|
How about just being on team human? I'm not a feminist, I'm not a misogynist. I don't play for a team. I'm pro making everyone's lives better.
|
On March 19 2015 09:12 ninazerg wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2015 08:08 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 07:22 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 07:07 Mercy13 wrote: The definition of feminism that I prefer is egalitarianism with a particular focus on women's issues. I'm sure there are plenty of feminists and non-feminists alike who would disagree with this definition, but the term is used so broadly these days that I think there is room for a lot of different definitions that are more or less equally valid.
After all, men benefit too when gender roles are less restrictive. Maybe as gender roles are relaxed they will stop forcing us down those mines : p I just don't like 'egalitarianism' because I'm a fuckin' hipster and it's too mainstream 4 me. I don't think gender roles are inherently 'good' or 'bad', but are just kind of there. Gender roles are only bad when they limit people. Unfortunately, this almost always happens. You could have an interesting discussion about "Is this limiting nature an intrinsic feature of gender roles?", but I'm not going to. You and Plansix are both right and both wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism I mean, I guess I could just link something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FascismAnd you may scroll down to "criticisms of fascism" or click on your feminism link and go down to "critique of feminism". Furthermore, I'm not creating a 'strawman' if I'm addressing actual ideological philosophies that have been proposed by feminist authors. Also, why is the strawperson a 'man'? That's pretty sexist if you ask me.
According to this logic, we define an entire group by a certain subset of that group.
Not all Muslims are defined by ISIS, or Christians by the Westboro Baptist Church, or atheists by militant Chinese atheists, or men by all other men, or women by all other women, or any other group you can think of. That logic is utterly ridiculous and you are actively doing it by saying, "Some feminists are saying X, so feminism is defined by X!".
So I'm strawmanning, but I'm also right? o.O
Yes, since we are capable of having nuanced intellectual discussions.
As for the poll you linked, it's surprising, considering how many readers of the Huffington Post are predominantly liberal, but still reinforces my point that you can be pro-equality while not being a feminist.
Actually, what it does is show that they are, by definition, feminists. It highlights the problem with our public discourse and how we see the word "feminist", but it doesn't make these people not feminists.
The fact is that feminism is simply defined as supporting equal rights for women when compared to men. Anything else is baggage that ends up being a particular qualifier to feminism, and doesn't define feminism as a whole. All you're doing is purposefully misrepresenting the word feminism in an attempt to discredit anyone who identifies as a feminist. It's lazy and intellectually dishonest.
|
On March 19 2015 11:13 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2015 09:12 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 08:08 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 07:22 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 07:07 Mercy13 wrote: The definition of feminism that I prefer is egalitarianism with a particular focus on women's issues. I'm sure there are plenty of feminists and non-feminists alike who would disagree with this definition, but the term is used so broadly these days that I think there is room for a lot of different definitions that are more or less equally valid.
After all, men benefit too when gender roles are less restrictive. Maybe as gender roles are relaxed they will stop forcing us down those mines : p I just don't like 'egalitarianism' because I'm a fuckin' hipster and it's too mainstream 4 me. I don't think gender roles are inherently 'good' or 'bad', but are just kind of there. Gender roles are only bad when they limit people. Unfortunately, this almost always happens. You could have an interesting discussion about "Is this limiting nature an intrinsic feature of gender roles?", but I'm not going to. You and Plansix are both right and both wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism I mean, I guess I could just link something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FascismAnd you may scroll down to "criticisms of fascism" or click on your feminism link and go down to "critique of feminism". Furthermore, I'm not creating a 'strawman' if I'm addressing actual ideological philosophies that have been proposed by feminist authors. Also, why is the strawperson a 'man'? That's pretty sexist if you ask me. According to this logic, we define an entire group by a certain subset of that group. Not all Muslims are defined by ISIS, or Christians by the Westboro Baptist Church, or atheists by militant Chinese atheists, or men by all other men, or women by all other women, or any other group you can think of. That logic is utterly ridiculous and you are actively doing it by saying, "Some feminists are saying X, so feminism is defined by X!". Yes, since we are capable of having nuanced intellectual discussions. Show nested quote +
As for the poll you linked, it's surprising, considering how many readers of the Huffington Post are predominantly liberal, but still reinforces my point that you can be pro-equality while not being a feminist.
Actually, what it does is show that they are, by definition, feminists. It highlights the problem with our public discourse and how we see the word "feminist", but it doesn't make these people not feminists. The fact is that feminism is simply defined as supporting equal rights for women when compared to men. Anything else is baggage that ends up being a particular qualifier to feminism, and doesn't define feminism as a whole. All you're doing is purposefully misrepresenting the word feminism in an attempt to discredit anyone who identifies as a feminist. It's lazy and intellectually dishonest.
Please get out if you cannot understand that you do not have the right to force labels on to people that they do not identify with. This is a pretty central tenet in feminism, if I'm not mistaken.
male adjective 1. of or denoting the sex that produces small, typically motile gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring.
Now go and tell trans men that they are not male because the dictionary says so, you imbecile.
User was temp banned for this post.
|
On March 19 2015 11:50 bardtown wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2015 11:13 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 09:12 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 08:08 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 07:22 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 07:07 Mercy13 wrote: The definition of feminism that I prefer is egalitarianism with a particular focus on women's issues. I'm sure there are plenty of feminists and non-feminists alike who would disagree with this definition, but the term is used so broadly these days that I think there is room for a lot of different definitions that are more or less equally valid.
After all, men benefit too when gender roles are less restrictive. Maybe as gender roles are relaxed they will stop forcing us down those mines : p I just don't like 'egalitarianism' because I'm a fuckin' hipster and it's too mainstream 4 me. I don't think gender roles are inherently 'good' or 'bad', but are just kind of there. Gender roles are only bad when they limit people. Unfortunately, this almost always happens. You could have an interesting discussion about "Is this limiting nature an intrinsic feature of gender roles?", but I'm not going to. You and Plansix are both right and both wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism I mean, I guess I could just link something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FascismAnd you may scroll down to "criticisms of fascism" or click on your feminism link and go down to "critique of feminism". Furthermore, I'm not creating a 'strawman' if I'm addressing actual ideological philosophies that have been proposed by feminist authors. Also, why is the strawperson a 'man'? That's pretty sexist if you ask me. According to this logic, we define an entire group by a certain subset of that group. Not all Muslims are defined by ISIS, or Christians by the Westboro Baptist Church, or atheists by militant Chinese atheists, or men by all other men, or women by all other women, or any other group you can think of. That logic is utterly ridiculous and you are actively doing it by saying, "Some feminists are saying X, so feminism is defined by X!". So I'm strawmanning, but I'm also right? o.O
Yes, since we are capable of having nuanced intellectual discussions.
As for the poll you linked, it's surprising, considering how many readers of the Huffington Post are predominantly liberal, but still reinforces my point that you can be pro-equality while not being a feminist.
Actually, what it does is show that they are, by definition, feminists. It highlights the problem with our public discourse and how we see the word "feminist", but it doesn't make these people not feminists. The fact is that feminism is simply defined as supporting equal rights for women when compared to men. Anything else is baggage that ends up being a particular qualifier to feminism, and doesn't define feminism as a whole. All you're doing is purposefully misrepresenting the word feminism in an attempt to discredit anyone who identifies as a feminist. It's lazy and intellectually dishonest. Please get out if you cannot understand that you do not have the right to force labels on to people that they do not identify with. This is a pretty central tenet in feminism, if I'm not mistaken. Show nested quote +male adjective 1. of or denoting the sex that produces small, typically motile gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring. Now go and tell trans men that they are not male because the dictionary says so, you imbecile.
I'm confused, are you mad about his definition of feminism or something? I assure you, whatever you read on the internet, you will find plenty of feminists in the real world who agree that "feminism is simply defined as supporting equal rights for women when compared to men."
|
On March 19 2015 12:37 Mercy13 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2015 11:50 bardtown wrote:On March 19 2015 11:13 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 09:12 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 08:08 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 07:22 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 07:07 Mercy13 wrote: The definition of feminism that I prefer is egalitarianism with a particular focus on women's issues. I'm sure there are plenty of feminists and non-feminists alike who would disagree with this definition, but the term is used so broadly these days that I think there is room for a lot of different definitions that are more or less equally valid.
After all, men benefit too when gender roles are less restrictive. Maybe as gender roles are relaxed they will stop forcing us down those mines : p I just don't like 'egalitarianism' because I'm a fuckin' hipster and it's too mainstream 4 me. I don't think gender roles are inherently 'good' or 'bad', but are just kind of there. Gender roles are only bad when they limit people. Unfortunately, this almost always happens. You could have an interesting discussion about "Is this limiting nature an intrinsic feature of gender roles?", but I'm not going to. You and Plansix are both right and both wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism I mean, I guess I could just link something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FascismAnd you may scroll down to "criticisms of fascism" or click on your feminism link and go down to "critique of feminism". Furthermore, I'm not creating a 'strawman' if I'm addressing actual ideological philosophies that have been proposed by feminist authors. Also, why is the strawperson a 'man'? That's pretty sexist if you ask me. According to this logic, we define an entire group by a certain subset of that group. Not all Muslims are defined by ISIS, or Christians by the Westboro Baptist Church, or atheists by militant Chinese atheists, or men by all other men, or women by all other women, or any other group you can think of. That logic is utterly ridiculous and you are actively doing it by saying, "Some feminists are saying X, so feminism is defined by X!". So I'm strawmanning, but I'm also right? o.O
Yes, since we are capable of having nuanced intellectual discussions.
As for the poll you linked, it's surprising, considering how many readers of the Huffington Post are predominantly liberal, but still reinforces my point that you can be pro-equality while not being a feminist.
Actually, what it does is show that they are, by definition, feminists. It highlights the problem with our public discourse and how we see the word "feminist", but it doesn't make these people not feminists. The fact is that feminism is simply defined as supporting equal rights for women when compared to men. Anything else is baggage that ends up being a particular qualifier to feminism, and doesn't define feminism as a whole. All you're doing is purposefully misrepresenting the word feminism in an attempt to discredit anyone who identifies as a feminist. It's lazy and intellectually dishonest. Please get out if you cannot understand that you do not have the right to force labels on to people that they do not identify with. This is a pretty central tenet in feminism, if I'm not mistaken. male adjective 1. of or denoting the sex that produces small, typically motile gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring. Now go and tell trans men that they are not male because the dictionary says so, you imbecile. I'm confused, are you mad about his definition of feminism or something? I assure you, whatever you read on the internet, you will find plenty of feminists in the real world who agree that "feminism is simply defined as supporting equal rights for women when compared to men."
Here's what my Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy defines feminism as: + Show Spoiler +
If we're being 'intellectually honest' we should probably use this more accurate definition, don't you think? You cannot contain a movement within a sentence.
It's hardly surprising that feminists themselves believe the equality definition to be fitting, but if the majority of people don't agree that that is what feminism is (see the Huffington poll) then whose definition shall we take? Language is organic - we attribute definitions to words based on usage. It just so happens that the usage of the word mostly comes from feminists themselves. What is intellectually dishonest is claiming that an arbitrary definition defines a movement, rather than the movement defining itself through its actions and ideas.
|
On March 19 2015 11:13 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2015 09:12 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 08:08 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 07:22 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 07:07 Mercy13 wrote: The definition of feminism that I prefer is egalitarianism with a particular focus on women's issues. I'm sure there are plenty of feminists and non-feminists alike who would disagree with this definition, but the term is used so broadly these days that I think there is room for a lot of different definitions that are more or less equally valid.
After all, men benefit too when gender roles are less restrictive. Maybe as gender roles are relaxed they will stop forcing us down those mines : p I just don't like 'egalitarianism' because I'm a fuckin' hipster and it's too mainstream 4 me. I don't think gender roles are inherently 'good' or 'bad', but are just kind of there. Gender roles are only bad when they limit people. Unfortunately, this almost always happens. You could have an interesting discussion about "Is this limiting nature an intrinsic feature of gender roles?", but I'm not going to. You and Plansix are both right and both wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism I mean, I guess I could just link something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FascismAnd you may scroll down to "criticisms of fascism" or click on your feminism link and go down to "critique of feminism". Furthermore, I'm not creating a 'strawman' if I'm addressing actual ideological philosophies that have been proposed by feminist authors. Also, why is the strawperson a 'man'? That's pretty sexist if you ask me. According to this logic, we define an entire group by a certain subset of that group. Not all Muslims are defined by ISIS, or Christians by the Westboro Baptist Church, or atheists by militant Chinese atheists, or men by all other men, or women by all other women, or any other group you can think of. That logic is utterly ridiculous and you are actively doing it by saying, "Some feminists are saying X, so feminism is defined by X!".
Well, since we've evoked ISIS, I guess it's time to talk about Nazis.
"Some Nazis are saying X, so Nazism is defined by X!" <- oh damn.
So how do we define Nazism? Or Communism? Or philosophy? Well, let's take Communism, for example. Although the roots of Communism are unknown, there are texts like Sir Thomas More's Utopia and Plato's The Republic that describe Communist societies. The idea of a Communist society being a reality outside of monasteries did not materialize until the advent of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. Then you had the writings of Vladimir Ilyich (Lenin) which expanded on the ideas of Marx to create the school of thought called Leninism.
The philosophies are actually important here. Anton Drexler's philosophies were incorporated into the newsletters of his organization, which later then became a major political party in Germany. He became a mentor to Adolf Hitler, who then published the same sort of antisemitic rhetoric prescribed by Drexler.
Now, I wouldn't compare most feminists to nazis, although some people have combined the terms. The comparison I am making is quite simple: To understand a philosophy, you have to understand the writings of its leaders and founders. If someone does not understand a philosophy and then declares themselves to be a follower of said philosophy, then the meaning of the philosophy does not change based on their predispositions. For example, if someone says they're a Christian, but says they don't believe in the resurrection of Christ, then they're ignorant of their own ineptitude for comprehending the philosophy they purport to follow. If you accept the title of a Christian, you accept the writings of its founders and the philosophy that goes with it. If you decide "Well, people can't judge me", well, think again. Nowhere will any serious Christian take you seriously if you go by this premise.
In regards to feminism, the "Plato's The Republic" to modern-day feminism would be like Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and maybe even Alice Paul. And I say 'maybe even' because Alice Paul wanted an organization like the UK's Suffragettes, who were in competition with another women's rights organization in Britain called the Suffragists. Much like in Britain, the US had Susan B. Anthony (and Elizabeth Cady Stanton) who founded the National Woman's Suffrage Association and Lucy Stone's opposing American Woman's Suffrage Association. Most history books kind of bury the fact these two groups hated each other, and focus on praising Susan B. Anthony, who insisted on becoming President of the merger between the two organizations, once they finally decided to compromise. The rest, as they say, is history. Susan B. Anthony became the heroine to women across the U.S., and Lucy Stone fades into obscurity, despite having done most of the leg-work.
The 'Second Wave' of feminism came in the 1960s when Betty Friedan authored The Feminist Mystique. This work, like Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto with Communist literature, is considered to set the bar for every other major feminist publication since then. Honestly, the book itself is not that 'radical', especially considering how radical Friedan was. She had been involved in the Communist Party in the U.S., and was prejudiced against gay men, and refused to support lesbian activists. This is not being said to assail her character, but because it is a fact that she believed, at the time, that gay men came from homes where men spent too much time with their mothers. Her book also criticized pop culture and the depiction of women as happy housewives - which was actually not the case in many instances, nor was it perpetuated in all media. I don't know of the intention behind it was, because Friedan was not a housewife; far from it, but her work was what many consider to be the rebirth of feminism in the United States.
So who influenced Betty Friedan? A French author named Simone de Beauvoir. De Beauvoir was a co-founder of the newsletter New Feminist Issues, alongside Christine Delphy. And this, my friend, is where the real beginning of Second-Wave Feminism took root. Christine Delphy pioneered the concepts of the Patriarchy and Privilege as a central theme in the social repression of women. These themes would later be pivotal in the writings and philosophies of feminist authors and leaders like Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Judith Brown, Robin Morgan, Melissa Farley, Catherine MacKinnon, Valerie Solanas, Anne Koedt, and Janice Raymond.
All the ideas about male privilege, males oppressing women, patriarchy, and so on, come from authors like these who are pivotal to Second-Wave Feminism. If you read some of the stuff they've written, you might only be angry, but sickened. If you want to say "Oh, it's only a few feminists here and there." then you're not being realistic about what feminism is, which is a blame-males-for-all-problems philosophy. Let me quote something from the NWL's website:
Men as a class benefit from male privilege: getting paid more than us, being free from harassment when walking down the street, even getting an extra hour of sleep while we get up early with the kids or stay up into the night folding laundry. Even men we might think of as pro-feminist, or "good guys" do sexist things—not because they don't understand, or are inherently evil, but because they get something positive, some benefits or kickbacks from male supremacy. Men have an authority and legitimacy simply by virtue of being male. They don’t do as much housework or childcare, or send out the thank you cards. They get promoted over us because they don’t ever have to leave early or miss work due to a sick child. Come Thanksgiving most men sit on the couch and watch football while the women clean up—after cooking all day. And we all know we don’t clean for fun. These are just some of the many benefits an individual man might get from male supremacy.
So by defending feminism, you are still a sexist, "simply by the virtue of being male". And you never do as much housework or childcare (cuz there are no single fathers), and of course, you never have to miss work due to a sick child. Right?
We also know that men use their power over us in both subtle and overt ways to keep us in line—from a smile and a compliment when we conform to the female dress code, to the threat of a beating or worse if we talk back or dare to walk down the street alone at night.
In other words, being nice is you subtly asserting your power over women, and simply less overt than beating us senselessly. RIGHT?
Men will not give up their male privilege without a fight.
After a feminist revolution, no man will be able to use economic necessity to extract compliance from a woman--we will be truly independent.
Men won’t give up all the goodies, big and small, that come from male supremacy unless we as women join together and fight.
The idea that men have all the power and that it must be taken is not a strawman argument against feminism, and anyone who claims to be a feminist needs to be educated on what feminism is and what kind of philosophy feminists have proposed. What you're looking at is a radical philosophy which marginalizes you as a man and makes you the enemy of all women by default, and I'm not okay with that.
But if you wanna stand behind this bullshit, be my guest.
Show nested quote + As for the poll you linked, it's surprising, considering how many readers of the Huffington Post are predominantly liberal, but still reinforces my point that you can be pro-equality while not being a feminist.
Only if you refuse to use words by their definitions. The fact is that feminism is simply defined as supporting equal rights for women when compared to men. Anything else is baggage that ends up being a particular qualifier to feminism, and doesn't define feminism as a whole. All you're doing is purposefully misrepresenting the word feminism in an attempt to discredit anyone who identifies as a feminist. It's lazy and intellectually dishonest.
Intellectual dishonesty and laziness together are when you claim to support something without doing any research.
|
On March 19 2015 08:05 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2015 06:49 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 06:37 Plansix wrote:On March 19 2015 06:35 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 06:25 Plansix wrote:On March 19 2015 06:16 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 05:59 Plansix wrote:On March 19 2015 05:51 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 05:40 Plansix wrote:On March 19 2015 05:33 ninazerg wrote: [quote]
Well, you should definitely read some stuff by Mary Daly and Andrea Dworkin, and after that, you'll pretty much know where you stand on the subject of modern feminism. I've heard of both of them and I am aware of their views. I am pretty sure I know where I stand. But thanks for the suggested reading. lol, you totally went to Google. On March 19 2015 05:47 Plansix wrote:On March 19 2015 05:40 travis wrote: [quote]
didn't you just say you're a man a few posts ago? Yep and I think GreenHorizon is as well. What is your point? I have never stated anything disparaging feminism or claiming it wasn't about equality. Those were specifically the people I was mocking, to be clear. I don't understand your logic here. Men who agree with feminism are allowed to discuss feminism but men who disagree with feminism aren't allowed to? Men who say feminism isn't about equality and try to paint is as some radical movement that is set on oppressing men are hilarious. I find them to be comical and I find their discussions on the matter much like whites in the US claiming that all these claims are racism are over blown. Its people who do not have to deal with the issue and never will telling those who do "its not a big deal". If people want to point out specific feminists that are too extreme or aggressive, I will happily talk about that. But people who point to Tumblr and a couple radical feminist who wrote books as proof the entire concept is about repressing men are tiresome and dull at this point. But we are way off topic and this thread is not about me or you. No, this thread is about all of us. And also, if it's possible for men to be feminists, then men should also be able to debate the merits of feminism, just like with any other philosophy. If your only argument is that all people are equal in principle, that's just called equality. If you're talking about a female-centric counterbalance to a male-centric society, then you're talking about feminism, which operates on the assumption that there is an institutionalized inequality between males and females. If there is such an institutionalization, then it would have to be torn down by a radical counter-movement. However, if such an institution-sponsored inequality is only theoretical in nature, but there is a material counter-movement, then you have a radical reactionary movement to tear down an imaginary enemy. You wrote a lot of words that basically boil down to: Feminism isn't about equality. And you're wrong. Just like addressing racism is about equality. Its not about making women better, its about making sure they are equal to men and that men are not pressured to feel "superior" to women. Terry Crew's breaks it down better than I can and hes like 20 time more awesome than me. http://www.damemagazine.com/2015/03/06/terry-crews-feminist-millions-have-died-because-male-pride Are you even reading what you're writing? ADDRESSING RACISM is about equality Addressing sexism is about equality (which I said) Feminism is not about equality. I mean, you can totally link more actors' opinions. I mean, I can link Madonna saying she's not a feminist but a humanist if you want to go that route. I mean, what do I know, I'm just a dumb woman, right? Sorry you believe differently than me, but that is the way it is. Neither of us are going to change the others mind, so we might as well move on. Have a good day. You mock the guys but tell me to have a nice day. I don't feel like I'm being treated equally. Sorry, that was a little flippant, I have not had dinner. I was also leaving work and posting while driving is a terrible idea. To be honest, I was not aware you were a women, despite being on the site for several years. In general, I am uncomfortable telling a women what feminism should mean to them. I am perfectly conformable to debate the matter with men, as my experience related to subject reflects theirs. But I do not feel comfortable pontificating to a woman about experiences I will never have and how feminism relates to those experiences. I have the same discomfort about explaining racism any minority or homophobia to folks that are gay. I will try to find some writings form the feminist you previously posted and see if they change my opinion.
Uh, you should be comfortable with talking to anyone about how you feel about something. Doing something or avoiding something because of one's race or identity is a form of discrimination.
I mean, Andrea Dworkin has a handful of books you can check out if you want to. SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas might be a fun place to start as well.
|
I think there are very few ismy ideologies that anyone would attempt to define so briefly as people (for some reason) try to define feminism like "equality between the sexes" or "equal rights for the sexes." There is no such simple sentence for Christianity, is there? You can start with well, belief in God, Jesus is the son of God and messiah, there's the afterlife, redemption, commandments, it goes on. Liberalism, well, freedom, something about individuals, need a framework of rights, property... How about science? Well, it follows the scientific method, which is this whole other thing... Communism, capitalism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, does anything like that fit in 1 sentence? What's the problem then? That there really is more to it.
I have noticed that people use the identifier as a shaming tactic. It's a dangerous mob thing. It's one thing to say that's all the definition means (to you) with no baggage. But there's really more to it. If someone asks you if you're a feminist, and you say no, and they say "why not, don't you believe in equality - that makes you a feminist." Whenever someone caves - goes along with this, it identifies them with a group and it tacitly supports the baggage that must be there - because without that baggage it's a definition/idea that's so broad as to be meaningless. It's okay to have the baggage. It's okay to have that substance. But don't have the pretense that some of that substance isn't necessary just to get more people to put their names with that group. You don't need to identify with an ideology to have such a basic belief.
The presumption is there at some level or other that women are disadvantaged and the belief is fighting for women in that respect. Which is fine! As long as it's not misrepresented. If you go and say, well, the movement is about equality. That sounds great. But then if you ask, where are the men? If you say men don't have any problems, that's not realistic (regardless of who "has it worse"). If you say men don't need their problems in this movement, then why try to frame it in that way about equality to begin with? Or if you say men's problems can't be a part, isn't that sexist. What I mean is someone like Plansix comes along saying things like "this is a women's issue so it's funny to see men talking about it." But Plansix is a man. Either only women should talk about a women's issue - or everyone can talk about it. But not some weird combination of women and only some men who agree with some women who purport to be at the head of their group...
I see nina has written a bunch of stuff which is probably better than what I've got.
|
On March 19 2015 13:39 ninazerg wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2015 11:13 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 09:12 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 08:08 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 07:22 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 07:07 Mercy13 wrote: The definition of feminism that I prefer is egalitarianism with a particular focus on women's issues. I'm sure there are plenty of feminists and non-feminists alike who would disagree with this definition, but the term is used so broadly these days that I think there is room for a lot of different definitions that are more or less equally valid.
After all, men benefit too when gender roles are less restrictive. Maybe as gender roles are relaxed they will stop forcing us down those mines : p I just don't like 'egalitarianism' because I'm a fuckin' hipster and it's too mainstream 4 me. I don't think gender roles are inherently 'good' or 'bad', but are just kind of there. Gender roles are only bad when they limit people. Unfortunately, this almost always happens. You could have an interesting discussion about "Is this limiting nature an intrinsic feature of gender roles?", but I'm not going to. You and Plansix are both right and both wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism I mean, I guess I could just link something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FascismAnd you may scroll down to "criticisms of fascism" or click on your feminism link and go down to "critique of feminism". Furthermore, I'm not creating a 'strawman' if I'm addressing actual ideological philosophies that have been proposed by feminist authors. Also, why is the strawperson a 'man'? That's pretty sexist if you ask me. According to this logic, we define an entire group by a certain subset of that group. Not all Muslims are defined by ISIS, or Christians by the Westboro Baptist Church, or atheists by militant Chinese atheists, or men by all other men, or women by all other women, or any other group you can think of. That logic is utterly ridiculous and you are actively doing it by saying, "Some feminists are saying X, so feminism is defined by X!". + Show Spoiler [long post] +Well, since we've evoked ISIS, I guess it's time to talk about Nazis. "Some Nazis are saying X, so Nazism is defined by X!" <- oh damn. So how do we define Nazism? Or Communism? Or philosophy? Well, let's take Communism, for example. Although the roots of Communism are unknown, there are texts like Sir Thomas More's Utopia and Plato's The Republic that describe Communist societies. The idea of a Communist society being a reality outside of monasteries did not materialize until the advent of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. Then you had the writings of Vladimir Ilyich (Lenin) which expanded on the ideas of Marx to create the school of thought called Leninism. The philosophies are actually important here. Anton Drexler's philosophies were incorporated into the newsletters of his organization, which later then became a major political party in Germany. He became a mentor to Adolf Hitler, who then published the same sort of antisemitic rhetoric prescribed by Drexler. Now, I wouldn't compare most feminists to nazis, although some people have combined the terms. The comparison I am making is quite simple: To understand a philosophy, you have to understand the writings of its leaders and founders. If someone does not understand a philosophy and then declares themselves to be a follower of said philosophy, then the meaning of the philosophy does not change based on their predispositions. For example, if someone says they're a Christian, but says they don't believe in the resurrection of Christ, then they're ignorant of their own ineptitude for comprehending the philosophy they purport to follow. If you accept the title of a Christian, you accept the writings of its founders and the philosophy that goes with it. If you decide "Well, people can't judge me", well, think again. Nowhere will any serious Christian take you seriously if you go by this premise. In regards to feminism, the "Plato's The Republic" to modern-day feminism would be like Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and maybe even Alice Paul. And I say 'maybe even' because Alice Paul wanted an organization like the UK's Suffragettes, who were in competition with another women's rights organization in Britain called the Suffragists. Much like in Britain, the US had Susan B. Anthony (and Elizabeth Cady Stanton) who founded the National Woman's Suffrage Association and Lucy Stone's opposing American Woman's Suffrage Association. Most history books kind of bury the fact these two groups hated each other, and focus on praising Susan B. Anthony, who insisted on becoming President of the merger between the two organizations, once they finally decided to compromise. The rest, as they say, is history. Susan B. Anthony became the heroine to women across the U.S., and Lucy Stone fades into obscurity, despite having done most of the leg-work. The 'Second Wave' of feminism came in the 1960s when Betty Friedan authored The Feminist Mystique. This work, like Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto with Communist literature, is considered to set the bar for every other major feminist publication since then. Honestly, the book itself is not that 'radical', especially considering how radical Friedan was. She had been involved in the Communist Party in the U.S., and was prejudiced against gay men, and refused to support lesbian activists. This is not being said to assail her character, but because it is a fact that she believed, at the time, that gay men came from homes where men spent too much time with their mothers. Her book also criticized pop culture and the depiction of women as happy housewives - which was actually not the case in many instances, nor was it perpetuated in all media. I don't know of the intention behind it was, because Friedan was not a housewife; far from it, but her work was what many consider to be the rebirth of feminism in the United States. So who influenced Betty Friedan? A French author named Simone de Beauvoir. De Beauvoir was a co-founder of the newsletter New Feminist Issues, alongside Christine Delphy. And this, my friend, is where the real beginning of Second-Wave Feminism took root. Christine Delphy pioneered the concepts of the Patriarchy and Privilege as a central theme in the social repression of women. These themes would later be pivotal in the writings and philosophies of feminist authors and leaders like Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Judith Brown, Robin Morgan, Melissa Farley, Catherine MacKinnon, Valerie Solanas, Anne Koedt, and Janice Raymond. All the ideas about male privilege, males oppressing women, patriarchy, and so on, come from authors like these who are pivotal to Second-Wave Feminism. If you read some of the stuff they've written, you might only be angry, but sickened. If you want to say "Oh, it's only a few feminists here and there." then you're not being realistic about what feminism is, which is a blame-males-for-all-problems philosophy. Let me quote something from the NWL's website: Men as a class benefit from male privilege: getting paid more than us, being free from harassment when walking down the street, even getting an extra hour of sleep while we get up early with the kids or stay up into the night folding laundry. Even men we might think of as pro-feminist, or "good guys" do sexist things—not because they don't understand, or are inherently evil, but because they get something positive, some benefits or kickbacks from male supremacy. Men have an authority and legitimacy simply by virtue of being male. They don’t do as much housework or childcare, or send out the thank you cards. They get promoted over us because they don’t ever have to leave early or miss work due to a sick child. Come Thanksgiving most men sit on the couch and watch football while the women clean up—after cooking all day. And we all know we don’t clean for fun. These are just some of the many benefits an individual man might get from male supremacy. So by defending feminism, you are still a sexist, "simply by the virtue of being male". And you never do as much housework or childcare (cuz there are no single fathers), and of course, you never have to miss work due to a sick child. Right? We also know that men use their power over us in both subtle and overt ways to keep us in line—from a smile and a compliment when we conform to the female dress code, to the threat of a beating or worse if we talk back or dare to walk down the street alone at night. In other words, being nice is you subtly asserting your power over women, and simply less overt than beating us senselessly. RIGHT? Men will not give up their male privilege without a fight. After a feminist revolution, no man will be able to use economic necessity to extract compliance from a woman--we will be truly independent. Men won’t give up all the goodies, big and small, that come from male supremacy unless we as women join together and fight. The idea that men have all the power and that it must be taken is not a strawman argument against feminism, and anyone who claims to be a feminist needs to be educated on what feminism is and what kind of philosophy feminists have proposed. What you're looking at is a radical philosophy which marginalizes you as a man and makes you the enemy of all women by default, and I'm not okay with that. But if you wanna stand behind this bullshit, be my guest. Show nested quote + As for the poll you linked, it's surprising, considering how many readers of the Huffington Post are predominantly liberal, but still reinforces my point that you can be pro-equality while not being a feminist.
Only if you refuse to use words by their definitions. The fact is that feminism is simply defined as supporting equal rights for women when compared to men. Anything else is baggage that ends up being a particular qualifier to feminism, and doesn't define feminism as a whole. All you're doing is purposefully misrepresenting the word feminism in an attempt to discredit anyone who identifies as a feminist. It's lazy and intellectually dishonest. Intellectual dishonesty and laziness together are when you claim to support something without doing any research. I'm not sure you realize that nowhere in your post did you disprove the fact that feminism is first and foremost about wanting equality between the sexes on the political, economical and social levels. Your extremely incomplete list of prominent first and second waves feminist thinkers certainly did not disprove it, and your cherry-picking of a few quotes on one feminist organization's website didn't disprove it (in fact, if you take a look at that organization's "what we want" section, you'll see that what they declare they want is precisely equality between the sexes). It's one thing to disagree with the kind of "us vs them" mentality they're pushing forward on their website, but that doesn't change the fact that the ultimate objective is equality. Likewise, I'm not sure where you got the idea that the use of concepts like that of "patriarchy" was somehow antithetical to a desire to achieve equality - precisely by fighting against patriarchal systems.
Like Stratos_speAr rightly said, feminism is defined as "the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities", "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes", etc. You're free to disagree with whatever feminist authors and organizations you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the core objective of feminism is to achieve equality between the sexes.
I'm not sure the thread's original post warrants transforming this thread into a discussion about what feminism is and isn't, though - this is supposed to be a thread about sexist harassment in video games.
|
On March 19 2015 14:14 oBlade wrote: I think there are very few ismy ideologies that anyone would attempt to define so briefly as people (for some reason) try to define feminism like "equality between the sexes" or "equal rights for the sexes." There is no such simple sentence for Christianity, is there? Actually, that's the whole point of (general) dictionaries. Merriam-Webster defines Christianity as "the religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as sacred scripture, and professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Protestant bodies". Of course there's more, but you get the basic idea. And the basic idea of feminism is achieving equality between the sexes.
|
On March 19 2015 14:29 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2015 13:39 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 11:13 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 09:12 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 08:08 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 07:22 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 07:07 Mercy13 wrote: The definition of feminism that I prefer is egalitarianism with a particular focus on women's issues. I'm sure there are plenty of feminists and non-feminists alike who would disagree with this definition, but the term is used so broadly these days that I think there is room for a lot of different definitions that are more or less equally valid.
After all, men benefit too when gender roles are less restrictive. Maybe as gender roles are relaxed they will stop forcing us down those mines : p I just don't like 'egalitarianism' because I'm a fuckin' hipster and it's too mainstream 4 me. I don't think gender roles are inherently 'good' or 'bad', but are just kind of there. Gender roles are only bad when they limit people. Unfortunately, this almost always happens. You could have an interesting discussion about "Is this limiting nature an intrinsic feature of gender roles?", but I'm not going to. You and Plansix are both right and both wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism I mean, I guess I could just link something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FascismAnd you may scroll down to "criticisms of fascism" or click on your feminism link and go down to "critique of feminism". Furthermore, I'm not creating a 'strawman' if I'm addressing actual ideological philosophies that have been proposed by feminist authors. Also, why is the strawperson a 'man'? That's pretty sexist if you ask me. According to this logic, we define an entire group by a certain subset of that group. Not all Muslims are defined by ISIS, or Christians by the Westboro Baptist Church, or atheists by militant Chinese atheists, or men by all other men, or women by all other women, or any other group you can think of. That logic is utterly ridiculous and you are actively doing it by saying, "Some feminists are saying X, so feminism is defined by X!". + Show Spoiler [long post] +Well, since we've evoked ISIS, I guess it's time to talk about Nazis. "Some Nazis are saying X, so Nazism is defined by X!" <- oh damn. So how do we define Nazism? Or Communism? Or philosophy? Well, let's take Communism, for example. Although the roots of Communism are unknown, there are texts like Sir Thomas More's Utopia and Plato's The Republic that describe Communist societies. The idea of a Communist society being a reality outside of monasteries did not materialize until the advent of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. Then you had the writings of Vladimir Ilyich (Lenin) which expanded on the ideas of Marx to create the school of thought called Leninism. The philosophies are actually important here. Anton Drexler's philosophies were incorporated into the newsletters of his organization, which later then became a major political party in Germany. He became a mentor to Adolf Hitler, who then published the same sort of antisemitic rhetoric prescribed by Drexler. Now, I wouldn't compare most feminists to nazis, although some people have combined the terms. The comparison I am making is quite simple: To understand a philosophy, you have to understand the writings of its leaders and founders. If someone does not understand a philosophy and then declares themselves to be a follower of said philosophy, then the meaning of the philosophy does not change based on their predispositions. For example, if someone says they're a Christian, but says they don't believe in the resurrection of Christ, then they're ignorant of their own ineptitude for comprehending the philosophy they purport to follow. If you accept the title of a Christian, you accept the writings of its founders and the philosophy that goes with it. If you decide "Well, people can't judge me", well, think again. Nowhere will any serious Christian take you seriously if you go by this premise. In regards to feminism, the "Plato's The Republic" to modern-day feminism would be like Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and maybe even Alice Paul. And I say 'maybe even' because Alice Paul wanted an organization like the UK's Suffragettes, who were in competition with another women's rights organization in Britain called the Suffragists. Much like in Britain, the US had Susan B. Anthony (and Elizabeth Cady Stanton) who founded the National Woman's Suffrage Association and Lucy Stone's opposing American Woman's Suffrage Association. Most history books kind of bury the fact these two groups hated each other, and focus on praising Susan B. Anthony, who insisted on becoming President of the merger between the two organizations, once they finally decided to compromise. The rest, as they say, is history. Susan B. Anthony became the heroine to women across the U.S., and Lucy Stone fades into obscurity, despite having done most of the leg-work. The 'Second Wave' of feminism came in the 1960s when Betty Friedan authored The Feminist Mystique. This work, like Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto with Communist literature, is considered to set the bar for every other major feminist publication since then. Honestly, the book itself is not that 'radical', especially considering how radical Friedan was. She had been involved in the Communist Party in the U.S., and was prejudiced against gay men, and refused to support lesbian activists. This is not being said to assail her character, but because it is a fact that she believed, at the time, that gay men came from homes where men spent too much time with their mothers. Her book also criticized pop culture and the depiction of women as happy housewives - which was actually not the case in many instances, nor was it perpetuated in all media. I don't know of the intention behind it was, because Friedan was not a housewife; far from it, but her work was what many consider to be the rebirth of feminism in the United States. So who influenced Betty Friedan? A French author named Simone de Beauvoir. De Beauvoir was a co-founder of the newsletter New Feminist Issues, alongside Christine Delphy. And this, my friend, is where the real beginning of Second-Wave Feminism took root. Christine Delphy pioneered the concepts of the Patriarchy and Privilege as a central theme in the social repression of women. These themes would later be pivotal in the writings and philosophies of feminist authors and leaders like Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Judith Brown, Robin Morgan, Melissa Farley, Catherine MacKinnon, Valerie Solanas, Anne Koedt, and Janice Raymond. All the ideas about male privilege, males oppressing women, patriarchy, and so on, come from authors like these who are pivotal to Second-Wave Feminism. If you read some of the stuff they've written, you might only be angry, but sickened. If you want to say "Oh, it's only a few feminists here and there." then you're not being realistic about what feminism is, which is a blame-males-for-all-problems philosophy. Let me quote something from the NWL's website: Men as a class benefit from male privilege: getting paid more than us, being free from harassment when walking down the street, even getting an extra hour of sleep while we get up early with the kids or stay up into the night folding laundry. Even men we might think of as pro-feminist, or "good guys" do sexist things—not because they don't understand, or are inherently evil, but because they get something positive, some benefits or kickbacks from male supremacy. Men have an authority and legitimacy simply by virtue of being male. They don’t do as much housework or childcare, or send out the thank you cards. They get promoted over us because they don’t ever have to leave early or miss work due to a sick child. Come Thanksgiving most men sit on the couch and watch football while the women clean up—after cooking all day. And we all know we don’t clean for fun. These are just some of the many benefits an individual man might get from male supremacy. So by defending feminism, you are still a sexist, "simply by the virtue of being male". And you never do as much housework or childcare (cuz there are no single fathers), and of course, you never have to miss work due to a sick child. Right? We also know that men use their power over us in both subtle and overt ways to keep us in line—from a smile and a compliment when we conform to the female dress code, to the threat of a beating or worse if we talk back or dare to walk down the street alone at night. In other words, being nice is you subtly asserting your power over women, and simply less overt than beating us senselessly. RIGHT? Men will not give up their male privilege without a fight. After a feminist revolution, no man will be able to use economic necessity to extract compliance from a woman--we will be truly independent. Men won’t give up all the goodies, big and small, that come from male supremacy unless we as women join together and fight. The idea that men have all the power and that it must be taken is not a strawman argument against feminism, and anyone who claims to be a feminist needs to be educated on what feminism is and what kind of philosophy feminists have proposed. What you're looking at is a radical philosophy which marginalizes you as a man and makes you the enemy of all women by default, and I'm not okay with that. But if you wanna stand behind this bullshit, be my guest. Show nested quote + As for the poll you linked, it's surprising, considering how many readers of the Huffington Post are predominantly liberal, but still reinforces my point that you can be pro-equality while not being a feminist.
Only if you refuse to use words by their definitions. The fact is that feminism is simply defined as supporting equal rights for women when compared to men. Anything else is baggage that ends up being a particular qualifier to feminism, and doesn't define feminism as a whole. All you're doing is purposefully misrepresenting the word feminism in an attempt to discredit anyone who identifies as a feminist. It's lazy and intellectually dishonest. Intellectual dishonesty and laziness together are when you claim to support something without doing any research. I'm not sure you realize that nowhere in your post did you disprove the fact that feminism is first and foremost about wanting equality between the sexes on the political, economical and social levels. Your extremely incomplete list of prominent first and second waves feminist thinkers certainly did not disprove it, and your cherry-picking of a few quotes on one feminist organization's website didn't disprove it (in fact, if you take a look at that organization's "what we want" section, you'll see that what they declare they want is precisely equality between the sexes). It's one thing to disagree with the kind of "us vs them" mentality they're pushing forward on their website, but that doesn't change the fact that the ultimate objective is equality. Likewise, I'm not sure where you got the idea that the use of concepts like that of "patriarchy" was somehow antithetical to a desire to achieve equality - precisely by fighting against patriarchal systems. Like Stratos_speAr rightly said, feminism is defined as "the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities", "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes", etc. You're free to disagree with whatever feminist authors and organizations you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the core objective of feminism is to achieve equality between the sexes. I'm not sure the thread's original post warrants transforming this thread into a discussion about what feminism is and isn't, though - this is supposed to be a thread about sexist harassment in video games. the second definition of the word in that dictionary (which you conveniently left out) is: "organized activity in support of women's rights and interests". that doesn't sound to equal to me. i just can't believe feminism is about equality just because it is called femi-n-ism. you can call it oversimplified misogyny but it's just basic logic for me.
|
On March 19 2015 15:01 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2015 14:29 kwizach wrote:On March 19 2015 13:39 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 11:13 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 09:12 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 08:08 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 07:22 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 07:07 Mercy13 wrote: The definition of feminism that I prefer is egalitarianism with a particular focus on women's issues. I'm sure there are plenty of feminists and non-feminists alike who would disagree with this definition, but the term is used so broadly these days that I think there is room for a lot of different definitions that are more or less equally valid.
After all, men benefit too when gender roles are less restrictive. Maybe as gender roles are relaxed they will stop forcing us down those mines : p I just don't like 'egalitarianism' because I'm a fuckin' hipster and it's too mainstream 4 me. I don't think gender roles are inherently 'good' or 'bad', but are just kind of there. Gender roles are only bad when they limit people. Unfortunately, this almost always happens. You could have an interesting discussion about "Is this limiting nature an intrinsic feature of gender roles?", but I'm not going to. You and Plansix are both right and both wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism I mean, I guess I could just link something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FascismAnd you may scroll down to "criticisms of fascism" or click on your feminism link and go down to "critique of feminism". Furthermore, I'm not creating a 'strawman' if I'm addressing actual ideological philosophies that have been proposed by feminist authors. Also, why is the strawperson a 'man'? That's pretty sexist if you ask me. According to this logic, we define an entire group by a certain subset of that group. Not all Muslims are defined by ISIS, or Christians by the Westboro Baptist Church, or atheists by militant Chinese atheists, or men by all other men, or women by all other women, or any other group you can think of. That logic is utterly ridiculous and you are actively doing it by saying, "Some feminists are saying X, so feminism is defined by X!". + Show Spoiler [long post] +Well, since we've evoked ISIS, I guess it's time to talk about Nazis. "Some Nazis are saying X, so Nazism is defined by X!" <- oh damn. So how do we define Nazism? Or Communism? Or philosophy? Well, let's take Communism, for example. Although the roots of Communism are unknown, there are texts like Sir Thomas More's Utopia and Plato's The Republic that describe Communist societies. The idea of a Communist society being a reality outside of monasteries did not materialize until the advent of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. Then you had the writings of Vladimir Ilyich (Lenin) which expanded on the ideas of Marx to create the school of thought called Leninism. The philosophies are actually important here. Anton Drexler's philosophies were incorporated into the newsletters of his organization, which later then became a major political party in Germany. He became a mentor to Adolf Hitler, who then published the same sort of antisemitic rhetoric prescribed by Drexler. Now, I wouldn't compare most feminists to nazis, although some people have combined the terms. The comparison I am making is quite simple: To understand a philosophy, you have to understand the writings of its leaders and founders. If someone does not understand a philosophy and then declares themselves to be a follower of said philosophy, then the meaning of the philosophy does not change based on their predispositions. For example, if someone says they're a Christian, but says they don't believe in the resurrection of Christ, then they're ignorant of their own ineptitude for comprehending the philosophy they purport to follow. If you accept the title of a Christian, you accept the writings of its founders and the philosophy that goes with it. If you decide "Well, people can't judge me", well, think again. Nowhere will any serious Christian take you seriously if you go by this premise. In regards to feminism, the "Plato's The Republic" to modern-day feminism would be like Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and maybe even Alice Paul. And I say 'maybe even' because Alice Paul wanted an organization like the UK's Suffragettes, who were in competition with another women's rights organization in Britain called the Suffragists. Much like in Britain, the US had Susan B. Anthony (and Elizabeth Cady Stanton) who founded the National Woman's Suffrage Association and Lucy Stone's opposing American Woman's Suffrage Association. Most history books kind of bury the fact these two groups hated each other, and focus on praising Susan B. Anthony, who insisted on becoming President of the merger between the two organizations, once they finally decided to compromise. The rest, as they say, is history. Susan B. Anthony became the heroine to women across the U.S., and Lucy Stone fades into obscurity, despite having done most of the leg-work. The 'Second Wave' of feminism came in the 1960s when Betty Friedan authored The Feminist Mystique. This work, like Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto with Communist literature, is considered to set the bar for every other major feminist publication since then. Honestly, the book itself is not that 'radical', especially considering how radical Friedan was. She had been involved in the Communist Party in the U.S., and was prejudiced against gay men, and refused to support lesbian activists. This is not being said to assail her character, but because it is a fact that she believed, at the time, that gay men came from homes where men spent too much time with their mothers. Her book also criticized pop culture and the depiction of women as happy housewives - which was actually not the case in many instances, nor was it perpetuated in all media. I don't know of the intention behind it was, because Friedan was not a housewife; far from it, but her work was what many consider to be the rebirth of feminism in the United States. So who influenced Betty Friedan? A French author named Simone de Beauvoir. De Beauvoir was a co-founder of the newsletter New Feminist Issues, alongside Christine Delphy. And this, my friend, is where the real beginning of Second-Wave Feminism took root. Christine Delphy pioneered the concepts of the Patriarchy and Privilege as a central theme in the social repression of women. These themes would later be pivotal in the writings and philosophies of feminist authors and leaders like Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Judith Brown, Robin Morgan, Melissa Farley, Catherine MacKinnon, Valerie Solanas, Anne Koedt, and Janice Raymond. All the ideas about male privilege, males oppressing women, patriarchy, and so on, come from authors like these who are pivotal to Second-Wave Feminism. If you read some of the stuff they've written, you might only be angry, but sickened. If you want to say "Oh, it's only a few feminists here and there." then you're not being realistic about what feminism is, which is a blame-males-for-all-problems philosophy. Let me quote something from the NWL's website: Men as a class benefit from male privilege: getting paid more than us, being free from harassment when walking down the street, even getting an extra hour of sleep while we get up early with the kids or stay up into the night folding laundry. Even men we might think of as pro-feminist, or "good guys" do sexist things—not because they don't understand, or are inherently evil, but because they get something positive, some benefits or kickbacks from male supremacy. Men have an authority and legitimacy simply by virtue of being male. They don’t do as much housework or childcare, or send out the thank you cards. They get promoted over us because they don’t ever have to leave early or miss work due to a sick child. Come Thanksgiving most men sit on the couch and watch football while the women clean up—after cooking all day. And we all know we don’t clean for fun. These are just some of the many benefits an individual man might get from male supremacy. So by defending feminism, you are still a sexist, "simply by the virtue of being male". And you never do as much housework or childcare (cuz there are no single fathers), and of course, you never have to miss work due to a sick child. Right? We also know that men use their power over us in both subtle and overt ways to keep us in line—from a smile and a compliment when we conform to the female dress code, to the threat of a beating or worse if we talk back or dare to walk down the street alone at night. In other words, being nice is you subtly asserting your power over women, and simply less overt than beating us senselessly. RIGHT? Men will not give up their male privilege without a fight. After a feminist revolution, no man will be able to use economic necessity to extract compliance from a woman--we will be truly independent. Men won’t give up all the goodies, big and small, that come from male supremacy unless we as women join together and fight. The idea that men have all the power and that it must be taken is not a strawman argument against feminism, and anyone who claims to be a feminist needs to be educated on what feminism is and what kind of philosophy feminists have proposed. What you're looking at is a radical philosophy which marginalizes you as a man and makes you the enemy of all women by default, and I'm not okay with that. But if you wanna stand behind this bullshit, be my guest. Show nested quote + As for the poll you linked, it's surprising, considering how many readers of the Huffington Post are predominantly liberal, but still reinforces my point that you can be pro-equality while not being a feminist.
Only if you refuse to use words by their definitions. The fact is that feminism is simply defined as supporting equal rights for women when compared to men. Anything else is baggage that ends up being a particular qualifier to feminism, and doesn't define feminism as a whole. All you're doing is purposefully misrepresenting the word feminism in an attempt to discredit anyone who identifies as a feminist. It's lazy and intellectually dishonest. Intellectual dishonesty and laziness together are when you claim to support something without doing any research. I'm not sure you realize that nowhere in your post did you disprove the fact that feminism is first and foremost about wanting equality between the sexes on the political, economical and social levels. Your extremely incomplete list of prominent first and second waves feminist thinkers certainly did not disprove it, and your cherry-picking of a few quotes on one feminist organization's website didn't disprove it (in fact, if you take a look at that organization's "what we want" section, you'll see that what they declare they want is precisely equality between the sexes). It's one thing to disagree with the kind of "us vs them" mentality they're pushing forward on their website, but that doesn't change the fact that the ultimate objective is equality. Likewise, I'm not sure where you got the idea that the use of concepts like that of "patriarchy" was somehow antithetical to a desire to achieve equality - precisely by fighting against patriarchal systems. Like Stratos_speAr rightly said, feminism is defined as "the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities", "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes", etc. You're free to disagree with whatever feminist authors and organizations you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the core objective of feminism is to achieve equality between the sexes. I'm not sure the thread's original post warrants transforming this thread into a discussion about what feminism is and isn't, though - this is supposed to be a thread about sexist harassment in video games. the second definition of the word in that dictionary ( which you conveniently left out) is: "organized activity in support of women's rights and interests". that doesn't sound to equal to me. i just can't believe feminism is about equality just because it is called femi-n-ism. you can call it oversimplified misogyny but it's just basic logic for me. It is called feminism because women have historically been, as a group, denied the political, economical and social independence and legitimacy that men have enjoyed. The bulk of the movement has therefore been targeted at addressing the discriminations that women suffer from as women, in order to help them have the same rights and opportunities as men. This doesn't mean that men aren't also affected by, for example, stereotypical gender roles, but it does mean that it is women and not men who have historically and presently been put in a subordinate position because of their gender in patriarchal systems. Since feminism is about achieving equality, though, you'll find plenty of feminist scholars and activists also deconstructing and fighting against discriminations and negative gender roles that apply to men.
|
On March 19 2015 15:19 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2015 15:01 xM(Z wrote:On March 19 2015 14:29 kwizach wrote:On March 19 2015 13:39 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 11:13 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 09:12 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 08:08 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 07:22 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 07:07 Mercy13 wrote: The definition of feminism that I prefer is egalitarianism with a particular focus on women's issues. I'm sure there are plenty of feminists and non-feminists alike who would disagree with this definition, but the term is used so broadly these days that I think there is room for a lot of different definitions that are more or less equally valid.
After all, men benefit too when gender roles are less restrictive. Maybe as gender roles are relaxed they will stop forcing us down those mines : p I just don't like 'egalitarianism' because I'm a fuckin' hipster and it's too mainstream 4 me. I don't think gender roles are inherently 'good' or 'bad', but are just kind of there. Gender roles are only bad when they limit people. Unfortunately, this almost always happens. You could have an interesting discussion about "Is this limiting nature an intrinsic feature of gender roles?", but I'm not going to. You and Plansix are both right and both wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism I mean, I guess I could just link something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FascismAnd you may scroll down to "criticisms of fascism" or click on your feminism link and go down to "critique of feminism". Furthermore, I'm not creating a 'strawman' if I'm addressing actual ideological philosophies that have been proposed by feminist authors. Also, why is the strawperson a 'man'? That's pretty sexist if you ask me. According to this logic, we define an entire group by a certain subset of that group. Not all Muslims are defined by ISIS, or Christians by the Westboro Baptist Church, or atheists by militant Chinese atheists, or men by all other men, or women by all other women, or any other group you can think of. That logic is utterly ridiculous and you are actively doing it by saying, "Some feminists are saying X, so feminism is defined by X!". + Show Spoiler [long post] +Well, since we've evoked ISIS, I guess it's time to talk about Nazis. "Some Nazis are saying X, so Nazism is defined by X!" <- oh damn. So how do we define Nazism? Or Communism? Or philosophy? Well, let's take Communism, for example. Although the roots of Communism are unknown, there are texts like Sir Thomas More's Utopia and Plato's The Republic that describe Communist societies. The idea of a Communist society being a reality outside of monasteries did not materialize until the advent of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. Then you had the writings of Vladimir Ilyich (Lenin) which expanded on the ideas of Marx to create the school of thought called Leninism. The philosophies are actually important here. Anton Drexler's philosophies were incorporated into the newsletters of his organization, which later then became a major political party in Germany. He became a mentor to Adolf Hitler, who then published the same sort of antisemitic rhetoric prescribed by Drexler. Now, I wouldn't compare most feminists to nazis, although some people have combined the terms. The comparison I am making is quite simple: To understand a philosophy, you have to understand the writings of its leaders and founders. If someone does not understand a philosophy and then declares themselves to be a follower of said philosophy, then the meaning of the philosophy does not change based on their predispositions. For example, if someone says they're a Christian, but says they don't believe in the resurrection of Christ, then they're ignorant of their own ineptitude for comprehending the philosophy they purport to follow. If you accept the title of a Christian, you accept the writings of its founders and the philosophy that goes with it. If you decide "Well, people can't judge me", well, think again. Nowhere will any serious Christian take you seriously if you go by this premise. In regards to feminism, the "Plato's The Republic" to modern-day feminism would be like Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and maybe even Alice Paul. And I say 'maybe even' because Alice Paul wanted an organization like the UK's Suffragettes, who were in competition with another women's rights organization in Britain called the Suffragists. Much like in Britain, the US had Susan B. Anthony (and Elizabeth Cady Stanton) who founded the National Woman's Suffrage Association and Lucy Stone's opposing American Woman's Suffrage Association. Most history books kind of bury the fact these two groups hated each other, and focus on praising Susan B. Anthony, who insisted on becoming President of the merger between the two organizations, once they finally decided to compromise. The rest, as they say, is history. Susan B. Anthony became the heroine to women across the U.S., and Lucy Stone fades into obscurity, despite having done most of the leg-work. The 'Second Wave' of feminism came in the 1960s when Betty Friedan authored The Feminist Mystique. This work, like Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto with Communist literature, is considered to set the bar for every other major feminist publication since then. Honestly, the book itself is not that 'radical', especially considering how radical Friedan was. She had been involved in the Communist Party in the U.S., and was prejudiced against gay men, and refused to support lesbian activists. This is not being said to assail her character, but because it is a fact that she believed, at the time, that gay men came from homes where men spent too much time with their mothers. Her book also criticized pop culture and the depiction of women as happy housewives - which was actually not the case in many instances, nor was it perpetuated in all media. I don't know of the intention behind it was, because Friedan was not a housewife; far from it, but her work was what many consider to be the rebirth of feminism in the United States. So who influenced Betty Friedan? A French author named Simone de Beauvoir. De Beauvoir was a co-founder of the newsletter New Feminist Issues, alongside Christine Delphy. And this, my friend, is where the real beginning of Second-Wave Feminism took root. Christine Delphy pioneered the concepts of the Patriarchy and Privilege as a central theme in the social repression of women. These themes would later be pivotal in the writings and philosophies of feminist authors and leaders like Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Judith Brown, Robin Morgan, Melissa Farley, Catherine MacKinnon, Valerie Solanas, Anne Koedt, and Janice Raymond. All the ideas about male privilege, males oppressing women, patriarchy, and so on, come from authors like these who are pivotal to Second-Wave Feminism. If you read some of the stuff they've written, you might only be angry, but sickened. If you want to say "Oh, it's only a few feminists here and there." then you're not being realistic about what feminism is, which is a blame-males-for-all-problems philosophy. Let me quote something from the NWL's website: Men as a class benefit from male privilege: getting paid more than us, being free from harassment when walking down the street, even getting an extra hour of sleep while we get up early with the kids or stay up into the night folding laundry. Even men we might think of as pro-feminist, or "good guys" do sexist things—not because they don't understand, or are inherently evil, but because they get something positive, some benefits or kickbacks from male supremacy. Men have an authority and legitimacy simply by virtue of being male. They don’t do as much housework or childcare, or send out the thank you cards. They get promoted over us because they don’t ever have to leave early or miss work due to a sick child. Come Thanksgiving most men sit on the couch and watch football while the women clean up—after cooking all day. And we all know we don’t clean for fun. These are just some of the many benefits an individual man might get from male supremacy. So by defending feminism, you are still a sexist, "simply by the virtue of being male". And you never do as much housework or childcare (cuz there are no single fathers), and of course, you never have to miss work due to a sick child. Right? We also know that men use their power over us in both subtle and overt ways to keep us in line—from a smile and a compliment when we conform to the female dress code, to the threat of a beating or worse if we talk back or dare to walk down the street alone at night. In other words, being nice is you subtly asserting your power over women, and simply less overt than beating us senselessly. RIGHT? Men will not give up their male privilege without a fight. After a feminist revolution, no man will be able to use economic necessity to extract compliance from a woman--we will be truly independent. Men won’t give up all the goodies, big and small, that come from male supremacy unless we as women join together and fight. The idea that men have all the power and that it must be taken is not a strawman argument against feminism, and anyone who claims to be a feminist needs to be educated on what feminism is and what kind of philosophy feminists have proposed. What you're looking at is a radical philosophy which marginalizes you as a man and makes you the enemy of all women by default, and I'm not okay with that. But if you wanna stand behind this bullshit, be my guest. Show nested quote + As for the poll you linked, it's surprising, considering how many readers of the Huffington Post are predominantly liberal, but still reinforces my point that you can be pro-equality while not being a feminist.
Only if you refuse to use words by their definitions. The fact is that feminism is simply defined as supporting equal rights for women when compared to men. Anything else is baggage that ends up being a particular qualifier to feminism, and doesn't define feminism as a whole. All you're doing is purposefully misrepresenting the word feminism in an attempt to discredit anyone who identifies as a feminist. It's lazy and intellectually dishonest. Intellectual dishonesty and laziness together are when you claim to support something without doing any research. I'm not sure you realize that nowhere in your post did you disprove the fact that feminism is first and foremost about wanting equality between the sexes on the political, economical and social levels. Your extremely incomplete list of prominent first and second waves feminist thinkers certainly did not disprove it, and your cherry-picking of a few quotes on one feminist organization's website didn't disprove it (in fact, if you take a look at that organization's "what we want" section, you'll see that what they declare they want is precisely equality between the sexes). It's one thing to disagree with the kind of "us vs them" mentality they're pushing forward on their website, but that doesn't change the fact that the ultimate objective is equality. Likewise, I'm not sure where you got the idea that the use of concepts like that of "patriarchy" was somehow antithetical to a desire to achieve equality - precisely by fighting against patriarchal systems. Like Stratos_speAr rightly said, feminism is defined as "the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities", "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes", etc. You're free to disagree with whatever feminist authors and organizations you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the core objective of feminism is to achieve equality between the sexes. I'm not sure the thread's original post warrants transforming this thread into a discussion about what feminism is and isn't, though - this is supposed to be a thread about sexist harassment in video games. the second definition of the word in that dictionary ( which you conveniently left out) is: "organized activity in support of women's rights and interests". that doesn't sound to equal to me. i just can't believe feminism is about equality just because it is called femi-n-ism. you can call it oversimplified misogyny but it's just basic logic for me. It is called feminism because women have historically been, as a group, denied the political, economical and social independence and legitimacy that men have enjoyed. The bulk of the movement has therefore been targeted at addressing the discriminations that women suffer from as women, in order to help them have the same rights and opportunities as men. This doesn't mean that men aren't also affected by, for example, stereotypical gender roles, but it does mean that it is women and not men who have historically and presently been put in a subordinate position because of their gender in patriarchal systems. Since feminism is about achieving equality, though, you'll find plenty of feminist scholars and activists also deconstructing and fighting against discriminations and negative gender roles that apply to men. i have no problem with women having their own movement that deals with women issues, called feminism but every time i see a dude like you pushing the 'woman-man' equality agenda over and over and over i can't help but see you strapping on some C4 and randomly start blowing men up just because ... fuck it and why not; Ex: in a random community, there's like 50 men and 30 women(thing which is totally against the QUOTA) so 20 men must die to achieve equality. you are a scary extremist. it's just how you look to me.
|
On March 19 2015 15:53 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2015 15:19 kwizach wrote:On March 19 2015 15:01 xM(Z wrote:On March 19 2015 14:29 kwizach wrote:On March 19 2015 13:39 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 11:13 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 09:12 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 08:08 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 07:22 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 07:07 Mercy13 wrote: The definition of feminism that I prefer is egalitarianism with a particular focus on women's issues. I'm sure there are plenty of feminists and non-feminists alike who would disagree with this definition, but the term is used so broadly these days that I think there is room for a lot of different definitions that are more or less equally valid.
After all, men benefit too when gender roles are less restrictive. Maybe as gender roles are relaxed they will stop forcing us down those mines : p I just don't like 'egalitarianism' because I'm a fuckin' hipster and it's too mainstream 4 me. I don't think gender roles are inherently 'good' or 'bad', but are just kind of there. Gender roles are only bad when they limit people. Unfortunately, this almost always happens. You could have an interesting discussion about "Is this limiting nature an intrinsic feature of gender roles?", but I'm not going to. You and Plansix are both right and both wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism I mean, I guess I could just link something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FascismAnd you may scroll down to "criticisms of fascism" or click on your feminism link and go down to "critique of feminism". Furthermore, I'm not creating a 'strawman' if I'm addressing actual ideological philosophies that have been proposed by feminist authors. Also, why is the strawperson a 'man'? That's pretty sexist if you ask me. According to this logic, we define an entire group by a certain subset of that group. Not all Muslims are defined by ISIS, or Christians by the Westboro Baptist Church, or atheists by militant Chinese atheists, or men by all other men, or women by all other women, or any other group you can think of. That logic is utterly ridiculous and you are actively doing it by saying, "Some feminists are saying X, so feminism is defined by X!". + Show Spoiler [long post] +Well, since we've evoked ISIS, I guess it's time to talk about Nazis. "Some Nazis are saying X, so Nazism is defined by X!" <- oh damn. So how do we define Nazism? Or Communism? Or philosophy? Well, let's take Communism, for example. Although the roots of Communism are unknown, there are texts like Sir Thomas More's Utopia and Plato's The Republic that describe Communist societies. The idea of a Communist society being a reality outside of monasteries did not materialize until the advent of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. Then you had the writings of Vladimir Ilyich (Lenin) which expanded on the ideas of Marx to create the school of thought called Leninism. The philosophies are actually important here. Anton Drexler's philosophies were incorporated into the newsletters of his organization, which later then became a major political party in Germany. He became a mentor to Adolf Hitler, who then published the same sort of antisemitic rhetoric prescribed by Drexler. Now, I wouldn't compare most feminists to nazis, although some people have combined the terms. The comparison I am making is quite simple: To understand a philosophy, you have to understand the writings of its leaders and founders. If someone does not understand a philosophy and then declares themselves to be a follower of said philosophy, then the meaning of the philosophy does not change based on their predispositions. For example, if someone says they're a Christian, but says they don't believe in the resurrection of Christ, then they're ignorant of their own ineptitude for comprehending the philosophy they purport to follow. If you accept the title of a Christian, you accept the writings of its founders and the philosophy that goes with it. If you decide "Well, people can't judge me", well, think again. Nowhere will any serious Christian take you seriously if you go by this premise. In regards to feminism, the "Plato's The Republic" to modern-day feminism would be like Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and maybe even Alice Paul. And I say 'maybe even' because Alice Paul wanted an organization like the UK's Suffragettes, who were in competition with another women's rights organization in Britain called the Suffragists. Much like in Britain, the US had Susan B. Anthony (and Elizabeth Cady Stanton) who founded the National Woman's Suffrage Association and Lucy Stone's opposing American Woman's Suffrage Association. Most history books kind of bury the fact these two groups hated each other, and focus on praising Susan B. Anthony, who insisted on becoming President of the merger between the two organizations, once they finally decided to compromise. The rest, as they say, is history. Susan B. Anthony became the heroine to women across the U.S., and Lucy Stone fades into obscurity, despite having done most of the leg-work. The 'Second Wave' of feminism came in the 1960s when Betty Friedan authored The Feminist Mystique. This work, like Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto with Communist literature, is considered to set the bar for every other major feminist publication since then. Honestly, the book itself is not that 'radical', especially considering how radical Friedan was. She had been involved in the Communist Party in the U.S., and was prejudiced against gay men, and refused to support lesbian activists. This is not being said to assail her character, but because it is a fact that she believed, at the time, that gay men came from homes where men spent too much time with their mothers. Her book also criticized pop culture and the depiction of women as happy housewives - which was actually not the case in many instances, nor was it perpetuated in all media. I don't know of the intention behind it was, because Friedan was not a housewife; far from it, but her work was what many consider to be the rebirth of feminism in the United States. So who influenced Betty Friedan? A French author named Simone de Beauvoir. De Beauvoir was a co-founder of the newsletter New Feminist Issues, alongside Christine Delphy. And this, my friend, is where the real beginning of Second-Wave Feminism took root. Christine Delphy pioneered the concepts of the Patriarchy and Privilege as a central theme in the social repression of women. These themes would later be pivotal in the writings and philosophies of feminist authors and leaders like Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Judith Brown, Robin Morgan, Melissa Farley, Catherine MacKinnon, Valerie Solanas, Anne Koedt, and Janice Raymond. All the ideas about male privilege, males oppressing women, patriarchy, and so on, come from authors like these who are pivotal to Second-Wave Feminism. If you read some of the stuff they've written, you might only be angry, but sickened. If you want to say "Oh, it's only a few feminists here and there." then you're not being realistic about what feminism is, which is a blame-males-for-all-problems philosophy. Let me quote something from the NWL's website: Men as a class benefit from male privilege: getting paid more than us, being free from harassment when walking down the street, even getting an extra hour of sleep while we get up early with the kids or stay up into the night folding laundry. Even men we might think of as pro-feminist, or "good guys" do sexist things—not because they don't understand, or are inherently evil, but because they get something positive, some benefits or kickbacks from male supremacy. Men have an authority and legitimacy simply by virtue of being male. They don’t do as much housework or childcare, or send out the thank you cards. They get promoted over us because they don’t ever have to leave early or miss work due to a sick child. Come Thanksgiving most men sit on the couch and watch football while the women clean up—after cooking all day. And we all know we don’t clean for fun. These are just some of the many benefits an individual man might get from male supremacy. So by defending feminism, you are still a sexist, "simply by the virtue of being male". And you never do as much housework or childcare (cuz there are no single fathers), and of course, you never have to miss work due to a sick child. Right? We also know that men use their power over us in both subtle and overt ways to keep us in line—from a smile and a compliment when we conform to the female dress code, to the threat of a beating or worse if we talk back or dare to walk down the street alone at night. In other words, being nice is you subtly asserting your power over women, and simply less overt than beating us senselessly. RIGHT? Men will not give up their male privilege without a fight. After a feminist revolution, no man will be able to use economic necessity to extract compliance from a woman--we will be truly independent. Men won’t give up all the goodies, big and small, that come from male supremacy unless we as women join together and fight. The idea that men have all the power and that it must be taken is not a strawman argument against feminism, and anyone who claims to be a feminist needs to be educated on what feminism is and what kind of philosophy feminists have proposed. What you're looking at is a radical philosophy which marginalizes you as a man and makes you the enemy of all women by default, and I'm not okay with that. But if you wanna stand behind this bullshit, be my guest. Show nested quote + As for the poll you linked, it's surprising, considering how many readers of the Huffington Post are predominantly liberal, but still reinforces my point that you can be pro-equality while not being a feminist.
Only if you refuse to use words by their definitions. The fact is that feminism is simply defined as supporting equal rights for women when compared to men. Anything else is baggage that ends up being a particular qualifier to feminism, and doesn't define feminism as a whole. All you're doing is purposefully misrepresenting the word feminism in an attempt to discredit anyone who identifies as a feminist. It's lazy and intellectually dishonest. Intellectual dishonesty and laziness together are when you claim to support something without doing any research. I'm not sure you realize that nowhere in your post did you disprove the fact that feminism is first and foremost about wanting equality between the sexes on the political, economical and social levels. Your extremely incomplete list of prominent first and second waves feminist thinkers certainly did not disprove it, and your cherry-picking of a few quotes on one feminist organization's website didn't disprove it (in fact, if you take a look at that organization's "what we want" section, you'll see that what they declare they want is precisely equality between the sexes). It's one thing to disagree with the kind of "us vs them" mentality they're pushing forward on their website, but that doesn't change the fact that the ultimate objective is equality. Likewise, I'm not sure where you got the idea that the use of concepts like that of "patriarchy" was somehow antithetical to a desire to achieve equality - precisely by fighting against patriarchal systems. Like Stratos_speAr rightly said, feminism is defined as "the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities", "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes", etc. You're free to disagree with whatever feminist authors and organizations you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the core objective of feminism is to achieve equality between the sexes. I'm not sure the thread's original post warrants transforming this thread into a discussion about what feminism is and isn't, though - this is supposed to be a thread about sexist harassment in video games. the second definition of the word in that dictionary ( which you conveniently left out) is: "organized activity in support of women's rights and interests". that doesn't sound to equal to me. i just can't believe feminism is about equality just because it is called femi-n-ism. you can call it oversimplified misogyny but it's just basic logic for me. It is called feminism because women have historically been, as a group, denied the political, economical and social independence and legitimacy that men have enjoyed. The bulk of the movement has therefore been targeted at addressing the discriminations that women suffer from as women, in order to help them have the same rights and opportunities as men. This doesn't mean that men aren't also affected by, for example, stereotypical gender roles, but it does mean that it is women and not men who have historically and presently been put in a subordinate position because of their gender in patriarchal systems. Since feminism is about achieving equality, though, you'll find plenty of feminist scholars and activists also deconstructing and fighting against discriminations and negative gender roles that apply to men. i have no problem with women having their own movement that deals with women issues, called feminism but every time i see a dude like you pushing the 'woman-man' equality agenda over and over and over i can't help but see you strapping on some C4 and randomly start blowing men up just because ... fuck it and why not; Ex: in a random community, there's like 50 men and 30 women(thing which is totally against the QUOTA) so 20 men must die to achieve equality. you are a scary extremist. it's just how you look to me. I'll let that comparison speak for itself with regards to how well you understand feminism and the kind of equality we've defended here.
|
i understand it like ninazerg does. i don't understand you.
|
On March 19 2015 14:29 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2015 13:39 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 11:13 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 09:12 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 08:08 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 19 2015 07:22 ninazerg wrote:On March 19 2015 07:07 Mercy13 wrote: The definition of feminism that I prefer is egalitarianism with a particular focus on women's issues. I'm sure there are plenty of feminists and non-feminists alike who would disagree with this definition, but the term is used so broadly these days that I think there is room for a lot of different definitions that are more or less equally valid.
After all, men benefit too when gender roles are less restrictive. Maybe as gender roles are relaxed they will stop forcing us down those mines : p I just don't like 'egalitarianism' because I'm a fuckin' hipster and it's too mainstream 4 me. I don't think gender roles are inherently 'good' or 'bad', but are just kind of there. Gender roles are only bad when they limit people. Unfortunately, this almost always happens. You could have an interesting discussion about "Is this limiting nature an intrinsic feature of gender roles?", but I'm not going to. You and Plansix are both right and both wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism I mean, I guess I could just link something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FascismAnd you may scroll down to "criticisms of fascism" or click on your feminism link and go down to "critique of feminism". Furthermore, I'm not creating a 'strawman' if I'm addressing actual ideological philosophies that have been proposed by feminist authors. Also, why is the strawperson a 'man'? That's pretty sexist if you ask me. According to this logic, we define an entire group by a certain subset of that group. Not all Muslims are defined by ISIS, or Christians by the Westboro Baptist Church, or atheists by militant Chinese atheists, or men by all other men, or women by all other women, or any other group you can think of. That logic is utterly ridiculous and you are actively doing it by saying, "Some feminists are saying X, so feminism is defined by X!". + Show Spoiler [long post] +Well, since we've evoked ISIS, I guess it's time to talk about Nazis. "Some Nazis are saying X, so Nazism is defined by X!" <- oh damn. So how do we define Nazism? Or Communism? Or philosophy? Well, let's take Communism, for example. Although the roots of Communism are unknown, there are texts like Sir Thomas More's Utopia and Plato's The Republic that describe Communist societies. The idea of a Communist society being a reality outside of monasteries did not materialize until the advent of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. Then you had the writings of Vladimir Ilyich (Lenin) which expanded on the ideas of Marx to create the school of thought called Leninism. The philosophies are actually important here. Anton Drexler's philosophies were incorporated into the newsletters of his organization, which later then became a major political party in Germany. He became a mentor to Adolf Hitler, who then published the same sort of antisemitic rhetoric prescribed by Drexler. Now, I wouldn't compare most feminists to nazis, although some people have combined the terms. The comparison I am making is quite simple: To understand a philosophy, you have to understand the writings of its leaders and founders. If someone does not understand a philosophy and then declares themselves to be a follower of said philosophy, then the meaning of the philosophy does not change based on their predispositions. For example, if someone says they're a Christian, but says they don't believe in the resurrection of Christ, then they're ignorant of their own ineptitude for comprehending the philosophy they purport to follow. If you accept the title of a Christian, you accept the writings of its founders and the philosophy that goes with it. If you decide "Well, people can't judge me", well, think again. Nowhere will any serious Christian take you seriously if you go by this premise. In regards to feminism, the "Plato's The Republic" to modern-day feminism would be like Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and maybe even Alice Paul. And I say 'maybe even' because Alice Paul wanted an organization like the UK's Suffragettes, who were in competition with another women's rights organization in Britain called the Suffragists. Much like in Britain, the US had Susan B. Anthony (and Elizabeth Cady Stanton) who founded the National Woman's Suffrage Association and Lucy Stone's opposing American Woman's Suffrage Association. Most history books kind of bury the fact these two groups hated each other, and focus on praising Susan B. Anthony, who insisted on becoming President of the merger between the two organizations, once they finally decided to compromise. The rest, as they say, is history. Susan B. Anthony became the heroine to women across the U.S., and Lucy Stone fades into obscurity, despite having done most of the leg-work. The 'Second Wave' of feminism came in the 1960s when Betty Friedan authored The Feminist Mystique. This work, like Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto with Communist literature, is considered to set the bar for every other major feminist publication since then. Honestly, the book itself is not that 'radical', especially considering how radical Friedan was. She had been involved in the Communist Party in the U.S., and was prejudiced against gay men, and refused to support lesbian activists. This is not being said to assail her character, but because it is a fact that she believed, at the time, that gay men came from homes where men spent too much time with their mothers. Her book also criticized pop culture and the depiction of women as happy housewives - which was actually not the case in many instances, nor was it perpetuated in all media. I don't know of the intention behind it was, because Friedan was not a housewife; far from it, but her work was what many consider to be the rebirth of feminism in the United States. So who influenced Betty Friedan? A French author named Simone de Beauvoir. De Beauvoir was a co-founder of the newsletter New Feminist Issues, alongside Christine Delphy. And this, my friend, is where the real beginning of Second-Wave Feminism took root. Christine Delphy pioneered the concepts of the Patriarchy and Privilege as a central theme in the social repression of women. These themes would later be pivotal in the writings and philosophies of feminist authors and leaders like Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Judith Brown, Robin Morgan, Melissa Farley, Catherine MacKinnon, Valerie Solanas, Anne Koedt, and Janice Raymond. All the ideas about male privilege, males oppressing women, patriarchy, and so on, come from authors like these who are pivotal to Second-Wave Feminism. If you read some of the stuff they've written, you might only be angry, but sickened. If you want to say "Oh, it's only a few feminists here and there." then you're not being realistic about what feminism is, which is a blame-males-for-all-problems philosophy. Let me quote something from the NWL's website: Men as a class benefit from male privilege: getting paid more than us, being free from harassment when walking down the street, even getting an extra hour of sleep while we get up early with the kids or stay up into the night folding laundry. Even men we might think of as pro-feminist, or "good guys" do sexist things—not because they don't understand, or are inherently evil, but because they get something positive, some benefits or kickbacks from male supremacy. Men have an authority and legitimacy simply by virtue of being male. They don’t do as much housework or childcare, or send out the thank you cards. They get promoted over us because they don’t ever have to leave early or miss work due to a sick child. Come Thanksgiving most men sit on the couch and watch football while the women clean up—after cooking all day. And we all know we don’t clean for fun. These are just some of the many benefits an individual man might get from male supremacy. So by defending feminism, you are still a sexist, "simply by the virtue of being male". And you never do as much housework or childcare (cuz there are no single fathers), and of course, you never have to miss work due to a sick child. Right? We also know that men use their power over us in both subtle and overt ways to keep us in line—from a smile and a compliment when we conform to the female dress code, to the threat of a beating or worse if we talk back or dare to walk down the street alone at night. In other words, being nice is you subtly asserting your power over women, and simply less overt than beating us senselessly. RIGHT? Men will not give up their male privilege without a fight. After a feminist revolution, no man will be able to use economic necessity to extract compliance from a woman--we will be truly independent. Men won’t give up all the goodies, big and small, that come from male supremacy unless we as women join together and fight. The idea that men have all the power and that it must be taken is not a strawman argument against feminism, and anyone who claims to be a feminist needs to be educated on what feminism is and what kind of philosophy feminists have proposed. What you're looking at is a radical philosophy which marginalizes you as a man and makes you the enemy of all women by default, and I'm not okay with that. But if you wanna stand behind this bullshit, be my guest. Show nested quote + As for the poll you linked, it's surprising, considering how many readers of the Huffington Post are predominantly liberal, but still reinforces my point that you can be pro-equality while not being a feminist.
Only if you refuse to use words by their definitions. The fact is that feminism is simply defined as supporting equal rights for women when compared to men. Anything else is baggage that ends up being a particular qualifier to feminism, and doesn't define feminism as a whole. All you're doing is purposefully misrepresenting the word feminism in an attempt to discredit anyone who identifies as a feminist. It's lazy and intellectually dishonest. Intellectual dishonesty and laziness together are when you claim to support something without doing any research. I'm not sure you realize that nowhere in your post did you disprove the fact that feminism is first and foremost about wanting equality between the sexes on the political, economical and social levels. Your extremely incomplete list of prominent first and second waves feminist thinkers certainly did not disprove it, and your cherry-picking of a few quotes on one feminist organization's website didn't disprove it (in fact, if you take a look at that organization's "what we want" section, you'll see that what they declare they want is precisely equality between the sexes). It's one thing to disagree with the kind of "us vs them" mentality they're pushing forward on their website, but that doesn't change the fact that the ultimate objective is equality. Likewise, I'm not sure where you got the idea that the use of concepts like that of "patriarchy" was somehow antithetical to a desire to achieve equality - precisely by fighting against patriarchal systems. Like Stratos_speAr rightly said, feminism is defined as "the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities", "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes", etc. You're free to disagree with whatever feminist authors and organizations you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the core objective of feminism is to achieve equality between the sexes. I'm not sure the thread's original post warrants transforming this thread into a discussion about what feminism is and isn't, though - this is supposed to be a thread about sexist harassment in video games.
...
I'm done. Feminists are right. You guys are stupid.
User was warned for this post
|
On March 09 2015 05:03 neptunusfisk wrote:Ok so let's quote this brilliant blog post http://iangent.blogspot.se/2013/10/the-petrie-multiplier-why-attack-on.html"Let's say that we have 20% women and 80% men in Tech. And that 20% of people make inappropriate remarks or other sexist moves towards people of the opposite gender. So 20% of men make sexist remarks to women, and 20% of women make sexist remarks to men. Let's start with 50 people. Here's a picture, where the darker squares are people who make sexist remarks and the lighter circles are people who don't. Pink is for men, and blue for women. Given the 20% ratios, we have 40 men and 10 women, and 8 of the 40 men sometimes make sexist remarks towards women, while 2 of the 10 women make sexist remarks to men. I can't emphasise enough that there is no difference in sexism between the genders. Now we'll let some sexist remarks start flowing. I'll indicate this by an arrow from one of the dark square boxes to one of the people of the opposite gender. The first one is a man (near the bottom), being sexist towards a woman (near the top). The second is a woman on the right being sexist to a man. The lengths of arrows have no significance, but are just chosen by the graph layout program. Let's see what happens when we have had 70 sexist remarks made. The luckiest man receives zero sexist remarks. But in fact he doesn't need to be very lucky, because most men receive no remarks. There is an unlucky guy (bottom right) who receives three sexist remarks, as it happens from the same woman. That is not acceptable, and she should stop. But that's the unluckiest guy out of 40. The luckiest woman receives four sexist remarks. So let's get this straight: the luckiest woman out of 10 experiences worse sexism than the unluckiest man out of 40. Of course it gets worse. The unluckiest woman experiences nine incidents. On average? The mean number of sexist remarks per man is 0.35, while for women it is 5.6. There's a gender disparity of 4:1 but the disparity in experience is 16:1. Men are no more sexist than women in this thought experiment, but women's experience is sixteen times worse than the men's." Very well said. Immature people will react harshly to the idea that some people (women) generally have worse experiences than them when it comes to this, but that's simply because they simply don't know what it's like to be a woman in a male-dominated internet space and lack the empathy to understand.
"It happens to both people!! Why is this documentary being made?" is willingly ignorant nonsense. I've been involved in gaming communities and vile places like 4chan (tits or gtfo) for a decade now, and I've never been attacked for being a man before or have been told that I don't belong in the community because of what's in my pants.
On March 19 2015 09:08 Sandvich wrote: As for you "men's issues", the draft and manual labor immediately stick out as being irrelevant nonissues, as least in America. With the way we run our military, the draft will almost certainly never be called again. As for male predominance in manual labor, no one is forcing men into these jobs. Society at large isn't pigeonholing which jobs males can do, oppressing them by making them work in manual labor. You'd never hear woman snidely telling a man to go back to the factory or mine where he belongs, whereas you might actually hear the inverse directed at women (Especially when it comes to making games!)
Also very well said.
|
This thread is a perfect example of how lacking humanities education is. Hopefully the storm has passed.
|
Should have women-only servers in CS:GO / LoL / DOTA2, would be a fun social experiment.
|
On March 19 2015 16:39 DemigodcelpH wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2015 05:03 neptunusfisk wrote:Ok so let's quote this brilliant blog post http://iangent.blogspot.se/2013/10/the-petrie-multiplier-why-attack-on.html"Let's say that we have 20% women and 80% men in Tech. And that 20% of people make inappropriate remarks or other sexist moves towards people of the opposite gender. So 20% of men make sexist remarks to women, and 20% of women make sexist remarks to men. Let's start with 50 people. Here's a picture, where the darker squares are people who make sexist remarks and the lighter circles are people who don't. Pink is for men, and blue for women. Given the 20% ratios, we have 40 men and 10 women, and 8 of the 40 men sometimes make sexist remarks towards women, while 2 of the 10 women make sexist remarks to men. I can't emphasise enough that there is no difference in sexism between the genders. Now we'll let some sexist remarks start flowing. I'll indicate this by an arrow from one of the dark square boxes to one of the people of the opposite gender. The first one is a man (near the bottom), being sexist towards a woman (near the top). The second is a woman on the right being sexist to a man. The lengths of arrows have no significance, but are just chosen by the graph layout program. Let's see what happens when we have had 70 sexist remarks made. The luckiest man receives zero sexist remarks. But in fact he doesn't need to be very lucky, because most men receive no remarks. There is an unlucky guy (bottom right) who receives three sexist remarks, as it happens from the same woman. That is not acceptable, and she should stop. But that's the unluckiest guy out of 40. The luckiest woman receives four sexist remarks. So let's get this straight: the luckiest woman out of 10 experiences worse sexism than the unluckiest man out of 40. Of course it gets worse. The unluckiest woman experiences nine incidents. On average? The mean number of sexist remarks per man is 0.35, while for women it is 5.6. There's a gender disparity of 4:1 but the disparity in experience is 16:1. Men are no more sexist than women in this thought experiment, but women's experience is sixteen times worse than the men's." Very well said. Immature people will react harshly to the idea that some people (women) generally have worse experiences than them when it comes to this, but that's simply because they simply don't know what it's like to be a woman in a male-dominated internet space and lack the empathy to understand. "It happens to both people!! Why is this documentary being made?" is willingly ignorant nonsense. I've been involved in gaming communities and vile places like 4chan (tits or gtfo) for a decade now, and I've never been attacked for being a man before or have been told that I don't belong in the community because of what's in my pants. Show nested quote +On March 19 2015 09:08 Sandvich wrote: As for you "men's issues", the draft and manual labor immediately stick out as being irrelevant nonissues, as least in America. With the way we run our military, the draft will almost certainly never be called again. As for male predominance in manual labor, no one is forcing men into these jobs. Society at large isn't pigeonholing which jobs males can do, oppressing them by making them work in manual labor. You'd never hear woman snidely telling a man to go back to the factory or mine where he belongs, whereas you might actually hear the inverse directed at women (Especially when it comes to making games!)
Also very well said.
I think there is a small confusion here. The problem is not that females cant make games or are being said not to make games (if that is the case, Id support the female side). The problem is that females are demanding that games made by men have to be directed more towards females.
If a woman wants to invest her money, and make games for women... awesome. Why would I care? If a male wants to invest in making games for women... awesome. Why would I care? If a man wants to invest in games made for men... seems its not awesome, as females start attacking you for making games for Men.
The problem is, that anywhere where you look, this double standard is there.
Please DO NOT LET WORDING CONFUSE YOU. There are facts, and then there are ways to present the facts.
And using claims like "95% of games have a male protagonist and portraits females as ....... " are not telling the full story, but are a form of propaganda.
If you consider that 95% of the people who buy games are males, it kinda makes sense that 95% of them are oriented to men.
We could say that the cosmetics industry is pro-females because there are much more products for females than males.... Well, males apparently dont care. Please, note that I dont think women are whinny little girls, they just fight for what they want, but I think using manipulation and half truths is a very dishonest way to do so, and if there is one thing I dont forgive is lies or dishonesty. That is the reason this topic is so... personal I guess, to me.
|
|
|
|