your latest thaang

[MadameButterfly]

i'm a rebel and love men too much.

shall gather coat and boots and leave now...

[LouLou]

you go girl!

[Big Si]

in that case i'll stick to voddy and diet coke.

much more ladylike

That bier would be better for you. Unpasteurised and unfiltered. The Czechs call it liquid bread

[Being645]

i'm a rebel and love men too much.
shall gather coat and boots and leave now...

ah, it's just the way you are, nothing wrong with that ... ...

[LouLou]

in that case i'll stick to voddy and diet coke.

much more ladylike

That bier would be better for you. Unpasteurised and unfiltered. The Czechs call it liquid bread

oh go on then!


here's to world peace! or something

[Being645]

Cheers.

I gotta pack a few things now and leave for a weekend job tomorrow morning ...

[Big Si]

World Peace? Nah, it'll never happen.

"Crush your enemies....see them driven before you,
hear the lamentation of their women...."

[sultan2075]

particularly when you consider that some women say that they are not feminists simply because they want to dissociate themselves from the hysterical attention seekers who have more or less monopolised the title 'feminist', replaced gender equality ideals with bitter misandry, corrupted the very essence of the feminist philosophy which your quote so elegantly captures, and alienated a sizeable chunk of the population whose rights they claim to advocate.

that does not make them any less of a human being.


not convinced?

in that case i'm one happy, proud doormat

Ok, I’ll bite. There may have been some irony in that last statement, but I suspect not nearly enough. Have we really come to a point where a clearly intelligent young woman is happier to call herself a doormat than a feminist? I am truly Depressed Beyond Tablets.

I will proudly identify as a feminist, but I think there is a serious problem with the word “feminism�, which has perhaps served to discourage many people over the years – men and women – from looking into the movement in any depth. Because it refers to one gender, it could understandably be seen to be pro-female and anti-male. But the most lazy examination of the bulk of feminist literature (yes, I’m aware there are exceptions, though many of the most famous “feminazi� quotes from Dworkin and the like have not only been taken out of context but literally rephrased) reveals a desire to achieve various definitions of equality – not to assert some kind of superiority. I am not saying there are no people like that on the planet who shelter under the umbrella of feminism... but that is just the thing, it is a massive umbrella.

These man-haters you and sultan talk about... I must say, I’m wondering where they are all hiding as well. I am friends with a number of feminist activists (male and female), and far from being anti-male, I don’t know any people who are more tolerant of every conceivable manifestation of gender that the human race can throw up. Feminists generally try to look beyond the gender binary – which kind of makes it impossible to hate a group of people that they define in far more fluid terms than most. The women who groan that “men are all pigs� are usually a million miles from being feminists. On the contrary, I would argue that they have internalized the discourses of inequality which paint socially constructed injustices as entirely biologically predestined... “natural� and inevitable. “Men are s**t� is the flipside of the “Boys will be Boys� coin. All the feminists I know like to give men a little bit more credit – believing that much of the piggishness that some display is the product of nurture rather than nature. We recognise a common, human nature.

The word “misandry� has become rather too fashionable to throw around (along with “feminazis� ), to silence and discredit any woman who suggests that there is still much progress to be made, or who dares to be angry about anything – no matter how valid that anger may be. While a man’s anger or indignation can be righteous and noble, there is a rich history of female rage being written off as “hysterical� hyperventilation, belittled, dismissed and even pathologized. And it’s not a male conspiracy – like most of the prejudices women face, it requires us to maintain it just as much as it requires unreconstructed chauvinist dudes.

I think it’s important to point out that feminism is not just for women – it is about improving the relationship between the genders, not just making life better for women at men’s expense. Don’t fall for the illusion that this is a zero sum game. Cartoonish gender roles restrict and damage men as well.

To caricature feminists as rabid man-haters (or even closet ones) is like lumping the entire Civil Rights movement and all modern racial equality organizations and campaigners with the most radical members of the Nation Of Islam and the Black Panthers. Wanting equality and respect is not “misandry�, and being angry about not having it... still isn’t. There is a lot to be angry about – hate is another thing entirely. It is true that Bidisha, Germaine Greer and other prominent meedja feminists do sometimes go for polemic punch over intellectual rigour, but show me a journalist who doesn’t! There is a difference between genuine inverse prejudice and human beings allowing the clarity of their arguments to be occasionally clouded by emotion when they speak about issues that have affected them deeply and personally. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to see an angry woman saying something about gender and immedately brush her argument aside.

I used to think in a similar way to you until my early 20’s – not to the same extent, but I had serious misgivings about feminism. I was not aware of experiencing any problems that were gender-specific... I did not feel I had suffered for being female. But I have since had a couple of rude awakenings. I was threatened with sexual violence and also developed a health problem, just one of the upshots of which was that I may not be able to have children (though I’m not sure I ever had any genuine desire to). Things like this bring home the reality of issues which can seem abstract, overplayed, redundant. You become painfully aware of what is expected of you as a female of the species. It’s not a problem if you can fulfil the roles assigned to you. As in many other areas of life, it is easy to remain blissfully unaware of the inequalities inherent in the status quo, of injustices which are more subtle than the brutal murder of prostitutes and things of that magnitude, until you are forced into a position where you have no choice but to consider your place in the world. Some are born feminist, some become feminist, some have feminism thrust upon them.

Post-feminsm is a dangerous kind of complacency, based on the story that in the Sixties and Seventies we got the Pill and the Equal Pay Act (yet to be fully enforced, but it’s the thought that counts eh?), now all is well. A thin veneer of equality has convinced a generation (mine, unfortunately), that we’ve made all the advances we need to, and to continue to question things is just being pernickety. I beg to differ.

I'm only going to make a couple of comments. I've been drinking, though, so my initial intention of brevity will likely go to the winds once the muses take me.

1. Whether we like it or not, the meaning of words is determined by use. The word "feminism" has been tainted. Can it be un-tainted? I don't know. I don't really care, either--because I think most (if not all) "-ism's" are symptomatic of a tendency toward classifying various schools of thought that get in the way of understanding the moral/social/political/cultural world/worlds we live in. We classify at the expense of understanding.

2. Let's not judge too harshly! I took LouLou's statement in a very different light than you did, I think. And--I swear I'm not trying to be jerk here, so forgive me if I come off that way in what I'm about to say--I think I took it in a more charitable and accurate light. Dare I say humorous? I do so dare.

3. "Feminism" as a movement has a couple of problems. Does this mean they apply to all who call themselves feminists? No.

3a. "Feminism" as a philosophical movement is, in practice, anti-philosophical. One thing I've seen, over and over again, in so-called* "feminist" philosophers (and this is personal experience! I know that the plural of anecdote is not data!) is a tendency to reject philosophical arguments they dislike as "sexist" rather than engaging them on their merits. Nietzsche, for example, may be deeply, deeply wrong about women, but simply saying he's a sexist because he was raised by women is insufficient for refuting his suggestion that women lose power and influence through what we would today call feminism or proto-feminism. It may be sexist--but what matters is whether or not he's right.

3b. This is both the more-serious and the less-serious part of the critiques. Many feminists--one might even say "mainstream feminism"--have aligned themselves with post-modernism as a philosophical movement. Unfortunately, the rejection of natural right/natural law/metaphysics in general that is the essence of postmodern philosophy undermines the moral claims of feminism.

3c. Many so-called feminists that I have encountered (again, anecdotes and data, etc, etc) have been utterly humorless.

3d. The focus on the gender of philosophers is a distraction. What matters is whether or not Socrates or Diotima or Plato or Aristotle or Aquinas or Machiavelli or Hobbes or Locke or Rousseau or Nietzsche or Heidegger etc etc etc are right. This is, emphatically, not to say that gender-bias and the like are irrelevant in questions of cultural analysis or cultural critique. It is to say, however, Aristotle's plumbing might be irrelevant to the question of his correctness.

4. Re: "misandry." Most of the unpleasant folks I had in mind when I made the comment to which you referred are probably not guilty of misandry. My impression at the time is that they were, fundamentally, misanthropists and mysologists. Any alleged misandry was really just a by-product of that.

5. All of my blah-blah-blah notwithstanding, I'm largely sympathetic to what you're saying. It's probably useful to make distinction between "academic" feminists and (for lack of a better term) "real" feminists. I've been in academia long enough to know that there's a certain kind of bullsh!t that only people with Ph.D's can accept.


*this note is meant to imply my skepticism about their claims to be feminists and my rejection of their claims to be philosophers, for reasons that I trust are readily apparent.

EDIT: Me am good at spellings and gmarram. Grammar. Snuh.

[Izzy HaveMercy]

Is this teh Girlz Thread then?

IZ.

[Being645]

... ... we're talking about feminists at the moment ... not so much about girls ... and boys, yet ... and the effects of gender roles for either nowadays ...

[markfiend]

Agh.

1st rule of holes: if you're in too deep, stop digging.

Having said that...

LouLou it was nothing that you said that prompted my previous post. I never meant to imply that I thought that you said I should butt out or shut up. So sorry (again). As others have said, posting drunk is never a good idea.

I will shut up on this subject to avoid embarrassing myself further.

[sultan2075]

Sorry if I offended anyone; certainly wasn't my intent.

[Quiff Boy]

[weebleswobble]

If I wanted to read I'd buy a book

BIOSHOCK Psy powers and augmented Tommy guns

[LouLou]

Is this teh Girlz Thread then?

IZ.

Yes it is. The title is only meant to lure in unsuspecting souls.

I’m sure you’ll be delighted to know that the upcoming discussion is on the all-important topic of painfully uncomfortable footwear. Your input will be most welcome.


Anyways, back to the f-word. Those of you who wish to make a more productive use of their time such as watching the spider on the wall travel the final few inches to the light switch, please look away now.

sultan has already summed up my thoughts on the issue, much more clearly than I ever could (and with impeccable spellings and gmarram, if I might add ) so I don’t have much more to say. But I might as well clarify a few points before I bow out and leave the latest thaang peeps to it.

In retrospect, I think it’s my shoddy punctuation that kicked off this whole thing – it should have been bile-spitting ‘feminist’ malarkey. A could have worked just as well. At the very least, I should have made it clear that what I am mocking is not the years of effort for activists (who, I think are the ‘real feminists’ sultan talked about) it took to reduce gender inequality to its current level. Nor am I burying my head in the sand and claiming equality has been achieved. It hasn’t. And it won’t, not any time soon. Not with the vitriol and negativity emanating from almost every piece of ‘feminist’ writing I come across. If said piece of writing is not vitriolic, it’s very likely to be a selection of frivolous ramblings on artificially problematised nonissues (see the ‘the woman, animalised’ piece on today’s Graun for a particularly fine specimen). What the feminist ideal of gender equality demands is major social change – change which will affect many aspects of life for great many people, and relies on their wholehearted cooperation to be realised. I fail to see how divisive bile and/or trivial fluff can inspire people to subscribe to the ideal, let alone mobilise people to work towards achieving it. Provided it doesn’t further strengthen the status quo, that is.

boudicca, I find it astonishing that you and your activist acquaintances are comfortable with sharing a label with those who are effectively undermining your work while taking the credit. I recognise that the word feminism means different things to different people, but I believe it’s high time we distinguished between the ones doing the real work and the ones who blab. It would be utterly pointless to expect the latter to back off voluntarily. After all, they have newspaper columns which they got their paws on because it’s all very PC (and rather fashionable too, imho) to have a ‘feminist’ columnist on board, the book sales are going pretty well, they get a tidy sum for the talks they give, and they can be as incisive/frivolous/incoherent as they please because their ‘feminist thinker/writer/columnist/whatever’ title allows them to misrepresent any criticism as a vicious attempt to turn women into house elves (this is also where the proactive defense mechanism kicks in, as evident in the familiar ‘I know you’re gonna call me a feminazi’). They are not serving the feminist movement. It’s the other way round. What’s most dispiriting is, because they are the ones who shout the loudest they are the ones who immediately come to mind whenever the word feminism (in whatever context) is mentioned.

Activists will continue to be tarred with the same brush as this lot unless they dissociate themselves from them once and for all. I really do hope this happens. If it does, I’ll be the first to take to the streets in my apron and marigolds, possibly armed with a soup ladle (although I need to think a bit more about getting ‘feminism ruulz baby’ tattooed on my forehead). Until then, I’m going to make do with laughing at pretentious, self promoting nonsense sprouted by Bidisha and her ilk when Mr. Brooker fails to produce a sufficiently entertaining piece.


Phew. That’s me back to my usual online habitat of secret ninja weapons and advanced biscuit dipping techniques.

@markfiend - I didn't see anyone making fools of themselves during the course of this discussion . As for posting while intoxicated, it is a noble act which ought to be actively encouraged by the moderators

[Big Si]

Is this teh Girlz Thread then?

IZ.

Wanna help me make it teh Blokez thread?

[James Blast]

I posted a thread a few years back called 'Heartsink' it took a left hand path and led to an HL Mod splitting, I dunno what happens to the blurts I post, they're all done in good faith but they either die a fast death or lead to acrimony.

neither of those outcomes were my original intention

[MadameButterfly]

it's HL madness at it's bestest. i know i was gone in this thread but seriously Unkle, it's not your fault.

*brings you slippers and a pipe*

[Big Si]

it's HL madness at it's bestest. i know i was gone in this thread but seriously Unkle, it's not your fault.

*brings you slippers and a pipe*

I'm sure he'd rather have a cold Bier and a hot lusty maiden

[James Blast]

I'm sure he'd rather have a cold Bier and a hot busty lusty maiden

sorted

[boudicca]

Agh... it's very late and I have a busy weekend coming up, so not much inclination to write another War and Peace rant here. Was unsure about wading in at all but it's an emotive issue for me and I think this forum is full of smart people who I think are able to handle a bit of debate a lot better than 99% of the internet. LouLou and sultan, I think I may have intially misunderstood both your views to a degree. While there are a number of points I disagree with you on, your posts were a lot more nuanced and thoughtful than the typical post-feminst stance which I find so alarming. So let's call it a night, eh? Unkle Ja-mes gets even more upset when his theads don't get binned after 5 posts...

[DerekR]

in that case i'll stick to voddy and diet coke.

much more ladylike

How VERY dare you!