You’re forgetting the Holy Spirit.
loinburger, glad I could illustrate the point, I guess.
This defence of feminism as needing to be defined is “bogus”. A movement is defined by the words and actions of its adherents, especially the vocal, powerful and popular ones. NOW claims to have hundreds of thousands of members, how can anyone claim they don’t represent their members? The most extreme feminists are the heart of feminism. There are no moderate feminists. Tales don’t wag dogs.
The “Moderate” Feminists
I don’t know about a feminist cabal but feminists undoubtedly have huge power in education. There is a women’s studies department at most American universities pumping out converts and propaganda, pseudoscience and misinformation at a frightening rate (prompting articles like this), they have powerful lobby groups such as the AAUW, what else would you take as proof? Do you want evidence that powerful feminist groups exist, evidence of their activities, or what?
TwistOfFate, we should assume women aren’t an oppressed minority,as some say, because there is no evidence that they are. Men, not women, are systematically disadvantaged in the family courts, the criminal courts, health care, education and countless other areas.
We don’t need a gender neutral pronoun, “he” has served that purpose for centuries there is no reason it can’t do so for longer. It doesn’t denote an assumption of masculinity.
I doubt the explanation for polycarp’s story, I simply don’t believe a significant number of people in this day and age are confused by it. I was confused only by the purpose of the story, I didn’t understand why it was quoted. Even if you’re right I fail to see the significance.
As for the website stpauler quoted putting “and men” in brackets, it is because they included men only as an afterthought. In feminism men are an afterthought at best, hence the name.
Coming right up with a couple.
- Let’s start with an internal contradiction. It’s fundamental to feminists that men and women are equal. Yet, gender feminism holds that men and women are quite different.
Note that if men are naturally more aggressive than women, then it follows that men ought to make better military officers, better peace officers, and perhaps better political and business leaders. But, those ideas are anathema to feminists.
- There are various versions of a joke whose punch line is a scientific study called, The Elephant and the Jewish Question. The feminist idea that topic after topic has a feminist slant is like this joke, except that people take it seriously. There is no valid feminist explanation of the elephant, nor of most other areas of knowledge. The fact that paper-hungry women’s studies professors pretend that feminism gives them special insight demonstrates their lack of commitment to a factual basis.
Eonwe, it was a riddle when I was growing up (1950s/1960s). Goes like this:
The answer was always a revelation to 9-year-olds–“The surgeon was his mother!”
We understood the theoretical possibility that a doctor could be a woman, because after all, women could vote and everything, but none of us had ever met one, and so the possibility that the surgeon was his mom never entered our heads. Hence the riddle was a notorious elementary school brain-twister.
Hmm, well, I’m member of the USA and I can’t say the leaders necessarily represent most of my views. There are enough issues I agree with that make me stay. I’m sure there are some fringe members of NOW as well.
Talk about false conclusions. Aggression, per se, does not translate into “better” soldiers, it translates into “more reckless” soldiers. That can be a fairly dangerous trait in a soldier as the ghosts of Fetterman and Custer can attest. It is probably a hindrance to peace officers.
**
Is it? It’s fundamental to feminism that women are not inferior to men, but we’re often accused of believing that women are not men’s equals but rather their superiors. And indeed there are some feminists who really do believe this. It’s not a pleasant belief, but it does not contradict your description of gender feminism below.
No it does not follow. And you’re the one accusing feminists of being illogical?
It doesn’t even follow that gender feminists as a group believe that men are naturally more aggressive – the quote you included from Gloria Steinem says quite the opposite. “The cult of masculinity is the basis for every violent, fascist regime.” The phrase ‘the cult of masculinity’ obviously refers to a social/cultural phenomenon, not a natural/biological one.
**stpauler{/B], you aren’t a member of the USA, you are a citizen. The USA isn’t an organisation, it’s a nation, you were presumably born there and gained citizenship automatically. It doesn’t have certain inherent aims and purposes. NOW is an organisation with a purpose, which any member would have to seek out to join and then to pay for their membership as well. Anyone who offers the authority of their support and their membership money is entirely responsible for whatever NOW achieves.
Lamia, do you mean to support the all too common view that women are superiour to men? It makes sense that anyone risk-taking, agressive and even reckless would make more gains that someone docile and complacent. On the other hand I disagree that men are more agressive than women. Men commit more violent crime than women, but men are under more pressure to provide for themselves and others, while women often con men into commiting crimes for them. Women tend to be smaller, slower and weaker, so they are less capable of acting on violent impulses and men are less likely to report violent crimes to the police. Academic studies of intimate violence, where these impediments to female violence are minimised reveal females more often the agressors than males, more often violent, especially with severe acts of violence and weapons.
Feminist opinions on violence are pretty obvious reading through any of their propaganda. There is no criticism of violence by women, only against women, despite men being victims of violent crime far more often. Women holding a “take back the night” rally is no different from white people holding one, nothing but bigotry and mostly groundless paranoia. All the talk is of male violence, male control, male domination and whatever else. Their only aim is to demonise men and they are quite willing to lie to do so. Whether they believe “male violence” is socialisation or natural doesn’t matter, the facts are undeniable, this is all a myth used to make men appear more bestial and whatever else than women. It is always painted as male problem the fault of men.
Some believe it this “male violence” is natural, some socialisation. For information’s sake, Steinem blames society, you’re right about that.
Blue John,
- I live in the USA by choice, not by necessity, that in turn makes me a member (and to an extent, yes, a citizen, which is irrelevant to this discussion).
2)Are you saying that US Government and the constitution don’t have goals and purposes. i’d have to disagree.
3)Opal and I pay for membership? We locals call them taxes. I can take my taxes (and money) elsewhere.
So by all three items I’m not only condoning, but supporting membership and said organization (the US gov’t).
Sorry for this hijack.
Academic studies (do I need to say the word? sure. Cite? )
Yes, rape is the fault of women, men are forced to do it by weak women (read:sarcasm).
Blue John, do you mean to commit the all-too-common problem of responding without reading or comprehending?
december:
Theorization is not the art of summarizing data. It is “made up” in the sense of being an artistic and creative process rather than a mechanical one.
Theories that do not do a good job of explaining the world to the people who read it generally do not get much credibility attached to them.
I say “generally” because as you and I and our mutual readers here all know, academia is chock full of people who live in an insulated world populated mainly by each other, and in which reasons for granting credibility to theories are often imbued with the opportunistic politics of connection and publication and reputation and whatnot.
However, feminist theory did not originate in academia; in fact, it has had a damn difficult time slinking into academia, where it is still considered non-intellectual and without pedigree and unworthy of serious attention!
The reason feminist theory carries weight is because it did and does a damn good job of explaining everyday life to laborers, young housewives, airline flight attendants, senators, bag women , board moderators, grandmas, fishermen, astronauts, and nurses. It had its origins and its popularity among everyday people, and it only made its way into academia as some of those everyday people took it to college with them.
In other words, boy are you ever barking up the wrong tree with this one!!!
As a feminist, I agree that there is a point beyond which Feminest theory is bogus.
My personal belief is that the line is drawn somewhere well after the “women are equal proposition,” yet well before the “cut all the penises off the men” proposition.
Yeah, but you can be an undiluted radical feminist without attaching any credibility to the Men Per Se Are the Culprits camp, which is most non-intellectual and poorly articulated at best. (Mary Daly and Andrea Dworkin being perhaps the most visible exceptions).
It isn’t a linear continuum ranging from “men should be in charge and women are scum” through “equality is cool” and onwards to “women should run things and cut men’s penises off”. There’s a lot more to feminism and patriarchy than the question of who gets to call the shots! In fact if that were all there were to it, it would just be one more “Gee I wish WE were in charge instead of THEM” theory. Theories of that nature don’t make revolutions–they just facilitate rotations.
thanks a lot.
that had me completely confused, and I’m a few years past 9 (at least chronologically)
I thought it was a pretty cool illustration, but I’d probably feel the same about a small shiny object, so who am I to say?
I agree that therorization is not a mechanical process. However, calling it “artistic and creative” says little. Einstein’s theory of relativity or Darwin’s theory of evolution showed deep insights far beyond most people. OTOH Velikovsky’s theories of ancicent history showed a lack of insight and a willingness to believe beyond what the evidence justified. unfortunately, there are a lot more crackpots than Darwins and Einsteins.
I appreciate your recognition of this point.
However, it certainly flowered in academia. One reason, IMHO, was that feminists managed to establish hegemony (if I am using the word correctly). That is, they have the power to impose their POV within their classes and their journals.
It sure is, by people like me. OTOH many universities have huge departments with big budgets, so the powers that be in acaemia unfortunately do not consider feminism to be “unworthy of serious attention”
If this paragraph is correct, then my OP is totally wrong-headed. Can you provide cites and evidence that this description is true?
On first reading, I couldn’t tell whether your cite was meant to support feminism or whether it was an example of how foolish it is. On re-reading, I assume you meant the former. When I have the time, I intend to demonstrate that it’s the latter.
I went to college in the mid-seventies. Women’s studies were becoming part of many curricula at the time. In the area of history (my major) I thought it was healthy to get away from the traditional view of history as just stories about white guys shooting each other. There is a certain amount of bullshit in women’s studies, but name an academic discipline free of it.
wheewwww… <<wipes nervous sweat off brow>>
I’m probably going to be repeating people here, so sorry in advance.
So, as has already been said, equality is not the opposite of difference. And feminism’s desire for equality is not necessarily the desire for women to have the attributes of men. It is to do with equal pay, equal rights etc.
And what you’ve illustrated yourself here is the wide range of different feminism around. To speak generally, American and English feminism tend to focus on equality through and social feminism while French feminism (Helene Cixous and so on) is more about essentialism, equality through the bringing out of certain aspects of femininity that are different from masculinity but in no way inferior. What’s happened recently in English campuses (and, I imagine, in US ones as well) is that feminist academics have taken on some of the French theories and some of the Anglo-saxon ones and created new ones. What you need to know is that feminism is ever changing, depending on the country, the campus, hell, even the individual.
I would agree that the kind of feminism taught in academia can seem a little far away from the problems of real women. But it is important to note that, like Post-Colonial and Queer theory, it is just as vital for feminists to look at constructs of reality (films, novel etc) as reality itself. The medium is the message and all that. It is very important to not take things for granted.
That’s because it’s most obvious there. But I think feminism has been stronger (because more subtle) in society. The plight of women in all societies has improved significantly even in the last ten years. And I think you’re doing feminism the injustice again of lumping it all together into one indigestible mass. As I say, all feminists are different. How can they not be, when it’s such a personal, as well as such a social thing? And don’t forget that more recently other theories, such as Queer theory, which I mentioned above, have been flavour of the month.
I’m probably going to be repeating people here, so sorry in advance.
So, as has already been said, equality is not the opposite of difference. And feminism’s desire for equality is not necessarily the desire for women to have the attributes of men. It is to do with equal pay, equal rights etc.
And what you’ve illustrated yourself here is the wide range of different feminism around. To speak generally, American and English feminism tend to focus on equality through and social feminism while French feminism (Helene Cixous and so on) is more about essentialism, equality through the bringing out of certain aspects of femininity that are different from masculinity but in no way inferior. What’s happened recently in English campuses (and, I imagine, in US ones as well) is that feminist academics have taken on some of the French theories and some of the Anglo-saxon ones and created new ones. What you need to know is that feminism is ever changing, depending on the country, the campus, hell, even the individual.
I would agree that the kind of feminism taught in academia can seem a little far away from the problems of real women. But it is important to note that, like Post-Colonial and Queer theory, it is just as vital for feminists to look at constructs of reality (films, novel etc) as reality itself. The medium is the message and all that. It is very important to not take things for granted.
That’s because it’s most obvious there. But I think feminism has been stronger (because more subtle) in society. The plight of women in all societies has improved significantly even in the last ten years. And I think you’re doing feminism the injustice again of lumping it all together into one indigestible mass. As I say, all feminists are different. How can they not be, when it’s such a personal, as well as such a social thing? And don’t forget that more recently other theories, such as Queer theory, which I mentioned above, have been flavour of the month.