For all intents and purposes this discussion is feminism's ambit. I'm a feminist, you're a feminist, and we seem to disagree; the present discussion is the ensuing debate. Have we no right to this discussion?

You say that I am issuing strikes against the very idea of feminism itself, but given that I myself am a feminist, evidently we have fundamental disagreements about what feminism should be...

Personally, my feminism is marked by the belief that women should have the same rights under the law and equal access to opportunity in society as men. This differs from the brand of feminism which I oppose, which is marked by vague and dogmatic appeals concepts like "white supremacist patriarchy" which are frequently accompaniment by the casting of aspersions against the innocence of anyone who would question the accuracy of those concepts.

How do you define your feminism?

The problem with using "white supremacist patriarchy" as a description of disparities rather than a description of the cause of those disparities is that it is directly misleading. The way you personally are contextualizing "white supremacist patriarchy" does not seem to even line up with the examples of it's use that I've seen in society.

By your definition, the NBA is a black supremacist patriarchy. Technically, since Asian's make more money than whites, do better in schools than whites, get incarcerated less per capita than whites, etc..., we in some ways could describe the west as being an example of a state of "Asian supremacy".

Certain minorities are facing problems at disproportional rates, but do you really think choosing to label this reality using terms which have perhaps heavier pre-existing connotations of racism and sexism than just about any other word the english language has to offer is a straight-forward way of categorizing these realities?

The traditional definition of "racism" was essentially valuing and discriminating against individuals on the basis of race (an action stemming from a cognitively held position: i.e: "Racism was a causal factor in Billy-Joe's decision to hire only white people"). I understand that the new definition of racism per inter-sectional feminism is "privilege plus power". I understand, per the theory, that since I am white, I have privilege and power, so this makes me by definition racist. I accept that I am racist per the theory, but can you also accept that redefining racism in this way is really strange given that society's previous understanding of the term "racism" might have them conflate "racism" (me being white and the existence of white privilege) with "racism" (me being biased towards/possessing hatred for/unfairly discriminating against people of certain races).? Confused yet?

Again, I'm simply not interested in policing the discourse of feminism in order to keep it in it's 'proper place'. Whatever my feminism is, it doesn't involve spending inordinate amounts of time, effort, and paragraphs speaking to it's own failures. Whatever the faults of modern feminism, feeding into a machine of self-flagellation is unproductive when that machine does nothing but poison the well of discussion so as to skew it all in the direction of 'the problem with feminism is...' - as almost the entirety of this thread has been.

But 'benevolent' sexism (and racism) casts an obvious shadow. I'm guessing there are some reasonable defenders 'good' sexism/racism out there — Hoo

I'm not at all clear on what you're referring to in that part. What is "benevolent" or "good" sexism/racism?

if one believes in the sorts of things you do (family planning, equal pay, etc), then why not call yourself a feminist? — StreetlightX

For me, it's due to the reasons I mentioned right above the post of yours that I'm quoting from.

"Feminism"/"feminist" seems to me to be a term like "existentialism/existentialist." I have a lot of views that people classify as existentialist, but I'd never call myself an existentialist, because it means too many different things to different people, and some of those things I don't agree with. In my experience, especially on message boards like this, what tends to happen upon a self-identification like that is that people assume I believe things that I don't believe--things they associate with existentialism or feminism or whatever, and then it becomes just a battle of trying to distance yourself from that stuff, where the other person won't let go of the fact that you called yourself an existentialist or whatever, and in their view (which on message boards they typically believe is a factually correct view, given online superiority complexes, etc.) existentialism implies x, y and z.

To an extent that tends to be a problem with any self-identification, and I'd prefer to avoid all of it. It's even a problem with most terms of art that occur in academic discourse, such as philosophical discourse. But then it becomes very difficult to talk about the ideas without using any terms of art.

In any event, some "isms" seem fuzzier to me than others for this. And feminism, as well as existentialism, are a couple examples.

That's fair enough I think, and it's not the first time I've heard that line of reasoning used. As with any hot potato, I think there's always a degree of tact that's needed when playing with the fire that can be feminism, and there's little good in wielding the label as an axe to thump people with. Still, calling oneself a feminist - especially as a man - is to put oneself in the position of an advocate, and there are times where it is politically and ethically useful to do so. Sometimes correcting the misconceptions just is the goal.

Yeah, I think there's a benefit to it in some contexts. I try to keep the audience in mind.

Some feminist are irrational.
They argue that men are responsible for insuring women have equality.
If that is true women can never be equal because they have no power to insure their own equality.
That is to say that women would only have equality if men allowed it.

It would be like a man that argues that men are oppressed because there are not as many men that are validated by being good at care giving as there are women that seek validation from providing care.
Imagine this man went on to claim and blame that women crowd out this space and prevent men opportunity and that is the main, if not only, reason why men are not equal to women at care giving because in reality the majority of men are just as capable and willing to pursue the goal of being a good care giver.

I don't bother debating such a self contradicting position.

If women are equal to men then they are equally responsible for themselves as men are.
It is not the responsibility of men to insure women are equal, and the claim that men are responsible for this is a sexist claim.
Similarly if men want to validate themselves from being good as a care giver then it is the man who is responsible for insuring that he has that opportunity to do so.

What is the difference between this and a simple refusal to criticize feminism?

For what? In what context? To which ends?

Your statement was not qualified, so neither is my question.

That is to say that women would only have equality if men allowed it. — m-theory

Ah, but if women are responsible for their own equality, a lot of that spilt ink about oppression goes down the drain.

My gut feeling is that we would all (men and women alike) rather be other-oppressed than be failed self-liberators. If we fail in our own liberation, we have no one to blame but ourselves. If we fail at overthrowing our oppressor, well, they were just too oppressive to beat. Not our fault!

Does this not also apply to other oppressed groups? Many blacks, gays, latinos, asians, poor whites, etc. claim that they FEEL oppressed, that they are forced to be second or third rate persons by THEM. Blacks and gays both made a lot of progress when they got together in groups and asserted their black and gay pride to one another, then began acting on the premises of that pride. "I'm just as good as you are."

That police kill a disproportionate number of blacks is not a problem of insufficient black pride. The number of blacks killed by each other is.

No argument here.
I agree.

My gut feeling is that we would all (men and women alike) rather be other-oppressed than be failed self-liberators. If we fail in our own liberation, we have no one to blame but ourselves. If we fail at overthrowing our oppressor, well, they were just too oppressive to beat. Not our fault! — Bitter Crank

But doesn't liberation require some sort of oppression? i.e. there would be no need for liberation if oppression was not the case?

Oppressors and oppression has been supplied in abundance. But liberation requires two steps, not necessarily in this order:

# liberate one's self from internalized oppression taught by the oppressor
# liberate one's people from external oppression enforced by the oppressor

Different forms of oppression require different approaches. People with significant physical / emotional disorders are sometimes "taught" that they are unable, insufficient, not good enough for... and so on. The oppressive society may be quite solicitous of handicapped people, while inadvertently teaching them that they are really damaged goods.

Once upon a time, most gay men thought they were deviant, sick, diseased pariahs not worthy of manhood. The Gay Liberation Movement changed that for most gay men who experienced this self-liberation, though some guys miss the comfortable closets they preferred to live in.

Whether you are objectively oppressed or subjectively self-oppressed, it is your job to do something about it. The oppressor has no interest in unbinding your chains. The oppressed have chains to lose and a world to gain, so get on with it.

Many women are oppressed. So are many blacks. It is not the job of men or white people to liberate either group. Liberation means concerted action, on the one hand, and taking responsibility for one's existence on the other hand. A woman, for instance, can not join her boyfriend in getting drunk during Oktoberfest, and then claim that he disrespected her by having (or trying to have) sex with her while she was passed out. He was drunk too. Why should his decision-making ability be in working order when hers wasn't? Accept the consequences of getting drunk with your boyfriend (or husband), or don't get drunk.

Blacks can't do a horse shit job of raising their children, and then blame the schools for being racist because their kids arrive at pre-school already developmentally stunted. You can't belittle a black peer for acting white because he's a good student, and then claim you are a victim of racism because you can't express yourself in passable standard English.

Blacks have to end their self-oppression and must conduct political, social, and economic actions to make oppressing them a losing proposition. At one time (into the 1970s) blacks were making good progress. The community lost its way. It's not too late to get back on the right track.

Just want to leave this here:



This is a striking example of many of the problems I've sought to describe...

This thread triggers me.

Videos like this make me trigger happy.

The University of Chicago's 2016 welcome letter includes the following paragraph:

"Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called 'trigger warnings,' we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual 'safe spaces' where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own."

T R I G G E R E D

Reading that paragraph is as a soothing balm on an open wound :)

More universities are going to start following suit, not only for their own protection against some of the more unreasonable social justice flack, (I.E: students calling for staff admission of white privilege and formal resignations.... Yes, that has happened....) but also because more and more students are becoming aware of and openly opposed to the rhetoric and ideologies which we are seeing go too far. "A free and open market place of ideas" is sometimes directly opposed by these groups, perhaps with important repercussions as it seems that on level playing field most of these ideas fall flat.

The all too sad truth is however that tens of thousands of these kinds of videos exist; I only posted this one because it happened to be the most recent example. This overall ideology might not be representative of the majority of students or westerners at large, but it is out there and has a nucleus capable of reproducing more of itself. Startling and fascinating...

VagabondSpectre is an ally 'wolf in sheep's clothing.' His primary interest in calling himself feminist is to police women and 'politely disagree' with them about what counts as feminist, and to tell feminists that they're hysterical and to 'get their acts together.' This is perhaps the worst kind of male feminist, and I agree with feminists in being repulsed by them, if maybe not for exactly the same reason. SX's wide-eyed feminism, and csal's 'we're all just people man' views are naive in a way, but VS strikes me as downright sinister.

I have sympathies with second-wave feminism in that they take seriously the notion of gender separation and gender abolition. Aren't the identity-fems just playing games?

BitterCrank's views also interest me. I think there may be a link between being attracted to men and being skeptical of these sorts of things: a heterosexual man, I think, simply cannot remove the smokescreen of his sexual attractions in thinking about women in any way. They will always have a higher value for him than another man because of biological impetus. I'm attracted to women as well, but I think even that there is another sexual option on the table helps remedy this blindness.

VagabondSpectre is an ally 'wolf in sheep's clothing.' His primary interest in calling himself feminist is to police women and 'politely disagree' with them about what counts as feminist, and to tell feminists that they're hysterical and to 'get their acts together.' This is perhaps the worst kind of male feminist, and I agree with feminists in being repulsed by them, if maybe not for exactly the same reason. SX's wide-eyed feminism, and csal's 'we're all just people man' views are naive in a way, but VagabondSpectre strikes me as downright sinister... — The Great Whatever

I wonder how you would have approached this comment had you not known that I was a man...

Can you even imagine how you might have responded if you didn't have my penis to attack? Or if I happened to have a vagina and you a penis?

It would have read something like: "As a man my opinion on issues facing women is not valid, and the best that I can do to support your plight is to listen, believe, and to support your thoughts even while I am unable to comprehend them. You're a hero."

I'm sorry if this seems "sinister" but I feel like I must go out of my way to combat fallacious appeals to character and identity, especially here on what is meant to be a forum of reason and argumentation.

Put simply, you have not confronted a single solitary point that I have raised in this thread. All you have done is allege that I am a sinister man and that yourself and feminists should be repulsed by me. You have played the exact same morally bankrupt game of thinking that skin color or genitalia is a rational or moral grounds through to question or attack someone that I have depicted in this thread.

You have just demonstrated the cognitive and social results of the identity politics that has infected not just feminism but many other contemporary social justice movements as well. As a feminist I resent your notion that men can only be "allies" and I feel like your ideological camp is giving the entire label a bad name. Get your act together please ;)

I had planned to stay away from this thread, but last night I received a phone call that changed everything. I was at the bathroom when I suddenly heard the phone ring, and I rushed to pick it up. When I reached the phone I saw it was a blocked caller id and when I finally answered a voice on the other side said "Good evening, it's the 1990s here!" - and I thought it must be some wierd scam but before I managed to terminate the call, the voice said "We want our Rush Limbaugh back!"



Wow - imagine now these kids want their contraception paid by the state. As if they had a right - that had to be guaranteed by the state - to have sex >:O

How much more obvious can you make it that you're not a feminist? Why even use the term?

Well The Great Whatever, (Can I call you TGW?), the reason that I use the term "feminist" to describe myself is because the traditional academic feminist position was simply egalitarianism extended to women. First wave feminists fought and won the right to speak, among other things, before and after the civil war. They paved the way for the suffragettes, who won formal political rights, among other things, in the early part of the 20th century. Second wave feminism won many economic and social rights that still women lacked. Our being told as children to "treat people equally" was the result of good work which they have been contributing to since the 60's. I don't disagree with any of that, do you disagree with any of that TGW? I thought that it then made sense to refer to myself as a feminist when queried on the subject matter... So I thought...

Whatever brand of feminism you do in fact subscribe to, if it is inherently opposed to my own then I would find it a very easy moral step to rebuke it. Short of any substance on that matter whatsoever, please see the following post for a riveting exposition of the brand of reasoning which in this thread I am presently engaged in dismantling. Enjoy!

Join me or a few brief moments on a journey into a mind so saturated with the ideas and ideals which have driven the creation of this thread that it beggars belief. The depths of intellectual depravity which you are about to consume have been excavated, for your pleasure, from the darkest and most ideologically charged corners of the internet. Keep your metaphysical hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times , and please be considerate and put your third eye on vibrate. This ride's a doozey!

"Codename: "Mungus"

On the heels of her brush with internet fate, the now well known advocate of extreme social justice, Zarna Joshi, has taken to youtube in order spread awareness of exactly how patriarchy makes her feel...

The following is a condensed but un-exaggerated account of one of those videos...

Part 1: Surrounded by Patriarchy...

[TRIGGER WARNING]

May contain mentions of sexual harassment, assault, rape, violence, gun violence, murder, imprisonment, historical trauma, abuse, and suicide...

~ Hard Transition ~

The illness of patriarchy doesn't infect just men; in fact some women are infected with patriarchy. These women ridicule me. 71% Of women blame rape victims for being raped but only 57% of men blame rape victims for being raped; that's called "internalized patriarchy"

~ Hard Transition ~

Patriarchy is what created: racism, colonialism, capitalism, classism, and of course sexism.

~ Hard Transition ~

Somebody called me a "pre-menstrual hysterical third wave feminist dothead retard who went full mental on a white man". And they called me unintelligent too.

~ Hard Transition ~

I'm not white, so that gives me a right to talk about my non-white experience, but many other non-white people and also some marginalized and possibly white people like queer, trans, and non-gender conforming people might have their own actual ideas and opinions about this stuff, so I want to apologize in advance for saying something that you might not agree with or that might not apply to your particular marginalized group.

[VISUAL] - Text reads: Queer YOUTH 3x more likely to attempt suicide than Hetero youth - Image: On screen are two circles, one is labeled Queer, and the other is labeled Hetero. The radius of the Queer circle is three times (3x) the radius of the Hetero circle, giving it 9 times the surface area which visually misrepresents the text data by nearly a full order of magnitude.

~ Hard Transition ~

People ridicule me on the internet some more, and I just want to say how hard ridicule makes it to express my true feelings.

~ Hard Transition ~

Men who sexually harass women and subject women of color to racial slurs cannot understand why these women will not then date them; it's because of something called "White Male Fragility". Western men have been fooled by the system into believing that if they do not sexually harass or abuse anyone, or discriminate or use insensitive terms against people based on race or gender, then they are therefore somehow "now sexist" or "not racist". This is not true

ALL WHITE PEOPLE ARE RACIST, AND ALL MEN ARE SEXIST, as ensured by the system of power that we live in because it's a system that profits from the marginalization of people of color and non-males. And so they ridicule me in order to retain their power structure just as they have done to women and people of color for centuries.

~ Hard Transition ~

People call me sexist and racist against whites and males and ask why I hate them...

Men make more money...

[VISUAL] Cites numbers of a gender "pay gap" for women of varying ethnicities as compared to white men ranging from 54% for hispanic women to 90% for asian women.

Men take their privilege without question and live in affluence while doing nothing to help women while denying that they profit from sexist oppression.

~ Hard Transition ~

I was sexually harassed while filming a man who told me that his name was "hugh mungus" and one mainstream media outlet posted the video on the internet, without my permission, (I originally uploaded the video to my Facebook in order to provide evidence of my harassment and to issue a call to arms to rise up against Hugh and his institutional powers of sexism), and they had the nerve to ask "Do you consider this video to depict sexual harassment?". This lead to people ridiculing me. This is what patriarchy does; it causes people to attack the victim because they are vulnerable, which protects their system of power, which is male sexual dominance.

~ Hard Transition ~

People accused me of overreacting on the internet, but also some people issued rape and death threats against me. My physical safety is on the line, and that should be an indicator as to whether or not I am right.

~ Hard Transition ~

Their main complaint was that I raised my voice; they thought I was crazy. Really they just wanted me to shut up because that's what a patriarchial society wants, and we have a long history of confining women to mental asylums because men thought they were too loud.

These same men rape and murder women because they cannot deal with emotions, so that's why they got angry about when I was making noise about my sexual harassment; men don't care about my safety.

~ Hard Transition ~

Men call my accent sexy but my voice annoying. Dick jokes bother me. Men stone women, burn them at the stake, beat them, and rape them, and sell them into sexual slavery, and that's why dick jokes bother me.

Men think that it's not rape if you're married, and that sexual harassment can only happen in formal workplace environments.

~ Hard Transition ~

Dear sister-women and queer and trans siblings. Even the most minute and anonymous transgression against you on the internet will not be tolerated. Permitting tiny injustices like being called a cunt is what leads to larger horrors like the rape and violence that we all know so well. We have to dismantle our own internalized patriarchy, we need to change the world.

We must demand an end to rape culture.

~ Hard Transition ~

We must encourage men to dismantle patriarchy because patriarchy hurts men too by making them fragile and unable to reveal their feelings, which is why they do physical and sexual violence against women.

With courage and dignity, we can do this!
.....
[Part 2: "Internalized Oppression" - Coming Soon...]

[END]

It might seem like I've embellished this, and so if you would like to review the original material for accuracy, here it is (Cringe warning: click at your own risk :D )

What is the difference between "everyday feminism" and "radical feminism (radfem)"?

Just from what I have read so far in things like the SCUM manifesto and Cell 16, radfem is not really about egalitarianism but more about the superiority of the female sex.

What's interesting about the author of the SCUM manifesto is that although she thinks the female sex is superior, it seems like she thinks that this is only because the male sex is fucked up and the female sex is less-fucked up. Indeed she had antinatalist beliefs, where she essentially said that the male sex had to be exterminated, and then the female sex would only have female babies until a little later, when the female sex would also be exterminated.

And yes, I understand that the SCUM manifesto might have been satirical but it nevertheless spawned things like Cell 16.

Anyway some defining characteristics of radfem that I have seen and would like to discuss seem to be:

• PIV sex, or any sex for that matter, is outdated, crude, and oppressive towards women. "PIV = rape".
• Heterosexual relationships in general are outdated and crude.
• The Patriarchy is still a very real threat to the autonomy of females (male and female tend to be used more than men and women) and must be destroyed.
• Males only have relationships with females for their sexual appeal.
• Males are the number one reason why the world is so fucked up.
• Males are problematic members of society and should be phased out of existence.
• Females who have heterosexual relationships with males are brainwashed and simply allowing the problem of the Patriarchy to continue.
• Makeup, fashion, and body care are the product of a Patriarchal brainwashing. Heterosexuality might also be the result of brainwashing.
• Males and females should be separated and live in isolated communities away from each other.
• It is not possible to live in an egalitarian society that has mixed sexes.
• Transsexuals "rape" the opposite sex and have a brain disorder.
• Women are, all things considered, "superior".

I might be wrong about some/most/all of the things stated above, but please keep in mind that I'm only beginning to get a grasp of what radical feminism is.

More mainsteam feminism, in my opinion, should just be called egalitarianism. Anything that focuses on the rights of a single group should be labeled as such.

Feminism is a moral and political movement. Analogous to socialists seeking to abolish private property/ownership, feminists seek to abolish the patriarchy. One hundred years ago, feminism was a respectable movement, take the Suffrages for example. They were concerned with the women’s right to vote and the women’s right to work, basically liberating women from the male/masculine oppression and/or dependency.

All of that has been achieved. Now, feminists have other priorities, such as manspreading and dismissing rape because that would be considered islamophobia, xenophobia or racism. Respect different cultures mmkay you bigot!?

Most people do not consider themselves “feminists” but do believe in equal rights if you’d ask them.

I am one of the seven percent. I am a conservative feminist.

What is the difference between "everyday feminism" and "radical feminism (radfem)"? — darthbarracuda

This specific debate is surely a historical debate nowadays? I've lived through the various phases of feminism as a pro-feminist man of some sort. You know, on a personal level, bras were out, then bras were in; shaved legs were submission to the patriarchy, then they were ok if they made you feel good. Once people have overthrown some petty prohibition they can be free to make their own choices. But it's still not clear whether women have been able to 'reclaim the streets' or occupy the corridors of power in a lasting way.

Here in the UK, at any rate, the era of radical feminism was the 70's and 80's, and the ones I read were really intelligent and provocative: Kate Millett, Shulamith Firestone, Mary Daly on a radical theology, Andrea Dworkin on pornography, Miller/Swift on 'Words and women'. There doesn't seem to me to be any substitute for actually reading them, and/or the poetry of Adrienne Rich, the novels of Attwood, of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker, in philosophy later, Judith Butler and bell hooks.

I don't know how I would get back to a view of feminism as 'just...egalitarianism': even in the mainstream it requires a rethinking of who each of us is. In virtually every society and era except our own women have been treated as second-class: that needs some reflection and resolution.

Nor, however, have I ever known a made-by-women feminist list like yours, except the ones drawn up by antagonistic men who were trying to discredit a much subtler and more illuminating set of ideas. I don't think such lists ever make sense. There is an analysis of patriarchy, there are theories, there are ideas for action. There aren't simple bullet-points of anti-men statements to swallow before a radfem bedtime. Perhaps I'm naive, but overthrowing patriarchy always seemed to me a good idea.

Now things are different, but fragile. I don't know where the old radfems are and who their successors claim to be. It's quite a leap, in two or three generations, for young women now to outperform men at university, for instance; my generation of women were having to fight for every little concession for a long time: these may be fragile gains if a more conservative mindset takes a hold.

Nor, however, have I ever known a made-by-women feminist list like yours, except the ones drawn up by antagonistic men who were trying to discredit a much subtler and more illuminating set of ideas. I don't think such lists ever make sense. There is an analysis of patriarchy, there are theories, there are ideas for action. There aren't simple bullet-points of anti-men statements to swallow before a radfem bedtime. Perhaps I'm naive, but overthrowing patriarchy always seemed to me a good idea. — mcdoodle

Dworkin I know was against the idea of female superiority, but my point was that some radical feminists continue to believe that men ought to be exterminated, and are highly sex-negative.