What's Your Opinion On Feminism?

[Leo]

I keep making the connection between feminism and religion, just like I do men's right adctivism and religion: In both cases, they claim you have to espouse the ideology in order to be promoting what the ideology claims to promote. If you say you're not a feminist, you must be a misogynist or can't possibly be a gender egalitarian. Sound like theology? If you don't believe in god(s), there's no way you can be moral.

Same show, different actors. I guess when I deconverted from Christianity, I inadvertently deconverted from any association with dogma.

 

I know it's possible to hold to an opinion for industrial concerns. Academia, the Church and the State, albeit a rather unholy trinity, is as much an industry as anyone else. I know it's possible to hold such an opinion for just such a reason, because I have done it. I'll prove it to you. Got an iPhone? Do you like it? In 2007 I and almost every longtime technology industry member, especially those of us working on enterprise systems, called iPhone 1 a child's toy, Apple the "Me too" company, and said Apple had no future in the mobile market. We had our rational sounding reasons, see if you can stop laughing at me long enough to believe a few:

 

* The iPhone didn't multitask, meaning you couldn't do anything else like text or email while on a call Every blackberry and Windows Mobile phone could do all this, and even quite a few feature phones could do this.

 

You had to activate your phone through a proprietary service, iTunes, before you could even use the damn thing! Take your Windows Mobile or Blackberry home and use it right out of the box.

 

* No applications!While Windows Mobile and Blackberry had long lists of applications that worked for their devices, no apps at all in revision 1 of Apple's iPhone. Even Android when it came out had apps available via the Android Market, now Google Play.

 

* No ability to copy and paste! Every smartphone then had those abilities, and had for years. Again, even a few feature phones had those features.

 

Anybody convinced we were right about Apple? If you belonged to the Church, the State or Academia, you would have to claim you were right, and that the iPhone you now hold is an aberration to your ideology. Not so for us: We were clearly WRONG! Truth was, that particular phone would never hadve made it, but we had overlooked Apple's clear marketing objectives. There were a few dissenting voices who saw through this, but most of us clearly overlooked it, because we were busy writing technology that supported the existing platforms. I, for one, was working on a talking / Brailling GPS system that worked on Windows Mobile on a dedicated device, among other things. I knew guys working on various systems for everything from property inspectors to contractors to even stores using Windows Mobile and other platforms. And yes, I mean 'guys' in the gender-neutral sense of the term. None of us are working on those products anymore.

 

Have we been laughed at? You bet. Sometimes, in my case, by a niece or a friend of the daughter's or someone like that. I can tell you what we haven't done, though: We haven't protested people who have found us out to have been wrong. We don't do bomb threats, prevent people that talk about the shortsighted nature of the mobile market in 2006 / 2007, from attending technical conferences.

 

But you take someone like Warren Farrel, the former president of the National Organization of Women, and see how often his book The Myth of Male Power has been burned, or how often his talks get protests, even bomb threats, or security from the university imploring said university to cancel the event.

 

It has been said that it's hard to get a person to believe something, when their salary depends upon them not believing it.

 

Athena Brown, for instance, from the 4thWavers.wordpress.com site, cites the actual meaningful distinctions that make up the wage gap. That means you take into account all mitigating factors. You don't end up with a bunch of tyrannical pigs sitting around waiting to make sure women are getting less than men. Obviously, if that did happen, women being a slight majority of the population, basic economic theory would dictate the companies would exclusively be hiring women, just as they now outsource as much as possible to China for ten cents on the dollar.

 

It's possible to have some valid data points and some very wrong conclusions. We sure did; every point I made about iPhone 1 was technically correct. And iPhone 1 would never have competed with Blackberry or Windows Mobile. But we overlooked at least one very important thing. Apple, since the earliest iPod, had been marketing to PC users. Use iTunes, Apple claimed, and you would see as a PC user just how simple Apple software is to use. And how pretty. Unlike that yucky Windows. We could comment on how many problems the early iTunes for Windows had, from a technical standpoint. But clearly, they were successful. They were the first device where you could buy your music and have it synced to your MP3 player all at once. They were the first mp3 market and player in one. If they could get a phone out, then create a unified store where developers pay to belong, with your typical Apple walled-garden security, then users could use their beautiful new iPhone with their klunky Windows XP and do just fine until they got an iPad and then a mac. Very very successful marketing, and by 3 models later, they had all the enterprise / Exchange / blackberry server support you could want.

 

Clearly, we, were, wrong! Our data was correct, if incomplete, but our conclusions were completely wrong because we were blinded by industry-based interests.

 

I think that's where feminism is, that's where Christianity is, and the Men's Rights movement would be if it was a thing other than on Youtube.

[florduh]

As usual, we need to define the terms as we are using them. Academic understanding of classical feminism has little to do with reality, just as the study of Christian theology tells you nothing about the real life Christians in your face wanting special religious rights, the loss of reproductive rights for others and the disappearance of gay rights altogether.

 

The only thing that matters is what people using the labels are actually doing. In theory, Christianity is a rather gentle and benign belief system that doesn't seek to rule others by force of law; in theory, feminism is simply about equality between the sexes.

 

In order to keep this thread active and productive I suggest everyone refrain from passive-aggressive cryptic remarks and instead contribute facts and the conclusions drawn from those facts. It's a good topic, not just a hot button.

[Leo]

I again appeal to anyone, because nearly anyone will do better than I can at this, to give us the names for what we're talking about. What do we call the academic feminism of history? What do we call the modern conglomerate that moves the goal posts, has created a totalitarian ideology, and is out battling it in the streets?

 

Again, moderate Muslims have come forth and stated Isis is not Islam. I have yet to see mainstream Christians distance themselves sufficiently from the evangelical fundamentalists, especially the Westboro Baptist group, but even the Mormons distance themselves from the fundamentalist Mormon sect and claim they don't share the same faith.

[Leo]

I find <a href="https://4thwavers.wordpress.com/2014/08/15/what-is-feminism/">this article</a> to be a helpful starting point for definitions.

[Leo]

woops can't be making links with html code, and the mobile theme which is easier for me to use won't let me edit posts for some reason. Apologies for the last entry and I think there was one or two in my first post.

[Orbit]

I again appeal to anyone, because nearly anyone will do better than I can at this, to give us the names for what we're talking about. What do we call the academic feminism of history? What do we call the modern conglomerate that moves the goal posts, has created a totalitarian ideology, and is out battling it in the streets?

 

Again, moderate Muslims have come forth and stated Isis is not Islam. I have yet to see mainstream Christians distance themselves sufficiently from the evangelical fundamentalists, especially the Westboro Baptist group, but even the Mormons distance themselves from the fundamentalist Mormon sect and claim they don't share the same faith.

Sorry Leo, but florduh has spoken. Academic feminists don't know anything about feminism, so that lets me out.

[Leo]

And we never knew Florduh had such influence.

 

I admit, it seems the 4th wave definition fits me, as described on the aforementioned website. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on her findings. She's got a unique perspective, having lived as both. I know a man in the same situation, and has told me similar things from a similar, but different perspective, once living as a woman and now a man. Perhaps now I understand, if not condone, how the womyn-born-womyn feminists have such trouble with trans folk. I, for one, being a "blind-born-blind" to parrot the pattern of the aforementioned group, have learned a tremendous amount from people who have lived fully able bodied and then become disabled.

 

I'll keep you all posted when Athena Brown's book comes out though. She's the author of the 4thwavers.wordpress.com site.

[florduh]

 

 

I again appeal to anyone, because nearly anyone will do better than I can at this, to give us the names for what we're talking about. What do we call the academic feminism of history? What do we call the modern conglomerate that moves the goal posts, has created a totalitarian ideology, and is out battling it in the streets?

Again, moderate Muslims have come forth and stated Isis is not Islam. I have yet to see mainstream Christians distance themselves sufficiently from the evangelical fundamentalists, especially the Westboro Baptist group, but even the Mormons distance themselves from the fundamentalist Mormon sect and claim they don't share the same faith.

Sorry Leo, but florduh has spoken. Academic feminists don't know anything about feminism, so that lets me out.

 

Don't feel bad. Academics rarely know much about the real world. 

 

Since you like to air your laundry publicly, so will I. You can stop your annoying tactics of twisting the words of others and flinging your vague passive-aggressive remarks that leave everyone what the hell you're talking about. Don't be surprised or wonder that most folks are less than enthusiastic about dealing with you when they happen to have a difference of opinion.

 

[Orbit]

 

 

 

I again appeal to anyone, because nearly anyone will do better than I can at this, to give us the names for what we're talking about. What do we call the academic feminism of history? What do we call the modern conglomerate that moves the goal posts, has created a totalitarian ideology, and is out battling it in the streets?

 

Again, moderate Muslims have come forth and stated Isis is not Islam. I have yet to see mainstream Christians distance themselves sufficiently from the evangelical fundamentalists, especially the Westboro Baptist group, but even the Mormons distance themselves from the fundamentalist Mormon sect and claim they don't share the same faith.

Sorry Leo, but florduh has spoken. Academic feminists don't know anything about feminism, so that lets me out.

 

Don't feel bad. Academics rarely know much about the real world. 

 

Since you like to air your laundry publicly, so will I. You can stop your annoying tactics of twisting the words of others and flinging your vague passive-aggressive remarks that leave everyone what the hell you're talking about. Don't be surprised or wonder that most folks are less than enthusiastic about dealing with you when they happen to have a difference of opinion.

 

 

And another anti-intellectual attack. I'm not passive aggressive, you're just too thick to get my meaning.

[NoOne]

Well, it's obvious you all don't like each other

[Bhim]

And another anti-intellectual attack. I'm not passive aggressive, you're just too thick to get my meaning.

Orbit, I feel that these cursory remarks are not appropriate for someone with your level of education.  I can't know anyone else's motivation, but the reason I have asked you to comment on feminism is because you are an expert in this field.  Being a fellow academic (well, defector to industry...) I am certainly no anti-intellectual, yet I have serious worries about the feminist fixation on rape above all other crimes and the seeming disregard for the basis of American legal tradition.

 

I know you didn't come to this thread looking to have this discussion, but I am asking you to please have it anyway.  I am in favor of gender equality.  I favor it when women want to be paid the same as men for doing precisely the same work, and I favor it when people want to draft women into the military (hypothetically, since we haven't had a draft in decades) and subject them to combat roles alongside men. I want equality of the sexes so that women won't be regarded by society as nothing more than walking wombs, and I want it so that society won't view young men as expendable bread winners.  However, the feminist threat to legal due process scares the hell out of me, and I am willing to maintain the status quo, even allow society to actively oppress women, if it will keep even one innocent person from being wrongly convicted of a sex crime.

 

I don't have time to read all of the literature on this, being a researcher (like yourself) I have to spend most of my time reading papers in my own field.  Since you are looking at this thread, I have the opportunity to talk to someone who can perhaps give me a well-researched comment on feminism while addressing my concerns.  I know all to well that most people aren't terribly eager to talk about their doctoral work after hours; I, after all, spend less time in the science forum than certain amateur astronomers I could name.  But I do disseminate knowledge freely when asked.  Will you do the same?

[Leo]

Am I the only one who doesn't really know what passive aggressive really is? Maybe I'm a dolt. Lol. I'm not sure either that there's anti-intellectual attacks going on, some of us may in fact be thick but simply aren't following all of what's going on there.

 

When I used to be a manager and interviewed new software developers, I always stressed my favorite quote from a rocket scientist: "No theory is worth shit unless you can explain it to a bartender." I love that, being in a field full of "shop talk". Because it forces people to talk to everyone in the room, and we engineers can't get away with saying "ignorant users," perhaps the academic equivalent would be "intellectual attack?" I don't know. But I love that damned quote and need to find which rocket scientist it was that said it, so I can cite her or him properly. Would it not be ironic to find out it was Shannon Lucid or another female rocket scientist?

[Aries256]

I think now a days, known as 3rd wave feminism. Is a complete crock of crap. They're no longer about equality, they're about bashing men.

[Thurisaz]

...can the non-Americans who are posting describe women's conditions in their countries. I've got an idea but I'm also losing track.

 

As for Germany...

 

...I'll be fair and assume there's some remaining misogynism here that I'm not currently aware of. Whatever of it still exists, though, is hiding as good as it can from the public eye, because if you even hint at having sexist thoughts society will destroy you. All in all, I'm not aware of any discrimination against women worth talking about. And this is not just my own personal opinion, as I've learned with growing joy lately. That doesn't mean there aren't any claims of misogynism made over here, but I've yet to see any of them really hold water.

 

Actually, there have been a number of cases in recent times that went the opposite way, some of which I've already mentioned on this very forum several times so I won't repeat them here unless specifically asked. This is also the reason I react kind of allergic to certain... dubious... claims of self-proclaimed "feminists".

[Thurisaz]

I again appeal to anyone, because nearly anyone will do better than I can at this, to give us the names for what we're talking about. What do we call the academic feminism of history? What do we call the modern conglomerate that moves the goal posts, has created a totalitarian ideology, and is out battling it in the streets?

 

Again, moderate Muslims have come forth and stated Isis is not Islam. I have yet to see mainstream Christians distance themselves sufficiently from the evangelical fundamentalists, especially the Westboro Baptist group, but even the Mormons distance themselves from the fundamentalist Mormon sect and claim they don't share the same faith.

 

Here in Germany the very word feminism (or Feminismus, in the German spelling) is rather rarely heard. We usually just speak of equal rights (Gleichberechtigung) or emancipation.

 

For the insane militant crap that's puked out by certain people we don't have any official term that I'm aware of. Two quite brilliant female authors have recently suggested the term "Tussikratie" (rough translation: Bitchocracy) for them, and I kind of like it. That would be referring to pretty much the same stuff that Athena on the 4thwavers blog calls 3rd wavers. The latter is a somewhat more polite term obviously, but if I got it right then that's a term that officially has a different meaning already in feminist academic theory, so maybe we shouldn't use it then.

 

[Bhim]

Well, it's obvious you all don't like each other

 

Well, this is an emotionally-charged issue for many.  Still, this is no excuse.  For me the issue of feminism and the use of the term "rape culture" as a means of robbing the accused of their rights hits close to home.  I have two friends who have been the victims of false accusations of violence against women, and both of these were in a college campus setting.  When I was in undergrad a friend of mine at a nearby college had two female friends over in his dorm room.  He and one of the friends got drunk and had sexual contact, but the other was present the entire time (I'm sure it was awkward for her to watch this...admittedly I'm not sure how this worked).  The intoxicated female went back to her room later in the night, and made a complaint about him a week later, resulting in his expulsion from the college.  Is it possible that my friend is guilty?  Yes it is, and I wasn't present.  But the judicial system should always be biased in favor of the accused, and in any "he said/she said" case where no other evidence is present, the accuser should always lose.  How much more so when there is a witness!  The third party in this case was never questioned by the college, and in my opinion the only victim of rape here was Justice.

 

When I was in graduate school working towards my Ph.D., I had a "friend" who was something of a stereotypical male chauvinist (I didn't approve of this, which is the main reason I don't really consider him a friend).  He was accused of beating his girlfriend, and because of his disposition the girlfriend was believed for a few days.  I know that her accusation was false, because I was with the two of them in his office at the time the incident is alleged to have occurred, and several others were present as well.  The police eventually cleared him of all wrongdoing.  However I am amazed at how quickly and easily the woman was able to make accusations and almost ruin his career, and how long it took him to obtain his (empty) arrest record to show his adviser, the university, and everyone else that this woman had gone to.  Had the university judicial system not afforded her so much trust on account of her gender, none of this would have happened.  Things like this make me cautious of dealing with women even on a professional basis, which is unfortunate because the vast majority of women that I've met behave nothing like this.

 

Suffice it to say, I have ample personal experience to care deeply about this issue.  Yet I'm willing to sit at the table of public discourse and set my emotions aside.  I wish everyone else could do the same.

[Thurisaz]

Well, it's obvious you all don't like each other

 

You should have seen the shitload of other threads about the topic, some time ago. If you think this here is vicious...

[mymistake]

Am I the only one who doesn't really know what passive aggressive really is? Maybe I'm a dolt. Lol. I'm not sure either that there's anti-intellectual attacks going on, some of us may in fact be thick but simply aren't following all of what's going on there.

 

When I used to be a manager and interviewed new software developers, I always stressed my favorite quote from a rocket scientist: "No theory is worth shit unless you can explain it to a bartender." I love that, being in a field full of "shop talk". Because it forces people to talk to everyone in the room, and we engineers can't get away with saying "ignorant users," perhaps the academic equivalent would be "intellectual attack?" I don't know. But I love that damned quote and need to find which rocket scientist it was that said it, so I can cite her or him properly. Would it not be ironic to find out it was Shannon Lucid or another female rocket scientist?

 

 

 

Google seems to think it might have been a guy name Ruthford.  Does that name ring any bells?  The page it is on is mostly written in kanji so I can't get any more info.

 

Strike that.  How about Ernest Rutherford?

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ernest_Rutherford

 

 

Yeah it is a shame about this thread and how things are going.  When somebody attacks all the participants of a thread and accuses them of saying things they didn't say it kind of kills the mood.

 

Anyhow Emma Watson gave an epic speech a few months ago.  It had some great ideas about equality and what humanity's next step should be along that path.  I recommend those who have not seen it google for it on youtube or read a transcript.

[Leo]

Ernest Rutherford, that was it. And thank you.

[Onyx]

Hi everybody,

 

I think feminism is a good idea. It is a corrective to any misogyny going on in this world, ranging from a boss who does not pay women the same wage as the men, to the stoning of women in some countries down to the less violent but no less infuriating scenarios of boys thinking other boys as throwing like a girl and guys thinking a woman is unable to fix a car's engine. It is a good tool for liberating females and males from stereotypes and roles enforced upon them by sexist/homophobic (and other prejudices related to sex and gender) people in power and othewise enforcers of that exercised power.

 

Feminism when used in that manner is a great, even unimaginably liberating thing.

 

However, if it is used by people that think they should replicate the patterns of powerful misogynist people upon their subjects, but with women in the place of the powerful misogynist people, it is a terrible and tragic thing. Anybody who advocates that kind of 'feminism' is not my friend and is harming the fight for a less oppressive culture, much less the world. It will not liberate whoever it is supposed to liberate, it will not help the women and men it is supposed to help. It does not mean you should replicate oppression.

 

To be a feminist is to help ourselves and others to live a life where you cannot suffer a disadvantage just because you have a vagina or penis and just because you are a woman/men who appears and act different to other women/men.Feminism applies to trans people and queer people. It applies to the most marginalised groups such as the homeless and the disabled people. It applies to everybody who is hurt by these oppressors who hurt by denying them from living the life they are meant to be living and denying them the ability to fulfil their utmost potentialities.

 

So, if used to its full potential, feminism along with anti-homophobia, anti-racism and anti-any social prejudice, will help to make a better place for us all and help us to realise a life where we can dress and act however we like and nobody would laugh at you and we then can go around in dignity.

[Castiel233]

I do think that modern feminism has some of the hall marks of a cult and shares some mirror behavior of another cult, Christianity. Both have their prophets of doom and gloom, both have enemies, and in a closed echo chamber ideology dissent is not allowed. Both love to explain and share the good news....Then you have the schisms as pro porn feminists bicker with anti porn feminists each denying the other the right to the title of feminist......

 

Argue with some modern feminist on-line and be told that "you don't understand", or "you are just ignorant" and "well if you can't see the truth then I feel sorry for you". try to pin them down on some point of "doctrine" and be told" I am not going to have this argument because you are just trying to win", or "I am done with all this" or " I don't have to answer that question" quote some feminists literature which quotes death to men and be told to "read it in context"..............Standard answers we get from Christians, standard behavior....a cult by just another name......

 

The men's movement is just the same, its about "fairness" on the surface, but peer under the water and you see a great white swimming towards you......

 

OK I am painting with a very broad brush here, but do you guys see the parity.

 

Just as Christians do, with their "its a war on Christmas" and ranting about secular values....its enemies, enemies every where.........feminists and masculists do this as well, demonize their opponents and rally the base.......its all rather tiresome after a while............... I know a chap in the men's movement, , clearly passionate about his "cause", and well educated , yet his sees female plots every where, as "they are trying to take over" and its all about "female dominance"........ and you sit there thinking, change the record......

 

As previous stated I am not a big fan of "isms" regardless of gender as I think perhaps there is a tendency towards tribal thinking.......sensible equality on the other hand, I am all for it

[RedStar]

 

Well, it's obvious you all don't like each other

 

Well, this is an emotionally-charged issue for many.  Still, this is no excuse.  For me the issue of feminism and the use of the term "rape culture" as a means of robbing the accused of their rights hits close to home.  I have two friends who have been the victims of false accusations of violence against women, and both of these were in a college campus setting.  When I was in undergrad a friend of mine at a nearby college had two female friends over in his dorm room.  He and one of the friends got drunk and had sexual contact, but the other was present the entire time (I'm sure it was awkward for her to watch this...admittedly I'm not sure how this worked).  The intoxicated female went back to her room later in the night, and made a complaint about him a week later, resulting in his expulsion from the college.  Is it possible that my friend is guilty?  Yes it is, and I wasn't present.  But the judicial system should always be biased in favor of the accused, and in any "he said/she said" case where no other evidence is present, the accuser should always lose.  How much more so when there is a witness!  The third party in this case was never questioned by the college, and in my opinion the only victim of rape here was Justice.

 

When I was in graduate school working towards my Ph.D., I had a "friend" who was something of a stereotypical male chauvinist (I didn't approve of this, which is the main reason I don't really consider him a friend).  He was accused of beating his girlfriend, and because of his disposition the girlfriend was believed for a few days.  I know that her accusation was false, because I was with the two of them in his office at the time the incident is alleged to have occurred, and several others were present as well.  The police eventually cleared him of all wrongdoing.  However I am amazed at how quickly and easily the woman was able to make accusations and almost ruin his career, and how long it took him to obtain his (empty) arrest record to show his adviser, the university, and everyone else that this woman had gone to.  Had the university judicial system not afforded her so much trust on account of her gender, none of this would have happened.  Things like this make me cautious of dealing with women even on a professional basis, which is unfortunate because the vast majority of women that I've met behave nothing like this.

 

Suffice it to say, I have ample personal experience to care deeply about this issue.  Yet I'm willing to sit at the table of public discourse and set my emotions aside.  I wish everyone else could do the same.

 

 

That's awful, plus, people would have been more likely to believe the accusation because he was a chauvinist. That in itself is unfair too. These days when accusations of sex crimes (either against women or children) occur I very often see people jump to immediately believe the accuser before there's been any evidence presented and can honestly say that this is something that I hate. It seems that this mostly happens due to emotional reactions hat people have to an allegation, especially if they have been a victim themselves. I can understand that it would be horrendous for a genuine victim to disclose abuse and not be believed, however, since we live in a world where people can and do lie about such things, all allegations must be investigated thoroughly to try to establish the facts.

 

I think sometimes people can forget that when a false accusation is made, the accused becomes a victim. In cases where many people believe is person is a rapist when they aren't, their lives can be forever ruined by it and this can never be completely fixed, especially since there are some people who will hold to what they believe in spite of evidence. As I said earlier, guilt or innocence should never be decided based on emotion.

[Leo]

I like Castiel233's response RE: the parity between the two - feminism and religion.

I think any sensible person can agree with equality. Certainly I, as a bvlind man, in a group with a 70% unemployment rate, constantly having conclusions drawn about me as inadequate in various ways, understand the need for this. But I don't have the right to blame you for any injustices done to me, because you didn't do it. In fact, if I did do such a thing? Not only are you the victim now, but the perpetrators of injustice actually get a pass: everyone gets treated equally shitty, so why improve? How feminists cannot see this is totally beyond me.

 

Orbit, I've gotta say, I'm disappointed. You of all people could outline the problems and solutions in an intelligent manner. But you've retreated like a Christian apologist. Like William Lane Craig, or any of the other really smart apologists, when someone who is not "your people" is bringing tangible, cogent arguments to the table. If I espoused your beliefs today in totale, I'm pretty convinced I lack the skills to communicate it the way that you could. You're not up against misogynists on here. and I know you didn't say any of us were. But what you're up against are people who are very gun-shy of dogma period. If you weren't a feminist, but a men's rights advocate, and if that movement had the same state and commercial sanction that Christianity and Feminism have, we'd be having the same discussion. Because of course we would sympathize with the people. Before any of us has a rational response, we've got an empathetic one that kicks things off, from what I read this in part comes from the hind brain but I clearly don't know. A brain's quite a bit different from a computer processor. Just imagine you're a doctor for a moment. I mean, you already are, but I mean a physician. Someone in a circle of acquaintances has been badly burned by alternative medicine's hacks. Then, what you propose looks exactly like the same kind of hack, even though you have the technical know-how to understand it's legit. You've solved a zillion similar misunderstandings when you were a system administrator back in the 1980s, when people's trust in technology was far less than it is now. Surely, you spent a lot of time arguing for security, such as it was then, upgrades, which were considerably harder for you to implement then than nowadays, and a zillion other things, many of which we don't have to anymore. only unlike the person jaded by alternative medicine, we've read what passes for standard feminist propaganda. I say propaganda, because it reads just like every other kind of propaganda I've ever read, be it animal liberation, Christian apologetics, Mein Kampf or the writings of Mao Tsetung.

 

As a young man, I read about how a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. Well then, why worry about us? Do fish concern themselves with bicycles? I've been told since boyhood that anything we boys can do, girls can do better. Echoed recently by Mr. President Barack Obama, "With one hand tied behind her back." This is clearly as supremacist as the Sons of the Coonfederates, no? Said Those people insist they don't hate blacks, they just understand blacks' inferiority, and because blacks are inferior, they can't possibly understand their own inferiority. What about Andrea Dworken? Are we supposed to do like the Christians now and claim it's all okay because of context? Is the SCUM Manifesto okay because of context?

 

These aren't the questions of a misogynist. I guess one could call me one if they want, moving the relevant goalposts to make it happen. But, change the actors, and you would have heard me raise the very same objections to the member of the Sons of the Confederates. It's the same type of objections I would raise to the people on Stormfront if I wanted to bother with them.

 

It's what I think of as the supremacist objection: If the supremacist is supreme, why is she bothered about us louts running around as cogs in the machine? Supremacy is pretty godlike, I guess, with all the accompanying cognitifve dissonance. Replace the word 'sin' in religion with the word 'black' for the white supremacists, or 'patriarchy' as the go-to argument for resolving cognitive dissonance among the feminists. Do I think all feminists hate men? Well, no, actually. I think it's pretty few and far between. But I've read the literature, just as I've read the Bible. There's a lot of difference between actual feminists and the books / creeds they subscribe to. They may or may not be supremacist, hard for me to say. You have the "I've got black friends" mantra of the white supremacist, and the "I know some men aren't like that" among the feminists, and "Not all women are b**ches" among the men's rights advocates.

 

I'll put another spin on this one for you: What if I went around promulgating this idea that because I'm blind I'm automatically better at some things than everyone else? Not merit, just born-in aristocracy of "blindness" instead of aristocracy of race or gender. Wouldn't I then be pretty disingenuous if I took advantage of anything under the Americans With Disabilities act? Since there's no State/ church / academia-sanctioned platform for this, most people would have the freedom to fully discredit my claims. And in doing so, they wouldn't be haters, they'd be rational. And in doing so, they wouldn't be discrediting any injustice I might have suffered. They'd be calling bullshit on my supremacist claims.

 

So what about some of these new minds? Athena Brown from the website I mentioned? Or Warren Farrel, former President of NOW? Or Karen Straughan, or Christina Hoff Sommers? You could be totally different from the Christian apologists, by stepping outside the dogma and explaining why these people are wrong. Hell, back in the 80s when you were a system administrator, you no doubt ran into "whiz kids" who "knew" so much about how systems worked, and explained to their would-be victims how said whiz kid was technically wrong. We all do it, even now, when people don't very often do their own computer repairs anymore. A young gamer, for instance, wants to play with his CMOS, overclock the CPU and do a few other things he picked up on the Internet. I would only say, "I shouldn't have to explain why that won't work!" if I want to be disrespected and laughed at: no sanctuaries for the likes of us. Unlike the Christians, yu and any other supremacist movements have at least a fighting chance. Your sources are available and verifiable. Many of us have read a good many of them already. Instead of apologetic, see what happens when you put the engineering hat back on and show us how the system, Feminism in this case, is really designed to function. If you tell us that some of the abovementioned sources aren't real feminist, I'm sure you can tell us why that is. You know, and I know, questions aren't attacks. Claiming that you personally are something that you're not, is certainly an attack. Discrediting groups of people, sending false allegations, or wishing for their genocide is certainly an attack. But socratic questioning, even if done rather ineptly, is not an attack. Hell, even plain old me knows the difference: between someone asking a legitimate question and someone launching an attack. Yes, there's gray area and a fine line, but I think most of us on both "sides", if there are actual sides here, are presenting what we have in good faith.

[Orbit]

Orbit, I've gotta say, I'm disappointed. You of all people could outline the problems and solutions in an intelligent manner. But you've retreated like a Christian apologist. Like William Lane Craig, or any of the other really smart apologists, when someone who is not "your people" is bringing tangible, cogent arguments to the table. If I espoused your beliefs today in totale, I'm pretty convinced I lack the skills to communicate it the way that you could. You're not up against misogynists on here. and I know you didn't say any of us were. But what you're up against are people who are very gun-shy of dogma period. If you weren't a feminist, but a men's rights advocate, and if that movement had the same state and commercial sanction that Christianity and Feminism have, we'd be having the same discussion. Because of course we would sympathize with the people. Before any of us has a rational response, we've got an empathetic one that kicks things off, from what I read this in part comes from the hind brain but I clearly don't know. A brain's quite a bit different from a computer processor. Just imagine you're a doctor for a moment. I mean, you already are, but I mean a physician. Someone in a circle of acquaintances has been badly burned by alternative medicine's hacks. Then, what you propose looks exactly like the same kind of hack, even though you have the technical know-how to understand it's legit. You've solved a zillion similar misunderstandings when you were a system administrator back in the 1980s, when people's trust in technology was far less than it is now. Surely, you spent a lot of time arguing for security, such as it was then, upgrades, which were considerably harder for you to implement then than nowadays, and a zillion other things, many of which we don't have to anymore. only unlike the person jaded by alternative medicine, we've read what passes for standard feminist propaganda. I say propaganda, because it reads just like every other kind of propaganda I've ever read, be it animal liberation, Christian apologetics, Mein Kampf or the writings of Mao Tsetung.

Leo-

Not too long ago I started a thread and invited questions about feminism. I provided data, research, and background. It was met with vitriol and links to anti-feminist apologetics sites. It didn't matter how much data I gave them, they were like creationists reacting to evolution. From that experience I learned that people don't really want to know the history, goals, and accomplishments of the large, varied, global feminist movement. They want to vent about what they perceive, or believe, feminism to be. No amount of data or reason can displace this belief because they view their personal experience the same way that Christians view their experience with God -- personal experience is irrefutable by facts. They are gender fundamentalists in how they think. It is for that reason that I'm not going to go through that again.

 

First off, dozens of possible topics have been brought up here, and every response dogpiles more onto them. Each topic deserves a thread, and no one person can handle them simultaneously to give them the in depth response they deserve. People want easy, one sentence answers but social life is too complex to permit that.

 

Second, in this thread the feminist movement has been grossly mischaracterized, I have been accused by Thurisaz of having feminist ideas that put women over men in society, which I never said and cannot be inferred from anything I did say; florduh has made it abundantly clear that academics don't know anything about life or feminism; and you have called feminism "propaganda". So Leo, I ask you, why would I even bother?

[mymistake]

Gee Orbit, thanks for not giving any of us a chance.  What about the mischaracterizations that you made?  If you don't like mischaracterizations then not making them is a good way to discourage them.  Personally I think Thurisaz's comments were about the way you treated people here.  It's something to consider.

 

I'm still waiting for you to withdraw your accusations against me.  You know full well that I never said you are bad.  I never said all feminists are bad.  You have the power to acknowledge that you were barking up the wrong tree.