What am I missing?

I know exactly how you feel, as I am primarily perceived as white, and it irks me when minority races lump me in a group with all the extremist, little-minded racists, just because I'm white. I haven't done anything to them myself. But what I have to keep in mind is that just because I personally haven't done any harm, that doesn't mean that there isn't still a widespread bias in my favor because I'm white. It doesn't need to be given a rest, because there still hasn't been enough change to the norm. I do, however, agree with you that extreme points of view, such as reverse racism, do more harm to their cause than benefit, because it turns people like you into people who will no longer listen. Everyone is privileged in certain areas, and not in others. That's what is called "intersectionality."

The group you're probably thinking of as "rabid" feminists is the group that most people tend to call "feminists," even though they are not, in fact, feminists; feminism is about gender equality, not female-superior-to-male thought. People who reject changing the norm, particularly because the norm is in favor of them, like to label those who challenge the norm as "extremist" or "crazy" because it belittles the points that those who act for change are trying to make, and keeps the majority in power. Yes, there are some unfortunate women out there who have been so brutally hurt by the system that they cling to an extremist version of feminist thought, which isn't healthy. I myself have been hurt in ways that would probably turn most people into this kind of extremist, but I try to keep an open mind and a balanced perspective. If the widespread culture can be changed by individuals making minor changes, which can only happen if they listen, there would be no more "rabid" extremists. If you're sick of them, maybe you need to change something about the way you act. If you dismiss their concerns as insignificant, you're only going to make them worse.

 

Sorry, but no. There's very little that I'm going to do to appease someone who thinks that all men should be castrated.

As proof:
From the son of a feminist
Mister Poll
Femitheist Divine, The New Era of Feminism
^I've personally seen the article that this is mentioning. It's sadly been taken down else I'd have linked it.

These are the women that I think of when Data mentions "Feminazis". Ones with such extremist views on things that it's hard pressed to think it's anything but satire. Unfortunately, they exist.

The fact that everyone has privileges is why I start foaming at the mouth when people start playing the privilege olympics. Whining about how someone has it better than you isn't going to change things. It's just going to make everyone else annoyed. Want things to change, get up and do something.

Trust me, I have a number of things that I could complain about that would be considered "unpriviledged". Hm. Let's see. I'm below the normal height for a female bodied person (4'11"), I have an unusual hair color (red), I appear female to most people, I'm FTM, I'm attracted to men, I have glasses, I have depression, my family barely scraps by from week to week due to bills.

That's all I can think of for the moment. Do I complain about this things? Fuck no. The majority of them I can't change, so there's no use bitching about them. Well, I'll bitch about my hair not being the proper color when I try to dye it blue since I'm too much of a wuss to bleach it, but that's beside the point.

Economic position? That I can change, which is why I'm currently working my ass off to get into the 5th best university in the state to get an education which will result in me making nearly making a 6 digit income, starting pay.

Bitching changes nothing. Getting off you ass does.

 

So, you've given me a list of the reasons you feel unprivileged. Is this not the very same "privilege olympics" that you just said you despise?
I don't complain about my lack of privilege, but the original poster asked for some insight, so I provided it. It's encouraging to me that somewhere out there, there was somebody who bothered to ask what was going on, instead of simply deciding that his friend's worry was invalid, labeling her a "bitch," and going on with a very hateful life. I'm not going to bother explaining how counterproductive it would be to return her anxiety with hate, because he seems to have figured that out.

 

I like how you ignored the phrase "could complain about". Apparently, people don't understand when someone is using something as an example anymore..

I've given you a list of things that could probably qualify as being unprivileged by a lot of people. Giving a list =/= is not the same as playing the privilege olympics. If I was playing the privilege olympics, I'd be complaining about how, for example, you should be ashamed of yourself for how your mind matches with your body (don't know if it actually does, but again, example). No, I'm aware of and accept that being transgender makes me a minority. I ignore the things that can't be changed (height, hair, glasses, biologically female, depression, etc). No matter what I do, I'll always be short, have red hair, need glasses, be biologically female, and have depression. I can do things to mask this, but I can't change the fact that I am those things. Only iffy thing would be eyesight due to surgery, but, the thought of eye surgery squicks me out x)

I ignore what I can't change and change that which I can.

...And now oogling someone is "hateful". Good god. :rolle:

 

Oogling wasn't the part I was referring to as hateful, it was dismissing feminism as unnecessary complaining that won't do anything, and as something comparable to genocide. If you didn't catch that difference, you're clearly not listening, which is part of the problem, and probably why you're as uncomfortable with feminism as you are. It's easy to be uncomfortable with something you're afraid is true because you don't understand, especially if you're so afraid that you refuse to even try to gain a better understanding of it. Oogling is something that people do without intention of causing discomfort, but it plays into a bigger problem, and if you dismiss the bigger problem because it's inconvenient for you to have to think about, that's the "hate" I was talking about. Also, there is a difference between "complaining" and discussing something that the person you are talking to clearly hasn't thought about before, because they might benefit from thinking about how their actions are affecting the people around them. You'd have to be missing the significance of the problems the women around you are taking about that these problems have in the lives of these women, before you could call feminism something as petty as "complaining." I "could" complain all day about little things like how my hair doesn't always cooperate with how I want it to look, but that's very different than objecting to things like objectification and victim blaming, which only still exist to the degree that they do because people today are not nearly as "modern" and accepting as they would like to believe that they are. Raising awareness of the gap between people's words and their behaviors is not "sitting on your ass and complaining."

 

Good god. Text wall. Not the first thing I want to see in the morning

I never once said anything about dismissing feminism. The only thing about feminism I mentioned are the extremists. No, I'm uncomfortable with feminism because a lot of people use it to attack men, which is compounded by the fact that I raised by a mother who has the attitude of "all men are evil".

I support feminism in the sense of equality. Equal pay, equal job opportunities, ability to choose job/homelife etc. However, I don't support the double standards that come with it. A woman is allowed to state that she hates men and oogle them shamelessly. Yet when a man does the same, he's slammed. That's not equality. You can't pick and choose your perks. It's either all or nothing.

Fun fact. I've lived as a woman longer than you've been alive. So, uh, kindly stop assuming that I don't know anything about women. I'm really, really getting tired of people doing that.

Once more, you missed the mark. I never called feminism complaining. I was pointing out the oppression/privilege olympics as complaining. Which boils down to, as I already stated, claiming you have it worse than everyone else and everyone who's better of than you are should be ashamed of themselves. It happened quite a bit on this site a few months back.

Raising awareness is fine and dandy, but it can be done without shaming others, which is something that is done far too often.

 

You probably know plenty about being a woman, or at least existing in a woman's body. I never said anything different. (Edit: I can see that you may have been confusing the word "feminism" with "being a woman." That's an odd insight. I'm not really sure what to do with that. But they're not the same thing.) I'm sorry if other people have done that to you, but, again, you're picking the wrong target to vent your frustrations to.

I think you've had a disproportionate amount of exposure to the kind of extremists you seem to think make up the majority of feminists, which they don't. They're actually a very small minority, but it's easy to point to them and argue that "feminism" is about double standards, when it's not. It's also easy to point to suicide bombers and claim that Islam is about murdering people, but that would be inaccurate, because the vast majority of Muslims do not believe that murdering people is moral, or even justified by their religion. If you pick a straw man to burn down, you're not fixing anything. I've never met a feminist who truly believes that attacking men is the way to solve anything (though I have heard a few get frustrated and joke about it rarely; it's called morbid humor), but I've met plenty of men who believe that attacking feminists is. If you're already in the majority, it's threatening to hear anyone speak out against the things that you get to enjoy on a daily basis. But it's a double standard to lash out at someone you feel is attacking you (even if they aren't) by attacking in return, and it's mostly entitled men who do this to women, not the other way around, whether you'd like to believe that or not.

 

I was primarily referring to this:

No. There are double standards. If a man states that he doesn't like women, he's attacked. I've seen it. I've personally had it happen. If a woman states that she doesn't like men, everyone will go "Mmhm. You speak it." Again, seen it. These weren't extreme feminists, either. In fact, a couple days ago, I was sitting in a chat on another site, watching a bunch of women talking about how stupid men were. That's considered acceptable. Had men done the same, they would have been shredded. That's not equality.

The women in the OP was showing double standards. It's bad for a man to look at two women with interest when the woman has no doubt done the exact same thing in the past.

Also, I'm not in the majority, so..

 

So if there are double standards on both sides, you cling to the status quo. Because that makes sense...
Maybe in the circles where you hang out, that's considered acceptable, but the point I've been making that you keep ignoring is that that's not the case in the majority of the world. It seems that, for someone who is so bothered by feminism, especially extreme versions, you spend a lot of time hanging around parts of the web where you'll encounter people with these ideas and then picking fights. I hope that someday you work through the anger you obviously hold, but I for one am done feeding trolls. Have a nice day.

 

No, I'm saying that people want one side to change but refuse to do the same themselves. I also don't "hang out" in any circles; I spend most of my time at home, given that being constantly misgendered in public by family has caused me to develop a nice bit of social anxiety.

Unsurprisingly, I spend a lot of time here because *gasp* it's a support site for LGBT people and I can't get that same support via my family and there's minimal support in the local area. You know, the same reason most people are here.

 

she is look for tits on an ant. meaning she is trying get worked up over NOTHING. he has issues and the main issue is that you probably thought one of the girls was hot and was jealous they were not kissing her. i would cut her off. she kinda get on my nerves right now.

 

Honestly, i see nothing wrong with what you did. People that display PDA are objectifying themselves. Doing something like that in a blatantly public area is more or less putting on a free show for whoever is watching. This goes for any couple. Now if they only did a quick peck and you just stared at them for a while, then you are objectifying them because I highly doubt a horny 21 year old straight male would not imagine something more than just a peck.

 

I think it's fine.

All men (and women) look at porn. Frequently. To that end, we rarely think about the actor's intelligence, personality, character, bravery, etc.

We see some hot stuff, we respond with the same primordial response that the actors perform with.

In regards to your situation, if you knew the two women that might be one thing. If they two women felt offended, or made an attempt to conceal their romance, that would be another. But the right of privacy only extends so far as your door, and their public displays of affection are open to the world's scrutiny and response. Your response was arousal.