Feminism general thread

[Danielle Pepin]

Thanks, Alex Steacy, for both putting this thread here and for being a great supporter.

[GeneOloro]

I might be a little late to the party. My views on Feminism is thus. I'm pro Feminism but firmly against Feminazi's. True feminism is a Righteous cause. Feminazi's is pure attention seeking women/men that beleave men are dumb pigs with no manners, reasoning powers, or just general uncivilized(eye rolls Anita Sarkeesian).

(sorry if this makes no sense at all/ is me rambling)

[JustAName]

Hey, so why would you use that word instead of RadFems?

[Arclight_Dynamo]

GeneOloro: With respect, I believe that's a strawman. I seriously doubt that anyone truly believes those things. Certainly no one in the mainstream, including Ms. Sarkeesian.

Do you take issue with any specific views or stances? We can discuss those.

[GeneOloro]

Hey, so why would you use that word instead of RadFems?

Sorry Fayili, it's just a product of my upbringing.

GeneOloro: With respect, I believe that's a strawman. I seriously doubt that anyone truly believes those things. Certainly no one in the mainstream, including Ms. Sarkeesian.

Do you take issue with any specific views or stances? We can discuss those.

Arclight: It's just my opinion. From following different interactions with certain popular people with radfem believes with people of differing views. (i.e. AlphaOmegaSin vs. Anita Sarkeesian)
Alpha has criticized Ms. Sarkeesian and her response was to cry slander. There for becoming the Damsle in distress that she is so against.

Also my comment about "attention seeking" is aimed at people that make their living off of public speaking. if they don't keep attention then their revenue goes down.

At this point i'm kinda rambling but feel free to look up Alpha's videos on youtube and he links his evidence, and her responses.

(and sorry for the strawman i don't words very well q.q)

[korvys]

So Anita puts out some videos with her opinion on a subject, calling out no one in particular. Videos, that by all accounts are fairly basic, don't say anything particularly radical, and probably would have ended up as a minor footnote.

This results in harrassment, death threats, and a string of minor youtubers making videos "exposing" her for being a "con artist", fuelling yet more harassment, threats, and youtube videos. Somehow, this is referred to as "attention" or "controversy"

And then, since a lot of people hear about the harassment, and support her, people begin to make the argument that she wanted the harassment, because it helped her, and more importantly, directly caused the harassment intentionally, or even faked it.

And somehow, ignoring that the "attention" is, in part, being fuelled by those youtube call-out videos, that conveniently get more views if people are angry with her.

Profiting from the fact that people are paying attention to you is not wrong. It's not unethical. It's making the best of a bad situation. Fuelling anger at something, and then making videos about that thing - that is unethical. Even more so, is to be a part of that "attention", by making videos, while constantly decrying how much "attention" she is getting, and claiming that that "attention" is just further proof that she is doing it all for the money.

This is leaving aside whether you agree with her or not.
This is leaving aside whether her points are particularly radical.
This is leaving aside whether you like her or not.

The idea that feminists are saying "controversial" things so they will get harassed, and then can use that harassment as proof, is bullshit and needs to go away.

[korvys]

On a separate note, I have plenty of bad habits that are a product of my upbringing. I've also discarded plenty of them. Particularly the ones like using "gay" as a pejorative, or invoking the name of a political party responsible for the attempted genocide of a people to make a rhetorical point about a group I disagree with.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I think the solution to "feminism" being aggravating is to be open about being a feminist and also be a nice person.
It's not an instant fix, but eventually, over the generations, it will make a difference.

I do feel great compassion for female homosexual feminists who are also Christain/Muslim from Russia/Mexico, who also have black skin.

[korvys]

In the abstract, the question of associating with a group that doesn't have the best reputation is an interesting one. Your options are sort of, do I diminish my good reputation by associating with the group and their bad reputation, or do I elevate the group's bad reputation, by associating it with my good reputation.

There was a similar question about attending con where there were known to be bad elements. Do you not attend, and avoid the bad elements, or attend and try to show that you won't be pushed out, and that they are not welcome.

[Arclight_Dynamo]

Arclight: It's just my opinion. From following different interactions with certain popular people with radfem believes with people of differing views. (i.e. AlphaOmegaSin vs. Anita Sarkeesian)
Alpha has criticized Ms. Sarkeesian and her response was to cry slander. There for becoming the Damsle in distress that she is so against.

Also my comment about "attention seeking" is aimed at people that make their living off of public speaking. if they don't keep attention then their revenue goes down.

At this point i'm kinda rambling but feel free to look up Alpha's videos on youtube and he links his evidence, and her responses.

(and sorry for the strawman i don't words very well q.q)

I'm afraid I still don't really understand what your objection is beyond "I didn't like some of what I heard." Can you be specific about what claims or comments you found objectionable?

[GeneOloro]

1. I believe that the patriarchy of the western culture is all but gone. That women have the same chances, rights, and pull that men have.

2. I have a problem with the few saying they are the voice of the majority.

3. The phrase rape culture. It sounds like scare tactics. (Rape is a serious thing and needs to be talked about and understood but rape culture implies that all men want to do it feels like it is generating fear for no reason but thats what I get out of it.)

[Arclight_Dynamo]

1. I believe that the patriarchy of the western culture is all but gone. That women have the same chances, rights, and pull that men have.

That's simply untrue, though. How do you explain the fact that women make less money than men for the same work? Or that so few positions of power (politicians, CEOs, etc.) are occupied by women?

2. I have a problem with the few saying they are the voice of the majority.

Who has said this? Can you provide me a link to them saying this?

3. The phrase rape culture. It sounds like scare tactics. (Rape is a serious thing and needs to be talked about and understood but rape culture implies that all men want to do it feels like it is generating fear for no reason but thats what I get out of it.)

The term "rape culture" doesn't imply that at all. The term refers to a society in which sexual assault is frequent and normalized. I don't think you can argue that sexual assault isn't frequent in Western society, so I'll just take that as assumed. "Normalized" here means that victims of sexual assault will not feel comfortable reporting to police, they will often not be believed, they will be blamed by the public and the legal system, and the seriousness of sexual assault will be downplayed. And all of that currently occurs in Western society.

Which means that it's pretty inarguable that rape culture exists, and we're living in it. Because our culture is extremely permissive of rape and other sexual assault.

[korvys]

1. In the west, legally, women mostly do have the same rights as men, and there exists anti-discrimination laws that work to enforce this. However, there is a huge amount of variation in how this is enforced. It can be difficult to prove, to a legal standard, that one has been discriminated against.

But even more than that, society as a whole tends to favour men over women. Not the individual members of society, who would each be fairly fair, but collectively. This shows up in all sorts of places. Orchestras moved to blind auditions, and the chance of a woman being hired jumped dramatically. It jumped even more when the people auditioning removed their shoes, to prevent the tell-tale sound of womens shoes. Studies testing the likelihood of being offered a job, and the resulting offered salary, skew wildly when the application has a women's name, despite the contents being identical.

One of the most interesting things I've read recently on the subject was about fields of work where women outnumber men. These fields, on average, pay less than fields where the majority are men. This is interesting, because it means that even if a men and women doing the same jobs get paid around the same, across the population, women are on average, working jobs that pay less.

An obvious objection to this might be that women just are drawn to certain jobs, and those jobs just happen to pay less, for unrelated reasons. But analysis shows that the wages in fields when women used to be the minority, and over time became the majority, have dropped.

I don't care to find the stats right now, but women are also very underrepresented at high levels of government, executive level positions in corporations, etc.

How it presents in media is fascinating as well. We are so conditioned to view men as the default. There was a study (that for the life of me, I can't find right now) that showed that when presented with a crowd scene in a movie that was just 17% women, people would view it as having roughly equal numbers of men and women, and that at 33%, that women were the clear majority.

One of the more interesting points in that second study (about job applications), was that women were just as likely to be biased as men. Something that some people get wrong about Patriarchy is that it's not that men are in charge, and are intentionally subjugating women, but it's that society favours men on the whole, in subtle, but compounding ways, through unintentional bias.

2. So do I. I'm not sure what you're getting at? A person (like Anita) analysing the effect media has on a population is not speaking for them. Sociologist and Psychologists who generalise about how something generally affects a population aren't speaking for anyone in particular, let alone everyone. I hope that's what you were talking about.

3. The phrase "Rape culture" is maybe strong language, but it's a topic that deserves it. You could make the argument that softer language might be less likely to turn people off of the subject, but I fell a person for whom the language is the thing that turns them away from feminism? Probably looking for an excuse not to support it anyway.

Rape culture is not saying "we're ok with rape", at least not directly. It's the more subtle things like downplaying the impact of rape by joking about whether raping a sex worker is theft. Or joking about prison rape. Or treating rape and sexual assault differently to any other crime in that the victims word is rarely enough.

-----

An important thing to note when looking at things like the patriarchy and rape culture, is that you're not going to find obvious discrimination, at least not in the west. You aren't going to find a law that says rape is ok (though a lot of places ignored marital rape until only fairly recently), you're not going to find a law that says women can't do a certain job (unless you look at the military, though that's changing), and you aren't going to find a law that says women have to be subjected to additional checks for various entitlements (if you ignore all the crap around birth control, etc). Things, legally are mostly equitable.

But the way society treats each other within the bounds of the law is not. The way we choose to apply the law is not.

"Society favours men on the whole, in subtle, but compounding ways, through unintentional bias."






Yes, I just quoted myself from several paragraphs ago. So sue me.

[Psyclone]

"Rape culture" is also the accepted term among sexual assault advocacy organizations and survivor networks; it's very much not just internet scare-tactic language. At this point it's academic.

(Snaps to korvys for the point about your upbringing, by the way.)

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

In the abstract, the question of associating with a group that doesn't have the best reputation is an interesting one. Your options are sort of, do I diminish my good reputation by associating with the group and their bad reputation, or do I elevate the group's bad reputation, by associating it with my good reputation.

There was a similar question about attending con where there were known to be bad elements. Do you not attend, and avoid the bad elements, or attend and try to show that you won't be pushed out, and that they are not welcome.

There's a parallel to Christianity (sorry if that offends anyone). There is a lot of muck associated with christianity, justifiedly or unjustifiedly. But you have to show the world the best of that label.
Pretty much the same for any label who historically and contemporarily gets attacked by "The World". (Why are there rifts between similarly convicted groups? That's best saved for a different thread which will not happen).

Basically, "Fuck what other people think of you, in the nicest way possible." Stand up for what is right, even if The World is trying to tell you to shut up. But know that gentleness is more effective at changing hearts. The point is not to win debates or arguments, but to change people's hearts and let them develope compassion.

[AdmiralMemo]

I go by the philosophy of "Don't judge any group by the worst members of it. If you do, I can easily find a group you are a part of that has some pretty crummy members. Would you like me judging you by their actions?"

And for the counter-argument of "Well, those aren't real members of (Group X)..." then turn that right about and think of how the group you're painting with a broad brush views poorly-acting people in their group.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I too think "don't be a git" is a really good philosophy. Mainly because you never know how much of an impact you'll have on someone, and you will even never know what impact you had.

[AdmiralMemo]

Now I know it's much different in practice, and why and such, but...

In theory, shouldn't calling someone a "dick" and calling someone a "cunt" provoke equal offense, or lack thereof? They're both slang for genitalia, and when used colloquially, they both refer to a person who's acting in a manner that is outside of acceptable behavior. Someone who is not acting in an agreeable fashion.

It's interesting, and quite telling of culture and language, that two words that should be theoretically nearly equivalent are instead massively different.

Just a thought that sparked in my head today...

[CamelKnackRambleHort]

An interesting point AdmiralMemo. Due to the subject matter, this is going to have some negative language of course, sorry everyone.

Time for guesswork! Everyone put on your amateur feminist hats!

Someone being a "dick" or a "cunt" is acting in an unacceptably aggressive or abrasive manner. Someone being a "pussy" is acting in an unacceptably passive manner. My guess is that a man is supposed to be aggressive, and people expect women to be passive. Hence "dick" and "pussy" being on roughly the same level. However, a woman being aggressive is further out of social acceptance, thus the more sever insult of "cunt".

[korvys]

I think there's two aspects to it.

First, even if two words have roughly the same meaning, they can be more of less offensive. Poop vs shit, for example. You would need to talk to a linguist, or possibly a sociologist, to explore how this happens.

Secondly, words can't be separated from the context they're used it. Each word is gendered, but one of them refers to a gender that history has held us as leaders and viewed generally positively, and the other refers to a gender than has generally been oppressed to a greater or lesser extent. It's the same as the n-word vs cracker. Both are racial insults, but one has a lot more weight of history behind it.

Additionally, in the right situational and cultural context (usually UK or Australia), cunt can be used as a much more benign, friendly, term of endearment type of insult.

I think the most important thing is to understand that even if those word *should* be equivalent, they have been made unequal by decades or centuries of history. Hopefully, one day we will live in a world where gendered insults are all equally offensive/inoffensive, but until then we have to be aware of the impact of the words we use, even if we believe that impact *should* be different.

[AdmiralMemo]

It's the same as the n-word vs cracker. Both are racial insults, but one has a lot more weight of history behind it.

Additionally, in the right situational and cultural context (usually UK or Australia), cunt can be used as a much more benign, friendly, term of endearment type of insult.

And I'm personally probably calloused to n****r because I hear it at least 30 times a day from the high school kids on the bus. (Seriously... I counted one day, and on a 45-minute bus ride, I heard the word 57 times.) In Ebonics, or whatever it's currently called, the word gets used almost as a comma in sentences. No one says anything. No one cares. But if a white guy like me were to say it, I'd probably get attacked physically.

And as I said, like with the other words, I know why there's a difference in language on various words, due to history and culture... But double standards just don't jibe with me and I don't like them.

In any case, I don't personally use such words anyway (unless, of course, talking about them as words, like in this thread), so there's no issue anyone's going to have with me.

The weird part, though, is going to be if/when I call a non-native "hon." I am aware that can offend some people (particularly because it can be seen as gendered as well), but in Baltimore/Maryland, everyone is "hon" regardless of anything.

[JustAName]

(Currently it's AAVE - African American Vernacular English.)

[korvys]

And as I said, like with the other words, I know why there's a difference in language on various words, due to history and culture... But double standards just don't jibe with me and I don't like them.

I think it's important to understand that words meaning different things, or being more or less acceptable when one person says them than another, isn't a double standard. People are using those words appropriately for the context. It's a symptom, a natural consequence. The culture context has a double standard of treating different genders or races differently.

By analogy, if you were given a bike, and I were given a car for doing the same thing (winning a game of magic, say), that is a double standard. It's not worth focusing on the fact that I have a horn and you don't.

As for "ebonics", as Fayili mentioned, it's more recently refered to AAVE, African American Vernacular English, and is a complete dialect on it's own, with a well defined grammar, etc. Here is a really interesting video on it.

As for 'hon', it's the same thing. From a man to a woman, it can be considered mildly condescending. But typically not from a woman to a man, because of the typical power dynamic. Consider a very rich woman saying to a young man, though. It could (with the right tone) be very condescending. But then if you're in Maryland, maybe not?

Basically, as much as it would be nice if we could just all agree on what words mean and make sure those meanings are fair to everyone, instead we're stuck with having to judge the impact of our words, which will vary with who we're speaking to, when, where, how we're saying it, who we are, etc, etc.

[Amake]

We'll just have to end all the world's inequality and then everyone's words will have the same weight.

This is something you're not supposed to say in our culture where you should be able to choose whatever you want to have or not have in your life, but you can't choose the responsibilities that come with your age, your gender, your ethnicity, your level of income. You can be too old to date Lindsay Lohan, you can have too many Twitter followers to complain to them about someone you don't like and you can be too white to use certain words without taking a hit to your respectability.

I mean, the consequences for ignoring your responsibilities in themselves shows the difference in power. Maybe in the very worst case you can manage to be literally tarred and feathered for running your mouth, but that doesn't hurt you as much as it hurts your reputation in the eyes as your peers. As a man you're still far less likely to be strangled by your boyfriend for breaking up with him, and as a white person you're far less likely to be shot by a self-proclaimed neighborhood watch for walking on the street, to take some extreme examples of consequences for acts that may even be less malicious than speaking out of turn that have happened to people recently.

[Elaro]

I am a feminist, but...

I am a feminist butt. Wait, let me start over.

I am a man with opinions, and I fundamentally believe that it is by the expression of these opinions that we improve them. The problem is that I expect the same enthusiasm from other people, and so everybody gets really tired of arguing with me. I genuinely love to think, and to express, and progress, and so on.

So when I hear stuff like "this man feels entitled to [say things] about [subject related to womanhood]" I feel conflicted. (While I do believe that not all opinions should be shared, I didn't know the criteria for what opinion should and shouldn't be shared until 10 years ago. Until then, I was a blind man tripping over every mental rock and branch, yelling about the walls I found which were actually elephants. Honestly, I don't know how I came about this knowledge of right and wrong. Was it mental discourse, or was it my brain reaching adulthood?) Anyway, on the one hand, yeah, emitting a bad opinion is wrong, but on the other, how do you know it's a bad opinion if you haven't been shown the difference between a good and bad opinion, and how would we know to teach you that difference if you haven't demonstrated that you don't know it?

When somebody says anybody else is "feeling entitled to have an opinion" I think there's a fundamental lack of respect for basic human dignity going on, in that they seem to not be aware that not everyone is at the same place on the path of knowledge that we must all progress on. Yes, women have different experiences than men, but the way to counter ignorance and bad opinions isn't by saying "you don't have a right to an opinion", because then they can just disbelieve you, it's by showing how that opinion is incorrect, by presenting experiences or showing faults in the opinion. If this is done well, the opinion-haver is properly humiliated and will remember to check his facts before emitting another opinion!

Anyway, my point is that I'm sick and tired of the sentiment of "how dare that man have an opinion on something he knows nothing about". How dare people be independent of thought. Hmm, how dare they.

Now, of course we must teach humility, but I believe that the most effective way of teaching that is by correcting people's mistakes and showing them the correction, not by preventing them from making mistakes in the first place. After all, isn't the "word market" the cheapest of markets? Isn't it better that we fail in conversation rather than action?

Now, this isn't to say that men should bury women with their opinions, nor am I saying that women have a particular role to play in educating men. Well, they have as much of a role as other men do, not because they're women but because they're people. Yeah?