Why so much hatred for feminism?

[KingMerv00]

To answer your question, SG: for some of these issues, the concern seems to be that they're not really women's issues -- that is to say, the underlying cause isn't about male/female inequality or gender roles/attitudes, but about some other factor that affects both male and female victims.

As an extreme example, if a feminist were to talk about the "terrible attacks of September 11th where over a thousand women were killed", I think we would be right to ask the question, what's the purpose of focusing on that particular subset of deaths?

Because we disagree with the assumption that the cause is so obviously not gender related? Naturally, it depends on the issue as you said.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Because we disagree with the assumption that the cause is so obviously not gender related? Naturally, it depends on the issue as you said.

Right.

Hence the issue with the forced labor trade. If there are a lot of male slaves, and a lot of female slaves, and it appears that the root cause of this is oppression of humans rather than any particular attitude about or behavior toward women, then why are we focusing on slave women instead of focusing on all slaves?

Personally I think SG has a good answer, which is that she's focusing on a particular part of the slave trade that is specific to women and the treatment of women -- sexual exploitation. But the question is still a good one.

 

[AvalonXQ]

EDIT: I'm removing this post because this particular branch of the topic triggers me. Sorry.

 

[Piggy]

I noted your ''

So far we have you attempting to redefine the word, then moving the goal posts, are you now going for a complete flip-flop and saying that you now agree with me that there is value to some academic feminism?

Why do we bother to teach the names of rhetorical fallacies....

I don't disagree with feminism. And the question in the OP isn't "Why is feminism wrong?" but "Why so much hatred for it?"

 

[Piggy]

You really can't imagine how much I'd love to go back to being concerned about everything and everyone. It's really much more my nature. But I simply don't have the luxury of pretending that the US is going forward or even stagnating when it comes to women's rights.

That's not what I mean.

What I mean is... when appealing to others for help in correcting inequalities when it comes to women, why make an explicit appeal "as a feminist" -- which, rightly or wrongly, puts your audience in the mindset of being asked to help one particular group by an activist for that group -- when you could make a universal appeal to your audience's stated values instead?

 

[Piggy]

Not what I said.

I know it's not what you said, hence the lack of quotation marks.

But you sure were glib in brushing off the experience of trafficked little boys as not worth much consideration.

The fact is, sex trafficking isn't a strictly feminist issue, not only because women aren't its only victims (despite your curt dismissal of male victims, apparently on the grounds that teenage boys aren't trafficked as much as teenage girls) but because it also harms fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons.

 

[truethat]

Women = victims Men = perpetrators Anything else doesn't register at all............

 

[curi0us]

Yes. Mostly for the absolute nature of its statements. I do think that men are not leered at or cat called nearly as much as women and that because of socialization, men are less likely to to be offended by those kinds of actions but to say it's not possible and the harm is always less is too far.

Sounds like something Rebecca wrote. I recognize the paw/fur metaphor.

Ok, this is something I've been trying to point out for ten pages now. That was from the "very best article on privilege" that Bookitty previously hyped in the JREF forums and it was also linked to by Rebecca Watson when she talked about Dawkin's and privilege and seems many people thought very highly of it. From my perspective that is mainstream feminism and it is glaringly sexist and lacking in empathy to the extreme. Why is that kind of rhetoric considered normal among feminists?

When a bunch of people told you of their negative experiences with feminism you dismissed that as being only "radical feminism". You claimed that was nothing like the feminism you had encountered on the web. Seeing as the only website I know of that you've been reading about feminism referenced sexist material (by your own definition) it seems like you began this thread with from a very dishonest starting point.

I also note that the article references "privilege" in the way the concept has been prominently used for the last ~twenty years in feminism and critical race theory. Earlier in this thread when you and Skeptic Ginger were at first arguing about "privilege" you clearly were contradicting long standing privilege theory concepts. So it seems like you both dismissed people's criticisms of feminism without even bothering to study the basics of feminism yourself. Even though I disagree strongly with Bookitty's ideology at least she makes an honest effort to understand and represent it. But this is what it is:

If you’re straight and a queer person says “do not title your book ‘Beautiful **********,’ that’s stupid and offensive,” listen and believe him. If you’re white and a black person says “really, now, we’re all getting a little tired of that What These People Need Is A Honky trope, please write a better movie,” listen and believe her. 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. Maybe you don’t see anything wrong with it, maybe you think it’s oh-so-perfect to your artistic vision, maybe it seems like an oversensitive big deal over nothing to you. WELL OF COURSE IT DOES, YOU HAVE FUR. Nevertheless, just because you personally can’t feel that hurt, doesn’t mean it’s not real. All it means is you have privilege.

Nevertheless, just because you personally can't feel that hurt, doesn't mean it's not real.

 

[NewtonTrino]

Eww...Heinlen.

Yeah, what a loon that guy was.

Crazy awesome or just crazy?

Just crazy.

 

[KingMerv00]

Ok, this is something I've been trying to point out for ten pages now. That was from the "very best article on privilege" that Bookitty previously hyped in the JREF forums and it was also linked to by Rebecca Watson when she talked about Dawkin's and privilege and seems many people thought very highly of it. From my perspective that is mainstream feminism and it is glaringly sexist and lacking in empathy to the extreme. Why is that kind of rhetoric considered normal among feminists?

I can only be held accountable for my own statements. You posted a few lines and I agree it is sexist. I skimmed the rest of the article Some bits are sexist, others are not.

When a bunch of people told you of their negative experiences with feminism you dismissed that as being only "radical feminism".

Sometimes people did cite radical feminists and I said as much. Other times, people stated their personal stories and I simply acknowledged their contribution. Other times I disagreed with feminists in this very thread. Please don't summarize my entire position as "dismissal".

You claimed that was nothing like the feminism you had encountered on the web. Seeing as the only website I know of that you've been reading about feminism referenced sexist material (by your own definition) it seems like you began this thread with from a very dishonest starting point.

Yes, the one website you know about is the one I said I hardly read, contains mostly science articles, and the only other article referenced from that website in this thread defends men as not violent.

You cherry-picked one small paragraph from one large article from one website I hardly read, present it to me, I agree it is sexist and you somehow use this to attribute dishonesty to ME. Odd.

I also note that the article references "privilege" in the way the concept has been prominently used for the last ~twenty years in feminism and critical race theory. Earlier in this thread when you and Skeptic Ginger were at first arguing about "privilege" you clearly were contradicting long standing privilege theory concepts.

I don't remember discussing privilege at all except off-handedly. If you must know, I'm not a fan of the way male privilege is presented by a lot of feminists. If that makes me more liberal or radical than whatever the mainstream is, so be it.

So it seems like you both dismissed people's criticisms of feminism without even bothering to study the basics of feminism yourself. Even though I disagree strongly with Bookitty's ideology at least she makes an honest effort to understand and represent it.

You act as if feminism has one true manifesto that everyone adopts. If I disagree with the majority of feminists, oh well. Even if I'm viewing most feminists through rose-colored glasses, it doesn't mean anything I've said in this thread is sexist or inaccurate.

Nevertheless, just because you personally can't feel that hurt, doesn't mean it's not real.

Not sure what this means. Are you referring to yourself and how you feel about feminism?

 

[Complexity]

Eww...Heinlen.

Crazy awesome or just crazy?

I like Heinlein.

This thread is merely crazy.

A great deal of damage has been done by thinking of people in groups, as members of categories.

I have two young friends who are in college studying the humanities. I have watched them try to learn from courses in the humanities that have been so slanted by concerns for political correctness (e.g. 'lenses' shaded for groups based upon sex, race, sexual orientation - usually perceiving themselves as victims).

I've tried to assure them that there really are wonderful things to learn in these fields, if only the damned teachers and academic infrastructure would get out of the way and let them experience them more directly.

For example, in a course on Shakespeare, the teacher focused on what he perceived to be feminist issues of every play they studied. What a lousy thing to do to his students! Shakespeare can more than stand on his own, and to interfere with their experiencing Shakespeare raw and unslanted is criminal.

I am gay, yet I hated what academic pretenders and climbers have done by trying to force a 'queer lens' on their students for every topic they can touch.

Many people have been hurt and held back by how they are perceived by others, by properties that they have that make it convenient to torment and hate them, to toy with their lives.

Much progress has been made; far more is needed.

I have issues with people who deny that these problems exist. I also have issues with people who profit from their promotion of group-think at the expense of others - this is done by many people across the political and cultural spectra.

Most of the people who have been posting in this thread have been wrong to some extent and have been making things worse and more confused.

I wish there were a 'mu' for threads.

 

[truethat]

I liked your post Complexity. There are many issues with regard to women that I think create problems for women specifically. But what you mention above is kind of where I'm coming from as well. Having gone through a Liberal Arts MA and a BA in English with a focus on African American and women writers, I do agree that this "group think" (great way to put it) of people (who in my own experience have never suffered any of the injustices they want to go on about) causes many worse stereotypes than the old versions.

Ex a woman who worked as an RN trying to speak up on behalf of working poor women. Totally bogus and uninformed. Trying to pretend an intelligence and awareness about something they know absolutely nothing about. Didn't take more then page one for said RN who is "down with the poor mothers" to start bragging about how she wouldn't put her child in a low class day care center (probably populated by the children of the mothers she claimed so much sympathy for)

If there's anything worse than the dog with fur not caring about the geko it's got to be entitled gekos that have fur coats and have always had fur coats pretending they understand the struggles of women just because they watched them from the sidelines or watched them on Oprah.

 

[sgtbaker]

I want to start off by repeating that I do not identify as a feminist. The only active "ist" in which I participate is Secular Humanist. I believe a lot of the rights issues, whether it be LGBT issues, women's issues, men's issues, or race issues are rooted in one particular group morally justifying the suppression of another. I believe the biggest propagating factor is religious dominance. With that said, I believe there needs to be groups that focus on each individual group issue, the same way law firms tend to be divided into specific fields. If I am fighting a murder charge, I don't want a lawyer who specializes in traffic tickets to make a case for me. In that same respect, if I am challenging laws that deny paternity rights, I am probably not going to want someone who specializes in racial discrimination making that case. Call Secular Humanists the general practitioners.

With that said, I've noticed something particularly interesting going on in this thread. I've noticed the most active participants, arguing pro-feminism seem to parallel
in some areas and branch off from each other in other areas. I've watched, multiple times, ideas that one or two may agree on being assigned to a third that never took that position, as a reason to disagree with the third. Quite honestly I can't say if it nullifies the question in the OP or the responses to the OPers question. Either way, it's evidence to me that an entire groups motivation should not be dismissed on the basis of a few subgroup focuses.

 

[KingMerv00]

With that said, I've noticed something particularly interesting going on in this thread. I've noticed the most active participants, arguing pro-feminism seem to parallel in some areas and branch off from each other in other areas. I've watched, multiple times, ideas that one or two may agree on being assigned to a third that never took that position, as a reason to disagree with the third. Quite honestly I can't say if it nullifies the question in the OP or the responses to the OPers question. Either way, it's evidence to me that an entire groups motivation should not be dismissed on the basis of a few subgroup focuses.

Seconded.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Interesting point.


Okay, so the maternity health issue isn't about obstetrics being a neglected medicine area in developed countries, but rather about good maternity care not being available in developing countries.
Is this due to the status of women in these countries, or is it due to generally poor medical care in the area which happens to be particularly dangerous for pregnancy?

It's due to both. But men are not suffering the physical damage of systematic rape as a weapon of war, of the mistreatment of women in countries where they can be beaten without redress, murdered in honor killings, burned alive because of dowry greed, excluded from schools, etc etc. So to say the issue is just about poverty and not about gender discrimination defies overwhelming evidence.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

To answer your question, SG: for some of these issues, the concern seems to be that they're not really women's issues -- that is to say, the underlying cause isn't about male/female inequality or gender roles/attitudes, but about some other factor that affects both male and female victims.

As an extreme example, if a feminist were to talk about the "terrible attacks of September 11th where over a thousand women were killed", I think we would be right to ask the question, what's the purpose of focusing on that particular subset of deaths?

Your false analogy suggests you are poorly informed about the plight of women in much of the world.

 

[AvalonXQ]

It's due to both. But men are not suffering the physical damage of systematic rape as a weapon of war, of the mistreatment of women in countries where they can be beaten without redress, murdered in honor killings, burned alive because of dowry greed, excluded from schools, etc etc. So to say the issue is just about poverty and not about gender discrimination defies overwhelming evidence.

I think you may be pulling a bait-and-switch regarding "the issue".

Your earlier assessment was that obstetric medicine is deficient because men don't get pregnant, and therefore there is a gender-specific interest in medical care. What you were claiming was sexism in medical treatment.

Now what you appear to be saying is that a) women suffer unique and disproportionate violence due to gender discrimination, and b) medical care is generally inadequate in these poor countries, so c) there is a gender-specific interest in medical care. This is not a claim of sexism in medical treatment; it is a claim that sexism causes a disproportionate need for medical treatement, which makes the provision of medical treatment a women's issue.

Again, as with other issues, we can readily bifurcate problems due to sexism with general problems that are due to something else. And, while it's certainly true that being poor makes being a second-class citizen worse, conflating problems of poverty with problems of discrimination doesn't help the situation.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I wanted to address this one point specifically. Yes, because children are different from adults. Exploiting them is worse, because we have a particular obligation to protect them. They're helpless, less intelligent, and weaker -- they should not be expected to look after themselves or make their own decisions.
Which of those things shall we say about women? I would prefer to say none of them. Women and men should be treated as equals; adults and children should not.

I think the days of counting women and children together, and separate from men, should be long past us by now.

More evidence of your lack of knowledge about the oppression of women in much of the world.

Now, that does not mean women are powerless in every situation. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman who won the Noble Prize for ending the war in Liberia, for example, demonstrated that sometimes it is women who initiate the change in their own circumstances. Just because women are often seriously oppressed doesn't mean they are always helpless to change things.

But just because women can be a force for change doesn't mean they are not also oppressed soley because of their gender in many areas of the world.

 

[AvalonXQ]

More evidence of your lack of knowledge about the oppression of women in much of the world.

I can't reconcile this response in any way other than to ask -- are you actually reading my posts?

How does my justification on focusing on children as different from adults, while insisting that we count men and women as equals, indicate either knowledge or lack of knowledge?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I know it's not what you said, hence the lack of quotation marks.

But you sure were glib in brushing off the experience of trafficked little boys as not worth much consideration.

The fact is, sex trafficking isn't a strictly feminist issue, not only because women aren't its only victims (despite your curt dismissal of male victims, apparently on the grounds that teenage boys aren't trafficked as much as teenage girls) but because it also harms fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons.

To equate the degree of sex trafficking in both genders is nothing more than a PC position. Are there male prostitutes? Sure. And they may be in that position because of victimization. But when you see a group of sex trafficked people, meaning they've been lured or kidnapped and forced to work in the sex trade for someone else, you find the overwhelming majority are female. The ILO link I posted cited 98% female.

Forced commercial sexual exploitation
• Women and girls - 98%
• Men and boys - 2%

The fact some men may grieve over the plight of these women and girls is a separate issue.