Feminism: C or D?

To comment on some of the issues raised by Dave's questions - I don't think that feminists typically exhibit tendencies towards "new age murkiness" in a manner that's stronger or different to, say, Marxists, or even Dubya, for that matter. Surely Enlightenment rationalism = built on murk, albeit of an occasionally less generous kind? At any rate, the tendency towards meaningless sweeping statements seems to be more to do with the fact that a) the 'debate' has been dumbed down generally; and b) identity politics often inspires people to say stuff without really thinking it through first.

Katie: I suppose by absolute sexual difference I meant the easy acceptance that girls will be girls and boys will be boys being the unquestioned starting point of discussion - which gets more paradoxical, I think, as men increasingly articulate their own frustrations with them. And an insouciance about an underlying reality of an equal rights rhetoric that bears little relation to the choices women have to make, and the ways in which they're making them - and men too. However strong any individual's conviction of the existence of equality, and determination to live it, is, my baseline is always the structures and patterns of inequality and difference, and my job is to undermine their assumptons about unlimited agency/free will (joking - mostly).

Unless you work in a call centre, workers' rights have evolved from the indentured servitude you describe. This is about civil rights, which feminism makes great contributions to. First rule of feminism is it's there to make society better for everyone, as we are all indicted if anyone has their rights suppressed, including feminists.

*chortle chortle chuckle GUFFAW*

I have Asian friends who complain bigstyle about it, because their behaviour is monitored by other family members and they are threatened with issues of 'izzat' (pride) if they do something 'odd' eg. seek out non-arranged partners (one of my best friends, Satinder, is from a large and influential Southall family of big-in-the-gurdwara Sikhs and she worries about even being seen on the Tube with her WASP boyfriend). But if those parameters are not in effect then it's pretty cool.

I think I'd still be paranoid. It might be a matter of personality, but me, my parents and my sister were all I needed -- the rest of the relatives around would have slowly freaked me out, ick.

Ummmmm...no. At least not racism; that's far more complex than such a pat explanation can address. (For instance, though a white lesbian activist and an African-American male activist might well agree that they share a common enemy in white male heterosexuals, I daresay many of them also see each other as a priori enemies as well. And what about what some African-Americans think of Jews, and vice versa?) And I resent the chronic implication that majority = oppressors = "haves" = bad, minority = victims = "have-nots" = good. These sorts of arguments lack sophistication in their understanding of human nature.

If your privilege is based on the exploitation of others and you *realise* that but do nothing, then you're just as bad as the CEO of Nestle.

Anyone for shades of grey? Moral ambiguity? Nuance? I don't buy the above at all -- it's the sort of (by implication) you're-with-us-or-you're-against-us thing that I can' t stand.

Feminism as an agent of the emancipation of women from sociocultural prescriptions and sexual violence/harassment = classic. Feminism as an agent of critically examining gender roles and their relationship to who we are and how we behave = classic, at least sometimes. (Feminism as perspective and agent = classic. Feminism as ideology = dud, but so are all ideologies. Skepticism = classic.)

Where certain branches of it trip up, as do so many movements from every part of the philosophical spectrum, is its portrayal of the world purely in terms of power dynamics (which is (1) extremely limited if not just plain inaccurate and (2) utterly and totally joyless) and its frequent reliance on the identification, blame, and vilifcation of the "evil Other" -- a thing which basically DOESN'T EXIST (the occasional sociopath aside, perhaps), and the search for which (and punishment upon its presumed discovery) is responsible for a pretty high percentage of the woes with which the world is plagued by agencies ranging from the Nazi party to the church to nearly-any-case-of-racial-violence-you-care-to-name. "All men are rapists and that's all they are" (Marilyn French) = "the Jews poisoned the water supply and gave us the Black Plague" (commonly held opinion back then) = Godhatesfags.com. This is overstating it a bit, of course, but I trust my point is clear.

The thing is though that the logic of "making things properly equal" should lead to "nobody gets to have it quite so good anymore" rather than "now women get to have it just as good".

Doesn't technology trump that argument in the end, though? At least with wealth, and I don't follow your argument vis-a-vis power.

I think there is a degree to which this is true of, say, porn stars and strippers, who appropriate the language of feminism to say: "I am doing with my body what I choose to" -- but what they are choosing to do it put themselves in a situation that sometimes only serves to fuel misogyny and the thick-headed view of 'women as sex objects'. this is certainly *NOT* to let men off the hook for this manner of thinking, but merely to propose a possible way this 'appropriation of language' takes place.

I am not some trustafarian who adopts a do as I say, not as I do attitude with regard to others. I do actually walk it like I talk it.

I don't see how saying "Stop violence against women" means "Men have it great" but then, I tried to use logic, so you will have to tell me a better way of understanding your thought process here. Or did you just stop by to complain about how women are doing too much complaining?

:) OK it is not nice to argue with a 15 year old, but jeez, I'm a feminist and it is crazy when people tell me what I think and get it all wrong.

Is it anybody's fault? Are women less culpable than men?

and by 'men' do we mean the men alive now, or those around while the present system arose?
I don't think living men should be held any more responsible for what some section if society did before they were born than living women should.

I think the saying "the grass is always greener" applies here. At least a littl bit.

That's just one example of how society treats men as the disposable sex, and expects them to be the soldiers and garbagemen doing the most dangerous and unhealthy work, sacrificing health, happiness and family life for career. It's called "patriarchy" when men succeed in careers, but not when they also suffer in greater numbers, and not when they're doing it out of neccesity because it's their role to support the family at work much like it's the women's role to support a family at home. If you want to call that women's role sexist, fine, just apply the same standard to men and replace "husband" with "boss".

Feminism is built on those double standards. Another example of a cornerstone of feminism that is just not true: the "wage gap." If women earn 78 cents on the dollar a man gets, then men shouldn't do an average of 6-8 more years of work in their lifetime. They should get family leave benefits like women get maternity leave (the only workplace benefit that comes from a choice.) And let's bring gender equity to those most dangerous and unhealthy jobs where men make up the majority of workplace deaths and injuries ("the glass cellar.")
Lastly let's get rid of inheritance, where husbands (who society grants 7 years less life expectancy) leave those higher earnings to their wives.

Has anyone read Warren Farrell and what did you think?

Sorry to be righteous and pompous. I do it because that stuff is not the "accepted truth" that things like the wage gap are. Also I hate seeing people get fucked over. Especially by people posing as progressive, and people making false accusations of rape, violence, or patriarchy, and otherwise manipulating for greed.

Mainstream feminism = total dud. Feminism with class-consciousness, especially when applied to pre-capitalist society has good worth for analysis, but not as much prescription value. to me anyways.

In any case, even if you want to take the broader perspective and talk about all violence in general, it's hard to escape the conclusion that, whatever sex the victim, it's certain patterns of male behaviour that's the problem, and not female behaviour. Is it wrong for a woman to suggest that?

ryan otm

http://40.media.tumblr.com/09198f29a631af61191f2397c4fff802/tumblr_na866cAJx61syitgfo1_500.jpg

This doesn't even make any sense. None of them do. Brb I need to go kill myself now.

That twitter account. Dying.

Anyway, women's rights battles are for those ppl too, whether they acknowledge it or not. Feminism has given them the opportunity to be in a position to say those things, to not experience or not perceive that they experience discrimination. That's okay. Odds are at some point in their lives they'll fall out of that protected status because of something, and their views may change.

maybe there is some site where you can pay people to hold up handwritten signs with nonsense of your choosing and all of these people have been hired by reddit

that's unusually optimistic of you nakh

I wonder if you asked Ms. Guns & Coffee there why her shirt happens to be pink what her answer would be.

I'm going to totally make an educated guess about this woman because of the fact she has SEVEN CHILDREN and looks to barely be on the other side of 30 — religious fundie tea partier.

"Women Against Feminism" was much more pro-women in the old days of Women's Lib - those women didn't argue that women were weak and inferior. Just that they didn't need liberating, OR women's domestic role should be celebrated etc. this new breed is so submissive - anti-empowerment!

oh right, guns and coffee, that makes sense.

coffee gun pow pow pow

those poses are redolent of the mid 2000s 419 scammer counterscams where people were tricked into holding up pieces of paper with humiliating written messages

http://img71.photobucket.com/albums/v215/lowbridge/gloria.jpg

this racially dubious internet subculture was mostly based in the uk so if you gis 419 scammer you see a lot of west african and sometimes south asian people holding up signs saying 'twat' and 'wanker' and so forth

since then it has become a staple of 'progressive' movements the world over yet they always remind me of 419 baiting

Don't know where to put this, now I'm putting it here. Feminism vary classic imo.

Just finished Living Dolls - The Return of Sexism by Natasha Walter, and highly recommend it.

The first part of the book deals with the sexism of popular, sexualised images of women in contemporary culture and features interviews with, amongst others, "glamour models", editors of "lads' magazines", former lap-dancers, young women who feel excluded from society for distancing themselves from these images. It makes a convincing case that the sexualised representation of women is harmful for gender equality. These are not necessarily controversial points - although some of them may be dismissed by sex-positive feminists - but Walter's journalistic approach makes for an emotionally engaging read.

The second part of the book deals with biological determinism. It's very well argued and feels extremely relevant - basically it debunks a lot of the legitimacy from biology/evolutionary psychology etc. that sustains popular sexist discourse in the media. Walter's approach is again journalistic. After documenting the way biological determinism works in popular media Walter looks up the sources and finds that there is no documentation that testosterone, oxytocin etc. contributes to stereotypical male/female behavior, and that research into male/female cognition has yet to find significant differences between the sexes - points that are supported through interviews with biologists, psychologists, linguists etc. While it may not come as a surprise that biological determinism is bullshit, Walter's book is full of great examples of exactly how these myths arise, how they're supported by popular media etc. Pretty handy to know the scientific fallacies in studies about female/male spatial cognition next time someone suggests that women can't read maps bcz that's just in the genes lulz.

Anyway, I'd like to reread and memorize a lot of the points - but instead I'll look up some of the interesting books recommended by Walter throughout Living Dolls: Brain Gender by Melissa Hines, The Myth of Mars and Venus by Deborah Cameron and Myths of Gender by Anne Fausto-Sterling.

lol very* classic

what does ilx think of this woman's opinion?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/why-are-young-feminists-so-clueless-about-sex/article26950887/

uh oh!

The only context to discuss anything from Margaret Wente is to understand that she in Canada's leading anti-science, anti-environment, populist troll.

even looks like Katie Hopkins

not that on this of all threads a woman should be judged on her appearance

"It’s hard to take anybody seriously when she’s droning on about oppression, colonialism and imperialism, especially when she’s uptalking."
-Margaret Wente

Wente's been caught plagiarising others so frequently that now she just repeats herself. Trots out a column lecturing us about hook-up culture etc every couple of months. Usually name-checks Gloria Steinmen then asks what went wrong with feminism, then explains why young people are so unhappy. We got this last when Trainwreck came out. This old lunatic needs to retire.

read as far as http://www.theglobeandm...

i need to know what the nutcases are talking about. you know, keep your friends closer, enemies closer type of thing.

peggy is out of control, though. was wondering if what she was talking about was even a dialogue feminists were having these days, but she seems out of the loop.

Dumb article, but I have to admit I had a similar reaction at least to the opening of the NYMag piece in question -- wasted sex is more likely than not to be bad and perhaps an anecdote about it is not the best setup for an article about how gender power imbalance results in bad consensual sex.

What is the origin of all these "No, Women Can't Have it All" pieces that pop up ad infinitum? Was there once a piece that said "Women Can Have it All?" The first time I remember this coming up at all was in the context of some mainstream news magazine cover asking "Can Women Have it All?" already kind of challenging the idea, and I want to say it was at least 15-18 years ago that I remember seeing that.

"Women Can Have it All?"

there's a book iirc

that was supposed to read "Can Women Have it All?" obvs. It just feels like people are beating a dead cliché at this point, so to speak.

1982
https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fbackstorywriting.files.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F08%2Fhaving-it-all.jpg&f=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/magazine/the-complicated-origins-of-having-it-all.html

huh, well that p much explains it, thx