I thank DU for bringing issues of a feminist nature to my attention.

While there are, of course, discussion boards with more obnoxiously sexist individuals, this was a virtual place where I came to discuss issues of a political nature - and this is where I learned how sexist people (mostly men) could be. While people here do represent a range of opinions, I would have thought that one could expect liberal people to understand the feminism/sexism dichotomy. I found that that can not be assumed. And I did not start out as knowledgeable as I could have been.

In one forum or another, I learned about various women's experiences that led them to fight for abortion rights.

In other forums, I learned that some people are really clueless about male privilege - clueless about the rape culture - clueless about a lot of things.

I have been led to find people who uncover entrenched patriarchal concepts and I have also been led to find out more about women's suppressed histories. I have discovered concepts of goddesses that were buried, lest people have images of women as powerful archetypes.

I have noticed how women's issues are ignored, how women are made invisible. And I have also noticed many women (including some here on DU) who fight for visibility and equality.

I have come to realize how entrenched male-centered concepts are. There are the ideas about a male God, a male "Santa", and the male philosophers, priests and professors who like the keep the whole male-centered paradigm going. Going back to Hammurabi and Aristotle - these are people who have been and still are held up as human "gods" for various reasons, who were actually very misogynist - openly hateful of women, whose ideas laid much of the groundwork for limiting women.

I have not posted in awhile, but I do appreciate the sort of virtual experience DU offers, as well as the knowledge about what so-called liberal people think about these things - for good and for ill.