Senate Let's Talk: Feminism

Misandry technically does not exist and MRAs are all about taking things out of context. And they use every single opportunity to prove it exists. The other day I called Slavic men in general "cattle", to imply the mentality that's anything but subtle and a sad MRA bunny appeared out of nowhere and accused me of...RACISM. LOL, nice try.

Also, mansplaining. Yuck. http://www.alternet.org/why-mansplaining-still-problem?paging=off

 

I thought the following might be relevant to this thread:
35 Practical Steps Men Can Take to Support Feminism

 

I'm not kind, I don't think I've claimed to be. And I don't treat anyone poorly, intentionally anyway. As far as treating women well, I'm not sure what you're meaning there.

To rogue_ten's interesting point that he brought up about being a pro-feminist man as opposed to a feminist, I would like to respond. I used to associate feminism from a viewpoint of "This is a movement that was birthed from the experience of being a woman, so I as a man, could never be one." but then, after reading author after author of anti-essentialist, I realized that my feelings on the matter, as a man, don't make them any less valuable or descriptive of the power struggles than a woman's when it comes to feminism. Similar to how when black feminism started to gain traction the proponents of the movement stated that the women's movement before had solely focused on the experience of being a white woman and their response was to say that one could not be a black feminist without being a black female. I don't think this is helpful in its divisiveness, so I decided that a man can be a feminist if he subscribes to the rhetoric and supports its causes.

But, and I'm not trying to bring immense order to this thread, I would liketo state that in feminism the problem doesn't just stem from the power struggles of men and women nor does it stem from just the power dynamic. This is more of a radical feminist, i.e Catherine Mackinnon approach, which is valuable and offers some insights to alot of systemic problems that plague women of the world, but doesn't mean that that is all there is about feminism.

I could be wrong, but a lot of common knowledge about feminism seems to be wrong or misleading, like how women want to be treated the same as men. This is partially true, but misleading, I think.

 

The part I put in bold is such a good freaking point to make. Feminism is not just pertaining to women's struggles and struggles that may stem from it.I was first introduced to feminism in an International Relations theory approach and one thing that that approach was promulgating was that war and poverty, etc, can attributed to the fact that the dominant approach to international relations has come from a male perspective and that, had women been given the chance, different issues, pertaining to the different things that are valued due to the differences in traditional gender roles, would have been made more of a focus by the international community, earlier on. I think that attitude comes from a Robin West/Ruth Ginsberg approach of trying to get men to value the same things women have valued (once again due to the gender roles). This group of feminists say "You want to know why teachers are getting paid so crappy? Because its a female dominated profession. Put more men in the field and the pay will go up because men will start to value the aspects of the profession more."

But IR feminists, at least the ones I've read, seem to suggest that the main victims of war are women and children(and they have the stats to back that up) and that if a woman's pov had been valued much earlier in our history, war wouldn't seem like such thing so quick to go with due to the cost of everyone, not just the soldiers who die, involved.

 

Okay, but what do you think there is? Why is the common/pop conception of feminism flawed? You're not going to get a discussion going just by talking about what you think a school of thought isn't.

Like, to put in perspective: I think I agree with your last point, but I honestly can't tell because I've got nothing to work with. Are you talking about the fact that a lot of feminist thinking rejects the notion of gender essentialism - ie, they assert that "maleness" and "femaleness" are not actually extant outside of sociocultural constructs?

 

The pop conception of feminism is flawed because it was taken over by power feminists rhetoric, i.e Women need to have more power in order to change the power structures. This comes from a fallacy of composition: People normally associate feminism with being a power feminist. That's a flaw.

And it isn't A LOT of feminist thinking that rejects gender essentialism; Its a complicated thing to work with when building a general theory of feminism. So, for instance, everyone's individual experience is different and must be, at a bare minimum, acknowledged. The problem is there IS ALSO the problem with the fact that women, as a whole class, have suffered injuries from the male structured and dominated societal structures. In feminism, we have to account for both. This is something MacKinnon was often criticized for: she didn't include in her earlier writings about the lesbian and minority experience. But she had to defend herself by saying that they, as women, have suffered some injuries simply because they are women.

 

Didn't we have a thread discussing sexism at Comic-Con that then turned to ****?

 

It's considered a central tenant in "traditional" second and third wave feminist thought and is prevalent enough in the movement that there's a freaking countermovement, so surely you must accept that there's some vague, nontrivial number of feminists who would subscribe to a nonessentialist position with respect to gender? Hence "a lot"?

 

I think it's a bit meaningless to say "I am a Feminist" or "I am not a Feminist."

From what I know of the movement, you've got all sorts of different strands of Feminism such as Liberal Feminism, Radical Feminism, Conservative Feminism, Ecofeminism, Marxist Feminism and probably a whole lot more besides. All the different strands have got different means and different ends.

I myself think that the genders should be treated equally, as any decent human being would, but I would be very hesitant about applying labels such as Feminism to myself. In fact, that doesn't just go for Feminism. I don't want to apply any sort of label to myself. In my experience (and this isn't a slight against anyone here) the people who go around shouting about how they are this and that for one month will invariably have moved on to another trendy issue the next month.

Actions speak louder than words.

 

My apologies, I guess I didn't make it clear: Yes, there are a number of people that are anti-essentialist, but I was just rejecting the idea that that is what they write about, i.e what they are known for. But yes, anti-essentialism is the general feeling of third wave feminism.

 

Well, again, that's why I was kind of harping on the vagueness.

 

i think i'm the same way, but maybe for other reasons. i feel like i don't know enough about it to be able to place myself in a certain category, and i don't want to claim to be something i can't like up to. i just know what i stand for and have my opinions without really putting a label on it.

 

MRAs are awful people not just for misogyny.

 

The **** they've done to fedoras is just appalling, too.

 

That's the thread that was about misogyny, which is a form of sexism, within the so-called "nerd community."

 

Yeah.... and then it turned into the Jesus hour.

 

moar like a more engaging version of kimball kinnison

 

No, just to make you nervous.

 

one of the most appreciated things you can do i think is to lead by example. just refuse to participate in sexist talk or use sexist language. you might slip and forget sometimes, but there's no shame in correcting yourself and people around you will recognize that. some may feel threatened or chastised by it in the short term, but in the long term you will find that they respect you for it

 

can we talk about power feminism in depth? does anyone want to offer a definition?

 

So the Moviefan Hour?

 

keep trying then. i don't scare easily

 

So power feminism stems from the dominance theory laid out by MacKinnon. MacKinnon proposes that women have been subjugated by men through the use of the legal system along with social structures. With this power, men have controlled women's behavior through the control of their sexuality and stereotypical gender roles along with the economic opportunities that have historically been denied from women. Power feminism (the stereotypical angry woman who burns bras and hates men myth) is the idea that in order to change these structures women have to assume political and economical power in order to bring down these age old male favored systems.

My general thought on dominance theory is that MacKinnon is right, but that power is not necessarily the best way to bring about these changes. It is, however, the most direct way to throw off the bonds that have kept women down. But just because its direct, does not mean that it is the better option.