thestalkinghead

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Posts posted by thestalkinghead

  1. Posted

    I agree that it's about perspective, but I don't think mine is the illusory one.  It seems to me that people who haven't encountered feminism feel that because feminists are saying not being a feminist is a bad thing, that they're under attack, when in reality the situation hasn't been fully grasped; feminism hasn't been fully understood by them.  Feminists are going to have to keep saying not being a feminist is a bad thing because that's how change happens, and people who are not feminists are just going to have to get over their offended perspective.  It's a necessity in this argument for us feminists to continue saying not being a feminist is a bad thing.  I mean we can word that mission statement differently so it's not as direct but it will always remain the core point of any feminist perspective, which may be uncomfortable for some people to internalize.

    but if you have come to the conclusion that women should be held in equal regard as men without feminism, saying "you are a bad person if you aren't a feminist" sounds alot like "if you aren't a christian you are a bad person"

     

    why do i have to be a feminist to think women are equal to men? ("you are automatically a feminist if...." statements annoy me)

     

    maybe i am just arguing for independent ethics there, but i think insulting people will automatically put people on the defensive, so feminists should try not to insult people if they actually want to be listened to and taken seriously 

  2. Posted

    To be honest I haven't come across this tone issue you're pointing out.  I don't think I've really seen it anywhere, including this thread.

    well maybe it's a perspective thing, if you totally agree with something it's hard to see it from someone elses perspective, religious extremists probably think they are they are being totally reasonable and that people who disagree with them are just being concern trolls, when they might actually agree with them but not their approach 

  4. Posted

    In regards to tone, as jokey as it was gormongous' quote "I'd be a proponent of civil rights if only they didn't make it sound like everyone who disagreed with them was a racist." seems almost perfectly applicable.  It's hard to call a certain environment patriarchal without insinuating that the environment is patriarchal.  In the end feminists are going to say a bunch of things about how bad it is to not be a feminist, because ultimately a feminist is just someone who holds women in equal regard.  And if you're not a feminist you are without exception contributing to the problem, this is not an issue with a middle ground.

     

    if the definition of a feminist was purely "a feminist is just someone who holds women in equal regard" then i am a feminist, but i don't want to be associated with people who think being angry at people is a good way of getting their point across.

     

    and Clyde maybe tone is a separate discussion than the actual core principles of feminism, but i think it is still a valid discussion and it shouldn't be dismissed by calling people who wan't to talk about it "concern trolls"

  5. Posted

    Answering a well-thought-out and -sourced post with two dismissive lines is really crappy.

    I'm not being dismissive, i am trying to explain my position on the subject, i could say what you just said was dismissive or that TychoCelchuuu was being dismissive by saying

     

    "Notice, for instance, that far from being castigated for his approach, Dawkins' brand of "militant atheism" has a lot of followers. It's the hip new brand of atheism that all the kids love! And although I don't like how Dawkins gets angry because I think he's wrong about certain things and thus has no cause to get angry, I would never begrudge him his anger if he were at all correct. If teaching children religion is child abuse, then he has a right to get angry about it if he wants! And if feminists are right, we have a right to get angry about certain things."

     

    because i am saying that i don't like his approach.

     

    i am not saying people don't have the right to get angry and they should shut up, i am saying that if you want to convince someone about something or get them on your side, getting angry at them is a bad way of doing it, the person who is the most angry in an argument doesn't automatically win.

  6. Posted

    Do you have examples of immature hateful feminists that say things like "all men are sexist" or "misandry doesn't exist" or examples of "people who spin everything in male culture into sexism" besides the sorts of straw feminists that are popular enough to have their own comic, their own TV Tropes entry,

    , an opinion piece about them in the Washington Post, and so on?

    But it seems like you care more about tone than argument, which is a pretty common tactic used in arguments against feminism. Argue against the tone, not the content, because what tone is acceptable is set by the patriarchy, and any feminists who speak out against it can be accused of using the incorrect "tone." (This is also used to marginalize African Americans - see discussion of the angry black man whose issue is that he uses the wrong tone.) If you think tone arguments aren't the sort of shit that gets trotted out to attack feminists all the time, check out the tone argument entry on the Geek Feminism wiki or just check out this tweet and this tweet from the White Male Privlege twitter account, which has tweets about the most common examples of the sorts of things that make up male privilege, which is the ability men have in our society to say and do things that come naturally to them without catching shit for it, even though feminists catch all sorts of shit for the same thing.

    Notice, for instance, that far from being castigated for his approach, Dawkins' brand of "militant atheism" has a lot of followers. It's the hip new brand of atheism that all the kids love! And although I don't like how Dawkins gets angry because I think he's wrong about certain things and thus has no cause to get angry, I would never begrudge him his anger if he were at all correct. If teaching children religion is child abuse, then he has a right to get angry about it if he wants! And if feminists are right, we have a right to get angry about certain things.

    If you tell us to shut up and you say you won't listen to our arguments just because we're angry about social injustice, that's just one of the many silencing tactics that have been used since literally time immemorial to sweep injustice under the rug so that white men don't have to deal with it until it presents itself wrapped up in a nice tidy package just the way they like it, usually in the form of a very "articulate" member of the oppressed group or better yet another white dude.

    here is an example of what i don't like (above), yes i do care about the tone because i think it is important, and i agree 100% with what Twig said

     

    "because what tone is acceptable is set by the patriarchy" this is the kind of thing that just makes you sound completely unreasonable 

  7. Posted

    Have you considered that you are only against the strawman feminists that frequently appear as villains or freaks in movies and television, written as one-dimensional monsters by people who oppose feminism or don't understand it?

    no, i can't even think of any feminists in films, so i have no idea what you may be referring to (but obviously i would be against strawman feminists).

     

    i am just against immature hateful feminist that say things like "all men are sexist" or "misandry doesn't exist" or just people who spin everything in male culture into sexism, or people whose definition of the male gender includes sexism or misogyny. 

     

    or just like what i said the Richard Dawkins approach (crude imitation of richard dawkins, who i do actually respect and agree with a lot but not his approach) "oh, you belive in god, you must be an idiot" so the feminist version would be "oh, you don't agree with every aspect of feminism, you must be a misogynist"

     

    sure most of that is just a tone thing, but tone matters to me, so like with Richard Dawkins i can agree with what he is trying to do, but disagree with how he does it, same with feminism.

  8. Posted

    This is the best article on the topic of what feminism is. As it points out, and like others have pointed out, feminism is not one thing any more than any social movement is ever one thing. If we must have definitions, though:

    bell hooks' definition of feminism: "Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression." (From her book feminism is for everybody)

    Cheris Kramarae's definition of feminism: "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people."

    Google's definition of feminism: "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men."

    So there you have it. That's what feminism is.

    not read everything but that first article is very good so far

     

    edit: i will try and read all the links on that page tomorrow because it's late and I'm tired, but feminism is complicated (and i think it needs to be).

     

    i guess i am mainly against the more radical or militant forms of feminism or the Richard Dawkinslike approach to feminism, and maybe i sort of am one form of feminist (need more research to know what type) but i don't like to get too specific about these things, rock music is just rock music to me

  9. Posted

    There are so many different kinds of feminism, there are probably a billion manifestos. I understand that you're ostensibly challenging us so we can correct and educate you, stalkinghead, but you really should, at this point, just take it upon yourself to read more about it. Even starting at the wikipedia entry would clearly be helpful.

    the thing is, i have been researching feminism and i just want to sort the crazies from the actual real thing

  10. Posted

    is there some sort of official Feminist manifesto? so that i could compare it with what self proclaimed feminists write and say "this isn't feminism, and this is" because if even people who call themselves feminists don't know what it is how is anybody else supposed to know?

  12. Posted

    You also implied that feminism isn't, which is patently untrue.

    i said it isn't ALL as reasonable as that (changed the wording slightly because i realise "all that reasonable" can be read in a way it wasn't intended) implying that some is and some isn't, which is true, like Problem Machine and clyde were saying above

  13. Posted

    The differences between people in each gender are not differences that are entirely socially constructed: if you and I were the only people alive, and we were in different genders, then of course many of the gender differences (height, weight, age, etc.) would not be socially constructed. However, because the genders themselves are socially constructed, although any construction of gender necessarily creates differences, there is no necessary gender construction based on any specific difference. An obvious way to construct genders is to try to match the sexes, but that of course breaks down when it comes to intersex people, transgendered people, and so on. You could construct genders however you want (theoretically) just like you could construct a religion or a government however you want: it's all just social phenomena.

    If I'm putting across the "good" side of feminism and that's unreasonable because feminism has to include whoever the "bad" feminists are, then surely you're putting across the "good" side of whatever the fuck it is you believe and there's a shitton of godawful bullshit that I could lump in with you if I felt like it

    i said you were being reasonable Mr Angry

     

    edit: maybe i needed more punctuation or something, because i meant what you said was reasonable but not all of feminism is (that reasonable)

  14. Posted

    well i think that sex has large influence on gender, i don't think it is a 1:1 correlation but they influence each other strongly (meaning the differences aren't all social constructs), and you are putting across the "good" side of feminism it isn't all that reasonable 

  15. Posted

    Replacing the word feminism with something more inclusive (humanism gets tossed around a lot) obfuscates feminisms actual purpose. Yes, there is a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats mentality as far as feminism benefiting men in a lot of meaningful ways, but ultimately, for feminism to succeed as a political/philosophical movement, certain groups of men will have to give up a lot of the social/political/economic power they've held in society. Using a different word just to make men feel more included in the movement doesn't really make much sense and weakens the ultimate goal of feminism.

     

    Now the debate over using a new term so that we can move away from the racial baggage that the feminist movement has, is much more relevant. White women have disproportionality benefited from feminism, and until recently, there hasn't been a huge effort to include WOC into the movement. If you read WOC blogs or articles, you'll see the word 'womanist' used quite a bit, in an attempt to distance the current movement from its embarrassing past.

     

    Of course, this argument is incredibly esoteric and while I find it interesting on an academic level, at the end of the day I don't care what you call yourself, as long as you agree that the system is unfairly stacked in a certain direction and you want to work to help balance out that system.

    thats cool, because even if i wouldn't call myself a feminist i am still on the side of a lot of the ideas and principles behind it, just not enough to be part of the group 

  16. Posted

    Can you link to some of this, please?

    I'm not organised enough to do that (i would have to spend hours searching my internet history and reading through every page, and I'm not that invested in this argument to do that), but if you look up feminist blogs etc. there will be a lot of talk about the erosion of gender and gender roles or just the general dislike of masculinity especially, if you want to do you own research that's fine, but i'm not going to do it for you, I'm not trying to be rude it's just that links to websites just isn't the way i learn or organise things, and a link to one or two pages wouldn't be enough anyway

  17. Posted

    Treat everybody differently, but based on who they are, not on whether they happen to have a schlong or not. Thus, don't infer anything about a person based on gender. First get to know someone as a person, then you'll know how they want to be treated.

    that sounds great, but it takes a long time to actually get to know somebody, i wish there was technology that existed that you could introduce yourself with your entire life story, like "hello I'm *data transfer* nice to meet you" obviously you can always meet people with an open mind but that doesn't help to get to know somebody any quicker.

     

    but what i am really talking about is not about what people infer, but more that biology does have an effect on behaviour, people don't like to believe that and obviously you couldn't just test someones DNA and predict everything they will ever do or believe, but i think people that want to eradicate gender are being very ignorant of how and why people behave the the way they do

  18. Posted

    You tell wrong, sir.

    that is what i have read a lot of feminist talk about, the idea of masculinity and femininity or gender is inherently bad and everybody should act the same, whereas i think there is a big difference between giving people equal respect and expecting everybody to act the same 

  19. Posted

    This is pretty much the exact definition I have for feminism. Equal rights for men and women. Yeah, it's a misleading label, but that's just semantics, it's pretty easy to ignore.

    but from what i can tell about feminism is that the ultimate goal is to eradicate the whole idea of gender and as i said i think that is ridiculous 

  20. Posted

    This is one reason why I'm not a big fan of the terminology that has been put behind this movement. 'Feminist' is okay if a bit narrow in scope, but I could almost believe that 'patriarchy' was something brought in by someone specifically looking to sabotage the movement. Together they suggest that this is specifically about girls and their daddies, which is the grossest and wrongest trivialization of what this is all about. Ugh.

    I feel like it would be easier to rally people under the same banner if that banner used terminology that was more inclusive and accurate, but any time someone brings this up it seems like they get chewed out for not appreciating the glorious history of the term. Is there something I'm missing here?

     

    one of my biggest problems with feminism is that it's called feminism, modern feminism may claim that their goal is to make the world more equal and that it would also help men but the helping men part just seems like a minor side quest, the main quest is to empower women (which is a worthy goal) but the problem with making things equal is by what standard to you make things equal by, do they want men to act more like women or women to act more like men?

     

    Because although men and women are both human (obviously) they are biologically different enough to have a totally different perspective of everything, and i don't just mean the body, i mainly mean the brain, in my opinion what we call masculinity and femininity is just what we have named the effect of our different biology, it's a bit like psychological problems, most of them are caused by biology, a psychopath actually has a different brain than a non psychopath and their behaviour is caused by this physical difference, so the idea of eradicating gender roles or gender altogether just seems ridiculous to me, because it would only benefit one gender and that would be the gender that had been chosen to be the norm.

     

    if there was a group or a movement that was set up to appreciate these differences in gender while at the same time trying to make the world a fairer place (equal respect, equal rights, equal pay for equal work, equal rights for parents etc.) i would be totally behind that, but i would never call myself a feminist even though i agree with a lot of their goals, i am just not 100% behind them.

  21. Posted

    Regarding the Gone Home discussion, I often hear people say that it the setting is a lot of the reason for why people love it, but, like Chris, I feel that the game's appeal has more to do with its universal themes. I have little in common with Sam, other than that were both white, upper middle class North Americans. But I'm not a woman, I'm not gay, I've never been to Portland, I hadn't heard of Riot Grrl until I saw a trailer for this game and I have no nostalgia for X-Files VHS tapes. But I do know what it feels like to fall in love, to get hurt, to feel unfulfilled or unfaithful. Those themes have far more resonance than TV Guides and trapper keepers.

    i agree that you don't need any of the nostalgia for the setting to enjoy it, but it helps, it helps with the immersion in the same way that you know what is like "to fall in love, to get hurt, to feel unfulfilled or unfaithful." obviously it isn't exactly the same, but if there was nothing in the game that you were familiar with it would have a lot less meaning to you, i don't think any theme is really truly universal just very common.

     

    like you i have had a very different life to Sam, I'm english, I'm a man, I'm not gay and i had never heard of riot Grrl, but it was the similarities that helped me to see the world from her point of view (empathy) in a way Sam was like a gay female american version of me born a few years earlier, yeah that sounds very different, but she is a fan of rock music (including Nirvana which i am a fan) she is the younger one of the sisters (my sister is 3 years older than me) she liked drawing and she was a bit of a rebel, and there are lots more similarities including certain family stuff (and these things would take a lot of explaining if you weren't familiar with them), i could go on (but i won't) i think if i was a tribesman from the rainforest i don't think the game would have had the same impact on me without a serious education in western culture, most fiction has greater significance if they feel familiar, even if they are set in a fantasy/sci-fi world, it will be the things that are familiar that resonate the most with people.

  22. Posted

    That's great to hear.

    i agree, it's great to hear, because vice city and san andreas knew they were crazy and embraced it, but 4 tried to pretend it was all serious and that kind of ruined a lot of the fun

  23. Posted

    This is a (long) anonymised account of a thing that happened to me at the place I'm running yesterday. This guy was a total douchebag to me and my staff. I don't care if he was walking in the door with a blank cheque, nor how many people his company reaches; this kind of attitude can fuck right off.

     

    http://pastebin.com/i31AMevN

     

    He tried to intimidate me with a scowl at one point. Out of politeness, I managed to not laugh at him, and just asked him to leave instead.

    that story is so vague i can't tell what the guy was angry about, you may as well have just said "some guy was angry at me and my colleagues and i tried not get angry back" but that is a situation i am can empathise with and it sucks to be on the receiving end of angry guy

  24. Posted

    There's plenty to implicate Skylar since she was laundering money for him. She won't avoid jail unless her lawyer can make a strong case that she was too scared to go to the cops.

    It's not just the phone call, he took the baby for this reason.

    i disagree with that spoiler

    i think he has become far more emotionally driven as time has gone on, and he took the baby in a moment of madness, but it was her cries for mama that made him realise how bad what he did was and return her

  25. Posted

    So, this game looks pretty fun.

    yeah, i think there is little doubt about that, the sandbox/missions parts are definitely gonna be fun, it's just the rest that has people criticizing it