Why shouldn't I hate feminists?

[bookitty]

You are wrong! It very clearly said, "listen and believe". I dont see how you missed that point but here it is for you to read again:

If you’re male and a woman says “this maquette is a perfect example of why women don’t read comics,” listen and believe her.
Again you are blatantly wrong. I quoted the article giving three specific examples of just "one" person being the authority only because of a privilege differential so I don't know why you think it is reasonable to claim otherwise.

Now you are replacing the appeal to authority argument with an argumentum ad populum fallacy. Not only is it another blatant fallacy it isn't even at all what the author said, you are just making stuff of up.

I never decided that because I know women that read comics that I could "dismiss the idea that most women get justifiably tired of things like Starfire becoming a braindamaged pinup"! I decided that because I know women that read comics it is false to say they don't. It's like you didn't even consider what the article I was responding to had really said before you jumped to conclusions about me.

What's wrong with listen and believe? It doesn't say "Listen, believe and change everything!!" It only says listen and believe. If a person in a wheelchair says "It sure is a drag to miss out on cool restaurants because I can't get up the steps." listen and believe them. Accept that being able-bodied has given you some advantages and that, at that moment, you weren't aware of how it was for them. Don't say "Well, most restaurants have steps." or "Why do you want to go places where you can't get in?" or "There are laws about wheelchair accessibility, I'm sure that doesn't happen very often." or "Sucks to be you but why should restaurants have to cater to your needs." or "At least you can eat in restaurants, children are starving in third world countries!"

It doesn't mean that you need to start a campaign for increased wheelchair accessibility or offer to carry them up the steps. If they're your friend, you might want to call ahead and see about accessibility before you invite them somewhere but only because that would be nice. You, as an individual, are not responsible for this social disadvantage and your advantage is not the problem. Just listen, believe and don't make it worse.

 

[tyr_13]

Well I'd say listen and evaluate.

Some women like looking at women with big breasts, so if they said, "women stopped reading because they made Firestar's breasts small," I should not just believe her. I've heard many reasons given why women don't play video games (which isn't true by the way, they are a valuable demographic), some of which make sense and some of which were to be blunt, stupid. Some contradicted others.

So while I listen to and value such input, I don't give it special weight because the person saying it is a woman. After I've listened, the argument must still stand up on it's own. There are exceptions, as obviously every person gets to tell you how they feel and be believed.

 

[bookitty]

Well I'd say listen and evaluate.

Some women like looking at women with big breasts, so if they said, "women stopped reading because they made Firestar's breasts small," I should not just believe her. I've heard many reasons given why women don't play video games (which isn't true by the way, they are a valuable demographic), some of which make sense and some of which were to be blunt, stupid. Some contradicted others.

So while I listen to and value such input, I don't give it special weight because the person saying it is a woman. After I've listened, the argument must still stand up on it's own. There are exceptions, as obviously every person gets to tell you how they feel and be believed.

Dang it. Listen and evaluate is way better. Wish I'd thought of that.

 

[curi0us]

(I wrote this last night but fell asleep before I had time to fix the typos and post it and now reading Bookitty's reply to Tyr I am not sure what Bookitty's position actually is but my core arguments against the privilege article still stand.)

What's wrong with listen and believe? It doesn't say "Listen, believe and change everything!!" It only says listen and believe.

To believe is to accept as true. I don't understand why you have such a hard time seeing how insane what you are advocating actually is. The statement "women don't read comics" is just obviously not true so it would be silly for me to believe it.

What if you apply your same privilege logic to violent crime and someone like Mumia Abu Jamal. According to you scheme a white person would have to "believe" him when he says he innocent. Do you not see how sick that is?

Or do you still think he is innocent?

(There is a history here I am wondering if you ever got the full story of. Did you ever really investigate what people like Angela Davis and George Jackson wrote. Susan Brownmiller's criticism of Jackson was 100% accurate but every feminist I've known just read the totally dishonest response of Davis and mindlessly believed it.)

Naive1000 started this thread off with some really disturbing quotes from some radical feminists that you are now saying a man would have to believe because of privilege. I don't think you have thought through your privilege theory at all as your rhetoric shows you can't even conceive of a man or white person having to deal with bigotry from a woman or black person.

You need a way to differentiate false statements from true statements. Rather than having a methodology for actually doing that the privilege scheme sets up a hierarchy of authority in which some statements are considered inherently true simply because of a persons status within the hierarchy.

If a person in a wheelchair says "It sure is a drag to miss out on cool restaurants because I can't get up the steps." *listen and believe them. *

This statement is very different from the one I was reacting to and you are missing the point completely. ALL types of people will sometimes say things that are not true and nobody should be demanding that everyone just automatically believe anyone. Giving examples of true statements doesn't alter my position that some statements are untrue and should not be believed.

Accept that being able-bodied has given you some advantages and that, at that moment, you weren't aware of how it was for them.

I think your phrasing is very interesting, "accept that . . . You weren't aware of how it was for them." Do you think you are aware of how it was for me? Tell me about my life and how you know it so well.

Did you stop reading at the paragraph above? It follows with (bolding mine)

That doesn't fit your " women can't be sexist and blacks can't be racist "

Except the theory as she wrote it (and you defended it) has no actual consideration for the possibility of women being sexist. The privilege theory that she presents just assumes women/minorities will always make true statements and that any objection from a man/white is due to them being blinded by their privilege.

The comic thing is something that gets tossed around by female comic readers all the time. Even the ones who aren't feminist.

I think this is an odd line for you to even try to pursue but I will play along. Long ago the founder of Wimmen's comix Trina Robbins got me my first job working for the alternative comic book publisher/distributor Last Gasp and I think you really haven't considered how much variety there is within the comics world. Comics are just a medium for telling stories like books. If someone has an issue with a particular comic being sexist condemning all comics for that single example is as ridiculous as condemning all books for a single example of a bad book.

Remember when Catwoman came out? (Sometime around 1993, I think.)

LOL, no. In 1993 I had five different friends who were regular comic readers and AFAIk none of them were reading Cat Woman and I never heard anything about it that peaked my interest. Do you know how many different comics were coming out every month? I would guess more then 300, nobody read them all.

At first she was a super-duper sexy chick in a fairly useful costume. By #10, she was tits. Huuuuuuuuge tits, like "how the hell are you going to jump across the rooftops with those things?" type of tits. It was annoying.

Because the super-duper sexy burglar/prostitute chick wearing a skin tight cat suit jumping across roof tops fighting crime was totally reasonable until her tits got too big?

I found an online store that has the comic book covers and going by the covers Cat woman's costume didn't change and she was pretty busty early on and I don't see the change you are describing. Are you sure about your timeline?
http://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=100201

Regardless of what was going on with Cat Woman If one (or a few) comics have hyper-sexualized representations that you don't like that doesn't give you any right to demonize the whole medium. Just because some women (and men) agree with you doesn't mean you are an authority on what all women thought about it.

The Batman series is one of the few to offer complicated female villains with back stories that make them empathetic (Poison Ivy, amazing.)

You are seriously complaining about there being a female super VILLAIN gap?! Since villains by design are evil complaining about women being underrepresented in that realm is really weird. IMO very few male villains in the traditional super hero comics have any real depth either so while I think it is silly realm to even argue about I am in disagreement with your assessment as well.

They don't need to look like Morggana the kissing bandit to be interesting. But as soon as the sales drop - tits.

Do you have reference for the "sales drop - tits" claim because based upon the covers it didn't happen like you said.

Super hero comics often do tend to have hyper idealized bodies (male and female) but here is a online list of someone's Top 20 favorite female villains and I don't think any of them look like Morganna:
http://www.comicvine.com/myvine/harleyquinnhawkgirl/top-20-female-villains/75-13921/

Morganna for comparison:
http://photos.lucywho.com/morganna-roberts-photos-t4374108.html

This isn't uncommon. The most recent brouhaha was over DC's redo of Starfire. *(of course, they never should have given her to Scott Lobdell. *He's pretty good with angst-ridden guys, not so good with complicated female characters. *IMHO.)

I would say far worse then any comic you can come up with was famous mainstream literature that idealized male rapists. Books like Gone With The Wind, The Fountainhead, The Story of O all demonstrate far worse attitudes then anything you will find in the comics you mentioned. The Fontainhead is explicitly stated by the author as being about the "ideal man" and then he commits an intentionally cruel rape. I would 100% agree with the notion that these works show there is something very, very wrong with male society except they were all written by women and they were all presented to me in a positive way by different girlfriends of mine in the past. The Fountainhead and The Story of O were given to me as gifts by girlfriends who even though they had taken feminism classes just couldn't agree with it's theories about sexuality. So which do you think is more significant, an obviously unrealistic comic book full of hyper-stylized imagery that included a heroine with overly large tits or a story explicitly written about an "ideal" man who rapes his feminine interest not out of passion but out of scorn?

So when she says something like that, she isn't saying "No girls will read your comics!" but more like "Really? This again? Don't you know that tons of women read comics and that this sort of nonsense has filled up chatrooms, bog posts and private conversations for like 30 years?"

Your rewrite is radically different then what was actually said:

If you’re male and a woman says “this maquette is a perfect example of why women don’t read comics,” listen and believe her.
1)Your rewrite says "don't you know tons of women read comics" which totally contradicts the original statement that "women don't read comics".
2)You left out the part that says if your male and a woman says it you have to "believe" her.
3)Your version also includes three question marks so there is implicit room for a response rather then insistence upon automatic submission.

Since you could see it needed to be drastically altered to be reasonable why not just acknowledge that the original statement was wrong instead of defending it?

 

[Meed]

I agree that the weirdness of privilege does make it sort of a trump card and it has been abused in that capacity. I disagree that the entire idea is therefore invalid.

I completely agree with this. I think privilege is a valid thing to talk about and is a thing that can be identified with evidence. Unfortunately some feminists seem to use it as a way of dismissing male opinions that they disagree with. I'm following a particularly frustrating feminism discussion on another forum where disagreements with the majority opinions tends to be met with something like:

"Your privilege is showing" / "maleprivilege.txt" / "You need to check your privilege"
"Mansplaining" / "Thanks for the mansplaination"
"Great, another 'What about the mens?' post"
"[Insert item from the Derailing for Dummies grab-bag and claim the disagreement falls under it]"
^That last one can be used to fit almost any objection to a claim/opinion, with it's many categories.

The offending disagreements are, for the most part, from people who consider themselves feminist. Some (not all) of the more misandrist/bullying feminist posters are men.

I don't bring this up to imply it's representative of all or most feminists (every group has it's jerks and dummies including atheists, 9/11 conspiracy debunkers and so on), just to argue that certain terms, especially if they are gendered, should be used wisely. Because they're easy to abuse and can trigger negative associations in those of us who've been around feminists who happen to be jerks.

I realize women have to put up with a lot more sexist crap than men do and that it's somewhat understandable and probably cathartic to dish it back. But 'two wrongs don't make a right' and all that, plus it potentially ruffles up the non-jerk-men, who are more likely to be reading feminist discussions anyway.

Social groups have various advantages/disadvantages over other groups. Where advantages are granted by society and not taken by the individual, it is privilege. Extreme example - A heterosexual, healthy, white, male in the US will have an easier time getting a job than a disabled lesbian who is a woman of color. This doesn't mean that the white guy doesn't deserve the job or that steps should be taken to decrease his employment possibilities. Only that as a society need to work on valuing all members.

Word.

Recognizing privilege is recognizing that your advantages do not make your life experience universal. It is listening when someone tells you that they have different outcomes or responses to the same situation because they are lacking those advantages. This doesn't always mean changing your actions. Sometimes it is enough to just believe and accept.

I don't think we need to recognize privilege to recognize that our life experience is not universal. No one's life experience is universal, whether advantaged or disadvantaged.

I agree that just because we think we wouldn't mind something, doesn't mean we should ignore/invalidate what another's negative reaction to the same thing might be. Catcalling for example.

As to measuring privilege, I do wish there was some convenient warehouse of facts. Right now it is scattered about various examples. One of the most obvious in the US is the escalation of attacks on safe, legal abortion. This will primarily affect low-income women. The voters are statistically middle or upper class. The law-makers are statistically male. They have advantages which negate the worst financial burdens of raising a child.

I agree that a lot of that is indicative of male advantage, but I disagree with those who feel that the pro-life position is inherently misogynistic or sexist (I don't think you were saying that exactly, but I see it a lot).

 

[bookitty]

curi0us: I really do wish that I had phrased my discussion of privilege using Tyr's phrase "listen and evaluate." That is far more accurate.

The biggest problem with mentioning privilege is that it puts people on the defensive. They feel that they are being attacked for something over which they have no control. This is so incredibly counter-productive. Made worse by people who use the concept of privilege as a bludgeon instead of a point of reference.

In a perfect world, "privilege" would be a sort of shorthand to empathy. If used in conversation, it would be a way to say "I don't have the social advantages which include those experiences, please give me a moment to explain." Recognizing privilege is only a tool to help us communicate more effectively. If I am able to identify situations that are beyond my personal experience, it is easier for me to listen and try understand. If I try to impose my worldview onto their experience, I am dismissing what they are trying to tell me. This will lead to a breakdown in communication and possibly some antagonism.

 

[epepke]

curi0us: I really do wish that I had phrased my discussion of privilege using Tyr's phrase "listen and evaluate." That is far more accurate.

The biggest problem with mentioning privilege is that it puts people on the defensive. They feel that they are being attacked for something over which they have no control.

I don't know that it's even that. For me, it isn't. Rather it's that when I see the White, middle class women who dominate feminism pontificate about privilege, it seems to me that there is quite a lot being left out.

The black man who is imprisoned on a trumped-up charge, the male roofer who dies at 45 because of all the stuff he's breathed, the gut-shot drafted soldier, the male coal miner, these men do not make it into the feminist literature much, unless they are rapists and wife-beaters or stand-ins therefor.

 

[hodgy]

My grandad was privileged to work down a coal mine for most of his life. My Nan was privileged to pick potatoes into her 60's. I am privileged to have lived with them for much of my early years. I am privileged to have loved them both.

Privilege my arse!

 

[bookitty]

I don't know that it's even that. For me, it isn't. Rather it's that when I see the White, middle class women who dominate feminism pontificate about privilege, it seems to me that there is quite a lot being left out.

The black man who is imprisoned on a trumped-up charge, the male roofer who dies at 45 because of all the stuff he's breathed, the gut-shot drafted soldier, the male coal miner, these men do not make it into the feminist literature much, unless they are rapists and wife-beaters or stand-ins therefor.

These people don't make any literature much. Which is horrible and should be addressed. For myself, this falls within the borders of harmful gender roles and expectations, men are simply expected to rub some dirt on it and keep going. While this make for some nice action hero tropes, it fails to address the very real needs of human beings.

But to wag your finger at feminists because they aren't also addressing men issues is a bit disingenuous. The work of feminism isn't finished. In the key tenets of bodily anatomy with access to birth control and safe abortion, we've got a ton of work to do. Feminism also overlaps in areas which would improve the lives of your examples - better workplace conditions for everyone and putting an end to the US's constant military aggression.

There are groups which are also working towards these goals - labor unions for miners have been fighting for better working conditions, liberals who are fighting for universal health care that allow that roofer to get treatment immediately, teachers who are fighting to improve our schools so that boys are more involved, and so forth.

At this point, these issues haven't reached the saturation needed to affect change. Advocating for them through either personal or political means is the best way to accomplish this. Bitching that the feminists haven't taken it on is fairly ineffective.

There may be a point where feminism as activism is no longer needed and the word because antiquated. That would be lovely. Until then, feminists will work towards gender equality with an emphasis on women's issues because that is still necessary. Gender inequality is a huge umbrella - there is room for all sorts of groups to work together to make things better, even if they all focus on different aspects.

 

[Kahalachan]

At is core, feminism should be about women being granted equal rights to men.


Yet I've seen a lot of most vocal feminists complain about women being sexualized, spew pro choice propoganda, talk about how men have it better, and the other stereotypes.

The most vocal ones make the true feminists look bad.

If a woman wants to look sexy, let her. Feminism is about choice not denying that a woman can be sexy.

Abortion is a debate on what stage of human development deserves human rights.

Gender inequality is going to create unbalance every single time. The unbalance and inequality is not the same as one gender subjugating another.

 

[DavidByron]

I don't know the answers to most questions here, but as a woman, I will tell you a not so profound truth:

There really are women out there who will strive to make any man they can as miserable as hell, but couch it as feminism so they can better get away with it.

So let me get this straight. Anti-equality women, when they want to be inconspicuous, hide in the feminist movement which is because the feminist movement is filled with other women who.... are all for equality? That doesn't actually make any sense. What you said only makes sense if you're saying that male-hating attitudes are commonplace among feminists.

 

[DavidByron]

The problem was that, as I and others keep pointing out, during the 1980s what you are calling extremist was very mainstream, smack dab in the hump of that normal curve, not on the tails. Now, the 1980s are over, and that's a good thing in many ways. Yet there was no magic reset button as in Star Trek, where no matter how much damage was done, it was all better by the next episode.

Now, you may not have come of age during that time, or not in the wrong place, of you may choose to deny it, but it happened Some of us remembered that time, and it really sucked. I think it set back any genuine vision of sexual equality back a decade or two.

Furthermore, when I got interested in the history of feminism (the precipitating event was my seeing a production of Moliere's Don Juan for which the women's studies department included a rather nasty "feminist countertext" via a chorus), I found that this conflict has troubled and scuttled every wave of feminism going back to the invention of the printing press.

Simply put, women and men who are interested in empowerment of women and equality of the sexes are eventually countered by women who find it more politic to enfeeble women in an attempt to manipulate men. It works, but only in the short term, and only because it takes advantage of traditional sexism. Eventually the wave of feminism collapses under its own conflicts, and that wave is over.

As a result, women really haven't experienced what America's waves of immigrants have experienced. Instead, it's two steps forward and one step back. Sometimes it's three steps back.

The collapse of "second-wave" feminism, by my reckoning, was pretty much complete by 1997. Now we have a "third wave." Maybe, just maybe, this one will work, which is why pages ago I advocated not hating modern feminists. But I do not think it is productive simply to get into a state of denial over the dangers. Hell, people can't even count the waves. There have been way more than three, but the earlier waves are forgotten.

Now, you don't have to care about this if you don't want to, but I do. I think that if I were a misogynist, which I'm not, I would be saying many of the things that you are saying. They're just extremists. Pay them no mind. I'd be confident, based on my reading of history, that women would eventually destroy this wave as well. Since I'm not a misogynist, and I want liberal feminism to succeed (preferably before I die), I don't.

And you said something very similar here.

While I agree with your assessment of the feminist movement's anti-male anti-equality nature back in the 1980s and 1990s, I don't see any difference now, and it just seems unlikely (as per your Star Trek comment) that a movement that had become so utterly twisted would or could just magically right itself over the course of 10 to 15 years. For one thing the women who are in the positions of leadership would be people who were brought up learning the vile ways of the 1980s and 1990s. For another there was never any movement wide feminist mea culpa or great unlearning process. The stuff produced by those hate filled years like sexual harassment law and the VAWA bill are still there, still sexist and still very much fully supported by the movement, all of which is no surprise of course if the movement hasn't changed.

What evidence do you see that the movement has changed?

I'm starting to look at gender issues again after studying feminism at around the time you are saying it was at its worse and I don't see a difference after a 12 year gap. Some things are a little better, some are worse. It's the same utter contempt for men, the same "lying for Jesus", the same utter hatred for the MRAs, it's even the exact same fake issues. The movement might as well have been stuck in amber for a decade.

 

[DavidByron]

Lots of interesting comments by epepke.

Right. My point is that saying they are feminist ideas is useless. It's like saying American values. WHICH values? Actually, it's worse than useless, as violently opposed ideas, kept under the umbrella of feminism to give the false impression that feminism is One Big Happy, have scuttled every wave in history (of which there have been way more than two or three).

The people in this thread arguing that feminist organizations are working against equality are as correct as those arguing that they are working for equality. The reasons to hate feminists are as valid as the reasons to love feminists. Now, I've argued that one should not hate feminists today, but that's a political argument, not a factual one.

I don't understand what you mean by the difference between political and factual arguments.

I generally agree with you that feminism (and other conservative movements and groups) don't really have any fixed values or principles, but it is incorrect to say that anything goes. Feminist ideology/ideas always have a few things in common. (1) that women are the victims all the time and (2) that men are the oppressors all the time and consequently that (3) women are good and men are evil.

Feminists are allowed to deviate from these base ideals only minimally before they are thrown out of the movement. Women can be said to be the attackers only if it is then explained that some man (or "patriarchy") is the underlying cause of the problem. Men can only be said to be victims if it is immediately explained that women are the real victims.

So for example it is entirely to be expected that a feminist could say eg that abortion was an evil plot by men to hurt women and also that lack of abortion rights is another evil plot by men to screw women, or even both at the same time.