Catsix, I’m curious as to what you think about the following quotation:
This is the kind of feminist talk that makes me consider myself feminist and it’s from this interview. I’d kind of like you to formulate a response to it before you click on the link.
When I call myself feminist, I’m not signing on to a doctrine at all: I’m simply using a descriptive word that I think accurately reflects my beliefs on gender. I feel perfectly free to disagree with some or all of the beliefs of other people who call themselves feminist: I can respect one quote from Hillary Rodham Clinton while despising another quote from her, can agree with Charlotte Gilman on one issue while disagreeing with her on another. Being feminist isn’t joining a team, any more than being anti-racist is joining a team.
It’s far too late and I’ve seen far too much sexism from the feminist movement to ever be convinced that it’s anything but a form of bigotry.
Unfortunately for sexist bigots like Gloria Steinem et al, I do not separate a person from their words. Gloria Steinem is a sexist, a misandrist, and a person undeserving of any respect because of it. The tiny bit of lip service she gives to actual equality will not make up for the blatantly anti-male agenda she has supported for years.
Sexism isn’t the ‘Coke or Pepsi’ debate. It’s not the fact that my friend is a Catholic and I’m an atheist. It devalues half the world’s population because they are men, and it’s something I’m quite tired of.
I am absolutely sickened by a discussion I read recently on the web in which college professors supported sex discrimination because ‘Men don’t belong in Women’s Studies’, and to read things like ‘Men hate women.’, or that it’s not possible for a man to be free of misogyny in this ‘patriarchal world.’
These are the random feminists who are psycho-therapists, college professors, lawyers, mothers, etc. The ‘feminists on the street’ who spout the hatred are everywhere. There’s been only one in here who hasn’t shown some degree of bigotry toward men.
This is why I washed my hands of the whole deal years agoo. Because the ‘I don’t hate men’ feminists turned out to be one or two people a day late and a dollar too short.
Doesn’t this require a fair amount of doublethink? Anyway I guess one can find respectable quotes from just about everybody from Hitler (in the spirit of the thread title) to Britney Spears. However if I find one that is extremely vile from any person, I would tend to view other quotes from that same person with a certain amount of suspicion.
You are of course welcome to subscribe to any definition of feminism whether spot on or way whacko – however if your personal definition lies so far from the common usage that most other people will immediately misunderstand you, what’s the use? You could just as well invent a new word and avoid all the confusion.
Nor is being a Nazi joining a team. However, there must be some common ground else the terms would be quite useless. Apparently it’s the opinion of many that the common ground of feminism includes anything from a certain bias (quite reasonable from the origin of the word) to extreme misandric views. Also your own pick-and-leave approach to the definition doesn’t preclude this.
Finally, since the brand of feminism (if I understand you correctly) you follow isn’t primarily about female liberation (but liberation of humans, female as well as male). I guess the pedant: masculism (if there actually was such a word) would be exactly the same. But given the fact that you’re actually a man (I suppose) why on earth don’t you call yourself masculinist? Anyway, I think it’s very hard to run from the acute female bias in feminism (or masculism) if for no other reason than etymology - what’s the matter with good old humanist? No bias there at all.
Winston, I’m not a programmer – but if you’re meaning I should read a sentence in your post as “Neither is being a Borg joining a team,” then I suggest you’re wrong.
Daniel.
First I have nowhere compared feminism to Nazism, indeed I think the whole concept of FemiNazi is idiotic, if for no other reason than the one I use every time such stupid comparisons pop-up (usually something to do with Bush or something on these boards). It’s revealing of a mind-boggling lack of historic knowledge, belittling to the real victims of Nazism, dangerous since it trivialize the real Nazism, etc. (Search my board history – I’ve been there a number of times already). But for this thread (FemiNazi – remember) Nazi was in the air, so to speak.
Second,
Feminism can be many things to many people, but not all things. I’m saying that with your approach to ideologues and teams, no ideologue will ever amount to a team. And this is of course correct in some aspects, but with this focus you quite ignore the need for a common ideological platform - demanded by for instance feminism. If you run with wolves, be prepared to be mistaken for a wolf.
His answer was entirely clear to me. He thinks it’s lip service. And so do I.
Daniel, you keep wanting us to judge feminists by what they say they do, and we insist on judging feminists by what they actually do. If you judged all conservatives on what they say they do about racial issues, you’d have to conclude they have wonderful sentiments. Then you look at their actual record to see if it matches what they say.
Well, feminists have produced a good deal of nice-sounding lip service about what they stand for. Their actions don’t measure up very well with their words. They say they oppose job discrimination, but they support affirmative action, for example.
As for Steinem, she also once said something along the lines of “equality has to hurt men.” I can’t find the exact quote, so if anyone has it, I’d appreciate you posting it here.
Note to the nitpickers: She did not say that it has to hurt the privileged men, or the men who are actually guilty of something. She just flatly said it has to hurt men, which apparently includes men in poverty and men who’ve had a lot fewer privileges and advantages than her.
Translation: You didn’t have an answer for his statements.
He wasn’t Godwinizing. He used Nazism as an example of a movement with certain shared beliefs. Even if he had Godwinized, have you read the title of the thread?
As for that quote, I think it’s nothing more than lip service. It’s a nice sounding quote that out of context makes everything seem peachy. Of course I could take one carefully plotted quote out of context for damn near anyone from Andrea Dworkin to Genghis Khan and be able to paint them as someone who really cares about the rights of all human beings. A couple of sentences cannot make up for a lifetime of discrimination.
As for embarassment, margin reminds me of the principle that no matter what side of a debate you’re on, there are always people on your side that you wish were on the other side. I certainly don’t find that margin has contributed anything of value to this thread, and definitely isn’t someone I would want out there walking around as a living example of my political philosophy.
Catsix, you and Andy and a few others have proven conclusively that the word ‘feminazi’ has nothing to say about feminists and everything to say about the paranoid people who use it. Bravo.
Snort. A cite would provide a source for his bulleted remarks that feminism desires the elimination of men. Watching you and Andy debate is like watching somebody try to prove they swam the English Channel by gesturing at the water. “Look! There’s the English Channel! I swam it!”
All gesture, no proof.
And this?
Gee, did I? Because I’m still asking for the fucking cite.
Once again, Shodan proves that ** feminazi** is more about the people who use the word that the people it supposedly applies to.**
If I were a feminist, margin, you are pretty near the bottom of the list of people I’d want running around wearing that label and serving as an example of what a feminist is.
You lack the ability to have a logical discussion, you are unable to support your claims with evidence, and when things don’t go your way you throw out ad hominem attacks and insist you’ve won the argument because you flatly refuse to believe the information put in front of you. However, like most other feminists I have debated with, you continue to bury your head in the sand calling people misogynists and further convincing yourself that those who disagree with you or your political movement must necessarily hate all women. You have proven nothing other than that you are yourself a sexist.
Actually, it’s like them handing you a videotape and telling you it’s actual footage of them swimming the English Channel and you refusing to watch it, then saying that proves you right.
Which is as close as we are going to get to a direct admission that you are a bridge-dweller.
If you are still asking for fucking cites, it is because the fucking cites have already been fucking provided for you, and you are being too fucking stupid or too fucking dishonest to fucking admit that your whole fucking argument consists of sticking your fucking fingers in your fucking ears and fucking ignoring the fucking evidence that has been fucking written down in front of you.
Neither of them have provide cites OR “proof” that feminists want to eliminate men.
Or that “feminists have a tradition of desiring a non-male society”.
Period. No long huge posts.
This is simple matter of two people making a blanket statement about a group. It’s exactly the same as saying “black people have a tradition of wanting to rule whitey” and so on.
Some, no matter HOW many fiction novels you cite, still does NOT equal “feminists”. Anymore than the “reparationists” = black people.
My gripe isn’t about “defending feminism”. It’s in that if one makes a blanket statement about a group, ANY group, you’re wrong. Period.
In fact, it’s kindof funny, you hate what you consider “feminists” because of their supposed generalizations about “men”. Yet here you are, after 7 pages, still insisting upon judging an entire group by the actions of some of that group.
So making the blanket statement that the group called the KKK is racist and considers black people to be lesser than white people is also wrong?
Making a blanket statement about a group defined soley by a physical characteristic is wrong. Making a blanket statement about a group people freely join because of a political or philosophical agenda isn’t the same.
I had expected that people here would be able to tell the difference between a group people voluntarily join because of a common viewpont and one they are automatically in because of a genetic fact they cannot change.
