Plus, let's fact it, many of those involved in gender/identity activism are just as reactionary/dismissive of those who disagree as Evangelical Christians are of those who support gay rights. It's the minority in any social group that actually care to discuss instead of hold the party line. That's just part of the human condition. Using "that's privilege" as a cudgel is no less common amongst general (ahem) "discussion" as "it's unnatural" is in gay rights debates.
There are many loudly-honking geese in anything large enough to have a many. Ignore the random loud people and focus on the ones who are actually leading the discussion.
Plus, let's fact it, many of those involved in gender/identity activism are just as reactionary/dismissive of those who disagree as Evangelical Christians are of those who support gay rights. It's the minority in any social group that actually care to discuss instead of hold the party line. That's just part of the human condition. Using "that's privilege" as a cudgel is no less common amongst general (ahem) "discussion" as "it's unnatural" is in gay rights debates.
There are many loudly-honking geese in anything large enough to have a many. Ignore the random loud people and focus on the ones who are actually leading the discussion.
But you can't ignore them, simply because they are the ones that one will most often encounter.
One of the issues that any activist group has is that they have a perpetual need to keep their own house in order to both keep their "foot soldiers" (for lack of a better term) on-message, as well as present a consistent, reasoned message to those they wish to convince of the truth of their position.
This thread is somewhat indicative of that issue. Will's inability to get concrete examples, elaborations and references out of the various folks who are (themselves) well-versed in modern feminist theory being foremost.
But this isn't limited to feminist academic circles, mind you. A prime example is evolution (if you've ever seen an Internet forum discussion about evolution vs Creationism the *best* of them looks almost exactly like this thread -- and most are unbearable, full of dogmatics on both sides and trolls inbetween). Perhaps, I can illustrate with a personal experience in this way:
The fact that evolution occurred is not questioned in the biological (and related) sciences. However, the mechanism whereby that evolution occurred is debated and refined rather often within the evolution sciences themselves.
However, amongst the majority of evolutionary "discussion" in public, this leads to two particular things:
1) people who when discussing evolution say "evolution happened, and if you don't think it it, you're an idiot," and
2) people who say, "scientists can't even agree on evolution, so how can we know it happened at all???"
It is a very rare discussion that happens wherein someone not convinced of evolution comes along and says, "I understand there's a lot of evidence for evolution, but it seems like no one can agree on how it happened" to someone who can say, "Well, that's because while we are certain evolution has (and continue to occur) there's some intra-community debate about the exact mechanism, but here's what we all agree on..."
Similarly, I have personally been on the end of a conversation where I have posed questions about fundamental aspects of feminist thought in demonstratively non-douchey ways. The response consisted of "you're privileged so you can't understand" combined with "those discussions are intra-feminist debates, you should not be concerned with them," without any followup like above.
Now, obviously I'm not saying that all biologists are wise sages, nor am I saying that all feminist academics are shrill unthinking harpies. What I *am* saying, and what is demonstrated both in this thread and elsewhere on the Net (and in real life) is this:
Like most proponents of evolution, most proponents of feminism do a really piss poor job of explaining terms of art and sticking to the things that are the basis of feminism. And this hurts both positions in the eyes of those who are not educated in terms of art or the intricacies of both camps. It is your initial contact that makes all the difference in the world.
If this sounds like I'm making it incumbent on (in this particular thread) feminist academics to make their positions clear and consistent... well, it's because I am. But that is the burden of all progressive thought, even that type of thought (such as evolution) which is firmly anchored in science (which is actually an ongoing discussion amongst scientists -- namely, "why are scientists so bad at explaining science to laypeople"? The answer seeming to lay somewhere around: "being both a scientist and teaching science to non-scientists/layfolk are two skills that are very infrequently possessed by a single individual").
As such, as unfair as it may be, if one wants to have their message received and understood, it must be presented in a fashion which is unlikely to result in a combative response (because once that happens, both are on the defensive and nothing will get done).
As frustrating as it may seem, calling "privilege" on someone who questions some assertion does provoke a combative response in a large number of folks (*particularly* when it is followed up with "well it means you are harming whole segments of society, but it's not really that bad, you're just too ignorant to know you're doing it"). This is linked to the ideas of "well, if you don't think this, it doesn't apply to you" and "well, you're probably part of the problem, but you don't know it." (both of which I've *personally* been told in the context of it being a not-so-subtle implication that "you should stop talking now")
Fair or not, to perhaps put it in more subject-oriented terminology, all those are pretty much "triggers" for the "you are bad and need to start thinking like I do without arguing" conversations that, I guarantee you, every guy in the US has had more than once. Not surprisingly, some guys have feelings to, and the ones who *do* are the ones that feminists want as allies. It's a tough row to hoe, that's for certain, but if you want allies, you will need to be willing to "undo" the bad PR that your less polished or enlightened colleagues have done in many, many instances (also, note, I'm not saying "poor, poor guys!" here, but rather, "you want all the allies you can get, and clearly the approach being used is, at best, confusing to many of those of the male persuasion").
An alternative approach is clearly needed, and, I suggest, exploring how that can be done would make a great conference paper subject for an enterprising academic who is in the throes of their "publish or perish" tribulations. Namely that, perhaps, feminist academics, thinkers, activists are not fighting a "war" against an oppressive society, but, rather, are sculptors of a yet-unrevealed social form. Both require strength, but the latter requires a wholly different set of skills than the former.
Or, perhaps, the tactic can be changed from "You (person who doesn't necessarily agree with my ideas at this time) will accept us (the minorities in the "academic" sense) equals willingly or we will wage war until it is accomplished by our own hand" to "You want to help our society become equitable to all members, and here are the reasons it's best for us all:".
Yeah, it's not gonna work with everyone (and, of course, society will probably never be totally equitable -- there's a reason why communism doesn't work on a large scale: it requires the involvement of humans; even now, as discussed before, women are disproportionately represented in sectors such as post-secondary under- and graduate admissions by significant margins -- that shouldn't be tossed off as "well that's only one thing" it's a *big* thing, because it's a national trend... but what does it say about men in post-secondary education? do we foresee a problem?), but you'll gain many more allies in latter case. I can see where one might argue that the movement needs a balanced approach, but again, anything blatantly (or inadvertently) combative risks alienating allies, so one would have to be very careful doing such.
Sorry, don't have a good tl;dr for all the above. Alas. Hopefully I didn't offend too many people.
Oh, and for completeness' sake: 9 forward 6 back, though I thought some of the questions were vague and could have been worded better.
Knara on
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
The internet toads who lob out racist, sexist or homophobic insults do so because they consider such insults to be the most cutting ones in their arsenal.
Their only privilege is the privilege of anonymity.
Why is it calling someone a "vagina" or a "whore" or a "faggot" is an insult?
I've never been called a "middle class straight white boy" on XBox Live. I've never had anyone tell me "I bet you're white and straight!" or "don't be such a hetero."
This is late, but these are silly examples.
The reason all of those things are insulting is as much a relation to their vulgarity and taboo nature as the detrimental gender roles and bigotry to which they might also appeal.
As an evidence of white-male-straightguy privilege they don't do the work you might hope - see also "dick", "cock", "fuckhead/wit".
A far better example is "gay" which is not vulgar, but IS considered insulting.
Likewise, the n-word (used indiscriminately) is not as good an example of privilege as "Mexican Jew Lizard" which is not vulgar and thus only a result of bigotry for its apparently negative character.
I'm torn as to whether my views are that ascribing this sort of thing to 'privilege' is a demonstration of the misuse of the term privilege or a demonstration that it's a useless and vague term from a sloppy field of intellectual endeavour.
Yes, because roughnecking, a job that basically requires you to be strong and stupid enough to go onto a rig is the same as being a nurse
One makes decent/good money because its dangerous
the other requires multiple years of study, the upkeep of that knowledge, and the knowledge that if you fuck up you could maim/kill someone.
They are underpaid for the services they provide
This is a little tangential, but low-skill, dangerous, traditionally dude-only jobs like that actually attract a mild pay penalty, because the only people seeking to do that work are stupid, desperate, or both, and as such have little bargaining power.
Its also the case that many of those jobs are much more dangerous than they need to be because the same employers who have the power to bargain wages downwards have the power to not give a shit about improving conditions, equipment, or work procedures. A case in point is that BP rig, wherein the executive in charge of worker safety decided that it was cheaper to risk the lives of his employees than it was to install proper shielding around their living quarters.
I think that phenomenon probably repeats itself anywhere there's a substantial divide between the day to day duties (and even locations) of staff and their bosses. Pitting roughnecks against nurses isn't constructive, but if I start going into why I'm going to sound like Kakos :P
But Cat people, that's unfair! People only ever remember the disasters. BP gets no credit for all those countless years that that oil-rig was disaster free!
Knara, you make some good points, but I think you place too much of the burden on the progressive folks. I don't care how nicely and non-confrontationally you try to explain things, 9 times out of 10 you get a dismissive answer from someone who clearly didn't listen to any of your points or read your carefully put together citations. If someone is sincere about listening to the other side they need to realize there might be some skepticism on the part of the person they are listening to. I realize this is a direct counterpoint, but I think the burden should be shared more equally than you propose.
Irond Will, for a concrete example, what do you think about the one that started this thread? The OP (female) complained about being harassed while playing online games. One poster's response was that it wouldn't be a problem if she didn't flaunt the fact that she was a girl. I'm sure this seemed like a perfectly reasonable response to the person that posted it. I am 100% sure that he doesn't go around saying "I'm a dude" while playing games so in his mind he doesn't make a big deal about it and neither does anyone else. But he hasn't ever thought about what it would take to hide the fact that he is a dude, which is different than not announcing "I'm a dude". It has to do with figuring out ahead of time if a game has voice chat, censoring comments about your SO, censoring comments about what you might do in your spare time.
The privilege is that guy never had to think about the variety of ways we project our gender other than announcing "I'm a ___". That isn't a bad thing, it isn't a power he has over other people, it isn't something to feel guilty about. But it did make his suggestion less than useful.
For the record 12 forward, 10 backward.
Kistra on
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Irond Will, for a concrete example, what do you think about the one that started this thread? The OP (female) complained about being harassed while playing online games. One poster's response was that it wouldn't be a problem if she didn't flaunt the fact that she was a girl. I'm sure this seemed like a perfectly reasonable response to the person that posted it. I am 100% sure that he doesn't go around saying "I'm a dude" while playing games so in his mind he doesn't make a big deal about it and neither does anyone else. But he hasn't ever thought about what it would take to hide the fact that he is a dude, which is different than not announcing "I'm a dude". It has to do with figuring out ahead of time if a game has voice chat, censoring comments about your SO, censoring comments about what you might do in your spare time.
i think it has to do with the assumption of specific contextual identity. xbl is a pretty loathsome place in general, and anyone who gets on it (and i do sometimes!) finds themselves muting other people and limiting their connections to other people they already know in short order. this is to say that it's a horrible experience requiring self-censorship for women, but it's also a horrible experience requiring self-censorship for everyone else who's not a racist vulgar teenager as well. women's voices on that thing get picked on for the same reason that a guy with a pronounced lisp would: because they are contextually distinct/ unusual and being so, it's something to be targeted.
maybe it works as a metaphor for a larger concept of privilege or something, but it's not a fair microcosm of the world or a representative subculture or even a real part of society. which was kind of why i was looking for different examples that we could discuss.
Irond Will on
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
An easy example of this mapping is the experiences of African-American musicians in the music industry: those who buy into the overarching system (take for example Jennifer Lopez) receive more access and promotion as their work becomes more accessible to those in power.
Contrast to Public Enemy and their reception when they attempted to take on the establishment.
(for those of us who have taken Women's Studies: tl;dr, bell hooks.)
going back and finding this example, i don't really feel like it works either. a small business taking on established institution is going to face an uphill battle no matter what color you are. pretty much every white male indie band ends up having to sign with a label also.
As an evidence of white-male-straightguy privilege they don't do the work you might hope - see also "dick", "cock", "fuckhead/wit".
A far better example is "gay" which is not vulgar, but IS considered insulting.
Likewise, the n-word (used indiscriminately) is not as good an example of privilege as "Mexican Jew Lizard" which is not vulgar and thus only a result of bigotry for its apparently negative character.
"Vagina" is a bad example, "Bitch" "Slut" "Whore" would be more accurate, as they don't have a simple match for the male gender. "Fuckhead / Fuckwit" aren't really related to gender or sexuality or race in any way, so I'm not sure why you'd list those as an example.
That racial and gender epithets are almost exclusively limited to non-white and non-male categories should tell you something. Aside from "cracker" (which is really more of a parody and isn't considered taboo in many circles) there's really no harsh insult to direct at a straight white man that relies on his straightness, his whiteness, or his gender for the insult.
a man can't really choose to forego a career and stay at home with the kids without being looked down upon.
i thought part of the heart of privilege was being able to opt for legitimate life choices without social opprobrium.
I think this is less true now, but you're correct and, again, there are some advantages to having any gender or race in our society but those advantages aren't even.
There are some advantages to being black or jewish or homosexual or female, but I don't think this conversation can go very far once we devolve into the Oppression Olympics.
women's voices on that thing get picked on for the same reason that a guy with a pronounced lisp would: because they are contextually distinct/ unusual and being so, it's something to be targeted.
And because they're women. Really, I don't see why it's so important to deny that there is any element of gender involved here.
mythago on
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The internet toads who lob out racist, sexist or homophobic insults do so because they consider such insults to be the most cutting ones in their arsenal.
Their only privilege is the privilege of anonymity.
Why is it calling someone a "vagina" or a "whore" or a "faggot" is an insult?
I've never been called a "middle class straight white boy" on XBox Live. I've never had anyone tell me "I bet you're white and straight!" or "don't be such a hetero."
This is late, but these are silly examples.
The reason all of those things are insulting is as much a relation to their vulgarity and taboo nature as the detrimental gender roles and bigotry to which they might also appeal.
As an evidence of white-male-straightguy privilege they don't do the work you might hope - see also "dick", "cock", "fuckhead/wit".
A far better example is "gay" which is not vulgar, but IS considered insulting.
Likewise, the n-word (used indiscriminately) is not as good an example of privilege as "Mexican Jew Lizard" which is not vulgar and thus only a result of bigotry for its apparently negative character.
I'm torn as to whether my views are that ascribing this sort of thing to 'privilege' is a demonstration of the misuse of the term privilege or a demonstration that it's a useless and vague term from a sloppy field of intellectual endeavour.
Firstly, the n word is only vulgar because of its historical use as a tool of oppression and bigotry (this is in sharp contrast to the word vagina which is vulgar/taboo partially because it's a word for female genitalia).
Secondly, to say the indiscriminate use of the n-word doesn't prove privilege is missing the point. The privilege here is the privilege not to be assaulted by racial slurs targeted at your people, or to have your membership in that group (or more broadly in any group) used as an insult. This privilege persists whether the words used are jew and black or (the more vulgar/offensive) kike and n-word.
An analogous privilege applies for vagina. An insult that derives (most of) its power not from its vulgarity, but because it implies the recipient of the insult is a girl, and girls are weak, bad at math, bad at videogames, cowardly, overly-emotional, have cooties etc.
As a straight christian white male you can expect to go on X-box live and be called a n*gger, faggot, kike, pussy, vagina, mexican etc. What you can't expect is for any of those insults to gain added potency from your membership of the group in question. Indeed, the insults derive their potency from the assumption that membership in any of those groups is insulting ipso facto. The privilege is embodied in the words we use to insult each other. The lack of a corresponding set of insults for straight, white men proves the point rather nicely.
Question: in a discourse over equality, does it make more sense to frame it from a position of people who are privileged being unfairly advantaged in life or from a position of people who are unprivileged unfairly being disadvantaged?
The former, you're likely to have those who are considered privileged coming out on the defensive. The latter? What negative results are there by identifying unfair disadvantages and trying to rectify them?
Setting aside the false dichotomy: Why is the most important goal of a discourse on equality "be sure that nobody with unfair advantages feels the least bit defensive"?
It isn't. The most important goal would be to create equality.
The problem is that by focusing the discussion on the privileged, you are not actually focusing on the real issue. Is the issue that people who are in a position of privilege live good lives or that people in a position without privilege do not have the opportunity to live the same good lives?
Doesn't it follow that putting one side of the table on the defensive and drawing the attention away from the actual problems at hand is counterproductive?
I'm not saying don't have a discussion about privilege, and I'm not trying to say that privilege doesn't exist--it clearly does and it absolutely colors the opinions of groups on both sides of the table. What I am saying is that when you start throwing around "privilege" without careful consideration, then you'll actually be detracting from the primary goal--producing equality.
nor am I saying that all feminist academics are shrill unthinking harpies
I'm sad that you probably don't even see the irony in this sentence.
Excellent dismissal, now we don't need to address the content of the post!
Moving on.
It is absolutely incumbent upon feminists to explain themselves clearly every God damned time, about whatever it is they are talking about and whatever people are challenging or asking about.
If it's been gone over before you can always throw up a link to another thread after all.
Cause, well, this is Debate and Discourse. It's incumbent upon all of us, no matter what the discussion is about, to explain ourselves clearly every God damned time however we are questioned or challenged. It's what we're here for, right? Well it's what I'm here for anyway. Especially since this is one of those few communities on or off the internet that really values the content of an argument more than just winning the conversation.
The privilege is embodied in the words we use to insult each other. The lack of a corresponding set of insults for straight, white men proves the point rather nicely.
But words like that exist and are used in communities where the dominant culture are not straight, white males. Every language which developed outside of a historically predominately Caucasian region has a word that has the same offensive load as 'kike' but refers, at least in part, to white people (see, for instance, 'gaijin' or 'guailo'). Subcultures and groups that identify themselves, as one of their primary points of group identity a personal characteristic (feminists, GLBT groups, racial empowerment groups, etc) adopt words to refer to those they view as oppressing or opposing them ('pigs' being men, the word 'cracker' as mentioned above, 'breeder', etc.). Frequently we who are not members of these groups don't see these words as being 'as bad' as other, more common epithets, but they're used with the same weight of hateful meaning by the people using them.
The fact that n-word, vagina, queer, etc. are the most common epithets on XBL doesn't mean that we live in a white patriarchy (whether we do or not), it means that the XBL community is primarily straight, white males. I would be willing to bet many American Dollars that if there is/were an XBL equivalent whose population were dominated by, say, white Iranians, or homosexual Koreans, the choice of slurs would be very different, despite broad similarities in the overall culture in terms of patriarchism.
I'm pretty sure this conversation is implicitly limited to the United States and maybe a few very similar Western cultures.
There may be some alternative culture (real or imagined) where there's a videogame service and that culture is controlled primarily by midget Albanian lesbian circus performers and therefore being called a "straightee" is a horrible insult but I don't think that's really relevant to this discussion.
In our culture, "homo" is an insult and "straight" is not. Yes, in Iran being called a servant of the American regime is probably an insult but that's not really relevant to this discussion.
nor am I saying that all feminist academics are shrill unthinking harpies
I'm sad that you probably don't even see the irony in this sentence.
Excellent dismissal, now we don't need to address the content of the post!
Moving on.
It is absolutely incumbent upon feminists to explain themselves clearly every God damned time, about whatever it is they are talking about and whatever people are challenging or asking about.
If it's been gone over before you can always throw up a link to another thread after all.
Cause, well, this is Debate and Discourse. It's incumbent upon all of us, no matter what the discussion is about, to explain ourselves clearly every God damned time however we are questioned or challenged. It's what we're here for, right? Well it's what I'm here for anyway. Especially since this is one of those few communities on or off the internet that really values the content of an argument more than just winning the conversation.
Should we TOTP every link posted since the beginning of this thread (many of which are easy to find because they are near the beginning of the thread) every page? Serious question; I want to know at what point someone has explained themselves enough.
sidhaethe on
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
I'm pretty sure this conversation is implicitly limited to the United States and maybe a few very similar Western cultures.
There may be some alternative culture (real or imagined) where there's a videogame service and that culture is controlled primarily by midget Albanian lesbian circus performers and therefore being called a "straightee" is a horrible insult but I don't think that's really relevant to this discussion.
In our culture, "homo" is an insult and "straight" is not. Yes, in Iran being called a servant of the American regime is probably an insult but that's not really relevant to this discussion.
i think the point is that xbl is a subculture significanltly more populated with male white straight people than mainstream american culture, and the fact that they especially sieze on racial and sexual epithets targeted at "others" isn't really evidence of much more than "monocultures tend to be xenophobic and nasty," in the same way that a group of black teenage dudes aren't going to be really welcoming to a white kid.
xbl is kind of its own thing. it's full of antisocial nerdy white teens with total anonymity and competitive streaks. i don't think it's especially useful to pretend that it has much to do with larger society.
Irond Will on
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
Should we TOTP every link posted since the beginning of this thread (many of which are easy to find because they are near the beginning of the thread) every page? Serious question; I want to know at what point someone has explained themselves enough.
tossing out links isn't an especially great way to have a discussion.
like, if the desire is to discuss the content of a specific article, then it makes sense to link or exerpt it.
but throwing five links and saying "read this" isn't really a great way to conduct a thread in general.
I wouldn't use XBox Live as a definitive example of everything this conversation encompasses (mostly because there are no definitive examples). Its relevant (particularly for what insults our culture finds offensive and what insults our culture ignores) but there's really no single example or data point that proves everything.
This is a large and vague conversation by its very nature. Xbox live is relevant, but only somewhat. Police harassment is relevant, but only somewhat. Job discrimination is relevant, but only somewhat. Political representation is relevant, but only somewhat. Etc. etc.
nor am I saying that all feminist academics are shrill unthinking harpies
I'm sad that you probably don't even see the irony in this sentence.
Excellent dismissal, now we don't need to address the content of the post!
Moving on.
It is absolutely incumbent upon feminists to explain themselves clearly every God damned time, about whatever it is they are talking about and whatever people are challenging or asking about.
If it's been gone over before you can always throw up a link to another thread after all.
Cause, well, this is Debate and Discourse. It's incumbent upon all of us, no matter what the discussion is about, to explain ourselves clearly every God damned time however we are questioned or challenged. It's what we're here for, right? Well it's what I'm here for anyway. Especially since this is one of those few communities on or off the internet that really values the content of an argument more than just winning the conversation.
Should we TOTP every link posted since the beginning of this thread (many of which are easy to find because they are near the beginning of the thread) every page? Serious question; I want to know at what point someone has explained themselves enough.
When there isn't anyone out there left that disagrees with you.
Incidentally, there is something to the point that you can't ever get into the subtler and more complicated aspects of a subject if you spend all of your time going over the basics. I don't think you should have to dumb down the conversation. But that's not the same as dismissing someone out of hand, or using snarkiness to try to shut them down instead of engaging in actual discussion.
Good posters should communicate in a way that people can understand, that may require repeating certain points or ideas.
Good posters should also read a thread before they participate in it so people don't need to reiterate the same argument over and over and over again.
PotatoNinja on
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
edited October 2010
also, i read that feminism101 blog that arivia keeps linking, and a lot of my disagreements had to do with the positions put forth in that blog (especially the soft-shoe routine wanting to assert that there is never a meaningful non-male privilege in any context). but when i disagree with them, the rejoinder "no one is saying that" seems to come up a lot.
that, among other reasons, are why it's not great to just post links and pretend as though they outline a definitive truth or a distillation of one's position.
Should we TOTP every link posted since the beginning of this thread (many of which are easy to find because they are near the beginning of the thread) every page? Serious question; I want to know at what point someone has explained themselves enough.
tossing out links isn't an especially great way to have a discussion.
like, if the desire is to discuss the content of a specific article, then it makes sense to link or exerpt it.
but throwing five links and saying "read this" isn't really a great way to conduct a thread in general.
Well, I'm at a loss
Since that isn't what's been happening in this thread IMV. What has been happening, as far as I can observe, is that some people are coming into the thread 18 pages in and haven't read the first 5 pages, and are asking questions that could, possibly, have been answered for them within the first five or so pages of the thread.
I don't feel that makes for a discussion. I feel that's coming into the thread to talk.
Should we TOTP every link posted since the beginning of this thread (many of which are easy to find because they are near the beginning of the thread) every page? Serious question; I want to know at what point someone has explained themselves enough.
tossing out links isn't an especially great way to have a discussion.
like, if the desire is to discuss the content of a specific article, then it makes sense to link or exerpt it.
but throwing five links and saying "read this" isn't really a great way to conduct a thread in general.
Well, I'm at a loss
Since that isn't what's been happening in this thread IMV. What has been happening, as far as I can observe, is that some people are coming into the thread 18 pages in and haven't read the first 5 pages, and are asking questions that could, possibly, have been answered for them within the first five or so pages of the thread.
I don't feel that makes for a discussion. I feel that's coming into the thread to talk.
We frequently point out to people something has been gone over before, and if it's in that very thread we often scold them for asking. Links, but even more so quotes, are really useful things. I'm cool with that baby!
I'm pretty sure this conversation is implicitly limited to the United States and maybe a few very similar Western cultures.
There may be some alternative culture (real or imagined) where there's a videogame service and that culture is controlled primarily by midget Albanian lesbian circus performers and therefore being called a "straightee" is a horrible insult but I don't think that's really relevant to this discussion.
In our culture, "homo" is an insult and "straight" is not. Yes, in Iran being called a servant of the American regime is probably an insult but that's not really relevant to this discussion.
i think the point is that xbl is a subculture significanltly more populated with male white straight people than mainstream american culture, and the fact that they especially sieze on racial and sexual epithets targeted at "others" isn't really evidence of much more than "monocultures tend to be xenophobic and nasty," in the same way that a group of black teenage dudes aren't going to be really welcoming to a white kid.
xbl is kind of its own thing. it's full of antisocial nerdy white teens with total anonymity and competitive streaks. i don't think it's especially useful to pretend that it has much to do with larger society.
I wrote a response but you said it much more succinctly. That was exactly my point.
nor am I saying that all feminist academics are shrill unthinking harpies
I'm sad that you probably don't even see the irony in this sentence.
Excellent dismissal, now we don't need to address the content of the post!
Moving on.
It is absolutely incumbent upon feminists to explain themselves clearly every God damned time, about whatever it is they are talking about and whatever people are challenging or asking about.
If it's been gone over before you can always throw up a link to another thread after all.
Cause, well, this is Debate and Discourse. It's incumbent upon all of us, no matter what the discussion is about, to explain ourselves clearly every God damned time however we are questioned or challenged. It's what we're here for, right? Well it's what I'm here for anyway. Especially since this is one of those few communities on or off the internet that really values the content of an argument more than just winning the conversation.
Should we TOTP every link posted since the beginning of this thread (many of which are easy to find because they are near the beginning of the thread) every page? Serious question; I want to know at what point someone has explained themselves enough.
When there isn't anyone out there left that disagrees with you.
You.... do know that's not humanly possible, right? I mean, I find that statement difficult to take seriously at all.
Incidentally, there is something to the point that you can't ever get into the subtler and more complicated aspects of a subject if you spend all of your time going over the basics. I don't think you should have to dumb down the conversation. But that's not the same as dismissing someone out of hand, or using snarkiness to try to shut them down instead of engaging in actual discussion.
I actually don't believe that going over the basics of privilege is dumbing down the conversation, it just does seriously hamper a discussion from getting anywhere. It's also frustrating to have someone explain privilege elsewhere, link to it and say, "this outlines it pretty well," and have people complain that you threw a link at them. I guess we could just copy and paste everything? And again, is the first post sufficient to reference back? Is a TOTP post?
FWIW, I understand that people are frustrated by having their comments dismissed. I'm not a fan of the "go read this book and then come back to us" approach, personally. But might I suggest engaging with the people who are engaging in conversation (there are several in the thread) than getting derailed focusing on the dismissers? I keep feeling us going around in circles because someone dismissed someone else somewhere (maybe not even in this thread!) and they're mad about it and want to complain here, and it just gets us all off topic.
Should we TOTP every link posted since the beginning of this thread (many of which are easy to find because they are near the beginning of the thread) every page? Serious question; I want to know at what point someone has explained themselves enough.
tossing out links isn't an especially great way to have a discussion.
like, if the desire is to discuss the content of a specific article, then it makes sense to link or exerpt it.
but throwing five links and saying "read this" isn't really a great way to conduct a thread in general.
Well, I'm at a loss
Since that isn't what's been happening in this thread IMV. What has been happening, as far as I can observe, is that some people are coming into the thread 18 pages in and haven't read the first 5 pages, and are asking questions that could, possibly, have been answered for them within the first five or so pages of the thread.
I don't feel that makes for a discussion. I feel that's coming into the thread to talk.
no; it hasn't really been happening too much in this thread. i was just talking generally about how tossing out broad FAQ-like links as answers to specific questions is generally kind of unproductive in a discussion thread.
it's frustrating when someone says "why how do you justify X" and in response you get a link to a ten-page faq that the linker doesn't necessarily even fully stand behind.
Should we TOTP every link posted since the beginning of this thread (many of which are easy to find because they are near the beginning of the thread) every page? Serious question; I want to know at what point someone has explained themselves enough.
tossing out links isn't an especially great way to have a discussion.
like, if the desire is to discuss the content of a specific article, then it makes sense to link or exerpt it.
but throwing five links and saying "read this" isn't really a great way to conduct a thread in general.
Well, I'm at a loss
Since that isn't what's been happening in this thread IMV. What has been happening, as far as I can observe, is that some people are coming into the thread 18 pages in and haven't read the first 5 pages, and are asking questions that could, possibly, have been answered for them within the first five or so pages of the thread.
I don't feel that makes for a discussion. I feel that's coming into the thread to talk.
no; it hasn't really been happening too much in this thread. i was just talking generally about how tossing out broad FAQ-like links as answers to specific questions is generally kind of unproductive in a discussion thread.
it's frustrating when someone says "why how do you justify X" and in response you get a link to a ten-page faq that the linker doesn't necessarily even fully stand behind.
Has that been happening in this thread? I've seen a few essays, and some sort of image file that for some reason won't show up for me at work.
You.... do know that's not humanly possible, right? I mean, I find that statement difficult to take seriously at all.
Yes, that is the point. I meant never. You always have to keep explaining and keep educated. Well you don't have to obviously, but in my opinion you ought to.
I actually don't believe that going over the basics of privilege is dumbing down the conversation, it just does seriously hamper a discussion from getting anywhere. It's also frustrating to have someone explain privilege elsewhere, link to it and say, "this outlines it pretty well," and have people complain that you threw a link at them. I guess we could just copy and paste everything? And again, is the first post sufficient to reference back? Is a TOTP post?
FWIW, I understand that people are frustrated by having their comments dismissed. I'm not a fan of the "go read this book and then come back to us" approach, personally. But might I suggest engaging with the people who are engaging in conversation (there are several in the thread) than getting derailed focusing on the dismissers? I keep feeling us going around in circles because someone dismissed someone else somewhere (maybe not even in this thread!) and they're mad about it and want to complain here, and it just gets us all off topic.
I have brought things around to be a bit off topic-y by broadening what I'm talking about to include pretty much everyone, not just feminists, but in an effort to address the issue rather than seeming to be nitpicking and shutting down feminists which would not be cool.
Another new thread was an option I guess, but I think we've run out of too much steam for it to be successful now. I could be wrong though.
You.... do know that's not humanly possible, right? I mean, I find that statement difficult to take seriously at all.
Yes, that is the point. I meant never. You always have to keep explaining and keep educated. Well you don't have to obviously, but in my opinion you ought to.
I actually don't believe that going over the basics of privilege is dumbing down the conversation, it just does seriously hamper a discussion from getting anywhere. It's also frustrating to have someone explain privilege elsewhere, link to it and say, "this outlines it pretty well," and have people complain that you threw a link at them. I guess we could just copy and paste everything? And again, is the first post sufficient to reference back? Is a TOTP post?
FWIW, I understand that people are frustrated by having their comments dismissed. I'm not a fan of the "go read this book and then come back to us" approach, personally. But might I suggest engaging with the people who are engaging in conversation (there are several in the thread) than getting derailed focusing on the dismissers? I keep feeling us going around in circles because someone dismissed someone else somewhere (maybe not even in this thread!) and they're mad about it and want to complain here, and it just gets us all off topic.
I have brought things around to be a bit off topic-y by broadening what I'm talking about to include pretty much everyone, not just feminists, but in an effort to address the issue rather than seeming to be nitpicking and shutting down feminists which would not be cool.
Another new thread was an option I guess, but I think we've run out of too much steam for it to be successful now. I could be wrong though.
I will admit I have no idea how much more remedial we can get on the subject than this, and I certainly still have much I don't know/understand about feminism and anti-racism (and much I disagree with, although that may/may not be due to my lack of knowledge). I suppose we could discuss (in another thread, of course) Evander's approach to general equality as a whole, or perhaps compare/contrast, or... I don't know.
no; it hasn't really been happening too much in this thread. i was just talking generally about how tossing out broad FAQ-like links as answers to specific questions is generally kind of unproductive in a discussion thread.
it's frustrating when someone says "why how do you justify X" and in response you get a link to a ten-page faq that the linker doesn't necessarily even fully stand behind.
If somebody said "why does a bullet do more damage than an arrow when an arrow has more mass?" if I'm feeling particularly generous I could explain to them how kinetic energy is proportional to the square of velocity... or I could link them an article on basic Newtonian physics.
And I would link them the article on basic Newtonian physics even though I don't necessarily fully stand behind Newtonian physics because, hey, Einstein.
I've said this many times before, and never stops being the case... if I were to walk into a thread on economics and say things like "Externalities are a bullshit concept! They just hand-wave away everything!" or demonstrate that I don't understand even basic econ 101, I'd be told to gtfo. But when it comes to sex and gender, people think, "Hey, I have sex! I have a gender! Therefore my opinion is as valid as anybody else's!" without recognizing that like any other complex topic, there is some basic education you need to have or some basic reading you need to do before you can have a meaningful conversation.
And is really frustrating to explain the equivalent of K=MV^2 to people and still have people going "But... but... but... no... but... no... but!"
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
no; it hasn't really been happening too much in this thread. i was just talking generally about how tossing out broad FAQ-like links as answers to specific questions is generally kind of unproductive in a discussion thread.
it's frustrating when someone says "why how do you justify X" and in response you get a link to a ten-page faq that the linker doesn't necessarily even fully stand behind.
If somebody said "why does a bullet do more damage than an arrow when an arrow has more mass?" if I'm feeling particularly generous I could explain to them how kinetic energy is proportional to the square of velocity... or I could link them an article on basic Newtonian physics.
And I would link them the article on basic Newtonian physics even though I don't necessarily fully stand behind Newtonian physics because, hey, Einstein.
I've said this many times before, and never stops being the case... if I were to walk into a thread on economics and say things like "Externalities are a bullshit concept! They just hand-wave away everything!" or demonstrate that I don't understand even basic econ 101, I'd be told to gtfo. But when it comes to sex and gender, people think, "Hey, I have sex! I have a gender! Therefore my opinion is as valid as anybody else's!" without recognizing that like any other complex topic, there is some basic education you need to have or some basic reading you need to do before you can have a meaningful conversation.
And is really frustrating to explain the equivalent of K=MV^2 to people and still have people going "But... but... but... no... but... no... but!"
But... but.. but... K = (MV^2)/2...
In physics there are definite definitions for terms. Usually definitions that can be expressed in a paragraph or less. Sometimes that paragraph will have a whole chain of paragraphs behind it to define the terms used in the definition of that first term, but you can, eventually, read enough definitions to know exactly what a physicist means when he says something. I don't know if this is the case in Economics because I don't know shit about Economics.
The term "privilege" is relatively solidly defined, but there are plenty of terms in social studies that are not well-defined. We've had entire threads attempting to nail down definitions of terms because everyone with a definition disagrees, to some extent, with everyone else. Even in the case of 'privilege', where it's pretty easy to get a grasp of the intent behind the proper use of the word in a social academic sense, there are aspects which are not really concrete. I don't recall who said it or if it was on some other page, but I know that I've read that "male privilege" or "white privilege" is differentiated from other forms of empowerment by being 'covert'. No particular definition is given for covert because it's expect that the person in question will know it when they see it. Social topics are like that. It's very hard to precisely say what a term means because a large part of understanding it is understanding everything around it. V in K = (MV^2)/2 is velocity. It is the first derivative of position. It is measured by observing the position of a discrete object over a known interval of time and recording its position change as a rate. Provided that you know the basic definitions of all the words in those sentences, you know exactly what I mean by 'V'. You can't do that with 'privilege' because it means so many different things in different situations, is observed in different ways, is quantified in different ways, and has differing, contextual impacts.
If you're having a conversation with other people with the same education and background as yourself then you can expect social terms to apply the same way and that any disagreements in definition can be sorted out fairly easily. But the internet is full of people who know more than you, less than you, and know the same amount but come from a distinctly different school of thought. When definitions are as fuzzy as they tend to be in social sciences you have to expect that, on the internet, a lot of time is going to be spent trying to explain to people what you mean. If you want to have a conversation where everyone knows where you're talking about with regards to advanced feminism, a video game webcomic forum probably isn't the ideal place to go. Even if we are a better class of forum.
In physics there are definite definitions for terms. Usually definitions that can be expressed in a paragraph or less. Sometimes that paragraph will have a whole chain of paragraphs behind it to define the terms used in the definition of that first term, but you can, eventually, read enough definitions to know exactly what a physicist means when he says something. I don't know if this is the case in Economics because I don't know shit about Economics.
The term "privilege" is relatively solidly defined, but there are plenty of terms in social studies that are not well-defined. We've had entire threads attempting to nail down definitions of terms because everyone with a definition disagrees, to some extent, with everyone else. Even in the case of 'privilege', where it's pretty easy to get a grasp of the intent behind the proper use of the word in a social academic sense, there are aspects which are not really concrete.
If somebody were to voice an argument that a term is poorly defined, I feel the makes the discussion much more productive if they were to at least find out if somebody else has voiced that argument before, and if that argument is still accepted as a valid difference of opinion or if it has been well and thoroughly debunked.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Absolutely the social sciences and the humanities should be a target of skepticism, but skepticism with a little background reading is whole lot nicer.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
no; it hasn't really been happening too much in this thread. i was just talking generally about how tossing out broad FAQ-like links as answers to specific questions is generally kind of unproductive in a discussion thread.
it's frustrating when someone says "why how do you justify X" and in response you get a link to a ten-page faq that the linker doesn't necessarily even fully stand behind.
If somebody said "why does a bullet do more damage than an arrow when an arrow has more mass?" if I'm feeling particularly generous I could explain to them how kinetic energy is proportional to the square of velocity... or I could link them an article on basic Newtonian physics.
And I would link them the article on basic Newtonian physics even though I don't necessarily fully stand behind Newtonian physics because, hey, Einstein.
I've said this many times before, and never stops being the case... if I were to walk into a thread on economics and say things like "Externalities are a bullshit concept! They just hand-wave away everything!" or demonstrate that I don't understand even basic econ 101, I'd be told to gtfo. But when it comes to sex and gender, people think, "Hey, I have sex! I have a gender! Therefore my opinion is as valid as anybody else's!" without recognizing that like any other complex topic, there is some basic education you need to have or some basic reading you need to do before you can have a meaningful conversation.
And is really frustrating to explain the equivalent of K=MV^2 to people and still have people going "But... but... but... no... but... no... but!"
at least once a month i patiently explain that things can't go faster than the speed of light, and how this happens, in spite of the fact that physics, especially at the level of relativity, is 80 year-old established and verified Real Science and not a collection of academic jargon and mostly-agreed-upon-precepts of a discipline with an axe to grind.
i mean, at some level in any discipline, you can't really move forward without a formal understanding of the debates within the field, but this isn't the same thing as simple and foundational questions being defensively dismissed with a link or collection of links. if i'm asking my friend arivia or my friend feral about some concept, i'm really not interested in the views and positioning of a back-slapping feminist blog (though i did read through it).
Irond Will on
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
I wouldn't use XBox Live as a definitive example of everything this conversation encompasses (mostly because there are no definitive examples). Its relevant (particularly for what insults our culture finds offensive and what insults our culture ignores) but there's really no single example or data point that proves everything.
This is a large and vague conversation by its very nature. Xbox live is relevant, but only somewhat. Police harassment is relevant, but only somewhat. Job discrimination is relevant, but only somewhat. Political representation is relevant, but only somewhat. Etc. etc.
it just ends up sounding like "the problem with society is illustrated in how the worst teenage boys behave themselves when given complete anonymity"
i mean, i think that there's a point to be made about how the gender roles traditionally assigned to females aren't generally prefereable to the gender roles assigned to men, and i think there's a point to be made about untoward assumptions made about people based on their gender, and women tend to get the worse of this too.
i just don't think that the xbl example gives an especially good demonstration of these principles.
now, it does strike me that most things we think of as "subcultures" are structured around either mixed men-and-women or just dominantly men. video gamers, wall street douchebags, pick up artists, guidos, bros. i can't really think of the female counterparts to these easily. knitters, i guess?
Absolutely the social sciences and the humanities should be a target of skepticism, but skepticism with a little background reading is whole lot nicer.
I'm not saying it's cool for people to come in and say "Feminism is bupkiss! You're all morons!" Anyone who tries to come in and say that the whole field, or even an aspect of the field, is wrong without any background is, effectively, a troll. I'm just saying that there has to be some expectation that, in a forum like this, with topics like these, you're going to have to do a lot of re-explaining of terms for the benefit of people who:
a) Have (potentially) valid opinions but don't know the proper terminology in which to couch them.
b) Have invalid opinions based on a misunderstanding of the terminology in use.
c) Didn't read 13 pages of the thread and so missed where the forum collectively decided to re-define a term.
etc.
I don't know what the proper cutoff threshold for that kind of explaining should be, or if it should just be "go read the rest of the thread/read the OP and the links there", but on a general debate forum like this the cutoff can't be reasonably expected to be much above the LCD.
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There are many loudly-honking geese in anything large enough to have a many. Ignore the random loud people and focus on the ones who are actually leading the discussion.
But you can't ignore them, simply because they are the ones that one will most often encounter.
One of the issues that any activist group has is that they have a perpetual need to keep their own house in order to both keep their "foot soldiers" (for lack of a better term) on-message, as well as present a consistent, reasoned message to those they wish to convince of the truth of their position.
This thread is somewhat indicative of that issue. Will's inability to get concrete examples, elaborations and references out of the various folks who are (themselves) well-versed in modern feminist theory being foremost.
But this isn't limited to feminist academic circles, mind you. A prime example is evolution (if you've ever seen an Internet forum discussion about evolution vs Creationism the *best* of them looks almost exactly like this thread -- and most are unbearable, full of dogmatics on both sides and trolls inbetween). Perhaps, I can illustrate with a personal experience in this way:
The fact that evolution occurred is not questioned in the biological (and related) sciences. However, the mechanism whereby that evolution occurred is debated and refined rather often within the evolution sciences themselves.
However, amongst the majority of evolutionary "discussion" in public, this leads to two particular things:
1) people who when discussing evolution say "evolution happened, and if you don't think it it, you're an idiot," and
2) people who say, "scientists can't even agree on evolution, so how can we know it happened at all???"
It is a very rare discussion that happens wherein someone not convinced of evolution comes along and says, "I understand there's a lot of evidence for evolution, but it seems like no one can agree on how it happened" to someone who can say, "Well, that's because while we are certain evolution has (and continue to occur) there's some intra-community debate about the exact mechanism, but here's what we all agree on..."
Similarly, I have personally been on the end of a conversation where I have posed questions about fundamental aspects of feminist thought in demonstratively non-douchey ways. The response consisted of "you're privileged so you can't understand" combined with "those discussions are intra-feminist debates, you should not be concerned with them," without any followup like above.
Now, obviously I'm not saying that all biologists are wise sages, nor am I saying that all feminist academics are shrill unthinking harpies. What I *am* saying, and what is demonstrated both in this thread and elsewhere on the Net (and in real life) is this:
Like most proponents of evolution, most proponents of feminism do a really piss poor job of explaining terms of art and sticking to the things that are the basis of feminism. And this hurts both positions in the eyes of those who are not educated in terms of art or the intricacies of both camps. It is your initial contact that makes all the difference in the world.
If this sounds like I'm making it incumbent on (in this particular thread) feminist academics to make their positions clear and consistent... well, it's because I am. But that is the burden of all progressive thought, even that type of thought (such as evolution) which is firmly anchored in science (which is actually an ongoing discussion amongst scientists -- namely, "why are scientists so bad at explaining science to laypeople"? The answer seeming to lay somewhere around: "being both a scientist and teaching science to non-scientists/layfolk are two skills that are very infrequently possessed by a single individual").
As such, as unfair as it may be, if one wants to have their message received and understood, it must be presented in a fashion which is unlikely to result in a combative response (because once that happens, both are on the defensive and nothing will get done).
As frustrating as it may seem, calling "privilege" on someone who questions some assertion does provoke a combative response in a large number of folks (*particularly* when it is followed up with "well it means you are harming whole segments of society, but it's not really that bad, you're just too ignorant to know you're doing it"). This is linked to the ideas of "well, if you don't think this, it doesn't apply to you" and "well, you're probably part of the problem, but you don't know it." (both of which I've *personally* been told in the context of it being a not-so-subtle implication that "you should stop talking now")
Fair or not, to perhaps put it in more subject-oriented terminology, all those are pretty much "triggers" for the "you are bad and need to start thinking like I do without arguing" conversations that, I guarantee you, every guy in the US has had more than once. Not surprisingly, some guys have feelings to, and the ones who *do* are the ones that feminists want as allies. It's a tough row to hoe, that's for certain, but if you want allies, you will need to be willing to "undo" the bad PR that your less polished or enlightened colleagues have done in many, many instances (also, note, I'm not saying "poor, poor guys!" here, but rather, "you want all the allies you can get, and clearly the approach being used is, at best, confusing to many of those of the male persuasion").
An alternative approach is clearly needed, and, I suggest, exploring how that can be done would make a great conference paper subject for an enterprising academic who is in the throes of their "publish or perish" tribulations. Namely that, perhaps, feminist academics, thinkers, activists are not fighting a "war" against an oppressive society, but, rather, are sculptors of a yet-unrevealed social form. Both require strength, but the latter requires a wholly different set of skills than the former.
Or, perhaps, the tactic can be changed from "You (person who doesn't necessarily agree with my ideas at this time) will accept us (the minorities in the "academic" sense) equals willingly or we will wage war until it is accomplished by our own hand" to "You want to help our society become equitable to all members, and here are the reasons it's best for us all:".
Yeah, it's not gonna work with everyone (and, of course, society will probably never be totally equitable -- there's a reason why communism doesn't work on a large scale: it requires the involvement of humans; even now, as discussed before, women are disproportionately represented in sectors such as post-secondary under- and graduate admissions by significant margins -- that shouldn't be tossed off as "well that's only one thing" it's a *big* thing, because it's a national trend... but what does it say about men in post-secondary education? do we foresee a problem?), but you'll gain many more allies in latter case. I can see where one might argue that the movement needs a balanced approach, but again, anything blatantly (or inadvertently) combative risks alienating allies, so one would have to be very careful doing such.
Sorry, don't have a good tl;dr for all the above. Alas.
Oh, and for completeness' sake: 9 forward 6 back, though I thought some of the questions were vague and could have been worded better.
This is late, but these are silly examples.
The reason all of those things are insulting is as much a relation to their vulgarity and taboo nature as the detrimental gender roles and bigotry to which they might also appeal.
As an evidence of white-male-straightguy privilege they don't do the work you might hope - see also "dick", "cock", "fuckhead/wit".
A far better example is "gay" which is not vulgar, but IS considered insulting.
Likewise, the n-word (used indiscriminately) is not as good an example of privilege as "Mexican Jew Lizard" which is not vulgar and thus only a result of bigotry for its apparently negative character.
I'm torn as to whether my views are that ascribing this sort of thing to 'privilege' is a demonstration of the misuse of the term privilege or a demonstration that it's a useless and vague term from a sloppy field of intellectual endeavour.
This is a little tangential, but low-skill, dangerous, traditionally dude-only jobs like that actually attract a mild pay penalty, because the only people seeking to do that work are stupid, desperate, or both, and as such have little bargaining power.
Its also the case that many of those jobs are much more dangerous than they need to be because the same employers who have the power to bargain wages downwards have the power to not give a shit about improving conditions, equipment, or work procedures. A case in point is that BP rig, wherein the executive in charge of worker safety decided that it was cheaper to risk the lives of his employees than it was to install proper shielding around their living quarters.
I think that phenomenon probably repeats itself anywhere there's a substantial divide between the day to day duties (and even locations) of staff and their bosses. Pitting roughnecks against nurses isn't constructive, but if I start going into why I'm going to sound like Kakos :P
Irond Will, for a concrete example, what do you think about the one that started this thread? The OP (female) complained about being harassed while playing online games. One poster's response was that it wouldn't be a problem if she didn't flaunt the fact that she was a girl. I'm sure this seemed like a perfectly reasonable response to the person that posted it. I am 100% sure that he doesn't go around saying "I'm a dude" while playing games so in his mind he doesn't make a big deal about it and neither does anyone else. But he hasn't ever thought about what it would take to hide the fact that he is a dude, which is different than not announcing "I'm a dude". It has to do with figuring out ahead of time if a game has voice chat, censoring comments about your SO, censoring comments about what you might do in your spare time.
The privilege is that guy never had to think about the variety of ways we project our gender other than announcing "I'm a ___". That isn't a bad thing, it isn't a power he has over other people, it isn't something to feel guilty about. But it did make his suggestion less than useful.
For the record 12 forward, 10 backward.
I'm sad that you probably don't even see the irony in this sentence.
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i think it has to do with the assumption of specific contextual identity. xbl is a pretty loathsome place in general, and anyone who gets on it (and i do sometimes!) finds themselves muting other people and limiting their connections to other people they already know in short order. this is to say that it's a horrible experience requiring self-censorship for women, but it's also a horrible experience requiring self-censorship for everyone else who's not a racist vulgar teenager as well. women's voices on that thing get picked on for the same reason that a guy with a pronounced lisp would: because they are contextually distinct/ unusual and being so, it's something to be targeted.
maybe it works as a metaphor for a larger concept of privilege or something, but it's not a fair microcosm of the world or a representative subculture or even a real part of society. which was kind of why i was looking for different examples that we could discuss.
"Vagina" is a bad example, "Bitch" "Slut" "Whore" would be more accurate, as they don't have a simple match for the male gender. "Fuckhead / Fuckwit" aren't really related to gender or sexuality or race in any way, so I'm not sure why you'd list those as an example.
That racial and gender epithets are almost exclusively limited to non-white and non-male categories should tell you something. Aside from "cracker" (which is really more of a parody and isn't considered taboo in many circles) there's really no harsh insult to direct at a straight white man that relies on his straightness, his whiteness, or his gender for the insult.
I think this is less true now, but you're correct and, again, there are some advantages to having any gender or race in our society but those advantages aren't even.
There are some advantages to being black or jewish or homosexual or female, but I don't think this conversation can go very far once we devolve into the Oppression Olympics.
And because they're women. Really, I don't see why it's so important to deny that there is any element of gender involved here.
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Firstly, the n word is only vulgar because of its historical use as a tool of oppression and bigotry (this is in sharp contrast to the word vagina which is vulgar/taboo partially because it's a word for female genitalia).
Secondly, to say the indiscriminate use of the n-word doesn't prove privilege is missing the point. The privilege here is the privilege not to be assaulted by racial slurs targeted at your people, or to have your membership in that group (or more broadly in any group) used as an insult. This privilege persists whether the words used are jew and black or (the more vulgar/offensive) kike and n-word.
An analogous privilege applies for vagina. An insult that derives (most of) its power not from its vulgarity, but because it implies the recipient of the insult is a girl, and girls are weak, bad at math, bad at videogames, cowardly, overly-emotional, have cooties etc.
As a straight christian white male you can expect to go on X-box live and be called a n*gger, faggot, kike, pussy, vagina, mexican etc. What you can't expect is for any of those insults to gain added potency from your membership of the group in question. Indeed, the insults derive their potency from the assumption that membership in any of those groups is insulting ipso facto. The privilege is embodied in the words we use to insult each other. The lack of a corresponding set of insults for straight, white men proves the point rather nicely.
It isn't. The most important goal would be to create equality.
The problem is that by focusing the discussion on the privileged, you are not actually focusing on the real issue. Is the issue that people who are in a position of privilege live good lives or that people in a position without privilege do not have the opportunity to live the same good lives?
Doesn't it follow that putting one side of the table on the defensive and drawing the attention away from the actual problems at hand is counterproductive?
I'm not saying don't have a discussion about privilege, and I'm not trying to say that privilege doesn't exist--it clearly does and it absolutely colors the opinions of groups on both sides of the table. What I am saying is that when you start throwing around "privilege" without careful consideration, then you'll actually be detracting from the primary goal--producing equality.
Excellent dismissal, now we don't need to address the content of the post!
Moving on.
It is absolutely incumbent upon feminists to explain themselves clearly every God damned time, about whatever it is they are talking about and whatever people are challenging or asking about.
If it's been gone over before you can always throw up a link to another thread after all.
Cause, well, this is Debate and Discourse. It's incumbent upon all of us, no matter what the discussion is about, to explain ourselves clearly every God damned time however we are questioned or challenged. It's what we're here for, right? Well it's what I'm here for anyway. Especially since this is one of those few communities on or off the internet that really values the content of an argument more than just winning the conversation.
--LeVar Burton
But words like that exist and are used in communities where the dominant culture are not straight, white males. Every language which developed outside of a historically predominately Caucasian region has a word that has the same offensive load as 'kike' but refers, at least in part, to white people (see, for instance, 'gaijin' or 'guailo'). Subcultures and groups that identify themselves, as one of their primary points of group identity a personal characteristic (feminists, GLBT groups, racial empowerment groups, etc) adopt words to refer to those they view as oppressing or opposing them ('pigs' being men, the word 'cracker' as mentioned above, 'breeder', etc.). Frequently we who are not members of these groups don't see these words as being 'as bad' as other, more common epithets, but they're used with the same weight of hateful meaning by the people using them.
The fact that n-word, vagina, queer, etc. are the most common epithets on XBL doesn't mean that we live in a white patriarchy (whether we do or not), it means that the XBL community is primarily straight, white males. I would be willing to bet many American Dollars that if there is/were an XBL equivalent whose population were dominated by, say, white Iranians, or homosexual Koreans, the choice of slurs would be very different, despite broad similarities in the overall culture in terms of patriarchism.
There may be some alternative culture (real or imagined) where there's a videogame service and that culture is controlled primarily by midget Albanian lesbian circus performers and therefore being called a "straightee" is a horrible insult but I don't think that's really relevant to this discussion.
In our culture, "homo" is an insult and "straight" is not. Yes, in Iran being called a servant of the American regime is probably an insult but that's not really relevant to this discussion.
Should we TOTP every link posted since the beginning of this thread (many of which are easy to find because they are near the beginning of the thread) every page? Serious question; I want to know at what point someone has explained themselves enough.
i think the point is that xbl is a subculture significanltly more populated with male white straight people than mainstream american culture, and the fact that they especially sieze on racial and sexual epithets targeted at "others" isn't really evidence of much more than "monocultures tend to be xenophobic and nasty," in the same way that a group of black teenage dudes aren't going to be really welcoming to a white kid.
xbl is kind of its own thing. it's full of antisocial nerdy white teens with total anonymity and competitive streaks. i don't think it's especially useful to pretend that it has much to do with larger society.
tossing out links isn't an especially great way to have a discussion.
like, if the desire is to discuss the content of a specific article, then it makes sense to link or exerpt it.
but throwing five links and saying "read this" isn't really a great way to conduct a thread in general.
This is a large and vague conversation by its very nature. Xbox live is relevant, but only somewhat. Police harassment is relevant, but only somewhat. Job discrimination is relevant, but only somewhat. Political representation is relevant, but only somewhat. Etc. etc.
When there isn't anyone out there left that disagrees with you.
Incidentally, there is something to the point that you can't ever get into the subtler and more complicated aspects of a subject if you spend all of your time going over the basics. I don't think you should have to dumb down the conversation. But that's not the same as dismissing someone out of hand, or using snarkiness to try to shut them down instead of engaging in actual discussion.
--LeVar Burton
Good posters should also read a thread before they participate in it so people don't need to reiterate the same argument over and over and over again.
that, among other reasons, are why it's not great to just post links and pretend as though they outline a definitive truth or a distillation of one's position.
Well, I'm at a loss
Since that isn't what's been happening in this thread IMV. What has been happening, as far as I can observe, is that some people are coming into the thread 18 pages in and haven't read the first 5 pages, and are asking questions that could, possibly, have been answered for them within the first five or so pages of the thread.
I don't feel that makes for a discussion. I feel that's coming into the thread to talk.
We frequently point out to people something has been gone over before, and if it's in that very thread we often scold them for asking. Links, but even more so quotes, are really useful things. I'm cool with that baby!
edit: I miss Coco :,(
--LeVar Burton
I wrote a response but you said it much more succinctly. That was exactly my point.
You.... do know that's not humanly possible, right? I mean, I find that statement difficult to take seriously at all.
I actually don't believe that going over the basics of privilege is dumbing down the conversation, it just does seriously hamper a discussion from getting anywhere. It's also frustrating to have someone explain privilege elsewhere, link to it and say, "this outlines it pretty well," and have people complain that you threw a link at them. I guess we could just copy and paste everything? And again, is the first post sufficient to reference back? Is a TOTP post?
FWIW, I understand that people are frustrated by having their comments dismissed. I'm not a fan of the "go read this book and then come back to us" approach, personally. But might I suggest engaging with the people who are engaging in conversation (there are several in the thread) than getting derailed focusing on the dismissers? I keep feeling us going around in circles because someone dismissed someone else somewhere (maybe not even in this thread!) and they're mad about it and want to complain here, and it just gets us all off topic.
Quoting what you're disagreeing with would make this so much easier.
no; it hasn't really been happening too much in this thread. i was just talking generally about how tossing out broad FAQ-like links as answers to specific questions is generally kind of unproductive in a discussion thread.
it's frustrating when someone says "why how do you justify X" and in response you get a link to a ten-page faq that the linker doesn't necessarily even fully stand behind.
Has that been happening in this thread? I've seen a few essays, and some sort of image file that for some reason won't show up for me at work.
--LeVar Burton
I will admit I have no idea how much more remedial we can get on the subject than this, and I certainly still have much I don't know/understand about feminism and anti-racism (and much I disagree with, although that may/may not be due to my lack of knowledge). I suppose we could discuss (in another thread, of course) Evander's approach to general equality as a whole, or perhaps compare/contrast, or... I don't know.
If somebody said "why does a bullet do more damage than an arrow when an arrow has more mass?" if I'm feeling particularly generous I could explain to them how kinetic energy is proportional to the square of velocity... or I could link them an article on basic Newtonian physics.
And I would link them the article on basic Newtonian physics even though I don't necessarily fully stand behind Newtonian physics because, hey, Einstein.
I've said this many times before, and never stops being the case... if I were to walk into a thread on economics and say things like "Externalities are a bullshit concept! They just hand-wave away everything!" or demonstrate that I don't understand even basic econ 101, I'd be told to gtfo. But when it comes to sex and gender, people think, "Hey, I have sex! I have a gender! Therefore my opinion is as valid as anybody else's!" without recognizing that like any other complex topic, there is some basic education you need to have or some basic reading you need to do before you can have a meaningful conversation.
And is really frustrating to explain the equivalent of K=MV^2 to people and still have people going "But... but... but... no... but... no... but!"
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
But... but.. but... K = (MV^2)/2...
In physics there are definite definitions for terms. Usually definitions that can be expressed in a paragraph or less. Sometimes that paragraph will have a whole chain of paragraphs behind it to define the terms used in the definition of that first term, but you can, eventually, read enough definitions to know exactly what a physicist means when he says something. I don't know if this is the case in Economics because I don't know shit about Economics.
The term "privilege" is relatively solidly defined, but there are plenty of terms in social studies that are not well-defined. We've had entire threads attempting to nail down definitions of terms because everyone with a definition disagrees, to some extent, with everyone else. Even in the case of 'privilege', where it's pretty easy to get a grasp of the intent behind the proper use of the word in a social academic sense, there are aspects which are not really concrete. I don't recall who said it or if it was on some other page, but I know that I've read that "male privilege" or "white privilege" is differentiated from other forms of empowerment by being 'covert'. No particular definition is given for covert because it's expect that the person in question will know it when they see it. Social topics are like that. It's very hard to precisely say what a term means because a large part of understanding it is understanding everything around it. V in K = (MV^2)/2 is velocity. It is the first derivative of position. It is measured by observing the position of a discrete object over a known interval of time and recording its position change as a rate. Provided that you know the basic definitions of all the words in those sentences, you know exactly what I mean by 'V'. You can't do that with 'privilege' because it means so many different things in different situations, is observed in different ways, is quantified in different ways, and has differing, contextual impacts.
If you're having a conversation with other people with the same education and background as yourself then you can expect social terms to apply the same way and that any disagreements in definition can be sorted out fairly easily. But the internet is full of people who know more than you, less than you, and know the same amount but come from a distinctly different school of thought. When definitions are as fuzzy as they tend to be in social sciences you have to expect that, on the internet, a lot of time is going to be spent trying to explain to people what you mean. If you want to have a conversation where everyone knows where you're talking about with regards to advanced feminism, a video game webcomic forum probably isn't the ideal place to go. Even if we are a better class of forum.
yeah yeah... :P
If somebody were to voice an argument that a term is poorly defined, I feel the makes the discussion much more productive if they were to at least find out if somebody else has voiced that argument before, and if that argument is still accepted as a valid difference of opinion or if it has been well and thoroughly debunked.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
at least once a month i patiently explain that things can't go faster than the speed of light, and how this happens, in spite of the fact that physics, especially at the level of relativity, is 80 year-old established and verified Real Science and not a collection of academic jargon and mostly-agreed-upon-precepts of a discipline with an axe to grind.
i mean, at some level in any discipline, you can't really move forward without a formal understanding of the debates within the field, but this isn't the same thing as simple and foundational questions being defensively dismissed with a link or collection of links. if i'm asking my friend arivia or my friend feral about some concept, i'm really not interested in the views and positioning of a back-slapping feminist blog (though i did read through it).
it just ends up sounding like "the problem with society is illustrated in how the worst teenage boys behave themselves when given complete anonymity"
i mean, i think that there's a point to be made about how the gender roles traditionally assigned to females aren't generally prefereable to the gender roles assigned to men, and i think there's a point to be made about untoward assumptions made about people based on their gender, and women tend to get the worse of this too.
i just don't think that the xbl example gives an especially good demonstration of these principles.
now, it does strike me that most things we think of as "subcultures" are structured around either mixed men-and-women or just dominantly men. video gamers, wall street douchebags, pick up artists, guidos, bros. i can't really think of the female counterparts to these easily. knitters, i guess?
I'm not saying it's cool for people to come in and say "Feminism is bupkiss! You're all morons!" Anyone who tries to come in and say that the whole field, or even an aspect of the field, is wrong without any background is, effectively, a troll. I'm just saying that there has to be some expectation that, in a forum like this, with topics like these, you're going to have to do a lot of re-explaining of terms for the benefit of people who:
a) Have (potentially) valid opinions but don't know the proper terminology in which to couch them.
b) Have invalid opinions based on a misunderstanding of the terminology in use.
c) Didn't read 13 pages of the thread and so missed where the forum collectively decided to re-define a term.
etc.
I don't know what the proper cutoff threshold for that kind of explaining should be, or if it should just be "go read the rest of the thread/read the OP and the links there", but on a general debate forum like this the cutoff can't be reasonably expected to be much above the LCD.