Good thoughts. In regards to sharing a bathroom, it honestly wouldn’t bother me to share given the criteria you laid out AND ALSO if my female body wasn’t constantly being watched, critiqued, scrutinized, and objectified under the male gaze.
I don’t have a problem with nudity or changing in front of men who give me basic levels of bodily respect.
It’s not like I’m not attracted to men and just appreciate the male form in the same way. But as a woman, I wasn’t taught that I and society at large own THEIR bodies or they exist solely for my pleasure and benefit. Frankly, I find women who adopt this lecherous gazing behavior from men as some kind of flex to be so fucking disgusting I literally can’t keep thr contempt from my face.
For any other dude who’s reading, that’s why your catcalls aren’t a compliment. They’re fucking disgusting and you’re a fucking disgusting pig for doing it, utterly contemptible.
Sorry to digress Anthony, I clearly feel strongly about it.
Anyway, to answer your last question, I think we can both agree the most logically expedient methods suffer from moral issues and that’s probably not what you meant.
I don’t know. I don’t think anyone has all the answers. But, here’s what I’ve been thinking lately.
It may not be possible. When one gender, in their deepest psychological ideologies of the self define themselves by being the opposite of the other gender and part of that definition is that the other is evil, bad, corrupt, inferior, a deformation of what you are then I don’t know how that other gender could ever truly feel at ease around your gender. You’ve defined yourself by assigning them as your enemy and you as an enemy of everything they are and represent.
In the end, men have to redefine themselves as something other than an enemy of women and feminity. They’ve signalled throughout #MeToo and MAGA, and a host of other things, that on the whole they have no desire or intention of doing so.
Aielo’s constant referencing of Matthew Hale in the leaked SC Opinion overturning Roe v. Wade is just the latest example showing how deep it all goes. Bringing that name into discourse is a dog whistle and he’s not the only one using “witch" rhetoric. There’s been an increasing number of evangelical mega church preachers using it as well. One went so far as to say he knew of 6 witches in his congregation and he was going to get them.
Feminism may be doomed to fail. It may well be that the only way to have that dreamed of society is to start from scratch. Select starter colonists with care, train rigorously for it, put in safeguards, eliminate memory of oppression, and keep those influences of domination out, eliminate religion or religious bias, etc.
As for myself, in the short term I’ll be moving to a blue state as soon as I can. And, I will defend a liberal way of life focused on human rights against the degradations and deprivations of a rising religious theocracy if and when it comes to that. It does seem like this is the line in the sand that will divide us permanently. To be more clear, they require defense now and always because there’s always going to be someone to try to take away someone else’s rights. I meant that in a scenario of war, invasion, and military conflict because I truly believe that even if we split peacefully and become separate nations, the theocracy state nations will still demonize, attack, and invade liberal nations. They won’t be able to help themselves because those policies and beliefs lead to brutish populations and failed states EVERY TIME.
