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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Is Feminism establishment?
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Alex Cockell
Ship’s penguin
# 7487
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Posted
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.
Posts: 2146 | From: Reading, Berkshire UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
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
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
[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
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
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.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
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.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
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.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
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 .
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
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.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
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.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
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
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
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.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
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.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
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.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
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.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
I think it could be rephrased as, why is whether the father in the example given is paying maintainance relevant ?
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
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)
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
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.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
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.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
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.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
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 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
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.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
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.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
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.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
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.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
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?
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
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.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
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.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
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.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
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).
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
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?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
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 ]
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
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.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
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.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
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.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
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.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
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.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
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.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
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.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
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.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
I'm a reclusive nerd too. It's not an excuse for that behaviour.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
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 ]
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
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.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
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.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
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?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
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.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
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.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
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.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
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.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
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.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
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?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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