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Janissy
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15 Jul 2011, 12:43 pm

Fnord wrote:
[Finally, if a woman insinuates herself into the life of a man just so that she orchestrate a fatal "accident" and inherit his wealth when he dies, then she is a Femininja - a Very Bad Thing.


I'd call her a murderer, and so would the police. Orchestrating a fatal "accident" is first degree murder.



ValentineWiggin
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15 Jul 2011, 5:09 pm

So any criticism of cultural, political and economic institutions such as religion, family, popular media, generational cultures, being oppressive on the basis of gender is going to be met with "Nuh-uh! Da law sez womens can vote and work!" ?

Priceless. :roll:

It takes a pathetically tiny mind, though imaginative, to convince itself that the world is a courtroom.


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ConfusedDude
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15 Jul 2011, 5:10 pm

ValentineWiggin wrote:
So any criticism of cultural, political and economic institutions such as religion, family, popular media, generational cultures, being oppressive on the basis of gender is going to be met with "Nuh-uh! Da law sez womens can vote and work!" ?

Priceless. :roll:

It takes a pathetically tiny mind, though imaginative, to convince itself that the world is a courtroom.
I agree with you.


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ValentineWiggin
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15 Jul 2011, 5:12 pm

Fnord wrote:
[Finally, if a woman insinuates herself into the life of a man just so that she orchestrate a fatal "accident" and inherit his wealth when he dies, then she is a Femininja - a Very Bad Thing.



More fun stories. :D

I like making up fantasies, too, but I don't, for instance, make up bad stories and then attribute it to anti-feminism because I think it's all bad-n-stuff.


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Ancalagon
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15 Jul 2011, 6:29 pm

ValentineWiggin wrote:
Ancalagon wrote:
I don't debate abortion on the internet anymore, since everytime I do it degenerates into a nasty flamewar. But I will note that this particular issue has little to do with feminism. If you hold pro-life assumptions, you have a moral imperative to oppose it, if you have pro-choice assumptions, you have a moral imperative to support it, and for either side of the fence, feminism just doesn't have much to do with it.

Women's ownership of their person is perhaps the most unambiguously-feminist issue that exists.

That statement may be true, but it misses the point.

If we make the assumption that a fetus has no right to live, then killing one is the moral equivalent of something between clipping toenails and putting down a pet dog. If all females were the slaves of evil males, and the evil males made this assumption, then of course they would let them get abortions. They wouldn't have a reason not to.

If we make the assumption that a fetus has a right to live, then killing one is like murder or infanticide. If the most ardent feminist in the world makes this assumption, she would have to conclude that the fetus' right to continue to exist trumps someone else's right to modify her body whenever the two rights conflict.

It doesn't matter which assumption you make, if you decide one way, it isn't enough to trump more basic rights, and if you decide the other way, then there isn't a moral hurdle to overcome, so it doesn't need even mentioning.

Quote:
Feminists making sexist comments?
Is that kind of like a "vegetarian" noming on a burger?
:roll:

That's a pretty good analogy. You can imagine my irritation at modern feminists pretty easily; just think how you would react to someone who had been telling you all week that you should stop eating meat, only to turn around and invite you to eat a burger with them.

Quote:
Probably because the majority of feminists oppose the military-industrial complex altogether,

If their private political opinions can make them avoid speaking out against a limitation based *solely* on someone being female, then their priorities are completely broken.

Quote:
although they do continuously speak out against the rampant rape and harassment female service members are normally subjected to in such hyper-masculine environment.

I served in the Navy for a decade, on submarines. While there is a masculinity to the environment, "rampant rape and harassment" is just plain way off.

Quote:
The academic feminists you might be referring to probably don't offer a reasonable "proposal" because a. to observe our language is sexist and reinforces sexist, gendered norms is the job description, feminism denoting a philosophy, not a degree in linguistics,

Did you just say that it doesn't matter whether we fix problems, as long as we blame them on someone? I hope not.

BTW, I wouldn't have counted this against them if they'd *failed* to get a *bad idea* implemented, because then they would have at least tried.

Quote:
and b. there are so many examples of gender-neutral pronouns in other languages and even examples in older forms of English, that it's far from a hypothetical- it's a practice society refuses to adopt, simply.

My complaint is that they think it ought to be adopted, but they are apparently incapable of asking society to adopt it.

Personally, I'd be willing to change my pronoun usage in a reasonable way if asked, even though I think the whole idea that it's a problem in the first place is hogwash.

Quote:
Ancalagon wrote:
It is not ludicrous to point out that sort of thing and call for change.

It's a bit like Westerners complaining humanitarian organizations are a hate group for making them occasionally feel bad about the consequences of their consumption and complacency.
"Herp derp, someone dares question oppression! Quick, act offended!"

Your comment doesn't have anything to do with my statement.

Quote:
Ancalagon wrote:
Quote:
egalitarian anti-sexist (that is, the feminist)

This is the thing that irritates me more than anything else about modern feminists: they define feminist to mean 'anti-sexist',

The dictionary defines it that way.

I'm fine with it as a definition, as long as it's used in a consistent and logical way to mean that.

Quote:
Ancalagon wrote:
then they define feminist to mean 'member of our particular political movement',

Since "feminists" are comprised of dozens of feminist schools of thought, hundreds if not thousands of organizations, and millions of individuals, that seems pretty silly to assert.

Well, that's refreshing. Allowing for the possibility that a feminist could easily be pro-military or pro-life, for example, is not something that everyone taking the label feminist would do.


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Esteban
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16 Jul 2011, 1:47 am

ValentineWiggin wrote:
Esteban wrote:
I'm very wary, to say the least, of any self-proclaimed 'feminists.' For starters, the word itself is tainted - the dictionary definition is something like 'against sexism' but the word etymologically means 'in favor of women,' NOT 'in favor of equality'

So I suppose the black Civil Rights movement should have followed up their railing against racial oppression with "but don't worry, we don't hate white people, we just want them to stop lynching us"?


The comparison is apt: some whites supported the Civil Rights movement and many whites were not complicit in lynchings, just as in the days of slavery there were some white abolitionists. In the same vein, not all men are Congolese warlords or Afghan mullahs. Likewise, there were plenty of slave traders and slave owners who were not white - and being a woman does not preclude the possibility of being guilty of sexism or indeed of oppressing others, including other women.

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As women are the more oppressed sex, it makes perfect sense for a movement in advocacy of gender equality to call itself feminism.


So, if for the sake of argument, 99% of sexism is directed against women, that means the remaining 1% is OK or not important? If one is for equality, one is against 100% of sexism, not just sexism one is disadvantaged by - selective equality is just a front for self-interest. That a particular demographic has been historically disadvantaged does not mean every single one of its members has been disadvantaged or is deserving of compensation.

Quote:
Esteban wrote:
-Italian 'feminists' were enraged when the retirement age for women was raised to be the same as that of men. Unless women make bigger pension contributions, I don't see why they should retire earlier solely for being women, particularly as women have a greater life expectancy.

Apparently, there's a whole group of people who eat fish and call themselves vegetarians!
What has that to do with the beliefs and lifestyle of *vegetarians*?
Not a damned thing.
Esteban wrote:
-An acquaintance, involved in various 'women in field X' type of activities and so on, at one point complained, while waiting for some guy to come out of a bar, that ' a woman should never wait for a man.' A friend of mine asked her if that didn't conflict with her feminist principles, she replied that one's public image is one thing, how one behaves privately is another.

Ah, so not a feminist. Relevance?


It shows the sort of thing why I'm wary of Westerners that self-label as feminists, The word is all too often a fig-leaf for seeking privilege based on being female, or for selective equality (only when females were disadvantaged).

Quote:
Esteban wrote:
-I've yet to hear of feminists, in countries with mandatory military service that only recruits men (in other words, forced labor based on gender), demand that everyone should be required to serve.

Probably because they don't think *anyone* should be forced to die for political and economic whims.
Remember, please, that it is not some group of top-ranking female officials who consider women less competent and capable in the military, but male.


Yes, but the silence from self-proclaimed feminists on the matter is deafening. For the record, I don't support, in peacetime, conscription, or forced labor in general.

Quote:
Esteban wrote:
-That while much noise is made about the top rungs of the social ladder (the super rich, politicians) being mostly occupied by men, there is little mention of the dregs of society (the homeless, prison inmates) also being mostly men.

Aw, that sucks.
Care to guess which sex is vastly over-represented in SEX SLAVERY, RAPE, AND GENDERED VIOLENCE?
How about single-parenting-in-poverty?
Sex-selective infanticide?


All thankfully relatively rare in Western countries. Of course, the homeless and prison inmates are also frequently victims of violence, including sexual violence.

Quote:
The observation that the holders of power and the arbiters of reality are almost exclusively male is not somehow negated by pointing out the existence of downtrodden men.


No, but it does negate the notion that women have it so bad in the West. They may relatively rarely rise to the top, but they also relatively rarely sink to the very bottom.

Quote:
Esteban wrote:
The women in my family are definitely not the stay-at-home type - actually that's partly why I have little patience for modern self-proclaimed feminists.

You have little patience for advocates of gender equality because the women in your family aren't of a certain type? Otay.


The successes, lifestyle and behavior of many women I know, including members of my family, rather contradict claims that all women are severely disadvantaged, or that assertive women are always somehow shunned, etc.

Quote:
Esteban wrote:
My grandmother went to college and so on, and this in a Third World country with a fairly macho culture, so I'm not terribly impressed with complaints of how hard life is for modern Western women.

Probably because you laughably think equal legal rights (nowhere near achieved) mean actual equality.
You are not of a mental framework or educational/interest background to critically-analyze societal institutions such as religion, media, economics, and family,
and likely consider whatever to be on the books to be somehow-definitive of the actual culture in which people live.


Do not presume that your educational qualifications are better than mine. I rather doubt it, and in any case I need no lectures on the difference between what the law says and how a society operates in practice,

Quote:
Your grandmother being able to get a degree has very little to nothing do with the increasingly-disordered eating habits of women in the first world, or representations of women and men in popular media, or cultural hostility to women's reproductive freedom, or criticism of the medical field as androcentric, and so on and so forth, let alone a woman having acid thrown in her face for a strand of hair showing, or rape as a weapon of war, or brothels of sex slavery.


Lumping together the extreme oppression women suffer in the more barbaric parts of the world with the problems of modern Western women is, to be blunt, either self-pity or moral blackmail. Nobody puts a gun to anorexics' heads and forces them to starve; in fact, often people around them are trying to get them to eat. Women being represented in a certain way in the media, and the brutality against women in some parts of the world are rather obviously not in the same league. That in some places being a woman is about the worst thing that could possibly happen to you does not mean the situation of other women, elsewhere, is dire, or that all women everywhere have it worse than short people, or ugly people, etc. Turning off the TV or ignoring gossip are rather easier and less risky than ridding yourself of Taliban rule.



jojobean
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16 Jul 2011, 2:04 am

Ancalagon wrote:
ValentineWiggin wrote:
Ancalagon wrote:
I don't debate abortion on the internet anymore, since everytime I do it degenerates into a nasty flamewar. But I will note that this particular issue has little to do with feminism. If you hold pro-life assumptions, you have a moral imperative to oppose it, if you have pro-choice assumptions, you have a moral imperative to support it, and for either side of the fence, feminism just doesn't have much to do with it.

Women's ownership of their person is perhaps the most unambiguously-feminist issue that exists.

That statement may be true, but it misses the point.

If we make the assumption that a fetus has no right to live, then killing one is the moral equivalent of something between clipping toenails and putting down a pet dog. If all females were the slaves of evil males, and the evil males made this assumption, then of course they would let them get abortions. They wouldn't have a reason not to.

If we make the assumption that a fetus has a right to live, then killing one is like murder or infanticide. If the most ardent feminist in the world makes this assumption, she would have to conclude that the fetus' right to continue to exist trumps someone else's right to modify her body whenever the two rights conflict.

It doesn't matter which assumption you make, if you decide one way, it isn't enough to trump more basic rights, and if you decide the other way, then there isn't a moral hurdle to overcome, so it doesn't need even mentioning.

Quote:
Feminists making sexist comments?
Is that kind of like a "vegetarian" noming on a burger?
:roll:

That's a pretty good analogy. You can imagine my irritation at modern feminists pretty easily; just think how you would react to someone who had been telling you all week that you should stop eating meat, only to turn around and invite you to eat a burger with them.

Quote:
Probably because the majority of feminists oppose the military-industrial complex altogether,

If their private political opinions can make them avoid speaking out against a limitation based *solely* on someone being female, then their priorities are completely broken.

Quote:
although they do continuously speak out against the rampant rape and harassment female service members are normally subjected to in such hyper-masculine environment.

I served in the Navy for a decade, on submarines. While there is a masculinity to the environment, "rampant rape and harassment" is just plain way off.

Quote:
The academic feminists you might be referring to probably don't offer a reasonable "proposal" because a. to observe our language is sexist and reinforces sexist, gendered norms is the job description, feminism denoting a philosophy, not a degree in linguistics,

Did you just say that it doesn't matter whether we fix problems, as long as we blame them on someone? I hope not.

BTW, I wouldn't have counted this against them if they'd *failed* to get a *bad idea* implemented, because then they would have at least tried.

Quote:
and b. there are so many examples of gender-neutral pronouns in other languages and even examples in older forms of English, that it's far from a hypothetical- it's a practice society refuses to adopt, simply.

My complaint is that they think it ought to be adopted, but they are apparently incapable of asking society to adopt it.

Personally, I'd be willing to change my pronoun usage in a reasonable way if asked, even though I think the whole idea that it's a problem in the first place is hogwash.

Quote:
Ancalagon wrote:
It is not ludicrous to point out that sort of thing and call for change.

It's a bit like Westerners complaining humanitarian organizations are a hate group for making them occasionally feel bad about the consequences of their consumption and complacency.
"Herp derp, someone dares question oppression! Quick, act offended!"

Your comment doesn't have anything to do with my statement.

Quote:
Ancalagon wrote:
Quote:
egalitarian anti-sexist (that is, the feminist)

This is the thing that irritates me more than anything else about modern feminists: they define feminist to mean 'anti-sexist',

The dictionary defines it that way.

I'm fine with it as a definition, as long as it's used in a consistent and logical way to mean that.

Quote:
Ancalagon wrote:
then they define feminist to mean 'member of our particular political movement',

Since "feminists" are comprised of dozens of feminist schools of thought, hundreds if not thousands of organizations, and millions of individuals, that seems pretty silly to assert.

Well, that's refreshing. Allowing for the possibility that a feminist could easily be pro-military or pro-life, for example, is not something that everyone taking the label feminist would do.


actually rampant rape and sexual abuse IS going on in th military

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/07/inv ... er-problem


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Ancalagon
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16 Jul 2011, 3:14 am

jojobean wrote:
actually rampant rape and sexual abuse IS going on in th military

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/07/inv ... er-problem

Well, that's rather disturbing.

I can't comment on it too much, since they don't give much in the way of details.

I can tell you that, at least in the Navy, they have a person designated as the SAVI (Sexual Assault Victim Intervention) coordinator at every command, and they hold tons of training on the subject, until you're quite thoroghly bored to tears with hearing the same thing over and over.


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Phonic
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16 Jul 2011, 3:37 am

This thread is in the wrong place and I wish it wasn't here because i didn't come here to be upset with political issues and making me feel like s**t for being a male.


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16 Jul 2011, 6:49 pm

Ancalagon wrote:
ValentineWiggin wrote:
Ancalagon wrote:
I don't debate abortion on the internet anymore, since everytime I do it degenerates into a nasty flamewar. But I will note that this particular issue has little to do with feminism. If you hold pro-life assumptions, you have a moral imperative to oppose it, if you have pro-choice assumptions, you have a moral imperative to support it, and for either side of the fence, feminism just doesn't have much to do with it.

Women's ownership of their person is perhaps the most unambiguously-feminist issue that exists.

That statement may be true, but it misses the point.

If we make the assumption that a fetus has no right to live, then killing one is the moral equivalent of something between clipping toenails and putting down a pet dog. If all females were the slaves of evil males, and the evil males made this assumption, then of course they would let them get abortions. They wouldn't have a reason not to.

If we make the assumption that a fetus has a right to live, then killing one is like murder or infanticide. If the most ardent feminist in the world makes this assumption, she would have to conclude that the fetus' right to continue to exist trumps someone else's right to modify her body whenever the two rights conflict.

It doesn't matter which assumption you make, if you decide one way, it isn't enough to trump more basic rights, and if you decide the other way, then there isn't a moral hurdle to overcome, so it doesn't need even mentioning.


Framing the abortion discussion around a fetus's right to life as opposed to female autonomical rights in response to my pointing out that very notion = humorous.

Ancalagon wrote:
Quote:
Probably because the majority of feminists oppose the military-industrial complex altogether,

If their private political opinions can make them avoid speaking out against a limitation based *solely* on someone being female, then their priorities are completely broken.

What makes you believe they keep their opposition to military institutions "private"?
For those who are a-okay with them, there might be more inclination to advocate women become soldiers in the name of equality.
For those who are not, the parallel philosophy is in opposition to militaries altogether.
Ancalagon wrote:
Quote:
although they do continuously speak out against the rampant rape and harassment female service members are normally subjected to in such hyper-masculine environment.

I served in the Navy for a decade, on submarines. While there is a masculinity to the environment, "rampant rape and harassment" is just plain way off.

Your female service members disagree:
Massive Class-Action Lawsuit Filed Against Rumsfeld for the Epidemic of Military Rape
Ancalagon wrote:
Quote:
The academic feminists you might be referring to probably don't offer a reasonable "proposal" because a. to observe our language is sexist and reinforces sexist, gendered norms is the job description, feminism denoting a philosophy, not a degree in linguistics,

Did you just say that it doesn't matter whether we fix problems, as long as we blame them on someone? I hope not.

Oh, no, you misread. I said that feminists are not linguists, therefore to charge that they should invent (already-existing) means of language because they indict popular ones as sexist is quite silly.

Ancalagon wrote:
Quote:
and b. there are so many examples of gender-neutral pronouns in other languages and even examples in older forms of English, that it's far from a hypothetical- it's a practice society refuses to adopt, simply.

My complaint is that they think it ought to be adopted, but they are apparently incapable of asking society to adopt it.

They've been writing and lecturing and publishing about it for decades.
Is there some sorta committee whereby concerned citizens submit proposals for cultural change and society adopts or rejects it?
Kinda like an American Idol-type deal? "Call and vote now for gender-neutral language!" Is this the same venue where I vote against Crocs and handshaking?
Ancalagon wrote:
Personally, I'd be willing to change my pronoun usage in a reasonable way if asked, even though I think the whole idea that it's a problem in the first place is hogwash.

So, again, do you expect a member of your Local Feminist Language Police to stop by your house and beseech you to change your speech? Why, exactly, should one be "asked" directly to change behaviors (or not), if you encounter information and ideas which prove they are unethical or harmful (or not)? I've literally never heard of this notion. Someone in a green shirt didn't have to ring my doorbell for me to become a vegetarian, for instance.
Ancalagon wrote:
Quote:
Ancalagon wrote:
It is not ludicrous to point out that sort of thing and call for change.

It's a bit like Westerners complaining humanitarian organizations are a hate group for making them occasionally feel bad about the consequences of their consumption and complacency.
"Herp derp, someone dares question oppression! Quick, act offended!"

Your comment doesn't have anything to do with my statement.
That whining about Western not-feminist feminists as representative of FEMINISM,
as opposed to the gendered violence and oppression the millions-strong global philosophy of feminism indicts, fights, and addresses,
is pretty odd for self-professed egalitarians? Mmkay.

Quote:
Ancalagon wrote:
Quote:
egalitarian anti-sexist (that is, the feminist)

This is the thing that irritates me more than anything else about modern feminists: they define feminist to mean 'anti-sexist',

The dictionary defines it that way.

I'm fine with it as a definition, as long as it's used in a consistent and logical way to mean that.

Well it becomes confusing when someone makes bald declarations, such as about "modern feminists".
I would take that to mean the group of people advocating social, political, and cultural equality of the sexes (as achieved through the secondary definition, advocacy of women's rights) as it currently-exists, or at the very most within the last few decades.

Those who indict "modern feminism" strangely never name precisely which policies, in either academia or activism, of *modern feminists* that they oppose.
Criticism of media study, and objectification of women within it?
Providing shelters and counseling for women fleeing violent spouses?
Fighting doggedly to get even minimal enforcement of anti-human trafficking laws around the world?
Critiquing heavily-gendered themes within this year's best seller list?
Protesting, under threat of acid attack or death, women's lack of driving rights in the Middle East?

If people would clarify WHO, exactly, is meant when they vaguely express that feminists "take it too far" in their work to end violence and oppression, it would be helpful to the discussion.

Ancalagon wrote:
Quote:
then they define feminist to mean 'member of our particular political movement',

Since "feminists" are comprised of dozens of feminist schools of thought, hundreds if not thousands of organizations, and millions of individuals, that seems pretty silly to assert.

Well, that's refreshing. Allowing for the possibility that a feminist could easily be pro-military or pro-life, for example, is not something that everyone taking the label feminist would do.[/quote]
"Vegetarian", our working analogy, can specifically mean several different philosophies and practices.
However, none of them include "eating meat".
Allowances are one thing, contradictions of terms quite another.


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of the human Heart, that very few Men, who have no Property, have any Judgment of their own.
They talk and vote as they are directed by Some Man of Property, who has attached their Minds
to his Interest."


ValentineWiggin
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16 Jul 2011, 6:59 pm

Phonic wrote:
This thread is in the wrong place and I wish it wasn't here because i didn't come here to be upset with political issues and making me feel like sh** for being a male.


It's all right-
since no one has in the least implied let alone stated you should feel bad because of your sex,
this is obviously an insecurity complex of your own regarding your being male,
and likely would have manifested elsewhere if not here.

This is a discussion of a specific type of class-based oppression as created and reinforced through societal institutions,
not make-widdle-Phonic-feel-bad-about-rape-and-sex-slavery-whereas-he-never-would-have-otherwise.


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of the human Heart, that very few Men, who have no Property, have any Judgment of their own.
They talk and vote as they are directed by Some Man of Property, who has attached their Minds
to his Interest."


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16 Jul 2011, 9:11 pm

ValentineWiggin wrote:
Phonic wrote:
This thread is in the wrong place and I wish it wasn't here because i didn't come here to be upset with political issues and making me feel like sh** for being a male.


It's all right-
since no one has in the least implied let alone stated you should feel bad because of your sex,
this is obviously an insecurity complex of your own regarding your being male,
and likely would have manifested elsewhere if not here.

This is a discussion of a specific type of class-based oppression as created and reinforced through societal institutions,
not make-widdle-Phonic-feel-bad-about-rape-and-sex-slavery-whereas-he-never-would-have-otherwise.


For some reason, I have found that when discussing women's rights and our oppression, more sensitive men have a tendency to internalize the deeds of the oppressors. I dont really undersatnd this thinking because Phonic is not responcible for what has happened, nor are alot of men who take these facts personally. I dont think all men are total beasts, but some are, unfortunately many of those are the ones who are in power.
I met women who work against other women in order to get her perks in a male dominated world, some women are just as bad oppressors of other women as their male coligues, so it is not just all men are the dragon and women are the dansels in distress.
It is a systematic oppression of women, gays, minorities, and religious minorities by the power elite....that has nothing to do with average joe. But if average Joe feels bad then maybe the average Joe can try to do what he can to make things more equal for women in his own life.


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16 Jul 2011, 11:13 pm

ValentineWiggin wrote:
not make-widdle-Phonic-feel-bad-about-rape-and-sex-slavery-whereas-he-never-would-have-otherwise.

That was rude.

IMHO, you owe Phonic an apology.


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Ancalagon
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17 Jul 2011, 12:52 am

ValentineWiggin wrote:
Framing the abortion discussion around a fetus's right to life as opposed to female autonomical rights in response to my pointing out that very notion = humorous.

The abortion debate is about whether a fetus has a right to life or not. If you decide that question, one way or another, you have decided whether you are pro-life or pro-choice.

I fail to see how pointing this out could be interpreted as funny.

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What makes you believe they keep their opposition to military institutions "private"?

Call it 'individual', then. Unless you're saying that part of the definition of feminism includes opposing the military, in which case you should be clear about altering your definition.

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Oh, no, you misread. I said that feminists are not linguists, therefore to charge that they should invent (already-existing) means of language because they indict popular ones as sexist is quite silly.

They complained about the problem, and then didn't try to fix it.

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So, again, do you expect a member of your Local Feminist Language Police to stop by your house and beseech you to change your speech? Why, exactly, should one be "asked" directly to change behaviors (or not), if you encounter information and ideas which prove they are unethical or harmful (or not)? I've literally never heard of this notion. Someone in a green shirt didn't have to ring my doorbell for me to become a vegetarian, for instance.

I never said anything about asking me directly. I did not ask for (and don't want) feminists showing up and ringing my doorbell Jehovah's Witness style.

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That whining about Western not-feminist feminists as representative of FEMINISM,

This is what I am talking about: feminism in the western world. That's where I live. That's where all the feminists I ever hear about live. I am talking about modern, western feminists.

If feminists elsewhere are doing a good job, then kudos to them.

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If people would clarify WHO, exactly, is meant when they vaguely express that feminists "take it too far" in their work to end violence and oppression, it would be helpful to the discussion.

I never said that anyone went too far in ending violence and oppression.

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"Vegetarian", our working analogy, can specifically mean several different philosophies and practices.
However, none of them include "eating meat".
Allowances are one thing, contradictions of terms quite another.

Saying 'bad vegetarian' might make more sense, then.

If a vegetarian club had 500 members, who all ate burgers at a meeting of their club, then saying 'it was a bad vegetarian club' is clear and makes sense. Saying 'the vegetarian club of 500 members includes 0 vegetarians' doesn't make much sense.

Feminist can be a label for a political movement or a club, as well as for an ideology.


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17 Jul 2011, 1:20 am

lilypadfad wrote:
There is so much wrong with modern feminism... but I thought I'd chime in on the equality front. It wasn't perfect, but equality was more or less achieved in the 80s in most western countries. Women were free to pursue the careers of their choice, the legal system allowed them to enter almost any profession and society cheered them on. Come the early 90s feminists noticed that in the upper echelons of our society (think politicians, CEOs, great scientists) women were still vastly underrepresented (the radical female supremacists who headed the movement had expected women to completely dominate these realms given the chance).
They decided that this male dominance at the top was the result of a male lead conspiracy to keep women down. The mythical glass ceiling. "Discrimination" became the buzzword for the next two decades and beyond, feminists made an unholy pact with minority activists and lo, thus began the era of quotas. Companies, governments, universities were required to hire/accept a certain percentage of women and a certain percentage of minorities, else they face investigation and possible fines.
Skip forward to the present: every time a woman is promoted or holds a seat in government or is accepted onto a higher education course, there is a good chance she was chosen ahead of a man with equal or better qualifications. Men aren't unaware of this, and it has only worsened gender relations and sexism. The women who actually deserve those positions now have to work twice as hard to prove themselves than they would have done 30 years ago.

Equal opportunity does not require equal outcome. Ever. Anyone who believes this is foolish. The fact that men dominate the top 1% of society is not a conspiracy, it is the reality of our species. The most intelligent, most skillful, most driven humans are more likely to be male. Of course the rest of men are invisible to feminists, you don't hear them crying for 50% of miners to be women, 50% of waste disposal experts to be women, 50% of work-related deaths to be women. Equality my ass.


This is spot on. Also, because one extreme lends itself to another, you also see more men at the bottom who are homeless and/or unemployed. In order to be successful in the business world, you have to be more physically aggressive, not more passive aggressive. It's the same attitude you must have in sports, yet nobody (except extreme feminists) argues that women are better at sports. Just because someone is more physically aggressive does not mean that they have to hit people all the time, but it does mean that aggression presents itself in a different manner than passive aggressiveness. Women are more passive aggressive, and if they weren't then they wouldn't be known as "the fairer sex" Throughout history, any group that has an established point of view has tried to explain away evidence that contradicts the views of the group, be it political leaders, religious leaders, or alien abduction activists. The most common form of argument is that there is a conspiracy to prevent the truth from coming out, usually from a group that has more power, and as such has something to lose if the truth comes out.