No, it just means you’re a jerk regarding men.
I don’t know, Sarkeesian and Quinn seem pretty powerful (if you call manipulating games journalists and bilking thousands of dollars out of idiots powerful).
Which neatly precludes Quinn and Sarkeesian. Great!
According to you, 4chan and gamergate are now separate entities. Whoops 
Oh christ just go away.
Which death threat were you referring to, not this one I presume?
https://twitter.com/GGfeminist/status/514238397653590016/photo/1
To BPC and maybe Donna Lange. To a certain degree I understand where the negative reaction to “feminism” and the term “feminist” comes from. At one point I was there, I was tired of the loud idiots, the in-fighting, the bickering, the constant “you’re a misogynist because you don’t agree with <my very specific viewpoint>”.
It literally took two strips of a webcomic to convince me otherwise
http://kateordiecomics.com/archive/feminism-pt-1/
http://kateordiecomics.com/archive/feminism-pt-2/
Please consider the difference between feminism and “the loud assholes on Twitter who happen to identify as feminists.” Someone can both be a feminist and a crazy raging asshole with kooky ideas. It’s okay to disagree with them. Hell, most of us hate TERFs, even if they through all their craziness claim feminist as a label.
Though I do have to disagree to some degree with Alessan that “feminist” is simply the opposite of “misogynist.” I have seen this sentiment used far, far to many times for evil. I wish I could scrub the words “you’re not really a feminist because…” from the internet, because people will rage and call you a closet misogynist (or even gender traitor if you’re a woman) if you fail to be sex-positive, or you fail to be sex-negative, or you disagree that this very specific scenario is/is not slut shaming. I think defining “feminist” as “not misogynistic” is too easily wielded as a weapon to say “someone I agree with and if you disagree with me on any gender-related topic you’re evil.”
Maybe it’s because I’m confident in my beliefs and don’t let the radicals define the labels. If someone wants to challenge me in a rational, respectful manner I’ll certainly listen and as often as not, adjust my views; if some asshole starts shouting at me, though, I just ignore him or her.
I understand and agree with what the webcomic is saying. But as you seem to agree, my objection to the definition as overly broad and completely ignoring the very significant baggage high-profile extremists like Dworkin brought to the word still stands. Sort of how Christianity, no matter how well-meaning, still has to deal with the baggage the doctrine of hell carries with it.
Or, to put it another way, “Treat women as equals and not as objects” is a goal which has been striven for in many ways, including some very high-profile and prolific ways that are exceedingly bizarre to most people. Again, Dworkin. The baggage that woman alone brought to both the concept and to the movement of feminism is hard to get your head around at times, and it wouldn’t mean as much if so much of modern feminism wasn’t so heavily influenced by it (see also: Anita Sarkeesian’s entire premise). The very idea that it’s somehow demeaning in and of itself to have sex with a man, even consentingly with no ulterior motives beyond “I love this person” and “I like having sex” is something that has been pushed by feminists. The idea of the “patriarchy” is a concept indivisibly tied to feminism that most people either don’t understand, reject wholesale, or reject wholesale because they don’t understand it (place me in the former category, FWIW). The idea that sex work and pornography are inherently objectifying and demeaning, regardless of what the woman doing the work thinks, is something very highly associated with feminism; a piece of baggage not easily ignored, and which many people would consider deeply opposed to the concept of women as equals, rather than objects.
To claim that feminism is simply “treating women as equals and not objects” is to completely ignore the huge amount of baggage attached to the term and to attempt to revise away the history of the movement. Feminism simply is not just that. It’s a lot more than that. It may have started as that, that may be its key goals, but the way feminists in the past have gone about achieving that goal make it a folly to claim that that’s all there is to it. It’s like having a movement that favors the maximal happiness for all mankind - sure, it would be nice for Happyists to describe their goals solely in terms of this, but if their method of going about doing it was in the past by demanding severe government control over all human behavior, mandatory soma consumption, and eugenics to weed out the “unhappy” among us, then it’d be hard to claim afterwards that “happyism is simply favoring maximal happiness for all mankind”. Obviously, Dworkin’s proposals aren’t quite that insane or radical, but they still contribute to the baggage of the word “feminist”.
Well, yeah. You are supporting TFYC, which is explicitly a feminist organization. They even call themselves “radical feminists” (even though they are trying to redefine the term). I definitely view you as a feminist, and it’s not just because you apparently are not a misogynist.
That is indeed a false dichotomy. A feminist actively pursues equality for women. And that seems to be your goal with your contributions to TFYC. A feminist is not just someone who isn’t misogynist, but someone who is willing to fight against misogyny. (And fighting doesn’t take much.
I get not wanting to self identify as one. I don’t very often, either. I only use it when it won’t cause more trouble than it prevents. I mostly use the term to defend the concept against those who have the asshole version in mind.
But when people feel disgusted by feminism, it usually boils down to one of two things: They think feminism means only the assholes, or they have misogynist ideas that feminism threatens.
And while I said I was done talking about Gamergate itself, I’ll go ahead and respond about VJ’s personality a bit, and why I say it makes her an asshole. The biggest part is that she’s perpetually fed up. That means she’s angry all the time. I don’t know a single person like that who isn’t an asshole. It feels more like a straw feminist character than any description of /v/.
It does describe a lot of the people of Gamergate, but that’s part of why I think they are assholes. They are the people that are looking for reasons to be offended. That’s why they have so much hate.
And, yes, you can have a female character who is an asshole without it being anti-feminist. But the problem is that she is supposed to be representing female gamers everywhere. That’s why I say she needs to a be a positive image. Or at least a neutral one.
I do hope she’ll grow beyond that description into something worthwhile. She does have the potential, as people clearly want her to be a positive force. But I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at her without remembering the horribleness of Gamergate.
(Edit: To BPC)
Er… have you heard of sex positive feminists? There are even pro-sex-worker feminists.
There are even pro-sex-worker feminists with views on the matter that are astoundingly stupid to degrees almost as awful as any religious doctrine saying women should be burned for having extramarital sex.
Feminism is broad, dude. I agree there’s a certain public perception of “feminism” largely because of the louder parts of the Twitter and Tumblr demographics, and clever news stories about people being bullied because they’re “cishet scum” or whatever. But if you actually bother to look you’ll find that there are tons of feminists that heavily disagree with Dworkin, Valerie Solanas, or, yes, Anita Sarkeesian (one of these things is not like the other, btw).
This doesn’t mean “feminism” is too broad a label either, all of these people follow the principles of some real academic school of feminism with actual published literature, first-third wave. There are feminists who agree that patriarchy and rape culture exists but will give you very different definitions of each. Hell, RAINN is what I’d call relatively “feminist” and they don’t even like the term “rape culture”.
Like, even LHOD has mentioned he doesn’t agree with a lot of Sarkeesian’s points. Regardless of what baggage you think feminism has, maybe you should look at what the people right in front of you who actually self-describe as feminists believe and say.
EDIT: this was written and posted before I saw either of the previous two posts. Right now I’m late for class, but I’ll get back to them when I get home later today.
Just to nail this home, does feminism oppose or support this banner? It’s pulled straight out of “sex-negative” feminism - after all, the patriarchy* is what makes girls want to dress like this (noteworthy: modify the wording slightly and it sounds like misogynist slut-shaming), in order for them to objectify themselves to a male audience which wants them to be sex objects. But modern, sex-positive feminists are likely to oppose it on the grounds that women can wear what they want, and that many find such clothes empowering rather than objectifying. Indeed, many women at that school apparently objected to the banner. This is the problem here. Feminism has the ostensible goal of women being equal and not objects, but within the movement itself you have two radically different movements trying to achieve it in radically different ways. This baggage is not something you can just throw out the window.
This is why I say that VJ is a feminist-friendly character, but is not a feminist herself. She’s everything feminists would want in a character… But she doesn’t ascribe to any particular part of the movement, beyond in the broadest, most inclusive terms - terms which, if you offered them as such to even blindboyard, he’d probably classify himself as a feminist.
*If I’m misapplying the concept please tell me. I’m not 100% clear on what it actually means.
The same would then apply to the baggage 4chan and Gamergate brought to Vivian James.
On the other hand, I would actually argue that there’s a difference. Hell is a doctrine taught by many people, and is still held to this day by most Christians. That’s why it’s still attached. What Dworkin and other extremists brought isn’t really a part of the mainstream feminist movement. It shouldn’t still be attached. I think the people who are anti-equality fought to keep it attached to discredit the movement. In that regard, its more akin to attaching miscegenation to Christianity.
And, yes, this ironically means that VJ may be able to drop her baggage, too.
Some feminists do, some feminists don’t. Both sides have valid points, so long as the basis of their arguments is respect for women.
Well that’s a distinction I feel a lot more comfortable with. I’m still not quite comfortable with the label, for the same reasons previously stated, but it’s a lot less useless of a term if you limit it to those fighting for equality for women.
Makes sense. It’s a little like atheist - not exactly a high-information-content label for oneself. But at the same time, there’s that baggage…
From my experience, 99.9% of the time it’s the former. They hear “feminism” and think “sex is evil, men are pigs” and then think “yeah, how 'bout no”.
Again: welcome to /v/. This is 4chan we’re talking about. Do you know that board? There’s a heavy atmosphere of at least implied self-loathing. That people either hate themselves, or are in on the joke and pretend to. It’s really not a dig at feminists.
Yeah. That’s part of the difficulty when talking about the movement - it’s got a lot of different people trying for a similar goal in almost directly contradictory directions. Indeed, I’d argue that many sex-negative feminists are doing it in a way which is both demeaning to women and discriminatory against men. Is it any wonder that Sarkeesian, who utilizes that style of feminism extensively, is such a reviled figure?
Yes, there are. They don’t get much press for some reason or other.
Fair enough. This makes sense. I still feel that the broad definition is almost broad to the point of worthlessness, but at least it makes more sense now.
Really? Because, just as an example, Anita Sarkeesian’s entire schtick is based heavily in the anti-sex narrative of first-wave feminism. You still see plenty of it; not quite as extreme, but still quite damaging to both sexes. It’s still there.
When you call yourself a whiteist I will believe you.
Why is there a Black History Month but no White History Month? Because every month is White History Month.
Over the last week I have watched about a dozen of Sarkeesian’s videos. There is absolutely nothing “anti-sex” in them.
Her main point ur the relative paucity in popular media of empowered women protagonists and the societal harm to women as a whole when they are largely relegated to roles as victims or objectification. Everything’s he says is prettying true and there’s nothing anti-sex or anti-male about any if it.
Firstly, 4chan is well known to censor all pro-Gamergate activity. We’ve already talked about that. All the gamergaters have gone to 8chan, aka fullchan (as opposed to halfchan/4chan). And 8chan have revealed that “threat” to have been posted by a band of professional trolls from a PR company, not by someone on either side.
I don’t think that ever happened. She gave a speech in which she basically complained about the perception of feminism. Reaction on the MensRights reddit was mixed between those who noticed that she took some mens’ issues seriously and those who noticed she basically presented feminism’s problems as a public relations issue rather than something demanding substantive change. No-one was wanting to see her naked, or ondemning her personally.
Also, she once said there’s an easy way not to have your nudes leaked, don’t take nudes. Sounds like victim-blaming to me, but whatevs. Call yourself a feminist and you can blames as many victims of you like, just like if you call yourself an SJW you can say black people are homophobic, or fantasise about violently attacking “hood” and “ghetto” men, or post nudes of your opponents, or doxx your opponents, and it’s all fine.
I’m horrible enough to look at leaked nudes, but not to defend their moral rectitudinousness. I certainly don’t support leaking nudes for vengeance purposes. I don’t even masturbate to them, I just happened ot be curious. I’d probably have looked if they were male too, I think it’s natural to be curious about naked celebrities. I was just surprised by how many of these naked celebrities I’d never heard of.
Believing in social, legal, and political equality of the sexes is “massively sexist towards men”? How exactly?
What about them? They don’t like people who support women’s equality? Or they’ve bought into a false portrayals of feminism created by people who don’t want women’s equality?
There’s really no valid reason for anyone—men or women—to hold a blanket opinion like that about feminists.
Wow, what an ironic thing to say. You’re jumping on stupid things said by a few radicals and false portrayals of feminism in the media and defining the whole movement by it.
Sure, because you’ve internalized anti-feminist propaganda, like that perpetrated by Limbaugh or—even more insidious—false portrayals of feminism embedded on popular culture, which is exactly one of the things that Sarkeesian points out.
There’s nothin in their work that’s anti-men or anti-sex. Accepting for the matter of argument that they have “bilked” anyone out of anything, a few thousand dollars is hardly social power. And as for manipulating journalists—what are you talking about?
Are atheists defined by Stalin? Are Catholics defined by Robert Hanssen? Are Jews defined by Jack Abramoff? Does Jimmy Carter renounce the term “born again Christian”?
Feminism is a broad, general concept based on the equality of women. Within that field, just like in any broadly defined field, you can have all kinds of radicals that one might disagree with.
See, this is where Sarkeesian is exactly right. Those who oppose gender equality have used propaganda—both direct propaganda and false portrayals in the media—to make some portion of people think that feminism is define by radicals like Dworkin.