Herstory

[Morel Panic]

Ummm...sorry. I forgot to mention, this is my view on feminism.

 

[Kidege]

I'm... trying to refrain from banging my head against the desk at seeing how low has feminism fallen in people's estimation, thanks to people like the troll (who may or may not be female and certainly has no actual respect for feminism).

Edit:

Feminism for me means sitting next to my parent's bookcases, to read old mags with dramatic accounts of real life cases, and compassionate anthropological analysis of said cases.

It means getting sad every time I remember Alaide Foppa, who was killed by her country's dictatorship.

It means long nights listening to Dido's Lament, and learning about the construction of feminine identity through verses I only half understood at age 5.

It means having the genocide of women in my country always at the back of my head.

It means acknowledging a debt of gratitude towards the people who made it possible for me to go to school and get a job, to vote and to use contraceptives if I choose to.

I cannot begin to express the ways in which this thread is depressing.

 

[Decaf]

You are an unthinking vessel for the agend of the patriarchists.


You are out of line, yes. I have lived for many more decades than you and don't need the kung-fu advice of a silly little Chinese girl who probably has been sheltered from the real world by her brainwashing patriarchal pseudo-communist government.


I'll ignore it as silly ideas put into your head by the cultural engineers so won't argue with you about it.

I really don't know what to say. How about... You are not welcome on this forum. This kind of behavior and outright arrogance will not be tolerated.

 

[Eljua]

I'm a little more optimistic. I think trolls are people who don't respect the community that's in front of them. They're also, usually, young adults trying to assert themselves in an anonymous way. It can be satisfying to outsmart strangers, but it's still childish (I used to pick on random people in the yahoo pool chatrooms when I was in junior high, so I can relate to this behavior). I'd like to think that there's a reason she created an account, and that if we give her a fair chance perhaps she'll find that she respects non-feministic ideas and grows as a person. If not, we can always ban her. Either way, I welcome her presence for the time being.

QFT

At the very least, the "debate" which has sprung up out of the potentially trollish behaviour allows those of us who respond to at least look at, and examine, our own particular viewpoints on the issues brought up, even if they seem extreme and particularly ridiculous. If we didn't have the extreme and ridiculous examples in life, we'd have nothing to compare our sane and rational decisions to, and that's just sad.

Also on the plus side, trollish behaviour usually has some logical inconsistencies with their arguments, so it's like a fun little excercise to unearth them all.

 

[Waterstiller]

I'm... trying to refrain from banging my head against the desk at seeing how low has feminism fallen in people's estimation, thanks to people like the troll (who may or may not be female and certainly has no actual respect for feminism).

Yeah.

http://www.childinfo.org/attitudes_data.php

 

[Decaf]

I'm... trying to refrain from banging my head against the desk at seeing how low has feminism fallen in people's estimation, thanks to people like the troll (who may or may not be female and certainly has no actual respect for feminism).

How do you feel about the term "Egalitarian"? Do you feel like it is a suitable substitute for the often maligned term "Feminist"?

I can certainly understand the negative emotions that would arise from the loss of what once represented an extremely positive movement in cultural perceptions. The movement isn't over, but its made a lot of progress. I suppose what I'm getting at is that "Feminism" as a reference to that movement is no longer precise in what the movement is (or at least should be) trying to accomplish. Is the glass ceiling female specific or does it exist for maligned ethnic groups and GLBT as well?

Feminism was absolutely necessary for the purpose of changing the law to remove gender specificity, as were the Black and Chicano Civil Rights Movements. Now the goal is to change people's perceptions, but that can't be done piecemeal. Allowing only one suffering group to join the "in crowd" is not a victory any more than trying to destroy those that reap the benefits of circumstance. The point is to teach the culture at large to stop judging people on characteristics only loosely related to who they are inside.

For this reason I consider myself an Egalitarian and not a Feminist. I don't want women to stop being persecuted. I want everyone to stop being persecuted. I understand a woman's denial of my perspective. You'd hardly be well suited to survival without self-interest, but I hope you can take solace that while one facet of the movement has lost a semantic battle, the movement is still underway and adding new members all the time.

*edit* On reflection my points only really hold water in my region of familiarity (the US Pacific NW). Waterstiller's chart is disturbing.

 

[Invoke Ninja's True Power]

Why a feminist would associate with nazis is beyond me. I suppose a predisposition to s&m might do it. I'm not an expert on sexuality but s&m seems like an SJ thing to me. This person definitely has very little to do with being INTP. Again I am no expert, I just like to post what comes to mind.

 

[Anthile]

Yeah.

http://www.childinfo.org/attitudes_data.php

It's been a while since I felt such a huge amount of negative that I almost cried. Maybe it's because I just had a very emotional talk with a very good friend of mine. But... I don't know... I am at the loss for words...

 

[Kidege]

I'd be happy to call myself an egalitarian. I don't call myself anything besides a halfway decent human being who would like justice for all, but insulting feminism makes me go "hey, that people died for me".

This is the kind of shit that spread over to what used to be my city.
http://www.cod.edu/people/faculty/yearman/juarez/home.htm

 

[Waterstiller]

Decaf: Agreed. I personally consider myself egalitarian. But I normally go along with the 'feminist' term because issues related to gender equality are generally fought individually. I consider being feminist to be a subset of my egalitarianism.

 

[Invoke Ninja's True Power]

egalitarian - now there's something we can all agree on!

 

[Damaged.Goods]

This is incredibly insightful. Thank you for wording this so, well, wonderfully.

Thank you also. Your words mean very much to me.



Mrs. Polly:

You are out of line, yes. I have lived for many more decades than you and don't need the kung-fu advice of a silly little Chinese girl who probably has been sheltered from the real world by her brainwashing patriarchal pseudo-communist government. I think you should read some real feminist literature, especially about LEGAL DOMINANCE FEMINISM, if you really want to understand the opression of humanity by men throughotu history. As far as I remember FungSHui or whatever it is your speaking about was a male born religion which accepted teh demotion of females to housewife-slaves.

I accept your apology though. I just think you need to broaden your horizons in the right way. Your not really entitled to speak on these topics unless you have traveled outside fantasy-land communist China.

I try to do my best, but I am only 14 and have not had time to read as widely as I wish I had. I really do try though. To your other comments, I am sorry that you replied like that.

I hope that you will not be offended that I decide not to continue this conversation any further. It's because arguments usually cause me to become extremely anxious at least or have panic attacks at most.

I wish you the best and hope that you realise fulfillment.

 

[Morel Panic]

On reflection my points only really hold water in my region of familiarity (the US Pacific NW). Waterstiller's chart is disturbing.

I agree, though I have always seen "non-western" women's rights as being a slightly different issue than women's rights in the modern western world. I don't really have a deep understanding of modern feminism in the west, but I think it would be great if western feminists would worry more about this disturbing truth before they complain about how they get called Mrs. instead of Ms. (I can't actually figure out which of these is supposed to be offensive anyway)

The whole PollyIsAQueen issue is the sort of thing that makes people (like me) bitter towards parts of the feminist movement. For instance, I have no idea how (s)he was trying to use the swastica, but my first internal connection was between Nazis and Feminism. Real feminists shouldn't put up with crap. (Damn it, I'm feeding the troll.)

I'm kind of realizing that I don't think about this issue as much as I should. Maybe if women would be nicer to me....

 

[Kidege]

Damage.Goods, don't worry. I doubt anyone is taking the Polly person seriously anymore.

 

[Invoke Ninja's True Power]

don't mind this Polly person, whoever they are they seem to just want to offend everyone so don't take any of it personally. Ending the conversation is probably the best move. I apologize if I have fed the fire so to speak.

 

[Waterstiller]

The whole PollyIsAQueen issue is the sort of thing that makes people (like me) bitter towards parts of the feminist movement. For instance, I have no idea how (s)he was trying to use the swastica, but my first internal connection was between Nazis and Feminism.

Feminazi.

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

Feminazi.

Quoting rush limbaugh......yuk.

Let's face it, there are militant wings of any movement. Even ones with so obviously justifiable reasons. These militant wings make the best targets for those who would oppose the basic principles behind the movement. Thus, if Polly is genuine (seems unlikely) then she hurts her cause more than helps it as it can be ridiculed and countered with such ease that then reflects badly on the reasonableness of the general principle. In the realm of public debate (not here, but the world in general) the image of a movement outweighs the merits of it.

 

[Anthile]

Just to make that clear, if you intend to lead a fair and intellectual debatte you don't use an avatar that makes people think of nazis. That is such a severe mistake that not even real internet newbies do this, since it allows other people to draw the Godwin's Law card - which I did to bait the troll, successfully. As you see, typical troll behaviour to gain attention through provocation.

Since I don't think that anything useful will come from the original premise and that this thread has been derailed into a more constructive discussion I will close it.
Feel free to open a 'real' thread about Feminism or what you want to call it. I will move postings from here to that new thread on request.