thisfor male atention, but by and large, from a MAN’S point of view, it appears to be for status within groups of females.

    Men pretty much want this:

    – Be nice.
    – Try not to be fat. Meat is okay. But there’s a lot of variablity that’s also okay in there.
    – Like sex.
    – eat with me sometimes.

    Almost all men will gladly settle for some version of this. Almost all men I know are baffled to the point of mystification as to why women feel the compulsive need to wear makeup, spend crazy money on clothing (?? Most men are clueless) and have no idea why they can’t just age gracefully alongside us.

    But from the perspective of the average man, almost all female beauty standards seem engineered either by gay men or by women in competition with other women. Men just want you to stop it and get back down and watch TV with us.

    This is why having men blamed for this kind of thing is one of the most shockingly bizarre things men ever experience. In almost every case, it’s women who need to jump through hoops for each other that cause most of the nightmares for others.

    BTW, the 10% or so of women who find themselves in the lucky lottery for attractiveness almost never complain, or do so with the most crystalline of crocodile tears.

    But in the end, it’s all a winner-takes-all competition for mating opportunities. As sexual freedom opens everything up – free and easy divorce, freely available sex without much relationship investment, etc.–

    the sexual marketplace inevitably becomes much more savage. As sex becomes something you can do on a whim, your appearance (being the most superficial of characteristics) becomes all-important. It’s as true for men as women, by the way.

    This is the reality of the sexual revolution. While we wanted freedom, it unleashed the most consumerist and commodificationist of impulses in people. No more spirituality and sex, no more deeply held commitments – just random bumpings in the night.

    In such a world, ushered in by the heady incense of feminism and female liberation ( and consequent male liberation from the need to provide commitment or resources for sex), the true nature of the human sexual marketplace has been laid bare for all to see.

    Casting around for “patriarchy” in this maelstrom is a waste of time and an ideological mug’s game.

    The demons unleashed by unfettered sexuality are of an entirely different making, and don’t discriminate on the basis of gender.

    • dianne says

      Women, competing with each other, are among the fiercest and most vicious of enforcers of female beauty standards.

      I’ve heard this sort of comment from other men at various times. Somehow men who say things like this almost always have girlfriends who are obsessed with looking as perfect as possible. They may not be supermodels, but they work hard at it: try to have just the right makeup, just the right hair, just the right body type, etc. And it never comes naturally: they are never the women whose hair just happens to be fashionable or is just lucky in their body type, etc. They are always the ones who work hard at it.

      Their boyfriends inevitably notice how hard they are working and make snide comments about how obsessed their girlfriend is and how much they’d like it if they were just more “natural”. But they never get a more “natural” girlfriend when they break up or really encourage their girlfriends to feel more comfortable with their bodies.

      I conclude that men use comments like the one quoted to further control women by pretending that all the standards of beauty are really being enforced by women and they (the men) are so much more enlightened…while at the same time keeping women who value their opinions uncertain and uncomfortable with their own bodies by gaslighting.

      • Gorbachev says

        “I conclude that men use comments like the one quoted to further control women by pretending that all the standards of beauty are really being enforced by women and they (the men) are so much more enlightened…while at the same time keeping women who value their opinions uncertain and uncomfortable with their own bodies by gaslighting.”

        Gaslighting. Geez. yet another method to silence those who disagree with you.

        Every girlfriend I’ve ever had I’ve asked
        1) Not to put on makeup, please; you’re plenty pretty without it and I dislike the paint.
        2) Not to wear ridiculous high heels. Please wear flats and runners. We need to walk and I don’t want my lover hobbled.
        3) Please wear clothing you’re comfortbale with. Actually, in all honesty I don’t care a whit what you wear, so long as it’s not an issue – socially. Whatever you decide to wear is just fine.

        The vast, vast majority of Western men I know hold these opinions. You can characterize this however you want and silence me and all men by calling this whatever you want, but don’t you *dare* call this an attempt to control women.

        There’s no way to win against ideological warriors: Either we’re out to control women through shaming or we’re out to deny them their femininity or we’re out to control them through “gaslighting” and using insults.

        Being male = Always seeking to control women.

        If this is your position, then why do you even bother addressing any male, ever? And here I was thinking that this was a free thought blog series. Instead, we have the hypocrisy of the True Believer.

        • Gorbachev says

          And incidentally, every woman I’ve been with has criticized any opinion I had on this subject.

          – Blamed for enforcing standards of female beauty deliberately and consciously designed to control women
          – Blamed for not appreciating women when they meet these standards or try through superhuman effort
          – For having opinions about what is and is not attractive in a mate (though this is not a problem for women > men, of course, … only men > women)
          – for trying to be sympathetic (lack of respect)
          – for lacking understanding (not appreciating the demands society makes, even though the man individually bears no responsibility at all and may in fact oppose those standards).

          There’s just no damned way to win.

          I must conclude that this is just an attempt to reframe daily life as a type of unending tregedy or victim mindset, in order to gain proximate power in a relationship and silence male opinion.

          • Mikey Flubb says

            Males/men should be silenced for a time as we wimmin have been for a generation/s.

            Then and only then will that gender be forced to listen as we speak for the first time and then you can hear our herstory thank you very very much!

          • Voiceofreason says

            Mikey Flubb, I really hope you are not serious. Do you think that white people, people who were born after slavery finished and who have never enslaved anyone in their lives, should be chained up, whipped and forced to do unpaid labour for their black neighbours, who have never been slaves themselves?

            The son should not be punished for the sins of the father.

          • APH says

            Mikey Flubb, people like you make all feminists look bad. You’re not helping the feminist movement with your irrational hate and your ridiculous use of language (herstory??? you’re embarrassing yourself, can’t you see it??)
            Feminism should advocate for equal rights, not for vendettas.

        • Dianne says

          Your description of your relationships is a perfect example of what I mean:

          You get into relationships with women who, for whatever reason, wear makeup and heels. You don’t date women who don’t wear makeup and heels. My guess is that you’ll claim that they don’t exist. But really, they just don’t exist for you because you’re not attracted to them. You want a woman who is easier to manipulate and one who shows the outer signs of being willing to go with society’s ideal is more likely to be easily manipulated than one who doesn’t play.

          When you’ve got a woman interested in you, you make your “sensitive and enlightened male” play and command her to stop wearing heels and makeup. This sounds very enlightened if you don’t stop to think about it–you’re opposing what Taslima opposes!–but you’re limiting your partners’ choices, demanding that she stop doing the very things that originally attracted you. This is confusing and naturally results in your partner questioning her own taste. Perhaps you back it up with a little “negging”: “joking” comments about how thick her makeup is or how poorly she walks in heels. Now she’s even more unsure of herself because the person who supposedly loves her keeps telling her how awful she is and how much she needs to change.

          Then for the coup de grace, you play the martyr. “There’s no way to win with women” “I’m not the one enforcing standards” and so on. If you are capable of the slightest self-reflection, think about your past relationships. Why do you always pick women who dress in ways you claim to find unattractive? Why do you always feel the need to change the women you partner with? Why are you so incapable of accepting any responsibility for your situation?

          • Carax says

            Dianne is an enlightened person only because she agrees with you. Gorbachev wins the argument every time.

          • Rog says

            there is a problem you havent mentioned, dating a woman who leaves alot of room to improve her appearance when she wants to

            her hypergamy

            women are known to upgrade when it fancy`s them and when you date a girl who wears sweatpants and no makeup alot of the time you end up finding out she is changing at her gf`s place and hitting the bar while your at work for some “fun”,, i have tried this route several times and always with the same result,, i found out that women who look their best,, and im the best they can get tend to stay around for years instead of only months(be aware i would never live with any woman so they stay of their own accord) this realization changed what i find attractive in women for sure,, while i dont ask any woman to change for me i definitely use their upward mobility to gauge how long they will stay before they move on to someone shinier/richer,,

            i also find that a womans mind is their most attractive sex organ far from it being their ass or eyes or legs or hair,or or or.
            introduce me to a smoking hot(she knows she is a woman, doesnt hide her curves and doesnt make excuses for them) sultry(not slutty)egalitarian woman who has interest in current events and she will definitely have my attention over any Ethiopian bimbo with fake boobs who looks well used by all…’

            and remember ladies if you wear the uniform of a slut dont be surprised if your mistaken for one…

      • Raven01 says

        @Dianne
        “I conclude that men use comments like the one quoted to further control women by pretending that all the standards of beauty are really being enforced by women and they (the men) are so much more enlightened…while at the same time keeping women who value their opinions uncertain and uncomfortable with their own bodies by gaslighting.”

        Then quit voting, seriously. If women are that easy to control and brainwash they should not be voting and likely not even driving.
        This of course only applies to yourself and other supporters of the “everything is men’s fault camp”.
        Your lack of personal accountability is sickening. Reminiscent of the mentally ill that can hurt others and then blame them rather than accept responsibility for their own actions.
        Thank you, I think you may have put me on to something inadvertently.
        Feminism = Mental Illness.

      • this person says

        This is an attack on character, and therefore an invalid argument.

        Worse yet, you don’t know the character of the person you are attacking. You simply presume to be right without acces to knowledge to back up your claims.

    • Mary2 says

      Dont you just love it? It is the poor innocent men who dont understand why women wear make up or fancy clothes. Its all the nasty wimmins fault. There is no unequal power distribution and mens magazines are full of photos of homely girls with flat chests and no makeup.

      • Likafox says

        The examples in the articles are women choosing to do something to themselves. And then blaming men.

        This kind of feminism is blatantly misogynistic. Women are slaves. Men are free agents. Women have no free will. They HAVE to dress in tight pants and makeup because men like that. Men are in control when women are alone in their room choosing what to wear.

        How about taking some responsibility for your actions, like, say.. an adult?

        If men were using violence to make women wear makeup, I’d agree thats wrong. But they’re not. It’s all free will, and free choice on the part of the women.

        The positions in the article (and the defenses of it) are ricidulous. Just stating the thesis baldly shows that.

        Wen women are alone, men are forcing them what to do.
        When women choose to do something, men are forcing them to make that choice.
        W,en cannot resist the demands of men.
        When men show no violence or threat, women scramble to obey.
        When women compete for the sexual attention of men, it’s because men are oppressing them.
        Women don’t really *like* sexual attention from men.
        Men are forcing women to compete for their attention.

        It’s pathetic.

      • AV says

        And how are women depicted in womens magazines? Made by women, with women, for women. They look worse than mens magazines did 10 years ago.
        Blaming men as a group for all evil is narrow minded. And it is juvenile not taking responsabilities for your own actions. Like school kids blaming their bad actions on what their “friends” told them to do. What do you tell that kid? “I don’t care what anyone say to you, the main thing is what YOU did ant what choises YOU made. Now take responsability for your actions.” Right?

        You want equality, and that’s exactly what you get. Equality to be an active subject with full responsability for your life. As we men have it. Don’t like that part? Sorry, can’t cherry pic. If you want new genderroles, you can not fall into your own and victimize yourself as week, who need taking care off.

  7. Gorbachev says

    Try to see the process and see past the Patriarchy-obsessed glasses. The social process that devalues people is not linked intrinsically to male domination.

    If you can’t see this – then it will cripple your ability to see what’s going on outside your window.

    Not all things are male conspiracies.

    And it often happens that women are women’s worst enemies – and the same is true for men. All the whining about women that men do misses one big point. Men cause much of the grief for other men, in much the same way that women cause grief for other women.

    In a female-dominated society, you can bet your bottom dollar that beauty standards and social hierarchy would be profoundly more important for those who wanted to acquire the top male mates. Which would be all females.

    Look: Men and women just aren’t that different from each other. We’re both nasty, commodifying animals.

    Stop infantilizing women. Start seeing how women and men are the same as well as different.

    • says

      Women are being brainwashed by many men in many places that their bodies are not perfect. Naturally, women want to be perfect.Cosmetic industry has now become a multi-billion dollar industry.

      • jonhendry says

        Yes, I have a special hat with a rotating disk on top, with a hypnotic spiral pattern, that brainwashes all the women I pass on the street.

        Just doing my part, as you’re doing your part for good skeptical thinking.

        • Tyrant of Skepsis says

          No, you’re not doing your part in anything. It’s clear that you think you are being witty, but it looks rather differently from over here.

          • Kimski says

            Most obvious things do, don’t they?
            -Especially when they free you from any responsibility or accountability.

      • Gorbachev says

        In Korea and Japan, where I spend time, cosmetics are also sold for men. Men are often the subjects of plastic surgery. More and more, men are being held to impossible attractiveness standards.

        What you’re seeing is women competing for attention from the most attractive men and for accolades from other women.

        if a woman is sexually unavailable (or a man is unavailable), by and large almost all men couldn’t care less what a woman looks like. On the other hand, women spend enormous amounts of time competing for sexual interest *among themselves* from the most desirable of men.

        What you’re objecting to is the utilitarian mating marketplace, not beauty standards in and of themselves.

        I would appreciate the missing logic of your assertions more if you held the same opinions of female standards relative to men.

        When women stop valuing height, wealth and social power in men, I’ll be impressed.

        Try treating humans like the sexual mammals that they are, and not as ideological purity machines.

      • jajjj says

        And yet you conveniently ignore all the beauty standards put upon men. Last I checked television, movies and magazines aren’t filled with fat, bald short men.

      • Raven01 says

        Taslima when you say things like this, “Women are being brainwashed by many men in many places that their bodies are not perfect. “, you are telling us women are too stupid to vote, drive, enter into contracts, or own property.
        IF you statement were true that is. Fortunately, you are full of it and, your statement is patently untrue.
        But you know what Santa Claus and a feminist apologizing for being wrong have in common? Both are myths.

  8. Yessenia says

    I realize that you may not ever hear this perspective,

    Oh, my kingdom for a day when I didn’t hear the male perspective on how men are totes not responsible for what women have to deal with.

      • Mikey Flubb says

        Oh sista agreed,

        My real name is that of a wimmin as I am a wimmin. I use this name as a cover only.

        Oh I pray for the day that we can say,
        Hold high our thin bony hands.
        Our babies cry for want of nipple and are denied…
        ..the rights and dish of of Nature’s well dressed and goddess served,
        fish and fruits plucked and snatched form it’s un-raped bounty.

        • Kimski says

          More ‘poetry’,ehh, Mikey??
          I see you didn’t take my advise and quit, so I guess you’re still unemployed, right?
          I wonder who’s paying your bills while you spew your male hating garbage? -Oh, that would be men, right?

          Here’s a universal truth of gigantic proportions to Taslima. It’s coming from another woman, and we all know that women would never lie to eachother, because you gals ‘can sense such a thing’, right???

          Women don’t dress/groom etc for men, they do it for other women – to compete for attention.”

          -And you’d have to be born blind to not notice.

          • Mikey Flubb says

            Kimski says this in reality:

            My name is man, I have a Phallus and wield it to and fro,
            Wimmin run, disperse as it has begun,
            that very sweep and clear.

            Drop your baskets in mid June for the equinox can never shield his engorged plate,
            So it has begun, this blind wretched flesh from asunder,

            Man and Phallus will be the end-of-us,
            as it’s bounce and terror switches off Mom Sun.

            We hug and cry and die for you sad lonely Phallus,

            Yet you sweep and clear ?

  9. left0ver1under says

    While the statements are accurate in general, they’re not universal and they don’t apply on an all-or-nothing basis to any one man. And on some of them, I beg to differ.

    —–

    Specifically, on long hair. First, long hair hides the face, and often the hidden is more interesting than the revealed. Secondly, and speaking anecdotally, the more effort a person is willing to give in one area, the more likely the person is to to give effort in others (e.g. education, physical fitness, etc.); hair can be an indicator of that, though not a guarantee.

    We tell men that we like them for who they are. They do not destroy their natural body to make us happy. They do not implant or reduce anything to please us.

    I don’t mean to infer that men are somehow “worse off” or claim victimhood, but the above statement isn’t entirely true. Male pattern baldness and greying can put men at a great disadvantage when dating. Obesity can too – it’s no longer seen as a sign of wealth but rather of poor health, although men are “allowed” to be much fatter than women and still be able to date. Eating disorders are on the rise among men, and some men do resort to ridiculous forms of plastic surgery as well (e.g. hair transplants, “muscle” implants, skin tightening surgery on the arm to accentuate muscles).

    —–

    Beyond those two points, I generally agree that double standards are a problem and a source of other problems.

    But I’d make one amendment: All people tend to prefer people younger than themselves, but the top end of their prefferd age range is always close to their own, sometimes slightly higher. For example, when I was 25, I was rarely interested in or attraced to women over 30. Now in my mid-40s, the visual attraction to young women (early 20s) is still there but my “top range” of women I find attractive can be in the low 50s. I have no doubt that this is equally true for both men and women.

  10. Tony says

    Taslima:

    I do not want to generalize but I think more men find long hair, large breasts, long legs feminine and slim curvy bodies are beautiful. We know there are exceptions.

    I agree with the nature and the source of the problems you list. That said, I’m glad you told us you didn’t want to generalize…right *after* you wrote a post that generalizes.
    I take issue with-once again-your overgeneralization. I’m a male and I don’t hate women’s bodies. In fact, none of the “things men don’t like/hate” applies to men. I’m fairly certain there are many other men out there who would say the same-and that’s just talking about we queer men (what, you didn’t take into account the gay men around the world that are part of the male population you’re being critical of?). Being gay doesn’t prevent you from hating women’s bodies, but I know a lot of gay men who don’t have the issues you describe.
    I’m insulted to be lumped in with those people (and I know they are many) that do continue to perpetuate this crap. It is my hope that one day you will stop over generalizing and acknowledge the complexity and nuances of many of the issues you write about.

  11. Musical Atheist says

    No. This is over-simplistic. Remember Betty Friedan? ‘A housewife’s purpose is to buy more things for the house’? And Naomi Wolf extending that in the 90s on the beauty industry. (Naomi Wolf doesn’t get everything right but she has some very shrewd things to say about ‘beauty’.) The international beauty industry is not created by ‘men’ because they all hate women. It’s created by corporate interests who know that tapping into, guiding and exploiting existing stereotypes helps to create and control markets. Of course long histories of patriarchy, misogyny, racism and colonial oppression feed into this. But to simplify it to ‘men hate women’ doesn’t begin to really engage with the problematic relationship women have with ‘beauty’.

    I’m interested that you use the example of bleaching the skin as an example primarily of sexism. I would interpret this as being primarily an example of the way whiteness is treated as the norm. This attitude is prevalent in the beauty industry in the form of any number of ‘nude’ or ‘natural’ products which are not available in any colour darker than slightly tan, the paucity of products for African hair in mainstream drugstores, the blinding absence of women of colour on women’s magazine covers… But it’s also an example of the intersection of different cultural pressures, since it’s a racist but also sexist pressure, which women but not men are supposed to knuckle down to. Or a sexist pressure that is experienced differently for women of different ethnicities.

    Anyway: patriarchy, sexism, racism, persistent harmful stereotypes, skewed media representation, corporate manipulation, the desire to preserve existing power structures…. just labelling it all ‘men hate women’ isn’t really helpful. Even though some clearly do.

    I think it’s also important to note that fashions in adornment differ from culture to culture, are not unique to women and are not – IMO – inherently evil. The systems that portray mere fashions in visual presentation as being essential requirements to being taken seriously as a professional/sexual/intelligent/fully human being are harmful. But can’t just be blamed on hateful ‘men’ … see above.

  12. says

    This is obviously true and explains why when I go shopping the supermarket is full of Victoria Beckham clones rather than a random sample of not terribly attractive people, most of whom seem to have partners and children and be getting on fairly well with their lives, without consulting the pages of Vogue…

    I’m trying to figure out what this post has to do with free thought, secular humanism or anything else worthwhile. A grotesque and utterly thought-free spew of hatred and division. If this is the direction FTB is heading in I’ll be tuning out.

    • Who Knows? says

      I’m trying to figure out what this post has to do with free thought, secular humanism or anything else worthwhile

      No shit? You don’t think feminism is worthwhile? The lives of 50% of the people on the planet isn’t worthwhile?

      • Gorbachev says

        This is barely disguised ideology. Clearly, disagreements are treated as Betrayals of the Faith.

        Taslima’s actual reasoning isn’t so much bad, here, it’s actually absent. That’s the problem.

        This sort of thing was in its heyday in the 1980’s, when emotive slogans and shouting took the place of carefully reasoned debate. That was the time of the “gender wars” and it ended with a vicious “civil war” among feminists, with Dworkin and Mackinnon and even Friedan on one side and progressive feminists on the other. The divide remains a chasm to this day.

        The one side saw the world in marxist terms: classes struggling with each other, individuals as nothign omre than ciphers. it was de rigeur to silence opposition rather than reaosn with them.

        Alas, Taslima has gone through a gauntlet of vicious sexism out of the stone age; she’s survived (so far). Her instincts are to go for the ideological taunt and rally supporters.

        This may be part and parcel of starting a revolution, but like in the 1980’s, revolutions tend to devour their own children, and the first victim is always objectivity and truth.

        There are no end of bona-fine feminists who vociferously disagree with Taslima’s positions here.

        No insult to Taslima, but she’s not operating at a very high level of reasoning. it sounds much more like sloganeering for an angry crowd of demonstrators. Hence the hyperbole, the gross exaggerations, the cherry picking of facts, the nearly blinded one-sided ideology, and the unending dismissal of opponents as moral imbeciles.

        Once again, as with the helmets blog post, I see no patriarchal conspiracy here. When viewed from a birds-eye view social perspective, you’d have to take into account the mating standards used by women to judge men, as well as cultural variation, before coming to this type of judgment.

        And far from “hating” women’s bodies, what this implies is rather that men “hate women’s bodies as they are”, and want women to change them to suit male standards of beauty.

        Could it also, therefore, be argued that women hate men? They dislike men as they are (mostly poor and mostly not tall). Therefore, the pressure on men to make money to impress women and buy them things – is this a sign of women hating men?

        Once again, Taslima, no disrepsect, but this is a very poorly reasoned position. It may be ideologically convenient and ideologically correct, but it’s weak sauce.

        • Mikey Flubb says

          You have no womb to fill,
          only things in life to kill,

          unlike a whale that must have krill,
          You stymie and debase the edge of of the better part of us all.

          You are male and have flat eyes of fish,
          this is your wish and so say dish,
          Do not look our way as we cry.

          • Kimski says

            Okay, that was just horrible, Mikey.
            By far the worst one I’ve seen so far.

            Whales must have krill…WTF??

            What about the whales that eat fish or hunts penguins?
            Don’t they have the right of the Divine Goddess, Mother Moon, to be whales or what?
            Is this part of some conspirative oppression against whales that doesn’t eat krill??

          • Mikey Flubb says

            Kimski,

            Whales are fish you idiot!

            How can a great fish as this evolve by eating other fish, it’s very own kind??????

            The whale has become the greatest most powerful organism in the ocean and on land and there is noooooo way it could be there without doing something right in the first place.

            Krill are not fish nor crustacean, they are tiny organisms that en masse serve themselves to whales for the greater good. Whales have a filtering device in their mouths that strain them from the ocean as wimmin in third world countries strain bugs from pons using their handkerchiefs.

          • Limeywetlake says

            Just because one attempts to fashion verse, it does not make one a poet.
            BTW – the times they are a changing, sister. Better make the most of the ideological spotlight while you can. Misandry is so twentieth century….

          • AV says

            Mikey:

            “Whales are fish you idiot!”

            No, they are mammals! Calling people “idiot” doesn’t proove your point.

            “How can a great fish as this evolve by eating other fish, it’s very own kind??????”

            Sharks are very well adapted to their environment. Still they eat their “own kind”.

            “The whale has become the greatest most powerful organism in the ocean and on land and there is noooooo way it could be there without doing something right in the first place.”

            We have all done something right in the first place. ALL our ancenstors did everything right, so they could breed.

            “Krill are not fish nor crustacean, they are tiny organisms that en masse serve themselves to whales for the greater good.”

            Kingdom: Animalia
            Phylum: Arthropoda
            Subphylum: Crustacea
            Class: Malacostraca
            Superorder: Eucarida
            Order: Euphausiacea

            And they do not serve themself. They are prayed upon.

            “Whales have a filtering device in their mouths that strain them from the ocean as wimmin in third world countries strain bugs from pons using their handkerchiefs.”

            Eccept from tooth-wales which eat fish, octopussies, sea lions and penguins. And Sea otters use a rock to open shellfish (not fish either) just as men have used a hammer though decades. Now, what does that say about anything?

            You tagically show the danger by only ascociate in small narrow minded groups of “think a likes”. Go read a book or something.

      • Kimski says

        Only a moron can’t tell the difference between an ideology and it’s worshippers.

        Hatred of feminism does not equal hatred of all women, in any way.
        Only the mindless fanatical herd creatures that can’t tell the difference, and buys into this s***.

  13. Brea Plum says

    “I do not want to generalize but…”

    …but that is exactly what you are doing when you state that women always and only do all of these things for the sake of men. Not true. No, let me make this more clear: NOT TRUE.

    First of all, and this is so obvious that I should not have to point this out, many lesbians wear makeup and long hair and high heels, and shave simply because they want to. It has nothing to do with men.

    Many hetero- and bisexual women (myself included) wear makeup and dye our hair because we enjoy varying our appearance, playing with the impression we present, and we just enjoy the way we look. We do this to please ourselves and noone else.

    We shave because we like the way our legs feel, or in my case, I prefer them not to itch like a bad case of poison ivy. We shave under our arms for personal hygiene. We shave our pubic areas for physical comfort, our own aesthetic pleasure, or because it feels sexy (speaking for myself, all three).

    Breast implants: I had the same opinion as you, until a dear friend of my got them and told me her reason. Because every time she looked in the mirror, she did not see a mature woman or a mother. She saw the same little girl she’d been looking at since she was 12. She completely recalibrated my thinking on the subject.

    Many men spend as much time and effort on their hair as many women, and probably for the same reasons that we do. Perhaps they are doing it more to attract women (or for gay men, other men), but since I’m not male I really don’t know. But I suspect it’s mostly the former. Many men wear makeup, again, I suspect for the same reasons women do, although for hetero men I won’t discount the fact that many women find a man in makeup attractive. Again, I count myself (my first adolescent crushes were Adam Ant and David Bowie). Three words: Captain Jack Sparrow.

    We wear pretty, short dresses or not-necessarily-modest outfits and high heels and jewelry for all the same reasons we wear makeup and dye our hair. I love wearing high heels.

    To be fair, you may be writing from the perspective of a woman from a culture that requires/encourages women to greater sublimation of self to men, whereas I am coming from the western (American) perspective of women being free to physically express themselves however they wish. And that’s a significant factor in this discussion. But even taking that into account, your over-generalization for why women do what they do is distressingly simplistic and inaccurate.

    • Gorbachev says

      Ultimately, with freedom comes responsibility.

      I suspect there’s no genuine desire to end this practice among women; rather, as with the bike helmets issue, it genuinely appears to be more muckraking and controversy-creation than anything else.

      The a-priori position is that men hate women. They’re locked in a war of oppressoin against women. Therefore, all things that can be turned to prove this point must be demonstrated to do so.

      Alas, this style of argument is best suited for large crowds of angry people that move en masse with little thought. Also, it’s best suited to places where those who disagree can be labeled counter-revolutionaries and effectively silenced.

      It’s common practice to simply label those who disagree as participating in some dastardly campaign of controlling women —

      but just because women end up being partly controlled doesn’t mean men set out to do this, that they want this, or that it even benefits them in any way at all.

      This is the danger when proceeding from preordained moral conclusions to analysis. It’s backwards.

      While the beauty myth is powerful, we can play the precisely identical game with men. if you think men are under no pressure from a vicious sexual marketplace, you’re fooling yourselves.

      The real issue here is Taslima’s very fiesty fighting style ,and how well 80’s – style gender feminism suits her needs. She’s arguing from a South Asian perspective. It’s much less free there; there’s much less debate; and women are genuinely controlled and dominated by men, to an extent not seen in the West for 100 years, and perhaps longer. In that context, sloganeering and obfuscation may work, because it’s designed to activate emotional responses.

      But in the West, this ultimately failed. That brand of feminism is both tired and largely ignored. Most of its predictions (porn is the theory , rape the practice, etc.) have been shown to be entirely wrong. The “facts” spouted by ideology have been shown to be false (Superbowl and other sports events attract child trafficking: prostitution actually decreases, as prostitutes’ reports themselves suggest; 25% of women are sexually assaulted; the number is more like 4%, though still far too high; no woman ever makes a false rape claim, or there are very few; most unbiased studies return shocking values of 12-32% for this, with one older study giving 47%; and etc.

      Al lof this just shows that women and men are both human, both have severe character flaws, are both equally capable of judging others, being mean, being cruel and being selfish.

      The one thing 80’s feminism did in large amounts was reduce women to the status of victims without agency. That may or may not be appropriate in India, but there’s no holocaust against women going on in Sweden or the US. Men do not hate women.

      Actual women’s lives by and large involve huge numbers of men, both subordinates and superiors, customers and bosses, children and parents.

      So while I understand where she gets her vitriol, by clinging onto an outmoded and largely discredited brand of feminism, she may be hurting her cause, generally.

      If the goal is to dismantle the oppression women still feel, there are far better ways than calls to arms for wars that the opposite side isn’t fighting.

  14. Astrokid.Nj says

    Taslima.. you forgot one thing.
    why do women breathe? men hate women who dont breathe, so they breathe.

  15. gabby says

    My wife’s hair is nearly down to the back of her knees. It’s extremely curly and gorgeous. She hasn’t had it cut since eight years ago when I convinced her to cut it to a length of about an inch. I thought it was sexy as hell, but due to the curl, it was actually higher maintenance than long hair. Drove her nuts.
    My wife actually had a breast job about seven years ago. It had taken her years to talk me into it as I’ve always been attracted to small breasted women. I assume that’s something creepy stemming from the fact that my mother was small breasted but I try not to over analyse it. My wife was sure that it would make her more confident and make it significantly easier to buy clothes. It did both of those things. She only went to a B-cup, so it’s not like she went to stripper levels. I will never admit to her that it has also made her less attractive to me, but she’s attractive enough to me that I could handle the hit.
    I’ve got to plead guilty on the slim body point. I’m attracted to slimmer women. Preferably athletic.
    I also have to admit that I love high heels. She doesn’t wear them often, but when she does, it really stirs something in me.
    A few years ago she started getting into makeup. She hadn’t been the makeup type in all the years we’ve been together (a little over fifteen so far). Y’know, I think I like it. A little glamour is fun. Plus, we’re getting a bit older and are having to put a little more effort into staying attractive for each other than we used to. For most of our relationship, I’ve put more effort into my appearance than she has into hers. haha
    I agree with quite a bit of what you’ve said, but not in quite the broad manner. I just wanted to raise my hand for roll call. This is me, warts and all. Not so bad, I don’t think.

  16. Jean K says

    Sadly enough, the ad that shows up to the right of your post is for cosmetic surgery and shows a woman in a sparkly red bikini. You’re right that there are ridiculous pressures on women. They sap our energy, if we let them.

  17. Tyrant of Skepsis says

    Wow, the willful lack of comprehension in this thread is breathtaking. Have all the people commenting here been hit on the head with something hard? I don’t always agree with Ms Nasreen, but this here is ridiculous.

    No, Ms Nasreen is not claiming that all men force women to have long hair all the time, or wear high heels. Thanks for sharing your personal taste in women to clear that up.

    She is employing a form of metaphoric language which summarizes the pressures that act upon women in certain societies, which still have a very strong power imbalance between the sexes, by assigning it to an agent she calls “men” or “man”. She thinks this is justified because the interpretational sovereignty of what constitutes appropriate behavior or appearance for women still dominantly lies with men, as well as most decisions about political and economical power. Women themselves may participate in enforcing these standards, but there is a reason why they are compelled to do so – they do not act in a vacuum but are likewise struggling to function in a still dominantly partriarchial society. Amirite?

    • Frogmistress says

      Yes, it was much more important that we learn what these men truly find beautiful in women’s bodies than it was for us to discuss the pressures put on women to make themselves conform to the current definition of ‘beauty’ so that they may be attractive to men.

      You have been great all over this post, by the way.

      • Tyrant of Skepsis says

        Thanks, but it’s nothing really. I was a bit taken aback about Taslimas take on prostitution some time ago and didn’t read the blog closely for awhile, but this here thread was the first thing I saw this morning, and this level pf siwoti on an empty stomach can be very irritating.

      • Mikey Flubb says

        Men must learn to obey the very essence of wimmin smells.

        By this I mean that pheromones are to be obeyed as is the wiring of a hetero male for this. I wash one time a week and never when I bleed as this is to deny Mom Nature her design.

        • Kimski says

          Okay, that is very likely the real reason you’re single, Mikey.

          Stop hating men, and take a bath more often would help a lot.

          It might also help if you actually started taking responsibility for your actions, as in not bathing, that is.

          • Mikey Flubb says

            Kimski,

            Stop stalking me!!!!

            Fyi I rub myself in peppermint ochre squeezed from the crushed root of a bulb that grows near a pond where I live. We have sprouted this bulb around the Enclave and it retains our wimmin smell while at the same time has the wonderful smells of the forest AND the moist earth nearby.

            Also fyi Kimskittle brain, the smells of the root of that bulb are made stronger as it is passed from one wimmin to the next in the circle.

        • Not buying it says

          Whale are not a fish, they are mammals & in regards to “men must learn to obey the essence of smelly women” !!!??? That’s disgusting lady you got ask your doctor to increase the dosage of the anti-psychotic pills everybody says your on. ???plus shave your army bits while you at it. Yuk that’s really disgusting.

          Just because you think you are so called liberated feminist doesn’t mean you have to smell like a filthy cow.

          • Kimski says

            She also made this statement, Not Buying It:

            “Krill are not fish nor crustacean.”

            Krills ARE crustaceans, which just goes to show that our Mikey here ALSO doesn’t know what she’s talking about, when it comes to the rest biology. She is a walking poster child for the reasons to stay away from women of today, and she basically wallpws like a pig, in the mud of her own ignorance and hatred.

            As to your personal hygiene, Mikey. I really didn’t need to know that. You just made my top-ten list of most disgusting people I’ve ever had the misfortune of communicating with.
            I agree, NBI,-that is just downright disgusting.
            YUK!!

    • says

      So…she couldn’t have just said all that? Ya know, instead of spewing generalizations against a group of people who do not really hold responsibility? If you have to read as far into this poorly written diatribe of bullshit claims pulled directly from her ass as you just did, I tend to think it’s just a diatribe of bullshit claims. But, maybe I just have a reasonable standard for human communication?

      Regardless of my short rant, I think that if you have to read that far into what is said in this blog post, it is poorly written…to say the absolute least. Almost no one on this planet knows her well enough to know she meant all that. If she did indeed mean to say all that you noted, then she simply sucks at articulating her thoughts. I think at least that much is unarguable.

  18. ursa major says

    Keep up the agitation.

    This is one guy who agrees with you and is not threatened by the style you choose for this essay.

    And Tigerloaf is an idiot.

    • Taru Dutt says

      URSA MAJOR – Brother, I’m thrilled that you stood up in support of women. Yes, all men are not oppressors – Taslima never said they were – and many women enable the system. I think her point was that that system hurts women most deeply and most often.

      I am a woman, and I thank you for your courageous support in not joining the boys’ club that seems to be forming here to bring down Taslima’s voice.

      Believe me, women desperately – desperately – need more solidarity from men. Because there are so many attempts to silence us out there. Some you have seen on this very page.

      • Raven01 says

        “Yes, all men are not oppressors – Taslima never said they were – and many women enable the system. I think her point was that that system hurts women most deeply and most often”
        Then why does she not call out women for their support of this?
        Why do men die earlier?
        Why do men have far less healthcare funding?
        Why are almost all dead soldiers men?
        Why are 80%+ men?
        And yet, you bitch about “having” to wear make-up? No one held a gun to your head and MADE you. So, “woman the hell up” and take responsibility for your own choices. THIS is why men have excelled where women have not, they are willing to own their stuff, to go against the popular options and do their own thing. What you don’t see is that for every 1 that succeeds 9 fail. Those 9 are the homeless, the mentally ill, the unloved, and unsupported. The men you don’t even see.

      • Limeywetlake says

        Men and boys need more solidarity from men and boys. Manginas and white knights are exempted however.

      • Voiceofreason says

        This is a prime example of a very annoying, hypocritical argument that I often hear from ‘feminists’. Any counter-argument to their claims is labelled as an attempt to ‘silence their voice’. The reason that this is hypocritical is that, in not allowing any debate or counter-argument, they themselves are silencing any voices I dissent.

    • Tyrant of Skepsis says

      You have a choice, Neo. Take the red pill and wake up to the wonderful world of the partriarchy, or take the blue pill and go back to sleep as if nothing had happened.

      • Kimski says

        Of course that ‘sleep’ would mean working yourself into an early grave to provide for a woman, who apparent is a victim of you, before she chooses to divorce you, steal your kids and your belongings, and rob you blind in biased divorce courts.

        -Or to be send off to die in wars, to provide ressources to the overconsumption of women back home, who apparently are the real victims, while you are being blown to pieces by other men, who are caught in the exact same trap as you.

  19. Gorbachev says

    One major point:

    “Believe me, women desperately – desperately – need more solidarity from men. Because there are so many attempts to silence us out there. Some you have seen on this very page.”

    Disagreement is not silencing.

    You can absolutely, 100% disagree. very actively and aggressively.

    But this is in no way “silencing”.

    • says

      Derailing is not disagreeing. And it is silencing.

      What you have done is derail. You have tried to rebut the OP by pointing out that there are also beauty standards for men. This is derailing. The OP was about women, and did not imply exclusivity of beauty standards. Making it “all about men” is derailing, and its a common silencing tactic whenever women attempt to write or speak about feminism or any oppression/discrimination/etc. directed at women.

      Your other objection is that even granting the point, beauty standards are simply natural, and therefore we shouldn’t try to change it. That’s the naturalistic fallacy, not even applied correctly (these beauty standards are *not* natural, and you need a lot more evidence if you want to consider that a disagreement). Our natural state as human beings is a world where we have half the life-span we currently enjoy. So don’t talk to me about it being impossible to change “natural” things.

      And responding to post calling out oppression by simply saying that it’s natural for women to be oppressed in this way so shut up is, in fact, definitionally silencing behavior.

      • Raven01 says

        The OP blames men for women’s inability to think for themselves. The two are related and it is not derailing.
        Haven’t noticed you throw your 2 cents in over all the ad hominems against anyone disagreeing with the OP’s flawed theory.

      • says

        The OP was about women, and did not imply exclusivity of beauty standards.

        I disagree. It does imply exclusivity because the whole narrative used here to explain why beauty standards exist only explains them for women. She’s either prioritizes provocation over nuance and accuracy or claiming that men don’t have beauty standards or that theirs are completely unrelated.

        It’s fine to have a focus, but I object that the title and many parts of the article are claims about what men feel. It’s not derailing for a man to object to being told what his own subjective experiences are. This isn’t just an article about how women are judged on their appearance considerably more than men and thus are under a lot more pressure to look good: it’s an article about how men hate women’s bodies. That’s speaking to the male experience and you have to expect that men will object if they think that their experiences are being represented inaccurately.

        • says

          You do not like to accept the bitter truth! Why do women try to alter their body? Is it to please a pack of lions or men? In a male dominated society who put the demands?

          • says

            My point is saying that men or women in general are responsible for something is always going to be false. “Men” haven’t done anything and aren’t responsible for anything. The same is true of women. People aren’t categories. Yes, perceived group membership gives people advantages and disadvantages in a lot of acculturated ways, but that’s not the same thing.

            Besides, patriarchy is an emergent system, not a conspiracy. If it’s something that men run to keep women in line, why does it have so many behavior strictures and other disadvantages for men? Who’s making men shave our faces, meaning we have to get up a few minutes earlier each day and sometimes get painful cuts? Who’s saying that men with long hair can be tattoo artists and roadies, but not bank presidents or other respectable jobs? If it’s men, why don’t we just stop and save ourselves the trouble? If it isn’t men as a category, then your framing is all wrong.

            To be clear, are you saying that beauty standards are something that men exclusively impose on women to serve men’s desires to the detriment of women? Which men? All of them? Just the jerks? Just the handful of super-rich?

  20. Gorbachev says

    And nowm point by point:

    Men hate woman’s body. Women learn from men to hate their own bodies. Media has been busy for decades advising women how they should look like.

    This is not metaphorical. It’s written to rally support and cause controversy. It’s demonstrably not true, but is designed as a type of slogan.

    Men hate women’s hair if they are not silky and long.

    Not true. Many men like short hair. These standards change by place and time. It would be wiser to say that men and women rate women’s attractiveness based on shifting standard, and that a female hierarchy is often deeply influenced by the percetion of attractiveness women have.

    Most women keep their hair long even though many of them feel comfortable having short hair. They use different chemicals to make their hair silky.

    Reframe:

    Men are expected to have hair. Women see bald men as less attractive. Many men suffer hair replacement surgery and wear toupees and dye their hair to appear younger and more virile to women.

    Men do not like the color of our skin. So women bleach their skin or get their skin tanned. We spend almost all our money to buy cosmetics so that we can decorate ourselves to something that men want us to be. We want to make men happy.

    Women do not like short men. Short men need to ovecompensate to acquire interest from women. Many short men suffer involuntary celibacy and earan far less money than tall men.

    The greatest signaller of attraction for women: Tallness in men.

    This is a form of oppression, far worse than makeup or skin tone, because it cannot be adjusted.

    Men do not like us when our hair turns grey. So we dye our hair.

    Again, easily reframeable.

    What’s being objected to is the appearance standards – any appearance standards – in the sexual marketplace.

    Or perhaps it’s the sexual – status marketplace that’s being objected to. Good luck fighting that. It’s much older than humanity.

    Men hate women’s eyes, eyebrows, nose, lips, cheeks, neck, ears. Women paint their eyes, eyebrows,cheeks, lips. We wear jewelries on our neck, we pierce our nose and ears to wear ornaments.

    The vast majority of men dislike makeup. In this Red Queen-like runaway selection game, women are largely reinforcing this among themselves for what they perceive as their own advantage. Like any competitive struggle, it runs to extremes.

    Men hate women’s breasts if breasts are not round and large. We wear push-up padded bras. We go for breast implants. Implants leak, rupture, burst. We increase our cancer risk. </I.

    Option:

    Do not engage in these practices and therefore assume the position in the sexual hierarchy genetics has given you.

    There's no obligation to get surgery. Please, this is entirely the wish of a woman to alter her state.

    The same would be true for men.

    The reason women get surgery is
    1) It's now cheaper, relatively safe and freely available
    2) Women want social status: if they can afford it, they can do it. Same goes for fancy hand bags, cars, jewelry, etc.
    3) Sexual attractiveness hierarchies are not imaginary.

    The way to escape from this is not to shame men.

    It's to accpet the genetic lottery and admit that the current body as it is is what a woman has. And to accept the PLACE in the sexual-social hierarchy that this gives her.

    it sounds to me that the real objection is to any social-sexual hierarchy at all. Good luck with that.

    Humans are shallow, insensitive animals. And I do mean animals.

    Men hate our natural abdominal fat. We almost stop eating to reduce our fat to please men. We suffer from anorexia, bulimia and other eating disorders. We become skeletons. We die. </I.

    Women hate fat men. Men have to exercise or face social shame and taunting from their women. Fat men are ridiculed on the street.

    Look: Both genders hate fat. Deal with it. Fat is not attractive in almost any culture.

    If this bothers women, then fat shaming of men and rejection of men as sexual partners for being fat should also bother you.

    I suspect it doesn't.

    Men hate us if our hymens are broken. We need to repair our hymens.
    Men hate our vagina if the passage is not very narrow and not very tight. We go for surgery under anesthesia to tighten vagina.

    This is wholly a Virgin-Obsession thing, and is not endemic or even common in North America or Europe. It’s wholly cultural.

    It’s a rare American or European who is a virgin past the age of 18; it’s a rare man who expects or even desires his wife to be a virgin.

    I would suggest addressing the Muslim and Indian crowds for this one.

    (BTW, this is also untrue now for East Asia).

    Men hate our natural leg hair. We shave our legs to make our legs unnatural. </I.

    Again, shall we enumerate all the ways men and women unnaturally alter themselves to appear more attractive.

    Does this imply hatred? Please.

    More objection to the existence of sexual standards or the sexual marketplace.

    Men hate our legs. So we wear high-heeled shoes to make us look taller. Our toes get bruised, our bones get broken, we suffer from sprained ankles and dislocations. We can not walk comfortably, we can not run when needed. But we continue wearing high heels to give men pleasure.

    Men universally are annoy4ed when their women wear these monstrosities. it means the women are crippled. No man wants a useless child as a mate.

    Men hate our wrinkled skin. So we use all kinds of chemicals on our faces, all kinds of anti-wrinkle or anti-aging creams. I wonder whether people really believe they can stop aging!

    Youth is attractive.

    That appears to be hard-wired into men.

    Deal with it. That may be an inescapable facet of human sexuality.

    That women aren’t so picky about age is interesting and indicatinve of varying programmed standards: Women want social status more than men do. Men seek physical attractiveness before many other things. That too appears to be hard-wired and is wholly cross-cultural.

    We even go for face-lifting, plastic cosmetic surgery to look a bit younger. Men can grow older, but they do not like that we women grow older.

    And this sectionh I could just not abide.

    We tell men that we like them for who they are.

    Excuse me?

    If any man could chime in, this is absolutely never the story men experience. It just never happens.

    Women are as shallow, selfish and demanding as men. Actual human experience demonstrates this every minute of every day.

    This is so absurd as to be genuinely insulting of both men and the basic humanity and independence of women. Again,stop infantilizing women. If you know American women, you know that they’re as snippy, argumentative and selfish as American men.

    They do not destroy their natural body to make us happy. They do not implant or reduce anything to please us.

    I guess this explains hair transplants, hair dying, gyms for older people (men), and the urge to impress women with baubles, money and social status.

    Has Taslima ever lived in California? There’s huge amounts of interesting plastic surgery performed on men.

    Perhaps not in India.

    There are evolutionary reasons for men to get attracted to women and for women to get attracted to men. But patriarchy, a system artificially imposed on society causes all the injustices and inequalities against women. Patriarchy is a system in which men dominate, oppress, suppress and exploit women. This system prevents women from being who they really are.

    What Taslima is objecting to very clearly is the exitence of standard which not all women can naturally meet. That women are judged based on appearance.

    This is the very core and nature of sexual selection. It’s not just part of being human: it’s the core of being a sexual being in competitoin with others of his or her own species.

    It’s also two-sided.

    I could object to women considering a man’s surplus wealth when deciding to have sex with him, to ranking males (even casually) in terms of sexual attractiveness, or of impugning social status from handy markers like age, style of dress or behavior.

    This is ultimately what makes such complaints absurd. It seeks to undo the very underpinnings not of “cultural patriarchy”, but of the transactional, hierarchical, savage garden of human sexuality.

    This is the single most powerful socially determining force in the human psyche. Good luck with that.

    • says

      Gorbachev has two points. I will respond to both with the power of snark:

      Shorter “what about teh menz” Gorbachev: but what about teh menz? Why would you ever write a post about beauty standards for women without also sticking up for teh menz? Don’t you know that every post should be about meeeeeeeeen?

      Shorter “evo-psych” Gorbachev: but but but it’s *natural* for men to treat women this way. So why you ever even try to criticize it?

      Yes, because everything natural is either good or inevitable.

      Also, Gorbachev, I don’t think that evo-psych bullshit is nearly as true as you think. Maybe there’s a reason why evo-psych is dissed by pretty much the entire fucking scientific establishment.

      Oh, and economists can’t even figure out how their *actul* field of study works, so, like, maybe you shouldn’t trust what they say about sex and relationships so much.

    • Mikey Flubb says

      Ugghh.

      When you have a new fresh-born babe that has sprout from a great womb shedding you will maybe understand, oh I forgot you do not have a womb and are wanting one to make a life.

      we make life and the menz/males cannot do this and this is what they are in want of crying for that very thing they cannot have.

      At the Wimmins Cave Enclave Pagan Wim spoke of this in great length and after my first child I had my womb removed by choice and had it set alight on the Pagan pyre against a blue moon.

      You may not understand why but we did not hug-break until dawn all of us there that night.

        • Mikey Flubb says

          Womb envy Kimski is at it again. A poem just for you.

          Kimski cries dry tears that freeze and spike my knave,
          Time will tell when he has rung that bell,
          Taking his empty coffin right to his grave,

          We cry for you and weep asunder and you plow us under,
          your well patted Phallus of that called thunder.

          We do not weep for you, do not weep for you as you do,
          Let us laugh and dance together,
          for the first and forever time that is now and will always be.

          • Kimski says

            See, Mikey??
            That just does not compute or make sense in any way. You just throw in words there, to fill out some basic understanding of rhyme, while you desperately look for a way to make sense of the words. And you keep failing at it, and miserably so.

            You really need to think about that translation manual, for more rational and clearheaded people. These rantings of yours just make you look like a cuckoo, looking for an asylum and a straightjacket.

      • Not buying it says

        Womb shedding, blood, tissue & gore ,!!!??

        I think I am about to throw up, akkk, yuk woman stop sharing awful disgusting comments.

  21. Tyrant of Skepsis says

    This is ultimately what makes such complaints absurd. It seeks to undo the very underpinnings not of “cultural patriarchy”, but of the transactional, hierarchical, savage garden of human sexuality.

    You are reading too many economics and/or bad evo psych books, comrade. Progress has been made to lift some pressure from women in western countries, for example to conform with the “traditional” gender roles as far as careers and autonomy wrt to child bearing are concerned. Why do you think it so utterly impossible to lift it some more. Our social conventions are not carved in stone. You would have to be completely blind to history to claim that there can never be any progress.

  22. says

    Taslima mam you do reply! There are ur comments!
    Yes mam women actually do not have any self respect n they r nt conscious about their value. They want to submit themselves according to men’s conditions and terms. Who are the men to certify them that they r good or bad, their parts are right or not, they are attractive or not. Today the women are so much educated n can earn their own but still they can’t rely themselves can’t consider themselves a comlete human being who does not have the need to be certified by another.The women have to build up the confidence that whatever I am,I am. The parts are not important. What important is the complete parsonality. The men are not any superior that he can judge her that whether she is good or bad. On the opposite women have to concentrate on the merits n demerits of a man whether he can be her partner atall. It does not mean that a man has to shave this or that, to do a sergery or not but it means that a woman has to be cautious about her own value n be careful to choose her partner according to her own intelligence,education n taste.

  23. madan says

    woman herself is woman’s enemy.woman compare’s herself with woman n want to look prettier younger than others.

  24. Jarrod says

    I hate high heals and for the life of me can not work out why any woman would ever wear them. I think most of the pressure for women to dress up comes from other women, most men I know don’t seem to care that much.

    • says

      Jarrod,

      I suspect heels are worn both to increase height and for the effect of making the calves and posterior thighs and hips appear firmer and posture.

      Stand with your heels up on a 2″ block (the book Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens works well too). Note the difference in your calves, hamstrings, glutes and posture.

      Unfortunately, high heels are absolutely horrible for the feet and ankles, and anything that alters gait sufficiently can cause problems all the way up to the neck as a result.

  25. says

    While there are cultural influences, much of what determines sexual attractiveness is biological. Things like waist to hip ratio, breast size, hair appearance, posture (which is affected by shoes), etc. are indicators of health and ability to produce fit offspring. The same goes for indicators of youth like hair color.

    This does not make these things objective indicators of an individual’s value as a person, but even being consciously aware of this isn’t going to change what men find sexually attractive in women.

    • says

      Hahahahaha no. Just no.

      Seriously, if you’re going to try to use evolution or biology to make this argument, actually try to get your facts right.

      Culturally determined beauty has varied WIDELY throughout even just the last 100 years. It simply isn’t biologically determined. If it were, the variance would all be within a certain range. But unhealthily skinny is the current beauty standard, whereas quite overweight used to be, and don’t get me started on other cultures. (Seriously, read a book on anthropology. Seriously. Go do that now.) So, no, it has nothing to do with child-bearing or any such nonsense.

      Also, all those ratios and sizes and whatnot you quote? Ask any doctor: the current “ideal” woman? Not a healthy body.

      • says

        “Unhealthily skinny” is the beauty standard set by who? I thought this was about what men find attractive, and I don’t know any men who find women who are “unhealthily skinny” more attractive than ones who are within healthy body fat ranges.

        I am well aware of the role in culture in this and variation between times and places and not dismissing that, but it is also a mistake to dismiss the biological aspects of it, and that sexual attractiveness has a lot to do with perception of health and “fitness”.

        Also, I suspect what some people consider an “unhealthy” weight often depends on their own. The fatter a person, the higher they seem to think a healthy weight is and the more critical they are of women who aren’t “curvy”.

        While it is certainly possible to be too thin and to weigh too little, this is certainly not a problem the majority of women in the US have (I can’t speak for other countries).

        • says

          You’re just so close, but you haven’t bothered asking yourself why I need to look fertile for hetero men to get that job or get that promotion or get that raise.

          In some states, compulsory make-up at work is not considered sex discrimination.

          Women who are 15 pounds lighter than average make about 15k more per year. Women who are 15 pounds heavier make 15k less, for a total spread of 30k. Why do I need to have your idealized waist to hip ratio to make a living wage?

          That’s what we’re so fucking pissed about. Think about it. Take two minutes out of your busy schedule of mansplaining to pull your head far enough out of your ass to see women as human beings and empathize.

          • says

            Um, being more attractive increases salaries across the board for both men and women. Thus, you aren’t finding some massive form of sexism or patriarchy here, but are instead merely pointing out looks discrimination.

          • says

            Thanks for clearing that up! For a minute there, I was worried there was a well-documented wage gap between men and women. PHEW! Gosh, that’s such a relief.

          • says

            So, are you suggesting that it is this “weight” thing that causes the wage gap between men and women? Please.

            Snark is no substitute for having an actual argument and sticking with it.

          • says

            Wow, you’re kind of dense, huh? Do you think that the wage gap affects an entirely different set of women than the weight gap affects? You really can’t even imagine how they might be connected? Sorry, I don’t engage with ignorant people whose only counter-argument is “nuh UH!”

          • says

            And yet, you didn’t actually engage my argument, which was that the weight thing was LOOKS DISCRIMINATION and not SEXISM. I argue that they are not the same thing. What’s your reply to that?

            It is irrelevant if both overt sexism and overt looks discrimination are part of the wage gap. My argument was that the latter — to whatever degree it might contribute — is not sexism, as it seems you implied. So, either address the comment or cut out the insults and snark.

    • Mikey Flubb says

      I am a very obese wimmin thank you the advertizing giants that take our money.

      My husband loves my round shape and hair everywhere. I have more hair on my arms than he has and I cut my long hair off last summer and do not think I will stop shaving it every week.

        • Mikey Flubb says

          Oh very funny.
          We have a loving arrangement fyi.

          I know he cannot curb his wanton lust for other wimmin so I surrender twice a week to his “fantasy”. It might sound sick to you but I do as all strong independent wimmin do and compromize with compassion, tolerance and pragmatizm. For a few short minutes I am on all fours with a collar tethered to a “lead” and I smear myself in his Phallus spill.

          Laugh away, but at least I have the gutz to admit it. Do you have the gutz to admit you are impressed with my sheer honesty and self revelation? I see nothing on offer from you in this way.

          • Kimski says

            I’m not going to laugh at you over this, Mikey. You provide an abundance of oppotunities in so many other ways.

            What I am going to do is pity you even more, than I already do.

            Your willingness to denigrate yourself as a human being fits right into the profile, and I’m sure it provides you ample reasoning for your hatred of men.

            Have you ever considered saying no, which is perfectly okay, and what most people in charge of their own life would do?

            I refuse to believe that you are a mindless slave to these circumstances in your life, and if you want things to change, you actually have to put in the work yourself. No knight in shiny armor is going to come to your rescue, and that’s a reality that the vast majority of men live with every day, for the rest of their lives.

            As soon as you wake up to this fact and start taking control over your own life, we might actually be able to discuss these things as grown ups, but if you continue doing what you do, which is nothing besides bitching about it, while not taking responsibility for yourself and your choices, I will continue to adress you as I would adress a spoiled child throwing a tantrum.

            And you have given me absolutely no reason NOT to, so far.You just keep throwing the victim card on the table, and it is not OTHER people’s responsibility to change things. It is YOUR OWN.

          • Not buying it says

            I Don’t believe anybody normal would utter & type words like ” fyi I rub myself in peppermint ochre squeezed from the root of a tree ,…etc ”

            WHAT !! ??

            You are delusional lady & in need of some serious residential mental therapy miss & I truly hope you find it.

  26. Ysanne says

    This is exactly the kind of post that gives feminism a bad name.

    Yes, society’s standards for female attractiveness are shallow and a number of men buy into them. (So do many women.) Yes, way too much emphasis is placed on women being physically attractive to men, as if this were the only thing that matters about them. This is based on the idea that the center of a woman’s existence is to find a husband, who will support her financially and run and control her life in exchange for her taking care of his private needs and bearing his children.
    THIS kind of reduction of women from independent people to men’s servants is what feminism is against.

    To state that “men hate women’s bodies” the way it is meant in this post is just factually wrong: Simply because typical (hetero) men are generally attracted to women’s bodies simply for the fact that they’re female. And a preference for certain traits does not imply a hate for bodies that are not perfect (and the preferences vary wildly between individuals anyway). And some examples are simply over-generalising specific cultural expectations of female beauty: most notably the hymen thing, which is just plain nonexistent in Western culture.

    But most importantly, these easily refuted claims of hate just distract from the actual problem: Which is that women are taught that their main quality is being attractive to men in general, and by implication that their ultimate goal is have a husband, and that their worth measured by their success in scoring a “high-quality” husband through their good looks.

    The only context in which I could see the title claim — that men hate women’s bodies — making sense is the one related to men trying to control women’s sexuality by making them hide their bodies: Exactly because they are generally attracted to women’s bodies, optimised or not, and see this as a form of power that they don’t want women to have.

    • Adam says

      Well said. This is a terrible article to publish. This is just some random venting which is fine but not worth publishing.

    • Tyrant of Skepsis says

      “This is exactly the kind of post that gives feminism a bad name.”

      Excuse me for a minute while I weep over the deminse of good and nice feminism.

      But seriously, it is clear that the text is a polemic, not a philosophical treatise, and uses some poetic freedom to get a point across. Even I immediately got she did not imply with this text that I myself personally hate women with shortish legs and without hymens, despite my Y chromosome.

      “And a preference for certain traits does not imply a hate for bodies that are not perfect”

      Using the appearance of women with less than perfect (according to certain standards) bodies to insult them or attack them is quite common, ins’t it? Almost as common as attacking tham for having near perfect bodies according to the same standards.

      “most notably the hymen thing, which is just plain nonexistent in Western culture.”

      Oh noes, she said something that doesn’t apply to your privileged ass. The horror!

      “Which is that women are taught that their main quality is being attractive to men in general, and by implication that their ultimate goal is have a husband, and that their worth measured by their success in scoring a “high-quality” husband through their good looks.”

      And if they do not conform to this notion of attractiveness? Then Goto 10.

      • Ysanne says

        But seriously, it is clear that the text is a polemic, not a philosophical treatise, and uses some poetic freedom to get a point across.

        Writing a polemic is no excuse for a string of claims that are plain wrong whatever way you look at it, literally, metaphorically or as an exaggeration. The idea that patriarchy is about “men hate women” instead of “men try control women” oversimplifies the complex issue of systematic power imbalance to personal dislike, and so also feminism becomes about hating men back, or trying to change their hate, instead of fighting to get women equal power.

        Using the appearance of women with less than perfect (according to certain standards) bodies to insult them or attack them is quite common, ins’t it? Almost as common as attacking tham for having near perfect bodies according to the same standards.

        So it’s not about the woman’s body living up to standard or not, it’s about finding anything to insult her about, in order to denigrate her and prevent her from exercising power and agency.
        It’s also quite common to more directly insult women’s intelligence, leadership and other qualities. Whatever comes to mind first, really.

        “most notably the hymen thing, which is just plain nonexistent in Western culture.”

        Oh noes, she said something that doesn’t apply to your privileged ass. The horror!

        Nice try, try better.
        When writing a piece about how men universally hate every aspect of women’s bodies, it’s not a good idea to get hung up on things that hinges on one very specific religion, and is totally irrelevant to others.

        And if they do not conform to this notion of attractiveness? Then Goto 10.

        Then they’re unsuccessful and haven’t attained their goal (they’ll only get a low-prestige husband, or one that wasn’t only going for the good looks, the horror). They’re not hated for that, they just lose in the competition.
        But the actual problem is the existence of such a competition at all, not the criteria by which one could win!

      • Limeywetlake says

        Oh, a polemic, right; just like Solanas’ writings were Swiftian satire. **Ahem!**
        Right….
        Feminists really are their own worst enemy (and they think it is men…)

  27. Gregory Marshall says

    I think the word “society” would be better than “men”, as I feel it is more of a problem with our whole society. As for those upset about the generalization, I think what Taslima was going for was the broad spectrum for effect. Of course she does not think all men or all of society think this way about women but let’s be honest, Society does put some ridiculous standards on women and what “it” deems as acceptable.

    • Mikey Flubb says

      Agreed,

      The womb envy dead walkers among us are crazy for their standard issue wimmin to be bought and sold on the market of hatred and bad will.

      We can never let this happen sistas, never.

      • Kimski says

        For those of you who might not know, ‘Mikey Flubb’ here belongs to that hategroup of radical feminists that conspire to reduce the male population to 10% in the future. They have absolutely no qualms when it comes to eradicating a huge percentage of the women and children in the process, and can very well be compared to the most radical nazi’s of WWII.

        So when Mikey speaks of not hating anyone, she does it with the same understanding of the term, that a 5 year old child has. She is a very disturbed and mentally unstable person, who belongs in a place where someone can take care of her.
        And she is a prime example of what feminism has done to 50% of the demographic in the past 50 years.

        God help us all and our sons.

        • Mikey Flubb says

          I will be going back to your site every 28 days and telling the truth about wimmin whether you like it or not.

          • Kimski says

            And you will be met with a warm welcome commitee, Mikey. I can promise you that for nothing. We have minds immensely superior to mine in there, with more than 40 years of experience in dealing with your kind.

            If you really want to put yourself through a masochistic experience like that, I can only say: ‘Go ahead, kiddo’.
            It might not as funny as you anticipate, because amongst those minds are some excellent psychiatrists, who knows exactly what is wrong with you, and will be more than happy to inform you what can be done to help you, and what medication you’ll need.

            And you just don’t strike me as a person that can handle that kind of truth, Mikey.

  28. Annie says

    For those of you saying it’s women competing with women often, and not always necessarily guys pushing them into “prettying up”…there’s a point here that you miss. Women who compete with one another are doing just that: competing. That means that there’s some incentive, a goal. If you think women are just naturally born with some kind of vanity complex driving them to be the Fairest of Them All, that’s a large misconception, sort of sexist in its simplicity. Women who compete do it because there’s value to be gained in being attractive, because as a culture we elevate women’s worth based on their appearances, and because on some internal level these women know that. It all comes down to being desirable, and it’s not being desirable to the women they’re competing with that women aim…it’s men. I know that when another women flaunts her feathers at me she’s really saying, “Men would like me a little bit better than you.” (In high school I would flaunt back, but nowadays I know what I’m dealing with, and respond in kindness and disinterest.)

    I realize I appear heteronormative, by the way. But I’m not trying to, really. I’m just specifically referring to heterosexual social dynamics because I’m not sure the statements I made directly translate to same-sex situations, and for a variety of reasons.

    • Gorbachev says

      I realize that his is true, of course. And it highlights another issue:

      As long as competition for mates exists, in other words, so long as people are heterosexual, there will be a sexual marketplace. As long as different people are valued differently, there will be a hierarchy. As long as there is a hierarchy, there will be standards, and many people will not meet them.

      Ergo: as long as people seek to mate, and this will be an ongoing thing, this problem will continue. In effect, heterosexuality is essentially a problem. Mating and breeding is a problem in this analysis.

      You would have to eliminate both, which would incidentally also entail eliminating us as a species. We are just mammals, after all. There’s not much special about us, really.

      When it comes to mating, we really are just a bunch of large monkeys. We have trouble dealing with this.

      What shocks many people s that as women gain more power in the West, instead of ceasing to be commodities, rather its men who are also being commoditized alongside women.

      With the discarding of spirituality and the opening of the sexual floodgates, sex has become just another mode of consumption, and other people are nothing more than avenues to consume that which we want.

      Its the same for food. At one time, food was both sustenance and an avenue for appreciating the universe. For most people today, it’s a gluttonous repast downed for pleasure’s sake only.

      Face it: We commoditize each *other* on a vast scale now. If you actually step back and look at Western culture, this is what equality and plenty has wrought.

      It’s just as true in East Asia, the other place I have much experience in. In CHina, it’s certainly true. In Korea, superficial standards rule for both men and women. In Japan it’s even moreso.

      This is human nature. With freedom comes the unleashing of all of the least spiritual, least pleasant aspects of the human psyche, always there and usually controlled by various forms of social pressure (often oppressive pressure).

      It’s why religions have a loathing and fear of sexuality. It unleashes things that are barely controllable, let along moldable.

      What looks like patriarchy is emblematic of something far more disturbing, to those who imagine that we’re civilized and tameable animals.

      Women use men as much as men use women. As much as women use women and men use men.

      We are, in the end, far more similar, even across gender lines, than these bipolar gender analyses want to admit.

      • Adam says

        Agreed.

        I know I’m not even allowed to mention ev psych but I imagine even the first humans were innately attracted to some women/men more than other women/men. I don’t think I’ve been conditioned to find morbidly obese women unattractive.

        That said, outside of Vogue magazine, there seems to be an incredibly broad range of “types” that are considered attractive.

        • Mikey Flubb says

          Adam,

          I am sorry but your words are like nothing to the wimmin here who really know more about this than you.

          Check in the mirror please and you will find patriarchy and no matter how hard you scrub you can never wash it off.

          • Kimski says

            For those of you who might not know, ‘Mikey Flubb’ here belongs to that hategroup of radical feminists that conspire to reduce the male population to 10% in the future. They have absolutely no qualms when it comes to eradicating a huge percentage of the women and children in the process, and can very well be compared to the most radical nazi’s of WWII.

            So when Mikey speaks of not hating anyone, she does it with the same understanding of the term, that a 5 year old child has. She is a very disturbed, dangerous and mentally unstable person, who belongs in a place where someone can take care of her. And she is a prime example of what feminism has done to 50% of the demographic in the past 50 years.
            God help us all and our sons.

          • Mikey Flubb says

            Womb Envy Stalker Kimski is at it again,

            I will be going back to your site every 28 days and telling the truth about wimmin whether you like it or not.

      • Ysanne says

        While some of the ev.psych stuff makes sense, it misses the point a little by placing the focus on “how do we choose a mate” and “what do we consider an important trait in a mate”.
        As opposed to why women’s only focus seems to be mate-finding, whereas for men it’s just one more aspect of their lives: Because the only thing women are seen to be good for is being someone’s wife, and they have no worth or power of their own.
        I think this is much more to the core of the problem than the specifics of evaluating a mate’s worth.

        • Kimski says

          “As opposed to why women’s only focus seems to be mate-finding”

          So what planet do you come from? It’s quite obviously nowhere near Earth.
          Women compete viciously over the attention of a small percentage of alpha males, who will pump & dump them ASAP, after which they will take their hatred and disappointentment out on the rest of MANkind, like spoiled little brats.
          Just like it is being done in this line of comments from the vast majority of women.
          If you lowered your standards and started to base them on what you yourselves actually have to offer, I’m sure there would be lots of men that would actually stick around.
          But right now, with the majority of women basing their worth on an overinflated sense of entitledment, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
          Quite the contrary actually, so get used to it.

  29. says

    “Men hate woman’s body. Women learn from men to hate their own bodies.”

    Again, generalization does not strengthen your case, it weakens it. Maybe English isn’t your best language, but after it has been pointed out to you that “men” usually means “all men” or at least “most men” and not “some men”, then you should heed this advice. Yes, one can say “all men” and the meaning is clear. However, one can also say “some men” and the meaning is clear, if that is what you mean.

    • Taru Dutt says

      Taslima, please don’t buy into the patronizing “Since English is not your first language” crap. When you said men, it does not mean “all men.” No, forsooth, not even in English. It means you are pointing out a general trend, and you are perfectly right to say “men” or “women” or “Indians” or “Chinese.” It does not mean all members of that group, and it is untrue, and one of the first steps in denial, to claim that it does.

      Taslima, you are spot-on – here, as you usually are elsewhere, too. Kudos, and solidarity from a feminist woman who thinks women are just as power-hungry as men, and intrinsically no better – but no worse. And that the system – yea, e’en in anorexia-loving Califunny – is weighted against women almost everywhere you go. Not that stops women from enabling the system. It never did.

      There, I said “women.” However, I suspect the olde patriarchs on this page will not now come forward, hearts bleeding, to ask why I am impugning ALL women. For, with the honesty that deserts them, taking flight in a whirr of beating wings when it’s men who are being talked about, they will know perfectly well that not ALL women are meant.

    • Dianne says

      “men” usually means “all men” or at least “most men” and not “some men”

      Absolute BS. I’m a native speaker of English and knew exactly what she meant. The only time I’ve ever seen someone insist that “men” (or any other group name) means “all men” is when that person is trying to make a rhetorical point against the original speaker/writer and doesn’t have a substantial argument to make.

      • Taru Dutt says

        Exactly, Dianne! Thanks for joining in to put the “all men” denial-step-one to rest. If Taslima meant all men, she would have said all men.

        She did not.

        Some readers chose to think she did.

        Their problem. Not hers.

      • Raven01 says

        “Absolute BS. I’m a native speaker of English and knew exactly what she meant. The only time I’ve ever seen someone insist that “men” (or any other group name) means “all men” is when that person is trying to make a rhetorical point against the original speaker/writer and doesn’t have a substantial argument to make.”

        By your “reasoning” it is perfectly acceptable for a man to say that, “Women are vapid, useless airheads” And, then backpedal and say, “I only meant Sarah Palin and Sandra Bernhardt”
        Please.
        That is a terribly weak stance.
        Say what you mean and, mean what you say.
        When someone says, “men” they MEAN “men as a group” or “men as a class”. That would be MOST men.

    • says

      I haven’t meant some men, I meant most men. If some men have practiced patriarchy, and most men haven’t, patriarchy would have gone extinct long ago. Both men and women are responsible to keep the misogynistic system alive for centuries.

      • Raven01 says

        First, prove there is even a “patriarchy” rather than a “matriarchy”.
        Men do many things, they do these things to gain approval of women. Therefore, it is in fact women driving men to do much of what they do. Making women the ones in charge.
        So all of this whining about a “patriarchy” really is just a bunch of women unhappy with the very things that most women have encouraged in men.
        You might be better suited for women to take ownership of their own issues and deal with them like adults.

  30. Frogmistress says

    Face it: We commoditize each *other* on a vast scale now. If you actually step back and look at Western culture, this is what equality and plenty has wrought.

    See what happens when you demand equality, ladies? You brought all this about with your demands for equality. SMH

    Gorbachev, you have the worst view of humans I’ve seen outside of the cults that preach we are all sinners and doomed. What a bunch of crap.

      • Mikey Flubb says

        More concerned if it was told how

        * 1 in 2 wimmin are beaten and raped every decade in this country.
        * Wimmin get 56 percent pay as men./males
        * Wimmin are twelve times more likely to die from infection in hospitals around the world
        * Wimmin effigies in Japan, Greece and Malaysia are burnt in rituals in the public squares of the capital cities for male approval and masturbatory pleasure.
        * Wimmin shelters only receive 23 times the funding compared to mens/male shelters. (Men/males are never beaten by their wives)
        * Wimmin cry much more than men/males yet the cost of tissues are the same for both genders.

        Maybe then there might be a “round” table discussion where both genders can sit down and break bread instead of wimmins hearts souls and minds.

        • Kimski says

          “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a woman in everlasting ignorance — that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”

          HERBERT SPENCER

          • Mikey Flubb says

            I am watching you very closely and following your movements here on this thread as I suspect you are stalking me.

  31. says

    Gorbachev and Ysanne have said all I need to say. I’ll just emphasize that if you want to see superficiality in the context of sexual attraction, read personal ads. The most common “must have” is size: the man should be taller than the woman. Often, explicit minima in terms of inches or centimetres are mentioned. This preference seems much more common than any male preference. (It also has nothing to do with health and can’t be changed.) As Gore Vidal said, pornography is a mirror of society. Whatever type a woman is, there are men who prefer that. Check it out. But many men don’t really care. While most women might not care as much about appearance of men, they care even more about health (which implies age: if one can become old, one must be healthy—how old was Sean Connery when he was voted “sexiest man alive”?), wealth, status. If you think an ugly woman has a hard time, ask a poor man. .

    • Dianne says

      The most common “must have” is size: the man should be taller than the woman.

      My partner is shorter than me and most of my previous partners have been within a centimeter of my height. Therefore you’re wrong and are horribly overgeneralizing and generally victimizing women (/snark, in case it isn’t obvious.)

      • says

        The sad thing is that it really happens that someone makes a claim which is true about the majority—and never implied that it goes for ALL, just for MOST—and someone else comes along with ONE example and claims that it refutes the claim about the majority. Yes, a claim about the majority, as any claim, can be right or wrong, but it can never be refuted by a SINGLE counterexample.

    • Dianne says

      While most women might not care as much about appearance of men, they care even more about health (which implies age: if one can become old, one must be healthy—how old was Sean Connery when he was voted “sexiest man alive”?), wealth, status. If you think an ugly woman has a hard time, ask a poor man.

      Come to think of it, my partner also makes less money than me. **Gasp!**

      Incidentally, for both men and women, but more so for women, beautiful=what is hard for a poor person to achieve. If food is scarce, curvy is attractive. If food is overabundant, thin is in. So poor man/ugly woman is a false dichotomy because you’re really saying the same thing in both cases.

      • ik says

        I think that in general power of all types is attractive, though patriarchy has reduced and re-formed that (though not eliminated) for women. Some things people do to look good that have negative consequences might be a kind of show-off act, ‘look at me I’m so badass / wealthy / high status I don’t have to care about the negative consequences. Of course, men don’t usually do this anymore, which is a bid odd given how patriarchy used to be stronger.

  32. The Rose says

    You, uh, don’t read Taslima?
    And it’s funny too, you get all this, “I actually think a little fat on a girl is kinda cute”, “I actually told my wife I like her small boobs”, “I actually told my girlfriend to wear flat shoes”….Who cares what you think is pretty or what you told your wife to do?

    Nice comments by Yessenia I thought.

  33. says

    I’m a little bemused at how blythely all the men here who are denying that those things are required for at least them to be attractive is being dismissed when the starting point is, it seems to me, that women have to do this to be attractive to men. Surely, then, men coming here to say that it’s not true for them might help indicate to women that doing that, in fact, is not required to attract men and so that maybe then can, well, stop doing it.

    Of course, we’d need studies to show this and show that the men here aren’t just an aberration. But surely men coming here and saying “Meh” should give cause to think that these things aren’t, in fact, actually necessary and that societal standards are imposing something that men themselves don’t actually want.

    The issue with competition is that it’s women vying to be the MOST attractive and get the most attention, and so to be able to get the highest status men. This has little to do with whether men would find them attractive if they didn’t go through that effort; in most cases, the men would find them appealing regardless. In fact, since most of the competition aims at meeting the societal standards of attractiveness with are designed for the broadest appeal, some changes will actually lower the attractiveness of the woman for some people. As an example, contacts are often used to get closer to the norm … except that I, personally, prefer women who wear glasses, and so switching out would actually make her less appealing to me. So it depends on what you want: broad appeal or specific group appeal. The former gets you more general dates, but the latter gets more people who find you exceptional.

    The problem I see here is that the generalizations drift far too far to be an argument that can be taken seriously. The generalizations of attractiveness are, as many have pointed out, shaky, but at least somewhat credible. The generalizations of motive, however, even if we take “hate” as dramatic exaggeration and rhetoric, seem to wildly miss the mark. There is no doubt that some men feel that way, but it seems inconceivable to me that most men actually do feel that way … and since you’re talking about the internal states of me, we surely have valuable insight into that.

    • says

      The point that’s consistently missed by the mansplaining Nigels on this thread is that no one ought to have to care what they think is attractive.

      The problem isn’t that men think the wrong things are attractive. The solution, therefore, isn’t for men to change what they think is attractive.

      What needs to happen is for men’s opinions of women’s appearance to be as utterly irrelevant to women’s lives as women’s opinions of men’s appearance is to men’s lives.

      What needs to happen is for women to have real power, so they don’t mutilate themselves or their daughters for the pseudopower of sexuality.

      That’s the point of Taslima’s list of examples. Not that all men think this or all men want that. That all men can assume they have the authority and the right to rudely share their opinions of women’s bodies whenever, where ever, however.

      • says

        If you have an interest in attracting men physically, then you do have to care what men find attractive. Just as men do for women. Since this is the thing that, you know, causes reproduction, you kinda do need to do it.

        Which also means that this comment:

        What needs to happen is for men’s opinions of women’s appearance to be as utterly irrelevant to women’s lives as women’s opinions of men’s appearance is to men’s lives.

        is false, at least in its application. Women’s opinions of men’s appearance is, as people have pointed out, becoming INCREDIBLY important to men’s lives, just as important as the reverse. And it has always been the case that what women find ATTRACTIVE in a man, whatever it is that makes her swoon and start thinking of him sexually, have been precisely as important to men’s lives as what men find attractive has been to women. Sex is a major driving force in human behaviour, and so whatever leads to that will be considered important.

        But if Taslima simply wanted to get across a message that women shouldn’t care about what men think of their physical attractiveness or some kind of “girl power” message, she didn’t need to make it by trying to demonize male preferences. What good does it to do set up an adversarial argument? All she needs to do is explain why women don’t need to or shouldn’t care about that, or at least not care about it so much that they hurt themselves.

        Perhaps she could start by pointing out that for most people, attractiveness is an overall impression that includes an impression of the type of person they are, and so that is more important than the societal standards of “sexiness”.

      • Raven01 says

        Oh now I get it, Yessina is mentally handicapped.
        “The point that’s consistently missed by the mansplaining Nigels on this thread is that no one ought to have to care what they think is attractive.”
        Only a retard could drop that gem and not realize that our outward appearance IS in fact quite important. Have you never heard, “The clothes make the man”?
        Would you buy stocks and bonds from a poorly dressed scrawny man that looked to be either sick or abusing drugs?
        Me either.
        Yet you attempt to fault men for expecting a woman selling stocks and bonds from looking healthy and well groomed? Or for having our own individual preferences in body type for who we find attractive? While women also have this exact same bias?

    • Mikey Flubb says

      Menz/males hate us.

      We speak of this at the Wimmins Cave Enclave and readings from all gifted wimmins orate there.

      It is our “womb space” and no men allowed thank you.

      We do not hate those that hate us. If only they can be like us and never feel hatred as we only feel compassion and love for other wimmins.

      • Kimski says

        For those of you who might not know, ‘Mikey Flubb’ here belongs to that hategroup of radical feminists that conspire to reduce the male population to 10% in the future. They have absolutely no qualms when it comes to eradicating a huge percentage of the women and children in the process, and can very well be compared to the most radical nazi’s of WWII.

        So when Mikey speaks of not hating anyone, she does it with the same understanding of the term, that a 5 year old child has. She is a very disturbed, dangerous and mentally unstable person, who belongs in a place where someone can take care of her. And she is a prime example of what feminism has done to 50% of the demographic in the past 50 years.
        God help us all and our sons.

        • Mikey Flubb says

          You didn’t make that up just now, you pasteurized it from what you said earlier on in this thread.

          • Kimski says

            Very observant of you, my dear ‘Watson.
            I didn’t need any other reply, because that is really all people need to know about you, in order to understand where your coming from, Mikey.

  34. mnb0 says

    Before writing this you might do some research. You will be surprised that matters are not that simple. You might find out that women pay so much attention to their outlooks as much to impress each other as to please men.
    Ask some psychologist.

    @Yessenia: I vehemently disasgree. My female counterpart thinks my opinion on her appearances as relevant as I think of hers. That’s called love, you know.

  35. ik says

    Oh god not this again. Taslima is pretty aware of the problems of mansplaining, overly difficult beauty standards, and numerous other problems. (some of these ones mentioned are, if I am correct, not common among white Americans.)

    And a fair number of the male commenters here kind of are getting things wrong.

    Unfortunately, the answer really is not ‘womansplaining’.

    I really disagree with the whole hate issue. Most natural but well-maintained bodies are NOT HATED, I am reasonably sure. I agree that it is more of some kind of competition to please the male gaze which patriarchy has driven ludicrously out of proportion, while destroying attempts to please the female gize.

    I agree that women actually do a lot of the beauty standard enforcing. Not sure if the actual standards (meaning the modern day ones) are caused by men. Certainly infused by the male gaze.

    Personally, I favor a culture change that moderately reduces demands on women’s appearances, that increases demands on men’s appearances, that changes beauty standards in both cases to represent health, power, and a more egalitarian approach to sensuality.

    Meanwhile, transhumanism is a big thing that’s coming and it’s going to engineer away a lot of human flaws in all of us.

    • Gorbachev says

      The whole mansplaining charge is just an attempt to belittle and silence men, as if we are moral imbeciles or irrelevant to the debate. It’s reprehensible that the commented resorted to such shameful depths. I always try to remain respectful of other peoples voices; why can’t self-declared “feminists”?

      As far as women being obliged to please the male gaze, again, thus us purely a function of biology: our social status largely derives from how attractive the opposite sex sees us. Even if we are nit fishing fir mates, thus remains the social currency. That’s life as a bipedal social primate.

      And I’m not disparaging humanity: it’s no shame to admit we are animals in every sense if the word. We are.

      Men are judged often on their attractiveness as a mate, too; it’s just that what males a male homo sapiens attractive to a female is not entirely the same as what makes the female attractive to the male. Men are much more visual and care much less about social status. They are also much more interested in sex for it’s own sake. Women consistently key to social status, in men.

      It’s not a double standard. Women just aren’t as interested in the opposite sex appearance as men are. Hence the much greater pressure on men to have social status and power.

      The problem with all of this blinkered analysis is that it’s not taking inti account the whole social process: it’s entirely limited in scope.

      It’s effectively the same as male sexists trying to see issues without considering the bigger picture.

      Conclusions like society hates women and men hate wOmen are absurd on their face because the analysis doesn’t take into account the underlying cause–

      Which is not sexist in and of itself. The result may be, but recall: the equivalent is not looking at how men deal with their bodies, but at how men must match what women desire.

      Women desire height, wealth, power. Men are judged by men and women based on this.

      That’s the proper comparison. And I’d like to point out that American society is obsessed with ranking and grinding down men . Dont just look at the top dogs. Look at the rank and file.

      For a normal guy, it’s not exactly pie and ice cream either.

      I’m nit saying beauty standards are irrelevant, only that coming to hyperbolic, outrageous conclusions to score cultural political points is fundamentally a weak way to approach thus issue.

      What taslima has an issue with is how the superficial, human hierarchical instinct plays out on the ground, for women.

      Attacking beauty standards alone won’t help anyone. If you want to root out this problem, you need to go to its source. this source is not patriarchy.

      It is, alas, the reality that humans are sex and eating machines. All the philosophy in the world might paper over this, but it remains the fundamental truth.

      Society is not all that far removed in essence from that of our australopithecine ancestors. We like to think so, but human instinct and desires remain the same.

      And while different, men and women are shockingly similar.

      If there’s a problem with thus issue, then the real target is what makes people attractive, which means going after human sexuality. Human sexuality is not fluid enough for reform.

      What you need to do to do this is take breeding out of the question. Good luck.

      Women can do this. Abandon the quest to be more attractive than other females. Abandon the sexuality game.

      That’s easy. But no one wants to do that. Plenty of men drop out of the status game for various reasons.

      Why cant women?

      If you don’t like the game, just don’t play. Just don’t wear heels or makeup.

      Men: don’t bother working fir a promotion if only tall guys get promoted. Spend the extra time fishing or whatever.

      Women are primarily valued for their youth and beauty. Men are primarily valued for their status and power. Shockingly, this mirrors what attracts men to women and vice versa.

      This fact Aline demonstrates that women and men create hierarchies based on sexual market value. Even in you are celibate, others judge you based on your sexual marketability.

      Humans are clever apes. Human society is primate society. This is our nature. It’s not unhappy or sad. It just is.

  36. West Phyrd says

    Your premise is flawed.

    Women do not dress and make themselves up to please men; they do it for other women.

    As proof I offer this simple fact:

    If women dressed to please men they would be naked 🙂

    West Phyrd.

  37. AnatomyProf says

    For what it’s worth, and that may be quite little given what I could get through of the conversation above, I like: small breasts, graying hair, and a bit of fat to hold on to. I do not like high heels and hate makeup. Thankfully my wife of almost 16 years doesn’t wear heels. Unfortunately she feels that she needs to wear make up, though not too much, despite my protests. She did to wear makeup when we met. She will not let her hair go gray, though I’ve tried to convince her to at least give it a try. The unfortunate nature of our societies standards is that she obviously feels compelled to uphold them despite the fact that her husband doesn’t share them. Does she want to catch the eye of other men? This is likely, as most of us appreciate the interest of others even if we have no intention of reciprocating. Does the place these perceived.societal preferences on me despite my protests? Probably, as members of groups get treated as if they are the “average group member” rather than as the individual they are. In the end, whatever the cause or current reality of this perceived preference gone out of control, we all lose. While the bulk of the harm here impacts women I can tell you that the average man does not benefit from this arrangement. To parhrase what was said earlier in the thread, the average guy wants someone who will love him, hang out with him, have sex with him, and do what he likes with him (tv, sports, video games, fishing etc…) from time to time. That’s really about it. The way that entertainment and advertising treat sex and sex appeal disgust us too.

  38. Mikey says

    Just wanted to make a note here. Men are hurt by the patriarchy too. Men and women are shamed for their body unless they’re the ideal, the difference being that both are for the man’s power fantasy. On every level both men and women are oppressed with the women getting the heavier hit. Men and women are shamed about being fat, men are shamed for having a fat girlfriend as though it is lesser. Men shame each other if the man isn’t attracted to what the patriarchy has deemed appropriate.

    I was so fat shamed about my body that I had a hard time seeing heavy women as attractive. It took a long time to see that for what it was and see it for the problem I have, not the problem women have.

    Men and women are hurt by the patriarchy, by the men and women who choose, knowingly or unknowingly, to reenforce it and women always getting hurt the hardest when they do.

    I know you don’t mean to generalize and it’s easier to make such arguments but you reenforce the patriarchal line that all men are one way when you do so, and it hurts.

  39. says

    Damn it, but I hate blanket-statements.

    The fact that you use them so liberally in this post undermines, in my opinion, the real plight of real women struggling under real patriarchy. All this does is divide the genders rather than unite them.

    I’m a man. I’m a feminist. I (try to) take ownership of my mistakes. Stop trying to make me feel guilty for another guy’s stupidity.

      • Kimski says

        That won’t do the trick.
        You are being exploited, buddy, and you need to wake up to that fact. You’ll need a full bottle of red pills, or a swift divorce court rape, whichever comes first.
        The latter will usually do the trick, when all your belongings and your kids are given away by a biased justice system, to the same woman you woved to protect and love.
        And she’s not going to lift a finger to help you out, when you want to see your kids, I can promise you that.

  40. Twist says

    “I actually told my wife I like her small boobs”

    That makes me think of this comic:
    http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2571#comic

    I have a feeling here that a certain subset of the people who claim that they prefer the natural look on women actually mean that they prefer women who are naturally conventionally attractive, and can meet a certain amount of the conditions outlined above without starving themselves or having surgery or spending two hours a day on their hair. In my experience, that’s fairly commonly what people say when what they mean “I like women who don’t diet/wear makeup/style their hair, as long as they’re naturally thin/have clear skin/have hair that naturally doesn’t frizz/stick out at funny angles”.

    Also, to those saying that the beauty standards women are expected to conform to are totes fair because men are expected to be rich, why do you think that men are expected by society to make a lot of money? (Hint: It isn’t becuase women are all selfish money grabbing bitchez)

    In a hetero relationship, society still expects the man to be the primary breadwinner. Men are still expected to be the one with the real career, the provider, the one to financially take care of the woman. It’s a bit like the MRA argument that child custody is preferentially given to women becuase castratingfeminazibitches when really it’s becuase society still overwhelmingly sees women as the primary caregivers of any children they might have. The answer to that is to change the perception of childcare as “women’s work”, not to blame women. Same thing here.

    Get rid of the concept of man = provider and the concept that woman who prioritises career = selfish bitch. Stop teaching girls and women, implicitly and explicitly, that their worth as a human being lies in how many men want to bone them, and that getting hooted at on the street is flattery. Blame patriarchy rather than individual women and men, recognise that individuals may have very harmful beliefs that should be challenged, don’t deny that patriarchy is responsible. None of this happens in a vacuum.

      • Kimski says

        -And if she has nothing of value to offer, when it comes to her mind, then what??
        -What would then constitute a proper response, in your opinion?

  41. Sids says

    I am actually curious if this is actually a ‘men’ thing anymore. Certainly I can’t speak for other men, but for myself personally, I’m not particularly attracted to any of the things you listed. Some would be slight perks, but most are actually more of a turn off. Cosmetic surgery, high heels, excessively skinny, makeup (especially changing skin colour) to me all just seem fake. If it ever comes up when talking to girls I’ve dated, they all act like that’s something wrong with me. I’ve even been accused of not appreciating the efforts that they’ve gone through (I appreciate the effort, just not attracted to those things).

    I only have a sample size of one, so I’m mostly just curious if this is truly the way that the majority of men think. Somehow, my own experiences make me wonder if it really is individual men that are still perpetuating that culture, or if women are just being fed the stereotype and assuming that that’s what they need to do.

    I expect that it’s a bit of both, and would certainly like to see the culture changed such that women don’t feel they have to do those things. Feel free to tell me that I’m completely wrong.

  42. Brandon says

    As others have said what a man likes in a woman depends on the man. I like pretty women but I don’t like women who look like they just rolled off of the assembly line at a pretty girl factory. I won’t list my own preferences but at least three of the things on the list were non-factors for me. Ok, well I’ll list one. I like women with smooth legs and I know more than a few women who prefer men who are clean shaven.

  43. cswella says

    I try hard every day to support feminism and seek to educate others in my vicinity about equality. I support anti-harassment policies at conventions. I enjoy reading posts by Greta Christina, Natalie Reed, Jen at Blaghag, Stephanie Zvan, etc.

    But I always have problems reading Taslima’s posts. Especially her views on prostitution/pornography. Her language and format grate on my nerves(I know, she’s not writing to please me).

    As she’s stated in the comments, Taslima doesn’t mean ALL men. But she does have a history of generalization, and that’s what informs my interpretation of her posts.

    She has over-generalized views on prostitution, and disregards gay prostitutes as well as the objections current/former prostitutes give.
    http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/2012/04/09/sexual-slavery-must-be-abolished/

    And then in the next post, she over-generalizes again, this time while removing agency from women.
    http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/2012/04/11/prostitution/

    While I do agree that some men(corporate and/or ignorant) cause the majority of these self-image problems, I can see why people are protesting her use of language, she has a history of using black and white language.

    • says

      Not only you, many people have problems reading my books and my posts.You enjoy reading things that never challenges, rather helps keep the misogynistic patriarchal system. I understand you enjoy women’s articles are speeches supporting sexual objectification and exploitation of women in the name of sexual freedom. women who believe ‘woman power in her cunt’, are not feminists, they are just brainwashed idiots who know nothing about feminism, but learn a lot about how to be slaves of men.

      • cswella says

        I understand you enjoy women’s articles are speeches supporting sexual objectification and exploitation of women in the name of sexual freedom. women who believe ‘woman power in her cunt’, are not feminists, they are just brainwashed idiots who know nothing about feminism, but learn a lot about how to be slaves of men.

        Uh, so you are claiming you’re the only real feminist blogger in FTB?

        Not only you, many men have problems reading my books and my posts. You enjoy reading things that never challenges, rather helps keep the misogynistic patriarchal system.

        You know, most of your posts would be much easier to agree with if you didn’t overgeneralize. I’d be with you all the way on the topic of prostitution/pornography/unrealistic social standards, but for your simple views dividing people with hate.

        And please don’t take the use of “easy” to mean that it’s harder to pull away from misogyny. What I mean is to stop painting issues with black and white. Remember the idea, “Patriarchy hurts men too”? Easier means I support the facts that Prostitution/Pornography/etc can lead to harm, and do so more often than not.

        I realize you come from a society where what you’re saying would apply, but there’s more to the world than just your personal experiences.

        Not everyone has been through the same hardships you’ve been though, and I respect that. My hardships are different than yours, but I wouldn’t presume to suppose that mine are harder.

        So thank you for bringing your expertise to FTB, it is another perspective that we can appreciate. But please don’t diminish your message/experience by taking overly extremist views.

        • says

          You are wrong if you think my experiences are based on what I have seen in Eastern or Muslim cultures. I believe women’s rights, like human rights, are universal. If sexual exploitation of women is bad in the East, it is bad in the West too. For your information, all great Western feminists have been vocal against prostitution and pornography. In the comments column of my blogs on prostitution and pornography, Western women who once were prostitutes and porn actresses described the way they were beaten, threatened, exploited and abused, and they were the ones who demanded the abolition of prostitution and pornography.

          • cswella says

            You are wrong if you think my experiences are based on what I have seen in Eastern or Muslim cultures.

            Okay, then I’m wrong about that.

            I believe women’s rights, like human rights, are universal.

            I agree.

            If sexual exploitation of women is bad in the East, it is bad in the West too.

            True, but then you would have to draw a line between what is exploitation and what is their personal choice. You have a bad record of assuming any woman who doesn’t agree with you must not be able to make their own choices freely. It’s not their choice unless it’s the same choice you would make.

            For your information, all great Western feminists have been vocal against prostitution and pornography.

            Okay? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_views_of_pornography shows that feminists don’t all adopt the same philosophy on porn that you do. Abraham Lincoln was a great abolitionist, but that doesn’t mean he was entirely correct on all things regarding equal treatment of minorities.

            In the comments column of my blogs on prostitution and pornography, Western women who once were prostitutes and porn actresses described the way they were beaten, threatened, exploited and abused, and they were the ones who demanded the abolition of prostitution and pornography.

            And Greta Christina’s blog has posts about prostitutes and porn actresses who had positive experiences in the industries. What’s your point? http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2012/04/23/sex-workers-an-invitation-to-tell-your-stories/

            I entirely and freely grant you that pornography and prostitution has major issues it needs to work out. But you’re making it just as hard as the misogynists make it to solve these problems. There is nothing wrong with people enjoying sex, whether they’re getting paid or being filmed.

          • Mikey Flubb says

            All wimmins are the prostitutes of the pimp daddy patriarchy.

            To deny this is to deny the struggle of our grand sisters in the past as they were shunted off in carts and crates as playthings for the great noble men in great castles far from the stink of rotting serfs below.

            Every day I am living in the whore house of patriarchy and this is why I find reflection and solace in the Wimmins spaces where I can find them. These places are my “wombs of love.” and I share my love for my sistas in them.

        • says

          ‘…but for your simple views dividing people with hate.’

          I noticed I got warm welcome. Then after my posts on prostitution almost everybody lost interest in me. Quite interesting.

          ”True, but then you would have to draw a line between what is exploitation and what is their personal choice. ”

          Do you really think that prostitution is a personal choice? I quote from prostitution research sites : ‘It is profoundly unjust to declare that prostitution is an acceptable job for
          some women – those who are mostly poor, mostly women of color, mostly young.
          Prostitution is an intrinsically abusive institution and women stay poor in prostitution (although lots of cash passes through their hands on the way to pimps, strip-club
          managers, bartenders, taxi drivers, casino hosts and other predators).
          Women deserve equal pay for equal work. There is a lack of adequate housing, and
          educational opportunity in the US and elsewhere. Racism limits educational and job
          opportunities for people of color, leaving prostitution as the only sustainable alternative for
          some young women.
          Yet prostitution is an activity unlike any other “work,” which is why we should see
          it as the Swedish do: as institutionalized sexual oppression or as a human rights violation.
          Women are in legal prostitution for the same reasons they’re in illegal prostitution –
          a lack of alternative survival options. Most women in prostitution did not make a choice to
          enter prostitution from among a range of other options. They did not decide that they
          wanted to be prostitutes instead of doctors, engineers, lawyers,astronauts, journalists, or politicians.
          Instead, their “options” were more in the realm of how to get enough money to feed
          themselves and their children. If prostitution were really a choice it would not be those
          people with the fewest choices available to them who are disproportionately in prostitution.
          Such choices are better termed survival strategies.
          Few laws make clear what choice and coercion are. An exception is a 2006 Florida
          state law that permits women who are coerced into prostitution via exploitation of their
          social and legal vulnerability to sue johns and pimps for damages. According to this law,
          coercion is defined as restraint of speech or communication with others; exploitation of a
          condition of developmental disability, cognitive limitation, affective disorder, or substance
          dependence; exploitation of prior victimization by sexual abuse; exploitation during the
          making of pornography; and exploitation of the human needs for food, shelter, safety, or
          affection.
          Prostitution is about not having a range of educational and job options to choose
          from. Most women in prostitution end up there only because other options are not available.

          They do not have stable housing, they urgently need money to support children or pay for
          school, and they often have limited or no education. Prostitution is not labor, it is paid
          sexual exploitation. It is often paid rape. It is intrinsically harmful and traumatic. As a
          society, we do not allow the sale and purchase of body parts, such as kidneys. This is
          because we know that it would be the poor and disadvantaged who would exercise their
          ‘choice’ to sell body parts for cash. Others would be likely to ‘choose’ to live a healthier
          and longer life. A john described prostitution as “renting an organ for 10 minutes.” Why
          should we assume that anyone really chooses to rent out her sexual organs?
          Women involved in prostitution almost always have backgrounds of abuse, neglect
          and disadvantage. Sexual and physical abuse in childhood, running away, poverty and
          homelessness, are factors that precede entry into prostitution. These vulnerabilities make it
          very difficult for women to escape prostitution. In order to survive, they may have learned
          maladaptive behaviors that place them in harm’s way. Accessing public benefits, especially
          housing, is very difficult for women who are socially isolated, who may have criminal
          records and prison time, and erratic lifestyles.
          When prostituted women are asked, consistently around 90% say they want out of
          prostitution immediately, but the decision is out of their hands and in the hands of their
          pimps, their husbands, their landlords, their addictions, their children’s bellies. A study of
          women in street prostitution in Toronto found that about 90% wanted to escape but could
          not and a 5-country study found that 92% of women, men and transgendered people in
          prostitution wanted immediate help to escape prostitution. If they are there because they
          cannot leave, then prostitution is not a freely made choice.
          While there are a few women who apparently earn large amounts of money in
          prostitution, these women are in an extreme minority. An economic analysis showed that
          over the life course, prostitution is a route into poverty for most women. Even women in
          legal brothels report having to pay extortionate sums for rent and food. They also pay
          pimps inside and outside the brothels. They are not free to come and go as they wish.
          Women in prostitution must continually lie about their lives, their bodies, and their
          sexual responses. Lying is part of the job definition when the customer asks, “did you
          enjoy it?” The very edifice of prostitution is built on the lie that “women like it.” Some
          prostitution survivors have stated that it took them years after leaving prostitution to
          acknowledge that prostitution wasn’t a free choice because they had to lie to themselves in
          order to survive.
          There is no doubt that a small number of women say they choose to be in
          prostitution, especially in public contexts orchestrated by the sex industry. It is not clear
          how many of these women perform sex acts with many buyers each day as opposed to
          being protected (often because of race and class privilege) from the usual life of women in
          prostitution. It’s also not clear how many of these spokeswomen are actually pimping
          other women. Some sexworker advocates have themselves been arrested for pimping:
          Robyn Few, Maxine Doogan, Norma Jean Almodovar and Margo St. James. Nonetheless,
          they continue to present themselves as sexworkers and not pimps. COYOTE member Carol
          Leigh acknowledged in a 2004 debate at UC/Berkeley (with Angel Cassidy and Melissa
          Farley): “95% of my friends want out of prostitution.”
          Some people choose to take dangerous drugs such as amphetamine. However, even
          when some people consent to use dangerous drugs, we still recognize that is harmful to
          them, and most people do not seek to legalize amphetamine. In these situations, it is harm
          to the person, not the consent of the person that governs how we understand the activity.
          When a woman remains in an abusive relationship with a partner who batters her,
          or even when she defends his actions, most people now understand that she is not there

          voluntarily. They recognize the conditions under which she acquiesced. Like battered
          women, women in prostitution may deny their abuse if they are not provided with safety or
          meaningful alternatives.”

          ”..feminists don’t all adopt the same philosophy on porn that you do. ”

          I do not think they are feminists who believe in sexual objectification of women. Erotica is about sex, porn is about domination, abuse and violence.

          ”…blog has posts about prostitutes and porn actresses who had positive experiences in the industries. What’s your point? ”

          They simply eroticize women’s oppression. Selling body for money and get fucked by hundreds of unknown men can not possibly be anything positive.
          What about you? Would you enjoy your life if you were a poor prostitute?

          • cswella says

            I’m moving the discussion to a lower post, just to keep the word format accessible.

        • Mikey Flubb says

          Generalizing! How’s this for generalizing and these are facts.

          Men/males are “generally” boring and lifeless creatures who waft through our day telling us wimmin how to dress and eat and think and walk and talk and love and stand straight and clean and be sex toys of discard one day.

          Men/males are “generally” violent things that hurt and smack and kill and rape and murder wimmin and our children, yes our children.

          Men/males are “generally” unpleasant smelly lazy creatures who with their beer soaked asses on PS3 chat-rooms do us all no good when they congregate and creep about in porn sites looking for a secret sex receptical.

          Men/males are “generally” knowing of this and shame on them for telling us how much they hate us.

          • Kimski says

            “Men/males are “generally” boring and lifeless creatures…”

            And yet you spend an infinite aamount of time obsessing and writing about us. Says a lot about your mental state of mind, Mikey.

            “Men/males are “generally” violent…”

            Have you checked the stats on domestic violence for the past 20 years, Mikey?? You really need to keep in touch with the real world, before making such ridiculous claims.

            “Men/males are “generally” unpleasant smelly lazy creatures”

            And that’s coming from a person, who can’t be bothered with taking a bath every other day, right, Mikey??

            “Men/males are “generally” knowing of this and shame on them for telling us how much they hate us.”

            Okay, you got me on the first one, because you are very obviously oblivious to anything, else but the strange world in which you live, Mikey. But as for the hating goes, one has only to look through your post in this thread to see who the real hater is.

          • Mikey Flubb says

            You would never be allowed in our Enclave Cave as you would be weeded out at the door. We have had menmalez dress in wimmins clothing in order to infiltrate and we now check newcomers at the door with a glove.

      • likafox says

        This is just blatant bigotry. Creating a “straw man” of your opponent and then attacking it is shameless. It’s anti-intellectual and morally bankrupt.

  44. says

    Gorbachev and Ysanne have said all I need to say. I’ll just emphasize that if you want to see superficiality in the context of sexual attraction, read personal ads. The most common “must have” is size: the man should be taller than the woman. Often, explicit minima in terms of inches or centimetres are mentioned. This preference seems much more common than any male preference. (It also has nothing to do with health and can’t be changed.) As Gore Vidal said, pornography is a mirror of society. Whatever type a woman is, there are men who prefer that. Check it out. But many men don’t really care. While most women might not care as much about appearance of men, they care even more about health (which implies age: if one can become old, one must be healthy—how old was Sean Connery when he was voted “sexiest man alive”?), wealth, status. If you think an ugly woman has a hard time, ask a poor man.
    . . . . .

  45. cato123 says

    I have been preoccupied with the article and subsequent conversation for over an hour now. I am forced to admit that my thoughts on the subject have changed regarding what can be done to help with a solution. Any solution must begin with recognizing what the problem is.

    While reading the article I caught myself saying “not me, I’m ok there”, “again not me”, “used to be me as a young adult, but ok now”, etc. After some consideration I realize that this is irrelevant for the purpose of understanding the issue.

    Evo Psych treatment of the issue can provide valuable insight to some of the basis, but any attempt to use Evo Psych conclusions to explain it away is ridiculous. How many other aspects of our *savage garden* have we pared back? I don’t know enough to state to what extent, if any, our primitive nature may be a contibuting factor, but I concede with limited argument that primitive social structures led directly to patriarchy.

    Overt practice of patriarchy may vary between cultures, but this is also irrelevant; it still exists to some extent everywhere. My epiphany was that my self-congratualtory stance of not being ‘one of those guys’ was simply a way to relieve myself of the responsibility of addressing the issue and being accountable when I see it in practice. Shame on me. Not contributing to the problem may do no harm, but does nothing to help change the situation.

    Proclaiming that men are also victimized or that women perpetuate the issue among themselves ignores the cause and doesn’t advance the conversation. Although very real, these facets of the issue are typically only cited as excuses to ignore the problem.

    I want to know from women what men can do to help. I am not looking for the obvious; i.e. don’t do anything to perpetuate the issue and be vocal with others when I see it in action. Is there more to be done?

  46. says

    @Yessenia: I vehemently disasgree. My female counterpart thinks my opinion on her appearances as relevant as I think of hers. That’s called love, you know.

    Thanks for clearing that up, dude! I am unfamiliar with this concept of ‘love.’

  47. Not buying it says

    Articles like this are the reason way the general public think feminism & its adherents are idiotic.

    • Mikey Flubb says

      No, We wimmin are struggling every day with a world that spills it’s hating and uncaring eyes on us. We struggle every day. I am not buying what you said and I think you must be a male to say something like this.

      • Kimski says

        You women are the most protected and pampered demographic that has ever existed on the planet since the start of mankind, so I guess you can stop crying now, Mikey.

        • Mikey Flubb says

          Tell that to the wimmin who do the real work in the world. It is we wimmin who make the world turn and if it wasn’t for us we would all be dead from wars that you make and peddle.

          Pampered???? Look in the mirror to see the real pampered. It is you who sit in a hammock in the warmth of MOM Sun and expect nubile sweaty nymphs to deliver unto you your beer and soft drinks in a coconut shell. A cocanut shell another man has cleaved in two with a steel phallus mind you!!

          • Kimski says

            “Tell that to the wimmin who do the real work in the world.”

            It’s pretty obvious that that would exclude you, Mikey. You can’t possibly have the time to be doing anything productive in your life, with all the hate rants, ‘poetry’ and ‘wimmins’ cry sessions all night, when you’re not down on all four with a collar around your neck.

            So again you are adressing an issue of which you have no basic understanding. But you actually do that brilliantly, while exposing your gender based hate for all to see. I don’ even think a mirror would make any differnece in your case, because you seem so utterly brainwashed by feministic propaganda, and dysfunctional in almost everything you say, that I wouldn’t believe it, had I not seen it myself.

  48. Michalchik says

    I read this whole thing and I felt like I traveled through time and space back to some alternative sorority commune in SOHO with a bunch of teenage girls just discovering that they don’t have to be the good little Barbie dolls they thought they had to be. That might have been a break through in thought for little girls 50 years ago but…

    Anyone who has been awake in the last 40 years in America has come to realize that being a slave to fashion is a stupid way to live and nobody does it to you, you do it to yourself. Grow-up and take responsibility for your self-image and life-style choices like an adult.

    Half the things you listed as men liking most men don’t like or don’t care about and any sane woman would not want to be with a man that valued her for those things. Stop being so gullible as to believe all the stupid images in advertising trying to sell you stuff. That is not men, that is capitalism preying on your neuroses.

    What most men, and all mature men like is a woman that likes herself her body and her sexuality, who takes responsibility for her feelings and understands that being a whole human being is about keeping a healthy body and mind.

    What I guarantee most men do not like is games of victimization, being blamed for other peoples mistakes or women who think we think what TV commercials tell them. Don’t project your neuroses on a gender.

    This essay is man hating and if it really reflected how the majority of women thought and felt, I would be in embarrassed for women.

    Maybe I should cut you some slack because you come from a culture that treats women as chattel and ornaments, but I don’t think this kind of self-destructive bigotry does anyone any good. If a Bangladeshi man came here and started talking nonsense about how irrational and stupid women are and how they need to be treated like children I would not put up with his nonsense either.

  49. Mikey Flubb says

    Taslima Nasreen you see through the smoke and mirrors of the patriarchy machine.

    As a wimmin I have fought long and hard for “our day in court” and it’s articles like this one that make it closer.

    Recently at the Wimmins Cave Enclave I read out a poem on this subject matter and here it is thank you.

    Wimmin of earth gather your flock.
    In the mud and rain that burns with pain,
    upon our tender skin.

    Of oils and lotions and potions that stink,
    And shoes that squash and kill the link…
    …to our mom Moon.

    We pluck and tuck and pass the buck,
    to younger crops of sisters blinking in the muck…
    …and mire of it all

    Please help us we are dying.

    • Kimski says

      I was wrong. This one is worse, Mikey.

      When you read this in the ‘Wimmins’ Cave Enclave, -suitable place by the way, -does your audience start crying before you actually start, or is it after?

      It might be a hint, you know.

      • Mikey Flubb says

        During and after thank you very very much!

        We cry together FOR each other WITH each other and before a reading there must be silence yet we all know that inside there is a caos inside us all as we reach out alone at first before the expulsion of brine from our eyes.

        We bleed not just every 28 days but also bleed tears in between.

        • Kimski says

          I’m not even going to adress that, Mikey.
          Humour is obviously completely wasted on you, and that is exactly the kind of trait that defines fanatics, sociopaths and psychopaths.

          The fact that Taslima thinks you’re a brave woman speaks volumes about the general mental state of women in the West, and the fact that you all seem completely unaware of it, is just mindboggling beyond belief. I really, really wish the suffragettes could see what their struggle resulted in. They would be rotating at lightspeed in their graves, before getting up and joining the Mens Rights Movement.
          And rightfully so.

  50. Anthony Zarat says

    It must be incoherend babbling day.

    Women do not desecrate their bodies to please men.
    Women desecreat their bodies to CONTROL men.

    Women are obsessed with power, and women know that they can exploit their sexuality to exercise two kinds of power:

    1) Women exploit their own sexuality to control men.
    2) Women exploit their own sexuality to intimidate other women.

    If you “loved men for who they are”, you would not go to so much trouble to control and manipulate men.

    Want to see the solution to your problems? Look in the mirror.

    • cswella says

      I’m assuming this mirror you’re referring to is like the ones they have in those cop dramas. You know, where the jackass (you) is sitting in the room and the people who are investigating (us) are looking through the mirror to the room.

      Is it like that? Cause it feels like that.

    • says

      Sexuality is the only kind of power women are encouraged to seek. And it’s a false, derivative kind of power, one that relies on a man’s real power to be of any use.

      The day you pull your head far enough out of your ass to wonder why that is, to stop resenting women for having even the tiniest piece of gossamer influence over you, is the day you might, MIGHT, start to grok feminism.

      Until then, you can please go fuck yourself.

      • Michalchik says

        If you honestly think that sexuality is the only kind of power that women are encouraged to have, you should go out and buy a gun and shoot your parents in the head for being the worst parents ever and really messing you up. No, I am not serious about the gun part.

        If you think this is what society is telling you, you should quit watching trash TV and and reading glamor magazines and learn to think for yourself.

        If I tried to live as a man by the stupid end of pop culture, I would be killing myself with steroid injections, dangling weights from my penis to make it 2 feet long, wasting all my money on lap dances, getting drunk all day, solving every problem with gunfight, hating myself for not being a billionaire and driving everywhere at 120 mph in a red sports car.

        Fortunately I am not stupid enough to fall for this stuff and have not been since I was about 7. As an adult I also learned to stop blaming other people for my feelings of inadequacy or powerlessness.

        This is not feminism, this is victim identity politics. It is a trap that seriously hurts women by telling them they are puppets of other people rather than humans capable of being autonomous and strong. It lays a guilt trip on the men most likely to be sympathetic and helpful to women, alienates many women from feminism as well as most men, and gives genuine sexist reactionary piles of toxic waste like Rush Limbaugh legitimate gripes.

        It creates incredible headaches for people like me who fight every day to break prejudice and gender barriers (in my case prejudice against women in science and math) because when i say I am a feminist (meaning I believe in ending discrimination by gender and enabling each person to pursue what they love and what they are best at) people look at me like I just said I molest dogs. Fake feminists have done this to the word not the reactionary right and you are playing that game.

        Whether or not you chose to grow up and claim your power as a human-being, I will continue helping young women get over math anxiety and the unconscious resistance they will face in their careers. Why? because I am a feminist and I care about the wellbeing of people rather than the blame game.

    • Red says

      Anthony Zarat, that is a pretty generalized statement. Women exploite thier sexuality for various reasons. Not all women are out to control men.

  51. Anthony Zarat says

    In my experience many women trade the “sexuality lottery ticket” that they were born with, in return for the dignity and self respect that comes from building their own lives with their own efforts. Such women have no difficulty finding men who love and appreciate them “for who they are.” The reason many women pick the easy way out is because the hard way is … hard.

    Why earn your own money, when you can put on makeup, dress like a slut, and have a man buy everything for you?

  52. Gorbachev says

    Taslima,

    I have the deepest respect for the work you’ve done. But let me explain why your welcome cooled off pretty fast.
    Victorian
    It’s this.

    You claim to speak for all women and women’s rights. Alas, your claim may work for the big issues that are, in effect, universal human rights. But you’re locked in a gender-war perspective that divided and ruptured the feminist community in the 1980’s.

    In effect, a pseudo-Victorian, relatively prudish anti-sexuality and anti-male feminism squared off against a more libertarian, sex-positive feminism.

    The first didn’t just single out the “bad” stuff in male culture. it went further: it basically sanctified everything typically considered female and deligitimized everything male; not just the abuse and control, but everything else. Suddenly, sex for its own sake was out the window, unless women were the ones in total control. IF a woman made a decision, it was good, regardless of the choice; is a man did, it was subject to scrutiny.

    You can argue this, but sex-positive feminism now represents the majority of self-declared feminists, even if the academy is dominated by sex-control feminists.

    What happened, as well, was a categorical rejection among many feminists of the social judgment and shaming and intense social control associated with those like Dworkin, Mackinnon, Binder, et al.

    There are scores of hard-core feminists who do not buy the Swedish model or the “objectification” compaint. Here’s why.

    – Much of the hysteria – and it is hysteria – over prostitution is based on actually falsified data.
    – The hard core abolitionists sound and read much more like delusional religious zealots. You’re familiar with the tone and method of argument, I’m sure, from your exposure to Islam.
    The reason they sound like this is that they proceed from moral judgment, not reasoned analysis. They presume a moral certainty, and then fit facts to it.

    – Sexuality: It’s not all men raping women and brothels with women chained.

    In the West, prostitution largely happens indoors, and there are very few “pimps” controlling women. The majority are independent women acting wholly out of choice.

    This choice may be motivated by the need for money, but it’s also motivated by a wish
    – not to work in an office
    – Not to have to wake up at 7:00 am and work until 6:00 pm
    – to choose the terms of workplace empowerment
    – to be portable and moveable to any city or country.

    It’s also a way to cash in on serious erotic power: Women have sexual power as desirable when both young and pretty. This slips away over time, often quite quickly.

    I say this as a man who dated (non-paid) a working girl for almost a year. We were friends, and later lovers. She’s now getting married We had many early discussions about why she did what she did. her reasons:

    – “I like the money”. She got about 5x the salary of a typical woman her age. She made more money than most of her clients.

    – She liked the work. She enjoyed sex and had no trouble with it.

    – She could give away sex for free to some guy who she’d eventually leave or would leave her, or she could be extremely well-paid. She chose the latter. For companionship, she found outlets. I guess I was one.

    – She liked her associates.

    – She was completely free.

    If you prohibit this, you also need to prohibit:

    – “Sugar-daddyism”. It’s the hottest trend among young 20-something women in Asia and North America. It’s extremely common.

    – Women who marry men for money. Prostitutes are correct when they characterize these women as merely prostitutes exchanging their sex and wombs for money, but in this case they have only one customer.

    – Long-term relationships in which there’s no commitment but the male more or less looks after the female financially.

    Prostitution is just one element on a broad continuum of female sexual behavior.

    Men want sex much more than women. Despite denials, the existence of the sex trade is living proof. Men want sex, need it, it’s a crushing desire. Women like it. There’s a difference. Men who have sex often don’t even enjoy it much: It’s a COMPULSION. It’s programmed into us.

    I have personally never paid for sex. However, having met more than one working girl, I can see the appeal at times.

    The reason your work gets short shrift from these quarters is simple.

    You’re about 25 years out of date in your feminism. MAny feminists will disagree, but there are plenty of “libertarian” feminists and “sex-positive” feminists who love porn, love sex and—

    most importantly —

    do not want governments or Daddys or Patriarchal States or Matriarchs or *ANYONE* telling anyone else what their sexuality is.

    In truth, the Swedes are in deep denial about the failure of the Swedish model. New Zealand is much more successful. They legalized prostitution everywhere, not just in brothels, and the job satisfaction, security and working conditions of prostitutes wildly improved.

    it’s a shame that some women are obliged to work in sex if they don’t want to, because they need money. But it’s also a shame that many people need to work in retail, in dirty factories, in coal mines, in many lines of work that are dirty, dangerous or difficult.

    That’s just a fact of life.

    Many women work as prostitutes who should not.

    Many work as prositutes, more or less, and don’t admit it: Models, for example, are body-image prostitutes to a large degree. They just don’t let the men touch them. But this is okay?

    Men also work as prostitutes.

    Ultimately, this prudish, sex-abhorring feminism wants to tel other men and women how to be intimate. It wants to script the relations between the sexes, to control gender relations, to more or less tell people what they can and can’t do behind closed doors.

    By ALL MEANS end slavery. But it’s not sex slavery that’s evil: It’s slavery that’s evil.

    A telling fact is that many of the “brown women” rescued by aid workers from whorehouses hate the aid workers for doing this. They go right back to their old jobs, because as lower-class (or even upper-class) women, they have few better options.

    They have sexual capital, and they want to sell it.

    I ask you one question.

    Who gave you, or any other person, the moral authority to decide how others live their lives? Please consider that in some depth.

    There is no amorphous “female identity” being trampled, here. A woman owns her own self. ANy choice she makes is wholyl her own.

    it means she’s also wholly responsible for the consequences.

    Your brand of feminism is wonderful, but for the fact that you continually infantilize women. You treat them as if they’re not agents. They have no agency in your world-view.

    This brand of Dworkinite feminism sees women as eternal victims.

    A large number of prostitutes feel great power and job satisfaction. Doing their work actually gives them power: power because men desire them.

    You may want all women to work in offices the way men do – to be men, in effect, with breasts – but this is not your choice. It’s theirs.

    This is the fundamental issue.

    many great feminists don’t see prostitution as anti-female or abusive. Many see the *conditions* of prostitution as abusive.

    The solution is the same as with sex slavery. Eliminate the slavery, not the sex; eliminate the bad conditions.

    New Zealand has moved much along this path. I suggest you consider it.

  53. Gorbachev says

    The last post was damaged by WordPress. Apologies.

    If you want to see a lot of excellent discussion of prostitution from a powerfully feminist but extremely rational and non-ideological position, one that examines reality as it is rather than as social engineers want it to be, then see
    Maggie Mcneil:
    The Honest Courtesan.

    Look that up on Google.

    I’m sure much of it will shock you. But the entire world is not a brothel in Calcutta or women running from police and abusive men.

    I respectfully predict that people today are less motivated by 1982-style sloganeering and ra-ra feminism than they are by carefully reasoned feminism that takes both genders into account (as most women still want and need to associate with men), and, more importantly, that treats women as fully capable individuals who act out of personal choice and have agency.

    If you approach issues with more broad-mindedness and focus on individuals, you won’t make claims like “women wear helmets less therefore society wants them to die more” or “women’s bodies are objects of loathing” or such things.

    it’s entirely possible for someone to disagree that prostitution is basically evil, and for that person not to be evil. And for that person to be a woman, in fact. It’s also possible for a woman to change her mind, And change it again.

    Give women agency.

    This is what many feminists said in the 1990’s.

    If you seek out and taste this other brand of feminism – one that celebrates women as fully human, as fully agents, as powerful and equals – though not always the same, unless they want to be – then I think you’ll be much more able to sink your teeth into Western feminism as it is in 2012, rather than in 1981.

  54. Gorbachev says

    “Women who think their power is in their cunts are not feminists”.

    Taslima, the reason a lot of feminists will reject your stances is this attitude.

    You dismiss other womens’ choices. You dismiss their agency; you dismiss them.

    You have a very specific view of what women should be, and like the Mackinnons and Dworkins, you dismiss any woman who disagrees with you.

    Ultimately, this comes across as both profoundly arrogant, oppressive, and – in a very strange way – extremely prudish.

    You’re going to find “challenges” having these views accepted almost anywhere in the West. Hordes of women – good, bona-fide, self-identified feminists – will reject your position for many reasons, but most of all because–

    you deny womens’ agency. You seek to tell women how to be women, instead of letting them make their own decisions based on their own perceptions.

    You have an over-arching view of Femininity as being some characteristic that belongs to all women, in terms of sex: in fact, each woman entirely owns her own sexuality. It is no business of mine, yours or anyone else’s how one woman uses it.

    She can use it for love, for resources, for nothing but entertainment, or for whatever purpose she desires.

    Our culture is now in the throes of a wholesale revolution. Sex is now both cheap and easy: available everywhere. You can date someone for years, or a hundred people, without the slightest hint of commitment. Or you can get married and stay married.

    Sex is individual.

    Your views are extremely well-educated, and well-informed but very 1985 and extremely, almost rigidly ideological. You’re proscriptive, instead of descriptive or analytical.

    Ultimately, you approach these cultural issues from not an analytical but rather a revolutionary / ideological perspective. This is understandable, but it doesn’t endear you to people who want to reflect more deeply on these issues.

    Listen to the *female* voices in this field. Ignore the men, even, though I personally think all people have things to contribute.

    Just because Mackinnon was smart, doesn’t make her automatically correct. That’s the problem.

    Just because someone disagrees with you, doesn’t make her “not a real feminist”.

    Excuse me?

    A “real” feminist?

    The “whore” I dated was about as much a feminist as it’s possible to be and not have it tattoed onto her forehead. She was as hard-core as they come.

    Her opinions of your “feminism” in this regard was:

    Nanny-state
    Oppressive
    Judgmental
    Dismissive
    Prescriptive
    Hate-filled (hating that which disagrees)
    Ideological without being rational.

    You may object to this characterization, but the content, tone and flavor of everything you’ve written on this subject reeks of that distracting 1980’s gender war period. it’s really quite remarkable.

    You’re the last major feminist propounding these views outside of the stale, stubborn recesses of the academy. Perhaps your particular experiences in South Asia, where gender relations truly are apocalyptic and genuinely horrible, have colored your views.

    But you’re not going to get a firm grasp on feminism in the West without expanding your viewframe.

    And that’s just a fact. You will eventually come to realize this.

    I say all of this with the deepest respect. I’m just being direct.

    • says

      I do not call those women feminists, not because they disagree with me, but because they are not feminists. I do not agree with everything Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan,Melissa Farley and 100s of other feminists say, but I call them feminists.

      I do not call those women ”sex positive” either, because they are not sex positive. Believing in sexual exploitation can not be anything near to sex positive. We who believe in women’s dignity and rights are against those women and we are not ”sex-negative”. We are very much sex-positive and we are very much against sexual exploitation, oppression and abuse of women.

      I rather like to call them misogynists or masochists.
      I do not care if those women don’t support me. I am not unhappy for I do not get supports from obscurantists, religionists, chauvinists, misogynists, megalomaniac ignorant masses. After many years of my struggle for women’s equality it’s one of my biggest achievements that enemies of women hate me.

      You guys like those women probably because they are not feminists, they only pretend to be feminists. You guys hated feminists and feminist movements. There has been a backlash. Don’t you love to call those women feminists because you want to change the definition of feminism? To you, misogyny is feminism. You get cock suckers, sex toys, sex slaves, woman haters all in your side. We feminists became outlaw decades ago.

      • Gorbachev says

        Taslima,

        You wonder why your reception is so poor, and yet you say these things?

        You dismiss the now majority of feminists as not feminist because you dislike their opinions. You give no reasons, just that they don’t respect themselves. What part of personal choice do they not respect?

        Is it not respectful to sleep with men for money? I woudn’t do it, but I would *never* judge another person for this.

        Is it respectful to pick up peoples’ garbage? To clean their toilets? To handle old people on a daily basis, while having them treat you poorly? Please, Taslima.

        Your reception is not bad because men hate feminists. In fact, YOU seem to hate feminists. A very large number of them/

        Apparently, there is some Password “real” feminists need to learn.

        CSWella is absolutely correct.

        You aren’t using either logic or reason. You have come to a
        Moral
        conclusion, a judgment, and you’re using emotive methods and raw cynicism to ram home a personal opinion. It’s a personal opinion because it’s backed up by nothing.

        You dismiss other women’s experiences.

        And yet YOU presume, from some high holy ground, from the Church of What Is Right And Proper, to call other people misogynists?

        What actual society of real, living human beings do you think you’re addressing, and are women just cattle to be prodded and poked by you into compliance? And dismissed if you don’t like their opinions?

        Please.

        I was trying to be respectful, but Taslima – you just more or less admitted that you’re as ideologically blinded, rigid, and disrespectful of other women as the misogynists you claim to battle.

        In order to free women, you must, at some point, accede to their freedom of choice, their individuality, and their agency.

        I know a vast horde of feminists, most of the women I’ve ever met and work with and all of these women are women of power and individuality – and your philosophy is in no way representative of their desire for personal power or social reform.

        What precise kind of sex do you intend to allow or disallow?

        Do you want anyone in the business of allowing or disallowing anything?

        This is why feminism took on the rank smell of the Taliban back in the 1980’s.

        Apparently, there’s no room in that very small space for diversity of opinion, for individual agency, for self-respect or for self-direction.

        How very sad.

        Who’s the feminist now?

  55. Gorbachev says

    TASLIMA,

    for a different perspective, go here:

    http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/the-odor-of-socks/

    This is one of her recent posts. Take a few days and go through her posts. BTW, if you correspond with bloggers like these, you’ll find them most obliging and extremely respectful.

    Maggie, as just one of many bloggers writing on this subject, is extremely rational, very respectful, and solidly straightforward. She’s an ex-prostitute who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of prostitution in the West.

    I do warn you: If you trad into this territory, many of the core assumptions you have you may realize are just suppositions or illusions.

    But you’re very smart person, and have a vein of humility; I suspect that if you try to listen to those you would silence, that you are one of the few who will hear their voices.

    • cswella says

      I’d like to say it’s because of the level of asshole you bring to the discussion, that you have nothing of value to contribute and you win nothing.

      But it’s actually because Taslima is busy and can’t be on 24/7 to approve comments. So relax.

  56. cswella says

    Gonna ask again: Do you feel as if, out of all the feminist bloggers on Freethought Blogs, you’re the only true feminist?

    If Prostitutes and porn actresses claim to have positive experiences, I wonder whether they know what it means to live with dignity and honor.

    You wonder? So what would it take someone to convince you they enjoy the profession they are in? Or are you so damn close minded that you won’t even take their opinion seriously unless it coincides with yours? How unskeptical of you.

    What about you? Would you enjoy your life if you were a poor prostitute?

    If I enjoyed sex and could make decent money with it? Sure! But I’m sure you wouldn’t believe me.

    I do not think they are feminists who believe in sexual objectification of women. Erotica is about sex, porn is about domination, abuse and violence.

    Straw-man much? You are defining those terms to mean what you want them to mean, then turning around and claiming they agree to your definition. You are not skeptical.

    COYOTE member Carol Leigh acknowledged in a 2004 debate at UC/Berkeley (with Angel Cassidy and Melissa
    Farley): “95% of my friends want out of prostitution.”

    So what about the 5%? If your views were accurate, then it should have been 100%.

    I noticed I got warm welcome. Then after my posts on prostitution almost everybody lost interest in me. Quite interesting.

    Yes, quite interesting. On a blog network devoted to skepticism, you are called out for your unskeptical views. Very fascinating.

    Do you really think that prostitution is a personal choice?

    Depends on the situation. Was it a free choice to exchange sex for money? If yes, then it was a personal/free choice.

    I quote from prostitution research sites

    I could go around to websites all over the place and pick up quotes supporting religion, about how awful it is that people don’t believe and how tragic lives are ruined by disbelief. I could find quotes about how someone turned their life around and are now infinitely happier now that they know Jesus/Allah/etc. People will say how wonderful it is that such a thing as the Koran exist, and how beautiful the language is.

    Quotes are worth shit. Unless there’s scientific data to back it up. Now, since you’ve made the claim that all prostitution is sexual slavery and pornography is exploitation, you’re gonna have to back that up with actual statistics.

    Quoting from anti-prostitution sites isn’t scientific or skeptical. If you make a claim that 100% of something is bad, you really need to provide evidence.

    It’s no wonder you’re not finding a larger audience here, most of your arguments are just appeals to emotion. Emotion can be good, but if it’s unchecked by logic/skepticism, then it can easily turn around on you.

    So please, take a hint. Your outdated ideals are minimizing your potential audience.

    • says

      I am new here. I have yet to know feminist freethought bloggers. You try to convince me that prostituted women enjoy the ‘profession’ they are in. I am sorry I am not convinced. I think if prostituted women say that they enjoy their lives, they’re either lying or just trying to defend the terrible condition they are in only to give themselves some psychological comfort. No sane person can enjoy her life as a prostitute or her life with an abuser husband, or her life under the burqa. Some prostitution may not sex slavery, some women may ‘enjoy’ prostitution but I am sure they are very very small number of people.
      ”If you enjoy sex and can make decent money with it”, it is fine if you really want to do it but it is not easy. You never know what a stranger would do to you. He can beat you, bite you, slap you, rape you, abuse you, kill you.

      Why do you think accepting sexual slavery or prostitution is skepticism and opposing it not? Actually opposing prostitution is more skeptical than accepting it. In our society, it is an accepted opinion that prostitution is a ‘work’ and women can be happy doing it. But I have a doubt. I do not accept the accepted opinions. I question. I am a skeptic.

      You said, ‘quoting from anti-prostitution sites isn’t scientific or skeptical.’ Why do you think quoting from pro-prostitution sites is scientific or skeptical?

      I proudly uphold my ideals. I don’t mind losing conventional audience. If I wrote to get a big audience, I would have been a faithhead, a misogynist and a joker. But I have always been taken risks of losing ‘audience’. Didn’t I lose my country, my society, my family already. Please don’t try to make me feel scared of anything.

      • Michalchik says

        There is a simple solution that I am sure you will agree is fair. Why don’t you get to know sex workers and talk to them about their lives instead of judging them from afar. You can open up a phone book and call an escort service, go to a strip club or legal cat house in Nevada or contact sex workers rights organizations like:

        http://www.sexworkersproject.org/

        and as about interviewing sex workers,

        There are several issues that need to be untangled here.

        1) Slavery is always wrong. No one should be forced to serve another person.
        2) Child labor is wrong. Minors cannot protect their interests and make good decisions for themselves.
        3) The fact you hate or love doing something has little to do with how all people feel about it.
        4) Most people don’t like their jobs particularly the kind available to unskilled workers. Most jobs available to unskilled workers have harsh dangerous conditions or humiliating circumstances particularly if they pay well.
        5) The many ways sex workers are abused are made worse because they don’t receive police protection, can’t only unionize and collaborate, have no government regulation and have to hide as part of the black market.
        6) If an adult human being is in a desperate situation and chooses prostitution to better their situation, how are we bettering their situation by taking away that choice.

        • says

          Why do you think if I go to brothels or talk to prostituted women and listen to them, I would start thinking prostitution is good and body should be for sale? I talk with believers everyday. They tell me god exists and god is kind and nice and merciful. After listening to their opinions, I do not start thinking that god exists.
          I need logic and evidences to believe in something. FYI, I have a rational logical mind.

          • Raven01 says

            You have a logical mind?
            Then why do you rely on anti-pornography propaganda sites for information?
            You may aswell ask the Pope if Catholicism is the one true religion and take that as “fact”. No vested interest there at all. Anyone of reasonable intelligence is going to know the answer they will receive from such a source before the question is even asked.

            Since I’ve seen you refer to “abusive husbands” but not abusive wives I will illustrate one of your readers and possibly your own gross misconceptions.
            The FACT of the matter is that women are privileged in society. And, that women are more likely to be violent than men.
            “October is domestic violence awareness month. In May 2007, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) published its latest study which found almost one-fourth of relationships had violence, about half of which was reciprocal, and the researchers were “surprised” to find that “in nonreciprocally violent relationships, women were the perpetrators in more than 70 percent of the cases,” and men incurred significant injuries”
            One way domestic violence (as in only one person being violent…. 70% of the time it is women doing it)
            For reciprocal violence, where both parties assault each other they found that initiation was almost evenly split between males and females. And, further admit that 1/4 of domestic violence resulting in murder the victims are male (these miss poisonings, and contract killings when the wife is never charged).
            http://www.eworldwire.com/pressrelease/17670

            Another researcher found that women who were seriously injured in domestic violence had a statistically significant common factor.
            Care to guess what that was?
            They started hitting first. So, the man that injured them is incorrectly charged and labelled a “wife-beater” when all he is guilty of is defending himself from further harm.
            “How can we prevent Intimate Partner Violence and injury to women? IPV researcher Deborah Capaldi, Ph.D., a social scientist at the Oregon Social Learning Center, finds that the best way for women to be safe is to not initiate violence against their male partners. ”
            http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-sacks/researcher-says-womens-in_b_222746.html

            So, yes women are more violent than men. Women’s violence is directly related to their privileged status. No woman would be so stupid as to walk up to a tiger and start beating it because that would result in her receiving violence in return. Yet, clearly women are comfortable enough in their privileged status to feel quite safe striking a man and expecting no reciprocation. and, THEN crying, “I’m a victim” should any man actually defend himself from her violence.

      • Gorbachev says

        Taslima,

        Again, I write this with all possible respect for what you do and what you’ve gone through.

        I am new here. I have yet to know feminist freethought bloggers. You try to convince me that prostituted women enjoy the ‘profession’ they are in. I am sorry I am not convinced.

        I’m not saying that you should listen to me. In fact, I would suggest that if you are truly interested in this phenomenon, and don’t just wish to exercise your own narrow prejudices, that you actually do some research.

        Of course, drug-addicted prostitutes in prison are unhappy. This is the bulk of the women usually surveyed by prohibitionist “researchers”, like Melissa Farley, are from this pool.

        If you survey the McDonald’s workers who are abused by their bosses, forced to work overnight shifts and are regularly beaten by their co-workers, you’re going to get the results you want, too.

        The fact is that almost all research that can be credited – and has no ideological bias – shows that in North America, there are:
        – Few, if any, pimps. Most “pimps” arrested are husbands or roommates jailed on “living on the avails” charges. In essence, they are people harassed by cops. They may even be relatives or family of the prostitute.
        – Most escorts are in the business by choice. They are independent, and on average, they earn *far more* money than their compatriots in the corporate world.
        – Many have issues in their past – drugs, home life, etc. These things are almost always not related to what happens to them in prostitution. These things are baggage that they carry with them from their own childhoods.

        Are there women who shouldn’t do this? Of course. Are there women who could do something else? Sure.

        But this is not Bombay. It’s not Chennai. In fact, in New Zealand, the government has been extremely successful at promotng the safety and livelihood of prostitutes. In Sweden, the government regularly gets caught out making up statistics and lying to the press in order to pretend that its criminalization regime is a sucess.

        The truth is that you’re not proceeding on the basis of fact or logic: You have made a determination and you will ignore any information that does not fit your moral compass.

        This is not the action of a Feminist, affirming activist: it’s the action of a bully and a prudish, moralizing bigot who reveres ideological purity over listening to actual, real, living women.

        This is why your brand of feminism has been largely rejected by living women. You deny women agency. You seek to prescribe what others do, regardless of what they have to say.

        The Melissa Farleys of the world have much in common with you: Facts and people matter not at all. Only ideological purity matters.

        I would suggest that your stances require some nuance.

        I think if prostituted women say that they enjoy their lives, they’re either lying or just trying to defend the terrible condition they are in only to give themselves some psychological comfort.

        Really?

        They’re not motivated by the huge sums of money? By the fact that they can earn 4-5x what they could in other jobs?
        \How many women and men do things for money? All of them.

        It just makes such women opportunistic and self-interested – not anti-feminist Stockholm Syndrome victims.

        No sane person can enjoy her life as a prostitute or her life with an abuser husband, or living under the burqa.

        You have just made three assertions with no basis in reason or fact.

        First, you called all prostitutes who enjoy their work crazy. This means you single-handedly dismiss any voice they have: You just won’t listen to these women at all.

        Clearly, you object to them using sex to earn a living. YOu may consider this beneath human dignity, but whether or not it is – for them – is entirely their choice. You have no vote, nor SHOULD you have a vote. What part of this don’t you understand?

        This might be an East-est problem. Perhaps you’ve imbibed too much Islamic imperialism. Perhaps you’re used to telling others how to be Real Women or Real Humans. This is neither your job nor your right. You should learn this.

        Second, you equated domestic abuse, the burqa and prostitution. That you did this shows that you have never actually spoken to prostitutes nor have you any knowledge beyond simple pleasant notions of what constitutes dignity.

        That you don’t realize this just goes to show how ignorance is most ignorant of how ignorant it is. If you actually wish to have wel-reasoned and informed opinions on this matter, it would behoove you to do some actual reading, or perhaps meet some prostitutes. And actually *talk* to them, … and *listen*.

        Don’t tell them what to think. Listen to what they say.

        This is the poison pill of 1985 sex-negative feminism. You seek to tell others what to do.

        You haven’t read enough literature post-1990; everything you say reeks of doctrinaire Mackinnon-esque ideology, rather than carefully reasoned thought.

        Some prostitution may not sex slavery, some women may ‘enjoy’ prostitution but I am sure they are very very small number of people.

        Okay, first you dismiss them as crazy. Now they’re just a small number. Which is it?

        Any metho to silence the other side, I guess; is it a core feminist principle to dismiss those who disagree with you without even considering their position?

        Who is empowering women, here? You seek to remove all agency from women who disagree with you. Shame on you.

        In fact, in the West, the hard, vast amount of prostitution is indoors, not on the street; it’s largely not in brothels, but in individual circumstances.

        By and large, and this may be what upsets you most, most of these women don’t want to be rescued. I would suggest you do some real research.

        Atlanta is not Calcutta. if you can’t deal with that, perhaps you’re not writing in the right hemisphere. You need reason, research, and fact before you can make gross generalizations and statements.

        You may not understand this, given your background and your exposure to the less thoughtful brands of Feminism in the West, but all it does is make a mockery of your previous work in Asia.

        ”If you enjoy sex and can make decent money with it”, it is fine if you really want to do it but it is not easy. You never know what a stranger would do to you. He can beat you, bite you, slap you, rape you, abuse you, kill you.

        This is true. it’s dangerous work. But the stories of prostitutes show that making it legal, making contacts enforceable, and setting up support systems is much much, much better than driving the industry underground.

        The Canadian courts recently agreed. They dismissed Farley’s research as farcical and “problematic” – as in, garbage. And they decriminalized it, with the objective to helping women.

        You might argue that this degrades women as a whole, but this doesn’t empower you to judge prostitutes. Individuals are individuals: There is no amorphous “Femininity” that is being insulted by the existence of prostitution.

        Individuals are individuals. If you refuse to listen to individuals, then you become a tyrant. You should learn from your Taliban enemies what effect this has.

        Oppression comes in many forms. Freedom is valuable in and of itself.

        Why do you think accepting sexual slavery or prostitution is skepticism and opposing it not? Actually opposing prostitution is more skeptical than accepting it. In society, it is an accepted opinion that prostitution is a ‘work’ and women can be happy doing it. But I have a doubt. I do not accept the accepted opinions. I question. I am a skeptic.

        This is not an accepted position at all. Except in a few very enlightened Western coutnries, prostitution is seen as a stigma and a crime: this is as true in Thailand as it is in India.

        When middle-class men and women stop judging prostitutes for doing what they do, and allow them to freely ply their trade in a safe and comfortable manner, and stop thinking that their sexuality is being threatened (much of the motivation for middle-class women to assault prostitutes), then there will be a measure of freedom.

        If another woman, of her own free will, chooses to do what she does, your place is not to judge her. Period.

        What people do behind closed doors is none of your business. Didn’t Islamic thugs not teach you this?

        If you doubt that most prostitutes in the West are independent escorts and not drug-addled streetwalkers or brothel slaves, then it just highlights and showcases your profound ignorance It renders you unqualified to discuss this in a Western context, but this doesn’t seem to prevent you from making ideological overstatements.

        You said, ‘quoting from anti-prostitution sites isn’t scientific or skeptical.’ Why do you think quoting from pro-prostitution sites is scientific or skeptical?

        Pro-prostitution? Why not trying to evaluate research based on its methodology?

        Don’t just look to hear what you want to see. This is another problem: You see some pictures of women without bike helmets and then make some grandiose, completely unjustified conclusion based on the need to find problems wherever you look. You miss the underlying issue: Passengers more rarely wear helmets. The real issue was why not more women were riding the bikes and not just passengers, but you missed this completely. It’s ideological blindness or something else acting. You’re just sloganeering.

        it’s cheap, weak, 1980’s and not thoughtful.

        When it impacts real people – ie, prostitutes and their being hounded by society – then it starts to have real damaging effects. It’s not just quaint and interesting ideological throwbacks.

        I proudly uphold my ideals.

        Please do. But please don’t be like the Taliban and uphold them in the face of evidence and in judgement over other people’s lives.

        I don’t mind to lose conventional audience. If I wrote for audience, I would have been a faithhead, a misogynist and a joker.

        Your definition of “misogynist: seems to be : “Anyone who doesn’t agree with my opinions (regardless of facts or people)”.

        This does no one any favors.

        In fact, especially you. You lose your audience not because they are misogynists or they hate women – but because you are unable to reflect openly on your own views, your ideology is unsubtle and exclusive, and you are unable to listen to competing voices.

        Even among feminists.

        I strongly suggest you read Maggie’s blog, previously noted. There are literally dozens of others. And you can also do some real research into the Swedish and New Zealand models.

        On Porn, determine if there’s a correlation between rape and abuse of women and porn use.

        Dworkin and Mackinnon were dead wrong. All research shows that over time, porn accessibility radically (not subtly; radically) reduces abuse of women, rape and assault. Why this would be true is obvious.

        Others also suggest it goes a great distance to reducing male need for sex within relationships, too: something many women are now complaining about (in the New York Times, no less). Indeed, a few years ago, Naomi Wofl even noted this, with some dismay.

        So what degrades women? is it just notional , or do you have facts?

        But I have always been taken risks of losing ‘audience’. Didn’t I lose may country, my society, my people already. Don’t try to make me feel scared of anything.

        This is more weak victim-seeking: I hate to use that word, but you’re done it again. In your case, it tragically seems to apply. Don’t make anything I say out to be even remotely a threat. It sounds like Taliban saying Muslims are oppressed by the mere existence of Christians in their midst, which is what much of what they say amounts to.

        I am not trying to scare you and neither am I threatening you. Like a religious zealot, if you so strongly believe in your personal ideology, that’s more than fine: but you should understand that this is what it is.

        If the mere EXISTENCE of a different point of view, one based on actually listening to women and respecting their choices and agency, is something you find threatening–

        then you have far, far more in common with Islamic theocrats than you would like to believe.

          • uncephalized says

            Wow. Way to engage him on his arguments instead of attacking him with ad hominems. Yeah, real skeptical.

  57. Joel says

    Women hate men’s penis. So we cut of the foreskin when men are babies with out the aid of anesteshia so women won’t think their natrual dicks are gross.

    I can play that game too. I think my victim card trumps your’s.

    • Ysanne says

      Nah, this was an own goal.
      Routine circumcision is bad enough, without anaesthesia even more so, but unfortunately there’s a female version for this too, which manages to be way more barbaric: It’s roughly equivalent to cutting off the whole glans and scraping out a bit of the inside of what’s left with a razor blade before sewing the whole thing shut.
      So not exactly a good example.

      Maybe one good point for this one would be that again, such mutilation does not stem from a hate of men’s/women’s bodies from an attractiveness point of view, but from a fear of people, especially women, enjoying and controlling their own body and sexuality.

      • Anthony Zarat says

        Please name one industrialized nation where female genital mutiliation is LEGAL.

        Got nothing?

        OK, please namy ANY country (anywhere) where female genital mutilation is LEGAL.

        Still nothing?

        Please name any country (anywhere) where MALE genital mutilation is NOT LEGAL.

        Your false equivalence exists only in YOUR sexist head.

        • Ysanne says

          Single examples, it’s damn late here:
          FGM legal and practiced: Mali.
          Male circumcision illegal: Finland.

      • Kimski says

        You seem to intentionally overlook, or forget to mention, the fact that FGM are perpetrated by women against other women, in almost a 100% of the reported incidences.

        Convenient misrepresentation of facts, don’t you think?

        One might even be tempted to think that the exact same misrepresentation of facts is happening in this thread.

        • uncephalized says

          It’s easy to see that MGM is actually a bigger issue worldwide, since it’s a) performed far, far more frequently and b) is accepted and even encouraged in much of the world rather than being widely repudiated as FGM is. You don’t see anti-circumcision demonstrations anywhere.

          No question, they’re both awful practices. The correct answer is “end all genital mutilation NOW”, not “end genital mutilation for one sex NOW, while ignoring the same problem for the other sex until maybe, sometime, we get around to worrying about it.”

          If that’s all the backup men get from feminists, then maybe you can see why we’re not all that interested in self-identifying with you or backing you up on your crusades.

      • Raven01 says

        Pardon my language but, you made the claim.
        HOW THE FUCK DOES CUTTING A BOY WITHOUT ANESTHESIA HAVE ANY BEARING ON WOMEN CONTROLLING THEIR BODIES?
        You are too stupid for word if you thing that cutting tissue from a boys penis and using it for skin cream so old hags can “feel younger” have anything to do with women. Other than as the age old consumers of mens’ pain for their gain.
        FGM is illegal in every single 1st world nation and MGM is just standard practice. You would compare a nick from an adult female CHOOSING to shave to a boy having a protective part of his penis hacked off because most women “prefer it that way aesthetically”?
        You cannot even be a real person.

    • Joel says

      I just wanted to add something about “patriarchy” and circumcision, since I see “patriarchy” talked about in the arcticle.

      Feminist usualy define “patriarchy” as a society ruled/controlled by men for the benefit of men. So in this patriarchy we live in men made circumcised penises the norm so women would prefer them, so that men would feel pressure to get them selves circumcised and so parents would with out concent circumcise their sons. If this is how we men use our “patriarchy” to our benifiet, we men are a sadomasocistic lot.

  58. DLZ says

    On and on the hamster wheel spins.

    If there is one thing that feminism has well and truly fucked up for women, it is their ability to act as agents of their own will, or be anything more than perpetual victims.

    How about a little personal accountability, hmm? This whole rise of cosmetic superficiality? That’s on you ladies. Most men have other things to worry about, such as fighting and dying in war, or on the job, or breaking their backs day in and day out to support your entitled asses while you whinge and moan about shit that you do to yourselves.

    Oh you poor, poor wimmin. I can see a lot of gender “studies” majors in here. Lmfao.

    • cswella says

      If there is one thing that feminism has well and truly fucked up for women, it is their ability to act as agents of their own will, or be anything more than perpetual victims.

      Nice generalization you got going there.

      How about a little personal accountability, hmm? This whole rise of cosmetic superficiality? That’s on you ladies.

      If you’re going to suggest that each female take full responsibility for this, then I suggest that each male take full responsibility for the recent global economic collapse. You’re 2-0 for over-generalizations, don’t stop now.

      Most men have other things to worry about, such as fighting and dying in war, or on the job, or breaking their backs day in and day out to support your entitled asses while you whinge and moan about shit that you do to yourselves.

      And now you’re full blown misogynist. The time and effort it would take to educate your dumb ass isn’t worth even attempting.

      • DLZ says

        Ah yes, “misogyny.” The ever popular feminist appeal to emotion when no method to refute is available. If this were an in person argument, I imagine you would be crying and pointing right now too.

        I won’t get into your shot at the economic collapse, because I’m more than sure that a discussion about the aspects of that is well beyond your grasp. Especially considering that you, once again, reduce women (not to be confused with the comparitively small population of feminists) to agentless victims.

        The funny thing is, it is your own agency that allowed you to choose to create this non existant “problem” for yourselves! Why do you think there is such a huge marketing push to sell this shit to women? Because you fucking buy it! You spend about 80% of all disposable income in the US because of your vanity, and to turn around now and blame it on men? Are you fucking children? You people are an embarrassnent to those that fought to give women equal rights. Apparently, you need a parental type guardian to keep you from making childish fuckups all your life.

  59. Chris K says

    This blog and every post in defense of it are proof positive that feminists are simply people who like to complain and never grow out of childhood . What an amazing exercise in denial this blog is ! It’s really quite exhilirating watching you radical feminists perform your mental gymnastics for the sole purpose of freeing yourself from the tyranny of personal agency .

    Really though … men hate women because women try to impress men . That’s the kernel of author’s argument . Well , two things :
    1 – Western women sure aren’t putting much effort into trying to impress men judging by their waistlines and toxic attitudes . Oh sure , they’ll complain about what a challenge it is to keep up with fashion while staving off the aging process but in terms of actually trying to do something about it … well , pay a visit to Wal-Mart sometime and count the cover models . If you run out of thumbs you’ve just witnessed a record being broken .
    2 – Women can take %99 of the blame for whatever shortcomings they feel the media has made them feel self-conscious about .
    You think men are snapping up copies of Cosmo , writing the nonsense they put in it , or even suggesting their girlfriends and wives flip through a copy of it on occassion ? Guess again . I mean , of course you lot believe that because with you the buck always stops with men but the rest of the world does not suffer from the same delusions .

    What makes this all the more hilarious is that when it comes to real privilege , it’s you lot that wallow in it while complaining about how much better you think men have it . Right … because I expect to ever see even one of you break a sweat doing anything demanding . Ha ha … as if .

    Seriously though , if any of you had actually bothered to think about any of this for even a moment , you’d realize how absurd feminism has become : You’re arguing that it’s men’s fault that women do things of their own free will .
    So either you’re claiming women are generally too stupid to even think for themselves , or that no woman has ever glossed her lips without believing there was a man holding a gun to her head .

    Nevertheless … keep up this sort of work . Really . Every time one of you types yet another ridiculous rant like the one in question , the more evidence people have of just how childish and hateful feminism really is . I mean it .

    • cswella says

      Shut the hell up you misogynistic asshole. You bring nothing of value to the discussion with your broad assertions and generalizations.

      • Not buying it says

        What broad assertions you talking about???

        You are either retarded or just plain old intellectual hypocrite , cswella

          • Mikey Flubb says

            Hands down yes. Retarded hands of patriarchy so I am not so sure this counts as your male head is buried in the sand with your eyes closed and heart above the ground never open also.

  60. Tim says

    Im not going to break down the list… all I will say is what I tell my wife constantly. I love you just the way you are, IF you are not happy with some part of you then change it and let me know how I can help you.
    If someone claims to love you but wants to change you, they dont love you get rid of them and find someone who can accept the good and the bad that you bring to the relationship.

  61. jajjj says

    You are severely misguided if you don’t think this a 2-way street.

    Men are expected to be muscular so we workout constantly…

    Women find grey hair unattractive so we dye our hair.

    Many women have no interest in men of below average height. I’ve had female friends tell me that they would never date a man who wasn’t at least as tall as them with high heels on.

    Being pale is seen as unattractive as well. Look at the average male on television, they’re all tanned. What’s the old cliched line for an attractive male again? “Tall, dark and handsome?”

    Give me a break.

  62. andrew says

    1. i dont care what color a woman’s skin is as long as its not blue because then she’d be a corpse…

    2. most girls i know like to dye their hair not because they are worried men wouldn’t like them, its because they want to express themselves

    3. i (and a lot of men i know) prefer natural breasts, i prefer smaller actually because i don’t really care for large breasts

    4. i dont care if a hymen is broken or not, not my body not my issue

    5. i admit i prefer shaved legs, but then again everyone is can be a little picky

    6. women who wear make up and put on anti-aging creams annoy me, granted a like a youthful looking woman i’d prefer if someone was true to themselves and isn’t ashamed of something that naturally happens

    you act as if all a woman cares about is pleasing men, as if they don’t have tastes of their own. for example, my ex girlfriend would actually get pissed at me if i shaved my beard.

    please pull your head out of your ass and grow up

  63. Scotland says

    The main problem with this article, like all claims of modern feminism, is that it works in absolutes. Furthermore, it’s written by a woman who is, without research or significant male testimony, is claiming what men like. How anyone can take this seriously has me scratching my head.

      • Mikey Flubb says

        I did and unfortunately reversed them again. It looks as though I am on the losing side of the gender reversing game.

        • Kimski says

          How very ‘unfortunate’ of you.
          Personal gain and/or victim role claiming would of course not be a reason for that little ‘accident’, right?

          Because that would very obviously free you of any responsibility or accountability in your life, and as long as you can keep blaming someone else for your own shortcomings, you have everything to gain, and you would only loose the goverment funded money, that allows you to go around and spread your hateful vitriol, while not doing anything to change your life to the better.
          -And you would never do such a thing, would you, Mikey??

  64. JEC says

    You know what I hate in a woman? One who feels I need to define her. Weak willed. If they do a bunch of those things I’m not interested – I want a strong woman who knows who she is.

    This is coming from an independent dude. I want someone who’s a match, an equal. Not another child or subordinate personality I have to tell constantly this or that – I want another ADULT who has their OWN MIND.

  65. Anthony Zarat says

    Dear feminist sexists,

    If you want to open your eyes and see REAL discrimination, try this experiment:

    1) Make a list of the 10 worst things that can happen to a person. You can put anything you want on it. Any kind of violence, any kind of death, any kind of disease, any kind of substance abuse, any kind of accident, imprisonment, suicide, separation from family, whatever.

    2) For each item on YOUR list, find out who this happens more to: men or women.

    3) Compare your list of the worst things that can happen to people, to the resources (legal, financial, and institutional) that are spent helping men and women. Why are there 600 women’s studies departments, and zero male studies departments? Why are there 2000 women only institutions, and 20,000 woman only programs, in the US alone? Why are there countless laws (VAWA, Obamacare) that offer protection and resources to women, but not to men?

    4) Stop fighting against the men’s rights movement, the only true egalitarian gender movement that has ever existed. Also, stop complaining about utterly inane and trivial concerns like body image and cosmetic usage. Have you not compassion, to complain about these banalities while you wade knee deep in a lake of male sweat, male tears, and male blood?

    • Red says

      Please explain how the men’s rights movement is the only true egalitarian gender movement that has ever existed. Was the women’s rights movement in the Victorian era sexist? Was the push for women to get the right to vote sexists? Was giving women equal education opportunities sexists? Women’s rights groups did achieve some good in the world. And, I am pretty sure men’s rights groups will also achieve some good.
      If you wish for Obamacare to offer protection and resources to men, I would recammend writing letters to Congress or getting involved in politics. I am not dismissing your question, I am only making a suggestion. If you would like to see men’s studies departments in colleges then why not start some? There are boys only Catholic schools in the U.S. Tell me how many male only institutes there are. Have you researched that? Why are female only institutes a threat to you? Perhaps, you should write your local paper on why we need more male only institutes. The energy that you put into writing this comment adressed to sexist feminists as you call them could be put into making the changes you want to see in society. Are all feminists sexist? How many feminists do you know personally?

      Why does it matter which gender the worst things happens to the most often? Focusing on that keeps us from helping everyone.

      • J.G. te Molder says

        >Was the women’s rights movement in the Victorian era sexist?

        Yes, for it went to get rights without the corresponding duties; in other words, privileges over men. Men had the rights to get the children, because they had the corresponding enforceable duty to provide for them. So, if they failed to cough up the money to provide for the children, they could be put in jail. This was not true for women, and the feminists only wanted the privilege to the children; the duties remained with men. Indeed, alimony and child support is directly because women gained the privilege to have the children, but the duty to take care and pay for the children and divorced wife remained with the main. Not equality; privilege based upon sexism.

        >Was the push for women to get the right to vote sexists?
        Yes, for women did not gain the right to vote, nor did they ever seek the right to vote, they sought the privilege to vote; once again lacking the duties. Indeed, while the feminists claimed they wanted the “right”, the vast majority of women were against getting the right to vote, because they rightfully, but falsely, assumed that with it came the corresponding duty to die on the battlefield, (and this is the reason why women, in particular white women, were the last to get the vote). The duty of being cannon fodder is what men were expected to perform, in order to get the vote. But that’s not what feminists wanted, they just wanted to vote; in fact the suffragettes wanted the vote for rich land-owning women, to hell with the rest of them. Only when it was made clear to the average women that they would get the privilege to vote, above and beyond men, without having to pay with broken bodies, broken psyches and death, did they say, “Oh, well, in that case, yeah, sure.”

        Sexist privilege: men have to die on the battle field, not women. Exemplified by Planckhurst being being the white feather campaign: planting a white feather on men in civies, shaming them for being cowards, but not just men, even teenage, underage boys; and teenage underage boys lies at the application and died in WW1; because a feminist had so much uncaring sexism, that having a penis meant you could go die.

        >Was giving women equal education opportunities sexists?
        Yes. Because the feminists never did, or campaigned for it. Women had equal education opportunities for centuries, it’s just that formal education wasn’t as useful to a woman, so families didn’t waste their money and giving women that education. But they were perfectly allowed entrance into schools. The show how sexist the push to get women equally into higher education; they reached that in the early 80s. But did that stop the campaigns and funding? Nope. Today, 65% of graduates are women, 60% of all students are women, and that number is rising. Is that stopping the women-only scholarships? Nope, in fact, Title IX means that if only a few women are interested, that course will only have 2x a few students in it, even if the capacity is ten times the number… unless that is not enough students to justify the course; in which case it will be shut down. You want to know how men don’t graduate; there you go, the courses they’re interested in, they either not allowed to enter, or it gets removed altogether.

        >If you would like to see men’s studies departments in colleges then why not start some?
        Actually men’s studies is feminism; a method of demonizing men and marginalizing men. The newly formed studies that actually cares for men is called male studies… but there’s no funding; after reading the above, take a guess why. Maybe you’d like to go do a few google searches on groups trying to establish safe spaces of men on campus; you’ll find one effort that was headed by several people including girls. The student union promptly decreed that talking about misandry was misogyny and therefor male-only safe spaces are banned. The university happily agrees.

        >Perhaps, you should write your local paper on why we need more male only institutes.
        They won’t be published; they’ll be ignored.

        >The energy that you put into writing this comment adressed to sexist feminists as you call them could be
        >put into making the changes you want to see in society.
        That is what this comment does. If you read the above; you might start to notice a pattern, one that has been going on for thousands of years: men are expendable, women must be protected. Whenever a woman has a booboo throw a few dead male bodies at it, and the problem “gets solved”. To get to the point where we can go, “Yo! Men are having a problem!” and then society and governments looking over, and actually care about the men in question and then help them; you first need to change the entire way that men are regarded by the average person in the streets. Which, at this point in time, is done by telling everyone the truth, over and over again, for months, years, decades, until enough people finally learn to care about the plight of men that applying for a grant would actually work. This, is one such way to get there.

        >Are all feminists sexist? How many feminists do you know personally?
        I’ve never come across a feminist that didn’t turn out to be sexist sooner or later, more often sooner rather than later.

        >Why does it matter which gender the worst things happens to the most often? Focusing on that keeps us
        >from helping everyone.
        Says the person who lives in a world where women get helped all the time. In other words: shut up! You’re stopping us from helping women! Indeed, if you’ve notice above, whenever a woman has a booboo men and society charge ahead to help them; if a couple of more men have to be thrown on the pile, oh, well, it’s just men, right? Those with privilege? The simple fact is; if you don’t remind everyone again, and again, and again, that women’s suffering, whatever little there is, is nothing compared to what men gets put through; all it will do is throw some more men on the pile to solve the latest tiny booboo women claim they have. Men will never be helped; the way we help women, will be to increase the suffering of men.

        Not to mention; if you want to apply resources the most efficiently, wouldn’t you want to apply the least money to solve the most suffering; which you can only do if you know where the most suffering and inequality is.

        • Red says

          YOu are aware that women join the military now and are allowed to go into some combat positions. World War I was began in 1914 and ended ub 1918. It is the year 2013 if you haven’t noticed.

          • J.G. te Molder says

            Not allowed; MUST!

            That would have been one of the contentions if the feminist cared about equality as opposed to privilege. Not only would they have campaigned for the right to vote, they would have campaigned for the DUTY to serve in the military. That “not being allowed” would have to have changed, to the duty to do so, if they cared about actual equality. The year is irrelevant, if feminists were for equality, they would campaigned for it; they didn’t.

            By the way, the question is still not whether or not women are allowed, it’s whether they MUST. Men MUST sign up for Selective Service, failure to do so means they will not receive scholarships, government loans, and cannot get employed by the government, that is if they are not incarcerated. Men MUST. Have you heard a single feminist claim that women MUST sign up for selective services as well as long as men have to? Or campaign for men’s duty to sign up be removed?

            The answer would be no: because feminists don’t care. Feminists don’t want equality, they want privilege.

        • Red says

          Saying shut up is so mature. You can’t comment without being rude? Someone expresses an opinion you disagree with you need to be rude?I Do you say shut up to your boss and coworkers? I was not even commment to you in the first place. My comment was a response to Anthony Zarat.

  66. Jakob says

    I am spellbound by the debate that has ensued this flagratly misandric and preposterous article, I would like to express my admiration especially for Gorbachev, whose intelligence and insight into this matter is unrivalled and supremely logical. Evolutionary psychology is the most logical and fascinating explanation of human interplay, anyone who disqualifies it, blaming society for their problems, is doing a great disservice to science, logic, and reasoning. Then again I can’t blame those who do too greatly,for they are, after all, just as I , irrational animals.

  67. Kimski says

    “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep any woman in everlasting ignorance — that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”

    HERBERT SPENCER

    • Mikey Flubb says

      SPENCER had a wife of which he did whip with sticks of switch.
      He bate her blue and black and her skin did shine with terror.

      Now upon this day that “great” man has had his stay yet never sway from that of the phallus pummel.

      Trammel me here and trammel me there and smite my heart of lush,
      Kick me hit me with your flesh and fiery wooden brush.

      But I will never surrender.
      Never ever ever ever ever surrender.

      ever.

      • Kimski says

        See, Mikey??
        There’s a perfect example of how much money you could make on that translation manual I mentioned.

        It would give you something productive to do, and if you started taking a bath once in a while and lost some weight, you might actually be able to do something positive with your life, for once.

    • Poetentiate says

      Yeah, we should leave you feminist KKK types to post your hatred publicly and in peace.

      I think not.

      • Kimski says

        Oh, so bullying is a one-sided exchange now??

        If you dish it out, ladies, you have to be prepared to receive, without breaking into tears over it. It’s called normal human interaction.
        Besides, it would’t be equality if only one gender were allowed to do this, would it??

        Men are waaayy behind you precious little darlings, when it comes to denigrating the other half of the demographic, in every single media you have invaded with your hate.
        Welcome to the war you started yourselves, and start looking forward to loosing it.

        The velvet glove is off, ladies.
        It’s time to woman-up and start taking some responsibility for your actions the past 50 years.

  68. Poetentiate says

    From Tasmin’s page (I took the the liberty of adding a stanza to try to illustrate her bigotry)

    ”When the Nazis came for the communists,
    I remained silent;
    I was not a communist.
    When they locked up the social democrats,
    I remained silent;
    I was not a social democrat.

    When they came for the trade unionists,
    I did not speak out;
    I was not a trade unionist.

    When they came for the Jews,
    I remained silent;
    I was not a Jew.

    When they came for all the men,
    I did not object,
    for I was not a man and it was what those hateful men deserved.

    When they came for me,
    there was no one left to speak out.”

      • Kimski says

        No you won’t.
        You know perfectly well that you’ll be sucking up to the nearest man for protection, and you’ll be doing it big time.

        Wake up and smell the rose of reality. You’ve been pampered and protected all your lives, and are completely out of touch with a reality of no ressources, no goverment or police to protect you, no hot water,no electricity, and no warm and cozy little homes to hide in.
        And that is the reality that are coming swiftly over the horizon, because you gals have removed every single incentive for men to be a part of society any more. The marriage stats are just the first proof you need, to see what is going to happen. It is happening in Japan at a far greater rate than in the west, so you might want to check it out.
        We’re done, and you have only yourselves to blame. Feminism is a good idea, but you ladies have taken it way too far.
        This is not equality or even democracy.
        It is gender fascism in it’s most pure form.

        • Kimski says

          Let me rephrase that last part:

          Feminism MIGHT have been a good idea, at some point in the past..

        • says

          Don’t have much besides hilariously mis-timed threats, eh?

          Let me make sure I understand this: When they come for all the men, I will be sucking up to the nearest man for protection, because the men are going to take their balls and their hot water and go Galt in the woods since I won’t marry them.

          LOGIC!

          • Kimski says

            that is not a threat, sweetie.
            It very real, and you need to wake up, before it ends as I predicted.
            You don’t seriously think that all this will continue, when the one half of the demographic that sustains the infrastructure, and provides the ressources just won’t do it anymore, do you?

          • DLZ says

            Uh, sweetie? You’ve got it twisted. Its the men who aren’t marrying you.

            Seriously. Look around. Read some of your feminist editorials lamenting all the men not “manning up” and marrying and then busting ass for their wives for the rest of their days.

            Why in fucks name would I ever take that risk, when I can get casual sex off of okcupid for free, or watch porn, or play diablo 3 all weekend?

            You’re being replaced. You aren’t worth it. Go out and bust ass for your own lot in life. If you feel like getting laid, you can take one of us out and pay for everything, then hope we care enough to bother.

          • Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle says

            Don’t worry, honeycakes Kimski and sweetiekins DLZ, women don’t want to marry you. We don’t want to be anywhere near you. So, please, do the world a favor and jump off a bridge. K, sweeties? thanks, The Entire World.

  69. Gorbachev says

    What Michalchik said needs to be said again, so I’m reposting it.

    Taslima, the reason you are poorly received here on this issue is made absolutely clear by Michalchik.

    Here is the post, just posted. Consider this a second of that post.

    Stop insulting women by pretending to be a “feminist” and telling others what feminism is. It’s a poor excuse, and as I’ve said before, very, very weak sauce.

    You are not the world Nanny or Father or Great Mother: Your job as an activist is to LISTEN to the “subjects” for whom you advocate, not just tell them what to do.

    Stop practicing elitist, exclusive feminism. It’s very, very middle-class.

    It reminds me of Christian pastors who told their flock or communist organizers who told farmers and taxi drivers what farmers and taxi drivers needed. It ends up with police harassing prostitutes and treating them badly or like infants because a few well-placed, comfortable, self-assured “feminists” know better than the women they seek to emancipate.

    Stop being so arrogant.

    There is a simple solution that I am sure you will agree is fair. Why don’t you get to know sex workers and talk to them about their lives instead of judging them from afar. You can open up a phone book and call an escort service, go to a strip club or legal cat house in Nevada or contact sex workers rights organizations like:

    http://www.sexworkersproject.org/

    and as about interviewing sex workers,

    There are several issues that need to be untangled here.

    1) Slavery is always wrong. No one should be forced to serve another person.
    2) Child labor is wrong. Minors cannot protect their interests and make good decisions for themselves.
    3) The fact you hate or love doing something has little to do with how all people feel about it.
    4) Most people don’t like their jobs particularly the kind available to unskilled workers. Most jobs available to unskilled workers have harsh dangerous conditions or humiliating circumstances particularly if they pay well.
    5) The many ways sex workers are abused are made worse because they don’t receive police protection, can’t only unionize and collaborate, have no government regulation and have to hide as part of the black market.
    6) If an adult human being is in a desperate situation and chooses prostitution to better their situation, how are we bettering their situation by taking away that choice.

  70. christophersmith says

    Many of those things are terrible, but the enemy also targets men’s bodies too, with testicle lifting, bicep implants, abdominal liposuction/etching, beard trimmers, male circumcision, hair transplants, shaved heads, ties, Viagra, penile implants, television, Queer eye for the straight guy, and so on. Yea, so something hates all gender’s natural bodies. No country for any one of us.

  71. says

    I came across this and found it relevant:

    Michelle Keegan of the show “Coronation Street”, voted the “Sexiest Female” four years in a row by the British Soap Awards, doesn’t think she’s attractive, and considered plastic surgery:

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/coronation-street-teen-temptress-michelle-379930

    SHE doesn’t like how she looks. MEN clearly do. So, then, it seems reasonable to think that maybe, just maybe, women hate women’s bodies and men, in contrast, LIKE them. And maybe women wouldn’t need to do all of these things if they realized just how broad, at least, what men find attractive really is.

  72. Gorbachev says

    Why do you think if I go to brothels or talk to prostituted women and listen to them, I would start thinking prostitution is good and body should be for sale?

    You have made a judgment about bodies for sale being bad. This is a moral judgment: You have made this judgment exactly like religious authorities deciding that something is bad and therefore not listening to those who the judgement effects.

    And who said they were selling bodies? They’re selling services. It’s astonishing how often conservative people, like yourself, make moral judgments when something concerns sex, that they would never make if they were talking about something else – like cutting hair, or working in coal mines.

    Please show women a modicum of respect – as fully capable human beings.

    You are Moralist Deciion-maker. You failed to addresa any of the concerns I made, and are sill acting like some sort of Nanny.

    This brand of feminism drove most women from feminism, for very good reasons. It’s not a philosophy. It’s a religion.

    I talk with believers everyday. They tell me god exists and god is kind and nice and merciful. After listening to their opinions, I do not start thinking that god exists.

    We’re talking about actions, not beliefs.

    These women will likely tell you to stop bothering them. But you feel yourself empowered to judge them and create potential social policy to control their lives.

    Taslima, if you don’t see that you are setting yourself up as a form of silencing, social control, then all you’ve agreed to do is replace one oppressive moral nanny with another.

    And yours infantilizes women as much as any man’s. Give women agency.

    Show you respect them.

    I need logic and evidences to believe in something. FYI, I have a rational logical mind.

    Then if this is how you approach issues, please do engage your rational logical mind.

    If you can’t see that you’re becoming that which you claim to hate, then there’s no helping you, indeed.

    The reason you get such a poor audience (not just here) for this type of judgmentalism is very clear. But you refuse to see it.

    It’s not you that’s being silenced. In fact, “silenced” is nothing like anything that approaches your state.

    What you seek to do is silence other women. You are the moral absolutist, here.

    You refused to take up my challenge to challenge your views and listen to the voices you seek to silence. When you do this, I’ll be much more impressed with your apparent concern for women.

    Stop speaking for what you think are women’s voices and try listening to them for a change.

    You said yourself – “I refuse to believe”. You refuse to listen.

    Stop pontificating from some Great Mountain of Certainty. Try listening to the women you claim to work for.

    Far too often, a Concerned Communist becomes Stalin by assuming he or she knows what’s best for others.

  73. Gorbachev says

    Taslima,

    I have never paid for sex neither have I ever, in any way, availed myself of the funds that in any way shape or form came from prostitution.

    I just have respect for the choices that women make. Any choices.

    I’ve known more than one prostitute, and they all both defy and deeply resent your raging paternalism and sanctimony.

    That you can’t see yourself behaving in this manner is all the more tragic.

  74. Anthony Zarat says

    Lol, feminists are twisting their little panties into a knot because they are no longer able to slander and lie at will, without anyone saying anything.

    The mens rights movement:
    1) Equal protection under the law for all.
    2) Equal protection of government for all.

    Feminism:
    Hate.

    • Red says

      Feminists and misandrists are not the same things. Misandrist definition: hatred of men and boys. Femisnism definition: advocacy of women’s rights and for women to have equality with men.

      Feminism gave women the right to vote and many other equal opportunities. There were times in history when women were thought of as property. In acient Greece women had less of an opportunity for education. This article is clearly misandrist. Before you state that feminism equals hate, I suggest that you do some actual research on women’s rights movements and the history of feminism. Also, since you state that the men’s rights movement pushes for equality under the law for all. Why don’t you enlighten the rest of us. Explain how it advocates for equality for all. Explain how feminism equals hate.

  75. Pops says

    So I guess women hate men’s penises because most are mutilated shortly after birth.

    Women also must hate men’s faces because we have to put razor’s on them causing cuts, bumps and scarring.

    Lastly, no heterosexual man cares about a woman’s purse, yet women pay big money for them. Clear evidence that most of what women do they do to impress and compete against other women.

    It’s funny because black men are now being blamed for black women’s high obesity rate.

    • Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle says

      Hmm. Was it WOMEN who decided to start the custom of circumscion, moron?

      • Kimski says

        Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle says:

        June 9, 2012 at 2:23 am

        Don’t worry, honeycakes Kimski and sweetiekins DLZ, women don’t want to marry you. We don’t want to be anywhere near you. So, please, do the world a favor and jump off a bridge. K, sweeties? thanks, The Entire World.

        Oh, thank you so much!!!
        -For a second there I actually thought I was going to end up being fucked in divorce court, in the same way my farther, his brothers, my brothers and all of my married friends have been…By women, just like yourself.
        Commence with the beer drinking, little ‘genie’.

  76. J.G. te Molder says

    Talisma Nasreem is either an idiot, or a lying sack of shit. If men hated women’s (natural) bodies, we wouldn’t have been interested in women before modern technology, and thus the human race would have gone extinct countless millennia ago.

    Also, the whole article is talking about what women do to themselves. Newsflash, that means it’s not men’s fault, but women’s fault, women’s own agency, and thought. This article reduces women to pathetic, little children who are incapable of thinking and acting for themselves, and everything they do is merely as a puppet on invisible string controlled by the invisible man.

    It is disgusting and insulting.

    Oh, I’m a man. Guess what, I love the smaller breasts more than the obvious fake ones. I love the darker skin more than the lighter skin, etc. etc. Even if purely esthetically the work was so good I’d like it more; the moment I find out you are so lacking any self-esteem you had to let someone cut your body up, or destroy your natural skin, I’d turn away in disgust and walk away.

    In other words, it isn’t men who make women do things, it’s a beauty industry making you think men want things from women, so they can peddle their product off on you and make money.

    And that’s the thing; I’d say moron, but the article and its position is so stupid, morons would consider it stupid, which very much gets us to lying through her teeth, to advertise to the very same women who fall for the industry’s ads, so she can get more readers, by making them feel better about themselves: no, it’s not your own fault you let ads do shit to your body, no, it’s evil men victimizing you.

  77. J M says

    Your hate list is filled not with *hates* but unfortunate *preferences*, culturally and biologically generated.

    Any one of your “hates” can be equally said in reverse (but different criteria)…

    -Women hate men for making more than them but cheat with “better” men if we don’t.

    -Woman hate us if we psychologically try to control the situation but cheat with a better man if we don’t.

    -Woman hate us for dominating them in bed but cheat with better men if we don’t.

    -Woman hate us for being stronger than them but cheat if we aren’t.

    -Etc. [It is unnecessary exercise in pedantics.]

    Those are *preferences* biologically driven.

    Now Taslima, you are damaged in some way. And I’m sorry. Men’s Rights types often are too.

    The problem is your ilk’s (ie feminism’s) ax to grind *hate* is not being marginalized as hate by the rainmaking powers that be. Meanwhile men are mocked and worse for the same pangs that motivate you (and yours).

    And more men suffer than women: at the bottom of the caste structure is where the untouchables/unloved men are; meanwhile low females are still able to find some hope …someone.

    That is all bio deterministic, rooted in instincts that formed around “female sexual value”(sperm egg ratio). There is a reason we see no species in nature that reverse the black widow-like sexual social dynamic (where the females eat males).

    Also there is the problem of female human lack of big brain scope. Meaning, if there are solutions to these *human condition* problems of have and have not access to the “good life” (of love and joy and peace of mind… in a convertible along the summer coast), it will be high IQ men (in a complex specialist caste structure [competing as always over access to females]) that solves them. At any rate it won’t be wimmins studies nuts or socio-babble sophists.

    Burn your political energy on stem cell research and gene therapy etc.

    *Moores law* is working on a solution as I type…

  78. says

    All the comments from feminists,misogynists, conservative and progressive people are interesting. I thank you all for participating in debates. I learn a lot from you.

      • Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle says

        YOu want to thank imaginary people? You do realize this is an atheist blog group, right?

    • Kimski says

      ..feminists,misogynists,..

      You just couldn’t help yourself, could you??

      Why didn’t you list that, as it was presented by those who made comments:

      ..misandrists, misogynists,..?

      Oh, wait, you did..!
      Feminists equals misandrists, right?

  79. says

    I wholeheartedly support the emancipation of all people, of both genders, everywhere, just as much as I support Ms. Nasreen’s right to rant to her heart’s content in the public square. But I’m still wondering how this kind of post, and much of the commentary it attracts, fits under the rubric of free thought. Where’s the reason, the argument, the evidence? What specific problems are identified? What solutions are proposed?

    I was also not too pleased to find some kind of image of a mutilated vagina on my Facebook newsfeed, thanks to another of Ms. Nasreen’s screeds being relayed via the FTB Facebook page.

    Is there any way to let FTB know?

    • Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle says

      That’s easy enough. Go back to Spearhead and stop pretending to be a skeptic.

  80. Azuma Hazuki says

    This is my first time reading one of these topics. The amount of vitriol being thrown back and forth here is frankly disgusting and guess what, mansplainers? Yes, it’s mostly women getting dumped on. Again. Disgusting, what privilege does to people when they aren’t even aware of it.

    Mikey Flubb is an obvious Poe, very likely one of the cleverer MRA types (by which I mean he can probably walk and breathe through his one unblocked nostril at the same time). Why people are taking him seriously is baffling; I can hear the caveman chortles from here.

    Taslima, don’t be discouraged! Even if this is more polemic than reporting, it needs to be said, and it needs to be said over and over and over until people GET IT. It may not be the case everywhere but it’s the case in most places, and with the US regressing and the world economy stagnating we may very well lose the last several decades of progress for womens’ rights…and rights, once lost, are near-impossible to regain.

    There are times I am very very glad to be a lesbian in a time and place where I’m not likely to be brutally murdered for it just so as not to have to play this game. Honestly, if this is the heterosexual meat market I’m glad not to have to be part of it. It’s insanity. Stop hating and objectifying each other so much! You are minds in bodies, not bodies with incidental minds!

    • Kimski says

      “Mikey Flubb is an obvious Poe, very likely one of the cleverer MRA types (by which I mean he can probably walk and breathe through his one unblocked nostril at the same time). Why people are taking him seriously is baffling; I can hear the caveman chortles from here.”

      Sorry to disappoint you there, but “Mikey Flubb” is as genuine a modern day feminist as they come. She has been stalking mens rights blogs for quite some time now, and belongs to a group of radfem’s that are attracted to blogs like this one, like flies are attracted to BS.
      Quite telling, considering the topic of removing any responsibility and accountability from women for their own actions, don’t you think?
      A smart MRA would more likely call him or herself “The Ghost of Andrea Dworkin” or something like that. Mikey is nowhere near that level of intellect, because she only reads feminist propaganda, which boils it down to sentences with ‘men’ and ‘hate’ included. Her use of a male name is akin to a blind chicken finding a single corn seed, and nothing else.

      • Kimski says

        “There are times I am very very glad to be a lesbian”

        Not as glad as most guys I know are. On behalf of them and myself I thank you very much for your choice in sexual preferences.

  81. John M says

    Dear Taslima
    I am a fairly ordinary father od three lovely daughters one son, and husband and provider. I came on this page having come to respect you from your expose of the utter horror of bride burning.
    All this seems so trivial and unworthy compared to your excellent writing on that previous page. It makes me a little sad.

  82. Xueye says

    This is the most backwater crock I have ever read. This is really stretching it to play the victim.

  83. garvan says

    “We tell men that we like them for who they are. They do not destroy their natural body to make us feel happy. They do not implant or reduce anything to please us.”

    I’m sorry, but you’re so filled with privilege that you have no clue what societal standards men actually have to live with.

    Please check your privilege before you open your bigoted mouth and tell me about how you’re more of an authority of the pressures I face in life than I myself am.

  84. Dan says

    Replace men with “the fashion industry” and replace “hate woman’s bodies” with “is using marketing tactics to get people to buy things they don’t need using insecurities about appearance” and I think you would be on to something. Men as a group don’t hate woman’s bodies, men have different preferences on what they like and don’t like. I am a little disappointed that more people here aren’t calling this out for what it is. I consider myself a feminist but honestly, this is pretty much a BS misrepresentation.

    • Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle says

      You’re a feminist the way Sarah palin is a feminist – that is, doesn’t know shit about feminism, but arrogant enough to think your uninformed opinion matters to anyone else.

      • Dan says

        TIL correcting somebody when they try to tell you that you hate something is arrogant and telling somebody that you don’t hate women’s bodies means that you know nothing about feminism.

        The more you know

  85. Kieran says

    Sorry to say, but you’re all dumb cunts. We don’t force you to do shit. You pathetic little creatures are blaming men for your rampant consumerism and body destruction.

    Women are attracted to criminals, thugs, and bad boys – so male criminals should fault women for their crimes?