No, I don't think I'm better than you.
However, I also don't think you are better than me.
Posted by binky at March 5, 2006 11:47 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Extremism | Gender and Politics | Random Thoughts | Religion | Reproductive Autonomy | Shine the Light on ItIs there a link that goes with this or are you just sayin'?
Posted by: jacflash at March 5, 2006 11:57 AM | PERMALINKJust sayin'.
After doing some reading about oh, the bill introduced in Tennessee that an adult woman must notify the person who impregnated her before getting an abortion, that drunken thrashing amounts to consent and thus results in an acquittal for a rape charge, a Kansas editorial about why birth control shouldn't exist (it interferes with God's plan, you know) and on and on and how any woman who complains or counters is hysterical, irrational and immoral. If there was a specific thing that I would refer you to, it's this thoughtful post at the Mahablog.
I was also reading a piece linked from the Mahablog about pro-life women who get "moral abortions." In addition to finding out more information about the tricksy callers from Texas, it got me thinking about how those pro-lifers, even though they were just the same as the rest of us admittedly flawed human beings, couldn't believe that.
So much of the anti-feminist and anti-women as thinking creatures rhetoric is premised on the idea that women think they are so much better (which of course, echoes the "special privilege" language used against LGBT people or minorities opposed to discrimination). Amanda at Pandagon always does a good job skewering that balloon of hot air. Anyway, I was thinking about it, and reflecting, and concluding no, I don't really think I am better. Of course, the problem is that there are others who want us to think they (or their particular religio-philosophical framework) are better. Twisty ruminates:
You do this by demonizing feminists, by renting women for lap dances, by letting rapists off the hook in court, by buying cheap crap Victoria’s Secret thongs for your woman, by congratulating your girlfriend on her boob job, by ignoring mass rapes in Rwanda, by passing along the URL to Paris Hilton’s fuck video, by ogling that girl at the bus stop, by letting your mom do your laundry, by “giving away” a bride, by voting control of women’s uteruses over to godbag politicians, by pressuring your girlfriend to take it up the ass because all your friends are doin’ it, by having an opinion on the size of human labia, by arguing that stripping is “empowering,” by claiming you’re “hardwired” to be turned on by women who emulate the ludicrous fashion practices of strippers and centerfolds, by your inability to conceive of sex without dominance, and by refusing, despite 30 years of intelligent, educated women telling you otherwise, to concede that you don’t really, truly view women as human beings in anything approaching the same light in which you view yourself.
I guess I am some kind of dinosaur, being a modernist and an individualist. I suppose I am not ambitious enough, because I have always been content to see the increasing individual liberty as a way for people to maximize their own moral economy. For me that is enough. Of course other find that to maximize their moral economy, they must impose their morals on others, starting with, but not limited to their children. And in the extension of that illogic of control, they end up conceptualizing of those who disagree with them as the moral equivalent of wicked, disobedient children. Which we aren't, of course.
We are all just humans.
And it bears repeating that this is what feminists - among others - are arguing. We don't think we're better than you, but we don't believe you are better than us either.
Then again, I might have been listening to the Flaming Lips a bit too much.
p.s. How are you? You haven't been around as much lately. I was getting used to - and enjoying - having you around.
Posted by: binky at March 5, 2006 12:34 PM | PERMALINKi don't terribly want to wade into this swamp, but about half of what twisty lists is hogwash. sorry, there it is, i said it.
lap dances? come on -- an uneducated woman can make $2K a week doing that (which is itself an intrinsically safe activity due to all the safeguards clubs institute) or maybe find a $10/hour job. it's not for everyone, it's not necessarily empowering in itself, but i've known a number of women who have no problem with the job, including, among others, a top-flight med student who graduated with virtually no debt from a top-ten med school. thongs? don't want to wear them, don't. the paris hilton video? fucking please. how many women passed around the tommy lee sex tape? and it's all but certain that paris herself was behind that tape's release; she was mugging like she knew what was coming and in case nobody noticed she went from unremarked heiress to sensation overnight as a direct consequence of that video's release.
ogling a girl at the bus stop? yes, there is inappropriate leering, and no, nothing she wears means she's asking for a violent assault (although asking and recognizing the risk of are two distinct things; we'd all love to live in an ideal world, but those of us who recognize we don't tend to fare far better). but men who wear $300 dollar jeans get checked out, too; it's style. more women may put themselves on display, and in some sense this may be a product of social programming, but plenty don't. so what -- they were vaccinated? how. i've known plenty of smart capable women of great moral agency who got off on the attention.
and while we're at it, plenty of ubersmart, uberprogressive, completely nonexploiting couples ended up together after precisely the sort of busstop glance twisty protests. attraction has a physical component for men and women alike, and while perhaps some of us fell in love based on a comment our future partner made in class, behind us, before we'd even noticed him or her, that's the exception. most couplings, across demographics, start out way baser than that. i feel as though twisty would do away with the mating dance, which plenty of us, women and men both, rather enjoy.
as for laundry, i would have been happy to let dad do it, too. and regardless, kids don't "let" their parents do laundry, they accede unthinkingly when their parents go ahead and do it. parents make kids do exactly as much as parents want to make them do.
the anal sex thing is risible. here's the thing: you can't on one hand make an argument for women's moral agency and then on the other make them victims of a million elective choices made every day. sex is sex is sex; no one's bemoaning the plight of men leveraged by their women into going down on them or doing whatever else suits them, and plenty of men are responsive to their partner's needs, however weird, even when they're not huge fans of whatever it is, because that's what love (or even just sexual affection absent love) is about. and plenty of women enjoy anal sex, even to the point of seeking it from a partner who'd just as soon take a pass.
how about, if you want to be a respected feminist you don't generalize about men any more than you want to be generalized about. there are a handful of things in that passage with which i couldn't agree more, but only a handful, and the rest is polemic in lieu of argument.
and more generally, i don't see maternalistic rants like twisty's as a terribly compelling defense of moral agency, seeing as apparently everything a woman does that she neither likes nor approves of automatically arises as a product of male oppression instead of due to preferences and circumstances varying.
even if the women in question don't like it, i know lots of men who do all sorts of shit society expects of them everyday notwithstanding that it makes them miserable? thongs? ties. anal sex? paying $200/month for hair and nail appointments for a woman who's all too content not to work. lap dances? lap dances. shaving? shaving. working at miserable exploitative jobs? working at miserable exploitative jobs.
you're right, neither men nor women are any better than the other, and while that isn't always reflected in crucial ways (say, the income gap), and that's something to work on, they are far more frequently and in far more quarters equally victimized than twisty seems to acknowledge.
sermon over.
harumph!
Posted by: moon at March 5, 2006 07:30 PM | PERMALINKTwisty is obviously working through some issues. I can't see any good reason to put energy into engaging with her. YMMV, of course, but it's not like we're going to change her mind or anything.
Binky, I've just been super-busy -- our house is being recombobulated, work transition is underway, etc., etc. I owe several dozen emails, to say nothing of blog comments, etc.
My blog will launch sometime in the next couple of weeks; I'll keep y'all posted.
Posted by: jacflash at March 5, 2006 07:38 PM | PERMALINKDefensive, much?
Moon, it's not all about you, nor your closely held and dearly beloved blind spot on gender.
And in case neither of you noted the name of Twisty's blog, it is "I Blame the Patriarchy."
Posted by: binky at March 5, 2006 07:48 PM | PERMALINKOh, I noted the name of her blog. I also read her comment policy, which is charming. She is welcome to blame the patriarchy. Personally, I blame the First Council of Nicaea. We all have our blind spots.
Posted by: at March 5, 2006 07:57 PM | PERMALINKSo eager to respond as to forget to name oneself. Hmmm.
Do tell, how does the First Council of Nicaea continue to oppress millions of people?
Oh, and, you might be interested to read this.
Not as fun as Aunt Twisty, but the end story is much the same.
Posted by: binky at March 5, 2006 08:04 PM | PERMALINKSorry, that was me responding. And how does the First Council of Nicaea continue to oppress millions? Well, m'dear, this is hugely oversimplified, but way back in 325 CE there was a big debate over what exactly that Jesus fellow had been all about. (There were lots of little sects, cults, etc., running about, all with very different ideas, many of which didn't look anything like what we now think of as Christianity.) The debate was nasty and split Christiandom, such as it was then, into two camps (again, oversimplifying, but stay with me, and forgive me any minor twinges from the storyline -- my library is in boxes and I can't lay hands on the Pagels book that reviews all this). Anyway, one of our camps maintained that Jesus, a man, was teaching a way of being, a perspective, and that followers should heed his teachings by way of trying to become like him. The teachings followed in this camp were (broadly speaking) nondualistic and similar to the essential teachings behind many of what we now think of as the Eastern religions. The other camp, which included a lot of Roman officials who were starting to see a spiffy way to unite and project power over their scattered Empire, claimed that Jesus was divine, to be worshipped, etc., that priests were in charge, and all that. Well, there was called a conference to sort everything out. Guess who won? Guess who shaped what we now know as the Catholic Church? Check out the funky creed they came up with for everyone to recite. Think history might have been different if they had gone in the other (Buddhist-looking) direction? Do you see oppression? Can I have a cookie? Isn't it cool that that pimp tune won an Oscar?
Sorry, I think the Christian oppression has nothing on patriarchy, which crosses cultures, religions, systems of government...
Posted by: binky at March 5, 2006 11:44 PM | PERMALINKYou ain't gonna get rid of patriarchy without confronting the Western religious structures. I don't know how to "fight patriarchy", but I do know how to poke at religious beliefs, not as a "skeptic" but as someone who knows what's behind the curtain. We all do what we can, y'know? Patriarchy sucks for us, too.
Posted by: jacflash at March 6, 2006 08:15 AM | PERMALINKthanks, binky, for morrisifying my counterpolemic rather than responding to the core contention explicit therein:
how about, if you want to be a respected feminist you don't generalize about men any more than you want to be generalized about. there are a handful of things in that passage with which i couldn't agree more, but only a handful, and the rest is polemic in lieu of argument.and more generally, i don't see maternalistic rants like twisty's as a terribly compelling defense of moral agency, seeing as apparently everything a woman does that she neither likes nor approves of automatically arises as a product of male oppression instead of due to preferences and circumstances varying.
and btw, if i'd wanted to respond directly to twisty, i'd have done so at her blog. i responded to you because you substantially relied on her comments to defend your own (wholly agreeable) proposition. my critique was aimed solely at illustrating how poorly her excerpt supported your post.
in dismissing my comments rather than responding to them, you've insulted every woman i had in mind as i rejected twisty's reasoning, all of whom are the sort of women we'd all like to see more of -- fiercely independent, smart, self-confident, and far more beholden to their own ambitions than to the expectations of "the patriarchy."
oh, and this: "nor your closely held and dearly beloved blind spot on gender" -- i've got two choice words that are as much of a response as such a slur deserves, but they're too unladylike for a public forum. i'll save them for in person, when i'll offer them through a wry grin over a beer i'll look forward to buying you. (or, if that's too patriarchal, you can buy me the beer.)
Posted by: moon at March 6, 2006 09:47 AM | PERMALINK1. Talking about patriarchy isn't generalizing about men. If you can't understand that distinction between social structures and individuals who act within them, you'll have to do some reading on your own.
2. Talking about your defensiveness isn't generalizing about men, it's a comment on a body of responses to posts about gender.
3. Patriarchy is a hierarchical system that is as damaging to men as it is to women (and unlike la Twisty I don't spend a lot of time railing against said system, but as you know from my posts I often do discuss how both men and women are harmed).
4. I don't really care what you think about Twisty's comment qua defense of moral agency. Jacflash asked why I had posted what I did, and her post was one of the things I had read this morning, all of which were a lot more complicated than the simple statement I wanted to make. She does, in her own inimitable way, reinforce the idea that if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
5. Jacflash, that is my point exactly, which I was trying to emphasize in the original post. Patriarchy sucks for everybody, every single human, none of which is better than any other.
Posted by: binky at March 6, 2006 10:04 AM | PERMALINKall fair points, and i appreciate your willingness to respond directly. defensiveness on this point, to be fair, is a hefty charge, and i'm not really sure what you think i'm defending based on what you glean from a "body of responses to posts about gender," especially when i try to minimize my responses to your posts about gender. while abortion implicates gender, it implicates a lot of other things, too, so in that excepted area i not infrequently mouth off. but the strain of posts of which i count this one i tend not to engage precisely because i sense that your defensiveness will preclude any sort of real response. and with your first response here, i think you vindicated my apprehension.
perhaps robust discussion of patriarchy requires no generalizations about men, or requires defensible generalizations, but if that's the case i think twisty's own comments betray her larger agenda, since it consists of a pithy enumeration of supposed offenses that require a more nuanced engagement (qua evidence of patriarchal thinking) than she cares to offer (in said excerpt; i don't know what she's written elsewhere).
so i take it i'm part of the problem? oh well. happy monday to you, too.
first drink's still on me. :-)
Posted by: moon at March 6, 2006 10:13 AM | PERMALINKAlas, Moon, I do think you are part of the problem. Not out of direct intent or viciousness, but out of not seeing.
Posted by: binky at March 6, 2006 10:24 AM | PERMALINKwell, do feel free to elaborate a bit, here or on email, because while i think we're all part of some problem or another, i really don't know what you've got on me that makes you think i'm so far beyond the pale to single me out for particular scrutiny (if accusing me of being part of the problem and of having a blind spot without saying how or with respect to what counts as scrutiny), and insofar as i respect your opinion i'm truly curious. i still don't get how what i said about twisty's pithy was all that wrong, and given the initial ad hominem response i suspect i hit some kind of nerve (whether because you believe that twisty was a bit over the top or because you so despise my patriarchal thinking i really can't say -- but in either case, the abruptness of it was uncharacteristic).
Posted by: moon at March 6, 2006 10:30 AM | PERMALINKI have no interest at all in wading into the middle of THIS. I just want to quickly note that I agree that the Council of Nicaea was really, really important - and given the central role that the imposition of Christianity has played in great power politics for a couple thousand years now, well, I think its impact is important.
I also find it freaky how much of that creed is probably permanently drilled into my head "kingdom shall have no end" ... "one holy catholic and apostolic church" ... Of course I get exposed to lots of words, by for the centuries when most people didn't - well, the Council's words have had an impact for many centuries on how a lot of people see the world.
Posted by: Armand at March 6, 2006 10:45 AM | PERMALINKOh no, you didn't hit a nerve. There's a pattern I've been observing for some time [which, I hope I don't have to add, applies to blog writing and makes no presumption about personal behavior]. It's just that your first response was very personal for such a general statement, and as such the defensiveness was more evident than usual. It seemed a good entry for a little schema shake up.
Posted by: binky at March 6, 2006 11:59 AM | PERMALINKwell, i'm happy to say that in my view ad hominem really does amount to a schema shake-up coming from you. indeed, i was entirely unprepared for it.
so let me make sure i get this straight: i can snap for reasons i clearly articulate, and it is ipso facto defensive (not to mention, evidently, egomaniacal), but when you snap in an even more curt fashion for reasons it's impossible to discern (aside from the fact that you evidently don't like what i've said) you're not being defensive, you're just "shaking things up." that just doesn't seem very sporting. if your bald assertion that you're not being defensive should be taken at face value, why shouldn't mine be -- given that, you know, neither of us is better than the other?
anyway, once again you've alluded to a pattern you won't condescend to define, support, or even substantiate by pointers to where i have so offended. you might as well just say i smell funny for all the meaningful discussion it engenders. if i've got it so wrong, one would think you'd be more inclined to try to set me aright by clueing me in to the contours of the nebulous "pattern" you've imputed to me. whether or not you think so, i do listen to substantive challenges and i've got no problem being proved wrong.
i don't play intellectual games here. so while i appreciate the sop you throw to me -- that i might not be a chauvinist oppressor in my meatspace life -- i throw it right back. i made some comments by which i stand in service of an argument i think is serviceable. i'm really not convinced that responding to rampant, insulting abstraction predicated on cliche examples, with anecdotal, and not necessarily exceptional, counterexamples, is so absurd as to be beneath response. and i certainly don't think anything i've said so far reveals me as some pathetic, pitiably brainwashed tool of the patriarchy.
(e.g., you wrote: "If you can't understand that distinction between social structures and individuals who act within them, you'll have to do some reading on your own." i agree and i do my best to distinguish the two when circumstances warrant it. the thing is, i don't read twisty as writing about social structures in her little screed; indeed, she repeatedly alludes to putative individuals acting within them in precisely the same way i did in retort.)
i am certainly weaker in abstract feminist theory than probably anyone writing here, an intellectual weakness from which i don't pretend to hide. on the other hand, i have an edge on you in the substantive legal discussions that happen here. even so, you don't hear me accusing you of being a tool of that subset of the legally uninformed blogosphere that manifests serial ignorance of the exigencies of administering a legal system in the real world. it's not kindness or pity that leads me not to pursue this inflammatory line of response; it's that it's unproductive. i'd much rather point out what i think you or some other commentator is missing. it's more respectful, responsive, and it's what sustains the sort of discussion by which we all learn and grow. and i wouldn't hang out here if i didn't think i had plenty to learn from the coup and its intimate bevy of commentators.
How about, I didn't snap, but merely don't have the time - nor did I have the desire - to drag out an in-depth analysis of your blog personality w/r/t women's issues. And as I said, initially, it's not all about you (in both senses of that phrase) and I wasn't really interested in diverting the thread to that particular discussion (which hasn't worked, btw). I don't expect you to be a feminist scholar. I am not a feminist scholar. I do expect that you might try "walking a mile..." or perhaps, instead of going on an immediate attack of the defensive type for yourself and your gender, think about it, and perhaps admit that you don't perhaps have the experience or education that would lead you to a similar conclusion. As I would humbly suggest, some of us frequently do when we engage you on the topic of law when we acknowledge your vast expertise. That there are male bloggers on the left - and I include you in there, IRT the discussion we are having - who would accept their own expertise on certain policy matters due to education and experience, yet not see that women might have a certain education and experience that leads them to a different yet equally valid expertise, and that is frustrating to say the least.
And while it must be difficult to imagine a wave of public policy sweeping the nation in which said policy could have real impact on what you choose to do with your testicular or penile function, were that the case you might also be interested to tug at all the strands of the knot holding that particular web of ideology together. As suggested by the Foreign Policy article, patriarchy isn't just the invention of radical feminist bloggers. It's a set of structures and practices, with widely recognized motivations and consequences.
So, when I say that you are defensive and that you don't see, what I am trying to suggest is that your education and worldview have not put you in a place where you are confronted with certain realities, and that by taking the easy way out, of defending yourself and other men by extension, you create a distraction from the real problem of a concerted and organized threat to the self-determination of the female part of the population, and the alientation of their rights to life and liberty - even the control of their own most fundamental property, themselves - to the control of the state (or those who would use the state to exert control). As I said before, it's not all about you, and taking it personally and making it all about you, doesn't advance the discussion.
For another way to get at this, read this discussion at Shakespeare's Sister, and see the variation in the way people think - or don't - about what their responsibility is to end rape. There's some awful trollishness in the middle, but also some really thoughtful reflection from men and women about what it means to be part of a solution. It's off topic from this discussion, which I don't mean to be about rape, but on target in the are of communication of shared - and not shared - experience.
Posted by: binky at March 6, 2006 01:16 PM | PERMALINKall of which is far more interesting than what twisty said, which is all i really went on the attack about.
Posted by: moon at March 6, 2006 01:25 PM | PERMALINKTo which I might say "interesting to you because you don't see those things as part of one holistic structural constraint, but perhaps Twisty's - or other women's - education in the school of life has caused her to experience those things as parts of a real phenomenon that from a distance, you can't even imagine as a contruct.
Posted by: binky at March 6, 2006 04:07 PM | PERMALINKi'm going to see if i can break the cycle of violence here. you wrote:
"That there are male bloggers on the left - and I include you in there, IRT the discussion we are having - who would accept their own expertise on certain policy matters due to education and experience, yet not see that women might have a certain education and experience that leads them to a different yet equally valid expertise, and that is frustrating to say the least."
i concede that "women might have a certain education and experience," a complex of data i simply lack for being a man, and that this materially disqualifies me from certain aspects of discussions of gender. but since this is a reversible epistemological claim more than anything else, it's an equally valid proposal to say that a woman's assertions of patriarchy predicated on comments about stock male behaviors are equally infirm for the same reason: there's something peculiar to the male experience that a woman simply can't fathom, and at best, a woman can aim to open her mind and listen.
so where are we? because i'm a man, i can't possibly know the import of buying a thong for my girlfriend. but if that's so, than because you're a woman, neither can you. so the thong-buying proclivities of men (and i'm sure a few women) for their significant others (both men and women, i'm also sure) are undiscussable.
and of course we can extrapolate this to all power-dynamic discussions among discrete groups -- a black woman can't really inform a white woman's life (if woman-ness is enough to cross other demographic boundaries, why isn't our common humanity enough to keep us all in the same discussion?), straights can't comment on queers (which will excise huge chunks from the humanities academy), and so on.
kind of boring, no?
Posted by: moon at March 6, 2006 05:35 PM | PERMALINK"a complex of data i simply lack for being a man"
That's not what I said. It's not because you are a man, as you might have had sisters, mother, lovers who passed through experiences which gave you perspective. There are women too who do not know these things. I've never been pregnant, never had an abortion, never been raped. So I have to do the "thought experiment" too.
What I was not so gently suggesting, is that perhaps you ought to try it, for a change.
Posted by: binky at March 6, 2006 05:40 PM | PERMALINKThere's always someone who says it better:
Posted by: binky at March 7, 2006 12:44 AM | PERMALINKWhoops, better give the obligatory qualifier: some of you guys are really, really neat. You are committed to women's rights and you never take advantage of your male privilege and you really love eating pussy, really you do. So with that out of the way, relax cuz now you know I'm not talking about you...
...But I'd rather the weapon for a political movement not be one that has the potential to kill thousands of our sisters, daughters, aunts, cousins, mothers. It might be good politics to you, but it's life and death to us.
last i checked, about 50% of the preferred "weapons" in the movement were on the other side, to one extent or another. an ally is an ally is an ally.
Posted by: moon at March 7, 2006 01:11 AM | PERMALINKI've been thinking about how to respond to that last comment, and there is too much to say and too little time. The short answer is "no."
Posted by: binky at March 7, 2006 02:00 PM | PERMALINKwhatever. there are plenty of women who view this as politics, or, if you prefer, as a matter of life or death -- for untold fetus. they're not your friends. and men like me, no matter how blind, self-involved, patriarchal, or ignorant you think we are, are not your enemy.
Posted by: moon at March 7, 2006 03:37 PM | PERMALINKDid anyone say those plenty of women were allies either? I don't recall it. Do you think that "not enemy" and "ally" are exactly the same thing? The Shakespeare's sister thread was pretty illuminating about that.
So, really, I'm going to have to declare a blog moratorium on this issue for awhile. My head hurts from beating it against the wall, and there are other people giving it plenty of attention (and they are probably not in grading hell). The final link I'll post about allies and allies:
It’s those fair-weather liberal men we need to concentrate on. You know the type: The ones who will swear their allegiance to women’s rights, until it comes to actually doing something about it, or until someone suggests that that perhaps supporting equal rights means losing a few votes in the heartland. Then they’ll argue that, really, it wouldn’t be so bad if Roe were overturned — it would leave our basic bodily autonomy and fundamental human rights in the hands of a majority vote, sure, but it would probably win the Dems a few elections. Or maybe they’re all about other liberal causes — anti-war, anti-racist, environmentally conscious — but when women’s rights come up, they just kind of shrug their shoulders, say it’s not really an issue, and go back to talking about sluts and bitches.
Though I disagree with the "sluts" and "bitches" part.
And another thing, gendergeek has prepped some Q&A:
Posted by: binky at March 7, 2006 07:14 PM | PERMALINKDo you hate me?
No. We sometimes appear intolerant of gross stupidity and risible arguments. If you feel that we should ignore the gaping holes in your thesis on the grounds of your supposed civility, you are in the wrong place. You might also like to ask yourself why disrespect for your ideas from women provokes such neurosis.
Do you hate men?
No. Some our best friends are men.
But what about men? They experience x, y, and z too!
Yes, patriarchy shakes the shitty end of the stick at all comers. However, suggesting that we should ignore the structural inequalities that impact women, because there is some collateral impact on men, is patently ludicrous.
Shouldn’t we just call it “humanism” or “equalitism”?
No. It’s called “feminism” because it challenges the inequalities that affect females. Just like “racism” challenge inequalities that affect people of different races. This, of course, does not mean that feminism isn’t a human rights issue. It is.
Aren’t you confusing causality with correlation?
Nope.
Why don’t you just calm down? It’s only harmless fun!
“Harmless fun” has proven to be the semantic cornerstone of all attempts to ridicule and dismiss a feminist analysis of just about anything.
The term is, obviously, laden with privilege. It implies that the user can rise above the partisan analyses of feminism (or anti-racism, or anti-agism) and objectively measure whether a particular set of behaviours is harmful. It is significant that the users frequently appear to lack a basic understanding of the analysis that they are rejecting, and instead base the authority for their response on their position of power within the hierarchy under question.
This is why people hate feminism. You’re so autocratic and just want to impose your values on everyone else.
Yes, we do. We would like to live in a world where women weren’t subject to male violence; where work of equal value was paid at an equal rate; where women had real options in respect of work-life balance; where reproductive healthcare didn’t have to be fought and refought for; where women were represented in public office and at senior levels in insitutions; and where economics, jurisprudence, and public policy took cognisance of the realities of women’s lives. However, it’s interesting that this is framed as “autocratic”, as if you are aware that men will not cede any of their power to women without being made to.
I don’t see why x, y, or z is a gendered issue.
Just as fish don’t know they’re swimming in water, it’s very difficult for members of any patriarchal society to see the gender-blindness that surrounds them. Feminism would argue that all issues require to be the subject of a gendered analysis, or goods, services, policy, and legislation will be developed without understanding the needs of women. The issues addressed on Gendergeek are not only gender issues, but we are offering a gendered analysis of them.
Andrea Dworkin said “all sex is rape”. Why should I listen to anything feminists say?
Actually, she didn’t.And even if she had done, you are an imbecile for refusing to engage
with a broad, heterogenous political movement on the basis of your
disagreement with one of its thinkers.
This is all just irrational emotionalism. Can’t you feminists use logic and reason?
So much of claimed rationality is in fact androcentrism masquerading
as value-free objective analysis. The idea that an emotional response
is inappropriate should in and of itself be interrogated. Plus, this
shit makes us mad, y’know?