My only participation in the “Jewish/feminist” analogy was to get a good laugh when you, again, demonstrated a staggering amount of ignorance over something that’s exceedingly common knowledge, and then tried one of the least convincing backpedals I’ve ever seen.
And then we have this post, where you misrepresent the entire exchange, to make it look like you were the one person who knew what they were talking about. Which, as we’ve seen demonstrated again and again in this thread, is simply never the case.
Never the case? Oh Miller, rein yourself in, you do nobody any favours by continually trying to make this about personalities and constantly over-egging your pudding.
I haven’t checked your links, perhaps you’re right - it’s your name that I most associate in my mind with that bizarre attempt to portray anti-feminism as akin to anti-semitism. Were you not involved in it at all, or are you just quibbling at this point?
I don’t know how ‘common’ the knowledge is that Israel has declared ‘jew’ to be an ethnicity (and neither do you, though that hasn’t stopped you making yet another unsubstantiated claim). It was news to me - and utterly off topic. I expect there are other things you know that I am unaware of, and things I know that I would consider common knowledge that you are unaware of. This really isn’t intelligent, grown-up debate, is it?
We were discussing feminism’s resemblance to a religion. Someone introduced Judaism as an example - you certainly ran with it, and I’m fairly sure it was you who flipped the script, and focused on ethnicity. You mocked the idea of ethnic feminism, which made ethnic judaism an irrelevance - if it isn’t part of the analogy, it ain’t relevant. You tried to have your cake and eat it, which looks foolish to anyone except your fellow faithful feminists.
Oh, and then you suggested my ‘first four posts’ would have got me banned, and called comprehensive evidence that no interpretation of that held true ‘sad’ - rather than, say, acknowledging your mistake, or apologising or such. As I said at the time, there’s no reason to attach any credence to anything you say, after that. But you crack on and say whatever’s on your mind - we know you won’t change my mind, I know I won’t change yours, but the casual reader gets to form their own opinion. You have your work cut out for you to offset the impression EvilEconomist’s inane ramblings will have given of feminists…
But if Jack continues to espouse obfuscation (while parenthetically eschewing elucidation), he will eventually wear us down and win(!). (For we’ll all finally be forced to admit that reason and brevity is no match for his pedantry, verbosity and the purity of argument from his own arse.)
Too boring to quote everything you said, let me summarize:
*
Bad writing; claims to be a good writer; curious obsession with Miller; tries to be clever–fails; doesn’t understand concept of equality; humblebrag; can’t do research; whinges about mods; whinges about ‘whinging’; falls apart.*
And the meat of the thing:
Hahahahahahahaha. You can’t name a single ‘egalitarian’!? Hahahahahahahaha!
The single most obvious question to “hey, egalitarianism is a great alternative to feminism” is “name a single egalitarian, then”, and you couldn’t handle the question! Hahahahaha.
Don’t think of it as withdrawing, think of it as losing.
The hypocrisy of this statement is, I trust, obvious to all.
Which is emblematic of the confused thinking and sub-par reading comprehension that is the hallmark of your contributions to this board. You might note (but probably will not) that I described my participation in that line of questioning in the very post to which you’ve responded.
Also, nobody equated anti-feminism to anti-semitism. That you think this is an accurate summation of that discussion is another demonstration that you lack familiarity with the most elements of rhetoric and debate.
Once again, you’re unable to address the things the people you are talking to actually said. “Jewishness” as both an ethnicity and a religion is not something that was “declared” by Israel, it’s been a feature of Jewish life and culture since before the 20th century. This is something that anyone who has a basic understanding of the history and culture of Western civilization should know.
Nope, completely wrong. (Again.) I didn’t mention Jewishness as an ethnicity except in response to your declaration that it was no such thing.
I certainly did mock the idea of “ethnic feminist,” because it was a hilarious example of you failing to grasp two elementary concepts at the same time: ethnicity, and analogies.
Yeah, and going back to that well isn’t doing you any favors. But we know we can add “hyperbole” to the list of common literary techniques that everyone’s favorite celebrated writer doesn’t know how to employ.
But goddamn, you really are impressed by two-bit alliteration, aren’t you?
Ah, yes. The appeal to the famous “casual reader.” Because when a thread is so going against you that you don’t have any actual supporters to point to, the next best thing is to claim they exist, but are just really really quiet about it.
I can’t blame you if you’re not reading EvilEconomist’s contributions, nor would I be surprised if you weren’t reading mine, but if you scroll back you’ll discover that EE won!
I have no expectation of ‘winning’, it seems an odd goal for a discussion. What’s mostly happening is that I put forward my position, my opinions, and the occasional uncomfortable fact. In return, I get a pack of self-declared ‘moderate’ feminists who gee each other on in the Pit, stopping by here to make largely illiterate posts about me, with unsubstantiated claims and fallacious pseudo-arguments on the rare occasions they deign to engage with the actual topic.
But don’t let me put you off, you’re all doing a grand job of representing feminism for me
Let me apologise, while I’m here, to those (like you) who think any idea which can’t be expressed on twitter has no place in this debate. Anti-feminism isn’t a movement, so we don’t have slogans or sound-bites as shorthand alternatives to thinking, the way feminism does. Explaining why the ‘wage gap’ is a canard, for example, takes longer than simply repeating ‘women get 77 cents on the dollar compared to evil old white men #killallmen’. I’m sorry, it’s not my intention to make you feel inadequate, in vocabulary or ability. That just happens accidentally…
Not only did I win, I battered your psyche so badly that you can’t stop talking about me, even after “withdrawing from the debate”. I think that means I took your soul.
Among the uncomfortable facts you’ve failed so far to put forth; names of so-called egalitarians, along with lists of their accomplishments.
Oh, look who’s suddenly tired about this conversation, and wants to talk about “feminism” again. You could have avoided this hijack pretty easily, Jack, just by not misrepresenting what I said - or even, once your errors were pointed out, saying, “My mistake, I thought that had gone differently.” Instead you weaseled and weaseled to try to find a way to make what you said sorta, kinda, maybe true if you squint just right. And when that failed, suddenly it’s, “Let’s just talk about feminism!”
You are transparent, Jack. Tap water is harder to see through than you are.
You could have easily avoided all the ‘hijacking’, by not hijacking (and by using your mod status to remind others to keep on topic and avoid personal attacks). Tired ‘of’, by the way, rather than tired ‘about’.
As for misrepresentation, I freely confessed that I easily mistake one of you ideologues for the other. You’re like mormons in that regard - easily spotted, less easily distinguished. You did have a contribution to the matter in question, so it wasn’t that much of an error - not on the scale, say, of your ludicrous claim that my ‘first four or so’ posts would have got me banned (proven beyond doubt to be arsewater of the first order regardless of the interpretation applied).
Talk about feminism, Miller - or, if it’s easier, start a Pit thread for insults about me. They’ll have as much impact there as they have here, but at least they’ll be appropriate there, and you’ll be at home.
Do you want to talk about feminism in this thread on feminism, Miller?
Sure. The problem is, you don’t. You’d rather talk about the scary monster under your bed that you call feminism. Except, like all such monsters, it doesn’t exist, so after the non-existence of your phantom is demonstrated (as it was back in the last thread on this subject) what else is left to discuss, except your on-going hit parade of bad logic, baseless assumptions, basic ignorance, and poorly-crafted ad hominems?
When was it ‘demonstrated’ that there are no unpleasant extremist feminists? (The ‘monster under the bed’ that you, and others, defend and protect with tiresome claims of ‘moderate’ feminists who don’t manufacture death threats and rape allegations, who don’t regard equal rights for men as repugnant, who don’t shut down debate with inane chants and false fire alarms, who don’t promulgate hatred of men, who don’t share the hashtag ‘#killallmen’. who don’t ‘bathe in male tears’, who don’t subscribe to the conspiracy theory of ‘patriarchy’, who don’t spread the myth of a ‘wage gap’, who don’t turn any discussion of feminism into a series of poorly-crafted ad hominem, who don’t project their own failings onto others to muddy a debate, who…well, you get the drift).
I know what’s never been demonstrated. The repeated claim that all those despicable gender bigots operating under the feminist umbrella are a ‘minority’. I know, I’ve asked often enough. Again and again comes the excuse for the bigots - ‘we are the mainstream, don’t blame us for the bigots’. But I could find (and you could find, if you cared or dared to question your ideology) any amount of evidence for vast hordes of despicable feminists. Yet you ask us to believe that a dozen or so apologists here (not counting iiandyiiii’s six imaginary friends) somehow represent a ‘mainstream’ - and, apparently, that despicable bigotry should be excused on that basis.
Arsewater.
Talk about feminism, Miller - because when you keep banging on about me, you do feminism no favours. Unless it relies on recruiting those who cannot think critically but are easy prey for sloganeering. Oh, I suppose it does, eh?
No, I’m talking about your arguments against feminism, and explaining to you why nobody is buying them.
I understand this is a distinction you have historically struggled with.
No, you don’t. You talk about a strawman that you like to pretend is feminism, based on the positions of a few discredited extremists. I’d like to understand why you insist on your strawman, rather than the actual positions held by feminists, as characterized by the actual feminists, in this thread, who have explained to you again and again that the thing you call “feminism” bears no relation to feminism as practiced by the vast majority of actual feminists.
Well, actually, I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on that. I just like watching you confirm it over and over and over.
Nobody in this thread has said that there are no extremist feminists. That’s another of your strawmen. What has been objected to is your continued insistence on presenting these extremists as representative of mainstream feminist thought. What you’re doing here is changing the terms of your argument mid stream, and hoping nobody notices. You present an idea that you claim represents mainstream feminist thought. When mainstream feminists object to that, suddenly you’re talking about “extremist” feminists, and we’re dishonest for pretending that Mary Daly never existed. Then, when we talk about what a nutjob Mary Daly was, you attempt to use that as evidence that we secretly agree that all feminists are like Daly.
This would be a much more aggravating technique if you weren’t so fundamentally incompetent at it.
Yep, called it. You couldn’t even wait for a second post to pull your little soft-shoe shuffle.
The problem you’ve got here, Jack, is that you’re trying to peddle this fantasy about how this thread works to people who have read the thread.
That’s never going to work out for you.
“People who are feminists can’t think critically, and are easy prey for sloganeering.”
This is why nobody takes you seriously when you complain about ad hominems, Jack. Because ad hominems are all you’ve got.
Alas, that’s not the case. Mostly you’re playing a tired old feminist game of projection - of lobbing puerile accusations that better describe the behaviour of yourself and other feminists, making the whole ‘debate’ so toxic that the average passerby ignores the whole argument (but as an average gynocentrist, continues to buy into the idea that feminism is a benign ideology that only wants equality for women…and who doesn’t want the best for women? That’s what ‘patriarchy’ taught us, after all.)
Alas, your understanding is a misunderstanding (a distinction you have historically struggled with. But thanks for demonstrating my previous point.
Do you ever back up anything you say? Oh yes, one post up there where you gleefully provided evidence for my mistaken recollection - your part in the ‘anti-semitism’ diversion was less than I recalled. Such glee, too - you’d waited some time to ‘get me back’ for demonstrating that you’d been talking out of your arse over an earlier point.
Over and over again I ask for some evidence of this ‘few’ extremists. It’s never provided, the false point is merely repeated. You and I and anyone with an eye on feminism knows full well that we could pull several hundred ‘extremists’ off twitter alone, just today, or view hundreds more behaving appallingly or promulgating vile opinions on youtube…and yet you think that a dozen unsubstantiated claims of ‘moderate’ feminism here outweigh them all.
Who ‘discredited’ these extremists? They’re feminists, they share ideas with the early drivers of feminism. They share the conspiracy theory of ‘patriarchy’ and the language of ‘oppression’ - and I still suggest that if you don’t, you aint no feminist. Or if you are, I am and so’s the Pope…so the label becomes meaningless.
You’re still projecting, by the way - what you ascribe to me is actually the position of feminists opposing ‘MRAs’ (feminists who apparently only want ‘equality’ but despise anyone who wants it for men, or who has the temerity to suggest equality is an idea that precedes feminism and that feminism has never had a monopoly on it.
There you go with your made-up numbers game again (a trait of feminists, especially in regard to rape statistics and the ‘wage gap’).
I’d like to understand why you insist that the unsubstantiated claims of a dozen or so random strangers on the interwebs (most of whom can’t compose a coherent post on the issue, behave with any decorum, or refrain from fallacy) somehow outweigh both the observable, recorded behaviour of masses of ‘extremists’ and my actual experience of actual feminists.
Somebody did. It was you. “Except, like all such monsters, it doesn’t exist, so after the non-existence of your phantom is demonstrated”
What I’ve been saying is that the so-called ‘feminists’ here keep insisting (as you have just done again) that the ‘extremists’ (all those observable, active, extremists, whose numbers vastly outweigh the apologists in this thread who think of themselves as ‘mainstream’) are a ‘few’, a ‘fringe’ and other such terms. Nobody ever wants to talk numbers, of course, they just want to excuse the activists who do the damage by repeating their hollow and pointless claims of ‘I’m a moderate’. Presumably, moderates don’t want to #killallmen, they’ll settle for men getting killed more at work and killing themselves more.
And I’ll continue to insist that, despite several random strangers on the internet assuring me that they are not extremists. Even if I felt compelled by courtesy to believe you, the time you’ve all spent dismissing a factual report of mine as a fantasy borne of the character you’ve put so much effort into painting me as, hardly warrants courtesy. I don’t believe any of you, nor see why I should - and even if I were to, as previously and repeatedly noted, who are you to claim to represent feminism more than those who act appallingly in far greater numbers?
I’m not, but I’ve long since abandoned any expectation of accuracy or honesty in your posts on this topic (which is feminism, by the way, not me - “a distinction you have historically struggled with”).
I present feminists, historically and currently, academically, socially and in the workplace, etc. I present their bigoted ideas, their fatuous conspiracy theory and their hateful actions.
In return, several random strangers on the internet defend that bigotry, paranoia and hatred by claiming to represent mainstream feminism (or in the case of iiandyiiii, to represent six imaginary mainstream friends).
‘Alleged’. So…‘When alleged ‘mainstream’ feminists object to attention being to paid to what feminism actually is and actually does’. No need to thank me.
I’m not sure I’ve mentioned Daly. I’m damn sure I’ve not done what you’ve just described (which is probably why you didn’t link to any posts, the way you did when you gleefully proved that I’d mistaken you for some other ideologue from ten pages ago). Go fetch some evidence for that ludicrous suggestion, Miller. I’ll not hold my breath.
Never tried it, so I probably would be relatively incompetent at it if I did try it.
Do try to remember that the topic is ‘On Feminism’, not ‘Lets make up stories about people who dare to stand against feminism, on the evidence of feminism’. That’s the Pit thread you’re thinking of.
Called what? I’m not sure how it has any relationship to what you just said. But yes, you could easily have predicted that if you keep claiming the ‘extremists’ out there are outnumbered by a dozen alleged ‘mainstream’ feminists here, I’m going to keep asking you to back that up.
Back that up, Miller. The mere repetition of something so obviously false does not even begin to make it true…and it’s a pretty sad indictment of feminism if the only defence for it you have is a vague claim about numbers that nobody could believe and an insistence that I should listen to strangers whose behaviour in this thread belies their claims
Projection again. I’m happy for people to read the thread. Feminism can get the recruits it deserves off the back of it. I’m not recruiting, I’m just showing you up.
Pshaw, if you believed that you wouldn’t need to say it.
Good job you didn’t put that false quote in an actual quote box, eh? But since you’ve taken the trouble to write it for me, I’ll own it. The evidence is amply displayed here.
I’ve known a number of women in my life who identify as feminist, including my mother (now in her 70s), and my sister (in her 40s) and my wife (in her 30s), plus various friends, cousins, etc.
None of them remotely resemble the extreme caricature that you and LinusK have been promulgating in this thread. The closest is my cousin who is a fairly-radically-leftist bisexual woman living near Berkeley (the most liberal city in America by most reckoning), who I’m sure is aware of, and sometimes agree with, some of the ideas of academic feminism, but who upon actually interacting with members of the patriarchy such as me or her brother-in-law is in fact friendly and respectful and a decent human being, not a shrill insane harpy.
But, you say, that’s all anecdotal. Well, of course it is. How could it not be? What, should I be gathering signed affidavits from these women to prove their existence? But I’m not going to deny the evidence of my own experience. And of course many people in this thread are posting more or less the same thing. So from my perspective, which is more likely, by Occam’s Razor:
(1) Everyone else in the thread who has been making similar claims also knows lots of decent reasonable women who identify as feminist, and are telling the truth
or
(2) Everyone else in the thread who has been making similar claims is lying, and I am unique in actually knowing the only 4 or 5 moderate feminists in the history of the universe?
And honestly, it makes sense that the non-extreme minority would be largely invisible. If an assistant professor at some college writes an article claiming that we’d be better off if all positions of authority were held by women, it gets a lot of press and attention, which is of course probably 95% of why it was written in the first place. If millions of random women who identify as feminist but are basically just normal decent human beings either never hear about that article, or just shake there head and roll their eyes at it; well, that gets no press or attention at all. Why would it? How is that newsworthy?
So to you it looks like feminist is purely people saying extreme things with no moderation and no disagreement.
By the way, can you respond to post #577 if you get a chance?
Let me stop you there, you were doing ok, but suddenly it veered off into nonsense. There is no caricature.
There are the foundations of feminist thought - the conspiracy theory of ‘patriarchy’, the nonsense of ‘oppression’ - the misandry of the early drivers of feminism, the documented persecution of ‘moderates’ who dared to think equality should be applied equally (the story of Erin Pizzey, for example), the actions and attitudes of actual feminists (vast numbers of them, who I’m supposed to consider outweighed by a scattering of random anecdotes).
So I’m not dealing with a caricature, I’m dealing with feminism - even if the drivers of it have exploited the power that they claim they don’t have to convince any number of women that it speaks for women. It doesn’t - feminists remorselessly attack women who don’t subscribe to their ideology. They’ve convinced plenty of men it’s in their interest too - after all, society is gynocentric and gynophilic, boys love their mothers and men love women (although you’ll find among men who love men, very little support for feminism). That you can identify some women (who, with all respect, may or may not exist and may or may not share their actual opinions with you, but let’s suppose for a moment that anecdotal evidence has any value…unless I introduce it, in which case ‘mainstream’ feminists fall over themselves in their rush to call me a fantasist).
[Please, don’t tiresomely drag out ‘Not All Feminists’ again. Not all Nazis murdered Jews, it’s a meaningless interjection that no more defends feminism than it defends Nazism.]
We’re not alone. Granted, I think we’ve both made more posts by far than any other non-feminist contributor, but you undermine your apparently reasonable position once again when you pretend it’s only me and him.
Yes, I’m sure that’s possible. Both that you don’t know any shrill harpies, and that shrill harpies aren’t always shrill, especially among people they more easily identify as fully human. We’re still weighing up your immediate friends and family against all the shrill insane harpies out there, and you seem reasonable enough not to pretend that the former isn’t vastly outnumbered by the latter.
Indeed. Anecdotes are anecdotal. In this particular case, the anecdotes are also irrelevant. You, and others, know (or have six imaginary) ‘mainstream’ moderate feminist friends. I’m still baffled by what you think that contributes to a discussion of feminism, except to excuse the shrill insane harpies. Even if you…I don’t know, let’s say something ludicrous…even if you gathered signed affidavits from these women to prove their existence, what relevance do you suppose it would have? I say feminism is best represented by the hordes of shrill insane harpies, you say it’s best represented by a handful of your friends and family who fell for the idea that’s just about equality, and even that it’s good for men too!.
Oh, you went down the ludicrous route.
Nor I. My experience includes being raised in a community of shrill insane harpies, in the region that gave birth to the academic ‘discipline’ of feminist theology. It includes those teachers who didn’t want to employ men, because men bully and prey on schoolgirls (I don’t recall, where you one of those denying the evidence of my experience?). It includes the self-elected representative of women calling for a continuance of the ‘gender war’, despite the harm it does to children, because “if women are to have more it must be taken from men”. It includes many women in many places spreading deceitful, hateful propaganda. It includes Doris Lessing, respected feminist, concerned that what she thought was a benign movement being used in schools as an excuse for bigotry (the evidence of her experience was also denied here, by ‘moderate’ feminists). I could go on, but we’ve seen how the ‘moderate’ feminists respond in this thread - their anecdotes must be believed, mine (and my character) must be comprehensively trashed. That’s part of the evidence of my experience too.
False dichotomy, composed of strawmen. You’re clearly trying very hard to sound reasonable, but once again you’ve shot yourself in the foot.
And once again, what does it matter? Of course there are ‘moderate’ women (and men - you’ll find men and women are feminists, men and women are anti-feminists, and men and women ignore feminism - far more of the latter, than of either of the former combined).
What does it matter? What point do you think you’re making? Suppose I’m a member of Greenpeace - a moderate member, not one of those extremists who bounces around on the waves beside whaling ships. But a lot of the moderate members join up because of the extremists, they support the extremists, and they probably admire the extremists.
How is it an argument that ‘invisible’ feminists represent feminism more accurately than the visible feminists? I’m going to let you off with “the non-extreme minority” - a freudian slip, perhaps, but I assume you intended to claim that the non-extreme feminists were a majority. It’s still just a brash, baseless numbers claim, and of course neither you nor I think facts are decided by democracy…
Does it? I wouldn’t say so myself, but I notice you’ve said it for me. Please don’t do that, it’s very rude and undermines what little sense you might be making.
Ah, that one…OK:
I hadn’t responded earlier because I don’t consider myself as necessarily agreeing with LK (despite all the ‘moderate’ feminists in this and the Pit thread who insist we’re at least best chums, if not sock puppets of one another - your team really does you no favours, eh?)
You agree that feminists are hateful, divisive and anti-male. NAFALT, of course. Not your mum, and so on. Even iiandyiiii’s six imaginary friends aren’t like that. But those are words that can be fairly applied to the activist, visible, majority of feminists.
I think I’ve dealt with this above.
It’s around 20% of women, according to polls I could dig up if you want to argue. That’s not a lot of tens, but yes, a couple of tens of millions (or, expressed less favourably to your own position, ‘a small fraction’ of a large population). Blimey, though, don’t they get a lot of airtime for an oppressed minority labouring under a misogynistic patriarchy - I wonder who’s propping them up, with their hateful, divisive, anti-male bigotry, paranoia and propaganda?
Fair enough, this is a post from a while back, but I’m not entertaining numerical claims that amount to ‘my friends’ > ‘all those shrill insane harpies on tumblr, twitter, youtube, campuses and streets’ anymore. Your ‘vast vast VAST majority’ looks like a tiny tiny TINY minority.
So do I, as it happens, and I’m an anti-feminist. Of course, feminists also believe that women should be awarded such roles in order to create equality of outcome. We’ve covered that, and the totalitarianism it requires. There are no moderate totalitarians.
How do they feel about equal numbers of women cleaning sewers, by the way? Or equal numbers of men in primary schools (‘Of course that would be good, I hope the shrill harpies do something about that, I’m busy being invisible and mainstream’). How do they feel about equalising the suicide statistics?
So do I, as it happens, and I’m an anti-feminist. Of course, feminists also believe in shaming and blaming boys for the crime of being born with a penis.
So do I, as it happens, and I’m an anti-feminist. You forget to gender that one - in my direct experience, feminists oppose sexual harassment of women in the workplace but enjoy sexual harassment of men in the workplace (and the rape of boys in schools).
No, you’re a random internet user, that’s a fair use of the word. The feminists who protested their way into academia (diminishing it in the process) are not ‘random’
They’d be wrong. How is being wrong an argument here?
Thanks for sharing.
No, for the reasons stated above. As for how we might test your proposition, it’s your proposition - for it have much value, you need to show how it can be tested, and test it.
Turnabout is fair play - I’ll dismiss that fantasy, after a second, in the same way I imagine you’d dismiss, without a second’s thought, my view.
Yep. All three. Fair, accurate and meaningful. Feminism as a whole is, as you’ve noted, divisive, hateful and whatever else you said? Bigoted? That would work. Paranoid? Deceitful? Damaging to women, men, girls, boys, society and community? They’d all work.
Let it go. Despite the flailing claim of a dying ideology that egalitarianism is just ‘the repugnant MRA’, I commend to you a philosophy of true equality - I commend it to your friends and family too, they sound like naturals.
Did. Relatively swiftly too, complete with an explanation as to why I didn’t think it was addressed to me originally.
Thanks though, for demonstrating yet again what pathetic depths the ‘mainstream’ defenders of extremists will stoop to in this thread.
Would you like to say something about feminism, while you’re here? I don’t know about LK, but I’m immune to your ignorant opinions of me, which have no place here anyway. There’s a Pit thread, where you can insult us both and ignore facts as much as you please.
