Feminism

[Traitorfish]

Politically correct (often self hating white men) liberal's that drink coffee (expensive kind) and using academia jargon that no one else cares about.

The political correctness and the jargon, that I follow. Standard right-wing hangups, and I'm proud to own both of them.

But the bit about coffee?

I don't get that.

 

[Hygro]

I'm not against women's gender studies as a concept, but there are two major problems with them being taught at universities.

1. Even English majors have an easier time finding jobs. At least writing skills some people like. With even something as 'worthless' as philosophy at least that's required for divinity school, so you have that option. Women's/gender studies degrees are the bottom of the barrel, even by humanities standards.

2. The problem with these classes (all humanities classes suffer from this same problem but this particular field the most) is that they are overwhelmingly leftist to the point that marxism is pretty much the norm, and anyone that dares say the white man or men in general doesn't have it best will be bashed to a pulp.

We have academic disciplines to study to discover truth and construct understanding. Why disregard the findings of a field because it won't equip a person, personally, for certain types of jobs? (Btw humanities majors are not bad investments at all, but that shouldn't be the point)

Why should a field be disregarded because by understanding it it leads to non mainstream political conclusions? Why do boundaries of political normalcy come before science and philosophy?

Politically correct (often self hating white men) liberal's that drink coffee (expensive kind) and using academia jargon that no one else cares about.

I'm a politically correct liberal that likes to drink expensive coffee (when I can afford it) and regularly use academic jargon that other people don't care for.

 

[Zack]

Politically correct (often self hating white men) liberal's that drink coffee (expensive kind) and using academia jargon that no one else cares about.

What would you call a person (often insecure white man), proud of their insufficient vocabulary, who gets off on preaching to others about the evils of "political correctness"?

 

[Traitorfish]

"Tory"?

 

[Tahuti]

I'm a politically correct liberal that likes to drink expensive coffee (when I can afford it) and regularly use academic jargon that other people don't care for.

Yes, but you are OUR 'politically correct liberal that likes to drink expensive coffee' (when you can afford it) 'and regularly use academic jargon that other people don't care for'.

What would you call a person (often insecure white man), proud of their insufficient vocabulary, who gets off on preaching to others about the evils of "political correctness"?

In the Netherlands, we call such persons 'sjonnies'. And they also love to ride customised scooters and propped-up VW Polos and vote Geert Wilders.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

When you say someone is not a person, doesn't have the right to own property, doesn't have the right to vote, etc, while you do, that amount to treating them as inferiors.

I don't think "not a person" is particularly representative of anyone's thoughts.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

By reasonable I mean wrong but understandable. Its the sudden flip into feminism = bad because ????

And I can only read your reason as petty resentment that women got their ball rolling a century ago and you haven't.

Well I don't see how you could have seen it as understandable (wrong or otherwise) if you then say you don't have the faintest idea what I was going on about

 

[Evie]

I don't think "not a person" is particularly representative of anyone's thoughts.

It's representative of what XIXth century law said.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

By reasonable I mean wrong but understandable. Its the sudden flip into feminism = bad because ????

Ignoring the other stuff I was saying, or what you were questioning about it (as I don't understand quite what you mean about "them" getting their ball rolling a century ago, whereas I haven't), just to answer this specifically.

I think it's bad ultimately because it is divisive. The clue is in the name. And it always leads to things like this where it becomes women's issues vs men's issues, and which are more important in some sort of binary opposition. You're either for one or the other, and if you're for one then you're assumed to be against the other (particularly if you're for men's issues). The very label itself encourages this sort of thinking. So, for example, when we talk about domestic violence, instead of concentrating on the causes and effects and how to deal with it for everyone, it just degenerates into a squabble about which sex suffers the most and then various statistics get pulled out to prove which sex suffers the most, and then all the support gets apportioned to the "winner", and the other gets nothing and... it's just stupid. Take the gender out of the equation and treat it as a social problem that affects "people", and suddenly there's nothing to squabble about and energies can be applied more usefully than in argument. Insist that it's a "feminist" issue because it affects more women than men, and that as such men can't even discuss it alone or they're sexist pigs, or if they bring up that men suffer this too they should be sneered at because they suffer it less, and you're just stirring up a non-productive argument for the sake of it.

There was a time when focusing exclusively on female issues was a good idea, when there was a much wider gap legally and socially and politically between the sexes. Since that gap has now been reduced to something much, much smaller than the inequalities that exist between different (largely economic) groups across society as a whole, it's time to drop it. There are bigger fish to fry and this fish is just getting in the way.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

It's representative of what XIXth century law said.

Only if you define "person" as "something that can legally own property".

 

[Evie]

No, I mean it in terms of the law using "persons" and not meaning women.

 

[Farm Boy]

Anti-feminism doesn't offer men anything, because all it can do is reaffirm tradition, and tradition has failed us.

I guess just to clarify, when I say counter-point I do not mean "anti-feminism" anymore than a counter-melody is an anti-melody. It's a complexity that creates harmony. If that makes sense.

 

[Traitorfish]

I take your point, but I can't see what the practical difference between anti-feminism and "counter-feminism" would be. Feminism doesn't mean advocacy of women over and despite men, at least it's not if it's done properly, it means putting men and women on an equal footing while realising that they don't start at one, so any credibly progressive men's advocacy would have to be within those terms.

 

[classical_hero]

It basically comes to the way we've constructed masculinity as a form of power, over women, over children and over other men, especially. Feminists call traditional gender structures "patriarchy" for a reason, because it's a system of power-relations. The feminist argument is that gendered violence expresses the true nature of these relations, which are usually presented to us as beneficial and harmonious, or more recently simply denied to exist.

We get it already. White men bad, everyone else good.

 

[Zack]

We get it already. White men bad, everyone else good.

 

[Traitorfish]

Classical Hero's a Calvinist, you see, so he prefers the formula "white men bad, everyone else also bad".

 

[Senethro]

I think it's bad ultimately because it is divisive. The clue is in the name. And it always leads to things like this where it becomes women's issues vs men's issues, and which are more important in some sort of binary opposition. You're either for one or the other, and if you're for one then you're assumed to be against the other (particularly if you're for men's issues).

But this shouldn't be the case. There needn't be a binary opposition.

 

[Farm Boy]

I take your point, but I can't see what the practical difference between anti-feminism and "counter-feminism" would be. Feminism doesn't mean advocacy of women over and despite men, at least it's not if it's done properly, it means putting men and women on an equal footing while realising that they don't start at one, so any credibly progressive men's advocacy would have to be within those terms.

I say counterpoint to feminism, not counter-feminism. Still not the same thing I don't think. I say it because while I think it sound on the theory if you are optimistic enough, functionally I cannot see self described feminists, by and large, being interested enough to actively push for things like equal assumptions of custody in family court, or educational environments that are more conducive to male primary education, or yaddayadda. Ya know?

 

[Traitorfish]

See, that's still framing things in oppositional terms, you're just attributing blame to the other side. While we might have difficulty imagining contemporary feminists taking up these positions with much enthusiasm, there's nothing that it can't be otherwise.

 

[Farm Boy]

In the end I think we're stuck with oppositional-ness(ew, but it works) in the general public consensus. I think academics and people who like academics can get past the dogma of fight and might and right to the purity you and I would like out of that word and theory. But after 5 years at a "research institution" watching the preaching of the tenured feminists, no, I think we're going to have to deal with the fact that the reality is worse. A reality that would be better served if we had not "MRA's" but MRA's present as at least semi-useful public entities. To put it as Metatron put it. If I'm wrong? Fantastic!