Why shouldn't I hate feminists?

[Naive1000]

I don't know, who? Here you are talking to a feminist who agrees that both of these issues are serious and deserve consideration. I've offered a few ways to make that happen, there are probably more. Instead of continuing that conversation, you're bringing up a bad experience from years ago.

No I'm clarifying the reason for my opinion. And it's true we are talking but I consider you a rational feminist but are you one of the people I can talk to about changing the policies and laws? Those are the people I have a a problem with.

 

[bookitty]

No I'm clarifying the reason for my opinion. And it's true we are talking but I consider you a rational feminist but are you one of the people I can talk to about changing the policies and laws? Those are the people I have a a problem with.

I'm a fairly active activist, so yes.

Here's a weird thing about people - those who rant the most often do the least real world stuff. They don't thoroughly research issues and politicians, they don't write letters, they don't find smaller local causes to champion. They just find a hobby horse and ride it around.

 

[Naive1000]

I'm a fairly active activist, so yes.

Here's a weird thing about people - those who rant the most often do the least real world stuff. They don't thoroughly research issues and politicians, they don't write letters, they don't find smaller local causes to champion. They just find a hobby horse and ride it around.

I use to be more active. I use to do more. I have more problems doing it now. Even on the Internet I'm only active here and one other place. Seem to care less too . But, just recently I was talking with Keli Goff on some of these subjects, she's another rational feminist, so I'm still trying to do something.

 

[bookitty]

I use to be more active. I use to do more. I have more problems doing it now. Even on the Internet I'm only active here and one other place. Seem to care less too . But, just recently I was talking with Keli Goff on some of these subjects, she's another rational feminist, so I'm still trying to do something.

You know, our understanding of depression and treatment has grown so much in even just the last 10 years. There are many people who could benefit greatly from this but aren't getting the treatment they need for a variety of reasons. Social stigma (which may affect men more than women, I would need to research more) and availability of health care in general are the two biggest.

Both of those issues need empathetic advocates but you don't need feminism to be one, and you probably wont find much fight from us either. (No promises, this is the internet.) You also don't need to be an advocate if you don't feel like it. Nor do you need to apologize. Caring about an issue doesn't make you beholden to it.

 

[Naive1000]

I guess I'm a victim of my own male stereotypes. Men are suppose to do great things, be protectors and providers, and fight for altruism. At one point I aspired to those goals. Now I aspire to getting out of bed .

ETA: Thought you might like this. Feminism, has been said, is the radical notion that women are people. Masculism is the radical notion that men have an intrinsic value irrespective of the value society can extract from them.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

You know I find it odd that I'm some how trawling the Internet, when I find things that might disagree with your perception of feminism. I was on sites and in discussion with the women who write the books, influence the laws being written, and write the articles about what feminism stands for. How is finding the feminists that are egalitarian more valid than talking to the ones actually influencing the world?

Your mistake, in my view, is that you're dealing with a big, wildly varied, blobby thing and you keep wanting to make it one simple thing that you can stick in a nice neat box. So you trawl and cherry-pick for examples to suit that end and you think that this justifies chopping off all the bits of the big, wildly-varied blobby thing that don't fit in your box.

"Feminism" as a word has been stretched so far by various people who call themselves feminist that it's lost nearly all meaning. I've been told by academic feminists that any discourse touching on issues of sex and power counts as feminist in the modern academy.

More than anything else what you need to do is to let go of the idea that you need to put feminism in a box with a label. It's too big and blobby for that. What you need to do is dissect it up along useful lines of cleavage and put the segments in different boxes. Trying to put Helene Cixous, Mary Wollstonecraft, Bookitty and myself all in one box is unproductive, to put it mildly.

Or to answer the thread title, you shouldn't "hate feminists" because "hating feminists" is as silly as "hating medium-sized things" or "hating things that aren't radishes". It's far too big a category to usefully have a unitary relationship with.

 

[Naive1000]

...[snip]... More than anything else what you need to do is to let go of the idea that you need to put feminism in a box with a label. It's too big and blobby for that. What you need to do is dissect it up along useful lines of cleavage and put the segments in different boxes. Trying to put Helene Cixous, Mary Wollstonecraft, Bookitty and myself all in one box is unproductive, to put it mildly.

Or to answer the thread title, you shouldn't "hate feminists" because "hating feminists" is as silly as "hating medium-sized things" or "hating things that aren't radishes". It's far too big a category to usefully have a unitary relationship with.

Obviously, you're sexist [see highlight] so I can't trust your opinion .

On a more serious note, I've already said I don't hate feminism or it's original premise. I'm just weary of where many feminists in charge are pushing it.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Obviously, you're sexist [see highlight] so I can't trust your opinion .

On a more serious note, I've already said I don't hate feminism or it's original premise. I'm just weary of where many feminists in charge are pushing it.

Okay, so let's see if we can slice this sucker up along those lines.

Can you identify specific doctrines, arguments or groups which we should "hate/"be weary of"/"reject as factually incorrect"/"reject as morally wrong"/whatever?

Can you identify specific doctrines, arguments or groups which you don't think we should hate?

If so let's put some labels on those groups and put them in their own boxes.

 

[Naive1000]

@Kevin_Lowe:I think I already pointed out one which started this thread, but I'll look to get you more information. The response to that was pretty much apathy. So, I'm not sure what doing this is really worth.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

@Kevin_Lowe:I think I already pointed out one which started this thread, but I'll look to get you more information. The response to that was pretty much apathy. So, I'm not sure what doing this is really worth.

I think you won't get much in the way of argument if you put feminists advocating genocide in a box and stick a label on them. So we can do that. We'll make up a box called genocide-feminism and put everyone in it who advocates for the mass murder of existing adult males. I think most of us can agree that this box is full of loonies who would be dangerous if they weren't completely incapable of realising their genocidal fantasies. (I had a mischievous impulse to describe them as "impotent" but I resisted it).

Let's have another box for the selective abortion or infanticide advocates and call that female-sex-selection-feminism. Everyone who argues for the use of sex selection techniques to reduce the percentage of males in the population to below the "natural" rate (that which arises from births and deaths not specifically arranged so as to alter the sex ratio) goes in that box.

(If the claim that viciously misogynistic societies spontaneously reformed when the male/female ratio dropped below 30/70 turned out to be true then I wouldn't be categorically against such sex selection. If it turned out that you could fix the DRC and Afghanistan just by tweaking the sex ratio of the population I'd be open to that as a long-term solution. However I'd want to see more evidence than a random, anonymous poster's claim in the comments thread of an extraordinarily partisan blog to say the least).

What else is there that you think we should hate?

 

[Naive1000]

@Kevin_Lowe: I see, you don't like labels. So why are you wearing one? Obviously, by your logic there's no reason to dislike Nazis or Racists or say sexists. Nothing wrong with those groups.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

@Kevin_Lowe: I see, you don't like labels. So why are you wearing one? Obviously, by your logic there's no reason to dislike Nazis or Racists or say sexists. Nothing wrong with those groups.

I've been depressed myself in the past so I'm willing to give you some slack. Post again some time when you want to have a constructive discussion.

 

[Naive1000]

Someone said I should ask feminists themselves what they believe, so I thought I would.

Just a question in general, do you agree with this and why:

FAQ: What is “sexism”?
Short definition: Sexism is both discrimination based on gender and the attitudes, stereotypes, and the cultural elements that promote this discrimination. Given the historical and continued imbalance of power, where men as a class are privileged over women as a class (see male privilege), an important, but often overlooked, part of the term is that sexism is prejudice plus power. Thus feminists reject the notion that women can be sexist towards men because women lack the institutional power that men have. (Link)

 

[tyr_13]

I'm sorry, but, FEMINISM.

Really, you can go around all day finding conflicting arguments from people identifying themselves or their ideas as 'feminism' and yes, it's a problem but what you can't do is claim that therefore feminism and feminist ideas are meaningless. Yes, the terms do get abused, mangled, and outright hijacked. This isn't unique to feminism.

I should point out that I agree with your overall argument that 'feminism' is a very broad label, and thus hating it isn't exactly useful. I disagree so far as it being 'meaningless'.

 

[arthwollipot]

Just a question in general, do you agree with this and why:

I disagree with this bit:

...Thus feminists reject the notion that women can be sexist towards men because women lack the institutional power that men have.

Some feminists reject the notion. Not all. No feminist of my direct acquaintance rejects the notion, so at best the author can only be talking about a subset of feminists.

 

[epepke]

I should point out that I agree with your overall argument that 'feminism' is a very broad label, and thus hating it isn't exactly useful. I disagree so far as it being 'meaningless'.

You do realize that throwing a dictionary at someone who studied feminism for more than half a decade and read at least 250 feminist books is a bit absurd, don't you? Especially given that it's the same dictionary that defines atheism, albeit with an "archaic" caveat as WICKEDNESS, in the first definition?

I might conceivably be interested in a discussion about why I do, in fact, find the label meaningless, and why I think that insisting that it is meaningful is far more destructive than constructive, should you decide to participate in one. I really don't have a lot of interest in puerile hurling.

 

[bookitty]

Someone said I should ask feminists themselves what they believe, so I thought I would.

Just a question in general, do you agree with this and why:

Wow. Privilege.

I've ridden that merrie-go-round in this forum until I was dizzy. Privilege is a really weird concept. It's very difficult to discuss without everyone getting all defensive. In Western society it is possible for individual women to be in a position of power and to use sexist attitudes against male subordinates. In general, men still have greater social power because of prevailing sexist attitudes. But that's just so general as to be meaningless.

This is the very, very best article on privilege. If you're collecting things that feminists have written, I highly recommend that you add this one, especially the parable, to your repertoire.

https://sindeloke.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/37/

 

[Naive1000]

Christmas

Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

Sorry, I'm heading out of town for the holidays, so we'll have to continue our discussion later. Just wanted to say that I hope everyone has a very happy holiday season. And, for those that don't celebrate Christmas, A Happy Holiday to you instead!

 

[bookitty]

Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

Sorry, I'm heading out of town for the holidays, so we'll have to continue our discussion later. Just wanted to say that I hope everyone has a very happy holiday season. And, for those that don't celebrate Christmas, A Happy Holiday to you instead!

Happy season of joy, peace and goodwill to you and yours. It's been fun!

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Wow. Privilege.

I've ridden that merrie-go-round in this forum until I was dizzy. Privilege is a really weird concept. It's very difficult to discuss without everyone getting all defensive. In Western society it is possible for individual women to be in a position of power and to use sexist attitudes against male subordinates. In general, men still have greater social power because of prevailing sexist attitudes. But that's just so general as to be meaningless.

This is the very, very best article on privilege. If you're collecting things that feminists have written, I highly recommend that you add this one, especially the parable, to your repertoire.

https://sindeloke.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/37/

I'd very much like to see the highlighted claim cashed out in observational terms, so that we could see exactly what observations justify it and exactly what potential future observations would allow us to revise our belief to say "in general, men and women now have equal social power in a given sphere". I'm not demanding that you personally do this but until someone does it the argument boils down to "well I feel like overall I get a bum deal, and that's evidence enough!". (Cue boilerplate list of feminist grievances).

I tend to think social movements work better with clearly defined goals. Demanding an eight hour working day is nice and specific. Demanding an end to an amorphous "male privilege" which is explained in terms of feelings and parables rather than hard data is going to be a much harder sell.