mr-cappadocia:

i-dont-need-feminism: mr-cappadocia: Feminism has always been about special treatment. When has it NOT been about special treatment? When women didn’t have equal rights? When we weren’t allowed to vote, couldn’t own property, couldn’t get a credit card in our own name, couldn’t represent ourselves in court, couldn’t get higher education, couldn’t pursue careers beyond “secretary” or “schoolteacher”? Come on, Capp, you know better. Let’s start simple: First… women in America have been able to vote off and on since the dawn of the Union. Feminists only had a serious impact at the federal level. More importantly… Feminists saw to it women got the right to vote *but were not subject to the draft*. Now, I am subject to the draft as a payment for my citizenship. Are women? Fuck no. They still aren’t. Does that look like special treatment to you? Sure as shit looks like special treatment to me. Furthermore women have had careers beyond school teacher or secretary long before Feminism showed up. Women didn’t just own property they owned PATENTS… they served as newspaper editors, wrote novels, worked as chemists, and lawyers and architects Shit, women had the right to defend themselves in court *during the time of fucking moses*. So really it boils down to the right to vote… and like I said… they got SPECIAL treatment… not equal treatment. You’re right. I *do* know better.

You’re seriously ignoring historical context. Women were not included in the draft because someone had to stay home to take care of the kids. Due to the discrimination women faced and societal expectations that they be the homemakers and baby machines, they had to stay home and take care of the kids. There weren’t any other options. You can flip it and say “It’s because women were valued more,” but it’s just as easy to say “women were valued less." Women couldn’t join the military and serve with men.

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EDIT: I decided to update this with better sources, and came across this: the reason the Selective Service only refers to men was decided in Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57 (1981):

The question of registering women was extensively considered by Congress in hearings held in response to the President’s request for authorization to register women, and its decision to exempt women was not the accidental byproduct of a traditional way of thinking about women. Since Congress thoroughly reconsidered the question of exempting women from the Act in 1980, the Act’s constitutionality need not be considered solely on the basis of the views expressed by Congress in 1948, when the Act was first enacted in its modern form. Congress’ determination that any future draft would be characterized by a need for combat troops was sufficiently supported by testimony adduced at the hearings so that the courts are not free to make their own judgment on the question. And since women are excluded from combat service by statute or military policy, men and women are simply not similarly situated for purposes of a draft or registration for a draft, and Congress’ decision to authorize the registration of only men, therefore, does not violate the Due Process Clause. The testimony of executive and military officials before Congress showed that the argument for registering women was based on considerations of equity, but Congress was entitled, in the exercise of its constitutional powers, to focus on the question of military need rather than "equity.”





The entire basis of this decision that supposedly supports women is that women are not allowed in combat roles because they are women. We fought tooth and nail to be allowed to serve as equals, and that’s somehow proof that it’s discriminatory against men?! I mean, you can look at it either way, but the Court states that it was a decision not based on equity - in fact, they acknowledge that it is not equitable - but based on a need for combat forces.

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Only in the past couple years were women allowed on the front lines of combat. That’s not because they’re valued. It’s because it’s believed that women aren’t tough enough or strong enough. You can flip that and say it’s because of biological necessity, that it’s harder for women to bulk their upper bodies (harder, but not impossible).



The truth lies somewhere in the middle. Viewing it from either extreme is untrue. Are you seriously going to suggest that women’s rights weren’t needed, ever? Yes, the rare exceptional woman could attend university (if she was wealthy and well-born, and even then she couldn’t make a career of it). The rare, exceptional woman ran her own business. But women did not have equal rights, and the women’s rights movement was needed.

Women would be thrown in psychiatric institutions due to “hysteria” if they fought for their rights. They were arrested, tortured, and persecuted for fighting for the right to vote, to own property and credit without a husband, to have a say in custody battles. A woman without a husband could not take out a line of credit until the Equal Opportunity Credit Act of 1978.

Again: women could not open a line of credit until 1978. I was born only ten years later!

I know it’s not a great source, but its links are valid, so I leave this after a quick google because I have to go finish my term paper and stop procrastinating. 10 Things Women Could Not Do Until the 1970s

I criticize modern feminism just as much as you do, but to say that the women’s rights movement was never needed is willfully stupid, incorrect, and sensationalistic.

(Source: apricotmoon, via mr-cappadocia-archives)