Feminism: C or D?

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perhaps next one of the "brave" men making counterarguments can tackle "slavery: c or d" with 'hey free rent and board no worries'.

cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 5 December 2003 14:34 (twenty years ago) link

and perhaps we can get some more "brave" attacks on "pc gone awry" with the subtext 'it might've been a problem then but not anymore doncha know we've made progress - enough progress' as if any progress would've been made in the first place if these assholes had been in charge (progress was made despite these assholes being in charge) or if it's a great pity that the poor lil straight white male isn't lord of all he surveys anymore, or that they haven't had what - almost the entirety of known history - to enforce this dominion until just very very recently when the rest of humanity was finally able to loosen the manacles enough to say 'fuck off already': exactly why is it so 'restrictive' or 'censorious' to demand - since apparently merely asking won't do the trick - that you show your fellow man an ounce of fucking respect and common decency?

cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 5 December 2003 14:45 (twenty years ago) link

sucka posts in a snotty way which i dislike but his basic point *is* about a kind of courage i think: before feminism (and also the gay rights battles) made issues out of the protocols of masculinity, it was pretty much impossible for an adult man to stand up and state that he was being brutalised by a women - it was shaming, and it was utterly off the map of belief

the work done in the politics of violence against women, and the politics of violence against non-conformist sexuality, has changed the sustance of shame and shaming, and rewritten the maps of belief

the more forms of power and resistance to power that exist in the world, the more varied opportunities there are for manipulative bullying, i suspect (hmm that sounds a bit gloomy, do i really think that?)

mark s (mark s), Friday, 5 December 2003 14:47 (twenty years ago) link

the 'why aren't we as concerned with men being brutalised by women as we are with women being brutalised by men' is such a canard cuz the former is sooooo much rarer than the latter - it's like asking 'why aren't we as concerned with shark attacks as we are with traffic safety'.

cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 5 December 2003 14:52 (twenty years ago) link

if even half the people who deployed that argument were actually interested in raising concern for husband beating instead of distracting from concern for wife beating it would help.

cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 5 December 2003 14:54 (twenty years ago) link

So Mei, what are you getting at: that men are oppressing men? I don't consider two armies killing each other to be a result of "male behavior" but rather an issue of property and class.

As for "slavery, c or d," it would be more like "owned slaves (women)vs. wage slaves (men): which is better"?

sucka (sucka), Friday, 5 December 2003 14:56 (twenty years ago) link

Yes but nevertheless the jump from rarity to non-existence is a bad and an unjust jump.

mark s (mark s), Friday, 5 December 2003 14:57 (twenty years ago) link

Firstly, men who hit women are cunts. I agree that women beating up men is rare but I know of a guy who experienced a knife to his throat from a very very fucked up ex-girlfriend. He didn't respond by punching her in the face but in such a situation I think he had a right to. Secondly [personal attack deleted for the usual reasons - take this to email please]

C-Man (C-Man), Friday, 5 December 2003 14:57 (twenty years ago) link

sucka's last post is literally the southern partisan 'slavery wasn't that bad' argument in a nutshell

cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 5 December 2003 14:57 (twenty years ago) link

[personal attack deleted for the usual reasons - take this to email please]

cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 5 December 2003 14:59 (twenty years ago) link

perhaps next keeping up the parrallel 'can a straight white man get his due respect in the world anymore' deployments we can hear of the slaves who 'didn't mind' being slaves

cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:00 (twenty years ago) link

Here we go again...

THAT Kate (kate), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:01 (twenty years ago) link

I'm not concerned as much about men being brutalized by women as I am about men being brutalized by society in much greater amounts than women are. Like life expectancy in America reflects. I find it funny that the "wage gap" is an issue, when the fact that men work an average of 6-8 years longer than women, AND suffer 7 years less life expectancy isn't.

Yes I'm snotty, sorry.

sucka (sucka), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:02 (twenty years ago) link

And life expectancy doesn't have anything to do with lifestyle choices like more men being smokers, etc.?

El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:04 (twenty years ago) link

Yes, and male children are far less likely to actually be brought to term than female children, so curse those sexist womb environments!

(i.e. maybe it has less to do with "society" than it does mens' actual physiology?)

God, I swore I wasn't going to get involved in this thread, I swore, I swore, I swore...

THAT Kate (kate), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:05 (twenty years ago) link

the life expectancy rates in america are skewed cuz the life expectancy rates for black men are so low (guess who's to blame for that?)(hint: not white women) and becuz men in general are more likely to die young in a violent crime (at the hands of - ta-da! - men)(that men are more likely to die at their hands then women hardly seems an argument for 'women having it easier': 'you lot are lucky, sometimes we kill each other off before we get round to you')

cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:06 (twenty years ago) link

the sensitivity to the different genders being brutalised by society in different ways is a product of feminism not a counter to it: sucka i know your politics is in certain ways very left-wing, but i also find it vague and obfuscatory - specific battles have to be fought at specific ways in specific times

mark s (mark s), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:07 (twenty years ago) link

he said unvaguely

mark s (mark s), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:07 (twenty years ago) link

'if even half the people who deployed that argument were actually interested in raising concern for husband beating instead of distracting from concern for wife beating it would help.'

Yeah, as arguments those types of comparisons are an A1 time-waster and mostly the best response is to treat them with ignore.

Fred Nerk (Fred Nerk), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:08 (twenty years ago) link

Cinniblount, why don't you go ask some homeless people how they like their male privilege.

sucka (sucka), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:10 (twenty years ago) link

I think Mark S is even more on the money than he is usually. These are issues you wouldn't even be aware of, were it not for the influence of Feminism.

Because so many of Feminism's more sensible ideals *have* been absorbed into mainstream society, it ironically becomes easier to write off Feminism as a whole, or else concentrate on the more "extreme" issues.

THAT Kate (kate), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:11 (twenty years ago) link

Are you even old enough to have registered for selective service yet, cinniblount?

sucka (sucka), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:11 (twenty years ago) link

all homeless people are male??

Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:12 (twenty years ago) link

sucka are you being ironic?

cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:12 (twenty years ago) link

When I see the bag lady down the road I will be sure to ask her, sucka.

El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:17 (twenty years ago) link

Most women in the world have to both work (in a less-paid job) and take care of the home and the family (for which they don't get paid), because it's "the women's place".

Is this true? I'm not disagreeing, I just want to know if it's true.


Women don't have to accept their "place".


I don't think someone should get paid to look after their own kids. Similarly, people shouldn't get paid to clean their own houses, polish they're own cars or do their own dishes.
Also

mei (mei), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:20 (twenty years ago) link

also, how fucking ignorant and ridiculous is the notion that women don't die in wars?

cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:21 (twenty years ago) link

Can any of us back up our assertions?

Where can we get figures for male and female deaths by war?

mei (mei), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:22 (twenty years ago) link

I have no idea where to find the relevant statistics, but is anyone really disputing that historically, many, many more men have died in wars than women?

Jonathan Z., Friday, 5 December 2003 15:24 (twenty years ago) link

how many of those wars were started by women btw?

cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:25 (twenty years ago) link

Depends on whether you count "collateral damage" etc. and also how you feel about rape used as a deliberate policy of war, etc. etc.

THAT Kate (kate), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:25 (twenty years ago) link

I'm assuming civilian casualties are probably pretty evenly divided between the sexes, but military casualties are almost exclusively male.

Jonathan Z., Friday, 5 December 2003 15:27 (twenty years ago) link

[irrelevant personal material] Women die in wars, yes, but it's mostly guys. What sort of woman would want to go out in the front line and shoot people anyway? If this is what feminism has succeeded in promoting then I think it's fucking depressing.

C-Man (C-Man), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:27 (twenty years ago) link

I have no idea where to find the relevant statistics, but is anyone really disputing that historically, many, many more men have died in wars than women?

Military casualties are a fraction of total casualties, though.

In WW2 you have

a) area bombing of Germany, Japan, UK
b) the Holocaust
c) pretty indiscriminate slaughter in China, Russia, and Eastern Europe
d) this is irrelevant cos it's so fucking stupid to talk about 'more men dying in wars'.

N-Ri-K (Enrique), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:28 (twenty years ago) link

(Can we keep this thread open for the actual topic, please, people?) [several posts by several people deleted]

mark s (mark s), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:33 (twenty years ago) link

asking "who's more oppressed -- all women or poor men" seems somewhat useless. or rather only seems useful if there's a conception of a zero sum game where one issue stands in opposition to the other.

which i think sucka and blount are oddly both buying into.

anyway if you wanna do the demographic parsing poor women have it worse than poor men and women in general.

there is a problem with the whole argument about "family time" being denied men though -- sure it's the necc. counterpart of "workplace/social time" being denied women but it also relies on a certain valorization of "family time" which was one of the contradictory kernels in feminism to begin with -- arguing for the revision of valuation of social role to give more props to extant and historic gender roles of women.

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:34 (twenty years ago) link

A thread about "FEMINISM" started by Dave "Misanthrope" Q, and mainly posted to by "Friend of Women" Calum, you REALLY think this has a chance of staying on topic?

Like I said.

Sigh.

THAT Kate (kate), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:35 (twenty years ago) link

So Mei, what are you getting at: that men are oppressing men? I don't consider two armies killing each other to be a result of "male behavior" but rather an issue of property and class.
-- sucka (android_pop...), December 5th, 2003.


You mean this?



This is a VERY good point: society consists of females and males.
-- mei (meirion.lewi...), December 5th, 2003.


I was responding to this:

Yes. Describing "male behavior" as a problem, neglects that society places men in a position of competition, and a role of disposability. Violence is a natural outcome of being deprived of security and safety. Sure it's not exactly women oppressing men but it is society oppressing men, a bi-sexist society.

I actually disagree with the sentiment of the bit about "Violence is a natural outcome": saying something is "natural" is a very weak excuse.

I think I might have misread "bi-sexist" as meaning "society is composed of people of both sexes".

What I'm trying to get across is that society is made up of EVERYONE, men and women.

If society discriminates against anyone then it's all our faults.

If someone says "women are unfairly paid less", then 'women' are just as much to blame for this state of affairs as 'men' are.

mei (mei), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:37 (twenty years ago) link

Sure, let's keep it on topic [material deleted]

C-Man (C-Man), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:37 (twenty years ago) link

You couldn't find the topic with a gynaecological forceps.

THAT Kate (kate), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:38 (twenty years ago) link

can we talk about the current *idea* of "family time" as opposed to the *reality* of what it constitutes for most of those involved?

Stephanie Coontz to thread.

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:40 (twenty years ago) link

[For God's sake Ned!]

Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:40 (twenty years ago) link

sterling otm, although i still don't see how 'things are tough all over' or 'men suffer too' is any kind of counterargument to feminism.

it also relies on a certain valorization of "family time" which was one of the contradictory kernels in feminism to begin with -- arguing for the revision of valuation of social role to give more props to extant and historic gender roles of women.

was that due to 'big tent'ism so as to not repulse the fha 'i have a job, i'm a homemaker' crowd or to make sure feminism didn't (re?)define women as 'just' victims?

cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:42 (twenty years ago) link

let's all follow sterling plz

cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:42 (twenty years ago) link

what hath hottie_101_49 wrought!

cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:47 (twenty years ago) link

Some of those 'man-hating' feminists really had a point, didn't they?

En-Ri-Q (Enrique), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:49 (twenty years ago) link

[what the shit?]

Alex K (Alex K), Friday, 5 December 2003 15:50 (twenty years ago) link

Can we take this a bit more seriously?

Not too seriously though.

mei (mei), Friday, 5 December 2003 16:20 (twenty years ago) link

how many of those wars were started by women btw?

haha 'was this the face...'

...I don't consider two armies killing each other to be a result of "male behavior" but rather an issue of property and class. okay, and the difference is? afaik, this q is one of the central args within feminism (or was): which comes first; if women's oppression is a component in the total picture of oppression, or if women's subjugation is the model for all other classism, racism etc.

g--ff (gcannon), Friday, 5 December 2003 16:34 (twenty years ago) link


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