Problems with Feminist -ism's

[Theodarzna]

Since any topic with the F-word mostly becomes about how good or bad Feminism is, here is a thread solely dedicated to that exclusively.

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So copying a message I posted in another thread,

It comes down to the "Personal is Political,"

Women will complain about the lack of men in college, but only because there is a stunted dating pool and for some women it sucks having to compete with the sexually voracious. They don't believe in public policy only that boys need to work harder .... FOR US!

When a movement is based solely on Women's lived experiences a funny thing happens. Lived experiences and perspective is quirky, nobody writes themselves as the villain or sees anyone else as vulnerable.
1) Notice how the typical Feminist narrative always castes women in sympathetic light? Think back, have you ever told a story were you were definitely culpable but you re-cast yourself as just an innocent bystander?
2) Notice how all the policy positions only benefit women, but allegedly will help men too..... in some vague non-descriptive roundabout way.
3) Notice how a problem is only a problem when it effects women and girls?

When all of gender issues are monopolized by Feminism and Feminism's only acceptable Orthodox perception is based on Women's Lived Experiences, don't be shocked that we slant the story in our favor. If we get to write the narrative we will always be the most sympathetic characters.

Additional Explanation:

Feminism as it exists today and as a theoretical framework for political action and understanding the world has become an all encompassing -ism based entirely on the core principle of Women's Lived Experience, or some core selections of it. Obviously my Lived Experience is a bit too lucid and self aware to be added to the canon.

The best example of this is probably Domestic Violence. In almost any study not directed by Feminist theory from the outset, DV is multi-directional, complex, and women are just as likely as men to be abusive. Women can and are equal partners in aggression and violence towards intimate partners. However a female abuser will never likely cast themselves as an abuser. By Women's Lived Experience women, even if objectively the aggressive one or abusive, will cast themselves as more sympathetic characters. Thus why some studies in Feminist DV Canon claim that when women are violent it isn't really aggression but just attempts to get control of a chaotic situation, I.E. its only evil when men do it! That is the kind of rationalization that only Lived Experience can conjure. Women will never fail to cast ourselves in a good light. Men would do it too if given this much social power to do this.

As a Historian I can say it is completely unique in human history that now women are thought of as a class and not as individuals, and more over Feminism as a attempt to interpret the world through the often chaotic perspective of Women's Lived Experience is unheard of IMHO. But for Feminists of the Betty Friedan era and beyond this was the only option for them. Otherwise it would be an impossible project to try and create a Pan-Female political movement and Social Theory around us. We are objectively too diverse in nature to be corralled into a single narrative. Even today dissident women and rebellious heretics and those dirty dirty harlots are all hounded viciously for not being in line with the Narrative.

Additional Info p2 Electric Boogaloo:

The core divisions within Feminism are between Sex- and Sex+, though Sex+ is a bit on the ropes as a real idea since it is frequently co-opted by Sex- which IMHO has all forms of institutional power that Sex+ doesn't and Sex+ has to supplicate the Sex- crowd to have any seat at the table. Thus why Laci Green proclaims Sex+ nature but talks about the ever present "rape culture," and how all things are sexist and problematic.

[Revi]

I just feel like an ideology that is based around believing in a problem regardless of data and ignores the larger picture is inherently flawed. Women need help is the premise, then the work just goes into finding any and all areas where that seems true in isolation.

So you find one area of education where it seems there could be more women and ignore the larger picture of them being over represented in education as a whole and now women should be the only focus in the entire educational system.

Women are victims of domestic violence, so now because it ignores the context of those numbers (it happening just as much to men), now women should be the only focus of domestic violence support and sympathy.

Women are harassed on the internet, you ignore the larger picture of men being harassed even more, so now internet harassment is a female issue.

Women don't have the same income as men, you ignore the larger picture of all the factors that influence it, and now there's a sexist paygap.

And on it goes.. Fighting to fix female-specific issue should be a part of an ideology aimed at making things better for everyone, NOT something that actively invents problems and aims to suppress efforts to focus on other issues.

[moudywins]

we get it, you are gross looking and your only avenue to talk to other people to make up for how boring you are is to whine about feminism.

let it go.

Infracted

[Deleted]

hooray, let's talk about 'liberal' oppresion that's based on the tolerance of others!

now seriously we should seperate modern day feminism to the original one, as the first is something 'weird' to say the least while the latter was a movement form for a justified request: equality between men and women, in the western world mission acomplished (not due to feminism though but mostly becuase after women's contribution in all forms of production in WW2 there was no going back, women had earned equality through their actions)

modern day feminism more of a cult than a movement that's characterised by it's obsession/monomania over matters that have to do with rape (despite the fact that in the west people who even try such stuff spent alot of time behind bars) and female genitals... and it's favorite pastime is hating the 'non feminists' which are essentially anyone not participating in their activities

they claim to be liberal but their protests usually involve fascist methods like silencing anyone of different opinion by litreally screaming too loud for him to be heard, book burning and other nice stuff

they claim to stand for equality but that's pure hypocrisy as to their rape is a central part of a man's nature (and the patriarchical society it formed) and men apparently need to be taught not to rape, much like we train a dog not to pee on the carpet (example: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...workshops.html)

this young man was essentially denied it's right to attend to college due to refusing to attend to an idiotic seminar about what consent is (something even 5 year olds know), that's right feminist groups prevented him from attending to lessons ( reminds me how neonazi groups hound and pester foreign students till they give up)

the similarities with fascist groups in terms of methodology are too damn many for a group that's supposed to stand for equality.

[Endus]

"Feminism" just refers to the idea that women and men should be treated equally. That's it. If you're arguing that it means anything more than this, you're talking about a specific subset, and you'd be better served targeting your ire appropriately.

A self-avowed "feminist" who's loudly proclaiming that all men are rapists isn't espousing a feminist viewpoint. That's a misandrist viewpoint. By saying you take issue with "feminism" because of people like that, you're painting with way too broad a brush.

While I'll defend feminism as a concept, I won't defend misandry, or those who try to cloak their misandry under the label of "feminism". It's not that complicated.


Some specific points;

2) Notice how all the policy positions only benefit women, but allegedly will help men too..... in some vague non-descriptive roundabout way.

Not really "roundabout". Laws passed that made "gender" a protected class (rather than "women", specifically) mostly served to protect women, at the time, because they were the group primarily being marginalized on those grounds. If men start to be marginalized in return, the same laws protect men. It largely hasn't come up, because men largely aren't being marginalized.

3) Notice how a problem is only a problem when it effects women and girls?

Really don't. When I finished my teaching degree a few years back, one of the hot-button issues was that it was clear that young girls were succeeding to a much greater degree than young boys, in education, and there was a lot of action being taken to address that imbalance; we'd swung too far. It definitely was not being ignored.

[Hugnomo]

we get it, you are gross looking and your only avenue to talk to other people to make up for how boring you are is to whine about feminism.

let it go.

you made my day

- - - Updated - - -

"Feminism" just refers to the idea that women and men should be treated equally. That's it. If you're arguing that it means anything more than this, you're talking about a specific subset, and you'd be better served targeting your ire appropriately.

A self-avowed "feminist" who's loudly proclaiming that all men are rapists isn't espousing a feminist viewpoint. That's a misandrist viewpoint. By saying you take issue with "feminism" because of people like that, you're painting with way too broad a brush.

While I'll defend feminism as a concept, I won't defend misandry, or those who try to cloak their misandry under the label of "feminism". It's not that complicated.


Some specific points;

Not really "roundabout". Laws passed that made "gender" a protected class (rather than "women", specifically) mostly served to protect women, at the time, because they were the group primarily being marginalized on those grounds. If men start to be marginalized in return, the same laws protect men. It largely hasn't come up, because men largely aren't being marginalized.


Really don't. When I finished my teaching degree a few years back, one of the hot-button issues was that it was clear that young girls were succeeding to a much greater degree than young boys, in education, and there was a lot of action being taken to address that imbalance; we'd swung too far. It definitely was not being ignored.

And thank you for saying in a simple manner what I would try to say.

[May90]

One of the problems with modern feminism is that it focuses on one issue, ignoring the bigger picture, i.e. how this issue manifests outside of the space feminism is concerned with. Every theory, every experiment, every attempt to practically solve something has a very good chance to fail, if it is considered in a very limited scope, ignoring the surroundings. We live on Earth, we haven't traveled past Solar system - and yet without studying the Universe in general, the vast majority of which lies beyond Solar system, we won't understand Solar system very well either.

I can applaud the feminist movement for trying to improve the situation with women rights and gender equality. And yet focus on women rights shouldn't drop out of equation men rights as well, regardless of how the latter compares to the former. Many feminists (the sub-class of them which is often called feminazi - and for a good reason) believe that men are at fault for the current situation, and they have to amend for that; ignoring that such outlook simply gives a start to a new discrimination, quite common in history: the oppressed become the oppressors.

To fix the situation with women rights, one needs to analyze the global picture: how women interact with each other, how men interact with each other, how women interact with men, how powerful women interact with powerless men, how powerful men interact with powerless women, how human right activists interact with both men and women... Equality is only born when the society understands the reasons for past inequality. If those reasons are not understood and are simply put as "men are at fault", then no equality can exist, since the real problems are not addressed and replaced with a straw man theory which is very easy to follow, because it is extremely shallow.

Feminism is a very important idea and movement. Hence unfortunate that it is being discredited by countless bigots and attention seekers that don't have much to say, other than repeat their shallow arguments until everyone has given up trying to reason with them. People like Anita Sarkeesian come to mind: no one even argues with her, because everyone understands that she can't be reasoned with, she lives in her small world, ignoring everything else. But she is pushing her agenda, she receives some funding, she is public. She makes real feminism look disgusting, even if it is she who is disgusting, not feminism itself.

[Deleted]

"Feminism" just refers to the idea that women and men should be treated equally. That's it. If you're arguing that it means anything more than this, you're talking about a specific subset, and you'd be better served targeting your ire appropriately.

A self-avowed "feminist" who's loudly proclaiming that all men are rapists isn't espousing a feminist viewpoint. That's a misandrist viewpoint. By saying you take issue with "feminism" because of people like that, you're painting with way too broad a brush.

While I'll defend feminism as a concept, I won't defend misandry, or those who try to cloak their misandry under the label of "feminism". It's not that complicated.


Some specific points;

Not really "roundabout". Laws passed that made "gender" a protected class (rather than "women", specifically) mostly served to protect women, at the time, because they were the group primarily being marginalized on those grounds. If men start to be marginalized in return, the same laws protect men. It largely hasn't come up, because men largely aren't being marginalized.


Really don't. When I finished my teaching degree a few years back, one of the hot-button issues was that it was clear that young girls were succeeding to a much greater degree than young boys, in education, and there was a lot of action being taken to address that imbalance; we'd swung too far. It definitely was not being ignored.

But how can canada for example deny people entry because they are single guys when fleeing war and terror.

You discriminate against the most vulnerable of all people by gender.

[nextormento]

I'd argue the framing issue is not a tenet of feminism. It's a feature of our zeitgeist that feminism picked up along the way. Or, if we want to be a bit more sneaky: when feminism marred existentialism it was ultimately condemned to be free but proved unable to bear the burden. What we have today are the insipid spoils of that incompetence.

[Revi]

While I'll defend feminism as a concept, I won't defend misandry, or those who try to cloak their misandry under the label of "feminism". It's not that complicated.

I agree with that as a general attitude, but I think when a label evolves away from it's definition and but still is recognized under that label both by it's members and everyone else, it's fair to criticize the label.

If someone in Soviet was criticizing communism and wanted it gone, I would not tell them they were unreasonable for criticizing communism rather than all individual problems the recognizable figures of communism caused in its name. I could do so, but it'd be pedantic beyond reason imo.

[kneehidude]

"Feminism" just refers to the idea that women and men should be treated equally. That's it. If you're arguing that it means anything more than this, you're talking about a specific subset, and you'd be better served targeting your ire appropriately.

I believe that is what it initially was about. However, seeing Feminists speak today (I have a few feminist friends on facebook), I haven't seen anyone speak about anything that wasn't biased. For example, feminists love to talk about the pay gap, and they always say the "77 cents on a man's dollar," yet that has been proven false. So either, lots of feminists are misinformed, or they are trying to get ahead of men.

[Deleted]

So either, lots of feminists are misinformed, or they are trying to get ahead of men.

Thats true canada has a feminist primeminister and claims genders are equal so he appoints a gender parity cabinet but
they still refuse war refugees based on their genitals.

[Deleted]

Can't call yourself feminist anymore without the "oh shit, its a otherkin fursexual pyrofox".

[Theodarzna]

"Feminism" just refers to the idea that women and men should be treated equally. That's it. If you're arguing that it means anything more than this, you're talking about a specific subset, and you'd be better served targeting your ire appropriately.

A self-avowed "feminist" who's loudly proclaiming that all men are rapists isn't espousing a feminist viewpoint. That's a misandrist viewpoint. By saying you take issue with "feminism" because of people like that, you're painting with way too broad a brush.

While I'll defend feminism as a concept, I won't defend misandry, or those who try to cloak their misandry under the label of "feminism". It's not that complicated.

But that self-identified feminist is speaking from her Lived Experience, I.E. The personal is political. A movements stated goal and its epistemology mechanisms are inseparable.

The idea that you can have a movement for gender equality with that as a fundamental framework for understanding the world is by default flawed, wouldn't you agree?

[Celista]

I am glad someone stepped in and made a new feminism thread for OT, there might have been a full 45 minutes before we were without one on the first page.

[Deleted]

I am glad someone stepped in and made a new feminism thread for OT, there might have been a full 45 minutes before we were without one on the first page.

People here don't like intolerance they can't help.

[Endus]

I believe that is what it initially was about. However, seeing Feminists speak today (I have a few feminist friends on facebook), I haven't seen anyone speak about anything that wasn't biased. For example, feminists love to talk about the pay gap, and they always say the "77 cents on a man's dollar," yet that has been proven false. So either, lots of feminists are misinformed, or they are trying to get ahead of men.

The $0.77 on the dollar isn't "false", it's just not what some people present it to be. Women do, on average, make $0.77 for every $1 men make. The issue is that this isn't controlled for the types of jobs they make, or the hours they work.

And while those often don't boil down to extrinsic prejudice against women, they often do reflect internalized cultural aspects that demonstrate that modern society still doesn't consider the two genders truly equal. Women generally work less hours, for instance, because they still pick up the slack in terms of child care and household chores. It's a deep culturally-developed gender role issue, and that's not something you can correct overnight, nor is it the result of explicit prejudice keeping women down.

That doesn't mean it should be ignored, however.

And women still haven't (quite) reached parity when you do control for those factors, anyway; various studies put women's pay, all things being equal, at the $0.92-0.97 on the dollar range. Closer, but not fully equal. Some of that may be generational lag, too. I'm not trying to argue that women are totally screwed, here, just pointing out that the datum in question isn't "false", just misrepresented.

But that self-identified feminist is speaking from her Lived Experience, I.E. The personal is political. A movements stated goal and its epistemology mechanisms are inseparable.

The idea that you can have a movement for gender equality with that as a fundamental framework for understanding the world is by default flawed, wouldn't you agree?

Not particularly.

Everyone operates from their own viewpoint. And things with immediate personal impact almost always emerge as bigger personal issues, for you. This is why we're more concerned about, say, the price of gas here at home, than we are about the suffering of children in Africa; the price of gas affects us, while we (generally) have little to no exposure to those children in Africa. The latter's a bigger issue, on its own merits, but our personal experience makes it less pressing to us, as individuals. And there's so many of these issues that we're simply not aware of a great many of them; we've never been exposed to their existence, to acknowledge them as a concern.

I think that trying to argue that politics is anything but personal is a bit disingenuous; that's why we get so totally bent out of shape over it. Because it is personal.

It's like when people say "it isn't personal; it's just business." Usually, they use that after making a decision with a heavy personal impact on someone else. It is personal, to that person. The adage does nothing to assuage that.

[Celista]

People here don't like intolerance they can't help.

There seems to be a lot of intolerance of a certain sort here, hence why these threads keep being made. With the same arguments on both sides being played out.

[Deleted]

There seems to be a lot of intolerance of a certain sort here, hence why these threads keep being made.

Do you imply the people here hate woman?

Seems people have to self censor to keep their career and come here to speak about it.

[Celista]

Do you imply the people here hate woman?

No? Do you think not liking feminism means hating all women?