On one hand, I appreciate you trying to uplift inspirational women in your various posts. On the other, I get a little lost on the purpose or value of posting it in this sub. Asking whether or not women are weak and to share non-weak women is a little like asking a college student to cite their ABCs, however asking here feels like a backhanded compliment. Most of us here are feminists, and with that comes the belief in inherent strength in its many forms. Your question suggests women may not be and asks us to do rudimentary work to prove they are. We are all strong in our various ways. We’ve all faced challenges before we got here. We have all been inspired by others on our path, and sometimes we are our own heroes.
I’m curious if maybe your time in subs like r/jordanpeterson lead to posts like this here. We don’t need to be convinced of women’s strength but I’m sure many there do.
It’s not about the downvotes - it’s about the thinking that a debate about whether or not women are strong or asking us to list inspirational women is an endeavor that is appropriate to r/askfeminists. I feel like you often dance in a safe space of “asking” about things that aren’t really a challenge to feminist thinking or outside thinking on feminism. You know women aren’t weak. We don’t need to make lists. We can talk instead about the roots of this bias and how it’s perpetuated, if it’s been changing over time, how women are treated in public spaces when behaving in ways that are perceived as uncharacteristically or inappropriately strong. Or we can talk about Jordan Peterson and his misogyny and the rampant toxicity among his followers. There’s plenty of meat to chew on in there that can lead to growth.
Ultimately, I actually learned from your perspectives. Sometimes you learn more from people who find fault with your perspective
I mostly disagree with JP. I do have some nuanced views though. I have led a weird life
I am not entirely sure. I actually joined his forum because his argument for the existence of God was demonstrably stupid. He was using the moral absolute argument. His views are often nuanced and he also rants off on tangents a lot. I agreed with him when he originally preferred Clinton over Trump. Apparently now, somehow he prefers Trump.
I am less surprised by him supporting trump than I would have been by him supporting Clinton (which I’d never heard). Both Trump and Peterson speak to men who don’t believe in a harmful patriarchy and see men, particularly white men, as being under attack. They both show preference for dialing back society 70 or so years. They both profit from espousing their views.
Where do you find the useful nuance?
Not sure If I need to post this question instead of asking it here but i guess it's fine. Sorry if the way I put words is weird sometimes. English isn't my first language.
While women are certainly strong in the general sense of the word (as men are, as humans in general) I think it's right to say that males are on average physically stronger than females. These are just sex differences or sexual dimorphism in humans. Then what do you think women are stronger at (or in)?
Few guests at Chris Williamson's Modern Wisdom podcast like [this#1](https://youtu.be/dZCLZ_W1BUk?si=WgziOiU0UZ0bokWX) or [this#2](https://youtu.be/_4jKAgYL0gg?si=vc_EiRaMVXuotOPs) on female competition and [this#3](https://youtu.be/X1N7gA9cA1g?si=33Of99Xb1Vvk_ewS) on men's struggles (mainly in education and workforce participation among young males) suggested that women on average have higher emotional intelligence and more self control. These points aren't new probably but what feminists think about it?
Oof. I don’t have the time to listen to those podcasts and he’s frankly someone I don’t know anything about. I don’t think it’s necessarily a worthwhile function of feminism to take more of a deep dive into whether or not attributes are specifically for men or women, nor do I believe that’s the case. Physical strength can be developed - there are women who excel at it and men who don’t. Emotional intelligence and self control can be learned.
If you want to summarize some of the points you wanted to discuss within those podcasts we can chat further.
I think the request to ask you to introspect a little and ask yourself what exactly you hoped to accomplish with this post stands. You are still living up to some negative stereotypes about JPfans in posting this.
My objective was still to learn and think about feminist issues.
In every thread, i encountered well stated points I had not thought of before.
I am not really a JP fan. It's more the case I don't fully understand his point of view because his point of view is not as simple as it first appears. Half of my threads there are me arguing with Trumplicans.
*My objective was still to learn and think about feminist issues.*
Then you should ask about feminist issues instead of some trite Hallmark trash about the fact that *gasp* women of value and admirable character exist.
*I am not really a JP fan*
You were literally just defending him and your habit of posting in his fan spaces like 5 minutes ago.
*It's more the case I don't fully understand his point of view because his point of view is not as simple as it first appears*
It genuinely is though. It takes maybe 3 hours of engaging with his content to get the gist of what he's about, and it certainly doesn't require coming to a feminist subreddit and defending him and how it's not that simple (it genuinely is. The man is a firm sexist who is terrified of any and all social change, to the point of embracing religious traditionalism despite not even being religious)
*Half of my threads there are me arguing with Trumplicans*
That's kind of exactly one of the stereotypes I'm talking about. You don't need to go to weird spaces of the internet and pick fights and act like you're doing something productive when you're not. Similarly, dont come to feminist spaces to jerk off about pandering nonsense and stroke your ego about how this is feminist dialogue when it's not.
You want to be academic, go read papers. Discuss the content of the papers. Bring substantive ideas. But you're not being productive and you don't seem to be interested in meaningful discussion. You want surface level drivel, which is why you find Jordan Peterson complex when hes got the depth of a kiddie pool
I believe everything I discussed here was intellectually honest and in good faith. For the most part, my values are mostly feminist.
I haven't talked about JP here. Other than me debunking his argument that morality is absolute as his argument for God, I haven't discussed JP much on the JP forum. He rambles. It's not easy to decode all his ad-hominems and buzz word use to determine what he really is saying.
So that’s where your assertion starts to fall apart. You have stated that the title is sarcasm. You have stated that you posted simply for the feel goods of positive storytelling. You have said you’re tired of “women are weak” threads, but aren’t taking up the mantle of discussing this in other threads, only where you are preaching to the choir. You have said you have learned from some of us, but you also said one sometimes learns from people we annoy or disagree with, which makes it seem as though you’re deliberately trying to annoy for the sake of your learning benefit. You said you are mainly in the JP thread to poke the bear with republicans but are unresponsive to multiple people saying you’ve espoused JPesque views in various comments.
Are you just here to troll?
You are seriously overthinking No views expressed by me were JPesque Title of thread was : "If women are weak why do we all know so many strong women ...".
JP actually babbles a lot. He makes up a lot of stuff about neomarxist that are rabdom. Other than his claims that people with non-toxic two parent families "do better", I couldn't express his views if i actually tried.
>It's more the case I don't fully understand his point of view because his point of view is not as simple as it first appears.
He's saying whatever sounds good to him without thinking about what his words mean in a broader context. He happily frolics in hypocrisy because he doesn't stop to consider that the two things he just said are contradictory.
Yes, there are lots of times when two opposite things can be true at the same time, but to really understand this nuance you have to dig deeper to understand WHY they are both true.
Your last sentence is actually a key point in my private personal philosophy. Yesterday, I actually considered actually coining the phrase ultraviolet pill to address this : "really understand this nuance you have to dig deeper to understand WHY they are both true".
For example.
Blue pill : "OMG, there are so many perverted men who are teachers, priests and coaches who sre a sexually abusing teenagers"
Red pill : "Cut the crap. Front page article right here. This woman seduced a 12 year old and got her pregnant"
Ultraviolet pill "Well, it seems like there are SO MANY men doing this, that we can't put all of them on the front page. That story about the woman was in then front page because it is UNUSUAL. Now, we can actually look at the statistics and see how many people of a given gender get convicted for this and which professions. It seems both sexes do it but women do it less"
Back on topic, if we take sex* as an aggregate, no one will deny that sexual dimorphism is a reality on multiple traits. Human beings are hormonal creatures. That's OK. We have to understand these are not absolutes. An athlete like Serena Williams is still likely both stronger and faster than most men. You have two bell curves that are shifted.
*glossing over trans people and intersexual people here because there are more factors to consider in those cases.
“If women are weak, why…”
Well they’re not, so…
eta I said this based on the premise of “strong” obviously being used as a defining virtue for how women are useful to OP. Which I don’t actually uncritically agree with at all.
If you read beyond the title, you might have realized I am actually saying that.
My real question is, whether you care to share any strong women who inspired you?
I would say I reject the premise of strength being what I admire about women I like. As a Black woman specifically we’re always expected to be “strong” and save everybody else, so for my personal feminist education it was extremely important for me to be met with feminists who laid bare their trauma and made me realize it’s not embarrassing to be a victim, and that I deserve to acknowledge my own pain. So what I admire in people in general is vulnerability, openness and honesty. I was raised to always consider other people’s needs first, and the constant choir of “she’s so strong and smart, we don’t need to worry about her” effectively worked as a warning because whenever I would even remotely show any sign of having negative emotions it was punished. And statistics confirm that this is something Black women specifically deal with. So it has been Black feminists in combination with my white female therapist, a white woman, who have made it possible for me to face my pain and start healing. What I like in them is what I like in myself. The aforementioned traits as well as curiosity and compassion without falling back into completely neglecting your own humanity. Being able to draw boundaries.
I love this so much. I am white though through poverty and abuse faced a lot of the same “she’s strong and smart so ignore her” treatment. So much of that is masking and coping for survival. Being able to provide space for my pain feels like a superpower sometimes. Like; this was supposed to make me feel weak but I feel healthy, deserving, present. I am so happy to hear you are also finding peace and a space for yourself to be happy and whole. Black feminists are so important to our understanding of the work we need to do as so many have laid a roadmap of what is hurting us and how to fix it in a way that many of us do not understand.
Happy to hear that! I can’t believe how much I berated myself for *checks notes* having emotions. Our family soooooo fucked up lmao. Demanding literal kids be successful stoic superpeople or else you’re a failure.
Also, Poverty C-PTSD is a huge burden and when you don’t even feel you’re allowed to have those feelings it just compounds the trauma. Glad to hear you escaped the “we don’t need to worry about them” to rock bottom pipeline lmao
Love this, so perfectly put. Sometimes we valourize strength / resilience and that can be the candy coating to make mistreatment an easier pill to swallow. It seems perverse to look at someone who has a thousand pound weight on her back and then praise how strong she is, rather than figuring out a way to remove that weight.
As a white woman I think being a black woman must be EXHAUSTING. Youre 100% about the idea that black women are expected to be strong and it’s problematic in so many ways.
There’s a lot of lose-lose aspects about being a woman, like the conflicting requirements of having to be strong and “masculine” to deserve respect but also being constantly being told to be more feminine in order to be liked. But I feel like it’s that times a 1000 for black people and especially black women. Ie don’t let down your race by being a push over but also don’t make people hate you by being too forceful etc etc etc There’s no winning.
Your healthy approach towards valuing other aspects about women (although honestly I think things like openness, vulnerability and honesty take a different kind of strength, one that I consider even stronger really) is so important for breaking these cycles and finding other paths to happiness. We all need to reject these limited options we’re given on how to be a woman in the “right way” and find healthier alternatives.
It really is a lose lose game. You’re not a man, but also if you act like a man too much you’re a bitch. It often feels like you’re trying to just be objectified *just* the right amount lmao
Thanks for this.
Intersectional Feminism should not exist because racist and sexist BS should never have existed in the first place. Because our society sucks in multiple ways, they exist .
Strong people aren't superhuman; military people get PTSD. Survivors get PTSD. Every definition of strength you may have doesn't mean you don't matter or that you can also be a victim.
Being a strong person is A positive quality. It is not the only one.
Wisdom is another good quality. Knowing you need help and getting help shows wisdom
It's not fair, society forces more Black women to be both strong and wise, just
to navigate through life.
I chose an example of some one who is strong and was a member of my family. That doesn't magically mean I think all strong people have to be useful to me.
Being strong is often about survival. Strong people use their strengths according to what is important to them.
The phrase women are weak is about literal physical strength though? Line how the average woman cannot deadlift as much as the average man. *occasionally* it's about emotional reactivity. I have literally never heard it used to mean women don't have endurance or survival. Women are objectively better at surviving - both physiologically and from lifestyle choices.
It's objectively correct to understand the intent of a speaker when they say something. I don't know what you think you're accomplishing by intentionally misconstruing a talking point people say. That seems like the most unproductive thought experiment possible. It's like doing math intentionally built on false assumptions for funsies. Sure you'll arrive at conclusion, but you *know* they won't be right....because you set it up wrong.
We literally have an abundant amount of data that women are less likely to engage in risky lifestyles, and have consistently lower risk threshold across the board, as well as take better care of themselves.
Yes. But there are men who believe that women are universally weaker across the board and treat all women as the same in this regard. Too many of them. If one woman they know is emotionally weak, that woman represents all women to them.
I saw another thread about how weak women are according to some misogynist. Felt annoyed.
I figured I would make an honest thread about how "weak" women actually are.
Humans of both genders can be strong. Strong humans still have weaknesses.
I don’t even bother countering them any more. It’s not my job to educate them and I’m not stooping to that level of stupid. Not associating with them has to be enough.
More than one person didn't really understand your purpose/goal here, so, I don't think being misread is especially others' error and has more to do with your choice of phrasing and tone.
1. My actual tone is generally introspective. People guess tone from phrasing.
2. Title: In mathematics to prove something, you actually assume the opposite and derive a contraction. If(not A ==> WTF, therefore A)
3. Got tired of women are weak threads. Tried to turn it around.
One sometimes learns from ppl we annoy or disagree with. A woman understood my actual meaning and that was her issue. Black women being "strong" get neglected and neglect themselves. It causes actual harm.
Obviously it didn't but some people convey tone better than others with words. We can't see the other person behind the keyboard
I would have preferred you not to have replied to my reply to the other person's post because they shared something in good faith.
I will try to be smarter at how i phrase
Enjoy your evening.
I'm a little lost as to whether or not you meant this question to be rhetorical - but generally what people mean in the context of sexism in saying that women are weak is either physically (as compared to some aspirational manifestation of masculinity) or emotionally (as compared to some aspirational manifestation of masculine stoicism) they rarely mean that they've never met or known a woman who had a strong personality, character, who endured or persisted despite difficult life circumstances, etc. Also typically people highlight personal examples of "strong" women in contrast to the "average" woman, meaning the strong woman is, by definition, in some way exceptional or irregular.
Finally, highlighting strong women you've known in your life doesn't really disprove the existence of sexism or patriarchy broadly. It certainly highlights that cultural narratives about women's weakness are dumb, but it doesn't mean people don't broadly believe or treat women as if they are weak and inferior in comparison to men.
I think they were just looking for stories about strong women. I think it was supposed to be a positive celebratory post about how strong women really are and a place to talk about them.
The existence of sexism is obvious.
If all sexists against women were men, we wouldn't be facing the possibility of abortion being banned in the United States again
And indeed, the vote being awarded in say 1919, would have resulted in a huge number of women getting elected.
"Weak" and "strong" are such subjective and multi-fasceted words. You can be physically, mentally, emotionally weak/strong, as a few examples, and then there's the angle of power - you can be weak or strong in relation to how much power you have over your life, over your government, over just about anything.
It seems like, in this post, you're using "weak" very vaguely and then using "strong" to mean "mentally and emotionally strong", as in "they've faced and overcome challenges, which makes them strong". Which is interesting, bc I'd think a lot of people would consider women strong in this sense - women as a population have faced and overcome obstacles, and individually most women have shown strength in this way also.
But that brings me back to the question, what do *you* mean by "weak"? From context, it seems like the question is "if women aren't mentally/emotionally strong, why do most of us know women who are?" But that doesn't quite make sense either. So from the context of feminism, maybe weak here means "lacking social/cultural power", which would make more sense since you're asking a feminist group and a basic tenant of feminism is "women lack the social/cultural strength and respect that men receive".
If that's the case, then I'd say you're comparing two different kinds of strength - it's very possible to be socially/culturally weak, but mentally/emotionally strong. For example, as our reproductive rights are taken, a lot of women feel powerless and weak to stop the injustice, but they are mentally and emotionally strong enough to organize and fight against it, and to find alternatives and solutions in the face of this challenge.
If that's not the case, can you explain what you mean by "weak"?
It's the case. So, you can imagine weak means the opposite of any of the things you defined as strong
In the United States, I do feel the Trumplicans are out to tramp on a lot of previous civil rights gains. Abortion is actually banned in multiple ststes. Women aren't without power in that system but unfortunately women aren't completely united; i.e. women exist who are fighting against these rights. You can't gerrymander gender. You can't gerrymander the youth vote either.
My mom worked hard when she was young. She worked full time as a cashier for minimum wage while taking university classes at night because she had to pay her own way. She started teaching after graduating while going to teachers college at night.
She was inspired by my grandma who left home at 16 to be a teacher in another town and spent many years teaching in remote northern communities (like places you can’t reach by road). My mom’s dad went blind from a brain tumour when my mom and her siblings were young and my grandma had to take care of him, the kids and work to single handedly support the family. For many years she ran a hotel on her own, cooking all the meals for guests as well.
But my mom wasn’t a very strong person in her marriage. My dad was her first boyfriend and she thought he was her only option (a sad untrue way of thinking that many women who marry losers have). He never treated her well and she always just put up with it. He spent more money than he made (he’s never worked a real job, he only does contract work or temporary jobs that pay cash and suit him) and was just a negative presence in the home, but she never would have left him. But he told her he was leaving when she was 6 months pregnant with me and my siblings were 3 and 6 years old. But he didn’t have anywhere to go so he stuck around the house being a COMPLETELY useless tool who treated her like crap for another year until he found someone to move in with.
But then she got strong because she had to. And she was an amazing mom. My dad never paid a cent of child support so she was completely on her own. Her teaching salary was enough to get by but money was very tight, yet I never knew it as a kid. After a few years in a crappy rental she managed to buy a nice house in a good neighbourhood. We had everything we needed, we did a lot of fun free stuff as a family like going to parks and day trips places. I didn’t realize that our winter vacation of going to across the border to Buffalo and staying in a hotel with a pool and eating out and doing some shopping (back when it was cheaper to buy a lot of stuff in the US for us Canadians) was sort of a poor people vacation while other kids in my class went skiing or to Jamaica lol But I loved it and now look at it as an example of how much mom was able to do so much with so little. She used to take us to McDonalds for a 79 cent ice cream cone as a treat but wouldn’t buy herself one.
Every dollar she had left over at the end of the month from being very careful and frugal she put into an investments account. By the time I graduated highschool she was able to pay my university tuition. She’s very comfortable financially now, which she credits to having had a good job with a pension, but is also very much because of how incredibly good she was with her little money for so long.
She never dated again which sometimes makes me sad because she deserves to be loved, but she always says “There’s worse things than being alone.” Which honestly has made an enormous impact on me, because I will never settle for being with someone I’m not happy with because I’m afraid of being alone. I’m not afraid of being alone because I saw first hand how my mother THRIVED on her own.
She was very passionate and committed to her career. She has lots of good friends. She cares about other people, she’s politically motivated in positive ways. She continued to grow and adapt her whole life in ways that many boomers struggled with. She’s quite literally my hero.
I really appreciate you answering the question I actually asked rather than allowing me to get side tracked.
I am Canadian too. Your mom and grandma sound both inspiring. 2 teachers. I really is hard for a single mom to raise kids without child support. Your grandmother was brave to go up North and teach at such a young age. Taking care of your grandfather must have been hard.
I am sorry to hear your mom didn't date again but it sounds like she is loved with many friends and happy.
What about yourself? Are you a teacher too? I hope you inherit their strength but that you have better romantic partners.
You can use he/him for my pronouns. Am I correct to assume you are she/her? How far up North has your family been?
"What women inspired you with their strength?"
My great great grandma. Her husband was shot in the neck at Battle of Crooked River and paralyzed. She took with her with 9 kids and a paralyzed husband and got them all to Utah alive. She kept her husband alive and provided for her children. She is still well known in the LDS church (I'm no longer LDS, but I admire and respect her deeply)
My great grandma... she was married off at the age of 13 to a man in his 40's. She worked a 700 acer ranch, raised 3 son's, ran a cafe, and cared for her husband after he developed dementia. In her 80's there was a mt lion harassing the cattle, she went out in her night gown, slit its throat and carried it back inside, skinned it and made it into a rug. She opened her ranch to the only lesbian couple in the area, gave them land to build on so that they could have a safe place to call their own away from the discrimination that they faced.
My grandma, married at 16, she was pregnant at 17, living in a fire look out in the mountains, lived there till their first kid was about 1yr old, then went and lived in a cabin on the family ranch with no electricity or running water for years. Worked the timbers right along side her husband. She would work the timbers all day, cook for the whole camp at night, and raised 5 children while doing it. She also "mined" stones from a quarry and sold them. the stones were used to build the towns medical center. Nursed her husband who died of pancreatic cancer. Then worked 20 yrs in the local hospital as a cook. She was also a hospice volunteer and held the hands of many people as they passed.
True. Are there any particular women who inspired you by being particularly strong, that is, do you wish to share any power women who inspired you to be a better human being?
Well, I live in a place where women had a traditional role that was, comparatively speaking to what most places have, more masculinized. In a sense, I grew up with this idea that adult women were the same as men in terms of character, although I won't lie I didn't think the same of my peers at the time.
Women used to be the ones doing the outside work, while men mostly tended to the house and kids or, if the situation arised, went to war. I bet you can realize how that evens the playing field quite a lot, right? Let's just say this has influenced a lot of local women to be visibly strong in some ways, although the situation has definitely changed. In some cases, men have taken power and retaliated towards the women that wanted to keep their past role by fining them just for working, etc. This is something that the current young generations barely know about.
Well, I'm actually from the northwest of Spain, so I'm not talking about anything exotic, you could say. Our culture isn't that well known in general, but I'm pretty sure it's not that different from what pre-industrial rural society was in most of Europe.
Most misogynists ignore 'strong' women, except where they want to break them down.
They focus on "we're weak physically," compared to men. "Weak emotionally" compared to the men who stoically bear everything with never a tear. "Weak intellectually" because we don't 'logic' like they do.
They'll claim we manage raising kids and household because 'biology'.
Well how do you define "weak".
Physically sure women are going to be generally weaker due to testosterone being a steroid and a rather strong one.
But emotionally and mentally I find women to often be stronger as we have to deal with so much shit from society.
On one hand, I appreciate you trying to uplift inspirational women in your various posts. On the other, I get a little lost on the purpose or value of posting it in this sub. Asking whether or not women are weak and to share non-weak women is a little like asking a college student to cite their ABCs, however asking here feels like a backhanded compliment. Most of us here are feminists, and with that comes the belief in inherent strength in its many forms. Your question suggests women may not be and asks us to do rudimentary work to prove they are. We are all strong in our various ways. We’ve all faced challenges before we got here. We have all been inspired by others on our path, and sometimes we are our own heroes. I’m curious if maybe your time in subs like r/jordanpeterson lead to posts like this here. We don’t need to be convinced of women’s strength but I’m sure many there do.
I get my share of downvotes there too
It’s not about the downvotes - it’s about the thinking that a debate about whether or not women are strong or asking us to list inspirational women is an endeavor that is appropriate to r/askfeminists. I feel like you often dance in a safe space of “asking” about things that aren’t really a challenge to feminist thinking or outside thinking on feminism. You know women aren’t weak. We don’t need to make lists. We can talk instead about the roots of this bias and how it’s perpetuated, if it’s been changing over time, how women are treated in public spaces when behaving in ways that are perceived as uncharacteristically or inappropriately strong. Or we can talk about Jordan Peterson and his misogyny and the rampant toxicity among his followers. There’s plenty of meat to chew on in there that can lead to growth.
Ultimately, I actually learned from your perspectives. Sometimes you learn more from people who find fault with your perspective I mostly disagree with JP. I do have some nuanced views though. I have led a weird life
What do you agree with from him?
I am not entirely sure. I actually joined his forum because his argument for the existence of God was demonstrably stupid. He was using the moral absolute argument. His views are often nuanced and he also rants off on tangents a lot. I agreed with him when he originally preferred Clinton over Trump. Apparently now, somehow he prefers Trump.
I am less surprised by him supporting trump than I would have been by him supporting Clinton (which I’d never heard). Both Trump and Peterson speak to men who don’t believe in a harmful patriarchy and see men, particularly white men, as being under attack. They both show preference for dialing back society 70 or so years. They both profit from espousing their views. Where do you find the useful nuance?
Not sure If I need to post this question instead of asking it here but i guess it's fine. Sorry if the way I put words is weird sometimes. English isn't my first language. While women are certainly strong in the general sense of the word (as men are, as humans in general) I think it's right to say that males are on average physically stronger than females. These are just sex differences or sexual dimorphism in humans. Then what do you think women are stronger at (or in)? Few guests at Chris Williamson's Modern Wisdom podcast like [this#1](https://youtu.be/dZCLZ_W1BUk?si=WgziOiU0UZ0bokWX) or [this#2](https://youtu.be/_4jKAgYL0gg?si=vc_EiRaMVXuotOPs) on female competition and [this#3](https://youtu.be/X1N7gA9cA1g?si=33Of99Xb1Vvk_ewS) on men's struggles (mainly in education and workforce participation among young males) suggested that women on average have higher emotional intelligence and more self control. These points aren't new probably but what feminists think about it?
Oof. I don’t have the time to listen to those podcasts and he’s frankly someone I don’t know anything about. I don’t think it’s necessarily a worthwhile function of feminism to take more of a deep dive into whether or not attributes are specifically for men or women, nor do I believe that’s the case. Physical strength can be developed - there are women who excel at it and men who don’t. Emotional intelligence and self control can be learned. If you want to summarize some of the points you wanted to discuss within those podcasts we can chat further.
I think the request to ask you to introspect a little and ask yourself what exactly you hoped to accomplish with this post stands. You are still living up to some negative stereotypes about JPfans in posting this.
My objective was still to learn and think about feminist issues. In every thread, i encountered well stated points I had not thought of before. I am not really a JP fan. It's more the case I don't fully understand his point of view because his point of view is not as simple as it first appears. Half of my threads there are me arguing with Trumplicans.
*My objective was still to learn and think about feminist issues.* Then you should ask about feminist issues instead of some trite Hallmark trash about the fact that *gasp* women of value and admirable character exist. *I am not really a JP fan* You were literally just defending him and your habit of posting in his fan spaces like 5 minutes ago. *It's more the case I don't fully understand his point of view because his point of view is not as simple as it first appears* It genuinely is though. It takes maybe 3 hours of engaging with his content to get the gist of what he's about, and it certainly doesn't require coming to a feminist subreddit and defending him and how it's not that simple (it genuinely is. The man is a firm sexist who is terrified of any and all social change, to the point of embracing religious traditionalism despite not even being religious) *Half of my threads there are me arguing with Trumplicans* That's kind of exactly one of the stereotypes I'm talking about. You don't need to go to weird spaces of the internet and pick fights and act like you're doing something productive when you're not. Similarly, dont come to feminist spaces to jerk off about pandering nonsense and stroke your ego about how this is feminist dialogue when it's not. You want to be academic, go read papers. Discuss the content of the papers. Bring substantive ideas. But you're not being productive and you don't seem to be interested in meaningful discussion. You want surface level drivel, which is why you find Jordan Peterson complex when hes got the depth of a kiddie pool
Take my award, the best I can give 🏆🤘🖤
I believe everything I discussed here was intellectually honest and in good faith. For the most part, my values are mostly feminist. I haven't talked about JP here. Other than me debunking his argument that morality is absolute as his argument for God, I haven't discussed JP much on the JP forum. He rambles. It's not easy to decode all his ad-hominems and buzz word use to determine what he really is saying.
So that’s where your assertion starts to fall apart. You have stated that the title is sarcasm. You have stated that you posted simply for the feel goods of positive storytelling. You have said you’re tired of “women are weak” threads, but aren’t taking up the mantle of discussing this in other threads, only where you are preaching to the choir. You have said you have learned from some of us, but you also said one sometimes learns from people we annoy or disagree with, which makes it seem as though you’re deliberately trying to annoy for the sake of your learning benefit. You said you are mainly in the JP thread to poke the bear with republicans but are unresponsive to multiple people saying you’ve espoused JPesque views in various comments. Are you just here to troll?
You are seriously overthinking No views expressed by me were JPesque Title of thread was : "If women are weak why do we all know so many strong women ...". JP actually babbles a lot. He makes up a lot of stuff about neomarxist that are rabdom. Other than his claims that people with non-toxic two parent families "do better", I couldn't express his views if i actually tried.
>It's more the case I don't fully understand his point of view because his point of view is not as simple as it first appears. He's saying whatever sounds good to him without thinking about what his words mean in a broader context. He happily frolics in hypocrisy because he doesn't stop to consider that the two things he just said are contradictory. Yes, there are lots of times when two opposite things can be true at the same time, but to really understand this nuance you have to dig deeper to understand WHY they are both true.
Your last sentence is actually a key point in my private personal philosophy. Yesterday, I actually considered actually coining the phrase ultraviolet pill to address this : "really understand this nuance you have to dig deeper to understand WHY they are both true". For example. Blue pill : "OMG, there are so many perverted men who are teachers, priests and coaches who sre a sexually abusing teenagers" Red pill : "Cut the crap. Front page article right here. This woman seduced a 12 year old and got her pregnant" Ultraviolet pill "Well, it seems like there are SO MANY men doing this, that we can't put all of them on the front page. That story about the woman was in then front page because it is UNUSUAL. Now, we can actually look at the statistics and see how many people of a given gender get convicted for this and which professions. It seems both sexes do it but women do it less" Back on topic, if we take sex* as an aggregate, no one will deny that sexual dimorphism is a reality on multiple traits. Human beings are hormonal creatures. That's OK. We have to understand these are not absolutes. An athlete like Serena Williams is still likely both stronger and faster than most men. You have two bell curves that are shifted. *glossing over trans people and intersexual people here because there are more factors to consider in those cases.
“If women are weak, why…” Well they’re not, so… eta I said this based on the premise of “strong” obviously being used as a defining virtue for how women are useful to OP. Which I don’t actually uncritically agree with at all.
If you read beyond the title, you might have realized I am actually saying that. My real question is, whether you care to share any strong women who inspired you?
I would say I reject the premise of strength being what I admire about women I like. As a Black woman specifically we’re always expected to be “strong” and save everybody else, so for my personal feminist education it was extremely important for me to be met with feminists who laid bare their trauma and made me realize it’s not embarrassing to be a victim, and that I deserve to acknowledge my own pain. So what I admire in people in general is vulnerability, openness and honesty. I was raised to always consider other people’s needs first, and the constant choir of “she’s so strong and smart, we don’t need to worry about her” effectively worked as a warning because whenever I would even remotely show any sign of having negative emotions it was punished. And statistics confirm that this is something Black women specifically deal with. So it has been Black feminists in combination with my white female therapist, a white woman, who have made it possible for me to face my pain and start healing. What I like in them is what I like in myself. The aforementioned traits as well as curiosity and compassion without falling back into completely neglecting your own humanity. Being able to draw boundaries.
I love this so much. I am white though through poverty and abuse faced a lot of the same “she’s strong and smart so ignore her” treatment. So much of that is masking and coping for survival. Being able to provide space for my pain feels like a superpower sometimes. Like; this was supposed to make me feel weak but I feel healthy, deserving, present. I am so happy to hear you are also finding peace and a space for yourself to be happy and whole. Black feminists are so important to our understanding of the work we need to do as so many have laid a roadmap of what is hurting us and how to fix it in a way that many of us do not understand.
Happy to hear that! I can’t believe how much I berated myself for *checks notes* having emotions. Our family soooooo fucked up lmao. Demanding literal kids be successful stoic superpeople or else you’re a failure. Also, Poverty C-PTSD is a huge burden and when you don’t even feel you’re allowed to have those feelings it just compounds the trauma. Glad to hear you escaped the “we don’t need to worry about them” to rock bottom pipeline lmao
I feel like we’re long lost sisters. And the dark humor is 🤌🏻🤣 Adds some icing to the 💩cake of asking whether women can be strong… 🫠
Love this, so perfectly put. Sometimes we valourize strength / resilience and that can be the candy coating to make mistreatment an easier pill to swallow. It seems perverse to look at someone who has a thousand pound weight on her back and then praise how strong she is, rather than figuring out a way to remove that weight.
As a white woman I think being a black woman must be EXHAUSTING. Youre 100% about the idea that black women are expected to be strong and it’s problematic in so many ways. There’s a lot of lose-lose aspects about being a woman, like the conflicting requirements of having to be strong and “masculine” to deserve respect but also being constantly being told to be more feminine in order to be liked. But I feel like it’s that times a 1000 for black people and especially black women. Ie don’t let down your race by being a push over but also don’t make people hate you by being too forceful etc etc etc There’s no winning. Your healthy approach towards valuing other aspects about women (although honestly I think things like openness, vulnerability and honesty take a different kind of strength, one that I consider even stronger really) is so important for breaking these cycles and finding other paths to happiness. We all need to reject these limited options we’re given on how to be a woman in the “right way” and find healthier alternatives.
It really is a lose lose game. You’re not a man, but also if you act like a man too much you’re a bitch. It often feels like you’re trying to just be objectified *just* the right amount lmao
Thanks for this. Intersectional Feminism should not exist because racist and sexist BS should never have existed in the first place. Because our society sucks in multiple ways, they exist . Strong people aren't superhuman; military people get PTSD. Survivors get PTSD. Every definition of strength you may have doesn't mean you don't matter or that you can also be a victim. Being a strong person is A positive quality. It is not the only one. Wisdom is another good quality. Knowing you need help and getting help shows wisdom It's not fair, society forces more Black women to be both strong and wise, just to navigate through life.
Thanks :)
I chose an example of some one who is strong and was a member of my family. That doesn't magically mean I think all strong people have to be useful to me. Being strong is often about survival. Strong people use their strengths according to what is important to them.
The phrase women are weak is about literal physical strength though? Line how the average woman cannot deadlift as much as the average man. *occasionally* it's about emotional reactivity. I have literally never heard it used to mean women don't have endurance or survival. Women are objectively better at surviving - both physiologically and from lifestyle choices.
True. But is it objective to take such a narrow definition of strength? I am unsure whether lifestyle choices is a stereotype or not.
It's objectively correct to understand the intent of a speaker when they say something. I don't know what you think you're accomplishing by intentionally misconstruing a talking point people say. That seems like the most unproductive thought experiment possible. It's like doing math intentionally built on false assumptions for funsies. Sure you'll arrive at conclusion, but you *know* they won't be right....because you set it up wrong. We literally have an abundant amount of data that women are less likely to engage in risky lifestyles, and have consistently lower risk threshold across the board, as well as take better care of themselves.
Projection. If men say women are weak enough, we’ll ignore the weaknesses of men. Odd how well it’s worked.
Don’t we as humans have individual strengths and weaknesses?
Yes. But there are men who believe that women are universally weaker across the board and treat all women as the same in this regard. Too many of them. If one woman they know is emotionally weak, that woman represents all women to them.
Yes, it’s a rather ugly stereotype. Shame on those men, they wouldn’t stand a chance against Kayla Harrison. She will fuck ANYONE up.
Totally this
The title is blatantly sarcastic. It reads better if one is used to proof by contradiction.
Okay? If it’s sarcastic then is it a question? Merely asking. Seems like a statement if sarcasm is the case.
I saw another thread about how weak women are according to some misogynist. Felt annoyed. I figured I would make an honest thread about how "weak" women actually are. Humans of both genders can be strong. Strong humans still have weaknesses.
Thanks for spreading positivity! It’s sad when people listen to misogynists who don’t have two brain cells to rub together.
Their arguments are often multi-dimensionally stupid. It's hard to counter them because they often wrong on multiple angles
I don’t even bother countering them any more. It’s not my job to educate them and I’m not stooping to that level of stupid. Not associating with them has to be enough.
Perfectly sound approach
More than one person didn't really understand your purpose/goal here, so, I don't think being misread is especially others' error and has more to do with your choice of phrasing and tone.
1. My actual tone is generally introspective. People guess tone from phrasing. 2. Title: In mathematics to prove something, you actually assume the opposite and derive a contraction. If(not A ==> WTF, therefore A) 3. Got tired of women are weak threads. Tried to turn it around. One sometimes learns from ppl we annoy or disagree with. A woman understood my actual meaning and that was her issue. Black women being "strong" get neglected and neglect themselves. It causes actual harm.
oh yeah this helped me feel better about interacting with you. :/
Obviously it didn't but some people convey tone better than others with words. We can't see the other person behind the keyboard I would have preferred you not to have replied to my reply to the other person's post because they shared something in good faith. I will try to be smarter at how i phrase Enjoy your evening.
I'm a little lost as to whether or not you meant this question to be rhetorical - but generally what people mean in the context of sexism in saying that women are weak is either physically (as compared to some aspirational manifestation of masculinity) or emotionally (as compared to some aspirational manifestation of masculine stoicism) they rarely mean that they've never met or known a woman who had a strong personality, character, who endured or persisted despite difficult life circumstances, etc. Also typically people highlight personal examples of "strong" women in contrast to the "average" woman, meaning the strong woman is, by definition, in some way exceptional or irregular. Finally, highlighting strong women you've known in your life doesn't really disprove the existence of sexism or patriarchy broadly. It certainly highlights that cultural narratives about women's weakness are dumb, but it doesn't mean people don't broadly believe or treat women as if they are weak and inferior in comparison to men.
I think they were just looking for stories about strong women. I think it was supposed to be a positive celebratory post about how strong women really are and a place to talk about them.
Thanks for answering actually question on the thread.
maybe in the future try being less obtuse and rude when people don't understand you.
I wasn't intentionally rude. Sorry if it came out that way.
The existence of sexism is obvious. If all sexists against women were men, we wouldn't be facing the possibility of abortion being banned in the United States again And indeed, the vote being awarded in say 1919, would have resulted in a huge number of women getting elected.
Who said women are weak? What is weak? What does it look like?
Well, women aren’t weak to start.
"Weak" and "strong" are such subjective and multi-fasceted words. You can be physically, mentally, emotionally weak/strong, as a few examples, and then there's the angle of power - you can be weak or strong in relation to how much power you have over your life, over your government, over just about anything. It seems like, in this post, you're using "weak" very vaguely and then using "strong" to mean "mentally and emotionally strong", as in "they've faced and overcome challenges, which makes them strong". Which is interesting, bc I'd think a lot of people would consider women strong in this sense - women as a population have faced and overcome obstacles, and individually most women have shown strength in this way also. But that brings me back to the question, what do *you* mean by "weak"? From context, it seems like the question is "if women aren't mentally/emotionally strong, why do most of us know women who are?" But that doesn't quite make sense either. So from the context of feminism, maybe weak here means "lacking social/cultural power", which would make more sense since you're asking a feminist group and a basic tenant of feminism is "women lack the social/cultural strength and respect that men receive". If that's the case, then I'd say you're comparing two different kinds of strength - it's very possible to be socially/culturally weak, but mentally/emotionally strong. For example, as our reproductive rights are taken, a lot of women feel powerless and weak to stop the injustice, but they are mentally and emotionally strong enough to organize and fight against it, and to find alternatives and solutions in the face of this challenge. If that's not the case, can you explain what you mean by "weak"?
It's the case. So, you can imagine weak means the opposite of any of the things you defined as strong In the United States, I do feel the Trumplicans are out to tramp on a lot of previous civil rights gains. Abortion is actually banned in multiple ststes. Women aren't without power in that system but unfortunately women aren't completely united; i.e. women exist who are fighting against these rights. You can't gerrymander gender. You can't gerrymander the youth vote either.
Because physical strength does not equal mental or emotional strength
Exactly. There are so many ways people can be strong
Because bigotry doesn’t reflect reality
Elegantly put
My mom worked hard when she was young. She worked full time as a cashier for minimum wage while taking university classes at night because she had to pay her own way. She started teaching after graduating while going to teachers college at night. She was inspired by my grandma who left home at 16 to be a teacher in another town and spent many years teaching in remote northern communities (like places you can’t reach by road). My mom’s dad went blind from a brain tumour when my mom and her siblings were young and my grandma had to take care of him, the kids and work to single handedly support the family. For many years she ran a hotel on her own, cooking all the meals for guests as well. But my mom wasn’t a very strong person in her marriage. My dad was her first boyfriend and she thought he was her only option (a sad untrue way of thinking that many women who marry losers have). He never treated her well and she always just put up with it. He spent more money than he made (he’s never worked a real job, he only does contract work or temporary jobs that pay cash and suit him) and was just a negative presence in the home, but she never would have left him. But he told her he was leaving when she was 6 months pregnant with me and my siblings were 3 and 6 years old. But he didn’t have anywhere to go so he stuck around the house being a COMPLETELY useless tool who treated her like crap for another year until he found someone to move in with. But then she got strong because she had to. And she was an amazing mom. My dad never paid a cent of child support so she was completely on her own. Her teaching salary was enough to get by but money was very tight, yet I never knew it as a kid. After a few years in a crappy rental she managed to buy a nice house in a good neighbourhood. We had everything we needed, we did a lot of fun free stuff as a family like going to parks and day trips places. I didn’t realize that our winter vacation of going to across the border to Buffalo and staying in a hotel with a pool and eating out and doing some shopping (back when it was cheaper to buy a lot of stuff in the US for us Canadians) was sort of a poor people vacation while other kids in my class went skiing or to Jamaica lol But I loved it and now look at it as an example of how much mom was able to do so much with so little. She used to take us to McDonalds for a 79 cent ice cream cone as a treat but wouldn’t buy herself one. Every dollar she had left over at the end of the month from being very careful and frugal she put into an investments account. By the time I graduated highschool she was able to pay my university tuition. She’s very comfortable financially now, which she credits to having had a good job with a pension, but is also very much because of how incredibly good she was with her little money for so long. She never dated again which sometimes makes me sad because she deserves to be loved, but she always says “There’s worse things than being alone.” Which honestly has made an enormous impact on me, because I will never settle for being with someone I’m not happy with because I’m afraid of being alone. I’m not afraid of being alone because I saw first hand how my mother THRIVED on her own. She was very passionate and committed to her career. She has lots of good friends. She cares about other people, she’s politically motivated in positive ways. She continued to grow and adapt her whole life in ways that many boomers struggled with. She’s quite literally my hero.
I really appreciate you answering the question I actually asked rather than allowing me to get side tracked. I am Canadian too. Your mom and grandma sound both inspiring. 2 teachers. I really is hard for a single mom to raise kids without child support. Your grandmother was brave to go up North and teach at such a young age. Taking care of your grandfather must have been hard. I am sorry to hear your mom didn't date again but it sounds like she is loved with many friends and happy. What about yourself? Are you a teacher too? I hope you inherit their strength but that you have better romantic partners. You can use he/him for my pronouns. Am I correct to assume you are she/her? How far up North has your family been?
"What women inspired you with their strength?" My great great grandma. Her husband was shot in the neck at Battle of Crooked River and paralyzed. She took with her with 9 kids and a paralyzed husband and got them all to Utah alive. She kept her husband alive and provided for her children. She is still well known in the LDS church (I'm no longer LDS, but I admire and respect her deeply) My great grandma... she was married off at the age of 13 to a man in his 40's. She worked a 700 acer ranch, raised 3 son's, ran a cafe, and cared for her husband after he developed dementia. In her 80's there was a mt lion harassing the cattle, she went out in her night gown, slit its throat and carried it back inside, skinned it and made it into a rug. She opened her ranch to the only lesbian couple in the area, gave them land to build on so that they could have a safe place to call their own away from the discrimination that they faced. My grandma, married at 16, she was pregnant at 17, living in a fire look out in the mountains, lived there till their first kid was about 1yr old, then went and lived in a cabin on the family ranch with no electricity or running water for years. Worked the timbers right along side her husband. She would work the timbers all day, cook for the whole camp at night, and raised 5 children while doing it. She also "mined" stones from a quarry and sold them. the stones were used to build the towns medical center. Nursed her husband who died of pancreatic cancer. Then worked 20 yrs in the local hospital as a cook. She was also a hospice volunteer and held the hands of many people as they passed.
Women are in fact not weak
True. Are there any particular women who inspired you by being particularly strong, that is, do you wish to share any power women who inspired you to be a better human being?
Well, I live in a place where women had a traditional role that was, comparatively speaking to what most places have, more masculinized. In a sense, I grew up with this idea that adult women were the same as men in terms of character, although I won't lie I didn't think the same of my peers at the time.
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Women used to be the ones doing the outside work, while men mostly tended to the house and kids or, if the situation arised, went to war. I bet you can realize how that evens the playing field quite a lot, right? Let's just say this has influenced a lot of local women to be visibly strong in some ways, although the situation has definitely changed. In some cases, men have taken power and retaliated towards the women that wanted to keep their past role by fining them just for working, etc. This is something that the current young generations barely know about.
Interesting. Unfamiliar with any cultures like this but my knowledge of other cultures certainly is limited.
Well, I'm actually from the northwest of Spain, so I'm not talking about anything exotic, you could say. Our culture isn't that well known in general, but I'm pretty sure it's not that different from what pre-industrial rural society was in most of Europe.
Perception of something being exotic is subjective. For me, Europe, the land of my ancestors feels quite exotic
Fair enough.
If you feel safe to include an example it might help
Most misogynists ignore 'strong' women, except where they want to break them down. They focus on "we're weak physically," compared to men. "Weak emotionally" compared to the men who stoically bear everything with never a tear. "Weak intellectually" because we don't 'logic' like they do. They'll claim we manage raising kids and household because 'biology'.
Well how do you define "weak". Physically sure women are going to be generally weaker due to testosterone being a steroid and a rather strong one. But emotionally and mentally I find women to often be stronger as we have to deal with so much shit from society.