Well you know those loony Americans, what with their religion and their obesity and such. They’re likely to consider a pejorative comment about someone’s behavior as a pejorative comment about someone’s behavior.
I know, I know, pure American craziness.
I blame George Bush.
This one tiny quote gives a perfect view of what’s wrong with the video. Adding “traditional” doesn’t change that the movie perpetuates and confirms those stereotypes. But there’s really no evidence that aggression and greed are “male”, or even “masculine” traits. They’re just building a pedestal on which to put women. But incorrect generalizations inevitably have negative implications, either for the group that they’re stereotyping or the “other” group. Hence, people in this thread are offended, hence the hostility. It’s entirely natural.
Of course, even before we get there, the very concept that women and men are groups is an unacceptable view. Women have been fighting other women and men other men for longer than history; they’re categories, not groups. The idea of communal guilt here is completely offensive, too.
That’s just what a carbon based creature would say.
I don’t.
As for the issue of understanding English, I believe my previous posts speak to that.
I did, of course. And I realized when I wrote that that they had made an issue of male brutality. But I was responding to the specific equation: women are more nurturing = men are violent brutes. It’s a completely faulty equation.
Because it’s the only way to be acceptable for marriage to men. Who demand it in order to find females worth marrying. Making it a horrifying practice driven by males.
No, as I said earlier. I find their view of female sexuality disappointing, but it’s to be expected. Since there is a much exploitation of women happening in sex work, it’s valid as far as it goes, it just doesn’t go far enough. But nothing worth quibbling over in this context.
Because it’s the only way to be acceptable for marriage to men. Who demand it in order to find females worth marrying. Making it a horrifying practice driven by males.
Because it’s the only way to be acceptable for marriage to men. Who demand it in order to find females worth marrying. Making it a horrifying practice driven by males.
Not really: Because it’s the only way to be acceptable for marriage to men. Who demand it in order to find females worth marrying. Making it a horrifying practice driven by males.
I know you think it’s clever to repeat yourself three times, but rather than strengthening the point, it weakens it. Just a word to the wise.
As for what you say, of course you’re right, that men demand the practice. But they only demand it because women keep promoting and promulgating it. Certainly within these societies you don’t find women saying, even among themselves, “Honey, I wish I didn’t need to do this to you, but if I don’t, you won’t get a husband.” Instead, you find women celebrating the practice in rituals and women-only ceremonies.
The women who perpetuate the practice have agency, exactly the same amount of agency as the men who demand the practice. The women could stop it at least as easily as the men could (probably more so: a man who disagrees with it has less influence over it than a woman who does).
But saying this doesn’t perpetuate the tired women-as-victims narrative that forms the backbone of simplistic dichotomous feminism; instead, it leads to more complicated gender studies. And that’ll be true no matter how many times you copy and paste a denial.
It’s a completely sexist equation, is what it is.
It’s also the equation that the whole manifesto/video is built around. Men who don’t join their trip are on a hate/rage/fear/whatever trip, and women are naturally intuitive, wonderful beings.
The interesting thing is not really that they explicitly say all of that, and not even that you still don’t see it, but that you’re reacted as you have to everybody who’s tried to point it out to you.
If you agree with me I will give you a cookie. Chocolate. Not chocolate chip. Chocolate with icing.
For me, feminism is about how you are treated and how you treat others both at an individual and as a society. It is not about promoting certain alleged inherent sex based talents such as intuition or energy or earth bonds. That is a gross and offensive misuse of feminism.
Nothing women do is ever their fault!!! Dammit, she explained that on like the second page! It goes like this:
Male Oppression
???
VICTIM!
I trust you are enlightened and your consciousness is raised now.
see above.
You know what? The fact that you can even imagine for a moment that this is remotely true makes clear what a hopelessly frustrating and ultimately unproductive pursuit it would be to argue the point. In the end, neither of us has any power over it.
Peace.
I don’t think the equation is completely faulty when you place the statements they made in the context of the manifesto as a whole. From reading the manifesto I can’t help but come to the conclusion that women are nurturing and men are more violent, analytical, and uncaring.
Be that as it may, women are part of that system. It’s a little more complicated than us versus them.
This is untrue though. I have read true, personal accounts of women who have begun stopping the practice by refusing to allow their daughters to undergo FGM. That actually, really happens. Women use their agency to stop FGM. Despite the fact that you, as a western woman, believe they have no agency and can only be victims of male oppression, they have a different view. In a nutshell, this is the problem with your version of “feminism”.
Consider the practice of male genital mutilation - it’s a strongly supported practice in western society. As a westerner you know that “women” aren’t thinking: “Lop off his winky, that’ll show him for being a dirty male”. It is a defect in western culture that is supported by both men and women, and needs to be challenged by both. Both men and women are culpable in our society for male genital mutilation. Why would you think that the situation would be different in another culture?
Precisely. And somewhere in a textbook around here, I have an open letter written to Westerners by a group of African feminists regarding the subject of FGM. “Fuck off,” it politely says, “We got this, and you’re not helping.”
Stoid imagines some mechanism by which individual men may contribute effectively to ending this practice. Unless she’s imagining a man who threatens to beat his wife if she mutilates his daughter, I’m not sure what she’s imagining.
Or maybe he’s supposed to demand to inspect the genitals of any bride-to-be before the wedding, and call it off if she was victimized by her mother as a child?
Seriously, what mechanism do you imagine, Stoid, by which an individual man may stop this practice?
It’s quite telling that your response to having your ideas so drastically challenged is to shut down the discussion entirely: my ideas are so profoundly different from yours (and therefore wrong, of course), that there’s no possible way you can even consider them.
That was kind of silly. Sorry women, this man will love and respect you, but if you want to be worshipped then found a church.
And another thing! 
If women are only victims and have no agency, how did Western women ever make the gains they did? How did they ever throw off the shackles of oppression? I am not saying men didn’t support the feminist movement, or suffragettes; they did, but by and large women did that work. And it was hard, *hard * fucking work, and many suffered for it. But they did it, and thank god (dess?). Just as blacks fought for civil rights and gays fought for their equal rights. Those are battles that were fought and won (as much as they are won…) by the people who were being help back by the system.
A letter’s no good. They have to post a video on youtube, with all of the signers reading a segment, and some nice music behind it. That’s how things are resolved here in the teens.
Or to put it more fully, as industrialization progressed, we moved to the point that resources previous spent on subsistence or routine chores could now be spent on knowledge and communication, and out of that emerged (and continues to develop) greater social and economic equality for women. In other words, it’s mighty hard to work toward equality if you are struggling to just get by, but if your civilization is materially advanced enough, you start having opportunities to use the resources to advance socially.
Hi. You have exactly zero knowledge of what I believe will end this practice. None. Because I haven’t offered my opinion.
Very true, which is why the above statement was inappropriate.
I had and have no interest in debating FGM with you or anyone else. I have no interest in debating anything having to do with the substance of the manifesto and never did; I shared it in MPSIMS. If I wanted to debate, I would have put it in GD myself, I didn’t. I kinda resent the fact that it was summarily moved, but whatever.
The only issue that I was significantly motivated to spend time addressing was the distortion and misrepresentation employed to heighten and facilitate the derision and mockery of it. Engaging in a debate about the issues it raises, no. Not this week.
You’re quite forgetful:
Now, it’s true that you didn’t suggest why what I said isn’t “remotely true,” but it’s pretty clear that you objected to my claim that “women could stop [fgm] at least as easily as the men could.” And if you think that’s not remotely true, it’s logically equivalent to thinking that men could stop it more easily than women could: there’s no daylight whatsoever between the two beliefs.
So, yeah, you haven’t offered your opinion on specifics–but you’ve made your opinion on the generality clear. I think I know why you haven’t and won’t offer specifics, and I also think you’ll offer high-handed flouncy rationalizations for it that have nothing to do with the fact that you got nothing.