Thread: Is Feminism establishment? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Bibliophile (# 18418) on
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On another thread, I forget which, I stated that feminism is something supported by the establishment. A number of people disgreed. Now I saw this article in the Guardian about the new Women's Equality Party.
quote:
The WEP’s cause is one mainstream parties fall over themselves to advocate – even if they sometimes screw up in practice – and is already championed inside those parties by a critical mass of credible people, and outside by credible pressure groups.
Guardian article
In other words establishment parties fall over themselves to advocate feminism. Feminism is supported by a critical mass of 'credible' people (i.e. people deemed credible by the establishment) and is advocated by 'credible' pressure groups (i.e. groups deemed credible by the establishment). In other words feminism is the establishment view?
The article contrasts the WEP with UKIP, a party that actually does take anti-establishment positions.
quote:
Ukip’s raison d’etre is saying things other politicians won’t (usually for good reason) say. It occupied a perfect gap in the market for EU withdrawal, something popular with a vocal minority but not advocated by any mainstream party, and mostly championed within those parties by people dismissed as eccentrics.
In other words no establishment party advocates UKIP's views and it dismisses those that do as eccentrics. In other words UKIP's views are anti--stablishment views.
Lets remember the 2012 CofE vote on women Bishops. Mr establishment himself, David Cameron said the Church needed to 'get with the programme'. What programme was that? What other programme would Cameron support other than the establishment programme.
[ 24. October 2015, 14:04: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
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I think there is a crucial difference between making statements in support of feminist ideas and supporting feminism. Especially from politicians (who will so often say what is popular, while actually not supporting this).
What it means is that establishment people want to be seen as supporting feminism, which also wanting all of the patriarchy to stay exactly as it is. Don't judge establishment (or any public figures) by what they say, or what they say they support. Judge by what they do.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
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Why would you want to say that feminism is establishment?
Feminism as a campaign clearly has a long, long way to go and many battles to fight, many minds to win.
Feminism as a cause or banner is fashionable in some circles, but these things change. UKIP may not be a majority view but it has succeeded in changing the rhetoric of all parties, except Corbyn's Labour. The debate gets pulled this way and that, some causes come to the fore, may even encompass others.
Can a campaign against domination, like anti-racism or child protection or feminism, ever be establishment? If feminism was truly establishment it would have no cause because it would mean women were no longer subject to domination.
I think establishment is the wrong word, unless you want to make out that feminism is something you can object to without having to reveal yourself as being against women's equality.
Posted by Luigi (# 4031) on
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To add to what S Cat and Hatless have said, I think the entire establishment is desperately keen not to appear sexist.
However that is not the same thing as the establishment being Feminist.
Posted by Bibliophile (# 18418) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I think there is a crucial difference between making statements in support of feminist ideas and supporting feminism. Especially from politicians (who will so often say what is popular, while actually not supporting this).
But then how did feminism get to become popular. It became popular because it it has been supported and promoted by people within the establishment for decades. Neither the majority of men nor the majority of women would ever have come to support feminism without that backing.
Posted by anteater (# 11435) on
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In my view worrying to much about "The Establishment" is a bit paranoid. I can just about see people mean, but I'm still not sure it's a meaningful concept. Maybe the OP-ers could define it? Is it a conspiracy between the BBS, Guardian and Academia?
It is said their is a zeitgeist in every society, but I'm not so sure. And even if there is, no doubt its views are just as likely to be good as bad.
So really I couldn't get all that bothered about whether feminism is now establishment.
Posted by Bibliophile (# 18418) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
In my view worrying to much about "The Establishment" is a bit paranoid. I can just about see people mean, but I'm still not sure it's a meaningful concept. Maybe the OP-ers could define it? Is it a conspiracy between the BBS, Guardian and Academia?
By 'the establishment' I mean the ruling class.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
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In that case, feminism is clearly not establishment, because women are still disadvantaged.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I think there is a crucial difference between making statements in support of feminist ideas and supporting feminism. Especially from politicians (who will so often say what is popular, while actually not supporting this).
But then how did feminism get to become popular. It became popular because it it has been supported and promoted by people within the establishment for decades. Neither the majority of men nor the majority of women would ever have come to support feminism without that backing.
That is an appallingly paternalistic view. It has become popular because people have explored it and seen that it makes sense. In the same way that alternate sexualities have become acceptable because people across the country/world have engaged with the issues and/or the people and realised that they are valid approaches.
As a rule, "the establishment" is conservative, eventually following what the rest of society has been doing for a long time - usually in protest and only under pressure from the rest of society.
David "dick-in-pig" Cameron is not a feminist. He will say what he needs to say to hold onto power, irrespective of whether he believes it or not. Just because he says words that seem to be supporting of feminist ideals, that does not mean that feminism is now establishment. It means that offering support of it is popular.
Oh, and UKIP are not anti-establishment. They are a product of the establishment, who say things that will get them attention. If you want to understand what a party actually believes, look at their actions, not their words. They are politicians. UKIP are exceptionally conservative politicians.
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
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All I know is that I have personally found the public messages very confusing and alienating.
A shy autistic male virgin is an inherent rapist, and therefore should die?
I still don't understand it, and I am afraid.
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on
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You are not a rapist, inherent or otherwise, don't read this stuff.
(ETA most feminists don't think all men are, or aspire to be, rapists. In the same way, not all Christians are Fred Phelps.)
[ 24. October 2015, 12:07: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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Two working definitions. Feminism: The advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.
Establishment: A group in a society exercising power and influence over matters of policy, opinion, or taste, and seen as resisting change.
If the Establishment exercising power over policy, opinion etc and it is feminist then the aims of feminism would be realised.
However, there is still gender inequality with women significantly disadvantaged and under represented in many areas of life (including within the Establishment - MPs in the Commons etc).
Therefore, the Establishment is not Feminist.
QED
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
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For a man, especially one who struggles to feel comfortable with empowered women, to empathise with the concerns of feminism and to learn to see the world from a feminist perspective is perhaps the most powerful and Godly spiritual experience the world currently has to offer.
The gospel is always an invitation for us to live together in ways free of domination, and feminism is, I would say, the clearest and for men the deepest and most radical expression of that, of the new creation we are called to be in Christ.
Suggesting that feminism has perhaps lost its righteousness by becoming establishment is what you might call kicking against the pricks, if it wasn't, in a different metaphorical sense, exactly the opposite.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
All I know is that I have personally found the public messages very confusing and alienating.
A shy autistic male virgin is an inherent rapist, and therefore should die?
I still don't understand it, and I am afraid.
Where exactly are you getting these public messages from?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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If the ruling class is feminist, then given that women are still very disadvantaged, then either they're not actually in charge, or they're not able to make their desires into reality. In which case calling them the "ruling" class rings a bit hollow. And the idea that they gave feminism whatever popularity it may enjoy is hard to credit.
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
But then how did feminism get to become popular. ...
Maybe because the majority of human beings are female?
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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I don't see very well where this fascination with not being 'establishment' comes from. Does not being establishment make you right?
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
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quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
For a man, especially one who struggles to feel comfortable with empowered women, to empathise with the concerns of feminism and to learn to see the world from a feminist perspective is perhaps the most powerful and Godly spiritual experience the world currently has to offer.
The gospel is always an invitation for us to live together in ways free of domination, and feminism is, I would say, the clearest and for men the deepest and most radical expression of that, of the new creation we are called to be in Christ.
Suggesting that feminism has perhaps lost its righteousness by becoming establishment is what you might call kicking against the pricks, if it wasn't, in a different metaphorical sense, exactly the opposite.
I umm... *think* I am with you - this Reddit post covers where i've come form - and the message I heard as well..
Reddit post
[ 24. October 2015, 13:55: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
All I know is that I have personally found the public messages very confusing and alienating.
A shy autistic male virgin is an inherent rapist, and therefore should die?
I still don't understand it, and I am afraid.
Where exactly are you getting these public messages from?
Deafening messages I internalised as a kid from Team MacDworkin, and downstream from seeing the assumed-guilty position proposed by Jessica Valenti, and all this strange "rape culture" rhetoric, and the rapid change in words.
[ 24. October 2015, 13:19: Message edited by: Alex Cockell ]
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
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Alex, IMHO, the answer you are looking for is right on the page you linked to:
quote:
But so long as you lump sex-critical feminists and sex-positive feminists into one big group, you are bound to continuing fearing the largest social movement dedicated toward women's rights.
Your choice, ultimately. I hope, however, one day you can relinquish your fears and understand it all.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
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I'm just surprised, really, because I've only ever heard the "all men are rapists" as a second-hand caricature of feminism. I'm vaguely aware that the idea has some roots in second wave feminism but I've never met anyone who seriously advocates it. Rape culture, as I understand it, it simply a shorthand for the all-too-common excuses that come out when someone gets raped. The well-she-was-drinking; the why-was-she-out-alone-there-at-night; the why-was-she-out-dressed-like-that; the she-did-lead-him-on; the why-didn't-she-fight-him; the why-did-she-go-home-with-him.
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I'm just surprised, really, because I've only ever heard the "all men are rapists" as a second-hand caricature of feminism. I'm vaguely aware that the idea has some roots in second wave feminism but I've never met anyone who seriously advocates it. Rape culture, as I understand it, it simply a shorthand for the all-too-common excuses that come out when someone gets raped. The well-she-was-drinking; the why-was-she-out-alone-there-at-night; the why-was-she-out-dressed-like-that; the she-did-lead-him-on; the why-didn't-she-fight-him; the why-did-she-go-home-with-him.
Back in the 80s, the deafening message was effectively "All men are rapists - THAT MEAN YOU! KILL YOURSELF!"
Led to Millie Tant.
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Alex, IMHO, the answer you are looking for is right on the page you linked to:
quote:
But so long as you lump sex-critical feminists and sex-positive feminists into one big group, you are bound to continuing fearing the largest social movement dedicated toward women's rights.
Your choice, ultimately. I hope, however, one day you can relinquish your fears and understand it all.
Understood. However, it gets confusing when Feminism As A Political Entity gets referred to as one monolithic entity on the news - as in Khrishnan Guru-Murthy (Channel 4 News) asking "what is The Feminist Position on (subject)".
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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Can we please not make this thread about any one person's experiences with feminism? We've seen this happen to virtually every thread we've had about feminism for yonks. It's tiresome.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Why would you want to say that feminism is establishment?
Help, help, I'm being repressed by women or job done, we can stop work now. Same rubbish as saying racism is solved.
We've come a long way, baby, but we aren't home yet.
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
I umm... *think* I am with you - this Reddit post covers where i've come form - and the message I heard as well..
Reddit post
Alex,
There are undoubtedly feminists who hate men, but feminism does not. The vast majority of feminists merely want equality, not domination.
[ 24. October 2015, 13:59: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Can we please not make this thread about any one person's experiences with feminism? We've seen this happen to virtually every thread we've had about feminism for yonks. It's tiresome.
All I offer is my perspective from outside the movement... which seems to be echoed quite widely..
http://acculturated.com/feminisms-blurred-vision-for-2015/
Consider how my life was in the immediate shadow of the movement's Overton window... and where dissident feminists (Christina Hoff-Sommers, Wendy McElroy et al) offer more support than feminism-in-power (Steinem feminism)
[ 24. October 2015, 13:43: Message edited by: Alex Cockell ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Back in the 80s, the deafening message was effectively "All men are rapists - THAT MEAN YOU! KILL YOURSELF!"
I lived through the 1980s on two different university campuses with a group of rather progressive people and never heard this message. Can we not make this thread about one person's experiences? Pretty please? Let's talk about the OP. Remember the OP? Let's talk about the OP.
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Back in the 80s, the deafening message was effectively "All men are rapists - THAT MEAN YOU! KILL YOURSELF!"
I lived through the 1980s on two different university campuses with a group of rather progressive people and never heard this message. Can we not make this thread about one person's experiences? Pretty please? Let's talk about the OP. Remember the OP? Let's talk about the OP.
Maybe not - but it WAS the message blasted out to the general public through mainstream British news footage, and PSHE/Care classes of the time by militant activists.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
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Host Note
I'm not sure which of two posts has broken the scroll lock so I'll be fiddling around with code for a little while. Can you please avoid quoting any post with a long link for the next half hour or so? Thanks
B62, Purg Host
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Back in the 80s, the deafening message was effectively "All men are rapists - THAT MEAN YOU! KILL YOURSELF!"
I lived through the 1980s on two different university campuses with a group of rather progressive people and never heard this message. Can we not make this thread about one person's experiences? Pretty please? Let's talk about the OP. Remember the OP? Let's talk about the OP.
Maybe not - but it WAS the message blasted out to the general public through mainstream British news footage, and PSHE/Care classes of the time by militant activists. Especially to impressionable sheltered teenage boys like me at the time.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
But then how did feminism get to become popular. ...
Maybe because the majority of human beings are female?
No. Because the majority of human beings believe that treating all other human beings as equally human is reasonable.
There are women who hate men. It this is their primary driver, they are not feminists, they are men-haters. They remind me of Coin from the Hunger Games, who wants revolution so that he can be in charge, an gets that by preaching against Snow. But he wants the same, just with him in charge.
Broadly with Alan Creswells definition, feminism is about equality, not dominance. It is about challenging the patriarchy, not replacing it. Otherwise it is something else.
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I'm just surprised, really, because I've only ever heard the "all men are rapists" as a second-hand caricature of feminism. I'm vaguely aware that the idea has some roots in second wave feminism but I've never met anyone who seriously advocates it. Rape culture, as I understand it, it simply a shorthand for the all-too-common excuses that come out when someone gets raped. The well-she-was-drinking; the why-was-she-out-alone-there-at-night; the why-was-she-out-dressed-like-that; the she-did-lead-him-on; the why-didn't-she-fight-him; the why-did-she-go-home-with-him.
Was common through the Political Lesbianism period, which sent out the Greerism "Feminism in the theory, lesbianism is the practice", and Dworkin/French "AMAR" rhetoric.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_lesbianism
And
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_feminism
It's downstream of the Steinem/firestone/Morgan / Daly etc model - misandric Stalinist strands...
Which Christina Hoff-Sommers wrote about in "Who stole feminism" and was sent to Coventry for by Naomi Wolf in 1995.
Hence Gamergate and the current culture wars.
[ 24. October 2015, 14:01: Message edited by: Alex Cockell ]
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I'm just surprised, really, because I've only ever heard the "all men are rapists" as a second-hand caricature of feminism.
The Genesis of this is, I think, Andrea Dworkin.
Relevant Wiki quote.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
In other words establishment parties fall over themselves to advocate feminism. Feminism is supported by a critical mass of 'credible' people (i.e. people deemed credible by the establishment) and is advocated by 'credible' pressure groups (i.e. groups deemed credible by the establishment). In other words feminism is the establishment view?
Hinsliff is really arguing that the Women's Equality Party is going to split the anti-Tory vote further, and would be more successful working with factions within the anti-Tory parties. She is therefore perhaps overstating the degree to which the main parties are pro-feminist in the course of her argument.
Let's break down the argument a bit.
Hinsliff is arguing that there are large groups able to make their voices heard who are campaigning for greater equality for women within the mainstream parties. It does not follow that everyone within the mainstream parties is campaigning for greater equality for women. It certainly does not mean that perfect equality between women and men has been achieved.
When she says that the mainstream parties fall over themselves to advocate feminism, I don't think she means much more than lipservice. It's clear from the rest of the article that she still thinks that feminism still has a lot of work to do.
That Cameron tells the Church of England to be more feminist tells us more about easy a target Cameron thinks the CofE is than about how feminist Cameron is.
It certainly doesn't mean that the Establishment was in any way pro-feminist fifty or even thirty years ago. Feminism is something that has worked its way up.
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
But then how did feminism get to become popular. ...
Maybe because the majority of human beings are female?
No. Because the majority of human beings believe that treating all other human beings as equally human is reasonable.
There are women who hate men. It this is their primary driver, they are not feminists, they are men-haters. They remind me of Coin from the Hunger Games, who wants revolution so that he can be in charge, an gets that by preaching against Snow. But he wants the same, just with him in charge.
Broadly with Alan Creswells definition, feminism is about equality, not dominance. It is about challenging the patriarchy, not replacing it. Otherwise it is something else.
Doesn't help when misandrists false-flag as "feminists" in the public eye. though...
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
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Scroll lock break fixed.
Note to Bibliophile and Alex Cockell.
I recommend you learn how to use both the URL button for posting links and software such as tinyurl for shortening very long links. Either one of those, or a combination if necessary, avoids breaking the scroll lock. Feel free to practise using the practice thread in the Styx.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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Alex,
Feminism =\= Misandry. Point to fringe elements and individual complaint all you wish, but it does not prove what you think.
Posted by Bibliophile (# 18418) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
If the ruling class is feminist, then given that women are still very disadvantaged, then either they're not actually in charge, or they're not able to make their desires into reality. In which case calling them the "ruling" class rings a bit hollow. And the idea that they gave feminism whatever popularity it may enjoy is hard to credit.
Feminism has not achieved all of its goals because these things time. Reorganising society whilst getting public opinion to adopt the ruling class's liberal ideas takes time.
Posted by Bibliophile (# 18418) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
UKIP are exceptionally conservative politicians.
Exactly. And since the ruling class establishment is mostly liberal rather than conservative then adopting an exceptionally conservative position is anti establishment.
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Doesn't help when misandrists false-flag as "feminists" in the public eye. though...
Ah, so you *can* distinguish a misandrist from a feminist. Problem solved. Moving on ...
It's true that it is less socially acceptable to make openly sexist statements these days. That doesn't mean sexism is gone. It just means it's more subtle, and harder for some people to see eg. the owners of Hobby Lobby telling their female employees what kinds of birth control they couldn't use under the guise of "religious freedom".
I don't see how anyone can claim that feminism is "establishment" when so few of our power structures fully include women or recognize their concerns.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
UKIP are exceptionally conservative politicians.
Exactly. And since the ruling class establishment is mostly liberal rather than conservative then adopting an exceptionally conservative position is anti establishment.
What planet do you live on? Only compared to America is most of the "ruling class" liberal.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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Is 'anti-establishment' some kind of badge you want to put on?
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
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I suspect that this thread is meant to lead us from feminism-is-establishment to now-women-are-the-oppressors-and-things-are-so-awful-for-men.
Posted by Snags (# 15351) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Back in the 80s, the deafening message was effectively "All men are rapists - THAT MEAN YOU! KILL YOURSELF!"
I lived through the 1980s on two different university campuses with a group of rather progressive people and never heard this message. Can we not make this thread about one person's experiences? Pretty please? Let's talk about the OP. Remember the OP? Let's talk about the OP.
Maybe not - but it WAS the message blasted out to the general public through mainstream British news footage, and PSHE/Care classes of the time by militant activists.
Alex, at the risk of distressing mousethief further, no, it was not.
From memory I'm a broadly similar age to you, and British. That is categorically not the mainstream message broadcast to the British Public from feminism during the 80s.
I'm not disputing it may be your perception or even your experience, but it is not the mainstream position and never has been.
You are (again? consistently? persistently?) picking up on a combination of minority extremist views, mocking anti-feminist caricature, and probably also a mis-reading of the then equivalent of click-bait - posit a shocking statement/headline, then in the actual exposition demonstrate that the shock tactic was really just an attention grabber.
It would help enormously (you and the rest of us) if you could recalibrate your sensors to accept that "feminism" for the vast majority of people equates to viewing women as equals, and advocating for equal treatment.
As others have pointed out, you are essentially latching on to the lunatic fringe and considering them the core. No, it's not helpful that the lunatic fringe use the same label as the mainstream, but that's life. It's exactly the same problem as people equating "Christian" with "foaming USA Southern Baptist Fundie Evangelical like the nutters in the movies". Your cart is so far before the horse it's in a different county.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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I don't get the point of going through all this trouble of defining 'establishment' in such a way that it makes you anti-establishment. Why? Does it make you look cool?
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
If the ruling class is feminist, then given that women are still very disadvantaged, then either they're not actually in charge, or they're not able to make their desires into reality. In which case calling them the "ruling" class rings a bit hollow. And the idea that they gave feminism whatever popularity it may enjoy is hard to credit.
Feminism has not achieved all of its goals because these things time. Reorganising society whilst getting public opinion to adopt the ruling class's liberal ideas takes time.
That presupposes that the ruling classes are actually making some effort to empower women beyond what has already been done for the past forty years.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Back in the 80s, the deafening message was effectively "All men are rapists - THAT MEAN YOU! KILL YOURSELF!"
Led to Millie Tant.
So you're basing your opinions on feminism on your perceptions of something that (you claim) happened at least 25 years ago? Do you base your opinion on computers on the bad experience you had with an Amiga 500 in 1988?
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Back in the 80s, the deafening message was effectively "All men are rapists - THAT MEAN YOU! KILL YOURSELF!"
I lived through the 1980s on two different university campuses with a group of rather progressive people and never heard this message. Can we not make this thread about one person's experiences? Pretty please? Let's talk about the OP. Remember the OP? Let's talk about the OP.
Maybe not - but it WAS the message blasted out to the general public through mainstream British news footage, and PSHE/Care classes of the time by militant activists.
I only came across Andrea Dworkin in one article in the Observer in the 1980s. British news didn't blast out any feminist messages, let alone that all men are rapists. I don't know about PSHE/Care classes, and I can't say how a sensitive young man might receive them, but it isn't how things were for me.
In the 80s I was helping write a service book for Baptist ministers and feeling very trendy in advocating inclusive language, and grateful for the inspiration I gained as I tried to understand the issues behind and around it.
I was also getting my head round how my marriage ought to work. The expectations I picked up from my parents were under persistent but reasonable attack. I didn't always react well, because I felt threatened. I felt at bad times that my place in the world was going to be taken away from me. Today I see the foolishness of my fearful younger self, but the journey from there to here and beyond is one I wouldn't have missed for anything, because of its spiritual dimension. I meet God in feminism, as in all the struggles around domination.
Violence does not liberate. I think that may include violent words, such as that all men are rapists (though I suspect there's something valuable behind that claim's shock value). But upsetting the status quo often needs confrontation a willingness to provoke, and leads to hurt and suffering on both sides. It's worth it, though. It leads to the recovery and deepening of our humanity.
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
By 'the establishment' I mean the ruling class.
Ah, the Chinese.
[ 24. October 2015, 15:27: Message edited by: Firenze ]
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on
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Ha ! To which I would add, seen many girls at Eton ?
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
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Alex Cockell
Obsessing about feminism again, I see. Or, at the very least, in danger of doing that. Take my advice; don't ignore previous Admin strictures.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
I suspect that this thread is meant to lead us from feminism-is-establishment to now-women-are-the-oppressors-and-things-are-so-awful-for-men.
From what I understand ( my brothers-in arms may correct me) the new wave of the men's movement is recognizing that the ideaology that preaches all men are intrinsically violent, uncivilizable, and prone to being rapists is misogyny. The " entitlements" our culture provides are actually traps-- those crass commercials featuring dads as domestic idiots and women as saviors of the house are insults. The premise that men are less relationship oriented than men in itself ruins men's relationships, a small adjustment to boys' somewhat higher activity level in early ed can eliminate the scholastic achievement gap. Basically, male " feminists" are beginning to lead the men's rights movement, because feminism has been trying to address how misogyny castrates men all along.
I was a budding feminist in the 80's, in tne US, and I never even heard of Dworkin till I joined the Ship. I heard of folk like Fran Leibowitz and Marlo Thomas. Both of these women had a very inclusive message and style of rhetoric; it was very clear to me, from the beginning of my identification as a feminist, that genuine love and respect for men was an essential part of the movement. Misogyny is the ideology that thinks men are " less than" -- not feminism.
It is depressing to think that a young man's first exposure to feminist concepts was of the Dwarkin variety, but Mousethief is right*--until you reasearch further, and find out what non- fringe feminism says, you can't discuss it with any accuracy.
Start with Anne Lamott. She loves men.
* Not to open a can of worms, but I remember one of my first Hell arguments with MT ever centered around some comments he made about feminists being God haters and men haters. I hope he doesn't mind me saying his growth in this area has been astonishing, and if he was willing to share a bit if his journey in that area, I for one would be eager to hear it. I've always wondered what changed.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
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Also to add-- solid feminists like Leibowitz and Steinham were throwing their weight to the gay rights movement in the 80's. Maybe Dwarkin seemed more prominent because everyone who was involved in general human rights was talking about AIDS. That's certainly how I remember the 80's.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
UKIP are exceptionally conservative politicians.
Exactly. And since the ruling class establishment is mostly liberal rather than conservative then adopting an exceptionally conservative position is anti establishment.
What planet do you live on? Only compared to America is most of the "ruling class" liberal.
Precisely, The establishment is inherently conservative. I really don't get where people think that UKIP is anti-establishment from. They are not - they are a totally establishment party.
[ 24. October 2015, 16:50: Message edited by: Schroedinger's cat ]
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
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(Mutters to self) compared to America, currently, the ruling class of the court of Henry VIII looks liberal.
[ 24. October 2015, 16:52: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Also to add-- solid feminists like Leibowitz and Steinham were throwing their weight to the gay rights movement in the 80's. Maybe Dwarkin seemed more prominent because everyone who was involved in general human rights was talking about AIDS. That's certainly how I remember the 80's.
Dworkin and MacKinnon were joining forces with James Dobson and other Meese Commission bods during the Sex Wars. So fed into the whole David Alton/Mary Whitehouse stuff re video nasties etc. The whole push to ban all porn etc that made up the Sex Wars. Yup, also fed into the whole AIDS thing.
Feeds into SJWs talking over sex workers who would prefer the New Zealand model to the Nordic model.
So stuff downstream from Dworkin often sounds like the Junior Anti-Sex League. And was described as such by CHS when she spoke at Oberlin.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
* Not to open a can of worms, but I remember one of my first Hell arguments with MT ever centered around some comments he made about feminists being God haters and men haters. I hope he doesn't mind me saying his growth in this area has been astonishing, and if he was willing to share a bit if his journey in that area, I for one would be eager to hear it. I've always wondered what changed.
Blows my mind, and opens my heart, when I see people capable of change.
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
* Not to open a can of worms, but I remember one of my first Hell arguments with MT ever centered around some comments he made about feminists being God haters and men haters. I hope he doesn't mind me saying his growth in this area has been astonishing, and if he was willing to share a bit if his journey in that area, I for one would be eager to hear it. I've always wondered what changed.
Blows my mind, and opens my heart, when I see people capable of change.
Funnily enough, those "feminist" voices in the MHRM you are hearing... Are exiled feminists from the 60s. Warren Farrell, CHS, Janice Fiamengo etc, Paul Elam etc. Pushing back against Germaine Greer's desire for Slaves And Scapegoats. Was interesting to note that Greer and Bindel have been isolated as Terfs, especially after Bindel eulogised Dworkin recently in the Guardian.
For the record, I have counselling starting up with Survivors UK soon.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
(Mutters to self) compared to America, currently, the ruling class of the court of Henry VIII looks liberal.
Don't worry, Kelly. Everything will be better once The Donald becomes president.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
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Easy for you to laugh. I nearly shat my bed at that one.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
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Kelly - I think you are right in your assessment. The problem was that some in the feminist movement took the misogynistic route, and some of us men who would identify as feminists replied with the "not all men" line.
And the problem was it became a power battle, which was not what most feminists wanted. Most of us wanted to challenge the structures, not simply replace men with women (Having Thatcher in power made it clear that this would make no real difference). Highlighting all men as rapists is disabling of us, and it takes away responsibility for our actions.
Yes the battle continues, not just for feminism ideals, but for a proper understanding of what these are/should be. This is an ongoing battle. It is not over until gender is irrelevant to role, while acknowledging differences. We are a very long way from that.
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
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What was also pretty damn hilarious was seeing Susan Brownmiller chiding Jessica Valenti and Amanda Marcotte! Then again, did Brownmiller and Jong ever see eye to eye over shagging the more arrogant chauvinist types? The Mr Goodbars?
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
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Schrödinger, it became clear that whereas Sommers et al wanted to challenge and move onto Enlightenment egalitarian ideas, Steinem et al came in funded with CIA money, hijacked if and wanted to BE the "patriarchy". Meet the new boss and all that.
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
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If you are male and you have daughters, such will make you feminist at least what you understand it to be, and you'll want equity and equality.
The thread title asks a question, to which I'd say "no", it isn't if we consider establishment to mean "this is how things are organized and run". If you mean by the question, is it an ideology or set of principles that the established order and power seeks to promote, my answer is "sort of". It is what is supposed to be advanced and promoted, but it seems to be a rather thin veneer, with people behaving in conformity with feminist ideals, but their hearts and minds may be elsewhere.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
Kelly - I think you are right in your assessment. The problem was that some in the feminist movement took the misogynistic route, and some of us men who would identify as feminists replied with the "not all men" line.
And the problem was it became a power battle, which was not what most feminists wanted. Most of us wanted to challenge the structures, not simply replace men with women (Having Thatcher in power made it clear that this would make no real difference). Highlighting all men as rapists is disabling of us, and it takes away responsibility for our actions.
.
See,,this is the problem I am having. One moment you say, " some women took the misogyny route" and also " most of us don't want a power battle" (yes!I agree! ) but then you talk about " highlighting all men as rapists."
Most. Feminists. Do. Not. Think . All. Men. Are. Rapists. In fact, I think we work on the premise that anyone who rapes chooses to do so, and is not driven to it. It is old school patriarchy that says men have uncontrollable, ungovernable needs that have to be indulged. Perhaps the way feminists attack that specific argument has been misinterpreted as anti-man.
Posted by Tortuf (# 3784) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
It is old school patriarchy that says men have uncontrollable, ungovernable needs that have to be indulged.
Well, I have uncontrollable, ungovernable needs that have to be indulged. At least every time I pass by these things.
Other than that, labeling anyone is an effort to short cut past accepting that person the way they actually are. It may be useful in some small set of circumstances (not that I can think of any right now). It is otherwise simply intellectual laziness.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
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So, you agree that labeling people who identify as feminist as " misandrists who think all men are rapists" is not helpful to accepting them for who they really are? I agree.
Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Steinem et al came in funded with CIA money
Citation?
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
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However, the public takeaway of the 1-in-10 and Rape Culture stuff is "All you males are on probation - you earn your provisional humanity by abasing yourself before your female overseers".
Hence the Sexodus, MGTOW etc... And this is basically the fault of the TERFs and SWERFs. The extremists - as the moderates didn't shut them down loudly and in front of mainstream news cameras.
Was only when I saw CHS (I tweeted the link to the Tumblrina burning her book to her), read Swayne O'Pye's Why Britain Hates Men (exiled feminist), Farrell's The Myth of Male Power (booted out after chairing NY NOW), Esther Vilar's The Manipulated Man (she received death threats from militant Gender Feminists) and saw Gamergate active...
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Leaf:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Steinem et al came in funded with CIA money
Citation?
Take a look at this little lot. Top one on the search results is an old TV interview where Gloria Steinem discusses her time as a CIA operative.
https://www.youtube.com/results?q=steinem+cia
Oh - and this doc.
Feminism was hijacked, folks...
What happened to feminism?
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
However, the public takeaway of the 1-in-10 and Rape Culture stuff is "All you males are on probation - you earn your provisional humanity by abasing yourself before your female overseers".
No, that's your takeaway, because that's what you've decided to take. You've decided you're more comfortable being the victim so you've constructed a narrative to fit that. Stop trying to make out you speak for anyone else.
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
However, the public takeaway of the 1-in-10 and Rape Culture stuff is "All you males are on probation - you earn your provisional humanity by abasing yourself before your female overseers".
No, that's your takeaway, because that's what you've decided to take. You've decided you're more comfortable being the victim so you've constructed a narrative to fit that. Stop trying to make out you speak for anyone else.
I don't know. All I know is I hated myself, my sexual development was shut down when I was developmentally 7 and suicidally ate for 30 years from the cognitive dissonance.
Hopefully Survivors UK will help me through all this, and through my fear of sex and women.
Then again, when you have prominent voices echoing Valerie Solanas's lines that apparently men are a genetic aberration that should never be - or something - because the Y chromosome is a defective X chromosome... or something...
Who am I to believe?
[ 24. October 2015, 19:23: Message edited by: Alex Cockell ]
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
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quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I don't see very well where this fascination with not being 'establishment' comes from. Does not being establishment make you right?
There is certainly a school of thought that thinks that. Everything "establishment" is automatically bad, and everything anti-establishment is automatically good.
It's bollocks, of course.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
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Do you go looking for the nutters on the fringes of feminism? I know a lot of feminists and I've never heard anyone endorse the ideas you claim. Given what you've described about your state of mind, do you think that perhaps it might be an idea for you to simply avoid engaging with the issue entirely, outside of whatever professional help you're getting? Getting involved with the gamergaters and other extremists who dig up the bizarre fringes to try to discredit feminism will only make you feel worse about things. I haven't heard of half the people you name, and don't recognise half the acronyms either. It looks like you've reacted to views you've found toxic by immersing yourself in a far more toxic subculture. It's like reacting to getting sulphuric acid spilt on you by covering yourself in sodium hydroxide.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
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If you've never heard of Solanis-- she wasn't just a nutter, she was dangerously insane.. Casually referring to her as an example of general feminist thought us definitely like quoting Phelps as a representative of mainstream Christianity.
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Solanas
She had paranoid schizophrenia, maybe she was also an unpleasant person, or maybe that is just what the illness did to her. Either way, it was a tragedy for everyone caught up in the damage. I am not comfortable using the term 'nutter' to describe her though.
I note her misandry arose out of history of childhood physical and sexual abuse by men, perhaps then we can understand why she may have held such views/delusions, even if we do not agree with them.
[ 24. October 2015, 19:44: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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(Reply to Kelly). That's right. Solanas was right out on the extreme wing. There was a strand of man-hating in US feminism, Mary Daly for example, but to see all of feminism like that is absurd. In the UK, it was smaller also, and was combated by people like Lynne Segal ('Is the Future Female?').
But some men like to place themselves as victims to a voracious feminism - just another fantasy really. I am a bloke who got involved in feminist discussions, and it was brilliant really, and also led to some male 'consciousness raising'. I wasn't afraid of having my nuts cut off.
[ 24. October 2015, 19:46: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
If you've never heard of Solanis-- she wasn't just a nutter, she was dangerously insane.. Casually referring to her as an example of general feminist thought us definitely like quoting Phelps as a representative of mainstream Christianity.
Then why did Ti-Grace Anderson laud her in the 70s during her tenure at the top of NOW?
MAry Daly and Sally Miller Gearhart wrote the original gender studies curricula, which fed in Daly's ideas about massacring 90% of men; this saw its latest incarnation in Bahar Mustapha tweeting #killallwhitemen in her role as Diversity Officer at Goldsmith's College - and getting arrested for it...
And Sarah Noble MP tweeting #killallmen.
Add in Greer's view that men should be slaves and scapegoats...
hence the rise of MGTOW after men were slandered as "rapists" and worse...
I know there are egalitarian feminists.. but it's difficult to see them at times... or I see the pushback by Sommers' faction.
[ 24. October 2015, 19:51: Message edited by: Alex Cockell ]
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
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I don't even know who that chick is, so obviously whatever bombastic remarks she might have said hasn't significantly influenced general feminist thought.
Jeez, the 70's was all about people trying to top each other with aggressive rhetoric. The Black Panthers said " off the pigs" a lot, so does that mean we are absolved from investigating any of the ussues raised by the "Black lives matter" campaign?
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
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One effect of the legal skewing by the unchecked man-hating contingent within Feminism has been the massive rise in male suicide...
Male suicide scandal
Re the misandry in Cabinet Ministers tweeting "killallmen" - the fear is this could lead to a misandric Home Secretary in a matriarchy writing orders that would lead to hapless males like me being shot in the head by armed police for the crime of being born male.
OK - a nightmare scenario...
PLEASE Feminists, call out and stop your extremists.
[ 24. October 2015, 19:58: Message edited by: Alex Cockell ]
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on
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It is more to do with the methods men choose, which tend to be more violent and less survivable than those chosen by women, than the number of attempts made by either gender.
Correlation is not cause.
Posted by Bibliophile (# 18418) on
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quote:
Precisely, The establishment is inherently conservative. I really don't get where people think that UKIP is anti-establishment from. They are not - they are a totally establishment party.
There's a whole number of areas, the EU, immigration, education policy etc where UKIP oppose the establishment. Of course they are opposing it from the right rather than opposing it from the left as you might. Are you seriously suggesting that UKIP are not right wing enough to oppose the establishment from the right? How right wing do you think a party needs to be to oppose the establishment from the right?
[ 24. October 2015, 20:02: Message edited by: Bibliophile ]
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
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That article on men's suicide levels is partial. Boys' underachievement in schools (pdf) has been recognised for years, that article is from 2013, but it's been in the education news for a very long time and there are grants for schools to improve boys' achievement. More research from 2007
The GCSE exam changes that came in this September sweep away coursework and leave the qualifications to be based on final exams, which will suit boys better. Incidentally they make the exams much harder, which won't help boys with SEN as they remain disadvantaged.
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
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Bahar Mustafa's arrest.
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
That article on men's suicide levels is partial. Boys' underachievement in schools (pdf) has been recognised for years, that article is from 2013, but it's been in the education news for a very long time and there are grants for schools to improve boys' achievement. More research from 2007
The GCSE exam changes that came in this September sweep away coursework and leave the qualifications to be based on final exams, which will suit boys better. Incidentally they make the exams much harder, which won't help boys with SEN as they remain disadvantaged.
Difficult balancing it.. as I know I did OK with some elements of coursework - in my ND, HND etc...
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on
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As someone whose academic discipline (Women's History) dovetails with many areas of feminism, as someone who read Spare Rib in the 80s and Harpies & Quines in the 90s, as a member of several organisations which would describe themselves as feminist, as someone with a Masters in Women's Studies (albeit my dissertation was on Victorian women) and as someone with a suffragette outfit hanging in her wardrobe, I have never heard of half the women or virtually any of the acronyms Alex Cockell is quoting.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
One effect of the legal skewing by the unchecked man-hating contingent within Feminism has been the massive rise in male suicide...
Male suicide scandal
Re the misandry in Cabinet Ministers tweeting "killallmen" - the fear is this could lead to a misandric Home Secretary in a matriarchy writing orders that would lead to hapless males like me being shot in the head by armed police for the crime of being born male.
OK - a nightmare scenario...
PLEASE Feminists, call out and stop your extremists.
What's the point in you making up implausible nightmare scenarios?
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
One effect of the legal skewing by the unchecked man-hating contingent within Feminism has been the massive rise in male suicide...
Male suicide scandal
Re the misandry in Cabinet Ministers tweeting "killallmen" - the fear is this could lead to a misandric Home Secretary in a matriarchy writing orders that would lead to hapless males like me being shot in the head by armed police for the crime of being born male.
OK - a nightmare scenario...
PLEASE Feminists, call out and stop your extremists.
What's the point in you making up implausible nightmare scenarios?
is it really that implausible? Sarah Noble was a fucking CABINET MINISTER! They have access to lethal power in the form of the police and military. I don't.
Never mind the progressive stack - it all collapses to a REALLY shitty position to be in at the bottom of the totem pole...
A white homeless male has more power and "privilege" than Theresa May, the Home Secretary? Are you kidding me?!
Have a read of Neil Lyndon's Sexual Impolitics - originally published as No More Sex War in 1992 - it covers how this totalitarian core kinda skewed things..
Also - Erin Pizzey - This way to the revolution another early feminist who was exiled by militant genderfems.
[ 24. October 2015, 20:29: Message edited by: Alex Cockell ]
Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Sarah Noble was a fucking CABINET MINISTER!
Minister of what, exactly?
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Sarah Noble was a fucking CABINET MINISTER!
Minister of what, exactly?
This should cover it...
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Most. Feminists. Do. Not. Think . All. Men. Are. Rapists. In fact, I think we work on the premise that anyone who rapes chooses to do so, and is not driven to it. It is old school patriarchy that says men have uncontrollable, ungovernable needs that have to be indulged. Perhaps the way feminists attack that specific argument has been misinterpreted as anti-man.
I completely agree. I may have expressed it badly, but there HAVE BEEN those who claim to be feminists and claim that most men are rapists. I know that this is not normal or usual. It is a wrong approach that is misogynistic, not feminist.
That was the point I was trying to make. Sorry if I made it badly.
Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Sarah Noble was a fucking CABINET MINISTER!
Minister of what, exactly?
This should cover it...
So - not a cabinet minister at all, then, right? (Let alone a "fucking CABINET MINISTER!") And didn't "have access to lethal power in the form of the police and military." I seriously doubt if anyone before you has ever trembled before the awesome power of a "LibDem executive committee member".
But then you also said this:
quote:
A white homeless male has more power and "privilege" than Theresa May, the Home Secretary? Are you kidding me?!
Are you claiming the Tory Home Secretary has been threatening you, too?
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Sarah Noble was a fucking CABINET MINISTER!
Minister of what, exactly?
This should cover it...
She's never even been an MP. Just a student union person who got on the Lib Dem exec. and swiftly got kicked off.
Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on
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Jinx!
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
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.
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
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Oh - just something else - Germaine Greer was recently excommunicated from current "intersectional" feminism...
Reddit thread
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Sarah Noble was a fucking CABINET MINISTER!
Minister of what, exactly?
This should cover it...
So - not a cabinet minister at all, then, right? (Let alone a "fucking CABINET MINISTER!") And didn't "have access to lethal power in the form of the police and military." I seriously doubt if anyone before you has ever trembled before the awesome power of a "LibDem executive committee member".
But then you also said this:
quote:
A white homeless male has more power and "privilege" than Theresa May, the Home Secretary? Are you kidding me?!
Are you claiming the Tory Home Secretary has been threatening you, too?
Oh - that was on the back of trying to understand this "progressive stack" thing that somehow holds the average white male as responsible for all the bad in the world according to 3rd wave something..
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
is it really that implausible? Sarah Noble was a fucking CABINET MINISTER! They have access to lethal power in the form of the police and military. I don't.
Never mind the progressive stack - it all collapses to a REALLY shitty position to be in at the bottom of the totem pole...
A white homeless male has more power and "privilege" than Theresa May, the Home Secretary? Are you kidding me?!
Does anyone actually claim that? You're misunderstanding what the idea of privilege is attempting to explain. It's meant to be a shorthand for things like: a man and a woman alone in a lift together, only the woman is likely to be worrying about her safety. When we lived in a major city, I'd walk home from the station after dark with no major concerns, but my wife didn't feel safe walking around at night. It's about the everyday things that, in general, men can take for granted that women can't; that white people in the UK or US can take for granted that black people can't.
And yes, your scenario is implausible. Do you honestly think, for one second, that Sarah Noble (not a cabinet minister as far as I can see) was advocating killing all or even any men with that tweet? It was a poor taste joke that justifiably got her suspended from the lib dem executive. Have you any idea how many stupid things are said on social media, including by MPs, on any given day? We have a government that is killing disabled people and you're worrying about a bad joke and pretending it was meant to be taken seriously.
[ 24. October 2015, 20:58: Message edited by: Arethosemyfeet ]
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Then again, when you have prominent voices echoing Valerie Solanas's lines that apparently men are a genetic aberration that should never be - or something - because the Y chromosome is a defective X chromosome... or something...
Who am I to believe?
Much as I take issue with a certain kind of academic feminism that tends to flourish on college campuses (and which I sometimes think has a tendency to shelter the already privileged at the expense of the already downtrodden), I'm having trouble believing that you really and truly think these extreme views are considered 'mainstream feminism' by most.
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
Oh - just something else - Germaine Greer was recently excommunicated from current "intersectional" feminism...
Reddit thread
As a general rule (since you asked who you should believe): never ever believe anything you read on reddit. Seriously, if someone on reddit posts that the sky is blue, you should triple check the information with three separate reliable sources.
You should likely also stay away from anything mentioning gamergate or SJW's.
That's just my two cents.
Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex Cockell:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
But then you also said this:
quote:
A white homeless male has more power and "privilege" than Theresa May, the Home Secretary? Are you kidding me?!
Are you claiming the Tory Home Secretary has been threatening you, too?
Oh - that was on the back of trying to understand this "progressive stack" thing that somehow holds the average white male as responsible for all the bad in the world according to 3rd wave something..
I see - so Theresa May is a threat to you in about the same way that Sarah Noble was a Cabinet minister, i.e. not at all, really.
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
:
Ok - thanks. All I know is that I managed to decouple the suicidal eating through finding Athol Kay's Married Man Sex Life material - and we'll see how the Survivors UK therapy helps...
But I AM very confused when it comes to all the rapidly changing stuff around consent rules that seem to hand all the power to women... or something.
But it does seem to be a case of "I have a penis - blame me foe everything" and "I have tits - give me free stuff".
Or something.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
Hosts and Admin are discussing the future of this thread which has gone rapidly downhill, mirroring previous threads on the topic which led to Admin action. So I'm taking the unusual step of closing the thread temporarily while we discuss further what the best step forward might be.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
[Thread reopened]
Please note that Bibliophile is no longer with us. So there is little point asking him anything.
Also, we have asked Alex to refrain from posting on this subject. Please don't try to engage him further on anything he has posted here.
Alan
Ship of Fools Admin
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
Just because this follows on from the comments about men's suicide rates, there was a programme on BBC3 this week on the much higher rates of suicide in men called Professor Green: Suicide and Me. Narrated and researched from the starting point of his need to understand more about male suicide as Professor Green's father committed suicide seven years ago.
It's part of a BBC3 series on gender issues called Breaking the Mould. Looking at the programme list this series is focussing far more on male gender issues, e.g. domestic violence from a male victim's point of view and male suicide rates.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
Whilst the suicide rate among males is of course regrettable and tragic, the prevalence of moderate feminism is something of a red herring IMO. The changes in way maleness defines itself-- from manual labour, to sport, to status within relationships and the family are big players.
The establishment power shift from male dominant to male/female equality is the backdrop to changes, not always the causing of them.
That isn't to say some male suicides don't directly result from the irresponsible use of female power, and with the continuing power shift that proportion will likely increase, and no doubt minority darker elements of feminism will play it's part. My guess is though that the most male suicide comes from a falsely perceived sense of powerlessness and uselessness, however real it may feel to the individual perceiving it.
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
That isn't to say some male suicides don't directly result from the irresponsible use of female power, and with the continuing power shift that proportion will likely increase
Eh? What is this 'female power'?
I do not accept that any move towards equalisation of the life opportunities of men and women can be blamed for male suicide. Since, apart from anything else, that implies that when power was 'properly' vested - ie in males - then women killed themselves and that was ok.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
I certainly do not believe it to be "Ok" for anyone, male or female, to be driven to suicide because of abuse of power by the other.
What is this female power?
Well how about a mother booting a father out of the family home, (for no wrong-doing on his part), trying to deny him access to his kids whilst obliging him to stump up the maintenance .
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
rolyn, for each of those cases there's an equivalent case of a woman who suffered domestic violence, left the home with the children and lost everything too. I do agree there is an imbalance as the parent with the children tends to be housed as a priority, but that works both ways, the father who is caring for the children equally has priority.
And that's not to say men don't suffer from domestic violence too, because they do, and it's hugely under reported.
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
Conflict between parties to a formerly close emotional/sexual relationship is a specialised subset of social interactions. They are affected by wider trends but are, IMO, more driven than drivers.
Conflict by its nature produces winners and losers, and it's easy to produce instances and counter instances of one sex or the other occupying either status (though you would have to say, historically, women had a particularly long innings on the losing side).
What you need to solve as far as possible, is the adversarial and blame-apportioning approach to family breakdown - not easy, since it must deal with some of the most visceral and violent feelings humans can have towards each other.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
I'm not sure this is necessary, but I'm going to remind you all of Purgatory Guideline 4 at this stage.
quote:
4. Personal stuff
If you find it necessary to share things of a personal nature then remember you have a large audience looking in. Personal statements should be respected by other posters. Please be aware of the cost involved for the person making them. See this section of the FAQs for more on this.
Normally it is better to keep discussion general or refer to examples within the public domain which do not risk libel.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
What you need to solve as far as possible, is the adversarial and blame-apportioning approach to family breakdown - not easy, since it must deal with some of the most visceral and violent feelings humans can have towards each other.
Hear hear to that.
I'm well aware the example I quoted could easily be countered by countless cases of females suffering physical abuse, as well as being threatened with being hunted down and killed if they should attempt to leave the abusive husband or partner.
Males blaming feminism for the way the tables are now turning is mostly based on knee-jerk mentality. The best way forward I agree, is to seek paths that create harmony between the sexes. A state of affairs so that if/when things go wrong rationality and logic are applied, as oppossed to hunkering down in our respective gender camps and wallowing in venom.
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
... Well how about a mother booting a father out of the family home, (for no wrong-doing on his part), trying to deny him access to his kids whilst obliging him to stump up the maintenance .
I did not realize that being a father was a pay-to-play enterprise.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
Mediators are often helpful in broken relationships, particularly over vexed issues such as reasonable access and reasonable support. But that's got nothing to do with feminism. It just recognises a truth that, when relationships break down, the hurt and the emnity get in the way of mutual fairness. Even making the best of a bad job can be problematical.
Many Shipmates will have seen that dynamic at work. And some will have experienced it personally. When they go wrong, relationships normally don't just break. They rip and tear. And the damage caused by the ripping and tearing may persist for a long time.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
Soror Magna: I did not realize that being a father was a pay-to-play enterprise.
I'm not sure how to interpret this.
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on
:
I think it could be rephrased as, why is whether the father in the example given is paying maintainance relevant ?
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
I'm well aware the example I quoted could easily be countered
The problem with your example is not that it can be countered, but that it is irrelevant.
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
as oppossed to hunkering down in our respective gender camps and wallowing in venom.
"wallowing in venom" Lovely. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
I think it could be rephrased as, why is whether the father in the example given is paying maintainance relevant ?
Exactly. Parents are responsible for providing the child's needs. A child has a right to a relationship with his/her parents.* They are two separate issues, and the child is what matters, not a parent's sense of ownership or entitlement.
And it would sure be nice to be able to talk about feminism without every thread turning into a "she done me wrong" country song. It's like the only interesting thing about feminism is how it can be blamed for everything bad that happens to men.
*With, of course, all the usual caveats.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
Soror Magna: Exactly. Parents are responsible for providing the child's needs. A child has a right to a relationship with his/her parents.* They are two separate issues, and the child is what matters, not a parent's sense of ownership or entitlement.
I'm not sure. I know a couple of fathers who are in this situation. I do feel that it can be a bit more complex than this; things aren't always as clear-cut in practice as they should be in theory. But some of these people are rather close to me, so I'm unsure of whether I want to discuss it further here.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
Individual examples do not counter the argument, though. If one is going to speak in broad terms, one looks at broad effects.
Is feminism establishment is easily answered no because one can easily establish that women, as a group, are at a disadvantage.
Instead, all we have are a few anomalies, pandering and misrepresentations. Are we closer than we were? Yes. But we have not arrived at the goal, much less reveresed anything.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
I suppose the term "establishment" means those who are privileged and in power. Both positions of privilege and power get misused by those who occupy those positions. But that is not inevitable.
Any movement (organised labour, suffragette, resistance to colonialism, civil rights movements, feminism etc) which challenges injustice in the exercise of power and the misuse of privilege is seeking to right wrongs. But I guess all of those movements benefit from the realisations that
a) not all in positions of power and privilege are abusers of human rights
b) that if the leaders of their movements do achieve positions of power and privilege they too will find themselves tempted to abuse their emancipation.
And that is the issue behind all emancipation movements. Quoted here before by me.
"The working class can kiss my ass, I've got the foreman's job at last".
Using newly acquired positions of power to settle old scores demeans those who it as well as those demeaned. A guideline which applies to all.
[ 02. November 2015, 09:43: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
It always seems to be the case that all members of a disadvantaged group - women, blacks, gays, refugees, starving Africans, whatever - must be preternaturally noble, dignified, grateful, patient and restrained or they don't 'deserve' justice or compassion.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
Not at all. We just have to avoid abusing power if we get it. Otherwise we perpetuate the underlying disease.
Mind you, that's a Christian principle. It isn't always Christian practice. Which doesn't make it either a bad principle or an unattainable one.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
It always seems to be the case that all members of a disadvantaged group - women, blacks, gays, refugees, starving Africans, whatever - must be preternaturally noble, dignified, grateful, patient and restrained or they don't 'deserve' justice or compassion.
Yep. To be fair, though, "they" are all the same.
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
... a) not all in positions of power and privilege are abusers of human rights
They enjoy power and privilege, they are benefitting from a inequitable system, and nobody gives that up without a fight. The challenge of redressing structural inequities is that they're usually NOT the result of individual discriminatory action. A USA Congresscritter doesn't have to be a member of the KKK to write apparently race-neutral laws that in practice have a racist impact.
quote:
b) that if the leaders of their movements do achieve positions of power and privilege they too will find themselves tempted to abuse their emancipation.
If we're talking human nature, fair enough. But in this context, the argument always comes across as "we can't give Xs power because they'll retaliate against Ys", which IMO implicitly concedes that the Ys really are doing something nasty to Xs.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
... a) not all in positions of power and privilege are abusers of human rights
They enjoy power and privilege, they are benefitting from a inequitable system, and nobody gives that up without a fight.
Do you believe that all genuine reformers must be found amongst the oppressed, rather than those currently in power? That all in positions of government have been corrupted by power and privilege?
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
:
My point is that it is not necessary for specific individuals to be corrupt for a system to be corrupt. I'm not talking just about government, I'm talking about everything. Actual individual people of the "I hate Women / Blacks / Gays so I won't hire them" ilk are far less common now, and yet inequities persist ...
... and as soon as someone points out or tries to redress those inequities, the white men scream about reverse discrimination, "I'm just a working Joe, I'm not privileged", it's the end of hiring by merit, and quotas are wrong, and nobody wants to be a token hire, and we should just leave things the way they are because nobody discriminates any more. Others can decide whether the word "corrupt" applies to these people - I wouldn't use that word. Being born privileged isn't a personal failing, but IMO pretending privilege doesn't exist is.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
We don't disagree about that. Some people abuse positions of power and high office and the temptation to protect privilege is often an underlying cause of that. You don't read me defending the reactionary bleating of those whose fragile egos get bruised during the adjustments.
I'm simply arguing that not everyone in a position of power is a self-serving self-protecting shit. And it's also good to recognise that power can do that to any of us. Enemising groups of people simply because some, or even a majority, of that group are self-serving shits simply leads to the substitution of one inequity by another.
Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on
:
I was teaching university undergraduates on feminist approaches to the atonement, and introducing them to some of the more radical feminists. I mentioned Mary Daly, and explained that she used to refuse to have male students in her class. There were gasps of shock and outrage. Fair enough. Quite right, even. But where were the gasps of shock and outrage at the 1900 years of Christian civilisation in which virtually every single male teacher refused to have women in his class?
I agree with your points about power, Barnabas. But I also would reinterate Firenze's point, about how the members of a disadvantaged group must be "must be preternaturally noble, dignified, grateful, patient and restrained" - most particularly when at last the disadvantage is beginning to be addressed. Few of the privileged in history have howled about disadvantage when it was not them who were being disadvantaged. But now that they are losing some part of their advantage, suddenly "equality" becomes really important to them. Women, blacks, gays, refugees, starving Africans (to borrow Firenze's list) can have exact equality but no more. And we will guard that exact equality boundary as zealously as we ever guarded our previous privilege, because what we cannot and will not allow is for them to have more power than us.
I suspect that most woman, and most of these other groups, are not looking for more power anyway. Most are probably willing to stop at equality. But can you see why it grates when the previously powerful group suddenly starts preaching the dangers of power and the virtues of true equality ... especially when the disadvantaged group has nowhere near caught up anyway?
While it is wrong that women were excluded from the classrooms for so long, it was nevertheless 'normal'. Intellectually, we agree that it was wrong (when it is pointed out to us: we may not have even thought about it). But we are not shocked. But to exclude one tiny group of men from just one class is outrageous! The lack of equality when it happens in this direction shocks us to the core. So even if our society achieves exact equality between men and women (whatever that might look like) this will still mean the greater dominance of the originally powerful group for generations to come - because they have the weight of history and tradition entirely on their side. Maybe it will take another 1900 years for that to be balanced out.
In the process of gaining equal recognition, so much grace and forgiveness is required of the disadvantaged group. But grace by its nature is something that is given, not something that you have a right to. And trust me, grace is a hard thing to give at the drop of a hat, and especially when your (former?) oppressor is demanding it.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
But we are not shocked.
Aren't we? I was shocked when my physics teacher at 6th form college told my female colleagues they shouldn't be in his class (and I'm not that old).
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Yes, I was puzzling over the present tense there - 'we are not shocked'. I suppose this refers to the past discrimination against women, but I'm not sure how anyone knows this. Are there any statistics on how shocked people are about the past?
Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, I was puzzling over the present tense there - 'we are not shocked'. I suppose this refers to the past discrimination against women, but I'm not sure how anyone knows this. Are there any statistics on how shocked people are about the past?
Yes, it refers to past discrimination. We are not shocked now at how women were treated in the past. I don't know how you could get any statistics about this. It is my impression, gleaned also from my own reactions. I never thought to be shocked at the exclusion of women from education throughout the past, until I saw the shock at one instance of the exclusion of men. And none of my students thought to express this either.
[ 05. November 2015, 11:45: Message edited by: Cottontail ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, I was puzzling over the present tense there - 'we are not shocked'. I suppose this refers to the past discrimination against women, but I'm not sure how anyone knows this. Are there any statistics on how shocked people are about the past?
Yes, it refers to past discrimination. We are not shocked now at how women were treated in the past. I don't know how you could get any statistics about this. It is my impression, gleaned also from my own reactions. I never thought to be shocked at the exclusion of women from education throughout the past, until I saw the shock at one instance of the exclusion of men. And none of my students thought to express this either.
I don't know really. I remember when I was digging into the various laws of coverture, before the Married Women's Property Acts, and people that I knew did seem shocked at how women were conflated with men before that. But it was partly ignorance, as stuff like coverture is not covered in history, is it?
But being shocked at the past is highly variable, it seems to me. Am I shocked that it used to be illegal not to go to church? Not particularly.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
I'm not arguing for pristine behaviour by members of protest movements. Simply that a desire to promote better civil rights requires a respect for the general application of civil rights. Including their application to those alleged to have abused the civil rights of others. In short, the categorical imperative.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
In 2000, a study by Bonnie Fisher et al. published by the National Institute for Justice as The Sexual Victimization of College Women stated that they are more liable to be sexually assaulted than their non-college-bound age mates.
Ms. Fisher, after being contacted later by a reporter for the Chronicle of Higher Eduation, was unable to describe the data she had used for her study.
In 2007, a sloppy Internet study reported that 20% of female college students were victims of a sexual assault on campus. This figure is still quoted frequently, even though in December 2014, the United States Bureau of Justice reported that in 1995-2013 the number was 1 in 53, and was on a downard trend over the period. It also reported that women enrolled in college experienced lower rates of rape and sexual assault than their noncollegiate 18-24 year peers.
In Violence and Victims, Vol. 17 no. 1 (2002) "Repeat Rape and Multiple Offending Among Undetected Rapists", by David Lisak concluded that 6% of college men are responsible for most sexual assaults on campus, and they are repeat offenders. This article is taken seriously by university administrators as a justification for neglecting due process in cases that come to their attention. But Emily Yoffe at Slate has found a variety of lapses and anomalies in Lisak's data and methodology, such as to make this influential study suspect.
On April 4, 2011, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education, emitted a letter to university administrations with detailed directions to fight a "plague of sexual harassment and sexual violence". When a complaint comes to their attention, campus authorities shall determine guilt by the lowest standard of "preponderance of evidence" and they shall minimize the burdens of complainants. The result of non-compliance would be the withdrawal of federal Title Ix funding for the institution.
Is feminism establishment? Yes, unless someone wants to argue that coercive measures from the U.S. Government are not part of the establishment, or that those American universities caught in the net, from the Ivy League and University of California on down are not.
But I'll add a little more, to illustrate what a ridiculous position this puts us in, while prominent feminists soldier on with their continued cries of victimization and demands for further measures still.
Trigger warnings, microaggressions... safe spaces? Sorry, an American university has become a more dangerous place in which to work than any time since Joe McCarthy's heyday. Thank God I'm retired! This isn't all due to feminist figures, but they avidly promote these developments. Here's Professor Laura Kipnis explaining what a Title IX investigation means.. Her story ought to curl your hair:
A few years ago, Ms. Anita Sarkeesian began going after online games, probably because their players are in practice one of few remaining predominantly male communities. She picked the wrong target, biting off more than she could chew in terms of blowback. These are feisty guys (and some gals) well honed in defending themselves from attack. So she gained a hearing at both the United Nations and Google begging to be shielded from online criticism by the likes of this research scientist, whom her fans have attempted to get fired from his job.
Meanwhile girls are maimed and killed in Asia for the crime of attending elementary school, among other atrocities against women, and our coddled middle-class feminists are too busy navel-gazing and whining to give them a second thought.
Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
A few years ago, Ms. Anita Sarkeesian began going after online games
She didn't "go after online games" - she made a video series called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, which examines tropes in the depiction of female video game characters. quote:
She picked the wrong target, biting off more than she could chew in terms of blowback.
Apparently some "feisty" game enthusiasts found videos like this terribly upsetting. Wikipedia describes how they defended themselves from "attack" (i.e. criticism of sexist tropes in video games):
quote:
The Tropes vs Women project triggered a campaign of sexist harassment against Sarkeesian. Attackers sent Sarkeesian rape and death threats, hacked her webpages and social media, and distributed her personal information. They posted disparaging comments online, vandalized Sarkeesian's article on Wikipedia with racial slurs and sexual images, and sent Sarkeesian drawings of herself being raped by video game characters. One attacker created the computer game Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian, which prompted players to bloody a picture of Sarkeesian by clicking the mouse.
This is what you're defending, Alogon.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
What Dave W. just said about the gamers. I remember that situation. {shudder}
And LOTS of women are involved in helping overseas girls and women. I'll be kind to the hosts, and not flood them with links.
But there are groups like Feminist Majority Foundation's Campaign for Afghan Women & Girls; the Half The Sky Movement; Kiva (which helps men, too.); Women to Women Int'l; NGOWG on Women, Peace and Security; the American Himalayan Foundation, which works to stop the trafficking of girls. Etc.
Even Days For Girls, which helps break the cycle of poverty by making sure girls have their monthly hygiene supplies, so they don't have to miss any school.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
No, I'm not defending it, Dave. But it's fantasy. Posting disparaging comments about Sarkeesian online? Oh my. As if we didn't all get them. Much else that you list is indeed beyond the pale, but it isn't as though she and other feminsts are the only victims. Unfortunately, that's the Internet. The author of the video I cited is a veteran survivor: atheist scientist, debunker of creationism (which
is what got him started, because he believed that it wasn't being debunked competently enough) and Islamism. He has gotten death threats, but he doesn't say anything online about them. He just quietly informs the FBI if, and only if, he finds one that seems really threatening.
I don't get the sense that he takes the trouble to inveigh against anyone who hasn't done a great deal to deserve it. He became interested in femininism only after a woman at an atheist convention hung out in a bar until the wee hours of the morning, was accosted by a man in an elevator inviting her to his room for "coffee", turned him down, and then reported that this brief exchange had traumatized her. She started a campaign over how sexist and misogynistc atheists are, resulting in the formation of a more "sensitive" alternative organization. This is neither here nor there as far as I'm concerned, but an atheist might well find it a false accusation as well as silly distraction and dilution.
We could trade Youtube and other citations for a long time, but I'll just share this, from a young girl gamer who does not feel discriminated against and loves the sexist fantasy. Contrary to what Ms. Sarkeesian portrays, this girl does find strong, beautiful female characters to play and enjoys attracting the handsome male hunks. There are a lot of female gamers, but they tend to play different games than the males. Is it realistic to confine one's critical examination to one half of the scene?
I remember: years ago here on the Ship, I shared my shock at the violence of some video games and wanted Something Done, fearing that it would result in an upsurge of real-world violent crime. Well, it hasn't happened. The murder rate is down, and so is the rape rate. I still like the old strategy games and haven't bothered to acquire powerful enough hardware to run any current game. Ms. Sarkeesian's work reassures me that I'm not missing much. I wouldn't play them even if I could. But I'm not going to get my panties in a wad over the content without better evidence that it spills over into real life.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
Thing is, it went way beyond nasty comments online (and the comments themselves were no joke). The gamergate morons released personal information about people, trying to get them attacked, and in some cases even made false reports to police and tried to get them killed by armed officers. When your address is posted online, and people are threatening to rape and murder you because you criticised how some games treat women then something is not right, and you can feel justifiably frightened. Gamergate is deep rooted in misogyny and white supremacy, with an unhealthy dose of homophobia and transphobia to boot. I have no sympathy for them.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
No sympathy for them-- well, join the crowd. Many of them are reclusive nerds. They haven't found much sympathy their entire lives. They get my sympathy for that, speaking as a fellow nerd, especially at a young age.
And, for misogynists, they have remarkable affection for Christina Hoff Summers, whom they call "Based Mom." This is one feminist (along with Camille Paglia) whom I, too, like a great deal.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
I'm a reclusive nerd too. It's not an excuse for that behaviour.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Being a reclusive nerd doesn't mean it's ok to threaten rape and murder. I've had rape threats, both in person and in offline writing, and they're traumatic.
It's also not ok to treat nerds that same way.
[ 07. November 2015, 07:01: Message edited by: Golden Key ]
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I'm a reclusive nerd too. It's not an excuse for that behaviour.
Assuming they did it, of course. Can you prove it?
Even a reclusive nerd requires a modicum of space to be reclusive in. About this refuge, into which we have more or less desperately retreated from a hostile world to spend time doing no actual damage, we are probably very territorial. We'd want to lash out if some officious busybody invades it, threatening to deprive us even of this. If we do so, it's self-defense. Can you understand this? I'm not part of this scene at all, but I can imagine being in this situation.
Let's not whitewash Anita's intentions. It is quite clear in her videos that she means not merely to describe, but to condemn. According to Christina Hoff Sommers ("Based Mom"), a series of lesson plans has already appeared for use in schools (conforming to the requirements of the Common Core Curriculum) that presents the subject of video gaming in a one-sided and biased way, with suggested readings all by a single author (guess who?) and opportunities for the students to express only negative responses. This is not education, but indoctrination.
Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
No, I'm not defending it, Dave.
You literally just did that - according to you they were feistily defending themselves from attack, remember? quote:
Much else that you list is indeed beyond the pale
Really? What parts, exactly? The rape threats? The death threats? Vandalizing her Wikipedia article with racial slurs and sexual images, or sending her drawings of herself being raped by video game characters?
In your own chosen example of feminism run amok, this is what you characterized as feisty gamers defending themselves from attack because a woman dared to make a video that was critical about some aspects of their favorite toy. quote:
The author of the video I cited is a veteran survivor: atheist scientist, debunker of creationism (which
is what got him started, because he believed that it wasn't being debunked competently enough) and Islamism.
Your video was posted by someone calling himself "Thunderf00t". I'm afraid I'm not familiar with his work. quote:
He has gotten death threats, but he doesn't say anything online about them. He just quietly informs the FBI if, and only if, he finds one that seems really threatening.
Of course - just the FBI ... and you, apparently. Otherwise, stiff upper lip and mum's the word, I'm sure! quote:
This is neither here nor there as far as I'm concerned
And yet here you are!
Funny thing, isn't it? How even mild criticism of sexism is so often countered by expressions of extreme misogyny, and apologias for those expressions.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
Originally posted by Alogon:
quote:
Is feminism establishment? Yes, unless someone wants to argue that coercive measures from the U.S. Government are not part of the establishment, or that those American universities caught in the net, from the Ivy League and University of California on down are not.
The existance of laws and rules to protect a group doesn't imply the dominance of that group. Arguments making this correlation are idiotic.
Online bullying parallels real world psychosis. Reclusive nerds are not an exception. There are female reclusive nerds, why isn't there very much threatening from them?
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I'm a reclusive nerd too. It's not an excuse for that behaviour.
Assuming they did it, of course. Can you prove it?
Feel free to google "Gamergate arrests": it's all in the public domain.
But if you think that doxxing, SWATing and issuing rape threats is a proportional response to criticising a video game for its unrealistic portrayal of women, then I can't help you.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
There are female reclusive nerds, why isn't there very much threatening from them?
Because, quite depressingly, maleness an wankerishness seem to go together like peaches and cream.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
Assuming they did it, of course. Can you prove it?
Those who did it claim affiliation, and the prominent supporters of the "movement" don't distance themselves from it, and the vile abuse forms the far greater part of any gamergate hangout. It's so notoriously abusive that the gaming forum I most often frequent has had to ban gamergate advocacy.
As for the "self-defence" nonsense: if your identity is that bound up in misogynistic depictions of women then that identity needs to change. Nobody is threatening video games. Even if anyone were advocating some sort of legal prohibition on the depictions criticised it would still not affect the ability of the industry to produce excellent games. Take a look at the work Bioware do, for example. You will note that the gg folk threw a shit-fit about their work because your character could have same-sex relationships.
Regarding the claim about common core: I have no idea whether that is true but it sounds highly unlikely. I don't have a lot of time for the "boys-will-be-boys", gender essentialist stuff Christina Hoff Sommers comes out with. A bit of googling seems to mostly turn up right wing outrage merchants, but it appears that the source of the claim is a resource pack (not part of common core but designed to meet some of the requirements) published by the Anti-Defamation League. You can read it here:
http://www.adl.org/assets/pdf/education-outreach/is-gaming-a-boys-club.pdf
It's not compulsory, and plenty of organisations publish resources that they encourage schools to use. What that ends up looking like in the classroom is going to depend very much on the teacher (if they choose to use the resource at all). It does look a little... forced, perhaps? But I think this is a situation with an irregular verb:
I instil moral values
You tell people how to behave
They indoctrinate
There is certainly value in teaching children to look critically at the media they consume and the messages it is sending. It may be that the messages don't have any great impact (particularly compared with the impact of readily available porn) but it seems odd to claim that children would be susceptible to being indoctrinated by the use of this resource in class, but not by the messages embedded in the games they play. Besides, if a class did absorb the message in the resource, the worst that happens is that they might choose to play games with more positive attitudes to women. I can't see how that's a problem.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The existance of laws and rules to protect a group doesn't imply the dominance of that group.
In fact, it could mean exactly the opposite. A dominant group generally doesn't need laws and rules specifically to protect them. That's what dominance, or establishment if you prefer, means.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Regarding the claim about common core: I have no idea whether that is true but it sounds highly unlikely.
Even if it's true, what's a reasonable response to someone producing material for use in school? Normal, sensible people might produce their own material so the two can be used together in a balanced manner, at the very contact school boards (or whoever has control about whether to use that material) highlighting the biases and factual inaccuracies in the material and asking them the consider this in deciding whether to recommend using the resources.
To even consider threats of physical violence suggests a very serious lack of perspective, to say the least.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
Even a reclusive nerd requires a modicum of space to be reclusive in. About this refuge, into which we have more or less desperately retreated from a hostile world to spend time doing no actual damage, we are probably very territorial. We'd want to lash out if some officious busybody invades it, threatening to deprive us even of this. If we do so, it's self-defense. Can you understand this? I'm not part of this scene at all, but I can imagine being in this situation.
So death threats and rape threats are just lonely gamers feeling insecure because they think sexism is so foundational to their games that if someone takes the sexism away, the games themselves will either go away or be no longer worth playing?
You want to go there?
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
Agreed, mousethief. It's hardly "categorical imperative" territory.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
There are female reclusive nerds, why isn't there very much threatening from them?
Because, quite depressingly, maleness an wankerishness seem to go together like peaches and cream.
Utter horseshit. People who choose to be rabid cyberterrorists choose to do so. it is not carried on the Y chromasome. That kind of argument is the last line of defense when someone has run out of valid arguments.
The guys who launched Gamergate are a bunch of well-organized outliers. They do not represent male gamers in general. In fact, if anything, the Gamergate situation shows that sexists tend to be misandrist as well as misogynist and insist on one strict definition of manhood rather than allowing each man to figure that out himself. As in, if you do not cheer on or defend the public harrassment of these women, you are not a real man.
Feminists didn't come up with the whole "man card" idea.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
Re sexist material for the common core, I can produce CCSS-conforming material that says my bookcase is God and you should worship it by bringing me books. In fact you should. CCSS 5.RL.5.1
Doesn't say anything about the Common Core because jerks or idiots can make things that conform to it.
[ 07. November 2015, 17:19: Message edited by: Gwai ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Doesn't say anything about the Common Core because jerks or idiots can make things that conform to it.
Well, it affirms that the CCSS is not a curriculum but a timeline.
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
Is feminism establishment? Yes, unless someone wants to argue that coercive measures from the U.S. Government are not part of the establishment, or that those American universities caught in the net, from the Ivy League and University of California on down are not.
What I find most disturbing is what seems to me an increasing tendency to characterize so much as questioning the statistics as an act of violence. Which, according to some, then justifies violent self-defense.
quote:
Trigger warnings, microaggressions... safe spaces? Sorry, an American university has become a more dangerous place in which to work than any time since Joe McCarthy's heyday. Thank God I'm retired! This isn't all due to feminist figures, but they avidly promote these developments.
I share your concern about the state of higher education in the US, but I'm glad you note that it's not all due to feminists (though I tend to feel like the word itself has been hijacked by the Humpty Dumptiers).
It is, however, an unholy mess and I'm not sure where we're supposed to go from here.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
It is, however, an unholy mess and I'm not sure where we're supposed to go from here.
The optimist in me says that it will blow over, because crying wolf gets ignored after awhile.
The pessimist in me remembers Morris Berman's diagnosis of the hopeless state of American academia, written as far back as 2000. This would be one more nail in its coffin.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
I think the most socially divisive influence is prejudice, One of the tragedies of the modern era is that a one eyed focus on a particular aspect of prejudice (often enough the one we suffer from the most) can blind us to the seeds of prejudice which exist in all of us.
I don't for one moment believe that feminism per se is destructive of academia. However, a polemic approach to any issue, a relentless pursuit of one's own way, that's a different matter. Fairness and objectivity can go out of the window as a result of relentless pursuit. A good cause may degenerate into a hunt for the demons in others, an ignoring of our own fallibility. Balance gets lost in the attempt to restore it.
This isn't a counsel of perfection. I've been guilty of relentless pursuit as well.
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
And why is it that there can only be one problem at a time? I'm reminded by responses to an article about hyper-thin models - obesity is the real problem! How about they're both problems? And both rooted in a warped relationship between food, nutrition, consumerism and identity.
Also, the idea that everything exists in finite amounts? If you educate girls, or give them the vote, or allow them to work, it 'takes away' something from males - rather than, say, increasing the number of self-sufficient useful people on the planet? The answer is of course is that it takes away the illusion of control. The gamergaters fighting to be kept cocooned in their puerile fantasies are scrambling for the kool-aid.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
And why is it that there can only be one problem at a time?
I was talking about root causes.
quote:
I'm reminded by responses to an article about hyper-thin models - obesity is the real problem! How about they're both problems? And both rooted in a warped relationship between food, nutrition, consumerism and identity.
So are you, there. I agree your analysis of root cause.
I don't have a single problem with incremental and targeted approaches to specific prejudices. But a bit of caution about one-eyedness doesn't go amiss IMO. Here, for example, is evidence of a degree of one-eyedness from Civil Rights activist Stokely Carmichael.
quote:
When Stokely Carmichael stated, less than seriously, that ‘the only position for women in SNCC (the Student Non-violent Co-ordinating Committee) is prone’ in 1964, he was speaking at a time when women’s efforts were largely dismissed by those outside of Civil-Rights organisations as unimportant or ineffective. (extract from an essay, full text here )
Even as a joke, that's not funny.
And I suppose in our time, there has been controversy over some feminist views re trans people. Here's a well known example.Is Germaine Greer being one-eyed here? She's certainly been consistent in holding these views, nor has she been alone, as you can see here. I'm a long term admirer of Germaine Greer, but I part company with her on this issue. Whatever one's opinions about that particular controversy, it seems prudent to hoist the root causes of prejudice and selective blindness, even if just as a warning.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
There are female reclusive nerds, why isn't there very much threatening from them?
Because, quite depressingly, maleness an wankerishness seem to go together like peaches and cream.
Utter horseshit. People who choose to be rabid cyberterrorists choose to do so. it is not carried on the Y chromasome. That kind of argument is the last line of defense when someone has run out of valid arguments.
The guys who launched Gamergate are a bunch of well-organized outliers. They do not represent male gamers in general. In fact, if anything, the Gamergate situation shows that sexists tend to be misandrist as well as misogynist and insist on one strict definition of manhood rather than allowing each man to figure that out himself. As in, if you do not cheer on or defend the public harrassment of these women, you are not a real man.
Feminists didn't come up with the whole "man card" idea.
Very good points. Male misogynists certainly police masculinity in men, as well as slagging off women. For example, many misogynists are homophobic as well, but it extends beyond that, to all kinds of varieties of masculinity, which are supposed to conform to a pattern.
However, there is certainly plenty of hope today, with the rise of the trans movement, plus also genderqueer and genderfluid people, and also agender.
I often think that I am neither male nor masculine; in other words, gender is not a compulsory identification.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
However, there is certainly plenty of hope today, with the rise of the trans movement, plus also genderqueer and genderfluid people, and also agender.
While important in and of themselves, these are tiny (and in the main, ignorable) groups.
Hope comes from very large numbers of regular straight men who are as equally comfortable changing a nappy or cooking a family meal as they are changing the oil in car (or whatever stereotypically 'male' thing you think should fit here). It wouldn't occur to my son not to do such things, and it wouldn't occur to my daughter to date someone who refused to do such things.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
However, there is certainly plenty of hope today, with the rise of the trans movement, plus also genderqueer and genderfluid people, and also agender.
While important in and of themselves, these are tiny (and in the main, ignorable) groups.
Hope comes from very large numbers of regular straight men who are as equally comfortable changing a nappy or cooking a family meal as they are changing the oil in car (or whatever stereotypically 'male' thing you think should fit here). It wouldn't occur to my son not to do such things, and it wouldn't occur to my daughter to date someone who refused to do such things.
Well, I see it as all of a piece. While trans people may be small in number, I think they are symptomatic of a general fluidity going on, whereby hard and fast categories are beginning to melt. That's why I said, that I often don't see myself as male or masculine, as they are identifications which can be put on and taken off. Or as a friend of mine says, stop classifying me.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
I still see myself as male, because I am, and I'm guessing the most men always will. What's happening is not that we're questioning our maleness, but what that maleness means we're allowed to do.
Eighteen years ago, I felt angry and upset that I was taken to task by someone I thought was a friend, who told me I was going against God's natural order by staying at home and looking after my six-month old daughter.
If they did it now, I'd just laugh at them. Such attitudes have become ridiculous and antiquated.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
I remember 50 years ago, working in a pub, and the drinks that people had, and the actual glasses they drank them in, were conditioned by gender. Well, I suppose this is probably still going on, but less so. Women drink pints, and men drink things with umbrellas in.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
Genderfluid. Love that word. Even though I just learned it, I can honestly say I have been perceiving myself as genderfluid since I was about seven. I just never understood why I couldn't play Luke for half an hour, then switch to Leia. Or why my love for Barbies meant I couldn't help build the tree fort.
In fairness, though, I think the world at large is slightly more comfortable with gender fluid women-- as noted above, misogyny and homphobia are close relatives.
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
The optimist in me says that it will blow over, because crying wolf gets ignored after awhile.
The pessimist in me remembers Morris Berman's diagnosis of the hopeless state of American academia, written as far back as 2000. This would be one more nail in its coffin.
I used to hope it would blow over, too. But I'm becoming increasingly discouraged.
For the most part current lefty discourse requires an understanding of social and linguistic codes the genuinely disadvantaged probably haven't learned. OTOH, recognition of this is likely why the last civil disobedience planning session I went to spent quite a long time having the people involved come up with rules so that the space would be "inclusive" and a "safe space," including having everyone in the room tell people their preferred pronouns.
I have nothing against calling anyone what they'd prefer to be called (pronouns, color or ethnic descriptions, whatever). But I get nervous when people start calling misgendering someone an act of violence (as they do at GWU). And when the goal of your meeting is to plan a sit-in where people may very well get called nasty names, spit on, or banged up by police officers, it seems a bit counterproductive.
Though maybe I'm just cynical from having lived through too many language shifts where the true purpose seemed to be not concern with others, their feelings, or addressing any sort of historical oppression or systemic problems, but simply a postmodern signaling of your membership in a particular group.
Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
The optimist in me says that it will blow over, because crying wolf gets ignored after awhile.
The pessimist in me remembers Morris Berman's diagnosis of the hopeless state of American academia, written as far back as 2000. This would be one more nail in its coffin.
I used to hope it would blow over, too. But I'm becoming increasingly discouraged.
Oh, nuts. Academia survived for centuries, happily discriminating against women all the while. Is it so fragile that it can't stand even the slightest possibility of a hint of a tilt in the other direction?
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
However, there is certainly plenty of hope today, with the rise of the trans movement, plus also genderqueer and genderfluid people, and also agender.
While important in and of themselves, these are tiny (and in the main, ignorable) groups.
Hope comes from very large numbers of regular straight men who are as equally comfortable changing a nappy or cooking a family meal as they are changing the oil in car (or whatever stereotypically 'male' thing you think should fit here). It wouldn't occur to my son not to do such things, and it wouldn't occur to my daughter to date someone who refused to do such things.
Well, I see it as all of a piece. While trans people may be small in number, I think they are symptomatic of a general fluidity going on, whereby hard and fast categories are beginning to melt. That's why I said, that I often don't see myself as male or masculine, as they are identifications which can be put on and taken off. Or as a friend of mine says, stop classifying me.
Well, as male and female describes primary sexual characteristics I'm not sure what you mean. We are what we are, unless you suffer from a dysmorphia or I completely misunderstand you. Which is not beyond the realms of possibility of course.
However, that aside, gender is the one that continues to interest me. Obviously constructed, but on what? Possibly the most helpful definition of it I have seen is that it is "what we make of our sex". Certainly I agree that gender is (actually probably always has been) in a state of flux.
But what is this state of flux? The phenomenon sure ain't going away. You can pretend it is by squinting and only looking at restricted areas that confirm that. What about the insane gendering of children's market? Even their toys are far, far more gendered than they ever were when I was buying them for my daughters.
And what about adult's clothing? 19th century clothing was strongly about status and display. Female garments for the well-to-do involved exaggerations of physical attributes and extensive decoration, not something you could indulge in if you went to work in t'mill. "Sunday best" clothes for the better-off artisans attempted to mimic this, but often ineptly. Or at least the photos passed down through my family suggest this, and others I have seen are no different.
But now these more extreme displays of gendered clothing have invaded all strata of society, and the obsession with sexually dimorphic body shapes has surely taken its grip on society as a whole.
That's just a couple of examples. You close one door and another opens. Some forms of gender roles become disapproved or are deemed inappropriate, but then others pop up to take their place.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
gender is the one that continues to interest me. Obviously constructed, but on what? Possibly the most helpful definition of it I have seen is that it is "what we make of our sex". ,
So is there any objective substance to being transgendered, or is it just a matter of a blank-slate brain perversely making of the sex of its body, "It should be the opposite of what it is?"
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
The moral issue is whether it's right to assume delusion, simply because the person's outlook and behaviour strike us as odd. I'd allow for the possibility that they understand themselves better than we understand them.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Genderfluid. Love that word. Even though I just learned it, I can honestly say I have been perceiving myself as genderfluid since I was about seven. I just never understood why I couldn't play Luke for half an hour, then switch to Leia. Or why my love for Barbies meant I couldn't help build the tree fort.
In fairness, though, I think the world at large is slightly more comfortable with gender fluid women-- as noted above, misogyny and homphobia are close relatives.
Yes, I have always enjoyed discussing fashion, esp. women's, and when I was young kept quiet about it, but now I am an old git, I can let rip.
I keep thinking of Karen Horney, one of the early psychoanalysts, who used to talk quite a lot about the male envy of women, she actually referred to 'breast envy' and 'womb envy', the latter possibly expressed in various rituals of couvade, in some cultures.
But it's such difficult stuff to access, since it tends to be unconscious. Hence, I wonder if the trans movement shows it moving into consciousness more. But how would we know? It's guesswork, unless you are face to face with someone, who is going through something like this. But maybe the barriers are breaking down.
Posted by Hiro's Leap (# 12470) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
But what is this state of flux? [Gender] sure ain't going away.
[...]
You close one door and another opens. Some forms of gender roles become disapproved or are deemed inappropriate, but then others pop up to take their place.
Hi Honest Ron. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
It's a fascinating and complex subject. I don't have any firm answers, just a few guesses.
Gender isn't going away, but it seem to me that gender roles in the West are less pronounced than in many cultures. Russia and the Baltic states seem to have stronger gender roles than us - perhaps there's some correlation between gender differences and hard living conditions?
Also, it's probably to do with sexual selection strategy. I suspect that women heavily influence heterosexual male gender norms and visa versa. There's then a feedback loop as average standards change and people strive harder to stand out. Peer group approval and status are no doubt relevant, but they often relate to sexual attraction.
The whole system currently gets accelerated by advertising and media, although that's not essential - society produced extreme gender identities pre-capitalism.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Dave W.--
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
Oh, nuts. Academia survived for centuries, happily discriminating against women all the while. Is it so fragile that it can't stand even the slightest possibility of a hint of a tilt in the other direction?
Bless you!
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Alogon--
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
So is there any objective substance to being transgendered, or is it just a matter of a blank-slate brain perversely making of the sex of its body, "It should be the opposite of what it is?"
I don't know if this will help...but the way I first wrapped my mind around the concept and reality, maybe 20 yrs. ago, was that I knew some people are born hermaphrodites, with both sets of sexual organs. So it made sense to me that someone might be born with their mind/brain going one way, and their body going the other.
(Apologies to trans folks if I said any of that badly.)
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
So is there any objective substance to being transgendered, or is it just a matter of a blank-slate brain perversely making of the sex of its body, "It should be the opposite of what it is?"
To quote Professor Dumbledore, "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"
quote:
In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association added gender identity disorder to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). While controversial, this was seen as a way to ensure that transgender people had access to care. In a nod to progress, the next DSM will replace "gender identity disorder" with "gender dysphoria" as a diagnosis.
The shift underscores that being transgender is not a disorder in itself: Treatment only is considered for transgender people who experience gender dysphoria — a feeling of intense distress that one's body is not consistent with the gender he or she feels they are ... A 2011 study ... showed that hormone therapy was associated with lower levels of depression, anxiety and stress, as well as increased quality of life in a sample of more than 400 transgender men.
Transgender today
Even if one does take the position that transgender is a mental illness, evidence and experience has shown that the best way to "treat" the illness is for the "patient" to live their gender, with medication and/or surgery if indicated. Personally, I don't think that there's anything wrong with trans people. I think that there is something seriously wrong with rigid, binary, prescriptive gender roles.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
someone might be born with their mind/brain going one way, and their body going the other.
Yes, I get this. It's easy-peasy, in fact--
except that it conflicts with the theory that gender is only a matter of culture. Notice I wrote "blank-slate brain" as a premise. Aren't you denying the premise?
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Alogon--
Well, I didn't take one side or the other, actually!
Off the top of my head, I think gender is probably a combination of biology, culture, personal experiences, etc.
"Masculine" and "feminine" traits in one culture can be totally the reverse of in another culture.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
someone might be born with their mind/brain going one way, and their body going the other.
Yes, I get this. It's easy-peasy, in fact--
except that it conflicts with the theory that gender is only a matter of culture. Notice I wrote "blank-slate brain" as a premise. Aren't you denying the premise?
It's that one word only that's the killer.
Actually, the view that gender is only constructed on a sort of blank-slate brain was indeed the view of a section of academia and the medical fraternity. It was the evidence of sad cases such as that of David Reimer which undermined that whole project. To say we construct gender is a totally different assertion to saying that gender is a tabula rasa construct.
Or to put it another way, to assert that we build houses is true. To assert that we only build houses without foundations is nonsense.
Rather than constructing ever-more theories about it, we might do well to confess we don't actually know what the process of gender-building is based on. The above-ground constructions occupy most of our discussions on the subject.
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
Oh, nuts. Academia survived for centuries, happily discriminating against women all the while. Is it so fragile that it can't stand even the slightest possibility of a hint of a tilt in the other direction?
Can it survive the slightest possibility of a hint of a tilt in the other direction? Sure.
Can it survive students demanding that both the author of an email and her husband get fired for an email saying that college students maybe don't need administrators to dictate what they wear on Halloween but are actually capable of calling each other out for offensiveness?
Can it survive college students being told to call the police for "hateful or hurtful speech or actions" in a state where a city erupted because of yet another instance of police violence against those they are supposed to protect and serve?
I'm not sure.
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
Yes, I get this. It's easy-peasy, in fact--
except that it conflicts with the theory that gender is only a matter of culture. Notice I wrote "blank-slate brain" as a premise. Aren't you denying the premise?
This has always bothered me about the debate as well. Like a lot of people, I think gender is likely a combination of nature and nurture. But I seem to run into a lot of feminists who seem to argue that gender is only a social construct until they start talking about trans issues.
Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
Oh, nuts. Academia survived for centuries, happily discriminating against women all the while. Is it so fragile that it can't stand even the slightest possibility of a hint of a tilt in the other direction?
Can it survive the slightest possibility of a hint of a tilt in the other direction? Sure.
Can it survive students demanding that both the author of an email and her husband get fired for an email saying that college students maybe don't need administrators to dictate what they wear on Halloween but are actually capable of calling each other out for offensiveness?
Can it survive college students being told to call the police for "hateful or hurtful speech or actions" in a state where a city erupted because of yet another instance of police violence against those they are supposed to protect and serve?
I'm not sure.
OMG! Students "demanded" something! Students were "being told" something! Someone bring me my fainting couch!
Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on
:
Anita Sarkeesian pointed out that many video games are sexist, which they are. She didn't "attack" or "come after video games." She pointed out a legitimate criticism. Such as people do all the time to books, films, TV shows etc. A huge flood of vitriol from whiny manbabies who didn't want to share their treehouses with girls hit her. She was faced with death and rape threats, doxing and so on. She was honest about how this had affected her. The response was that she had made all of this up. And also that she deserved it. And also "get over it, it's the internet; everyone's at risk of being doxed and threatened" and also "what kind of complete arsehole takes these threats seriously?" and also "it'd be great if she did get murdered tho wouldn't it LOL" and also "and if I were going to rape Anita to death here's how I'd do it" and also "she's just making all of this up." Charming.
Rebecca Watson had an encounter in which a guy propositioned her in a lift at 3am. She made a video where she said she didn't like it when men do that. She didn't claim to be traumatised. She literally just said "guys, don't do that." She was also hit by a flood of vitriol from whiny manbabies. Rape and death threats, attempts to get her fired from anything that she might ever do, doxing, and so on. This has now been going on for years. So if the atheism/skepticism community *doesn't* have a misogyny problem (and I can assure you right now that it REALLY does) why has this been going on for years? Why would there be any kind of reaction to a woman pointing out that she'd rather not be propositioned in a lift at 3am?
I'm really sick of this "but they started it" crap aimed at feminists online. Nobody deserves this kind of shit. Nobody. I've never even watched Anita's videos and I don't care. Even if she's completely wrong about every single thing she says in every single video nobody. deserves. this.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Liopleurodon
Good points there, I would just question if there really is an atheist 'community'. I don't really know what that would consist of.
Certainly, all of the atheists that I know are not misogynistic at all, and tend to be pro-feminist. But they would hate to be called any kind of community in any case, so for example, Atheism Plus, or A+, or however you spell it, came in for huge amounts of derision, precisely because it suggested that there should be such a community, with certain values. Why?
If you take all the people who lack a belief in God, some will be misogynistic, for sure, and some will not; some will be left-wing and some right-wing; some will be very rational, some irrational, and so on and so forth.
Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on
:
I'm not really talking about the majority of people who happen to be atheist here. I'm talking about people who go to skepticism conventions, read books and listen to podcasts about skepticism. The skepticism in question being not just about religion, but about stuff like paranormal activity, complementary medicine and so on. I'm talking about people for whom skepticism is a huge part of their identity. They do form a community of sorts and their heroes are almost all rich white men. Even within this community I suspect that the misogynists are a minority but they are very very vocal and their peers don't seem to be that concerned about this as an issue.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
OK, fair enough. I'm still not convinced about a skeptical community - I regularly read 'rationalskepticism', and they are a quarrelsome bunch.
I think Rebecca Watson is a skeptic, isn't she? Her blog used to be 'Skepchick'.
Well, there has certainly been a ferocious debate over flirting, coming on to people, and the like, but I'm not sure how it has ended up. I think similar debates have been going on all over the place, also.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
I'm really sick of this "but they started it" crap aimed at feminists online. Nobody deserves this kind of shit. Nobody. I've never even watched Anita's videos and I don't care. Even if she's completely wrong about every single thing she says in every single video nobody. deserves. this.
And anybody who defends the way she was treated is sociopathic. Well-adjusted humans don't make rape threats, or defend people who do. Period. End of. It's subhuman behavior at best. They should be shunned from all polite society and have their computers burned in a pile.
Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think Rebecca Watson is a skeptic, isn't she? Her blog used to be 'Skepchick'.
Yes indeed. But she has become a marginal figure in skepticism because of the vitriol directed at her ever since this happened.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
:
Why not check out what Rebecca Watson herself said in her original Slate article? She certainly seems to think she is a member of a community. Or was.
I remember the fairly extended discussions we had on the Gamergate thing. Liopleurodon's summary aligns pretty well with how I remember it. In fact I did go off to watch a couple of Anita Sarkesian's videos. The astonishing thing was not the content (it isn't exceptional - simply pointing out the tropes used in video games). For a genre based on stereotypes how is that challenging?
But clearly some people found it intolerable. And they were mostly males. Whatever the reason for that was, there are clearly people who experience some big challenges in hearing how that world does stereotyping.
There are of course other big questions that come out of it, such as what social media access does to people, online opinion norming etc., but that would take us even further away from the main subject.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
:
How not to counter stereotyping?
Maths for girls
I recall an autograph book verse - sort of.
I chose this maths because it's pink,
But to do calculus I can't think.
Do read the comments as well.
[ 11. November 2015, 17:33: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
OMG! Students "demanded" something! Students were "being told" something! Someone bring me my fainting couch!
If you are unconcerned that our institutes of higher education are rapidly becoming indoctrination centers where members of the upper and upper-middle class can try to purchase their place in that class, so be it.
I don't know if we've reached full moral panic mode yet, but we're rapidly getting there. If it's not your life or the life of anyone you care about getting destroyed, I wouldn't expect you to care, but that doesn't mean it's not a real problem.
quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
I'm really sick of this "but they started it" crap aimed at feminists online. Nobody deserves this kind of shit. Nobody. I've never even watched Anita's videos and I don't care. Even if she's completely wrong about every single thing she says in every single video nobody. deserves. this.
I'm really sick of the "but they started it" crap in general. And much as I wholeheartedly agree with you that no one deserves that kind of treatment, I'd hope you'd agree that that applies to those who criticize or question certain strands of contemporary feminist thought as well.
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
... our institutes of higher education are rapidly becoming indoctrination centers where members of the upper and upper-middle class can try to purchase their place in that class....
What exactly is your point? That they're rapidly becoming what they always were? They've always been indoctrination centres, except we look back and call our university/college years "growing up". They've always been dominated by the children of the wealthy and the more fortunate. And they've always been the gateway to the more lucrative professions. And their graduates have generally earned more money their non-graduates.
One thing that really is changing is that the representation of women at all levels of academia and in most disciplines is gradually increasing. The millennials and their parents have presented a whole new set of challenges for educators and support staff, and campus culture has to evolve.
I notice that saysay doesn't tell us whether anyone actually got fired or provide any exact details of where and when these horrors of political correctness happened. Students have always called for all sorts of things they're never, ever gonna get. Faculty have always commented on what the administration does, and they've had to fight to defend that as academic freedom. And of course, this myopic focus on North American educational institutions completely misses out on the far more militant university cultures in the rest of the world. "PC gone mad" stuff is pretty weak tea compared to what some universities went through in the past.
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
They've always been indoctrination centres, except we look back and call our university/college years "growing up".
They've always been indoctrination centers? Really? They've never been places where people can hear dissenting ideas and form their own opinions (albeit ones that were likely highly conditioned by historical context)? If you think that, then I guess you wouldn't see some of the truly outrageous recent behavior at some universities as problematic. But that figures. "We" do not look back and call our university/college years "growing up".
quote:
They've always been dominated by the children of the wealthy and the more fortunate. And they've always been the gateway to the more lucrative professions. And their graduates have generally earned more money their non-graduates.
But they weren't always almost completely inaccessible to anyone else. We were making progress with things like the GI Bill and scholarships. I've been told you could once earn a degree with knowledge & skill, not just up-front purchasing power.
And I don't think dumping more federal money into them at this point (as the Dems supposedly plan) will help. The higher education bubble is going to burst. And/or there's going to be another civil war.
Time will tell.
quote:
One thing that really is changing is that the representation of women at all levels of academia and in most disciplines is gradually increasing. The millennials and their parents have presented a whole new set of challenges for educators and support staff, and campus culture has to evolve.
Gradually increasing? Aren't women more than a majority in most fields, excluding STEM?
The millenials are all the more dangerous for not knowing they're dangerous.
quote:
I notice that saysay doesn't tell us whether anyone actually got fired or provide any exact details of where and when these horrors of political correctness happened. Students have always called for all sorts of things they're never, ever gonna get. Faculty have always commented on what the administration does, and they've had to fight to defend that as academic freedom. And of course, this myopic focus on North American educational institutions completely misses out on the far more militant university cultures in the rest of the world. "PC gone mad" stuff is pretty weak tea compared to what some universities went through in the past.
I envy you if you've been able to look at any news source within the past few days without being inundated with conflicting reports about events at
Yale (watch the video linked to in most of those news reports and read the actual email that was sent) and University of Missouri.
Also, unless you're forced to wear a Burka or are unable to leave the house without a male relative as an escort, quit trying to improve/ complaining about anything that happens in the US. (You must have done something, they only give you five years for doing nothing).
Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
I don't know if we've reached full moral panic mode yet, but we're rapidly getting there.
It's clear that some people live perpetually in full moral panic mode (I suspect some rather enjoy it) but that doesn't mean I have to take it seriously. Insufferable students protesting on campus simply isn't the end of the academic world as we know it. (Soror Magna spares me from having to ask whether you're aware that there was once a time called "the sixties.")
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Aren't women more than a majority in most fields, excluding STEM?
And the majority of people in most fields are entry-level grunts. This proves something about women's power in the workplace? Do you need any swamp-front property in Arizona?
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Re atheistic communities:
Of course they exist! Lots of sites with hot- and cold-running atheists.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Re atheistic communities:
Of course they exist! Lots of sites with hot- and cold-running atheists.
I've seen some pretty hot atheist runners. Mrao.
Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
I'd hope you'd agree that that applies to those who criticize or question certain strands of contemporary feminist thought as well.
Yes of course. Nobody deserves to be doxed and inundated with rape and death threats. If you're saying that feminists are regularly doxing and threatening people I don't believe you. We may argue and criticise, but we don't generally threaten to come around and rape people to death. Not our style.
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
I'd hope you'd agree that that applies to those who criticize or question certain strands of contemporary feminist thought as well.
Yes of course. Nobody deserves to be doxed and inundated with rape and death threats. If you're saying that feminists are regularly doxing and threatening people I don't believe you.
Believe what you will
quote:
We may argue and criticise, but we don't generally threaten to come around and rape people to death. Not our style.
No, IME, SWATting and bomb threats are more feminists' style. Though I have trouble believing that the person who told me I should be raped so I have some sympathy for survivors when I criticized the first Slutwalk was anyone other than a feminist.
But, of course, the thing about anonymity is that no one knows for sure who anyone is. Given how few Americans identify as feminist anymore, you may very well be right that it's not the feminists making threats against people who disagree with them.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
One piece of hearsay and two nutjob websites?
Giving Erin Pizzey the benefit of the doubt, that some feminists can be evil does not by the longest stretch of reason indicate that all feminism is so.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
We provided practical support for a local women's refuge for several years and I have much respect for Erin Pizzey's foundational work.
She doesn't have to be right about everything; she sure was right about that.
From one of the "nutjob links" I did notice this from the conference Hotel. That didn't strike me as nut-jobby. But it did strike me as worrying. Hotels don't dish out ultimata like that without good reason.
Some people can wrongly pursue a righteous cause. If as an activist you find you've attracted dangerously militant fellow travellers, it's important to speak up, acknowledging that two wrongs don't make a right. Non-violent Civil Rights movements have, historically, done rather well.
Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on
:
There is a great deal of dispute about whether that letter was real, whether there was ever any kind of credible threat and whether it actually came from feminists. I'm not going to go into too much detail about this because AVFM have a long history of threatening lawsuits and I don't want SoF to have to deal with that. I would suggest reading We Hunted The Mammoth as a reliable source of more information about the kind of organisation that AVFM is and why I have my doubts.
I don't know what happened to Erin Pizzey and I'd want to read up about it a little more before commenting.
But yes. If feminists do these things they are still wrong. I'm not sure what in the world would make you think I'd claim otherwise.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
Interesting link! Someone isn't telling the full truth. The Hotel Management statement doesn't really clarify that. There is often a blanket of confidentiality over enhanced security arrangements. Time will tell whether AVFM or somebody else has had to fork out for enhanced security; there will be a money trail.
I don't think much of AVFM, its aims or its website.
I really don't think you wouldn't respond to wrongdoing, BTW. I never make that assumption about anyone on board.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
:
A couple of things -
I can't think that there is any group or movement having an ideological component which doesn't sooner or later acquire its extreme fringe. That's neither here nor there. The question is whether, and to what degree, the views of the fringe are seen as normative by the broader group, but also by the wider public. These latter may diverge.
You may recall that a couple of years ago, we had a discussion about the entryism of the Militant Tendency in the Labour Party, and how it was seen as making the Labour Party unelectable for a while. Ken (RIP) pointed out that the numbers of Militant followers and their power were actually very small. The public perception was that they were increasingly calling the shots, though.
Here is probably not the place for a more theoretical analysis of this effect, which is I think of universal relevance. The wilder you are, the more newsworthy your antics will become, and there is always a breathless press ready to reveal all. Unless countered effectively, at some point people start to think the lunatics have taken over the asylum. And the public will start thinking that well before those in the group ever do.
And a separate point. As this thread has already amply demonstrated earlier on, there's nothing so disruptive to discussion as confusing the general with the specific and vice versa. It's almost guaranteed to happen. A logical error of course, but it's going to happen. I need hardly point out how it's going to muddy the waters.
(ETA - crosspost. Just for clarity, I prepared that post earlier - it wasn't intended to reference any specific organization, but rather to comment on the presence of extremist ideation wherever it occurs)
[ 13. November 2015, 11:45: Message edited by: Honest Ron Bacardi ]
Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on
:
The issue is not only whether the lunatic fringe are seen as central by outsiders, but whether they are considered authoritative voices within the movement. It's always possible to find some individual radical feminist extremist blogger who thinks that men are scum and should die. Those people exist. But they aren't central to the modern feminist movement, and the majority of feminists have no time for them. You won't find that kind of rhetoric from Jessica Valenti or Chimimanda Adichie or Laurie Penny or Lindy West (just for example - feminism doesn't have leaders, but these are some of the more active voices at the moment). If you want to claim that these are psychopaths who want to kill all men you have to go to lengths such as making up quotes, quoting things wildly out of context, or taking obvious jokes literally. All of which get done on a regular basis, of course.
If on the other hand, you want to get some really nasty quotes from the MRM you can go straight to the people in charge of it. There is one particular organisation which is right at the centre of the movement, and the leader of the organisation regularly says things like this.
So I've said, and I'll always say, that the threats and intimidation and "all of X should die" stuff is wrong, whether it's said by MRAs or feminists. But I'm not going to get sucked into the "and each side is equally bad" that people often jump to after that. It's not true.
Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on
:
Umm... sorry about dropping in.. but...
Julie Bindel eulogising Andrea Dworkin
Jessica Valenti proposed double-standards, loss of due process for men...
Julie Bindel proposed incarcerating men in concentraton camps... for reasons.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
hosting/
Alex, did you miss this? Stay away or face the consequences.
/hosting
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Interesting link! Someone isn't telling the full truth. The Hotel Management statement doesn't really clarify that. There is often a blanket of confidentiality over enhanced security arrangements. Time will tell whether AVFM or somebody else has had to fork out for enhanced security; there will be a money trail.
I don't think much of AVFM, its aims or its website.
I really don't think you wouldn't respond to wrongdoing, BTW. I never make that assumption about anyone on board.
Read the letter for style and structure and it is difficult to credit it as real.
The first paragraph builds a timeline narrative,* speaks of callers being "stationed" and the letter then delineates imagined attack points and details security arrangements.
The references to "sections" of the agreement don't appear to be real either.
IME this reads as written by someone with little real experience in writing official communiqué. And no experience in how real threats are dealt with.
Could be wrong, could be the hotel management who has read too much bad fiction but Occam's razor appears to be shaving someone else' face.
*In other words, it is telling a story, not communicating a concern. This expository form is common in movies, not so much in the real world.
[ 13. November 2015, 14:56: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
That's a persuasive analysis, but it seems to me to miss a simplicity. If it was a fabrication, the hotel was free to issue a short statement to the effect that they have confirmed that the letter was not sent by any authorised member of staff (the name has been blanked out in the copy made public).
Heck, if I felt my organisation had been misrepresented, that's what I'd do.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
Then you are calling a client a liar. Not good business.
It is a possibility that there was communication, but that letter wasn't it.
ISTM, the hotel is seeking to minimise association with any particular viewpoint by keeping their response as minimal as possible.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
Let me add this. Hotels will have standard agreement with those hiring their facilities. In the event of extraordinary circumstance, it is highly unlikely there would merely be a reference to sections rather than a legal addendum.
Whilst I am not directly familiar with the operations of the Detroit Police, it would also seem unlikly that the hotel would dictate how they respond.
It would also be typical to have more correspondence than a single letter if the situation were as presented.
Posted by Hiro's Leap (# 12470) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I don't think much of AVFM, its aims or its website.
For what it's worth, a lot of MRAs I've come across don't seem to like AVfM either and are pretty scathing about Paul Elim. He's still got some influence but it seems to be waning and there's been a load of in-fighting.
The demographics of the Men's Rights Movement slightly surprised me. There are the expected conservatives and libertarians, but just as many liberals, often former feminists. There's also a disproportionate number of gay men (on Reddit at least), and most of the popular MRA YouTubers are women. Women seem to face less stigma speaking on men's issues than men do.
Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on
:
Do MRAs talk about men's issues much? Serious question. The ones I've interacted with seem mostly concerned with trashing feminism and calling women bitches and whores. Honestly I would love it if they started talking about issues that affect men and what can be done to fix them, but they really only seem to be interested in men's pain as a way to score points against women. A typical example is the MRA that showed up a while back and started a conversation that basically went:
Him: Domestic violence affects men too! Feminists don't want to admit that.
Me and others: OK, let's talk about it. What can we do for male victims of domestic violence?
Him: Aren't feminists terrible!
Us: Er... so what kind of strategies would help? Do we need shelters? Education programmes? Perhaps better training for law enforcement?
Him: It's all the fault of feminism! Women can just beat men now! Nobody cares!
Us: er... hello?
It happens over and over. I would love to see men's lives improve. I'd love to see the male suicide rate lowered. I'd love to see people taking male victims of sexual crime seriously rather than treating the subject as a joke. I'm not willing to throw women under a bus or return to an imaginary view of the 1950s to achieve it, but I really do care about these things - and the most frustrating thing about it is that I seem to care more than the MRAs do.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Then you are calling a client a liar. Not good business.
Definitely not calling anyone a liar (either the police or AVFM). There could be a third party involved, simply making mischief. I'm sure that's what the hotel lawyers would say.
Definitely defending the reputation of the business. The hotel did not make the matter public, the client did. And the police also commented publicly. Which makes the issue already in the public domain.
Definitely no breach of contract involved in a public statement under these circumstances.
Personally I don't see how it's either bad for business or defamatory to issue a clarifying statement. But not everything is yet in the public domain and the hotel may have good business reasons for sticking to confidentiality despite others making public comments.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Then you are calling a client a liar. Not good business.
Definitely not calling anyone a liar (either the police or AVFM). There could be a third party involved, simply making mischief. I'm sure that's what the hotel lawyers would say.
Definitely defending the reputation of the business. The hotel did not make the matter public, the client did. And the police also commented publicly. Which makes the issue already in the public domain.
Definitely no breach of contract involved in a public statement under these circumstances.
Personally I don't see how it's either bad for business or defamatory to issue a clarifying statement. But not everything is yet in the public domain and the hotel may have good business reasons for sticking to confidentiality despite others making public comments.
It is not whether it is actually defamatory, but how it is perceived. The press release from Hilton, who own Double Tree, merely said they do not discriminate. It is in the hotel's best interest, from a marketing standpoint, to say as little as possible.
The police commented only that the hotel enquired about hiring off-duty police. This is not an uncommon practice.* It indicates only that there is a perceived need for security, not the severity of that need. That they asked for off-duty indicates that the threat, if it at all existed, was not considered serious. If there is a serious threat of harm, the police will be there as city representatives; on-duty, not-off duty.
You are correct, not all information is available. And there could be explanatory factors which negate my reasoning. I'm seeing feathers and hearing quacks. It is possible that it is a chicken playing an MP3 of a duck, but...
*This is common for movie-shoots and other private events, especially those in the public right-of-way.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
At this stage I wish there was a duck smiley ....
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
Do MRAs talk about men's issues much? Serious question. The ones I've interacted with seem mostly concerned with trashing feminism and calling women bitches and whores. Honestly I would love it if they started talking about issues that affect men and what can be done to fix them, but they really only seem to be interested in men's pain as a way to score points against women. A typical example is the MRA that showed up a while back and started a conversation that basically went:
Him: Domestic violence affects men too! Feminists don't want to admit that.
Me and others: OK, let's talk about it. What can we do for male victims of domestic violence?
Him: Aren't feminists terrible!
Us: Er... so what kind of strategies would help? Do we need shelters? Education programmes? Perhaps better training for law enforcement?
Him: It's all the fault of feminism! Women can just beat men now! Nobody cares!
Us: er... hello?
It happens over and over. I would love to see men's lives improve. I'd love to see the male suicide rate lowered. I'd love to see people taking male victims of sexual crime seriously rather than treating the subject as a joke. I'm not willing to throw women under a bus or return to an imaginary view of the 1950s to achieve it, but I really do care about these things - and the most frustrating thing about it is that I seem to care more than the MRAs do.
Excuse the extended quote, but it bears repeating. I know very little about the MRA's, probably only from links here on the ship. Is it largely a US phenomenon? It's hard to tell when online, but it looks like it might be. I've never discussed it beyond a couple of people (who looked at me blankly), but I imagine most men here would be unaware of it. But I'm not sure.
There are of course a couple of organisations that try to help sufferers of domestic violence who are male, which probably meets your criterion even though it may not be directly what you mean.
They don't make any reference at all to these men's rights activists.
That's enough about men. I've been out at a talk all evening but if I get a moment tomorrow a.m. I might try to come back on a couple of earlier points you made.
Posted by Hiro's Leap (# 12470) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
Do MRAs talk about men's issues much? Serious question. The ones I've interacted with seem mostly concerned with trashing feminism and calling women bitches and whores. Honestly I would love it if they started talking about issues that affect men and what can be done to fix them, but they really only seem to be interested in men's pain as a way to score points against women.
Not sure how well I can answer you. I've been reading a load of MRA/Menslib/Egalitarian related blogs and forums recently though, so I'll give you my limited perspective...
Short answer:
It's an internet debate. People often like to score cheap points rather than solve problems. IMO the internet can bring out the worst in us all.
Slightly less short answer:
The majority of MRAs I've stumbled across argue that men's rights issues come from the male social role, and in western countries this is created by traditional society + feminism. Since they're arguing with you, feminism is going to be the centre of the conflict. (You'd probably agree with their attitudes to the traditional roles. In many ways moderate/left-wing MRAs are much closer to feminists than to traditionalists.)
Much longer answer and speculative theory:
Part of the idea the disposable male is that men are socially conditioned into caring less about other men's pain than women care about other women's pain. This seems pretty plausible to me, and applies to MRAs as much as anyone.
Pain isn't the only issue though. A large part of gender debates are about a sense of fairness. For instance, I don't believe the gender pay gap is about pain, nor how much women are paid in absolute terms - it's that men are sometimes paid more and that this is unfair. Arguments about women in STEM aren't about pain - they're about the unfairness of girls being pushed away from subjects they love. These issues of fairness inherently involve both genders - you can't talk about the gender pay gap without talking about men.
My hunch is that most men's rights issues are about fairness, not pain. An MRA equivalent to the pay gap might be the sentencing gap - i.e. that men face significantly longer sentences than women for the same crime. Another example is domestic violence: MRAs view it as deeply unjust when male victims get arrested and the female perpetrator isn't. It's tricky to debate these sorts of issues without involving gender roles, feminism, and looking at the role feminists had in creating or perpetuating the situation.
Some MRA issues do involve pain though - mostly those which involve social structures being used against men - e.g. false sexual assault allegations (and the biased way rape is often defined); custody arrangements; alimony. Whatever your view on these points, the debates around them are definitely gendered, and so feminism becomes relevant.
(Apologies if you want me to respond to anything in this Liopleurodon - I probably won't have internet access for the next few days.)
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
:
Men's rights organizations' message boils down to "Men are always right". Followed by more country songs. ![[Snore]](graemlins/snore.gif)
It always amazes me how so many men don't understand that feminism liberates men as well.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
Apologies, Hiro's Leap, but it is about the false perception of unfairness, not actual unfairness.
It is about the loss of power. Yes, there are some inequities on the male side and these are not right. But the balance of privilege is still towards men. When those who still are in the position of privilege whinge about those who still are not, it is difficult to have sympathy.
Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on
:
Hiro's Leap - what I find frustrating in all of this is the disconnect between what MRAs say they're concerned about and what they seem to think will solve the problem. In particular, if MRAs are concerned about the rate of male suicide, prison rape, male sexual assault and domestic violence victims being taken seriously, why are feminists the enemy? Feminists are the people I have consistently seen argue that nobody deserves to be raped, including men in prison, that it's okay for men to cry and go to the doctor to get help, and that if men are beaten by their partners they should be supported.
Why aren't MRAs doing anything practical to support men? Why aren't they opening shelters, if shelters are needed? Why is it that there seems to be enough money among MRAs to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars into organisations such as AVFM which does nothing except yell at women on the internet, fund one man's lifestyle and launch sites to intimidate and harass feminists? There's tens of thousands of dollars to support projects like the pitifully terrible documentary The Sarkeesian Effect, which was an unbelievably terrible documentary bitching about Anita Sarkeesian. Even more money is going into another documentary about MRAs right now.
And yet, when it comes to an organisation like The Campaign Against Living Miserably, a British initiative to encourage men to get help for psychological distress in order to lower the male suicide rate - that had to be founded and run by feminists. (I have nothing but praise for this initiative, btw.)
This is my problem. The MRM has a bulletpoint list of issues it claims to care about. If they're interviewed these are the issues that come up. Most of these things are goals that feminists (with the exception of a few on the fringe of the modern movement) would agree with. Yet when the interview ends it's all back to "feminists can suck my dick" and "women all lie about being raped." Why is that?
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