some philosophy on this board

[Matthewmongan]

yeah so i had some ideas on my philosophy of feminism class.


The feminine appearance is something that cannot be generalized. To say one body is more feminine than an other is as foolish as saying a red apple looks more apple-ish than a green one. However, we do this every day. One can not turn on the tele without being bombarded with scanty clad women that we are made to believe are the definition of beautiful. We are made to believe that movements, posture and attitudes are more feminine than others. Currently there are two schools of thought on this subject, feminist and non-feminist.
We have all seen the Victoria’s secret ads in the paper, with so called supermodels strutting their stuff in barely their garments. It makes a man wonder “are they trying to sell undies to me or women?” it can be hard to tell, but ultimately the answer is both. They perpetuate the unconscious idea that if women buy these things men will want them and to a certain extent they are correct, as men will associate the lace panties with the women they see on their television. The feminists believe that this perpetuates a false ideal for women, and they are right. The non-feminists would most likely disregard the ad as good marketing and that it does not necessarily represent the female form as a whole. They would be right and saying so but for one glaring problem, for the exception of a few health food ads and a dove body moisturizer ad, women depicted in media are the same bodies in the panty ad.
Attitudes, and more disturbingly movement has been divided into female/male. A woman who does not express sensitivity, for example, is considered masculine. The inverse, a man who is sensitive and expresses emotions is considered feminine. The key word that must be looked at in both examples is expression. We have codified expression into gender; instead of a human expressing it self as a human it must be a man expressing himself as a woman or vice versa. This cancer infects all forms of expression; in music the flute was once and still may be a woman’s domain, where as a bass is granted dominion to men. Women do not solely feel pressure to be womanly, men also feel a pressure to be manly, to look and act manly.
Growing up and becoming a man there has always been a driving force for me to enhance myself physically. One could say that my disability has influenced this, and it is true. My disability allows me to see what masculinity is from a viewpoint that is neither masculine nor feminine. All through my life I have thought of martial arts as being the sole conduit for physical improvement, specifically Kung Fu. In the Kung Fu world there is no disabled, man or woman, there is only human. We see in movies drunken old men with canes, women and children fighting as proficient as the best male martial artist. But we still have societal pressures to look and behave a certain way. Bruce Lee, for one has become the perfect Kung Fu body, his form is regarded as flawless and it may be. However, it is impossible for someone to be Bruce Lee as it is impossible for someone to be Matt Mongan. I believed that I needed to look like Bruce Lee to be a good martial artist until I heard an interview of Bruce talking of his philosophy on human form. “A human being has two hands and two feet, until a being exist with three or four of each there will only be one form of expression, the Human form.”
There is no female action or male action, only Human action. It follows that there is no gender divided point of view, only a human point of view. Until we shed the idea that there is an ideal womanly or manly form we will always be plagued by discrimination and false identities. In this sense every human being is perfect because they are a human being. It is not only my experiences with kung fu philosophy that has lead me to this conclusion but also it springs from a feminist influence. My mother describes her self as a “silent feminist” and has been the foundation for my idea of what it means for a man to be a man and for a woman to be a woman. As my sister grew into adolescence she was uncomfortable with her body as many people at that age are. My mother consoled her saying that “you are a woman, yes? Then you are the best woman there is because you are the way you are meant to be”. A woman can only be woman; with that frame of mind every woman is the best example of a woman. Likewise, a human can only be a human.
Feminism strives for equality but the way it does this is by creating a division. Suddenly, the world is divided into feminist and non-feminist. By accepting the labels of manliness and womanliness we create a fracture between the two. If a person truly wants equality then they must work to erase the idea of one or other. What feminism should be is humanism. A person can identify them self as a non-feminist, but if it were to be referred to as humanism, no one could rightly be a non-humanist. With that mind set the opposition melts away because they are able to educate them selves on what it means to be a human, without the predigests they once had.


"All men are born free yet we walk everywhare in chains." is society placing these chains on us or do we do it all on our own? can we truly be free to be what we are without fear of alienation? will we ever be alowed to live the life we truly want to live?

more so why do we have to be classified, we look so hard at our diferences that we have forgoten to see the similarites. we are all but mear humans, "if you prick us do we not blead?" if we could only remember that in our mothers woom, before we are white, black, man, woman, muslem or jew, we are children of god, any god. with that in hear how can we treat another person an any manner other than family? how can we hate someone that is of the same flesh as our own?

Matthew Mongan