Thanks for making the thread, AMFE. The idea of liberal feminism as set out in the OP is what I have historically thought of as feminism (and is something that I am fully behind) but I feel like, at least online, you can espouse these exact ideas and still be called a misogynist. A lot of this seems to be due to modern feminism being highly inclusive, to the point where any issue that affects women can be part of feminism, even if the impact on women is no different than the impact on people as a whole. One of the most extreme examples I have seen in the inclusion of ableism (advocacy for the disabled) in feminist thought and discussion, since women are handicapped too. I have seen this even expressed by feminist safe spaces rejecting the words "lame" and "stupid" as offensive to the physically or mentally disabled. To me, this just seems like a confusing and dangerous expansion, since the issues facing the disabled may have no relationship to the issues facing women, and so thinking that all of these problems need to be solved by the same people at the same time could very well slow the advance of actual women's issues by feminism. I understand that feminists are still stinging from being left behind in the civil rights movement despite all their work for it, but I don't understand why the lesson of that experience wouldn't be "from now on we have to focus on our issues" rather than "from now on we need to make sure that every person who helps feminism move forward has their issues addressed alongside the core feminist issues.
A large chunk of feminist thought deals with social norms and how they are frequently harmful. Specifically, feminism deals with gender norms, but the ways in which gender norms are harmful differ little from how norms/stereotypes are harmful to other classes, such as racial minorities, the disabled and the LGBTIQA... community.
For these groups to work together to deal with what is essentially the same issue is kinda logical. I agree that to consider all of this feminism is not in the best interests of any particular group.
I see two problems with this:
1. By making the umbrella so wide, you run the risk of allienating people who support the core issue but not the issues of other groups. A great example of this to me is how hard I see many feminists push on transgender issues. It often seems to me like feminists will not acknowledge that accepting transgenders is an extra step which can be hard for people who are fully onboard with gay rights to make. By tying these difficult issues in with feminism, I think they run a real risk of losing the more conservative leaning people who can still be extremely valuable allies.
2. By lumping women's issues in with these other (often less mainstream) positions, you wind up with a movement that is calling for pretty sweeping overhauls. Like I said before, AMFE's liberal feminism which seeks equality within the system seems great, and I am all for it. I just can't get behind a movement that sees everything about our society as unequal to someone, and that wants to make a ton of sweeping changes, and I don't see what that has to do with things like equal pay and opportunities.
What's worse, alienating transgender folks who want to engage in feminist discourse and activism, but feel left out, or alienating the transphobic folks who "just aren't ready" to accept transgenderism? Bigoted allies aren't valuable.
What's worse is alienating the group that is more valuable to your cause and can help you achieve your goals. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it probably isn't even close on this one.
Feminism is concerned with issues of oppression, power, and privilege. It's a mistake to try and separate racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, etc, out from sexism- they are all related and intertwined.
Third wave feminism is largely a reaction to feminism being primarily a movement of middle-class white women and the inherent privileges that they enjoy, and a striving towards a broader recognition of the issues facing women of color.
I have heard this many times, but what I have never heard is why it is a mistake for feminism. I understand its worse for the the other disadvantaged groups, but how does focusing on women's issues to the exclusion of all other issues hurt feminism, or make it less likely that feminism will achieve its goals?
It is a mistake for feminism for exactly the reason you alluded to- alienation. If you don't take issues of race, class, etc. into account, you risk alienating and excluding those who feel like they would like to contribute, in principle, but don't feel included in practice. For a long time feminism has grappled with questions like why more people of color don't engage with feminism.
Again, bigoted "allies" aren't valuable, and aren't really allies. A movement should aim to be as inclusive and progressive as possible. So when transgender folks or people of color express that they would like to participate, but feel alienated because of X,Y, and Z, the proper response isn't "WE DON'T NEED YOU ANYWAY, RACE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FEMINISM". The proper response is to look inwards and check your privilege.
But you haven't said a thing about why this is a problem for feminism. If women feel alienated because feminism isn't also about them being disabled, why isn't the answer "this is about women's issues, and we will help advance your cause as a woman, but your problems from being disabled are not our fight. I agree you may alienate people. What I don't understand is why that's a problem for feminism or advancing women's issues.
A movement should aim to suceed. If there were a bunch of senators ready to pass a new law on wage parity but they won't include transgenders, would you suggest feminists protest the bill to avoid alienating transgenders?
I think the disconnect is that you think "a movement should aim to succeed" and I think "a movement should aim to be as inclusive and progressive as possible". Obviously, it should aim to do both, but I think the latter is more important than the former, and you think the opposite. We're not going to agree. So it goes.
A)As I said feminism is more a school than a movement now, which is appropriate because their targets are less well defined than the problems of the 1st/2nd waves.
B)It's vaguely goosey to presume to tell a group to totally change its objectives and goals in order to conform to a strategy you're imposing on them. It'd be kind of like telling an automotive company to get into mp3 players cause that's where the getting is good--they're not a tech company, they're a car company (not the best example but I hope that it carries the message)
So you are basically confirming what I said in the first post I made in this thread. Being 100% for women's rights is not enough to be a feminist anymore. Of course, there are still people in this thread saying feminism is about making it "suck less" to be a woman. I actually wonder how many people here support feminism (thinking its only about women) or oppose it (thinking it is about every oppressed group). I actually started out supporting it when I thought it was about women's rights, and am only against it because of intersectionality.
Again, to go back to an analogy at the beginning of this thread in the absence of a centralized heirachy the word "feminist" is a self designation, rather like the word "christian" or similar. Some people believe in god, but choose not to call themselves christian, some people call themselves christian but don't like organised church, some christians don't believe other sects are doing it properly etc. There isn't a badge you get.
Feminism was always a movement about equality and rights for women, right? It seems like they should change the name, since it doesn't seem to be about that anymore.
Who is "they", the high society of feminists? Why don't you write to them?
Also, incidentally, if someone is attacking you and breaking all your shit, why should the goal be to protect both parties? Do your rights in your property count for nothing just because your live in girlfriend went crazy?
Peoples personal safety does take priority over your material stuff yes. Do you really not see the problem in a law that sees violence as justified because she broke your favorite thing?
1/2. There are people out there trying to actually change things, no? There are people doing research on feminist issues. There are people critiquing works from a feminist perspective, and pushing for media creators to care more about feminism. It isn't all people saying "hi I'm a feminist and care about blaaaarglewaargle." The underpinnings of the calls to action matter, and depending on which perspective they take, people may be more or less inclined to support them.
But how are these people to claim "ownership" of the name? They're not a hive mind.
And why is it a good idea to change it anyway? In response to external pressure from men who find the word vaguely threatening? I think there are many who would disagree.
3. I absolutely think you have a right to defend your property. When you have done nothing wrong, why should you just accept being wronged by a bad actor? If someone is trying to destroy my property (which I bought with money earned through my labor) why shouldn't I have a right to defend it, instead of forcing me to be a slave to the wrongdoer (they are taking the fruits of my labor, and therefor my labor, from me).
Someone breaks into your house? Fine whatever, run at them with a baseball bat. But that's not what a domestic violence situation is, when the police get there and both parties have a black eye and explaining needs to be done there's going to need to be a better explanation than "she broke my xbox".
Also there's a weird patriarchal edge to this argument, if you don't respond with violent reprisals when a woman threatens the "fruits of your labor" then you are making yourself a "slave"? its really strange that you're using an argument stemming from retaining a proper balance of power and control.
Forget fruits of my labor. My ex knew where to hit me hardest. Keepsakes of dead relatives. My father specifically.
But sure, spin it into a patriarchal control issue. I'm trying to maintain patriarchal control by preventing an abusive domestic partner from destroying what little I have to remember my dead father by.
Thanks for that Feminism.
Because really, it is Feminism's fault. You are so attached to the idea of man bad, women good, and outdated concepts of "patriarchal control" being the root of abusive relationships, you can't detach from them for 2 seconds to address a situation where its the WOMAN using VIOLENCE to CONTROL a MAN. You view any attempt at protecting myself and what's valuable to me as an attempt to maintain some sort of patriarchal status qou.
It's nothing to do with feminism at all. The police didn't do their jobs properly. That's it.
The police often don't do their jobs properly when men abuse women too.
I am saddened by how little sympathy you are getting. What happened to you sounds terrible. But your conclusion is terrible too.
We're sympathetic to him in that what happened was horrible, he should not have had to go through with it, and matters were amplified by the failure of law enforcement to do its job properly.
What we're not sympathetic to are his conclusions. The fact that law enforcement likes to take the path of easiest resistance does not mean that he was wronged by feminism. That's where he's been running into conflict.
Oh, and we're still waiting to hear how he would fix DV laws.
How would I fix DV laws? Drop mandatory arrest, mandatory prosecution policies. Drop primary aggressor policies. Drop therapy that only focuses on the incredibly gender focused and discriminatory Duluth model.
Studies show that most abuse is two way, and often isn't purely physical. They show that both genders abuse at roughly equal rates. Make sure BOTH partners have shelters they can go to. Break up the fight, but don't force police officers to make a decision about which party is the wronged one by forcing them to arrest only one person on the spot. Take BOTH parties to their respective shelters, where they will be treated as people with respect and dignity.
You know, assuming one party isn't blatantly belligerent when the cops show up. That likely calls for the blatantly belligerent party to be arrested.
It's not uncommon in DV cases for the judge to order therapy for one or both parties. But the therapy is incredibly gendered and discriminatory. It focuses entirely on patriarchal theory, which is proven to not be the reason people abuse one another. Ditch the Duluth model and focus on the real reasons people abuse each other.
Seriously Namrok you really look like a huge goose when you post things like
Because really, it is Feminism's fault. You are so attached to the idea of man bad, women good, and outdated concepts of "patriarchal control" being the root of abusive relationships, you can't detach from them for 2 seconds to address a situation where its the WOMAN using VIOLENCE to CONTROL a MAN
Because I bet there are a shitload of feminists in this thread who have zero attachment to "man bad, women good" and likely consider that a huge strawman of the bulk of feminist thought and action.
And then
No prostate PSA tests, no vasectomies, nada. There is just a huge funding disparity across the board for men's health issues VS women's health issues. So, thanks for that Feminism.
HEY! You posted in that boys vs girls thread! I saw you! That means you should have read this!
It took years of struggle, often one sided, by women's rights groups to break free of their gender shackles. Men simply have not done that yet, and by all accounts the majority seem to be intent on disregarding and diminishing the very movement they could learn these techniques from, which is a cruel irony (unsourced allegation, but I would at least point to the last three or four feminism threads on these boards, where most of the people arguing against feminist thought would most likely agree that men need to break out of traditional roles).
Oh and hey look! You hate feminist thought and agree we need to break down gender roles!
Do you see the point I am making here? It is not feminist's fault that historically the privileged are not seen as needing an advocate, and it is very unfortunate when the privileged group DOES need help, that they lash out at the previously underprivileged. Dogg, if men want more inclusivity in health care/domestic laws/etc they won't get it by hating on feminism, and it is not feminism's fault that this doesn't already exist.
Even bringing up in this thread that I'd be legislated out of my right to defend myself against an abusive partner, some among you jumped to the conclusion that I just wanted an excuse to knock some teeth out. So, thanks for that too Feminism.
My cereal needed more milk, and I had none! God Feminism what is your deal?!?!
Dude I understand you may need some sort of outside boogeyman, but you have chosen very very poorly. Some dudes really misinterpreted your posts (which I will admit! It is really stupid!) but then how the goddam hell is this the fault of feminisms?
Seriously, you need to actually develop a reasonable idea of what a feminist is, and then do some introspection about how they actually were the source of all your ills.
Because really, it is Feminism's fault. You are so attached to the idea of man bad, women good, and outdated concepts of "patriarchal control" being the root of abusive relationships, you can't detach from them for 2 seconds to address a situation where its the WOMAN using VIOLENCE to CONTROL a MAN. You view any attempt at protecting myself and what's valuable to me as an attempt to maintain some sort of patriarchal status qou.
If only there was a sociopolitical movement for the abolishment of gender stereotypes and roles in order to build a society in which an individual is not constrained by social expectations because of their gender or sexuality.
A)As I said feminism is more a school of thought than a movement now, which is appropriate because their targets are less well defined than the problems of the 1st/2nd waves.
B)It's vaguely goosey to presume to tell a group to totally change its objectives and goals in order to conform to a strategy you're imposing on them. It'd be kind of like telling an automotive company to get into mp3 players cause that's where the getting is good--they're not a tech company, they're a car company (not the best example but I hope that it carries the message)
So you are basically confirming what I said in the first post I made in this thread. Being 100% for women's rights is not enough to be a feminist anymore. Of course, there are still people in this thread saying feminism is about making it "suck less" to be a woman. I actually wonder how many people here support feminism (thinking its only about women) or oppose it (thinking it is about every oppressed group). I actually started out supporting it when I thought it was about women's rights, and am only against it because of intersectionality.
Again, to go back to an analogy at the beginning of this thread in the absence of a centralized heirachy the word "feminist" is a self designation, rather like the word "christian" or similar. Some people believe in god, but choose not to call themselves christian, some people call themselves christian but don't like organised church, some christians don't believe other sects are doing it properly etc. There isn't a badge you get.
Feminism was always a movement about equality and rights for women, right? It seems like they should change the name, since it doesn't seem to be about that anymore.
Who is "they", the high society of feminists? Why don't you write to them?
Also, incidentally, if someone is attacking you and breaking all your shit, why should the goal be to protect both parties? Do your rights in your property count for nothing just because your live in girlfriend went crazy?
Peoples personal safety does take priority over your material stuff yes. Do you really not see the problem in a law that sees violence as justified because she broke your favorite thing?
1/2. There are people out there trying to actually change things, no? There are people doing research on feminist issues. There are people critiquing works from a feminist perspective, and pushing for media creators to care more about feminism. It isn't all people saying "hi I'm a feminist and care about blaaaarglewaargle." The underpinnings of the calls to action matter, and depending on which perspective they take, people may be more or less inclined to support them.
But how are these people to claim "ownership" of the name? They're not a hive mind.
And why is it a good idea to change it anyway? In response to external pressure from men who find the word vaguely threatening? I think there are many who would disagree.
3. I absolutely think you have a right to defend your property. When you have done nothing wrong, why should you just accept being wronged by a bad actor? If someone is trying to destroy my property (which I bought with money earned through my labor) why shouldn't I have a right to defend it, instead of forcing me to be a slave to the wrongdoer (they are taking the fruits of my labor, and therefor my labor, from me).
Someone breaks into your house? Fine whatever, run at them with a baseball bat. But that's not what a domestic violence situation is, when the police get there and both parties have a black eye and explaining needs to be done there's going to need to be a better explanation than "she broke my xbox".
Also there's a weird patriarchal edge to this argument, if you don't respond with violent reprisals when a woman threatens the "fruits of your labor" then you are making yourself a "slave"? its really strange that you're using an argument stemming from retaining a proper balance of power and control.
Forget fruits of my labor. My ex knew where to hit me hardest. Keepsakes of dead relatives. My father specifically.
But sure, spin it into a patriarchal control issue. I'm trying to maintain patriarchal control by preventing an abusive domestic partner from destroying what little I have to remember my dead father by.
Thanks for that Feminism.
Because really, it is Feminism's fault. You are so attached to the idea of man bad, women good, and outdated concepts of "patriarchal control" being the root of abusive relationships, you can't detach from them for 2 seconds to address a situation where its the WOMAN using VIOLENCE to CONTROL a MAN. You view any attempt at protecting myself and what's valuable to me as an attempt to maintain some sort of patriarchal status qou.
Namrok, an awful lot of people who consider themselves feminist would say that ideally, in a domestic violence situation, the law should always punish only the party/parties that carried out excessive violence and/or physically assaulted someone. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the majority of people who voluntarily call themselves feminists agree on this.
The laws(not just American laws, either) that, in practice, give women the "upper hand" in DV situations even when a woman is the wrong-doer are mostly created based on the GENERAL TENDENCY for females to be hurt more often by their male partner and the still-popular views of women as weak, defenseless and prone to become victims and men as being basically the opposite. On top of these laws you have policemen, attorneys and other people dealing with law enforcement who in the process of interpreting the aforementioned laws use their own biases etc. So to a large degree, stereotyping leads to this particular kind of inequality before the law. It's true that feminists helped make it possible for women to come forth and make it known that domestic violence is a true problem so that laws were created to counteract it, but the actual lawmaking hasn't been actively influenced by feminists that much, it seems. In the bad old days, when domestic violence was to be kept in the home and not spoken about, a man wouldn't be able to speak to anyone about being abused by his wife because that would just have been considered shameful. That's still a huge problem, but it's changed a bit, to a large extent thanks to the work of feminists who worked against the traditional relationship stereotypes. And it still is changing - and as more men who are exposed to domestic violence become vocal, the chances for improved law regulation increase. In this way, feminists are fighting for both men and women who are abused (although some feminists may be/have been doing so inadvertently).
In your case, it seems that certain policies and laws interacted really badly with each other, and so you ended up in a situation that wasn't accounted for by the makers of any of the policies/laws. To try to point out one particular group or school of thought that was kind of indirectly involved in the making of one of these laws is really hard. I think everyone who read your story understands your frustration and agree that things didn't work as they should have, but the mechanisms behind what happened are very complicated. Laws are imperfect and so law systems need to constantly evolve. People like feminists or those who fight for the rights of the disabled help ensure that the development doesn't stop.
When you say that you only care about the feminists who actually DO something you are still choosing a very small subset of them, and it's also very diffuse - you say that you care about American feminists who are/have been lobbying for law changes during recent times. What about Swedish feminists? Do they not count because they do not influence you directly? What about feminists in France who lived during the French revolution? As has been concluded in this thread time and again, "feminism" is such a broad term filled with so many different meanings that that to say you hate feminism probably tells another person even less than saying that you hate communism would, unless you already know what particular concept that person has connected with the word. It also means, if I'm allowed to be a bit self-ironical, that saying "I'm a feminist" tells another person almost nothing unless I explain what I mean. I see it more as a potential conversation starter, really.
Edit: Not to mention that feminists have helped make homosexual relationships more accepted, thus making it (in some countries, maybe not much of the US) possible for people who are in an abusive homosexual relationship to be able to report their problems and be treated with some respect, instead of having to stay quiet for fear of being seen as "shameful". This helps both men and women, naturally.
How would I fix DV laws? Drop mandatory arrest, mandatory prosecution policies. Drop primary aggressor policies. Drop therapy that only focuses on the incredibly gender focused and discriminatory Duluth model.
Studies show that most abuse is two way, and often isn't purely physical. They show that both genders abuse at roughly equal rates. Make sure BOTH partners have shelters they can go to. Break up the fight, but don't force police officers to make a decision about which party is the wronged one by forcing them to arrest only one person on the spot. Take BOTH parties to their respective shelters, where they will be treated as people with respect and dignity.
You know, assuming one party isn't blatantly belligerent when the cops show up. That likely calls for the blatantly belligerent party to be arrested.
It's not uncommon in DV cases for the judge to order therapy for one or both parties. But the therapy is incredibly gendered and discriminatory. It focuses entirely on patriarchal theory, which is proven to not be the reason people abuse one another. Ditch the Duluth model and focus on the real reasons people abuse each other.
So, you don't understand why these policies were instituted, but would scrap them anyway. Mandatory arrest and prosecution were enacted because it turned out that the police coming out to handle DV calls would trigger escalation in violence. Furthermore, it turned out that abusers were good at getting their victims to recant and pull charges. So in the end, we said that abusers would deal with the State directly. Primary aggressor policies came out of the issue that arresting both parties made victims more reluctant to call the police in the future.
The laws(not just American laws, either) that, in practice, give women the "upper hand" in DV situations even when a woman is the wrong-doer are mostly created based on the GENERAL TENDENCY for females to be hurt more often by their male partner and the still-popular views of women as weak, defenseless and prone to become victims and men as being basically the opposite. On top of these laws you have policemen, attorneys and other people dealing with law enforcement who in the process of interpreting the aforementioned laws use their own biases etc. So to a large degree, stereotyping leads to this particular kind of inequality before the law. It's true that feminists helped make it possible for women to come forth and make it known that domestic violence is a true problem so that laws were created to counteract it, but the actual lawmaking hasn't been actively influenced by feminists that much, it seems. In the bad old days, when domestic violence was to be kept in the home and not spoken about, a man wouldn't be able to speak to anyone about being abused by his wife because that would just have been considered shameful. That's still a huge problem, but it's changed a bit, to a large extent thanks to the work of feminists who worked against the traditional relationship stereotypes. And it still is changing - and as more men who are exposed to domestic violence become vocal, the chances for improved law regulation increase. In this way, feminists are fighting for both men and women who are abused (although some feminists may be/have been doing so inadvertently).
Here's my issue, and I'll re-iterate it. Feminist secured a position of power as the gate keepers of equality, and shut the door behind them. How many people, yourself included, have insisted "The problems you are having with a system being biased against men just needs more Feminism!"
No. Seriously. Stop saying that. It's absurd on the face of it. It makes literally zero sense. Feminism does not have a monopoly on advocating equality. It should not have a monopoly on advocating equality. While I've seen feminist acknowledge that "The Patriarchy hurts men too" I've never seen a feminist vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt men the way they vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt women. And why should they? Their movement is about equality for women. It puts women first in all circumstances. It secures resources for women's issues first and foremost. So clearly they aren't for absolute equality as a first principle.
You don't get to say out of one side of your mouth "Feminism is for equality for everyone, so we don't need any sort of mens rights advocates" and then say out of the other side of your mouth "It's not feminism's fault that men don't have the same gov't resources women have, feminists had to fight for those things, so men should too!"
The laws(not just American laws, either) that, in practice, give women the "upper hand" in DV situations even when a woman is the wrong-doer are mostly created based on the GENERAL TENDENCY for females to be hurt more often by their male partner and the still-popular views of women as weak, defenseless and prone to become victims and men as being basically the opposite. On top of these laws you have policemen, attorneys and other people dealing with law enforcement who in the process of interpreting the aforementioned laws use their own biases etc. So to a large degree, stereotyping leads to this particular kind of inequality before the law. It's true that feminists helped make it possible for women to come forth and make it known that domestic violence is a true problem so that laws were created to counteract it, but the actual lawmaking hasn't been actively influenced by feminists that much, it seems. In the bad old days, when domestic violence was to be kept in the home and not spoken about, a man wouldn't be able to speak to anyone about being abused by his wife because that would just have been considered shameful. That's still a huge problem, but it's changed a bit, to a large extent thanks to the work of feminists who worked against the traditional relationship stereotypes. And it still is changing - and as more men who are exposed to domestic violence become vocal, the chances for improved law regulation increase. In this way, feminists are fighting for both men and women who are abused (although some feminists may be/have been doing so inadvertently).
Here's my issue, and I'll re-iterate it. Feminist secured a position of power as the gate keepers of equality, and shut the door behind them. How many people, yourself included, have insisted "The problems you are having with a system being biased against men just needs more Feminism!"
No. Seriously. Stop saying that. It's absurd on the face of it. It makes literally zero sense. Feminism does not have a monopoly on advocating equality. It should not have a monopoly on advocating equality. While I've seen feminist acknowledge that "The Patriarchy hurts men too" I've never seen a feminist vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt men the way they vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt women. And why should they? Their movement is about equality for women. It puts women first in all circumstances. It secures resources for women's issues first and foremost. So clearly they aren't for absolute equality as a first principle.
You don't get to say out of one side of your mouth "Feminism is for equality for everyone, so we don't need any sort of mens rights advocates" and then say out of the other side of your mouth "It's not feminism's fault that men don't have the same gov't resources women have, feminists had to fight for those things, so men should too!"
Nobody is saying that men don't need advocacy. It's a shame that many of those who do advocate for men are more interested in preserving male privilege than actually trying to improve things for men.
And here's the thing - while feminists do believe in gender equality, as a movement built on defending the rights of women, it's not surprising that they view that as their chief priority.
The laws(not just American laws, either) that, in practice, give women the "upper hand" in DV situations even when a woman is the wrong-doer are mostly created based on the GENERAL TENDENCY for females to be hurt more often by their male partner and the still-popular views of women as weak, defenseless and prone to become victims and men as being basically the opposite. On top of these laws you have policemen, attorneys and other people dealing with law enforcement who in the process of interpreting the aforementioned laws use their own biases etc. So to a large degree, stereotyping leads to this particular kind of inequality before the law. It's true that feminists helped make it possible for women to come forth and make it known that domestic violence is a true problem so that laws were created to counteract it, but the actual lawmaking hasn't been actively influenced by feminists that much, it seems. In the bad old days, when domestic violence was to be kept in the home and not spoken about, a man wouldn't be able to speak to anyone about being abused by his wife because that would just have been considered shameful. That's still a huge problem, but it's changed a bit, to a large extent thanks to the work of feminists who worked against the traditional relationship stereotypes. And it still is changing - and as more men who are exposed to domestic violence become vocal, the chances for improved law regulation increase. In this way, feminists are fighting for both men and women who are abused (although some feminists may be/have been doing so inadvertently).
Here's my issue, and I'll re-iterate it. Feminist secured a position of power as the gate keepers of equality, and shut the door behind them. How many people, yourself included, have insisted "The problems you are having with a system being biased against men just needs more Feminism!"
No. Seriously. Stop saying that. It's absurd on the face of it. It makes literally zero sense. Feminism does not have a monopoly on advocating equality. It should not have a monopoly on advocating equality. While I've seen feminist acknowledge that "The Patriarchy hurts men too" I've never seen a feminist vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt men the way they vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt women. And why should they? Their movement is about equality for women. It puts women first in all circumstances. It secures resources for women's issues first and foremost. So clearly they aren't for absolute equality as a first principle.
You don't get to say out of one side of your mouth "Feminism is for equality for everyone, so we don't need any sort of mens rights advocates" and then say out of the other side of your mouth "It's not feminism's fault that men don't have the same gov't resources women have, feminists had to fight for those things, so men should too!"
Nobody is saying that men don't need advocacy. It's a shame that many of those who do advocate for men are more interested in preserving male privilege than actually trying to improve things for men.
The laws(not just American laws, either) that, in practice, give women the "upper hand" in DV situations even when a woman is the wrong-doer are mostly created based on the GENERAL TENDENCY for females to be hurt more often by their male partner and the still-popular views of women as weak, defenseless and prone to become victims and men as being basically the opposite. On top of these laws you have policemen, attorneys and other people dealing with law enforcement who in the process of interpreting the aforementioned laws use their own biases etc. So to a large degree, stereotyping leads to this particular kind of inequality before the law. It's true that feminists helped make it possible for women to come forth and make it known that domestic violence is a true problem so that laws were created to counteract it, but the actual lawmaking hasn't been actively influenced by feminists that much, it seems. In the bad old days, when domestic violence was to be kept in the home and not spoken about, a man wouldn't be able to speak to anyone about being abused by his wife because that would just have been considered shameful. That's still a huge problem, but it's changed a bit, to a large extent thanks to the work of feminists who worked against the traditional relationship stereotypes. And it still is changing - and as more men who are exposed to domestic violence become vocal, the chances for improved law regulation increase. In this way, feminists are fighting for both men and women who are abused (although some feminists may be/have been doing so inadvertently).
Here's my issue, and I'll re-iterate it. Feminist secured a position of power as the gate keepers of equality, and shut the door behind them. How many people, yourself included, have insisted "The problems you are having with a system being biased against men just needs more Feminism!"
No. Seriously. Stop saying that. It's absurd on the face of it. It makes literally zero sense. Feminism does not have a monopoly on advocating equality. It should not have a monopoly on advocating equality. While I've seen feminist acknowledge that "The Patriarchy hurts men too" I've never seen a feminist vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt men the way they vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt women. And why should they? Their movement is about equality for women. It puts women first in all circumstances. It secures resources for women's issues first and foremost. So clearly they aren't for absolute equality as a first principle.
You don't get to say out of one side of your mouth "Feminism is for equality for everyone, so we don't need any sort of mens rights advocates" and then say out of the other side of your mouth "It's not feminism's fault that men don't have the same gov't resources women have, feminists had to fight for those things, so men should too!"
Nobody is saying that men don't need advocacy. It's a shame that many of those who do advocate for men are more interested in preserving male privilege than actually trying to improve things for men.
/le sigh
MOST male advocates are the vocal ones that I hate!
The vocal feminists that you hate? TOTALLY THE MINORITY!
The laws(not just American laws, either) that, in practice, give women the "upper hand" in DV situations even when a woman is the wrong-doer are mostly created based on the GENERAL TENDENCY for females to be hurt more often by their male partner and the still-popular views of women as weak, defenseless and prone to become victims and men as being basically the opposite. On top of these laws you have policemen, attorneys and other people dealing with law enforcement who in the process of interpreting the aforementioned laws use their own biases etc. So to a large degree, stereotyping leads to this particular kind of inequality before the law. It's true that feminists helped make it possible for women to come forth and make it known that domestic violence is a true problem so that laws were created to counteract it, but the actual lawmaking hasn't been actively influenced by feminists that much, it seems. In the bad old days, when domestic violence was to be kept in the home and not spoken about, a man wouldn't be able to speak to anyone about being abused by his wife because that would just have been considered shameful. That's still a huge problem, but it's changed a bit, to a large extent thanks to the work of feminists who worked against the traditional relationship stereotypes. And it still is changing - and as more men who are exposed to domestic violence become vocal, the chances for improved law regulation increase. In this way, feminists are fighting for both men and women who are abused (although some feminists may be/have been doing so inadvertently).
Here's my issue, and I'll re-iterate it. Feminist secured a position of power as the gate keepers of equality, and shut the door behind them. How many people, yourself included, have insisted "The problems you are having with a system being biased against men just needs more Feminism!"
No. Seriously. Stop saying that. It's absurd on the face of it. It makes literally zero sense. Feminism does not have a monopoly on advocating equality. It should not have a monopoly on advocating equality. While I've seen feminist acknowledge that "The Patriarchy hurts men too" I've never seen a feminist vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt men the way they vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt women. And why should they? Their movement is about equality for women. It puts women first in all circumstances. It secures resources for women's issues first and foremost. So clearly they aren't for absolute equality as a first principle.
You don't get to say out of one side of your mouth "Feminism is for equality for everyone, so we don't need any sort of mens rights advocates" and then say out of the other side of your mouth "It's not feminism's fault that men don't have the same gov't resources women have, feminists had to fight for those things, so men should too!"
Nobody is saying that men don't need advocacy. It's a shame that many of those who do advocate for men are more interested in preserving male privilege than actually trying to improve things for men.
So says you. But that doesn't make it true.
Do we really need to explain how the MRA movement is horrible? Their principal focus from what I've seen has been how child support is "unfair" to men.
The laws(not just American laws, either) that, in practice, give women the "upper hand" in DV situations even when a woman is the wrong-doer are mostly created based on the GENERAL TENDENCY for females to be hurt more often by their male partner and the still-popular views of women as weak, defenseless and prone to become victims and men as being basically the opposite. On top of these laws you have policemen, attorneys and other people dealing with law enforcement who in the process of interpreting the aforementioned laws use their own biases etc. So to a large degree, stereotyping leads to this particular kind of inequality before the law. It's true that feminists helped make it possible for women to come forth and make it known that domestic violence is a true problem so that laws were created to counteract it, but the actual lawmaking hasn't been actively influenced by feminists that much, it seems. In the bad old days, when domestic violence was to be kept in the home and not spoken about, a man wouldn't be able to speak to anyone about being abused by his wife because that would just have been considered shameful. That's still a huge problem, but it's changed a bit, to a large extent thanks to the work of feminists who worked against the traditional relationship stereotypes. And it still is changing - and as more men who are exposed to domestic violence become vocal, the chances for improved law regulation increase. In this way, feminists are fighting for both men and women who are abused (although some feminists may be/have been doing so inadvertently).
Here's my issue, and I'll re-iterate it. Feminist secured a position of power as the gate keepers of equality, and shut the door behind them. How many people, yourself included, have insisted "The problems you are having with a system being biased against men just needs more Feminism!"
No. Seriously. Stop saying that. It's absurd on the face of it. It makes literally zero sense. Feminism does not have a monopoly on advocating equality. It should not have a monopoly on advocating equality. While I've seen feminist acknowledge that "The Patriarchy hurts men too" I've never seen a feminist vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt men the way they vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt women. And why should they? Their movement is about equality for women. It puts women first in all circumstances. It secures resources for women's issues first and foremost. So clearly they aren't for absolute equality as a first principle.
You don't get to say out of one side of your mouth "Feminism is for equality for everyone, so we don't need any sort of mens rights advocates" and then say out of the other side of your mouth "It's not feminism's fault that men don't have the same gov't resources women have, feminists had to fight for those things, so men should too!"
Nobody is saying that men don't need advocacy. It's a shame that many of those who do advocate for men are more interested in preserving male privilege than actually trying to improve things for men.
So says you. But that doesn't make it true.
Do we really need to explain how the MRA movement is horrible? Their principal focus from what I've seen has been how child support is "unfair" to men.
Is this where we wonder into bizarro world? Where I crawl into your skin and you crawl into mine? And where you level broad generalized claims again men's rights advocates and I say "It's a community with a lot of different ideas, not a hive mind"
I guess the difference is men's rights advocates haven't had the opportunity to wield broad policy making power so we can't really judge them by what they have accomplished. There have been a smattering of accomplishments granted. They've been striking down alimony for life laws in the few states that still have them. They've been pushing for a presumption of 50/50 shared parenting. They've been working to have fathers that are unemployed or under employed not thrown into jail forever when they fall behind on child support payments. They've been questioning the legality of throwing fathers in jail for debt. We were supposed to have made debtors prison illegal. And yet, with some linguistic creativity, we rationalize that oh no, they aren't in jail for debt. They are in jail because a judge ordered them to pay money (they don't have), and they refused (or couldn't, doesn't matter) to pay, so they are in jail for contempt. It's not debtors prison at all.
Dude I understand you may need some sort of outside boogeyman, but you have chosen very very poorly. Some dudes really misinterpreted your posts (which I will admit! It is really stupid!) but then how the goddam hell is this the fault of feminisms?
Seriously, you need to actually develop a reasonable idea of what a feminist is, and then do some introspection about how they actually were the source of all your ills.
The laws(not just American laws, either) that, in practice, give women the "upper hand" in DV situations even when a woman is the wrong-doer are mostly created based on the GENERAL TENDENCY for females to be hurt more often by their male partner and the still-popular views of women as weak, defenseless and prone to become victims and men as being basically the opposite. On top of these laws you have policemen, attorneys and other people dealing with law enforcement who in the process of interpreting the aforementioned laws use their own biases etc. So to a large degree, stereotyping leads to this particular kind of inequality before the law. It's true that feminists helped make it possible for women to come forth and make it known that domestic violence is a true problem so that laws were created to counteract it, but the actual lawmaking hasn't been actively influenced by feminists that much, it seems. In the bad old days, when domestic violence was to be kept in the home and not spoken about, a man wouldn't be able to speak to anyone about being abused by his wife because that would just have been considered shameful. That's still a huge problem, but it's changed a bit, to a large extent thanks to the work of feminists who worked against the traditional relationship stereotypes. And it still is changing - and as more men who are exposed to domestic violence become vocal, the chances for improved law regulation increase. In this way, feminists are fighting for both men and women who are abused (although some feminists may be/have been doing so inadvertently).
Here's my issue, and I'll re-iterate it. Feminist secured a position of power as the gate keepers of equality, and shut the door behind them. How many people, yourself included, have insisted "The problems you are having with a system being biased against men just needs more Feminism!"
No. Seriously. Stop saying that. It's absurd on the face of it. It makes literally zero sense. Feminism does not have a monopoly on advocating equality. It should not have a monopoly on advocating equality. While I've seen feminist acknowledge that "The Patriarchy hurts men too" I've never seen a feminist vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt men the way they vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt women. And why should they? Their movement is about equality for women. It puts women first in all circumstances. It secures resources for women's issues first and foremost. So clearly they aren't for absolute equality as a first principle.
You don't get to say out of one side of your mouth "Feminism is for equality for everyone, so we don't need any sort of mens rights advocates" and then say out of the other side of your mouth "It's not feminism's fault that men don't have the same gov't resources women have, feminists had to fight for those things, so men should too!"
Nobody is saying that men don't need advocacy. It's a shame that many of those who do advocate for men are more interested in preserving male privilege than actually trying to improve things for men.
So says you. But that doesn't make it true.
Do we really need to explain how the MRA movement is horrible? Their principal focus from what I've seen has been how child support is "unfair" to men.
Dude I understand you may need some sort of outside boogeyman, but you have chosen very very poorly. Some dudes really misinterpreted your posts (which I will admit! It is really stupid!) but then how the goddam hell is this the fault of feminisms?
Seriously, you need to actually develop a reasonable idea of what a feminist is, and then do some introspection about how they actually were the source of all your ills.
You are being completely ridiculous.
Of course, it is the fault of feminists.
You are both right. I've jumped to a lot of conclusions in my posts and assumed people would make the connections.
The reason I blame feminism for people misinterpretting what I say and consistently putting words in my mouth is because the doctrines of feminism has biased you against stories like mine. Many of the first reactions I got were "Oh, so you'd feel better if you knocked her teeth out?" or making assumptions that my frustration was at my lack of lawful ability to put someone in a hospital at the slightest provocation. That bias, that immediate assumption, that when you hear a man complaining, he's only complaining because he's privileged and is now having to deal with being less privileged, is a result of Feminism pushing the story that all women are victims, and all men are abusers. That even the least privileged man is still more privileged than the most privileged woman.
Many of you, when I mentioned a lack of resources for male victims, jumped to the conclusion that I want to take these resources away from women. That's feminism pushing the story that any gain for men is a loss for women. That its a zero sum game.
For all of Feminisms focus on "The Patriarchy" and cultured norms and bias, they are remarkably blind to their own. And you all have displayed it in spades here.
A)As I said feminism is more a school of thought than a movement now, which is appropriate because their targets are less well defined than the problems of the 1st/2nd waves.
B)It's vaguely goosey to presume to tell a group to totally change its objectives and goals in order to conform to a strategy you're imposing on them. It'd be kind of like telling an automotive company to get into mp3 players cause that's where the getting is good--they're not a tech company, they're a car company (not the best example but I hope that it carries the message)
So you are basically confirming what I said in the first post I made in this thread. Being 100% for women's rights is not enough to be a feminist anymore. Of course, there are still people in this thread saying feminism is about making it "suck less" to be a woman. I actually wonder how many people here support feminism (thinking its only about women) or oppose it (thinking it is about every oppressed group). I actually started out supporting it when I thought it was about women's rights, and am only against it because of intersectionality.
Again, to go back to an analogy at the beginning of this thread in the absence of a centralized heirachy the word "feminist" is a self designation, rather like the word "christian" or similar. Some people believe in god, but choose not to call themselves christian, some people call themselves christian but don't like organised church, some christians don't believe other sects are doing it properly etc. There isn't a badge you get.
Feminism was always a movement about equality and rights for women, right? It seems like they should change the name, since it doesn't seem to be about that anymore.
Who is "they", the high society of feminists? Why don't you write to them?
Also, incidentally, if someone is attacking you and breaking all your shit, why should the goal be to protect both parties? Do your rights in your property count for nothing just because your live in girlfriend went crazy?
Peoples personal safety does take priority over your material stuff yes. Do you really not see the problem in a law that sees violence as justified because she broke your favorite thing?
1/2. There are people out there trying to actually change things, no? There are people doing research on feminist issues. There are people critiquing works from a feminist perspective, and pushing for media creators to care more about feminism. It isn't all people saying "hi I'm a feminist and care about blaaaarglewaargle." The underpinnings of the calls to action matter, and depending on which perspective they take, people may be more or less inclined to support them.
But how are these people to claim "ownership" of the name? They're not a hive mind.
And why is it a good idea to change it anyway? In response to external pressure from men who find the word vaguely threatening? I think there are many who would disagree.
3. I absolutely think you have a right to defend your property. When you have done nothing wrong, why should you just accept being wronged by a bad actor? If someone is trying to destroy my property (which I bought with money earned through my labor) why shouldn't I have a right to defend it, instead of forcing me to be a slave to the wrongdoer (they are taking the fruits of my labor, and therefor my labor, from me).
Someone breaks into your house? Fine whatever, run at them with a baseball bat. But that's not what a domestic violence situation is, when the police get there and both parties have a black eye and explaining needs to be done there's going to need to be a better explanation than "she broke my xbox".
Also there's a weird patriarchal edge to this argument, if you don't respond with violent reprisals when a woman threatens the "fruits of your labor" then you are making yourself a "slave"? its really strange that you're using an argument stemming from retaining a proper balance of power and control.
Forget fruits of my labor. My ex knew where to hit me hardest. Keepsakes of dead relatives. My father specifically.
But sure, spin it into a patriarchal control issue. I'm trying to maintain patriarchal control by preventing an abusive domestic partner from destroying what little I have to remember my dead father by.
Thanks for that Feminism.
Because really, it is Feminism's fault. You are so attached to the idea of man bad, women good, and outdated concepts of "patriarchal control" being the root of abusive relationships, you can't detach from them for 2 seconds to address a situation where its the WOMAN using VIOLENCE to CONTROL a MAN. You view any attempt at protecting myself and what's valuable to me as an attempt to maintain some sort of patriarchal status qou.
Namrok, an awful lot of people who consider themselves feminist would say that ideally, in a domestic violence situation, the law should always punish only the party/parties that carried out excessive violence and/or physically assaulted someone. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the majority of people who voluntarily call themselves feminists agree on this.
The laws(not just American laws, either) that, in practice, give women the "upper hand" in DV situations even when a woman is the wrong-doer are mostly created based on the GENERAL TENDENCY for females to be hurt more often by their male partner and the still-popular views of women as weak, defenseless and prone to become victims and men as being basically the opposite. On top of these laws you have policemen, attorneys and other people dealing with law enforcement who in the process of interpreting the aforementioned laws use their own biases etc. So to a large degree, stereotyping leads to this particular kind of inequality before the law. It's true that feminists helped make it possible for women to come forth and make it known that domestic violence is a true problem so that laws were created to counteract it, but the actual lawmaking hasn't been actively influenced by feminists that much, it seems. In the bad old days, when domestic violence was to be kept in the home and not spoken about, a man wouldn't be able to speak to anyone about being abused by his wife because that would just have been considered shameful. That's still a huge problem, but it's changed a bit, to a large extent thanks to the work of feminists who worked against the traditional relationship stereotypes. And it still is changing - and as more men who are exposed to domestic violence become vocal, the chances for improved law regulation increase. In this way, feminists are fighting for both men and women who are abused (although some feminists may be/have been doing so inadvertently).
In your case, it seems that certain policies and laws interacted really badly with each other, and so you ended up in a situation that wasn't accounted for by the makers of any of the policies/laws. To try to point out one particular group or school of thought that was kind of indirectly involved in the making of one of these laws is really hard. I think everyone who read your story understands your frustration and agree that things didn't work as they should have, but the mechanisms behind what happened are very complicated. Laws are imperfect and so law systems need to constantly evolve. People like feminists or those who fight for the rights of the disabled help ensure that the development doesn't stop.
When you say that you only care about the feminists who actually DO something you are still choosing a very small subset of them, and it's also very diffuse - you say that you care about American feminists who are/have been lobbying for law changes during recent times. What about Swedish feminists? Do they not count because they do not influence you directly? What about feminists in France who lived during the French revolution? As has been concluded in this thread time and again, "feminism" is such a broad term filled with so many different meanings that that to say you hate feminism probably tells another person even less than saying that you hate communism would, unless you already know what particular concept that person has connected with the word. It also means, if I'm allowed to be a bit self-ironical, that saying "I'm a feminist" tells another person almost nothing unless I explain what I mean. I see it more as a potential conversation starter, really.
The laws(not just American laws, either) that, in practice, give women the "upper hand" in DV situations even when a woman is the wrong-doer are mostly created based on the GENERAL TENDENCY for females to be hurt more often by their male partner and the still-popular views of women as weak, defenseless and prone to become victims and men as being basically the opposite. On top of these laws you have policemen, attorneys and other people dealing with law enforcement who in the process of interpreting the aforementioned laws use their own biases etc. So to a large degree, stereotyping leads to this particular kind of inequality before the law. It's true that feminists helped make it possible for women to come forth and make it known that domestic violence is a true problem so that laws were created to counteract it, but the actual lawmaking hasn't been actively influenced by feminists that much, it seems. In the bad old days, when domestic violence was to be kept in the home and not spoken about, a man wouldn't be able to speak to anyone about being abused by his wife because that would just have been considered shameful. That's still a huge problem, but it's changed a bit, to a large extent thanks to the work of feminists who worked against the traditional relationship stereotypes. And it still is changing - and as more men who are exposed to domestic violence become vocal, the chances for improved law regulation increase. In this way, feminists are fighting for both men and women who are abused (although some feminists may be/have been doing so inadvertently).
Here's my issue, and I'll re-iterate it. Feminist secured a position of power as the gate keepers of equality, and shut the door behind them. How many people, yourself included, have insisted "The problems you are having with a system being biased against men just needs more Feminism!"
No. Seriously. Stop saying that. It's absurd on the face of it. It makes literally zero sense. Feminism does not have a monopoly on advocating equality. It should not have a monopoly on advocating equality. While I've seen feminist acknowledge that "The Patriarchy hurts men too" I've never seen a feminist vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt men the way they vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt women. And why should they? Their movement is about equality for women. It puts women first in all circumstances. It secures resources for women's issues first and foremost. So clearly they aren't for absolute equality as a first principle.
You don't get to say out of one side of your mouth "Feminism is for equality for everyone, so we don't need any sort of mens rights advocates" and then say out of the other side of your mouth "It's not feminism's fault that men don't have the same gov't resources women have, feminists had to fight for those things, so men should too!"
Hey! Here's me! I'm advocating that things be changed for men as vigorously as I am that they be changed for women! I call myself a feminist! I'd probably phrase it "gender equality"" than "equality for women". I think the term is pretty misleading since it has the "fem" part in it and all, at least when it comes to how I use the word. I guess to me it's a kind of acknowledgement of that the people who are continuing the gender equality work today are building on what the feminist movement going way back has been doing, but I don't know, maybe it would be better to drop the term like AManOnEarth suggested a couple of pages back. At the end of the day what's important isn't what things are called, it's how much more freedom people gain regarding gender roles and what they choose to do.
However, I think it also has to do with having "easy targets" like someone mentioned earlier, the feminist movement could gather up and fight against obvious inequalities that existed in the public domain (ie no suffrage for women) and making huge advancements for many, many people at once. When it comes to men's right, and women's rights today compared to in the past (in much of the Western world), you have to work with smaller advancements and also with a lot of resistance and differing opinions within the groups. Some people are oblivious to the fact that there's a considerable amount of men who are beat up by their female partners and many men are more comfortable with thinking of women as these persons who need to be defended. A lot of men think that it's simply "wrong" for a man to dress in a dress if he wants to. It's harder to say "we're working for the rights of men" when so many of these men don't agree with the proposed changes. And the same goes for a lot of the things that are done "for women" - a lot of the women don't necessarily agree that they want the changes, like say increased opportunities and pressure to stay in the workforce full time after becoming a mother. It's always been about breaking traditions and making more opportunities available, but I think gender equality issues are becoming increasingly complicated.
Also, nodoby has been saying that there shouldn't be men's rights advocates. I think many of the men who work hard as men's rights advocates would also say they are feminists. Nor has anyone been saying that men should have to "fight for their own equality" like "feminists did". For one thing, they're not exclusive groups - I, like many of the other posters here I'd assume, am a man and also a feminist. Moreover, it's a joint venture, we can't have "equality" for just one side, that doesn't make sense. Very, very few feminists want women to have more privileges than men, it's just that women have been underprivileged in the public domain and so it's made sense to work to increase women's power. Now the picture has become more nuanced and so the traditional, "more power to women, in all ways" line of thinking doesn't work very well for getting more equality, which ties in with what I wrote just earlier. Modern feminists have usually abandoned that approach, at least the ones in Sweden(where I live), thankfully.
Dude I understand you may need some sort of outside boogeyman, but you have chosen very very poorly. Some dudes really misinterpreted your posts (which I will admit! It is really stupid!) but then how the goddam hell is this the fault of feminisms?
Seriously, you need to actually develop a reasonable idea of what a feminist is, and then do some introspection about how they actually were the source of all your ills.
You are being completely ridiculous.
Of course, it is the fault of feminists.
You are both right. I've jumped to a lot of conclusions in my posts and assumed people would make the connections.
The reason I blame feminism for people misinterpretting what I say and consistently putting words in my mouth is because the doctrines of feminism has biased you against stories like mine. Many of the first reactions I got were "Oh, so you'd feel better if you knocked her teeth out?" or making assumptions that my frustration was at my lack of lawful ability to put someone in a hospital at the slightest provocation. That bias, that immediate assumption, that when you hear a man complaining, he's only complaining because he's privileged and is now having to deal with being less privileged, is a result of Feminism pushing the story that all women are victims, and all men are abusers.
Many of you, when I mentioned a lack of resources for male victims, jumped to the conclusion that I want to take these resources away from women. That's feminism pushing the story that any gain for men is a loss for women. That its a zero sum game.
For all of Feminisms focus on "The Patriarchy" and cultured norms and bias, they are remarkably blind to their own. And you all have displayed it in spades here.
Your problem was literally that you wanted to use violence against your girlfriend, your words.
Now you didn't want to hurt her, great, but their is literally no situation where you are better off using violence if your life wasn't in danger.
Since a few years ago here in Sweden there's a political party that, translated, calls themselves Feminist Initiative. They recieved about 1% of the popular vote, which was not enough to get them any seats in parliament and they're probably never going to get those seats either. But that's okay, they exist in a political environment where pretty much every other political party, certainly enough of them to build a solid majority, characterize themselves as feminist. To put this into perspective, we could not build a similar majority out of parties that identify as "christian".
Anyway, I'll throw the first segment of their party platform through google translate;
Feminist Initiative aims through democratical political means eliminate sexism, racism and heteronormativity and resist injustice and oppression based on gender, sexuality, notions of race / ethnicity, function, class, creed / religion, gender expression, gender identity and age.
It gets a bit wackier after that - quite a bit wackier in fact - but as an opening statement I think it's a pretty nice definition of the modern feminist movement.
A)As I said feminism is more a school of thought than a movement now, which is appropriate because their targets are less well defined than the problems of the 1st/2nd waves.
B)It's vaguely goosey to presume to tell a group to totally change its objectives and goals in order to conform to a strategy you're imposing on them. It'd be kind of like telling an automotive company to get into mp3 players cause that's where the getting is good--they're not a tech company, they're a car company (not the best example but I hope that it carries the message)
So you are basically confirming what I said in the first post I made in this thread. Being 100% for women's rights is not enough to be a feminist anymore. Of course, there are still people in this thread saying feminism is about making it "suck less" to be a woman. I actually wonder how many people here support feminism (thinking its only about women) or oppose it (thinking it is about every oppressed group). I actually started out supporting it when I thought it was about women's rights, and am only against it because of intersectionality.
Again, to go back to an analogy at the beginning of this thread in the absence of a centralized heirachy the word "feminist" is a self designation, rather like the word "christian" or similar. Some people believe in god, but choose not to call themselves christian, some people call themselves christian but don't like organised church, some christians don't believe other sects are doing it properly etc. There isn't a badge you get.
Feminism was always a movement about equality and rights for women, right? It seems like they should change the name, since it doesn't seem to be about that anymore.
Who is "they", the high society of feminists? Why don't you write to them?
Also, incidentally, if someone is attacking you and breaking all your shit, why should the goal be to protect both parties? Do your rights in your property count for nothing just because your live in girlfriend went crazy?
Peoples personal safety does take priority over your material stuff yes. Do you really not see the problem in a law that sees violence as justified because she broke your favorite thing?
1/2. There are people out there trying to actually change things, no? There are people doing research on feminist issues. There are people critiquing works from a feminist perspective, and pushing for media creators to care more about feminism. It isn't all people saying "hi I'm a feminist and care about blaaaarglewaargle." The underpinnings of the calls to action matter, and depending on which perspective they take, people may be more or less inclined to support them.
But how are these people to claim "ownership" of the name? They're not a hive mind.
And why is it a good idea to change it anyway? In response to external pressure from men who find the word vaguely threatening? I think there are many who would disagree.
3. I absolutely think you have a right to defend your property. When you have done nothing wrong, why should you just accept being wronged by a bad actor? If someone is trying to destroy my property (which I bought with money earned through my labor) why shouldn't I have a right to defend it, instead of forcing me to be a slave to the wrongdoer (they are taking the fruits of my labor, and therefor my labor, from me).
Someone breaks into your house? Fine whatever, run at them with a baseball bat. But that's not what a domestic violence situation is, when the police get there and both parties have a black eye and explaining needs to be done there's going to need to be a better explanation than "she broke my xbox".
Also there's a weird patriarchal edge to this argument, if you don't respond with violent reprisals when a woman threatens the "fruits of your labor" then you are making yourself a "slave"? its really strange that you're using an argument stemming from retaining a proper balance of power and control.
Forget fruits of my labor. My ex knew where to hit me hardest. Keepsakes of dead relatives. My father specifically.
But sure, spin it into a patriarchal control issue. I'm trying to maintain patriarchal control by preventing an abusive domestic partner from destroying what little I have to remember my dead father by.
Thanks for that Feminism.
You're spinning my words, I said that HIS specific argument that to let a woman destroy your "labors" was to make yourself a "slave" to her (his words) has a weird undertone of "my house my rules" to it, he's using the language of a dynamic of power and subordination, and I find that frankly a little bit weird. But are you going to take my comment to him as an attack on you?
As for destroying valuables, that's terrible. But again, do you not see the glaring issue in a law that says its OK to escalate the situation to violence if your spouse threatens your stuff?
Because really, it is Feminism's fault. You are so attached to the idea of man bad, women good, and outdated concepts of "patriarchal control" being the root of abusive relationships, you can't detach from them for 2 seconds to address a situation where its the WOMAN using VIOLENCE to CONTROL a MAN. You view any attempt at protecting myself and what's valuable to me as an attempt to maintain some sort of patriarchal status qou.
You should protect yourself! Except the priority goes:
My physical safety > my spouses physical safety > the safety of my possessions.
Not
My physical safety > the safety of my possessions > my spouses physical safety.
This isn't the same thing as saying only male on female abuse exists because patriarchy. Assume this is a hypothetical gay couple, Same rules apply. Especially if it just so happens that one is substantially physically bigger than the other.
Are we really interpreting Namrok's concerns as wanting legally endorsed violent reprisal post facto?
I mean, the concerns may or may not be meaningful, but they aren't "I want to be able to revenge myself upon her".
No, I'm talking issue with the idea that "self defense" equals recipricoal violence, and that if at all possible removing yourself from the situation before anyone gets hurt somehow doesn't count as a form of self defense. (Its the BEST form).
A)As I said feminism is more a school of thought than a movement now, which is appropriate because their targets are less well defined than the problems of the 1st/2nd waves.
B)It's vaguely goosey to presume to tell a group to totally change its objectives and goals in order to conform to a strategy you're imposing on them. It'd be kind of like telling an automotive company to get into mp3 players cause that's where the getting is good--they're not a tech company, they're a car company (not the best example but I hope that it carries the message)
So you are basically confirming what I said in the first post I made in this thread. Being 100% for women's rights is not enough to be a feminist anymore. Of course, there are still people in this thread saying feminism is about making it "suck less" to be a woman. I actually wonder how many people here support feminism (thinking its only about women) or oppose it (thinking it is about every oppressed group). I actually started out supporting it when I thought it was about women's rights, and am only against it because of intersectionality.
Again, to go back to an analogy at the beginning of this thread in the absence of a centralized heirachy the word "feminist" is a self designation, rather like the word "christian" or similar. Some people believe in god, but choose not to call themselves christian, some people call themselves christian but don't like organised church, some christians don't believe other sects are doing it properly etc. There isn't a badge you get.
Feminism was always a movement about equality and rights for women, right? It seems like they should change the name, since it doesn't seem to be about that anymore.
Who is "they", the high society of feminists? Why don't you write to them?
Also, incidentally, if someone is attacking you and breaking all your shit, why should the goal be to protect both parties? Do your rights in your property count for nothing just because your live in girlfriend went crazy?
Peoples personal safety does take priority over your material stuff yes. Do you really not see the problem in a law that sees violence as justified because she broke your favorite thing?
1/2. There are people out there trying to actually change things, no? There are people doing research on feminist issues. There are people critiquing works from a feminist perspective, and pushing for media creators to care more about feminism. It isn't all people saying "hi I'm a feminist and care about blaaaarglewaargle." The underpinnings of the calls to action matter, and depending on which perspective they take, people may be more or less inclined to support them.
But how are these people to claim "ownership" of the name? They're not a hive mind.
And why is it a good idea to change it anyway? In response to external pressure from men who find the word vaguely threatening? I think there are many who would disagree.
3. I absolutely think you have a right to defend your property. When you have done nothing wrong, why should you just accept being wronged by a bad actor? If someone is trying to destroy my property (which I bought with money earned through my labor) why shouldn't I have a right to defend it, instead of forcing me to be a slave to the wrongdoer (they are taking the fruits of my labor, and therefor my labor, from me).
Someone breaks into your house? Fine whatever, run at them with a baseball bat. But that's not what a domestic violence situation is, when the police get there and both parties have a black eye and explaining needs to be done there's going to need to be a better explanation than "she broke my xbox".
Also there's a weird patriarchal edge to this argument, if you don't respond with violent reprisals when a woman threatens the "fruits of your labor" then you are making yourself a "slave"? its really strange that you're using an argument stemming from retaining a proper balance of power and control.
1. They can distance themselves from the fringe and say "they are over there doing whatever the fuck they are doing, and we're here actually arguing for women's rights. Ignore them, because we won't call you a misogynist for calling things lame, or even gay, because we're doing women's rights."
2. Being in a relationship is not an excuse to break someone's property. I absolutely believe that I have a right to not be hurt by rule breakers if I follow the rules, so if your exgf goes to destroy your property, why should you just let her do it? I don't see any difference between this and the burglar, if we put asside the practical difference of proving she started it (maybe there is a camera or witnesses).
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Thanks for making the thread, AMFE. The idea of liberal feminism as set out in the OP is what I have historically thought of as feminism (and is something that I am fully behind) but I feel like, at least online, you can espouse these exact ideas and still be called a misogynist. A lot of this seems to be due to modern feminism being highly inclusive, to the point where any issue that affects women can be part of feminism, even if the impact on women is no different than the impact on people as a whole. One of the most extreme examples I have seen in the inclusion of ableism (advocacy for the disabled) in feminist thought and discussion, since women are handicapped too. I have seen this even expressed by feminist safe spaces rejecting the words "lame" and "stupid" as offensive to the physically or mentally disabled. To me, this just seems like a confusing and dangerous expansion, since the issues facing the disabled may have no relationship to the issues facing women, and so thinking that all of these problems need to be solved by the same people at the same time could very well slow the advance of actual women's issues by feminism. I understand that feminists are still stinging from being left behind in the civil rights movement despite all their work for it, but I don't understand why the lesson of that experience wouldn't be "from now on we have to focus on our issues" rather than "from now on we need to make sure that every person who helps feminism move forward has their issues addressed alongside the core feminist issues.
A large chunk of feminist thought deals with social norms and how they are frequently harmful. Specifically, feminism deals with gender norms, but the ways in which gender norms are harmful differ little from how norms/stereotypes are harmful to other classes, such as racial minorities, the disabled and the LGBTIQA... community.
For these groups to work together to deal with what is essentially the same issue is kinda logical. I agree that to consider all of this feminism is not in the best interests of any particular group.
I see two problems with this:
1. By making the umbrella so wide, you run the risk of allienating people who support the core issue but not the issues of other groups. A great example of this to me is how hard I see many feminists push on transgender issues. It often seems to me like feminists will not acknowledge that accepting transgenders is an extra step which can be hard for people who are fully onboard with gay rights to make. By tying these difficult issues in with feminism, I think they run a real risk of losing the more conservative leaning people who can still be extremely valuable allies.
2. By lumping women's issues in with these other (often less mainstream) positions, you wind up with a movement that is calling for pretty sweeping overhauls. Like I said before, AMFE's liberal feminism which seeks equality within the system seems great, and I am all for it. I just can't get behind a movement that sees everything about our society as unequal to someone, and that wants to make a ton of sweeping changes, and I don't see what that has to do with things like equal pay and opportunities.
What's worse, alienating transgender folks who want to engage in feminist discourse and activism, but feel left out, or alienating the transphobic folks who "just aren't ready" to accept transgenderism? Bigoted allies aren't valuable.
What's worse is alienating the group that is more valuable to your cause and can help you achieve your goals. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it probably isn't even close on this one.
Feminism is concerned with issues of oppression, power, and privilege. It's a mistake to try and separate racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, etc, out from sexism- they are all related and intertwined.
Third wave feminism is largely a reaction to feminism being primarily a movement of middle-class white women and the inherent privileges that they enjoy, and a striving towards a broader recognition of the issues facing women of color.
I have heard this many times, but what I have never heard is why it is a mistake for feminism. I understand its worse for the the other disadvantaged groups, but how does focusing on women's issues to the exclusion of all other issues hurt feminism, or make it less likely that feminism will achieve its goals?
It is a mistake for feminism for exactly the reason you alluded to- alienation. If you don't take issues of race, class, etc. into account, you risk alienating and excluding those who feel like they would like to contribute, in principle, but don't feel included in practice. For a long time feminism has grappled with questions like why more people of color don't engage with feminism.
Again, bigoted "allies" aren't valuable, and aren't really allies. A movement should aim to be as inclusive and progressive as possible. So when transgender folks or people of color express that they would like to participate, but feel alienated because of X,Y, and Z, the proper response isn't "WE DON'T NEED YOU ANYWAY, RACE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FEMINISM". The proper response is to look inwards and check your privilege.
But you haven't said a thing about why this is a problem for feminism. If women feel alienated because feminism isn't also about them being disabled, why isn't the answer "this is about women's issues, and we will help advance your cause as a woman, but your problems from being disabled are not our fight. I agree you may alienate people. What I don't understand is why that's a problem for feminism or advancing women's issues.
A movement should aim to suceed. If there were a bunch of senators ready to pass a new law on wage parity but they won't include transgenders, would you suggest feminists protest the bill to avoid alienating transgenders?
I think the disconnect is that you think "a movement should aim to succeed" and I think "a movement should aim to be as inclusive and progressive as possible". Obviously, it should aim to do both, but I think the latter is more important than the former, and you think the opposite. We're not going to agree. So it goes.
Isn't that just inviting a group that sits around masturbating and high fiving each other all day? What is the value in an inclusive group that doesn't achieve it's goals? I really don't understand how making the group inclusive could be more important than making it achieve it's goals.
Except he noted that he could be arrested for blocking strikes or removing her from the premises.
He noted various ways he was warned he "might" have been arrested but would he? Assuming he was arrested would he have been prosecuted? Would he have been found guilty? I mean assuming that he'd done everything sensible (and discounting "attempting to subdue her" as sensible)
I mean, there is a lot of "I was this close to getting arrested I swear" but I'm not sure how much stock to place in that.
A)As I said feminism is more a school of thought than a movement now, which is appropriate because their targets are less well defined than the problems of the 1st/2nd waves.
B)It's vaguely goosey to presume to tell a group to totally change its objectives and goals in order to conform to a strategy you're imposing on them. It'd be kind of like telling an automotive company to get into mp3 players cause that's where the getting is good--they're not a tech company, they're a car company (not the best example but I hope that it carries the message)
So you are basically confirming what I said in the first post I made in this thread. Being 100% for women's rights is not enough to be a feminist anymore. Of course, there are still people in this thread saying feminism is about making it "suck less" to be a woman. I actually wonder how many people here support feminism (thinking its only about women) or oppose it (thinking it is about every oppressed group). I actually started out supporting it when I thought it was about women's rights, and am only against it because of intersectionality.
Again, to go back to an analogy at the beginning of this thread in the absence of a centralized heirachy the word "feminist" is a self designation, rather like the word "christian" or similar. Some people believe in god, but choose not to call themselves christian, some people call themselves christian but don't like organised church, some christians don't believe other sects are doing it properly etc. There isn't a badge you get.
Feminism was always a movement about equality and rights for women, right? It seems like they should change the name, since it doesn't seem to be about that anymore.
Who is "they", the high society of feminists? Why don't you write to them?
Also, incidentally, if someone is attacking you and breaking all your shit, why should the goal be to protect both parties? Do your rights in your property count for nothing just because your live in girlfriend went crazy?
Peoples personal safety does take priority over your material stuff yes. Do you really not see the problem in a law that sees violence as justified because she broke your favorite thing?
1/2. There are people out there trying to actually change things, no? There are people doing research on feminist issues. There are people critiquing works from a feminist perspective, and pushing for media creators to care more about feminism. It isn't all people saying "hi I'm a feminist and care about blaaaarglewaargle." The underpinnings of the calls to action matter, and depending on which perspective they take, people may be more or less inclined to support them.
But how are these people to claim "ownership" of the name? They're not a hive mind.
And why is it a good idea to change it anyway? In response to external pressure from men who find the word vaguely threatening? I think there are many who would disagree.
3. I absolutely think you have a right to defend your property. When you have done nothing wrong, why should you just accept being wronged by a bad actor? If someone is trying to destroy my property (which I bought with money earned through my labor) why shouldn't I have a right to defend it, instead of forcing me to be a slave to the wrongdoer (they are taking the fruits of my labor, and therefor my labor, from me).
Someone breaks into your house? Fine whatever, run at them with a baseball bat. But that's not what a domestic violence situation is, when the police get there and both parties have a black eye and explaining needs to be done there's going to need to be a better explanation than "she broke my xbox".
Also there's a weird patriarchal edge to this argument, if you don't respond with violent reprisals when a woman threatens the "fruits of your labor" then you are making yourself a "slave"? its really strange that you're using an argument stemming from retaining a proper balance of power and control.
1. They can distance themselves from the fringe and say "they are over there doing whatever the fuck they are doing, and we're here actually arguing for women's rights. Ignore them, because we won't call you a misogynist for calling things lame, or even gay, because we're doing women's rights."
You're basically asking them to sell each other out for you.
I mean take a step back here, you are saying "hey, some feminists hurt my feelings by pointing out that using gay as a pejorative is wrong (it kinda is) I want you to distance themselves from them so I will start respecting you. I am a man, your goal should be gaining MY respect".
This is essentially privilege in action. Privilege is the freedom to not give a fuck about the desires of the secondary class, unless they sweeten it up a bit and talk nicely to you.
2. Being in a relationship is not an excuse to break someone's property. I absolutely believe that I have a right to not be hurt by rule breakers if I follow the rules, so if your exgf goes to destroy your property, why should you just let her do it? I don't see any difference between this and the burglar, if we put asside the practical difference of proving she started it (maybe there is a camera or witnesses).
So just to check: We're arguing that you have a moral right to use violence against your spouse if you feel your property is at threat. This is where we are.
This is essentially privilege in action. Privilege is the freedom to not give a fuck about the desires of the secondary class, unless they sweeten it up a bit and talk nicely to you.
Isn't it also a somewhat entitled standpoint to feel that others should listen to you regardless of your demeanor or presentation?
Thanks for making the thread, AMFE. The idea of liberal feminism as set out in the OP is what I have historically thought of as feminism (and is something that I am fully behind) but I feel like, at least online, you can espouse these exact ideas and still be called a misogynist. A lot of this seems to be due to modern feminism being highly inclusive, to the point where any issue that affects women can be part of feminism, even if the impact on women is no different than the impact on people as a whole. One of the most extreme examples I have seen in the inclusion of ableism (advocacy for the disabled) in feminist thought and discussion, since women are handicapped too. I have seen this even expressed by feminist safe spaces rejecting the words "lame" and "stupid" as offensive to the physically or mentally disabled. To me, this just seems like a confusing and dangerous expansion, since the issues facing the disabled may have no relationship to the issues facing women, and so thinking that all of these problems need to be solved by the same people at the same time could very well slow the advance of actual women's issues by feminism. I understand that feminists are still stinging from being left behind in the civil rights movement despite all their work for it, but I don't understand why the lesson of that experience wouldn't be "from now on we have to focus on our issues" rather than "from now on we need to make sure that every person who helps feminism move forward has their issues addressed alongside the core feminist issues.
A large chunk of feminist thought deals with social norms and how they are frequently harmful. Specifically, feminism deals with gender norms, but the ways in which gender norms are harmful differ little from how norms/stereotypes are harmful to other classes, such as racial minorities, the disabled and the LGBTIQA... community.
For these groups to work together to deal with what is essentially the same issue is kinda logical. I agree that to consider all of this feminism is not in the best interests of any particular group.
I see two problems with this:
1. By making the umbrella so wide, you run the risk of allienating people who support the core issue but not the issues of other groups. A great example of this to me is how hard I see many feminists push on transgender issues. It often seems to me like feminists will not acknowledge that accepting transgenders is an extra step which can be hard for people who are fully onboard with gay rights to make. By tying these difficult issues in with feminism, I think they run a real risk of losing the more conservative leaning people who can still be extremely valuable allies.
2. By lumping women's issues in with these other (often less mainstream) positions, you wind up with a movement that is calling for pretty sweeping overhauls. Like I said before, AMFE's liberal feminism which seeks equality within the system seems great, and I am all for it. I just can't get behind a movement that sees everything about our society as unequal to someone, and that wants to make a ton of sweeping changes, and I don't see what that has to do with things like equal pay and opportunities.
What's worse, alienating transgender folks who want to engage in feminist discourse and activism, but feel left out, or alienating the transphobic folks who "just aren't ready" to accept transgenderism? Bigoted allies aren't valuable.
What's worse is alienating the group that is more valuable to your cause and can help you achieve your goals. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it probably isn't even close on this one.
Feminism is concerned with issues of oppression, power, and privilege. It's a mistake to try and separate racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, etc, out from sexism- they are all related and intertwined.
Third wave feminism is largely a reaction to feminism being primarily a movement of middle-class white women and the inherent privileges that they enjoy, and a striving towards a broader recognition of the issues facing women of color.
I have heard this many times, but what I have never heard is why it is a mistake for feminism. I understand its worse for the the other disadvantaged groups, but how does focusing on women's issues to the exclusion of all other issues hurt feminism, or make it less likely that feminism will achieve its goals?
It is a mistake for feminism for exactly the reason you alluded to- alienation. If you don't take issues of race, class, etc. into account, you risk alienating and excluding those who feel like they would like to contribute, in principle, but don't feel included in practice. For a long time feminism has grappled with questions like why more people of color don't engage with feminism.
Again, bigoted "allies" aren't valuable, and aren't really allies. A movement should aim to be as inclusive and progressive as possible. So when transgender folks or people of color express that they would like to participate, but feel alienated because of X,Y, and Z, the proper response isn't "WE DON'T NEED YOU ANYWAY, RACE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FEMINISM". The proper response is to look inwards and check your privilege.
But you haven't said a thing about why this is a problem for feminism. If women feel alienated because feminism isn't also about them being disabled, why isn't the answer "this is about women's issues, and we will help advance your cause as a woman, but your problems from being disabled are not our fight. I agree you may alienate people. What I don't understand is why that's a problem for feminism or advancing women's issues.
A movement should aim to suceed. If there were a bunch of senators ready to pass a new law on wage parity but they won't include transgenders, would you suggest feminists protest the bill to avoid alienating transgenders?
I think the disconnect is that you think "a movement should aim to succeed" and I think "a movement should aim to be as inclusive and progressive as possible". Obviously, it should aim to do both, but I think the latter is more important than the former, and you think the opposite. We're not going to agree. So it goes.
Isn't that just inviting a group that sits around masturbating and high fiving each other all day? What is the value in an inclusive group that doesn't achieve it's goals? I really don't understand how making the group inclusive could be more important than making it achieve it's goals.
Because different groups of people within feminism have different goals- there is no one overarching goal, or set of goals, for feminism. And a group shouldn't claim to represent the interests of all women if, in reality, it only represents a particular demographic of women.
Because, when a group of people says "we feel like we have a lot to contribute to feminism, but we feel left out", do you really think the proper response is "We don't have time for this shit"?
Because, when an ideology claims to be concerned with issues of power and privilege, but yet has problems with power and privilege within its own ranks, it looks hypocritical.
Except he noted that he could be arrested for blocking strikes or removing her from the premises.
He noted various ways he was warned he "might" have been arrested but would he? Assuming he was arrested would he have been prosecuted? Would he have been found guilty? I mean assuming that he'd done everything sensible (and discounting "attempting to subdue her" as sensible)
I mean, there is a lot of "I was this close to getting arrested I swear" but I'm not sure how much stock to place in that.
A)As I said feminism is more a school of thought than a movement now, which is appropriate because their targets are less well defined than the problems of the 1st/2nd waves.
B)It's vaguely goosey to presume to tell a group to totally change its objectives and goals in order to conform to a strategy you're imposing on them. It'd be kind of like telling an automotive company to get into mp3 players cause that's where the getting is good--they're not a tech company, they're a car company (not the best example but I hope that it carries the message)
So you are basically confirming what I said in the first post I made in this thread. Being 100% for women's rights is not enough to be a feminist anymore. Of course, there are still people in this thread saying feminism is about making it "suck less" to be a woman. I actually wonder how many people here support feminism (thinking its only about women) or oppose it (thinking it is about every oppressed group). I actually started out supporting it when I thought it was about women's rights, and am only against it because of intersectionality.
Again, to go back to an analogy at the beginning of this thread in the absence of a centralized heirachy the word "feminist" is a self designation, rather like the word "christian" or similar. Some people believe in god, but choose not to call themselves christian, some people call themselves christian but don't like organised church, some christians don't believe other sects are doing it properly etc. There isn't a badge you get.
Feminism was always a movement about equality and rights for women, right? It seems like they should change the name, since it doesn't seem to be about that anymore.
Who is "they", the high society of feminists? Why don't you write to them?
Also, incidentally, if someone is attacking you and breaking all your shit, why should the goal be to protect both parties? Do your rights in your property count for nothing just because your live in girlfriend went crazy?
Peoples personal safety does take priority over your material stuff yes. Do you really not see the problem in a law that sees violence as justified because she broke your favorite thing?
1/2. There are people out there trying to actually change things, no? There are people doing research on feminist issues. There are people critiquing works from a feminist perspective, and pushing for media creators to care more about feminism. It isn't all people saying "hi I'm a feminist and care about blaaaarglewaargle." The underpinnings of the calls to action matter, and depending on which perspective they take, people may be more or less inclined to support them.
But how are these people to claim "ownership" of the name? They're not a hive mind.
And why is it a good idea to change it anyway? In response to external pressure from men who find the word vaguely threatening? I think there are many who would disagree.
3. I absolutely think you have a right to defend your property. When you have done nothing wrong, why should you just accept being wronged by a bad actor? If someone is trying to destroy my property (which I bought with money earned through my labor) why shouldn't I have a right to defend it, instead of forcing me to be a slave to the wrongdoer (they are taking the fruits of my labor, and therefor my labor, from me).
Someone breaks into your house? Fine whatever, run at them with a baseball bat. But that's not what a domestic violence situation is, when the police get there and both parties have a black eye and explaining needs to be done there's going to need to be a better explanation than "she broke my xbox".
Also there's a weird patriarchal edge to this argument, if you don't respond with violent reprisals when a woman threatens the "fruits of your labor" then you are making yourself a "slave"? its really strange that you're using an argument stemming from retaining a proper balance of power and control.
1. They can distance themselves from the fringe and say "they are over there doing whatever the fuck they are doing, and we're here actually arguing for women's rights. Ignore them, because we won't call you a misogynist for calling things lame, or even gay, because we're doing women's rights."
You're basically asking them to sell each other out for you.
I mean take a step back here, you are saying "hey, some feminists hurt my feelings by pointing out that using gay as a pejorative is wrong (it kinda is) I want you to distance themselves from them so I will start respecting you. I am a man, your goal should be gaining MY respect".
This is essentially privilege in action. Privilege is the freedom to not give a fuck about the desires of the secondary class, unless they sweeten it up a bit and talk nicely to you.
2. Being in a relationship is not an excuse to break someone's property. I absolutely believe that I have a right to not be hurt by rule breakers if I follow the rules, so if your exgf goes to destroy your property, why should you just let her do it? I don't see any difference between this and the burglar, if we put asside the practical difference of proving she started it (maybe there is a camera or witnesses).
So just to check: We're arguing that you have a moral right to use violence against your spouse if you feel your property is at threat. This is where we are.
Wait, if two parties are both in a place they have a right to be can one use violence to protect their property in any case?
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Except he noted that he could be arrested for blocking strikes or removing her from the premises.
He noted various ways he was warned he "might" have been arrested but would he? Assuming he was arrested would he have been prosecuted? Would he have been found guilty? I mean assuming that he'd done everything sensible (and discounting "attempting to subdue her" as sensible)
I mean, there is a lot of "I was this close to getting arrested I swear" but I'm not sure how much stock to place in that.
A)As I said feminism is more a school of thought than a movement now, which is appropriate because their targets are less well defined than the problems of the 1st/2nd waves.
B)It's vaguely goosey to presume to tell a group to totally change its objectives and goals in order to conform to a strategy you're imposing on them. It'd be kind of like telling an automotive company to get into mp3 players cause that's where the getting is good--they're not a tech company, they're a car company (not the best example but I hope that it carries the message)
So you are basically confirming what I said in the first post I made in this thread. Being 100% for women's rights is not enough to be a feminist anymore. Of course, there are still people in this thread saying feminism is about making it "suck less" to be a woman. I actually wonder how many people here support feminism (thinking its only about women) or oppose it (thinking it is about every oppressed group). I actually started out supporting it when I thought it was about women's rights, and am only against it because of intersectionality.
Again, to go back to an analogy at the beginning of this thread in the absence of a centralized heirachy the word "feminist" is a self designation, rather like the word "christian" or similar. Some people believe in god, but choose not to call themselves christian, some people call themselves christian but don't like organised church, some christians don't believe other sects are doing it properly etc. There isn't a badge you get.
Feminism was always a movement about equality and rights for women, right? It seems like they should change the name, since it doesn't seem to be about that anymore.
Who is "they", the high society of feminists? Why don't you write to them?
Also, incidentally, if someone is attacking you and breaking all your shit, why should the goal be to protect both parties? Do your rights in your property count for nothing just because your live in girlfriend went crazy?
Peoples personal safety does take priority over your material stuff yes. Do you really not see the problem in a law that sees violence as justified because she broke your favorite thing?
1/2. There are people out there trying to actually change things, no? There are people doing research on feminist issues. There are people critiquing works from a feminist perspective, and pushing for media creators to care more about feminism. It isn't all people saying "hi I'm a feminist and care about blaaaarglewaargle." The underpinnings of the calls to action matter, and depending on which perspective they take, people may be more or less inclined to support them.
But how are these people to claim "ownership" of the name? They're not a hive mind.
And why is it a good idea to change it anyway? In response to external pressure from men who find the word vaguely threatening? I think there are many who would disagree.
3. I absolutely think you have a right to defend your property. When you have done nothing wrong, why should you just accept being wronged by a bad actor? If someone is trying to destroy my property (which I bought with money earned through my labor) why shouldn't I have a right to defend it, instead of forcing me to be a slave to the wrongdoer (they are taking the fruits of my labor, and therefor my labor, from me).
Someone breaks into your house? Fine whatever, run at them with a baseball bat. But that's not what a domestic violence situation is, when the police get there and both parties have a black eye and explaining needs to be done there's going to need to be a better explanation than "she broke my xbox".
Also there's a weird patriarchal edge to this argument, if you don't respond with violent reprisals when a woman threatens the "fruits of your labor" then you are making yourself a "slave"? its really strange that you're using an argument stemming from retaining a proper balance of power and control.
1. They can distance themselves from the fringe and say "they are over there doing whatever the fuck they are doing, and we're here actually arguing for women's rights. Ignore them, because we won't call you a misogynist for calling things lame, or even gay, because we're doing women's rights."
You're basically asking them to sell each other out for you.
I mean take a step back here, you are saying "hey, some feminists hurt my feelings by pointing out that using gay as a pejorative is wrong (it kinda is) I want you to distance themselves from them so I will start respecting you. I am a man, your goal should be gaining MY respect".
This is essentially privilege in action. Privilege is the freedom to not give a fuck about the desires of the secondary class, unless they sweeten it up a bit and talk nicely to you.
2. Being in a relationship is not an excuse to break someone's property. I absolutely believe that I have a right to not be hurt by rule breakers if I follow the rules, so if your exgf goes to destroy your property, why should you just let her do it? I don't see any difference between this and the burglar, if we put asside the practical difference of proving she started it (maybe there is a camera or witnesses).
So just to check: We're arguing that you have a moral right to use violence against your spouse if you feel your property is at threat. This is where we are.
1. No, I am saying that each group should exist and push towards its goals. I see no good reason why women should throw their lot in with other stigmatized groups to overcome all stigma, instead of focusing on the goals they share as women. If you formed a group that protested to get Firefly back on the air, I'd be right with you. But if that group was formed for Firefly but started also demanding Buffy be put back on, I'd probably leave, because I do t care about Buffy and wouldn't want to devote my time to it or have the "get firefly back on" message watered down.
2. Yes, that is exactly my position. Obviously it should be the minimum necessary, but if someone runs towards my tv to break it, I think I have the right to tackle them, no matter who they are. Why should I put the safety of someone else who means me ill ahead of my property?
Thanks for making the thread, AMFE. The idea of liberal feminism as set out in the OP is what I have historically thought of as feminism (and is something that I am fully behind) but I feel like, at least online, you can espouse these exact ideas and still be called a misogynist. A lot of this seems to be due to modern feminism being highly inclusive, to the point where any issue that affects women can be part of feminism, even if the impact on women is no different than the impact on people as a whole. One of the most extreme examples I have seen in the inclusion of ableism (advocacy for the disabled) in feminist thought and discussion, since women are handicapped too. I have seen this even expressed by feminist safe spaces rejecting the words "lame" and "stupid" as offensive to the physically or mentally disabled. To me, this just seems like a confusing and dangerous expansion, since the issues facing the disabled may have no relationship to the issues facing women, and so thinking that all of these problems need to be solved by the same people at the same time could very well slow the advance of actual women's issues by feminism. I understand that feminists are still stinging from being left behind in the civil rights movement despite all their work for it, but I don't understand why the lesson of that experience wouldn't be "from now on we have to focus on our issues" rather than "from now on we need to make sure that every person who helps feminism move forward has their issues addressed alongside the core feminist issues.
A large chunk of feminist thought deals with social norms and how they are frequently harmful. Specifically, feminism deals with gender norms, but the ways in which gender norms are harmful differ little from how norms/stereotypes are harmful to other classes, such as racial minorities, the disabled and the LGBTIQA... community.
For these groups to work together to deal with what is essentially the same issue is kinda logical. I agree that to consider all of this feminism is not in the best interests of any particular group.
I see two problems with this:
1. By making the umbrella so wide, you run the risk of allienating people who support the core issue but not the issues of other groups. A great example of this to me is how hard I see many feminists push on transgender issues. It often seems to me like feminists will not acknowledge that accepting transgenders is an extra step which can be hard for people who are fully onboard with gay rights to make. By tying these difficult issues in with feminism, I think they run a real risk of losing the more conservative leaning people who can still be extremely valuable allies.
2. By lumping women's issues in with these other (often less mainstream) positions, you wind up with a movement that is calling for pretty sweeping overhauls. Like I said before, AMFE's liberal feminism which seeks equality within the system seems great, and I am all for it. I just can't get behind a movement that sees everything about our society as unequal to someone, and that wants to make a ton of sweeping changes, and I don't see what that has to do with things like equal pay and opportunities.
What's worse, alienating transgender folks who want to engage in feminist discourse and activism, but feel left out, or alienating the transphobic folks who "just aren't ready" to accept transgenderism? Bigoted allies aren't valuable.
What's worse is alienating the group that is more valuable to your cause and can help you achieve your goals. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it probably isn't even close on this one.
Feminism is concerned with issues of oppression, power, and privilege. It's a mistake to try and separate racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, etc, out from sexism- they are all related and intertwined.
Third wave feminism is largely a reaction to feminism being primarily a movement of middle-class white women and the inherent privileges that they enjoy, and a striving towards a broader recognition of the issues facing women of color.
I have heard this many times, but what I have never heard is why it is a mistake for feminism. I understand its worse for the the other disadvantaged groups, but how does focusing on women's issues to the exclusion of all other issues hurt feminism, or make it less likely that feminism will achieve its goals?
It is a mistake for feminism for exactly the reason you alluded to- alienation. If you don't take issues of race, class, etc. into account, you risk alienating and excluding those who feel like they would like to contribute, in principle, but don't feel included in practice. For a long time feminism has grappled with questions like why more people of color don't engage with feminism.
Again, bigoted "allies" aren't valuable, and aren't really allies. A movement should aim to be as inclusive and progressive as possible. So when transgender folks or people of color express that they would like to participate, but feel alienated because of X,Y, and Z, the proper response isn't "WE DON'T NEED YOU ANYWAY, RACE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FEMINISM". The proper response is to look inwards and check your privilege.
But you haven't said a thing about why this is a problem for feminism. If women feel alienated because feminism isn't also about them being disabled, why isn't the answer "this is about women's issues, and we will help advance your cause as a woman, but your problems from being disabled are not our fight. I agree you may alienate people. What I don't understand is why that's a problem for feminism or advancing women's issues.
A movement should aim to suceed. If there were a bunch of senators ready to pass a new law on wage parity but they won't include transgenders, would you suggest feminists protest the bill to avoid alienating transgenders?
I think the disconnect is that you think "a movement should aim to succeed" and I think "a movement should aim to be as inclusive and progressive as possible". Obviously, it should aim to do both, but I think the latter is more important than the former, and you think the opposite. We're not going to agree. So it goes.
Isn't that just inviting a group that sits around masturbating and high fiving each other all day? What is the value in an inclusive group that doesn't achieve it's goals? I really don't understand how making the group inclusive could be more important than making it achieve it's goals.
Because different groups of people within feminism have different goals- there is no one overarching goal, or set of goals, for feminism. And a group shouldn't claim to represent the interests of all women if, in reality, it only represents a particular demographic of women.
Because, when a group of people says "we feel like we have a lot to contribute to feminism, but we feel left out", do you really think the proper response is "We don't have time for this shit"?
Because, when an ideology claims to be concerned with issues of power and privilege, but yet has problems with power and privilege within its own ranks, it looks hypocritical.
It doesn't matter what the goals or hopes and dreams of the members are as individuals or group affiliations other than "woman.". All that should matter IMO is the goals of women as women, since that is the one point of common ground. If you are a black woman, join a black rights group to address your concerns about those issues. If you are concerned about issues specific to black women, join a black women's Group. A women's movement should just be about problems faced by Women IMO. How are women benefitted as women by muddying the focus into other issues which only impact some women, and only in other capacities?
Unless what they have to contribute is a clear net positive to the cause of women's rights, no, we don't have room for you if you won't help us on our terms seems like a fine response.
I see nothing hypocritical here. The concern is power and oppression of women, so saying we are focusing on women's issues seems fine to me.
It doesn't matter what the goals or hopes and dreams of the members are as individuals or group affiliations other than "woman.". All that should matter IMO is the goals of women as women, since that is the one point of common ground. If you are a black woman, join a black rights group to address your concerns about those issues. If you are concerned about issues specific to black women, join a black women's Group. A women's movement should just be about problems faced by Women IMO. How are women benefitted as women by muddying the focus into other issues which only impact some women, and only in other capacities?
Unless what they have to contribute is a clear net positive to the cause of women's rights, no, we don't have room for you if you won't help us on our terms seems like a fine response.
I see nothing hypocritical here. The concern is power and oppression of women, so saying we are focusing on women's issues seems fine to me.
Again, understand that feminism is not a singular movement. There are many feminist communities and they deal with the issues that they feel are most appropriate to their particular community. There is no such thing as "the goals of women as women" because 'womanhood' is not some singular thing that exists in a vacuum. The concerns and activities of a feminist collective in Brooklyn are going to be completely different from the concerns and activities of an online community of feminist film buffs.
Understand feminism the way you understand, say, liberalism or anarchism. It would be ridiculous to say liberals should only be concerned with the goals of liberals as liberals. It's complete nonsense. Liberals over here are going to have different goals as well as different issues to deal with from liberals over there. Anarchists have a wide variety of approaches, understandings, tactics, and concerns. So do environmentalists. So do feminists.
I'm really having trouble understanding what exactly you take issue with, probably because we're talking in abstract terms instead of specifics. So here's a specific example: are you familiar with Slutwalk? Women parade in stereotypically 'slutty' clothing in order to draw attention to slut-shaming and rape-apologism. We had one in NYC not too long ago, and some women of color came forward and said they felt alienated by this particular expression of feminism, because it's a lot easier for white college girls to reclaim the term 'slut' and parade around in skimpy clothing, than it is for women of color. It has a lot more baggage in minority communities. In this specific example, I think it's more helpful for the organizers of Slutwalk to engage in dialogue with the women of color, so that these different groups can work together without alienating one another, than it is for them to say "Fuck off" and cause a rift within the wider feminist community, and increase tensions and turn their backs on potential allies for no good reason.
This is essentially privilege in action. Privilege is the freedom to not give a fuck about the desires of the secondary class, unless they sweeten it up a bit and talk nicely to you.
Isn't it also a somewhat entitled standpoint to feel that others should listen to you regardless of your demeanor or presentation?
Privilege and "entitlement" isn't the same thing. Its not a matter of who is playing nice, its a matter of minority/majority dynamics, those in the majority position get the privilege to dictate terms to the minority.
The people in the minority have to listen to the majority consensus. They don't have a choice because its the prevailing viewpoint, its everywhere. The people in the majority do not have to do that, they can ignore the minority if they so choose, they can dictate terms to the minority.
If you want to stop hearing women call you nasty names like misogynist well that's fairly easy, stop visiting the comments section of a feminist blog because that's pretty much the only place where the word holds any real weight. You can just go "welp I don't like being criticized so I don't care about this issue anymore" and walk away. If a woman wants to stop being called names like slut, whore, dyke, cunt, frigid bitch whatever that's a lot more difficult. Thats what privilege is, the freedom to not give a fuck. Not everyone has that freedom.
And the BEST part about majority/minority dynamics is that as a member of the minority, people will judge you by the stereotype of your worst member.
Except he noted that he could be arrested for blocking strikes or removing her from the premises.
He noted various ways he was warned he "might" have been arrested but would he? Assuming he was arrested would he have been prosecuted? Would he have been found guilty? I mean assuming that he'd done everything sensible (and discounting "attempting to subdue her" as sensible)
I mean, there is a lot of "I was this close to getting arrested I swear" but I'm not sure how much stock to place in that.
A)As I said feminism is more a school of thought than a movement now, which is appropriate because their targets are less well defined than the problems of the 1st/2nd waves.
B)It's vaguely goosey to presume to tell a group to totally change its objectives and goals in order to conform to a strategy you're imposing on them. It'd be kind of like telling an automotive company to get into mp3 players cause that's where the getting is good--they're not a tech company, they're a car company (not the best example but I hope that it carries the message)
So you are basically confirming what I said in the first post I made in this thread. Being 100% for women's rights is not enough to be a feminist anymore. Of course, there are still people in this thread saying feminism is about making it "suck less" to be a woman. I actually wonder how many people here support feminism (thinking its only about women) or oppose it (thinking it is about every oppressed group). I actually started out supporting it when I thought it was about women's rights, and am only against it because of intersectionality.
Again, to go back to an analogy at the beginning of this thread in the absence of a centralized heirachy the word "feminist" is a self designation, rather like the word "christian" or similar. Some people believe in god, but choose not to call themselves christian, some people call themselves christian but don't like organised church, some christians don't believe other sects are doing it properly etc. There isn't a badge you get.
Feminism was always a movement about equality and rights for women, right? It seems like they should change the name, since it doesn't seem to be about that anymore.
Who is "they", the high society of feminists? Why don't you write to them?
Also, incidentally, if someone is attacking you and breaking all your shit, why should the goal be to protect both parties? Do your rights in your property count for nothing just because your live in girlfriend went crazy?
Peoples personal safety does take priority over your material stuff yes. Do you really not see the problem in a law that sees violence as justified because she broke your favorite thing?
1/2. There are people out there trying to actually change things, no? There are people doing research on feminist issues. There are people critiquing works from a feminist perspective, and pushing for media creators to care more about feminism. It isn't all people saying "hi I'm a feminist and care about blaaaarglewaargle." The underpinnings of the calls to action matter, and depending on which perspective they take, people may be more or less inclined to support them.
But how are these people to claim "ownership" of the name? They're not a hive mind.
And why is it a good idea to change it anyway? In response to external pressure from men who find the word vaguely threatening? I think there are many who would disagree.
3. I absolutely think you have a right to defend your property. When you have done nothing wrong, why should you just accept being wronged by a bad actor? If someone is trying to destroy my property (which I bought with money earned through my labor) why shouldn't I have a right to defend it, instead of forcing me to be a slave to the wrongdoer (they are taking the fruits of my labor, and therefor my labor, from me).
Someone breaks into your house? Fine whatever, run at them with a baseball bat. But that's not what a domestic violence situation is, when the police get there and both parties have a black eye and explaining needs to be done there's going to need to be a better explanation than "she broke my xbox".
Also there's a weird patriarchal edge to this argument, if you don't respond with violent reprisals when a woman threatens the "fruits of your labor" then you are making yourself a "slave"? its really strange that you're using an argument stemming from retaining a proper balance of power and control.
1. They can distance themselves from the fringe and say "they are over there doing whatever the fuck they are doing, and we're here actually arguing for women's rights. Ignore them, because we won't call you a misogynist for calling things lame, or even gay, because we're doing women's rights."
You're basically asking them to sell each other out for you.
I mean take a step back here, you are saying "hey, some feminists hurt my feelings by pointing out that using gay as a pejorative is wrong (it kinda is) I want you to distance themselves from them so I will start respecting you. I am a man, your goal should be gaining MY respect".
This is essentially privilege in action. Privilege is the freedom to not give a fuck about the desires of the secondary class, unless they sweeten it up a bit and talk nicely to you.
2. Being in a relationship is not an excuse to break someone's property. I absolutely believe that I have a right to not be hurt by rule breakers if I follow the rules, so if your exgf goes to destroy your property, why should you just let her do it? I don't see any difference between this and the burglar, if we put asside the practical difference of proving she started it (maybe there is a camera or witnesses).
So just to check: We're arguing that you have a moral right to use violence against your spouse if you feel your property is at threat. This is where we are.
2. Yes, that is exactly my position. Obviously it should be the minimum necessary, but if someone runs towards my tv to break it, I think I have the right to tackle them, no matter who they are. Why should I put the safety of someone else who means me ill ahead of my property?
I think this is pretty much the point where I just throw my hands up here then. I cant think of a response in the face of arguing the value of your spouses safety vs property.
It doesn't matter what the goals or hopes and dreams of the members are as individuals or group affiliations other than "woman.". All that should matter IMO is the goals of women as women, since that is the one point of common ground. If you are a black woman, join a black rights group to address your concerns about those issues. If you are concerned about issues specific to black women, join a black women's Group. A women's movement should just be about problems faced by Women IMO. How are women benefitted as women by muddying the focus into other issues which only impact some women, and only in other capacities?
Unless what they have to contribute is a clear net positive to the cause of women's rights, no, we don't have room for you if you won't help us on our terms seems like a fine response.
I see nothing hypocritical here. The concern is power and oppression of women, so saying we are focusing on women's issues seems fine to me.
Because of what I said above, when the issue is that the you are a small minority and as such society as a whole will not listen to you, saying "well we're for women. trans/queer/poc are on their own" hurts the cause. It divides and splinters off people who have pretty much similar concerns and the same issues who can't find anyone who will listen to them either.
You say "muddying the cause" they'd say "showing solidarity".
The Second Wave collapsed in large part because the mainly middle-upper class women leading it pushed for reforms that made sense for them but were inapplicable to minority and lower class women, while ignoring their interests.
Yeah. Third wave is largely about getting away from essentialist ideas of gender. So a movement that pushes exclusively for "women AS women" kind of misses the point.
Here's my issue, and I'll re-iterate it. Feminist secured a position of power as the gate keepers of equality, and shut the door behind them. How many people, yourself included, have insisted "The problems you are having with a system being biased against men just needs more Feminism!"
No. Seriously. Stop saying that. It's absurd on the face of it. It makes literally zero sense. Feminism does not have a monopoly on advocating equality. It should not have a monopoly on advocating equality. While I've seen feminist acknowledge that "The Patriarchy hurts men too" I've never seen a feminist vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt men the way they vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt women. And why should they? Their movement is about equality for women. It puts women first in all circumstances. It secures resources for women's issues first and foremost. So clearly they aren't for absolute equality as a first principle.
You don't get to say out of one side of your mouth "Feminism is for equality for everyone, so we don't need any sort of mens rights advocates" and then say out of the other side of your mouth "It's not feminism's fault that men don't have the same gov't resources women have, feminists had to fight for those things, so men should too!"
Thanks for erasing the existence of all of the feminists, male and female, who have worked to change the aspects of patriarchal society that hurt men, including separating the positive aspects of masculinity from the toxic aspects of the traditional male role.
The thing is that many of the things that hurt men are not really gender based. Which is why the so-called "men's rights movement" is actively counterproductive since they ignore things like class and sexuality in favor of crafting a narrative where Those Goddamn Feminists are to blame for everything and "misandry" is the root cause of the issues facing men.
Here's my issue, and I'll re-iterate it. Feminist secured a position of power as the gate keepers of equality, and shut the door behind them. How many people, yourself included, have insisted "The problems you are having with a system being biased against men just needs more Feminism!"
No. Seriously. Stop saying that. It's absurd on the face of it. It makes literally zero sense. Feminism does not have a monopoly on advocating equality. It should not have a monopoly on advocating equality. While I've seen feminist acknowledge that "The Patriarchy hurts men too" I've never seen a feminist vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt men the way they vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt women. And why should they? Their movement is about equality for women. It puts women first in all circumstances. It secures resources for women's issues first and foremost. So clearly they aren't for absolute equality as a first principle.
You don't get to say out of one side of your mouth "Feminism is for equality for everyone, so we don't need any sort of mens rights advocates" and then say out of the other side of your mouth "It's not feminism's fault that men don't have the same gov't resources women have, feminists had to fight for those things, so men should too!"
Thanks for erasing the existence of all of the feminists, male and female, who have worked to change the aspects of patriarchal society that hurt men, including separating the positive aspects of masculinity from the toxic aspects of the traditional male role.
The thing is that many of the things that hurt men are not really gender based. Which is why the so-called "men's rights movement" is actively counterproductive since they ignore things like class and sexuality in favor of crafting a narrative where Those Goddamn Feminists are to blame for everything and "misandry" is the root cause of the issues facing men.
EXTREME DEVIL'S ADVOCATE TIME
To those men whom have a vested interest in maintaining the traditional male gender roles, Feminist attempts to redefine the male gender role and "remove the toxic aspects", and to a lesser extent their struggle to achieve gender equality by "muscling in" on traditionally male roles, comes off as a direct challenge to their world view. They do not feel that there is anything wrong with their fitting into a traditional role, and lament that their traditional world is being change around them. They question why a behavior pattern that has well served not just men, but the advancement of all human society for generations should now be viewed as an enemy, as a wrong. If feminists are free to choose the lifestyle they wish to live, why are men not also allowed the freedom?
Feminist Initiative aims through democratical political means eliminate sexism, racism and heteronormativity and resist injustice and oppression based on gender, sexuality, notions of race / ethnicity, function, class, creed / religion, gender expression, gender identity and age.
This is strange to me, because I generally don't identify myself as a feminist, but I think that all of these things ought to be priorities. Maybe I'm in some sort of feminist denial or something.
One of the worries that I have with feminism is the rise of feminism in some academic fields. Like, take philosophy which is historically very hostile to the involvement of women. Feminist ethics is a sub field of ethics that deals with such subjects as emotion in ethical decision making, ethics of care, family and ethics and other traditionally "feminine" issues. Now, I think that all of this stuff is really important, but I worry that by labeling it "feminist" ethics that it places it out of the mainstream. It makes it that other ethics, not the main stuff. I think that a similar though sustains itself in other academic disciplines that have a "feminist" subtype. Again, to be clear, I'm not saying that the issues dealt with in these disciplines are bad or shitty. In fact, I think that they're largely important and deserve to be included. I worry that the language we're using allows for the process of othering these disciplines.
Am I totally off my rocker here?
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Privilege and "entitlement" isn't the same thing. Its not a matter of who is playing nice, its a matter of minority/majority dynamics, those in the majority position get the privilege to dictate terms to the minority.
I never said they were the same thing. I said it's pretty severe entitlement. No one in the real world gets to be listened to and respected because they A: own a soap box and B: shout real loud. No one has that privilege, no one gets to be respected by virtue of having an opinion. Calling privilege here is part of the problem I've been talking about. What's the response when someone doesn't feel they need to listen to you simply because you have an opinion? Privilege. You're trying to take the responsibility off your shoulders and put it on someone else's. That's all it is.
The people in the minority have to listen to the majority consensus. They don't have a choice because its the prevailing viewpoint, its everywhere. The people in the majority do not have to do that, they can ignore the minority if they so choose, they can dictate terms to the minority.
If you want to stop hearing women call you nasty names like misogynist, well that's fairly easy, stop visiting the comments section of a feminist blog because that's pretty much the only place where the word holds any real weight. You can just go "welp I don't care about this issue anymore" and walk away. If a woman wants to stop being called names like slut, whore, dyke, cunt, frigid bitch whatever that's a lot more difficult. Thats what privilege is, the freedom to not give a fuck. Not everyone has that freedom.
And the BEST part about majority/minority dynamics is that as a member of the minority, people will judge you by the actions of your worst member.
You don't get to call privilege because the majority disagrees with you. Well, I guess you could, but then the term would lose all its teeth. Yes, people have the option of agreeing or disagreeing with you. No, that is not a bad thing. No, you do not get to call foul when they disagree. If someone does not like your message, that is not their fault. They have no responsibility, social or otherwise, to agree with you.
Being in a minority does not make you right. Calling everyone who disagrees with you privileged accomplishes nothing. The only possible response to that is, "Yes, we do not give a fuck. Your point is?"
I know it's not really your area of law but would you mind going into some of the legal stuff as to when you are allowed to use violence to protect your property?
Most of what I could find deals with either the castle doctrine or deadly force so it wouldn't really apply to this case.
Here's my issue, and I'll re-iterate it. Feminist secured a position of power as the gate keepers of equality, and shut the door behind them. How many people, yourself included, have insisted "The problems you are having with a system being biased against men just needs more Feminism!"
No. Seriously. Stop saying that. It's absurd on the face of it. It makes literally zero sense. Feminism does not have a monopoly on advocating equality. It should not have a monopoly on advocating equality. While I've seen feminist acknowledge that "The Patriarchy hurts men too" I've never seen a feminist vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt men the way they vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt women. And why should they? Their movement is about equality for women. It puts women first in all circumstances. It secures resources for women's issues first and foremost. So clearly they aren't for absolute equality as a first principle.
You don't get to say out of one side of your mouth "Feminism is for equality for everyone, so we don't need any sort of mens rights advocates" and then say out of the other side of your mouth "It's not feminism's fault that men don't have the same gov't resources women have, feminists had to fight for those things, so men should too!"
Thanks for erasing the existence of all of the feminists, male and female, who have worked to change the aspects of patriarchal society that hurt men, including separating the positive aspects of masculinity from the toxic aspects of the traditional male role.
The thing is that many of the things that hurt men are not really gender based. Which is why the so-called "men's rights movement" is actively counterproductive since they ignore things like class and sexuality in favor of crafting a narrative where Those Goddamn Feminists are to blame for everything and "misandry" is the root cause of the issues facing men.
EXTREME DEVIL'S ADVOCATE TIME
To those men whom have a vested interest in maintaining the traditional male gender roles, Feminist attempts to redefine the male gender role and "remove the toxic aspects", and to a lesser extent their struggle to achieve gender equality by "muscling in" on traditionally male roles, comes off as a direct challenge to their world view. They do not feel that there is anything wrong with their fitting into a traditional role, and lament that their traditional world is being change around them. They question why a behavior pattern that has well served not just men, but the advancement of all human society for generations should now be viewed as an enemy, as a wrong. If feminists are free to choose the lifestyle they wish to live, why are men not also allowed the freedom?
People sitting on the upper rungs don't have to see how the lower tiers get screwed so they can keep their station.
Here's my issue, and I'll re-iterate it. Feminist secured a position of power as the gate keepers of equality, and shut the door behind them. How many people, yourself included, have insisted "The problems you are having with a system being biased against men just needs more Feminism!"
No. Seriously. Stop saying that. It's absurd on the face of it. It makes literally zero sense. Feminism does not have a monopoly on advocating equality. It should not have a monopoly on advocating equality. While I've seen feminist acknowledge that "The Patriarchy hurts men too" I've never seen a feminist vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt men the way they vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt women. And why should they? Their movement is about equality for women. It puts women first in all circumstances. It secures resources for women's issues first and foremost. So clearly they aren't for absolute equality as a first principle.
You don't get to say out of one side of your mouth "Feminism is for equality for everyone, so we don't need any sort of mens rights advocates" and then say out of the other side of your mouth "It's not feminism's fault that men don't have the same gov't resources women have, feminists had to fight for those things, so men should too!"
Thanks for erasing the existence of all of the feminists, male and female, who have worked to change the aspects of patriarchal society that hurt men, including separating the positive aspects of masculinity from the toxic aspects of the traditional male role.
The thing is that many of the things that hurt men are not really gender based. Which is why the so-called "men's rights movement" is actively counterproductive since they ignore things like class and sexuality in favor of crafting a narrative where Those Goddamn Feminists are to blame for everything and "misandry" is the root cause of the issues facing men.
EXTREME DEVIL'S ADVOCATE TIME
To those men whom have a vested interest in maintaining the traditional male gender roles, Feminist attempts to redefine the male gender role and "remove the toxic aspects", and to a lesser extent their struggle to achieve gender equality by "muscling in" on traditionally male roles, comes off as a direct challenge to their world view. They do not feel that there is anything wrong with their fitting into a traditional role, and lament that their traditional world is being change around them. They question why a behavior pattern that has well served not just men, but the advancement of all human society for generations should now be viewed as an enemy, as a wrong. If feminists are free to choose the lifestyle they wish to live, why are men not also allowed the freedom?
People sitting on the upper rungs don't have to see how the lower tiers get screwed so they can keep their station.
To this theoretical group of males, that statement was a pretty snarky insult and further proof that feminists are simply interested in attacking, not in freedoms. Double Point Bonus if the man in question is lower to middle class, breadwinner, protector, and struggling to provide for his family - "upper rungs" indeed.
(I am intentionally taking a harsh and defensive traditionalist stance here because I'm curious what arguments may be effective in dialog with these individuals.)
Here's my issue, and I'll re-iterate it. Feminist secured a position of power as the gate keepers of equality, and shut the door behind them. How many people, yourself included, have insisted "The problems you are having with a system being biased against men just needs more Feminism!"
No. Seriously. Stop saying that. It's absurd on the face of it. It makes literally zero sense. Feminism does not have a monopoly on advocating equality. It should not have a monopoly on advocating equality. While I've seen feminist acknowledge that "The Patriarchy hurts men too" I've never seen a feminist vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt men the way they vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt women. And why should they? Their movement is about equality for women. It puts women first in all circumstances. It secures resources for women's issues first and foremost. So clearly they aren't for absolute equality as a first principle.
You don't get to say out of one side of your mouth "Feminism is for equality for everyone, so we don't need any sort of mens rights advocates" and then say out of the other side of your mouth "It's not feminism's fault that men don't have the same gov't resources women have, feminists had to fight for those things, so men should too!"
Thanks for erasing the existence of all of the feminists, male and female, who have worked to change the aspects of patriarchal society that hurt men, including separating the positive aspects of masculinity from the toxic aspects of the traditional male role.
The thing is that many of the things that hurt men are not really gender based. Which is why the so-called "men's rights movement" is actively counterproductive since they ignore things like class and sexuality in favor of crafting a narrative where Those Goddamn Feminists are to blame for everything and "misandry" is the root cause of the issues facing men.
EXTREME DEVIL'S ADVOCATE TIME
To those men whom have a vested interest in maintaining the traditional male gender roles, Feminist attempts to redefine the male gender role and "remove the toxic aspects", and to a lesser extent their struggle to achieve gender equality by "muscling in" on traditionally male roles, comes off as a direct challenge to their world view. They do not feel that there is anything wrong with their fitting into a traditional role, and lament that their traditional world is being change around them. They question why a behavior pattern that has well served not just men, but the advancement of all human society for generations should now be viewed as an enemy, as a wrong. If feminists are free to choose the lifestyle they wish to live, why are men not also allowed the freedom?
Well, first you'd have to question the idea that traditional male gender roles have advanced human society, since that's a pretty big leap from correlation to causation.
You can then point to other traditional things that existed while society was, at least in some instances, advancing. Slavery. Child labor. Segregation. Only allowing men to vote.
Also, the entire point of re-casting the male role is to admit that, yes, there are plenty of good things about "masculinity" and maleness. Those are the things that have actually contributed to society in a positive way. Unfortunately, they've been linked to other "masculine" behaviors that are harmful to both men and society as a whole.
But yes, re-examining the traditional masculine gender role and attempting to reshape it into something that's less toxic to men as a whole can be seen as a challenge to the world view of the folks who have benefited from those traditional masculine gender roles, just as feminism that focuses on feminine gender roles is seen as a challenge to the world view of those folks who have benefited from those roles. That doesn't make it a bad thing.
Posts
I think the disconnect is that you think "a movement should aim to succeed" and I think "a movement should aim to be as inclusive and progressive as possible". Obviously, it should aim to do both, but I think the latter is more important than the former, and you think the opposite. We're not going to agree. So it goes.
We're sympathetic to him in that what happened was horrible, he should not have had to go through with it, and matters were amplified by the failure of law enforcement to do its job properly.
What we're not sympathetic to are his conclusions. The fact that law enforcement likes to take the path of easiest resistance does not mean that he was wronged by feminism. That's where he's been running into conflict.
Oh, and we're still waiting to hear how he would fix DV laws.
Studies show that most abuse is two way, and often isn't purely physical. They show that both genders abuse at roughly equal rates. Make sure BOTH partners have shelters they can go to. Break up the fight, but don't force police officers to make a decision about which party is the wronged one by forcing them to arrest only one person on the spot. Take BOTH parties to their respective shelters, where they will be treated as people with respect and dignity.
You know, assuming one party isn't blatantly belligerent when the cops show up. That likely calls for the blatantly belligerent party to be arrested.
It's not uncommon in DV cases for the judge to order therapy for one or both parties. But the therapy is incredibly gendered and discriminatory. It focuses entirely on patriarchal theory, which is proven to not be the reason people abuse one another. Ditch the Duluth model and focus on the real reasons people abuse each other.
Because I bet there are a shitload of feminists in this thread who have zero attachment to "man bad, women good" and likely consider that a huge strawman of the bulk of feminist thought and action.
And then
HEY! You posted in that boys vs girls thread! I saw you! That means you should have read this!
Oh and hey look! You hate feminist thought and agree we need to break down gender roles!
Do you see the point I am making here? It is not feminist's fault that historically the privileged are not seen as needing an advocate, and it is very unfortunate when the privileged group DOES need help, that they lash out at the previously underprivileged. Dogg, if men want more inclusivity in health care/domestic laws/etc they won't get it by hating on feminism, and it is not feminism's fault that this doesn't already exist.
My cereal needed more milk, and I had none! God Feminism what is your deal?!?!
Dude I understand you may need some sort of outside boogeyman, but you have chosen very very poorly. Some dudes really misinterpreted your posts (which I will admit! It is really stupid!) but then how the goddam hell is this the fault of feminisms?
Seriously, you need to actually develop a reasonable idea of what a feminist is, and then do some introspection about how they actually were the source of all your ills.
You are being completely ridiculous.
Thanks Feminism.
Namrok, an awful lot of people who consider themselves feminist would say that ideally, in a domestic violence situation, the law should always punish only the party/parties that carried out excessive violence and/or physically assaulted someone. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the majority of people who voluntarily call themselves feminists agree on this.
The laws(not just American laws, either) that, in practice, give women the "upper hand" in DV situations even when a woman is the wrong-doer are mostly created based on the GENERAL TENDENCY for females to be hurt more often by their male partner and the still-popular views of women as weak, defenseless and prone to become victims and men as being basically the opposite. On top of these laws you have policemen, attorneys and other people dealing with law enforcement who in the process of interpreting the aforementioned laws use their own biases etc. So to a large degree, stereotyping leads to this particular kind of inequality before the law. It's true that feminists helped make it possible for women to come forth and make it known that domestic violence is a true problem so that laws were created to counteract it, but the actual lawmaking hasn't been actively influenced by feminists that much, it seems. In the bad old days, when domestic violence was to be kept in the home and not spoken about, a man wouldn't be able to speak to anyone about being abused by his wife because that would just have been considered shameful. That's still a huge problem, but it's changed a bit, to a large extent thanks to the work of feminists who worked against the traditional relationship stereotypes. And it still is changing - and as more men who are exposed to domestic violence become vocal, the chances for improved law regulation increase. In this way, feminists are fighting for both men and women who are abused (although some feminists may be/have been doing so inadvertently).
In your case, it seems that certain policies and laws interacted really badly with each other, and so you ended up in a situation that wasn't accounted for by the makers of any of the policies/laws. To try to point out one particular group or school of thought that was kind of indirectly involved in the making of one of these laws is really hard. I think everyone who read your story understands your frustration and agree that things didn't work as they should have, but the mechanisms behind what happened are very complicated. Laws are imperfect and so law systems need to constantly evolve. People like feminists or those who fight for the rights of the disabled help ensure that the development doesn't stop.
When you say that you only care about the feminists who actually DO something you are still choosing a very small subset of them, and it's also very diffuse - you say that you care about American feminists who are/have been lobbying for law changes during recent times. What about Swedish feminists? Do they not count because they do not influence you directly? What about feminists in France who lived during the French revolution? As has been concluded in this thread time and again, "feminism" is such a broad term filled with so many different meanings that that to say you hate feminism probably tells another person even less than saying that you hate communism would, unless you already know what particular concept that person has connected with the word. It also means, if I'm allowed to be a bit self-ironical, that saying "I'm a feminist" tells another person almost nothing unless I explain what I mean. I see it more as a potential conversation starter, really.
Edit: Not to mention that feminists have helped make homosexual relationships more accepted, thus making it (in some countries, maybe not much of the US) possible for people who are in an abusive homosexual relationship to be able to report their problems and be treated with some respect, instead of having to stay quiet for fear of being seen as "shameful". This helps both men and women, naturally.
So, you don't understand why these policies were instituted, but would scrap them anyway. Mandatory arrest and prosecution were enacted because it turned out that the police coming out to handle DV calls would trigger escalation in violence. Furthermore, it turned out that abusers were good at getting their victims to recant and pull charges. So in the end, we said that abusers would deal with the State directly. Primary aggressor policies came out of the issue that arresting both parties made victims more reluctant to call the police in the future.
Here's my issue, and I'll re-iterate it. Feminist secured a position of power as the gate keepers of equality, and shut the door behind them. How many people, yourself included, have insisted "The problems you are having with a system being biased against men just needs more Feminism!"
No. Seriously. Stop saying that. It's absurd on the face of it. It makes literally zero sense. Feminism does not have a monopoly on advocating equality. It should not have a monopoly on advocating equality. While I've seen feminist acknowledge that "The Patriarchy hurts men too" I've never seen a feminist vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt men the way they vigorously advocate to change the things that hurt women. And why should they? Their movement is about equality for women. It puts women first in all circumstances. It secures resources for women's issues first and foremost. So clearly they aren't for absolute equality as a first principle.
You don't get to say out of one side of your mouth "Feminism is for equality for everyone, so we don't need any sort of mens rights advocates" and then say out of the other side of your mouth "It's not feminism's fault that men don't have the same gov't resources women have, feminists had to fight for those things, so men should too!"
Nobody is saying that men don't need advocacy. It's a shame that many of those who do advocate for men are more interested in preserving male privilege than actually trying to improve things for men.
And here's the thing - while feminists do believe in gender equality, as a movement built on defending the rights of women, it's not surprising that they view that as their chief priority.
So says you. But that doesn't make it true.
/le sigh
MOST male advocates are the vocal ones that I hate!
The vocal feminists that you hate? TOTALLY THE MINORITY!
Do we really need to explain how the MRA movement is horrible? Their principal focus from what I've seen has been how child support is "unfair" to men.
Is this where we wonder into bizarro world? Where I crawl into your skin and you crawl into mine? And where you level broad generalized claims again men's rights advocates and I say "It's a community with a lot of different ideas, not a hive mind"
I guess the difference is men's rights advocates haven't had the opportunity to wield broad policy making power so we can't really judge them by what they have accomplished. There have been a smattering of accomplishments granted. They've been striking down alimony for life laws in the few states that still have them. They've been pushing for a presumption of 50/50 shared parenting. They've been working to have fathers that are unemployed or under employed not thrown into jail forever when they fall behind on child support payments. They've been questioning the legality of throwing fathers in jail for debt. We were supposed to have made debtors prison illegal. And yet, with some linguistic creativity, we rationalize that oh no, they aren't in jail for debt. They are in jail because a judge ordered them to pay money (they don't have), and they refused (or couldn't, doesn't matter) to pay, so they are in jail for contempt. It's not debtors prison at all.
Of course, it is the fault of feminists.
You are both right. I've jumped to a lot of conclusions in my posts and assumed people would make the connections.
The reason I blame feminism for people misinterpretting what I say and consistently putting words in my mouth is because the doctrines of feminism has biased you against stories like mine. Many of the first reactions I got were "Oh, so you'd feel better if you knocked her teeth out?" or making assumptions that my frustration was at my lack of lawful ability to put someone in a hospital at the slightest provocation. That bias, that immediate assumption, that when you hear a man complaining, he's only complaining because he's privileged and is now having to deal with being less privileged, is a result of Feminism pushing the story that all women are victims, and all men are abusers. That even the least privileged man is still more privileged than the most privileged woman.
Many of you, when I mentioned a lack of resources for male victims, jumped to the conclusion that I want to take these resources away from women. That's feminism pushing the story that any gain for men is a loss for women. That its a zero sum game.
For all of Feminisms focus on "The Patriarchy" and cultured norms and bias, they are remarkably blind to their own. And you all have displayed it in spades here.
Hey! Here's me! I'm advocating that things be changed for men as vigorously as I am that they be changed for women! I call myself a feminist! I'd probably phrase it "gender equality"" than "equality for women". I think the term is pretty misleading since it has the "fem" part in it and all, at least when it comes to how I use the word. I guess to me it's a kind of acknowledgement of that the people who are continuing the gender equality work today are building on what the feminist movement going way back has been doing, but I don't know, maybe it would be better to drop the term like AManOnEarth suggested a couple of pages back. At the end of the day what's important isn't what things are called, it's how much more freedom people gain regarding gender roles and what they choose to do.
However, I think it also has to do with having "easy targets" like someone mentioned earlier, the feminist movement could gather up and fight against obvious inequalities that existed in the public domain (ie no suffrage for women) and making huge advancements for many, many people at once. When it comes to men's right, and women's rights today compared to in the past (in much of the Western world), you have to work with smaller advancements and also with a lot of resistance and differing opinions within the groups. Some people are oblivious to the fact that there's a considerable amount of men who are beat up by their female partners and many men are more comfortable with thinking of women as these persons who need to be defended. A lot of men think that it's simply "wrong" for a man to dress in a dress if he wants to. It's harder to say "we're working for the rights of men" when so many of these men don't agree with the proposed changes. And the same goes for a lot of the things that are done "for women" - a lot of the women don't necessarily agree that they want the changes, like say increased opportunities and pressure to stay in the workforce full time after becoming a mother. It's always been about breaking traditions and making more opportunities available, but I think gender equality issues are becoming increasingly complicated.
Also, nodoby has been saying that there shouldn't be men's rights advocates. I think many of the men who work hard as men's rights advocates would also say they are feminists. Nor has anyone been saying that men should have to "fight for their own equality" like "feminists did". For one thing, they're not exclusive groups - I, like many of the other posters here I'd assume, am a man and also a feminist. Moreover, it's a joint venture, we can't have "equality" for just one side, that doesn't make sense. Very, very few feminists want women to have more privileges than men, it's just that women have been underprivileged in the public domain and so it's made sense to work to increase women's power. Now the picture has become more nuanced and so the traditional, "more power to women, in all ways" line of thinking doesn't work very well for getting more equality, which ties in with what I wrote just earlier. Modern feminists have usually abandoned that approach, at least the ones in Sweden(where I live), thankfully.
Your problem was literally that you wanted to use violence against your girlfriend, your words.
Now you didn't want to hurt her, great, but their is literally no situation where you are better off using violence if your life wasn't in danger.
Anyway, I'll throw the first segment of their party platform through google translate;
It gets a bit wackier after that - quite a bit wackier in fact - but as an opening statement I think it's a pretty nice definition of the modern feminist movement.
You're spinning my words, I said that HIS specific argument that to let a woman destroy your "labors" was to make yourself a "slave" to her (his words) has a weird undertone of "my house my rules" to it, he's using the language of a dynamic of power and subordination, and I find that frankly a little bit weird. But are you going to take my comment to him as an attack on you?
As for destroying valuables, that's terrible. But again, do you not see the glaring issue in a law that says its OK to escalate the situation to violence if your spouse threatens your stuff?
You should protect yourself! Except the priority goes:
My physical safety > my spouses physical safety > the safety of my possessions.
Not
My physical safety > the safety of my possessions > my spouses physical safety.
This isn't the same thing as saying only male on female abuse exists because patriarchy. Assume this is a hypothetical gay couple, Same rules apply. Especially if it just so happens that one is substantially physically bigger than the other.
No, I'm talking issue with the idea that "self defense" equals recipricoal violence, and that if at all possible removing yourself from the situation before anyone gets hurt somehow doesn't count as a form of self defense. (Its the BEST form).
1. They can distance themselves from the fringe and say "they are over there doing whatever the fuck they are doing, and we're here actually arguing for women's rights. Ignore them, because we won't call you a misogynist for calling things lame, or even gay, because we're doing women's rights."
2. Being in a relationship is not an excuse to break someone's property. I absolutely believe that I have a right to not be hurt by rule breakers if I follow the rules, so if your exgf goes to destroy your property, why should you just let her do it? I don't see any difference between this and the burglar, if we put asside the practical difference of proving she started it (maybe there is a camera or witnesses).
Isn't that just inviting a group that sits around masturbating and high fiving each other all day? What is the value in an inclusive group that doesn't achieve it's goals? I really don't understand how making the group inclusive could be more important than making it achieve it's goals.
He noted various ways he was warned he "might" have been arrested but would he? Assuming he was arrested would he have been prosecuted? Would he have been found guilty? I mean assuming that he'd done everything sensible (and discounting "attempting to subdue her" as sensible)
I mean, there is a lot of "I was this close to getting arrested I swear" but I'm not sure how much stock to place in that.
You're basically asking them to sell each other out for you.
I mean take a step back here, you are saying "hey, some feminists hurt my feelings by pointing out that using gay as a pejorative is wrong (it kinda is) I want you to distance themselves from them so I will start respecting you. I am a man, your goal should be gaining MY respect".
This is essentially privilege in action. Privilege is the freedom to not give a fuck about the desires of the secondary class, unless they sweeten it up a bit and talk nicely to you.
So just to check: We're arguing that you have a moral right to use violence against your spouse if you feel your property is at threat. This is where we are.
Isn't it also a somewhat entitled standpoint to feel that others should listen to you regardless of your demeanor or presentation?
Because different groups of people within feminism have different goals- there is no one overarching goal, or set of goals, for feminism. And a group shouldn't claim to represent the interests of all women if, in reality, it only represents a particular demographic of women.
Because, when a group of people says "we feel like we have a lot to contribute to feminism, but we feel left out", do you really think the proper response is "We don't have time for this shit"?
Because, when an ideology claims to be concerned with issues of power and privilege, but yet has problems with power and privilege within its own ranks, it looks hypocritical.
Wait, if two parties are both in a place they have a right to be can one use violence to protect their property in any case?
1. No, I am saying that each group should exist and push towards its goals. I see no good reason why women should throw their lot in with other stigmatized groups to overcome all stigma, instead of focusing on the goals they share as women. If you formed a group that protested to get Firefly back on the air, I'd be right with you. But if that group was formed for Firefly but started also demanding Buffy be put back on, I'd probably leave, because I do t care about Buffy and wouldn't want to devote my time to it or have the "get firefly back on" message watered down.
2. Yes, that is exactly my position. Obviously it should be the minimum necessary, but if someone runs towards my tv to break it, I think I have the right to tackle them, no matter who they are. Why should I put the safety of someone else who means me ill ahead of my property?
It doesn't matter what the goals or hopes and dreams of the members are as individuals or group affiliations other than "woman.". All that should matter IMO is the goals of women as women, since that is the one point of common ground. If you are a black woman, join a black rights group to address your concerns about those issues. If you are concerned about issues specific to black women, join a black women's Group. A women's movement should just be about problems faced by Women IMO. How are women benefitted as women by muddying the focus into other issues which only impact some women, and only in other capacities?
Unless what they have to contribute is a clear net positive to the cause of women's rights, no, we don't have room for you if you won't help us on our terms seems like a fine response.
I see nothing hypocritical here. The concern is power and oppression of women, so saying we are focusing on women's issues seems fine to me.
Again, understand that feminism is not a singular movement. There are many feminist communities and they deal with the issues that they feel are most appropriate to their particular community. There is no such thing as "the goals of women as women" because 'womanhood' is not some singular thing that exists in a vacuum. The concerns and activities of a feminist collective in Brooklyn are going to be completely different from the concerns and activities of an online community of feminist film buffs.
Understand feminism the way you understand, say, liberalism or anarchism. It would be ridiculous to say liberals should only be concerned with the goals of liberals as liberals. It's complete nonsense. Liberals over here are going to have different goals as well as different issues to deal with from liberals over there. Anarchists have a wide variety of approaches, understandings, tactics, and concerns. So do environmentalists. So do feminists.
I'm really having trouble understanding what exactly you take issue with, probably because we're talking in abstract terms instead of specifics. So here's a specific example: are you familiar with Slutwalk? Women parade in stereotypically 'slutty' clothing in order to draw attention to slut-shaming and rape-apologism. We had one in NYC not too long ago, and some women of color came forward and said they felt alienated by this particular expression of feminism, because it's a lot easier for white college girls to reclaim the term 'slut' and parade around in skimpy clothing, than it is for women of color. It has a lot more baggage in minority communities. In this specific example, I think it's more helpful for the organizers of Slutwalk to engage in dialogue with the women of color, so that these different groups can work together without alienating one another, than it is for them to say "Fuck off" and cause a rift within the wider feminist community, and increase tensions and turn their backs on potential allies for no good reason.
Privilege and "entitlement" isn't the same thing. Its not a matter of who is playing nice, its a matter of minority/majority dynamics, those in the majority position get the privilege to dictate terms to the minority.
The people in the minority have to listen to the majority consensus. They don't have a choice because its the prevailing viewpoint, its everywhere. The people in the majority do not have to do that, they can ignore the minority if they so choose, they can dictate terms to the minority.
If you want to stop hearing women call you nasty names like misogynist well that's fairly easy, stop visiting the comments section of a feminist blog because that's pretty much the only place where the word holds any real weight. You can just go "welp I don't like being criticized so I don't care about this issue anymore" and walk away. If a woman wants to stop being called names like slut, whore, dyke, cunt, frigid bitch whatever that's a lot more difficult. Thats what privilege is, the freedom to not give a fuck. Not everyone has that freedom.
And the BEST part about majority/minority dynamics is that as a member of the minority, people will judge you by the stereotype of your worst member.
I think this is pretty much the point where I just throw my hands up here then. I cant think of a response in the face of arguing the value of your spouses safety vs property.
Because of what I said above, when the issue is that the you are a small minority and as such society as a whole will not listen to you, saying "well we're for women. trans/queer/poc are on their own" hurts the cause. It divides and splinters off people who have pretty much similar concerns and the same issues who can't find anyone who will listen to them either.
You say "muddying the cause" they'd say "showing solidarity".
Thanks for erasing the existence of all of the feminists, male and female, who have worked to change the aspects of patriarchal society that hurt men, including separating the positive aspects of masculinity from the toxic aspects of the traditional male role.
The thing is that many of the things that hurt men are not really gender based. Which is why the so-called "men's rights movement" is actively counterproductive since they ignore things like class and sexuality in favor of crafting a narrative where Those Goddamn Feminists are to blame for everything and "misandry" is the root cause of the issues facing men.
EXTREME DEVIL'S ADVOCATE TIME
To those men whom have a vested interest in maintaining the traditional male gender roles, Feminist attempts to redefine the male gender role and "remove the toxic aspects", and to a lesser extent their struggle to achieve gender equality by "muscling in" on traditionally male roles, comes off as a direct challenge to their world view. They do not feel that there is anything wrong with their fitting into a traditional role, and lament that their traditional world is being change around them. They question why a behavior pattern that has well served not just men, but the advancement of all human society for generations should now be viewed as an enemy, as a wrong. If feminists are free to choose the lifestyle they wish to live, why are men not also allowed the freedom?
This is strange to me, because I generally don't identify myself as a feminist, but I think that all of these things ought to be priorities. Maybe I'm in some sort of feminist denial or something.
One of the worries that I have with feminism is the rise of feminism in some academic fields. Like, take philosophy which is historically very hostile to the involvement of women. Feminist ethics is a sub field of ethics that deals with such subjects as emotion in ethical decision making, ethics of care, family and ethics and other traditionally "feminine" issues. Now, I think that all of this stuff is really important, but I worry that by labeling it "feminist" ethics that it places it out of the mainstream. It makes it that other ethics, not the main stuff. I think that a similar though sustains itself in other academic disciplines that have a "feminist" subtype. Again, to be clear, I'm not saying that the issues dealt with in these disciplines are bad or shitty. In fact, I think that they're largely important and deserve to be included. I worry that the language we're using allows for the process of othering these disciplines.
Am I totally off my rocker here?
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
I never said they were the same thing. I said it's pretty severe entitlement. No one in the real world gets to be listened to and respected because they A: own a soap box and B: shout real loud. No one has that privilege, no one gets to be respected by virtue of having an opinion. Calling privilege here is part of the problem I've been talking about. What's the response when someone doesn't feel they need to listen to you simply because you have an opinion? Privilege. You're trying to take the responsibility off your shoulders and put it on someone else's. That's all it is.
You don't get to call privilege because the majority disagrees with you. Well, I guess you could, but then the term would lose all its teeth. Yes, people have the option of agreeing or disagreeing with you. No, that is not a bad thing. No, you do not get to call foul when they disagree. If someone does not like your message, that is not their fault. They have no responsibility, social or otherwise, to agree with you.
Being in a minority does not make you right. Calling everyone who disagrees with you privileged accomplishes nothing. The only possible response to that is, "Yes, we do not give a fuck. Your point is?"
I know it's not really your area of law but would you mind going into some of the legal stuff as to when you are allowed to use violence to protect your property?
Most of what I could find deals with either the castle doctrine or deadly force so it wouldn't really apply to this case.
People sitting on the upper rungs don't have to see how the lower tiers get screwed so they can keep their station.
To this theoretical group of males, that statement was a pretty snarky insult and further proof that feminists are simply interested in attacking, not in freedoms. Double Point Bonus if the man in question is lower to middle class, breadwinner, protector, and struggling to provide for his family - "upper rungs" indeed.
(I am intentionally taking a harsh and defensive traditionalist stance here because I'm curious what arguments may be effective in dialog with these individuals.)
Well, first you'd have to question the idea that traditional male gender roles have advanced human society, since that's a pretty big leap from correlation to causation.
You can then point to other traditional things that existed while society was, at least in some instances, advancing. Slavery. Child labor. Segregation. Only allowing men to vote.
Also, the entire point of re-casting the male role is to admit that, yes, there are plenty of good things about "masculinity" and maleness. Those are the things that have actually contributed to society in a positive way. Unfortunately, they've been linked to other "masculine" behaviors that are harmful to both men and society as a whole.
But yes, re-examining the traditional masculine gender role and attempting to reshape it into something that's less toxic to men as a whole can be seen as a challenge to the world view of the folks who have benefited from those traditional masculine gender roles, just as feminism that focuses on feminine gender roles is seen as a challenge to the world view of those folks who have benefited from those roles. That doesn't make it a bad thing.