So what kind of cite are you looking for? Feminists who do not hope for a female-only society, who don’t want men to die violent and horrible deaths?
Guess what. “I don’t want men to die violent and horrible deaths” is not a topic that feminists find particularly compelling to write about. Believe it or not, feminists talk about things other than men and how much they are hated.
You want cites for feminist writing which does not incite hatred towards men? Okay, off the top of my head I will list the feminists I know:
Okay, what more do you want? Snippets of text where they talk about things other than “Death to Men?” Pick up a book and find it for yourself. You can’t honestly expect a cite proving that they do not hate men.
She’d be quite welcome at many feminist organizations I’ve been to. What does that mean for your argument? Either (a) that the feminist organizations I’ve been to are somehow not true feminist organizations, or that my experience with them is not as valid as the experiences you’ve had with feminist organizations, or (b) it’s faulty reasoning, and any experiences with feminist organizations are not generalizable to “feminism” as a whole. Pick one.
“Whatever”^100, margin. There we were discussing domestic violence, and you go off into some diatribe about street gangs and lord knows what in your heavily-laboured piece of satire. You have trouble sticking to the point, or something?
And even you cannot be so ignorant as to be unaware that most extra-mural violence is committed by men on men.
She was one of those self-titled feminist members of the CWO.
If that’s the kind of person who’s claiming to be a feminist and generally not getting called on her horrid behavior (lying about rape makes it harder for those who really were raped to be believed), then something’s fucked up.
Andy Has provided cites. You have not. When he said a feminist held an opinion, he provided a relevant quotation. You have conveniently ignored them because they are damaging to your position.
Does this mean that if you ever do provide a cite (however unlikely that may be) Andy will get to follow the same standard as you and simply ignore them?
Do you know what the word ‘utopia’ means?
So these feminist authors who are writing Sci-Fi/Fantasy books about a feminist utopia with no men in it are writing about An ideally perfect place. Of course right now it’s fiction, but the very fact that they call it feminist utopian society indicates something about how they view a perfect society, doesn’t it?
Considering the things I have seen done in custody battles, I’m willing to believe there’s more than a grain of truth to that. I have seen accusations of abuse, sexual abuse, drug use, and myriads of other things thrown at fathers in order to deny custody, and what sickens me most is that I’ve seen it in my own family. I watched the father of my cousin’s children, who never raised a hand to anyone in his life, hauled away in handcuffs because my cousin called the cops and reported him as an abuser so she’d be absolutely sure she’d get sole custody.
As there are men who beat their wives, there are women who pull shit like that. Those women who are like my cousin, they are certainly terrorizing the fathers of their children.
How many ducks have to quack before you reasonably conclude that all ducks quack? How about every duck you have ever encountered? I’ve yet to encounter a feminist organization that wasn’t anti-male, and have seen quite a few of them. Recently, as part of a personal and ongoing personal interest project, I called yet another local domestic violence center to ask where a man who is abused by his girlfriend can go for help, because a friend of mine is being abused. It wasn’t a ‘women’s shelter’. It was a domestic violence support group.
I was told ‘Men do not get abused. They are the abusers.’ and then hung up on.
In the Cafe Society thread on this subject, Andy was unable to come up with a single title that actually fits his description of “feminist utopian fiction” as being about how the perfect society must have no men. Although he refused to admit to it, even when asked directly by more than one poster, it appears that he has never read or seen any such book himself.
Personally, I was a little offended (not as a woman, or as a feminist, but as a science-fiction fan) to see some fine novels so grossly misrepresented, but grossly misrepresentating anything that’s been tainted with feminism appears to be SOP for some people. I suppose if they couldn’t make up all kinds of crazy things about feminism, it would be more difficult to bash it.
Yes, but in this thread he posted at least one link to the feminist utopian fanatasy/sci-fi website on which these books are advertised and discussed.
Here’s one definition of a ‘feminist utopian novel’:
Of course if you want the titles of books, how about Sherri Tepper The Gate to Women’s Country or Naomi Mitchison’s Solution Three or Katharine Burdekin’s The End of This Day’s Business
or Joan Slonczewski’s A Door Into Ocean or Donna Allerga A Toast of Babatine.
You could also take a look at this list for ‘feminist utopia’ Sci-Fi/Fantasy books:
By “these books” do you mean “feminist science fiction books” or “feminist science fiction books about how great it would be if we killed all the men”? No one is questioning the existence of feminist science fiction. I’m not even questioning that there may be some books out there that really do say the world would be a better place if there were no men. But I’ve never seen such a book myself, and no one has been able to specifically name one that actually fits that description. You can’t just throw out a list of feminist science fiction books and pretend they all advocate such a thing. They don’t. I’ve read quite a few of the books listed, and none of them are as you or Andy have described them. For instance:
**
The Gate to Women’s Country is an excellent novel. I have read it many times. I have a copy here beside me at the computer as I write this. I am, in other words, very familiar with this book, and it does not in any way advocate the extermination of men or “see male institutions as a major cause of present social ills”. Nor is it in fact a utopian novel – although the “women’s country” seems fairly pleasant (and is portrayed as clearly superior to neighboring societies), it is deeply flawed, as the heroine discovers. The book closes with a scene of her leaning against her father “as he wept. Wept for them all.”
The Gate to Women’s Country deals in large part with a woman-run society whose ruling class is attempting to wipe out the “male aggression” that they see as the leading cause of violence, but their chosen technique (which is not, by the way, wholesale elimination of all men) leads to much suffering on the part of both male and female citizens. The Gate to Women’s Country also presents many kind, non-violent male characters, as well as one important abusive female character, and does not shy away from pointing out the role women can play in encouraging violent behavior in men.
Tepper very, very clearly believes that a real utopia would be a society in which men and women could live together as true equals, not a society with women in charge. Her book could even be taken as a criticism of the idea of a woman-dominated “feminist utopia”. Heck, the Washington Post review quoted inside the cover says “by carrying several feminist dreams to the point of nightmare, she [Tepper] provokes a new look at the old issues”. There is no way anyone could read The Gate to Women’s Country and come away thinking that it advocates the elimination of all men, blames men alone for social ills, or argues that the world would be a better place without men. And yet you have just suggested that it does. How perplexing.
Whatever point he was trying to prove by providing fiction. He didn’t do his homework.
“The Handmaid’s Tale” is NOT a feminist Utopian fiction. It’s about a society in which MEN are in complete control of every aspect of a woman’s life. Including if and when they breed.
A society based on extreme religious themes.
I don’t see how works of fiction, whatever their main point, have any bearing on whether the majority of feminists adhere to fringe and nutsy ideas or not.
Again, NOW may have a number of these nutcases, this still is not the same as saying that these women speak for NOW, women OR feminists.
However frustrated margin may or may not be, I believe that that’s the main point she and the rest of us are trying to make.
Again, the original definition and meaning of feminism is (basically and simplified) “equal treatment”.
So, almost any woman in the free world today practices feminism.
So for andy to say:
quote:
Feminism has a long and cherished tradition of hoping for a female-only society, thus advocating a Final Solution for the male problem.
Which is an example of feminist dystopia. Typically the feminist Sci-Fi/Fantasy stuff is either utopian (the all female egalitarian society in which men are not present or barely tolreated) or dystopian (extreme abuse of women by men in positions of power used to illustrate how awful it is for men to have power.)
Both of them point to the idea that a society in which women are ‘in charge’ is better.
Yes, well I’m very tired of and frustrated by a common tactic that I have seen among those feminists I have tried to have discussions with regarding different feminist perspectives, especially when there’s disagreement. And that tactic has been ‘But you can’t possibly criticize anything about ‘feminism’ because every feminist is different.’ and then to turn around and say ‘But no, you can’t believe in mere equality and still be a feminist. You have to believe women are oppressed by the patriarchy.’ It comes off as a case of ‘eating your cake and having it too.’
But that is not the connotation of the word now. What ‘feminist’ meant fifty years ago, or seventy-five years ago does not change the fact that now, the word has been co-opted and turned into an immediate association with those ‘famous feminists’ such as Gloria Steinem, Susan Brownmiller, Kim Gandy, Robin Morgan, Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, and Germain Greer.
A familiar theme, to call the cause of violence ‘male aggression’ and for the ‘more peaceful’ women leaders to implement a solution. Notice that the only thing the book finds flawed is the actual technique by which the ‘male aggression’ is eliminated. It doesn’t actually go so far as to say that ‘male aggression’ is highly exaggerated or that a society of all women wouldn’t be free from violence.
So there’s nothing wrong with men as long as they’re really just a little bit more like women, right? And of course women inspire and encourage violent behavior in men, isn’t that the nature of the patriarchy? Men getting all violent over the women that are their property?
Because it carries on with that same theme that it’s ‘male aggression’ that is the root cause of violence in society. It’s still clinging to that asinine idea of ‘testosterone poisoning.’
Obviously I saw things a little differently than you.
That’s not the theme, that’s the basic premise. A group of female leaders want to rid their society of male aggression. The theme is that any attempt to control people’s lives in such a way, no matter how well-intentioned, leads to a loss of personal freedom and tragic consequences. Women’s Country is better than some of the alternatives, but by the end of the novel it should be clear that the society is no utopia and that neither Tepper nor her heroine thinks that it is. Far from it.
You are so completely wrong that I don’t even know where I could begin explaining your many mistakes. I’d have to rewrite the entire book.
**
If by “more like women” you mean “not irrationally violent” then yes, but Tepper doesn’t appear to consider non-violence and non-aggression uniquely feminine traits. If you think she does, that says more about you than it does about her.
**
Women’s Country isn’t a patriarchy. Duh. Yet several of the major female characters, including some who should know better, end up playing a part in encouraging male violence because they like macho, aggressive men. They think they’re sexy. Tepper is plainly attempting to show that if men are genetically predisposed towards violence in a way that women are not, it can only be because women have helped to make men this way through sexual selection.
**
That is what certain women in the book believe. This is an advanced literary concept that I suspect is beyond your ability to grasp, as so many other things in life must be, but sometimes authors write about characters who believe things that the author herself does not believe in or advocate.
**
Yes, it’s very funny. I, a feminist, read the book and saw a touching call for true equality and harmony between the sexes. You, the self-anointed humanist voice of reason, read it and saw a hateful call for the extermination of the male race. Very peculiar indeed. By your own account of feminism, I should want the book to be about how great the world would be if women were in charge, and be sickened by the notion that men should be allowed an equal role in society. And yet this is not the case. I enjoyed the book I saw and consider the book you saw to be a gross and offensive misinterpretation of the original work. I wonder what could possibly account for this?
Perhaps it’s because you are wrong about feminism, and you are wrong about the book. You obviously never really read it. By “read” I don’t mean “looked at the words in order”; you probably did do that. But when people say they “read” something, there’s usually supposed to be some comprehension involved. And doing that would require you to momentarily set aside your bizarre prejudices about feminism and pay attention to what a real, live feminist was trying to express in her work.
And you’ll never do that, will you? No, because that would require some thought, maybe a little mental effort, and you have persistently refused to engage in any activity more intellectually taxing than knee-jerk bigotry and self-absorbed whining. You’ve got an ugly little picture in your heard about how feminists “really” are, and nothing else matters to you. No amount of evidence or testimony to the contrary could ever change your mind, because your problem is more than mere ignorance. I’ve done my best to explain things to you as though you were someone who might genuinely be trying to use her powers of understanding, but I knew all along that I was wasting my time and this diversion has now ceased to amuse me.
You obviously haven’t read the book. The idea is not “how awful it is for men to be in charge”. Nor was the story trying to illustrate that society would be better off with women in charge. It illustrates how awful it is for the type of society that is an 1984 “Big Brother” type society to be in charge.
Both men and women were “villians” in the story, and both men and women were heroes in the story. Both men and women participated in “May Day” the underground resistance dedicated to returning America to what it had been before the “Gideon” regime.
The awful part of the book was not that men were “in charge” (after all, men still run the world and have most of the power) but the MANNER in which those particular men were in charge.
A pseudo religious society, which barely hid the same old corruption and garbage of the old. It’s too bad that the movie didn’t cover all of that.
quote:
Again, NOW may have a number of these nutcases, this still is not the same as saying that these women speak for NOW, women OR feminists.
Then SAY that, disagree with THAT faction of feminists. Don’t take the tack of what andy quoted. You’re absolutely right. And I disagree (most STRENOUSLY!!!, I happen to think men are EXTREMELY valuable, particularly certain parts :D).
However, the fact that I disagree with the small portion, does not make me not a feminist, no matter HOW much the psycho fringe may scream and denounce me, and others like me (again, several MILLION of us are feminists, even if several tens of thousands are the male baby-killing, lesbian, amazon wannabes,
the MAJORITY, just plain old women, are “normal” feminists).
quote:
Again, the original definition and meaning of feminism is (basically and simplified) “equal treatment”.
So, almost any woman in the free world today practices feminism.
No. Again, that may not be the connotation of SOME feminists, but it is STILL the original meaning, and again, any woman who believes in equality is, BY DEFINITION, a feminists.
In short. We may not speak up, we may not be as obvious (and certainly not as rude, psycho, and ridiculous) but we ARE in the majority.
quote:
Lamia said:
The Gate to Women’s Country deals in large part with a woman-run society whose ruling class is attempting to wipe out the “male aggression” that they see as the leading cause of violence, but their chosen technique (which is not, by the way, wholesale elimination of all men) leads to much suffering on the part of both male and female citizens.
Have you read this book? If not, you have no way of knowing how aggressive male aggression IS within the fictional confines of that particular society.
Not to mention that you totally misread lamia’s description of the book. She doesn’t say that the “peaceful” women are trying to eliminate aggressive men. She says the RULING class, who may or may NOT be “peaceful”. She also describes that the rest of society suffers from this, male AND female.
quote:
The Gate to Women’s Country also presents many kind, non-violent male characters, as well as one important abusive female character, and does not shy away from pointing out the role women can play in encouraging violent behavior in men.
[quote]
So there’s nothing wrong with men as long as they’re really just a little bit more like women, right? And of course women inspire and encourage violent behavior in men, isn’t that the nature of the patriarchy? Men getting all violent over the women that are their property?
[quote]
You’re making assumptions about a work of FICTION which you haven’t read colored by your OWN anger and frustration against
a certain unpleasant and somewhat psychotic group of OUR society (not of the society that is actually in the book).
Also, I find it interesting that you take lamia’s words “…kind, non-violent male characters…” to mean (and in a negative way), in YOUR words “…nothing wrong with men as long as they act more like women…”??? contradicting some of your previous posts and words regarding whether men are more violent and aggressive than women. I believe, after reading her description of the book that she meant the those men that WERE violent and aggressive within that society and fictional setting.
quote:
There is no way anyone could read The Gate to Women’s Country and come away thinking that it advocates the elimination of all men, blames men alone for social ills, or argues that the world would be a better place without men. And yet you have just suggested that it does. How perplexing.
It’s really ignorant of you to assume that based on a short description and having not read the book.
I don’t know if the book does in fact do that or not. IMHO, lamia did a good job of describing a story that does NOT do what you’re accusing here.
But in reality, I don’t know, and neither do you, having not read the book.
Yes, you saw them through rather prejudiced colored glasses.
Really, what you are doing is the same thing as assigning the actions, attitudes and negative acts of groups like the Black Panthers to the entire community of African-Americans.
After-school sports that weren’t part of the curriculum, I’m guessing, and so both literally and figuratively “outside the walls” of the school. That’s what “extra-mural” means; extra is Latin for “outside”, not “additional”. What I meant in this context was “violence other than domestic violence”.
Uh, no. But then again, this is the same reasoning that got you banned from the Ms. board, isn’t it? Andy has not provided a cite. He switched from bitching about feminism to bitching about feminist fiction, and hasn’t been seen since. As a perfect example of his—and your and Malancandra’s—methods-----he then started a topic about ‘feminist fiction’ and claimed that it was because I didn’t know such a thing existed. As Lamia proves all too aptly above, you haven’t read the titles you bash.
Andy still hasn’t provided me with a cite, although you seem to think that cite means ‘Any old thing said by any old person that serves my purposes.’ He knows that if he uses some nutjob mens’ rights sight as his source that will get rejected. There is no cite for his claims. So he vanished. Claiming that works of fiction—which he hasn’t evidently read or understood—proves his claims about feminism is like saying that fairy tales depict the history of Germany.
And Malacandra, you’ve persistantly ignored Andy to bitch at me for demanding-----equality. Either demand the same set of behaviors, or go back to your sandbox. ‘Straw men’ indeed.
margin, if you’re unacquainted with the concept of logical fallacies - and I suspect you may be from your odd use of the term “straw man” - then here would be a good place to start. There they will explain to why it is that you can’t rebut your own poor debating technique by claiming that Andy’s is even worse and requiring me to disprove it before you will entertain any criticism of your own.
I’m not sure what you’re lumping me in with Andy for exactly - he made a lot of assertions that called for cites, and he provided many, which you’re free to pull apart as you see fit; that is a valid debating technique; whereas I think I only made one claim that required a cite: the death threats against Erin Pizzey, which I have backed up. And as I said, whether or not you like the site the quote is from, you have to argue that either they misquoted Pizzey, or that she lied, or else admit that she is telling the truth. You don’t appear to have done any of these so far.
Fairytales might not depict the history of Nazi Germany, but a look at popular fiction and movie themes in the Third Reich might give us a valuable insight into the mindset of Nazis, wouldn’t you say?
“Sweetie”. “Sandbox”. Goodness gracious me. Do you seriously imagine that you’re strengthening your position by patronising me? :rolleyes:
Hey, I didn’t drag the N-word into this thread, I just picked up the ball and ran with it.
looks back up the thread
laughs at himself
Goodness me, but I did. I looked at margin’s reference to “Germany”, mentally edited in the word “Nazi”, and responded to it. Must be because of the word “feminazi” in the thread title. Post in haste, repent at leisure. :smack: :smack: :smack:
I think the comparison holds up anyway: Literary themes in a culture or political movement give an insight into the mindset of the culture in which they’re popular, even if they don’t seriously describe the aims and objectives of such, still less the likelihood that they will be realized.
So my experiences (with feminist organizations that are not anti-male) are not as valid as yours. Got it. I guess I was imagining it.
Mal: thanks for the site. I learned about something called the Spotlight fallacy, where
is a bad argument. Replace Xs with “Feminists” and Q with “Man-haters” and see what you get.
And from the linked page I also learned about the fallacy of “Anecdotal Evidence”, where
Meaning that anyone’s experiences with feminism don’t actually prove anything about it.
And don’t forget “Argumentum ad ignorantiam”
In other words, because it hasn’t been proven that feminism is not all about man-hating, then it must be. You have offered no suggestions on what cite we can offer to prove that feminism is not all about man-hating, except to say that the ones we have provided are not adequate.
And see also “Shifting the burden of proof”:
I must confess I am unclear on what is being asserted. The nearest I can tell is that some people are asserting that feminists are all man-haters, or that feminism requires hating men, or something. Please clarify.
After you have done that, please tell us what kind of cites you want from us. Speak slowly and use small words to make sure that I understand.
Try finishing this sentence: “You can prove that feminism is not all about man-hating by showing us a cite where …”
And if you can’t finish that sentence, then why are we bothering?
Yes, it’s an excellent site, isn’t it? I find myself checking both others’ arguments and my own a lot more closely since reading up on it. And you pick up correctly on some of the forms of fallacy being perpetrated in the debate. There are a few others too. We could hand out bingo cards.
I don’t think anyone with an ounce of sense would claim that all feminism was founded on man-hating. Even my own knowledge of the subject is only anecdotal. What gets taught behind the closed doors of, say, a Women’s Studies classroom, isn’t something I’m likely to know about at first or even second hand. I hear what gets attributed to women whom I understand to be revered authorities, and some of what I hear disturbs me; I am naturally curious to know how seriously such people are taken, and especially to what extent they get taken seriously by legislators.
margin speaks disparagingly of “nutjob men’s rights” sites in much the same way as a Southerner might speak of “damnYankees”, and I have to agree that a lot of what I see there would be a waste of paper if it was published. Still, that isn’t to say that everything on every site devoted to men’s rights is automatically worthless, which I understand to be margin’s angle on this. If I am wrong, she need only say so and the air will be cleared.
I haven’t been demanding cites at all, so I can’t very well tell you what kind I want, even in small words. And I haven’t been arguing that feminism is all about man-hating, either, so I’m at a loss to complete your sentence. Sorry not to be more helpful.
It’s real simple, Mal, so I’ll say it again. Andy asserted that 'feminism desires…and produced a long list of bullet comments. He called me various names and accused of various things, amongst them being utterly ignorant of the existance of feminist utopian fiction. You have persistantly ignored all of that while demanding a standard of me that you have not applied to Andy. And you’ve repeatedly ignored references to your double standard.
I asked Andy for a cite that proved his claims about feminism. He hasn’t provided it, and you’ve ignored it. Until he provides proof for his claims that feminism is all about man-hating—and he’s repeatedly left qualifiers out of his claims, which you’ve just as repeatedly ignored----I have nothing to refute. There’s just nothing there. He’s claimed that he doesn’t have to provide cites because what he says is ‘common knowledge.’
Thanks for your understanding, Mal. I wasn’t directing that at you specifically, I’m just trying to sort out what the debate is.
It seems it currently stands here:
Margin says that Andy has made assertions about what Feminism desires. I would tend to agree. (Her assertion is supported by Andy’s own posts to this thread.)
Thus, according to the site provided by Mal, it is now up to Andy (or his supporters) to prove his assertions. Their attempts to do so, thus far, seem to me to be guilty of some of the fallacies listed on the site.
Neither margin, Lamia, myself, nor any other feminists who have not yet given up on this thread, have anything to prove, since they are the ones making the assertion and have not yet supported it in any meaningful way.
In other words, we cannot provide cites until it is clear (a) what kind of cites are necessary and (b) what they will prove.
