Hard sciences are not the only areas that are grounded and stable. E.g., business-related courses, any of the practical arts, geography, and traditional history are grounded in the real world. They can be verified by facts and by what works. More to the point of this debate, art, music, and literature can also be grounded in their own way.
Take Shakespeare or Beethoven as examples. Their art is grounded in the human soul. It cannot be objectively validated like a science, but it has proved its worth in a way that modern literary criticism has not. Centuries of appreciation by people in many different cultures have verified the value of their genius to human beings. Would you doubt that Shakespeare and Beethoven will still be popular after today’s fashionable feminsm fads are forgotten.
I do agree that feminism isn’t the only university field with a lack of grounding. Nor is feminism the only bogus thing taught in colleges IMHO. Some colleges teach a particular religion. One can make a complex academic-type course out of the principles of a complex religion like Judaism or Christianity, but that doesn’t make them the true word of God. Post-modernism and deconstructionism are mostly bogus IMHO. Some colleges teach marxism, which is more than unvalidated. It has been proved to not work.
I would rather not debate all of these other areas in this thread. No doubt some of the unverified areas will be proved to have value or will mature into valuable areas. My point is that the existence of other ungrounded fields of study doesn’t justify feminism. Many of the others may also be fads.
Shakespeare and Beethoven are objects of study, not disciplines. Music and music theory and English literature and linguistics are disciplines, just as feminism or feminist studies is a discipline (more accurately a field, but the point stands).
It is as if you are saying Shakespeare (one of the objects of study of English lit) is grounded in reality while women (one of the objects of study in feminist studies) are not? Surely that’s not what you meant. pokes self I feel real enough to me.
If being a feminist means poking women, then I declare myself a feminist.
Seriously, when I read Shakespeare’s works, I am studying something of established, substantial value. When I read current feminism, I am studying a current fad, something of little intrinsic value. At least, that’s what I am saying. YMMV.
What I suspect will happen is that in the future, we will look back and realize that of the scholarship and writing done by feminists and produced by feminist scholars was bogus. Not unlike how we look back on previous literary endeavors and criticism and try to figure out why the hell we gave Pearl S. Buck the nobel prize in literature. But I also believe that there will be some real gems from feminism, things that prove worthwhile and revealing and relevant for generations to come, just as Shakespeare and other great literature is so regarded to today. JMHO
He would have gone to college in the 40’s, at Harvard IIRC. He doesn’t have an identifiably ethnic name, though, so how could anyone discriminate against him in admissions, anyway? Or treat him differently, unless he made a big deal of his religion? If he’s not identifiable as a minority group member, how can he be discriminated against as such?
It’s a bit harder to hide one’s gender than one’s religion in most cases.
And this is why some feminists will never be taken seriously. Like it or no- “he” is also the gender neutral pronoun, especially in the Law. In some cases, they actually have a code section which states this, in others, Common Law has made that clear (not to mention the US Constitution). However, some “feminists” still think that in order to be equal, we have to either say “him or her”, used some stupid made up word, or simply use “he” & “she” interchangably.
None of these gain 'equality" for women, nor advance the cause.
They trivialize it, and make a serious problem silly.
Equality has pretty much been reached. Taking into account such things as seniority, education, and the like- women in the same jobs earn within “sig figs” of what men do. That is to say- “equal pay for equal work” is now mostly a reality. Of course some “feminists” ignore that part about “such things as seniority…” and then can present info that show that women get paid less- for the same job.
Of course, the men still get stuck with the dirty, nasty dangerous jobs (one reason why we have shorter lifespans). And women more often get stuck into low paying dead end careers. But some of that is CHOICE. And- “life ain’t fair”.
The only way to really compare pay is to compare two workers, in the same job, with the same seniority & qualifications. When this is done, there is no significant difference in pay. The “glass ceiling” is, overall, a thing of the past. Oh sure- there are less female top executives. But- how many women have the 2>3 decades of experience that such jobs usually call for? How many women make the CHOICE to go 'career track" rather than “mommy track”? (and note that some Dads also go “mommy track” too.)
In the 1940s, asking a person’s religion was standard on many admissions forms and employment forms. As to discovering his Catholicism, socially, that would have been simple in the 40s. If he declined to eat meat on Fridays, if he declined any food or drink after midnight at a Saturday party, if he did not show up at the Protestant chapel (or declined invitations to join in services, there), he would be immediately identified as Catholic. (There are a number of places that used to throw parties on Friday night, serving only pork-based snacks. This immediately excluded participation by Catholics and Jews. I will note that I have never heard that this went on at Harvard.)
There were several other anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish Shibboleths that were used prior to the 1960s, as well. Accuse them of breaking a Commandment identified by number and see whether they asked why you were accusing them of breaking the “wrong” Commandment. (This was not perfect, since some Lutherans share the same numbering system as the Catholics.) Have the group say the Lord’s Prayer and see whether he stumbles at the end, trying to finish up without saying “For Thine is the Power. . . .” While not common, as such, public/Protestant religion was sufficiently entrenched in a lot of social actions, that “catching” a Catholic would have been no big deal. And, of course, it was not hard to bait them with all the old stories about the tunnels leading between the rectories and the convents with the babies buried under the convent cellars and similar tales.
Catholics (as a group) got free of persecution earlier than most ethnic and other religious groups, but harrassment continued in the U.S. for many years beyond when Catholics began entering public life.
It’s inherent in the size of the brick. The brick is just a tad bit too large for most women’s hands. You have to hold that sucker up with just your fingertips, while you lay it. Eight hours of that and will cause serious muscle fatigue. Your hand starts to shake; you can’t hold the thing still as you place it. You also tend to drop more bricks. In the intensely time critical process of laying bricks, you are never going to be able to compete, if you have very small hands. Small handed men can’t do it either. But there are not all that many of them.
So, what do you do about it? Pass a law making the masonry industry use smaller bricks? That could be a problem for a few hundred thousand master masons. You get used to the size. It affects the minor motions that are the difference between a master mason, and an apprentice. It’s going to take longer to build a wall, too, for all of them. It’s pretty much not going to happen. It might be sexist, but it isn’t intentionally done to exclude women. That wasn’t necessary, even if it had been desired. There never have been all that many women bricklayers. It’s not a problem, for very many people.
Masons, as a group are not a heavily feminist constituency. Is it possible that they did this on purpose? Or, at least tacitly allowed it to happen? Is the size of the brick a consequence of the male dominance of the trade, or is the male dominance a consequence of the choice of the size? Is it philosophy? Is it important?
I have a lot of difficulty with feminism. I don’t understand it. I am not at all sure why it isn’t the most obvious sort of sexism. When I first heard about it, it was a bunch of women, some of whom I knew, telling me that men should not tell women what they should say, do, or feel. The point was that women should decide what was feminine, and appropriate for a woman to feel. Sounded fine to me.
But it didn’t stay there. In a fairly short time, it seemed to me that I was hearing a whole lot about how men should think, feel, and talk. Proscriptive, and prescriptive emotional models of male behavior. “Get in touch with your feelings.” “Learn to identify your own feminine side.”
I think I missed the turn, back there at the “should decide what was appropriate for a . . .” part.
Now, I can’t think of a reason why gender should be a part of a whole lot of decisions, and I suppose that it would generally be a good thing to encourage people not to use it as a final criterion for judgments. But there’s that damned brick. I won’t refuse to hire a woman bricklayer. But I am skeptical. And if she can’t do what the male bricklayer does, then I can’t see why she should get the same pay.
But the philosophy part always leaves me with the same question. Why doesn’t word masculinism mean anything? I don’t think I want to be one of those either, but it seems to me not to be a random hole in the vocabulary.
Also, Harvard in the 1940s was almost exclusively WASP, wasn’t it?
Trust me, prior to the Kennedy administration, Catholics were seen as superstitious, Papist conspirators, etc.
My grandfather told us about when he was a kid, someone in their neighborhood thought that all the Catholic churches had guards stationed at the door that would shoot anyone who wasn’t Catholic. Or something like that.
Just as something which I found humorous, while looking for something on the UN site. UN committee on Disarmament and Gender… I have nothing against equality under the law, of course, and I’m female. But this is a bit ridiculous, and it shows the oddities of feminism, and how they’ve enwrapped themselves in the world. Personally, I find this silly.
** Triskadecamus **- law about equality is not based on what MOST people can’t do, but is there to protect those who CAN do what most can not, so that they aren’t judged based on their race instead of their abilities.
Ooooh, there are things going on in the social sciences that make me want to bleed from the eyes. I mean. Dear God.
If I want a good laugh, I always peep in to any session with “feminist” or “woman” in the title.
Nonetheless, it seems like the best way to support mainstream feminism is to be a hardcore mainstream feminist, so I soldier on. (Notice how I use a traditionally masculine metaphor to describe my efforts to achieve gender neutrality? Whee.)
we might point to Aristotle, who was no feminist (women were for him not far from slaves, and slaves were, for him, quasi-inhuman beings), but who would fully agree with the response to your baseless post:
When Aristotle imagines the brave man, he imagines a person who is even-tempered and balanced, not aggressive (or rash, as he terms it). Likewise, someone who fears nothing, like someone wild on PCP, is not an example of true bravery, either. Not that Aristotle is always right (far from it!), but I thought you might like to see that an anti-feminist like Aristotle would also agree that being aggressive is not bravery, and not the sort of person you want fighting by your side on the field. And aggressive person is one who jumps out onto the field before it is proper, possibly ruining the ambush or placing his comrades in danger by revealing their position.
Therefore, if you are right – that men are inescapably aggressive – then they should not be placed on the battlefield to the exclusion of women, nor should they be police officers to the exclusion of women, etc., etc., since, on your own theory, women are not aggressive, and therefore would serve to temper the aggressive men who would ruin the situation.
I do think that men often are aggressive, but this is because they have been badly raised. As anyone who has seen schoolyard bullies know, boys who are badly raised coerce each other into doing stupid and evil acts. This, however, is not a sign of their essential nature, but a sign of bad upbringing which should rather be corrected. Perhaps the ideas of some feminists, who challenge the idea that the way males are taught to behave is always good (which seems to be your belief, though you – it seems – attribute this to their nature?), could be of some assistance in correcting this upringing based on mistaken ideas (e.g., that aggression is always the best approach, as you seem to believe).
I don’t know about you, but I for one would not want to have my brain operated on by a surgeon who I knew was aggressive – I’d rather have one who was even-tempered and who does his or her job methodically. Likewise, in the world of business, I have always found aggressive bosses to be insufferable assholes who were always keen to prove their importance when it was completely unnecessary and inappropriate. A lot of wasted energy on the one hand, and they made everyone who worked for them miserable too. Not model managers. Again, if you are right in your contention that this is the way men naturally are, then we ought to keep them out of important positions so that their needless posturing and counterproductive attacks don’t ruin everything. This would also hold for the presidency, where having a leader who flies off the handle and needlessly insults and attacks other nations ruins a lot of diplomacy (a president should try having evil dictators tried and sentenced for crimes against humanity in an international court, assisted by nations across the world, in a rational an sensible way [indeed, this could have been done years ago instead of waiting 12 years to blow things up], instead of rushing to blow things up and frighten countries across the world which have nuclear weapons and itchy trigger fingers that we will be using atomic weapons first).
If this is true (and many would contest the idea that there is yet real equality, though I agree that things are much better) – if this is true, then this improvement (which you admit has occurred) certainly didn’t come about because of the efforts of all the anti-feminists! It was the efforts of feminists that brought about these improvements. Which would point to the fact that they are not talking about nothing and are not ineffective – to the contrary! The glass ceiling of the past was precisely the focus of feminist thought and action. The glass ceiling was not something they made up, but a real injustice that they were fighting to made recognized and to end. Therefore, based on your own admission, it is obvious that feminists are not making everything up and are not wasting anyone’s time. And if it isn’t these feminists who really matter, well, then you have no idea where the value of feminism is to be found, namely, in improving life for everyone by strengthening equality of treatment and recognition for everyone, and strengthening the freedoms which had been unjustifiably denied to 50% of the population.
“many would contest the idea that there is yet real equality, though I agree that things are much better”–Voltaire 2b
So, whoever gets the credit for this massive social change over the last few decades aside, you’re positing that the major goal of feminism–equal pay–has at least largely been met, while freely conceding that most people believe that an even broader goal–true equality between the sexes–has also been met.
So now what? I think one of december’s unstated points was that feminism is both a social movement and a field of legitimate academic study. Once the goals of the social movement have mostly been met, which I think we can agree has largely happened, the normal result is that the social activism IN THAT CAUSE decreases. But the academic field has a real practical stake in keeping the social movement going, by any means necessary. I think this process, of performing CPR on feminism’s corpse, is what december was labelling “bogus feminist theory.”
An analogy (offered for clarity’s sake, so let’s please not quarrel about particular points where the analogy doesn’t quite match up): you don’t see many active Abolitionists around anymore, and there is no active support for Departments of Abolitionism–because slavery has been outlawed.
But the academic branch of feminism has a real careerist interest in seeing that Feminism continues to not only to live, but to prosper and expand, even if, by anyone’s standard, all discrimination against women (for being women) is made as illegal as it can (and should) be. And I take december’s point to be that it is this branch of feminism–the branch that seeks to self-perpetuate, entirely apart from the social movement–that persists in stirring up unrest betwen men and women by raising false (or certainly specious and self-serving) points which do, however, have the dubious advantage of creating jobs for those who would rather teach Feminism, a notoriously undisciplined discipline as academe goes, than enter some field with more rigorously defined standards. That’s a heavy price for society to pay, it seems to me, for ensuring that there are jobs in academe for women who don’t like working very hard in a field where their work is subject to rigorous, and occasionally hostile, review. Another analogy, to which I think the OP speaks, is that there are no Marxist Economic departments currently operating in the academic world, and rightly so, because they would by definition consist exclusively of believers in a discredited theory passing judgment on the work of other believers in that same discredited theory. Now, Marxists can claim to be responsible for many important social changs of the last century and a half, and no doubt they deserve some credit, but that doesn’t begin to justify an entire academic discipline havingn license to spout hogwash in perpetuity, either.
Lest this post seem to be unduly hostile towards feminism, I’d like to commend all the feminists in this thread who have sincerely tried to make their case without treating with scorn those who disagree. For such a heated topic not to degenerate to name-calling and ad hominem attacks is a tribute to the good people of the SDMB. Even the somewhat tedious points about the bearing of various argumentative burdens have been, largely, polite and decorous.
pseudotriton, while I certainly agree that no American abolitionists exist today (which isn’t to ignore the international anti-slavery movement), there are disciplines that consider the effect of slavery and modern-day racism (e.g. African American studies). Perhaps there is some validity to considering women’s studies in the same vein?
this whole thread seems to be confused by 2 different meanings of the word “Feminism”
there are 2 kinds of feminist believers:
1: Pain-in-the-ass feminists,( who see oppression in every 6 year old boy who pulls his sister’s hair)
2: “Good” feminists–who aren’t fantatical theorists, just practical people who want to promote fairness for everybody.
The “good” feminists don’t call themselves feminists, they just go to work in responsible positions, treat people nicely and show their competence in everthing they do. The pain-in-the-ass type become professors and declare their outrage incessantly. For example,they invented the word “womyn” (see Tom Wolff’s book “Hooking up”). And how about this example (which I swear I’m not making up)–one professor calls her seminars “ovulars”. Get it?–if the language contains any hint that non-lesbians are involved, it must be oppressive.
Moi, of course there is a place for feminists in academe–not only in the disciplines studying various kinds of history, but elsewhere as well. The more subject they are to needing to show the validity of their studies, the more we can all benefit. But as long as they are exempt from showing why their studies are valid, the more subject to bogus feminism we all remain. They need to be in departments that challenge them, like everyone else in academe, not departments that support their agenda unquestioningly.
Good feminists critics who actually have read some books, maybe even taken some classes on feminist theory who give the necessary critique to keep them honest.
Bad feminist critics who have no idea what they’re talking about and make vague generalizations based on snippets from conservative pundits and an unconcious fear of lesbians.
