On Feminism

[Jack_of_Words]

@Miller

Yes, I’m fairly certain that the story did not happen as you relayed it.

Because you start from a false premise.

@Miller

I could, of course, be wrong

And, of course, you* are* wrong.

@Miller

• I’m not saying that the situation you described is impossible.

Indeed, you’re just saying I’m a liar. Why not trot off to the Pit and tell me to **** off too?

@Miller

But given your track record in this very thread of wildly missing the meaning of pretty unambiguous statements,

Is that you responding to me asking you to back up a similar claim? You do understand that two (or more) wrongs will never make you right?

@Miller

I don’t regard your as reliable source of information about what other people have said.

Of course not - it would hardly suit you, would it?

@Miller

Right, see, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. You apparently can’t figure out the difference between thinking something didn’t happen because the person telling the story is lying, and thinking something didn’t happen because the person telling the story is mistaken.

So you’re saying I may not be a liar, I may just be an idiot? Been dinged for that myself, but I’m fairly sure you’ll get away with it

There was no confusion, by the way, but the converted are loving your preaching. Hallelujah!

@Miller

So, I’m asking myself, what’s more plausible: that you encountered a genuine, open, and unapologetic misogynist who refused to hire you because, and only because, you’re a man. That’s certainly a thing that can happen, but IME it’s not very common.

Well, it only happened to me once - so this uncommon thing you reluctantly concede can happen, happened…but you still don’t want to believe it.

@Miller

Or, you were refused employment for reasons entirely unrelated to his gender

I would advise anyone to proofread their posts - especially someone who can’t seem to make a single post without a schoolboy howler in it.

@Miller

but you misinterpreted an innocent explanation or remark as saying that they refused to hire you specifically because you’re a man. Given your record of posts here, and in the associated Pit thread, that’s clearly an extremely common occurrence.

You’re confused: it’s an extremely common allegation. You keep making it. But it’s not actually an extremely common occurrence. You just keep saying it, in case the faithful falter and start thinking for themselves.

@Miller

So, absent other evidence, I’m leaning towards the second explanation as the most likely.

Well colour me surprised…

@Miller

I didn’t say I couldn’t believe it, I said I didn’t believe it. And I don’t believe it not because of my dedication to feminist ideology, but because I’ve observed how you behave here, and found you to be an unreliable narrator.

So you keep saying. You’ve yet to provide a couple of clear examples, let alone any statistical study, but if you keep saying it, maybe someone will believe it.

@Miller

They’ve been pointed out to you in real time as you’ve made them throughout this entire thread. Just scroll up and find just about any post in here where someone has quoted something you wrote and responded to it. They’re pretty much all examples of people trying to explain a basic failure in reading comprehension to you.

Do you mean all the guff about ‘equality’ and ‘A=B’ etc? I didn’t even have to counter that myself, someone else took him to task for his ignorance.

@Miller

Seriously, you are wildly bad at debate.

Seriously, anything that you have to precede with ‘seriously’ is fundamentally lacking. Indeed, anything as wildly bad as that last line only shows how fragile your position is. Again, do you genuinely expect me to ‘suddenly realise’ that I should shut up for you? Other readers will either make their own minds up, or applaud their fellow ideologue for his zinger. ‘Ooh, you got him good! Call him a poopyhead next!’

@Miller

I’m sure that you believe that.

Can’t be bothered to look up what this refers to. Neat way of not actually saying ‘you liar’, though.

@Miller

Yeah, this is another good example of how you fail at creating pretty basic logical structures. I said I don’t believe your story because you have demonstrated inability to parse simple statements. You respond by asking if I think some other person entirely is a liar. Doris Lessing has not, to date, given me any particular reason to doubt her honesty or her acuity. Of course, I’m not terribly familiar with her in general, but I’m provisionally willing to accept her version of events, absent additional data. In your case, I have additional data about your ability to accurately understand other people’s statements, which leads to feel pretty comfortable in dismissing your anecdotes.

So, you’re prepared to accept (provisionally) Ms. Lessing’s report of misandrist teachers…but you carelessly neglected to factor that into your assessment of my own report of misandrist teachers.

What did you mean, by the way, when you said ‘Of course’ you’re not terribly familiar with her? Was there some veiled point, or was it a result of hasty, inflamed writing combined with poor proofreading, as evidenced in almost every post you make?

F. Must try harder.

[MrDibble]

@Jack_of_Words

Their defence was that they hadn’t said what they had said, but rather that they didn’t like my shoes

To be fair, jackboots were probably the wrong choice for a Kindergarten teacher interview…

[raventhief]

“Plausible deniability” only works if they don’t then say "we’re not hiring you because you are a man. " in other words, If they deny it. You say that they flat out told you they have no intention of hiring men, So why would they need plausible deniability?

[Jack_of_Words]

@raventhief

“Plausible deniability” only works if they don’t then say "we’re not hiring you because you are a man. " in other words, If they deny it. You say that they flat out told you they have no intention of hiring men, So why would they need plausible deniability?

Because they then went on to deny it. Plausibly. To the judge, who might have mattered. Saying it to me doesn’t matter at all, from their point of view. Although, as noted, the judge who accepted their story went on to say, after clearing them, “Don’t get caught again”. So they probably needn’t have bothered.

This has all been covered above. I get that some of you just see my name, hit reply and start typing ‘you’re a liar/idiot who can’t write and smells of poop’, but if you want to be taken seriously you should probably take a moment to read all the pertinent information.

[Miller]

@Jack_of_Words

Indeed, you’re just saying I’m a liar.

I am not calling you a liar. I have not, at any point, called you a liar. That you cannot understand the difference between calling someone a liar, and calling someone mistaken, which is a pretty obvious and elementary distinction, is illustrative of the sort of language problems you routinely display, which makes me doubt the accuracy of your anecdote.

So you’re saying I may not be a liar, I may just be an idiot? Been dinged for that myself, but I’m fairly sure you’ll get away with it

Similarly, one may be wrong, without being stupid.

So, you’re prepared to accept (provisionally) Ms. Lessing’s report of misandrist teachers…but you carelessly neglected to factor that into your assessment of my own report of misandrist teachers.

See, this is another example of how you really don’t understand how communication works. I doubted the accuracy of a story that you, in particular, told - and you have extrapolated this to mean that I don’t think there’s such a thing of misandrist teachers. Of course there’s such a thing as misandrists, and almost certainly, some of them are in teaching. But you consistently call things out as misandrist when its a patently ridiculous conclusion, often based of leaps of illogic like the one I’m responding to right now. So, when you tell an anecdote about this one time you met a misandrist teacher, I have to ask myself, “Is this how it actually went down? Or is this Jack once again altering how he perceives things to fit his preconceptions?”

What did you mean, by the way, when you said ‘Of course’ you’re not terribly familiar with her? Was there some veiled point, or was it a result of hasty, inflamed writing combined with poor proofreading, as evidenced in almost every post you make?

Did you get thrown for a loop by yet another common turn of phrase? Man, that seems to happen to you a lot.

[lance_strongarm]

@Robot_Arm

That’s odd. I find that debates end when one side does have proof of their assertion.

Or when it turns out that they don’t.

[Robot_Arm]

@Miller

See, this is another example of how you really don’t understand how communication works. I doubted the accuracy of a story that you, in particular, told - and you have extrapolated this to mean that I don’t think there’s such a thing of misandrist teachers. Of course there’s such a thing as misandrists, and almost certainly, some of them are in teaching. But you consistently call things out as misandrist when its a patently ridiculous conclusion, often based of leaps of illogic like the one I’m responding to right now. So, when you tell an anecdote about this one time you met a misandrist teacher, I have to ask myself, “Is this how it actually went down? Or is this Jack once again altering how he perceives things to fit his preconceptions?”

As near as I can tell, Jack offered that anecdote as an example of the kind of thing that can happen; not that it’s necessarily universal, but plausible. And Miller has said it’s plausible, just that he doesn’t believe it happened to Jack.

So I’m not quite sure what the larger debate is at this point.

[Sunny_Daze]

I can safely say that the larger debate has been entirely missing from this thread all along.

[Ibanez]

@ddsun

I can safely say that the larger debate has been entirely missing from this thread all along.

The debate from the get go has been about criticizing feminism, but for the past half-dozen pages it has derived into multiple ad-hominems attacks towards Jack.

It took a left turn because Miller and Co. had issue with the veracity of Jack’s tale of being passed over from working with children because he was a man, including his recount of the trial that followed in which the defendant was admonished by the judge

Good work Jack.

You’ve won.

[Sunny_Daze]

Actually, the larger debate has been missing because this is a witnessing thread, and the OP neither asked for nor encouraged debate. The last few pages have been the most interesting by far.

[Evil_Economist]

@Jack_of_Words

Well let’s see. You cut my turning your insult of ‘idiot’ back on your self.

It’s fascinating watching your mind “work”. For example, the above statement, in which you claim that I called you an idiot. But let’s look at the chain of posts the way a normal person would:

@Jack_of_Words

A liar who isn’t necessarily a liar… Is that like, for a random example, an idiot who isn’t necessarily an idiot?

@Evil_Economist

As for the idiot thing, I’ll defer to your experience.

@Jack_of_Words

Well let’s see. You cut my turning your insult of ‘idiot’ back on your self.

What I (and probably most reasonably intelligent people) see is you trying to call me an idiot in a way that the mods won’t ban you for, me blowing off your pathetic insult, and then you claiming that the whole ‘idiot’ thing was started by me.

What’s fascinating about you is that you probably really believe that’s the way it happened.

Also, I don’t believe your little story about the evil feminists who wouldn’t hire you because you’re a man.

[Jack_of_Words]

@Miller

It’s fortunate for you that the rules do not work the way you think they work, else you’d have been banned around your fourth post.

This has been puzzling me. My first four posts were in this thread (including the OP) in the Game Room - can you point out the offences that would have got me banned, because I can’t see them?

Or perhaps you meant my first four posts on the topic of feminism? That would seem an odd choice, after a couple of hundred inoffensive posts on a wide variety of other topics, but let’s have a look at them (from this thread):
*[ol]
[li]"Speaking for myself, I wonder if you grant women the equal right to speak for themselves, as individuals who let other women also speak for themselves, even though their definition of ‘being a woman’ might be entirely different? I only ask because that would seem to make you a feminist anti-feminist, and I’m wondering why you haven’t disappeared up your own fundament…'[/li]
[li]“Well I have no idea what you mean by ‘Of course’ - though I suppose you mean ‘Of course I accord equal rights to women’ (that’s the feminist bit). The anti-feminist bit is that some of them take up the right not to be feminists…indeed, to be anti-feminists, in some cases - which you surely support, since women have the right to speak for themselves (even if some feminists would attack them for it). And since feminism is only about equality, you must surely also support the right of men to be anti-feminists? If you support the right of people to think for themselves, regardless of gender, you’re a feminist anti-feminist. I’m impressed, if slightly repulsed, like those double-jointed people who can bend their elbows the wrong way…”[/li]
[li]"Nope, though I was considering quoting your intolerance of anti-feminism, exhibited above as the tiresomely familiar ad hominem attacks on outspoken anti-feminists. Elsewhere (on this board) anti-feminism is equated with misogyny, and right-wing views. I’m a leftist lover of women, and an avowed anti-feminist…with the caveat that ‘feminism’ is now effectively a meaningless term, given that any criticism of any individual feminist or of a feminist position is deflected by pointing to one that isn’t batshit crazy (though never effectively policing the sisters) or, disingenuously, referring to a dictionary definition that defies the reality.[/li]
Feminism is often claimed to have achieved great things for woman - although those things were largely achieved pre-feminism and only for some women. Now it consists primarily of the most privileged demographic (white western women) trying to prop up a victim narrative in support of a claim that women need special treatment because they’re equal. The goal has moved from the admirable ‘equality of opportunity’ to the lamentably dangerous ‘equality of outcome’, a goal which can only be achieved by a totalitarian regime. It’s a hate group. I don’t like them, whatever they stand for. It’s largely concerned with protecting incomes and careers by denying, diminishing or demeaning my own experience of DV. It acts vociferously and tenaciously against equality where equality would mean giving up some power (see family courts).

Let me pass you over to a woman who is an anti-feminist, who has saved me the trouble of making the case: Check Your Privilege’
[/ol]*

That’s three so far, and I’m still not seeing any offence so egregious that it would necessitate a ban. Let’s look at number four…

@Jack_of_Words

@Miller

I guess there’s a reason he’s not the Ace of Words.

Are we in the Pit? Well, I guess there’s a reason you’re a moderator - it’s good to know what you can get away with where. What you can get away with here, it seems, is the alarmingly discourteous (if tediously common) practice of attempting to silence dissenting voices by talking about them publically in the third person. There’ll be some shaming soon, I’m sure.

Well fancy that! There* you* are!

Perhaps, however, you meant my first four posts* in this very thread*. Let’s have a look at those:

@Jack_of_Words

As a Christian atheist who denies the divinity of Jesus (and loathes his neighbour), I wholeheartedly endorse this sentiment.

@Jack_of_Words

Debatable, of course, but on the available evidence the most active, vocal feminists here have got nothing more important to do than hang around in the Pit (where they don’t even have to pretend to be deploying facts and reliable figures) insulting LK and myself for the thought-crime of questioning their perverted definition of ‘equality’.

That said, if any of their petty barbs were ever to hit a vital organ and LK or I were to come to some damascene revelation, perhaps that would change history and radically restructure third-world countries (the go-to arguments for feminists who can’t claim white western women are oppressed with a straight face).

Come on, Linus! You, and you alone (since I’m your sock, they say ;)) have the power to alter historical fact and liberate millions of women. Well, not the first one, obviously (though you do have the power to accept your collective responsibility for what some other chaps did some long time ago). As for the second one, I’d advise not using feminism as your tool, because it turns out that berating white western men (while demanding the right to emulate them) has done nothing for women in the developing world, even after decades of bra-burning, slut walks and aggressively shutting down criticism.

@Jack_of_Words

In an earlier iteration of the “endless” OP, I did attempt to get someone, anyone, to provide some sort of fact-based rationale for the position that all those detestable, despicable feminists are “a small number” or a “fringe” or, indeed, somehow ‘extremists’ rather than the mainstream.

Merely repeating something (like feminist lies about rape rates in colleges or the mythical wage gap) doesn’t make it true. Merely distancing oneself from the detestable and despicable rump of a movement does nothing to address the problems of that movement. Abandoning a discredited ideology (in favour of egalitarianism) would help - but only if you’re an egalitarian. Egalitarian feminists are very much a fringe minority within feminism - at least in my experience.

I haven’t counted how many ‘reasonable’ feminists are posting here - “six or so”? Nah, I’m kidding, maybe it’s two dozen. That’s if we take their word for it, as individuals (if I wanted to protect the despicable, detestable majority of members of a movement, I’d certainly be saying “But I’m reasonable”). But let’s take their word for it, and give them the benefit of the doubt as to their motivations for rebuffing criticism of a flawed ideology. So, we have twenty or so people saying something along the lines of “well I’m just in favour of women being treated equally” (I’ve only noticed one bright enough to say they were in favour of people being treated equally even if they’re not women). Pit that against the overwhelming numbers of hate-fuelled nutjobs that even a cursory exploration of feminist activism reveals. It seems the fringe minority are the self-professed ‘reasonable’ feminists.

Do you twitter? Check the hashtag #killallmen, and then look for one along the lines of #comeonsistersletsbereasonable…

The core tenets of feminism can be discovered in the writings of wingnuts like Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Catherine MacKinnon, Marilyn French et al. These are the rabble rousers who fuel the activists, these are the bigots who powered the movement, these are the sort of feminists who persecured Erin Pizzey for daring to speak the truth about domestic violence. Do you have anything other than bald assertion to show otherwise?

@Jack_of_Words

So ‘rape culture’ doesn’t oppress women? Or are you saying it doesn’t exist?

And that’s why men who seek equality before the law must be silenced by chanting, shaming language, false fire alarms and hoax bomb threats. Because it’s a feud and you aren’t done with it yet.

I do have a cutting on display, from my local paper’s ‘100 years ago today’ column, in which the opinion is expressed that women are not suited to government. People have always held strange opinions. 70 years ago, Germans considered Jews unworthy…but 70 years later, I have no interest in defending a feud against germans.

It would be helpful if you flagged up your alternative meaning of ‘equality’ when you use it (or choose a more appropriate word). There are no rights that men have that women don’t (and there haven’t been for a long time). But that’s not equality, because women have rights that men don’t.

But are you oppressed or aren’t you? Just now it was ‘history’, suddenly it’s still here. Are you able to state clearly what would constitute ‘equality for women’, so us chaps know when we can stop paying for the sins of our great-grandfathers and start asking politely for some equality of our own? I imagine even anti-feminists would get behind your campaigns if we thought there was a determined end-point. As it is, I see heavily invested feminists, with a financial interest in maintaining the ‘feud’, inventing ‘the male gaze’ and ‘manspreading’ and rape hoaxes and twitter traumas, in order to keep their lucrative war going (not so different from men after all…)

Ah, oppressive to both women and men…I see. So everyone was oppressed and that’s why feminism seeks equality for women. You should have said earlier (like the beginning of your post). Your ‘rejection’ is a stock call for revolution (with the stock revolutionists’ rallying cry of “It’s not fair!”). I find it odd, given the interest in inequality, that middle-class able-bodied feminists spend so little time protesting the punishing inequalities that have always oppressed the working classes and disabled people (inequalities wholeheartedly supported and enacted in the UK by female feminist politicians and peers …oh no, hang on, not ‘odd’, what’s the word? Predictable.

Are they? I don’t hold with the concept of original sin, but I don’t think anyone is inherently worthy, least of all because of the shape of their genitalia. History is full of distinctly unworthy women (and I can’t help feeling there’d be more if only we hadn’t been oppressing you).

Being treated equally by the law is not a matter of ability. I’m not sure what ‘social equality’ is, but I imagine it relates to how society treats women (careful, as previously noted there are always at least two ways to reach equality and most people would prefer one over the other by a considerable margin). Nevertheless, both relate to how women are treated, and their ‘capability’ is an irrelevance. Perhaps you’d like another try?

So come on, point to the oh-so-obvious bannable offences (or a rule that says disagreeing with your misguided hatefuelled ideology is a bannable offence. Or, by your own (albeit flawed) metric, we can no longer trust anything you say, can we? Oh, perhaps your apparently ludicrous claim was another of the typos to which you’re so prone, and you really meant to say “If I had as much power as I crave, I would have banned you around your fourth post”?

[Evil_Economist]

@Jack_of_Words

This has been puzzling me…

I’m sure there’s lots that puzzles you, but maybe you could take your whinging to the pit?

[QuickSilver]

@Jack_of_Words

Good question. I wasn’t interviewed at the same time as other candidates, and I was called in at short notice for an evidently hastily prepared set-up with no resemblance to a real interview. I’m left to suppose that if they hadn’t even interviewed someone with all the necessary skills and plentiful experience, then their prejudice would have been even more obvious. As it was, the interview gave them plausible deniability…and look, it worked on you too.

Are interviews for these kinds of positions a matter of public record?

I ask because I’m curious as to whether anyone would even know the specific profiles of those considered for the interviews - only women, only people under 5’6", nobody over 12 stone, brunetts, Irish need not apply…?

And how do you know that nobody they interviewed prior to you wasn’t fully qualified for the job? If they found such a person, that would easily explain the perfunctory nature of your interview.

Or maybe you just come across as needlessly pedantic and overly verbose?

[Miller]

@Jack_of_Words

This has been puzzling me.

Okay, this is more sad than fun, now.

[lance_strongarm]

@Jack_of_Words

As it was, the interview gave them plausible deniability…and look, it worked on you too.

So the fact that they interviewed a man is just more evidence that they didn’t want to hire one? Good job folding contrary evidence into your conspiracy theory.

[lance_strongarm]

@QuickSilver

Are interviews for these kinds of positions a matter of public record?

I ask because I’m curious as to whether anyone would even know the specific profiles of those considered for the interviews - only women, only people under 5’6", nobody over 12 stone, brunetts, Irish need not apply…?

And how do you know that nobody they interviewed prior to you wasn’t fully qualified for the job? If they found such a person, that would easily explain the perfunctory nature of your interview.

Or maybe you just come across as needlessly pedantic and overly verbose?

I wonder if he sees the irony of being expected to back up rigorously his claims of sex discrimination.

[QuickSilver]

@lance_strongarm

I wonder if he sees the irony of being expected to back up rigorously his claims of sex discrimination.

…On the basis that he is obviously far more qualified than any woman that was interviewed for the alleged position.

[Sunny_Daze]

@Miller

Okay, this is more sad than fun, now.

Heh. No, still fun here. My sadism is showing.

[LinusK]

@Evil_Economist

And this was caused by feminism how?
Right now, little girls are dying of AIDS in africa. Anti-feminists don’t care. Not only do they not care about women, they don’t care about girls.

Precisely: feminism is not concerned about equality: it’s concerned with promoting the interests of its membership - privileged 1st world women.