Feminism

[Apple Cider]

My prowess at speed reading has been enhanced by my child murdering cult status.

[SuperBiasedMan]

There is another website - so that you don't have to 'like' to read more.

http://www.infowars.com/feminist-i-aborted-my-baby-because-he-was-male/

Of course that site is pretty objectionable too. I just get the feeling that 'Lana' might be in need of mental help.

If the events of the article are accurate, then sure she might need mental help especially post abortion. But this doesn't really relate to feminism as a whole any more than a single terrorist can be representative of Muslims as a group.

[deleted user]

_

[Bjorn]

That site is built to force readers to make stories go viral just to read them, pardon me if I take a boulder of salt with their hyper-inflammatory post.

[Bjorn]

I shouldn't post half asleep on my phone.

[twmac]

Sorry, but the blog post and the source it links to feels like "shitthatdidn'thappen.txt" including the sidebar that reads like a dime store pulp novel - "My liberal parents disowned me!"

Abortion needs to be safe for literally everyone, regardless. But I really do not buy the idea that a feminist aborted a child because it was solely a boy. Furthermore, you can find out the gender of your kid between 16-20 weeks into your pregnancy, which is squarely into the second trimester. Waiting ALL that time, just to find out the gender and then aborting it THEN because it's a boy is like, yeah no, I don't buy that. 

 

This reads like made up "see how feminists are mentally ill MONSTERS" which is offensive on every level, including reducing them to "baby killers" - like why is this even in this thread or being taken seriously.

 

Yeah, sorry about that. I went and did some digging and couldn't find anything saying that this was bullshit and it is getting linked in right wing websites. For me it was head scratcher that I found interesting to see coming up in my facebook feed.

 

The point about the actions of a terrorist should not reflect the attitudes of people of the same ethnicity, gender, sexuality is spot on but given that it hasn't been debunked (yet) I ended up feeling 'well, if it is true then she needs help' and not 'well, this proves to me that Feminism is fucked'

[osmosisch]

I don't think it belongs in this thread. It says nothing about feminism except to antifeminists.

[Apple Cider]

I don't even know how you're supposed to debunk it unless you find a smoking gun like evidence someone else made it up and wrote it by their own admission. That's why this stuff gets passed around on Facebook and elsewhere as "true" because there's no way to actually refute it. Then it becomes, "Oh my god, did you hear about that ONE FEMINIST who aborted a baby because he was a MAN, they are ALL MAN HATERS" even if it's not even a true story. That's like, urban legend level shit going on here like when your Grandmother sends you e-mail forwards. 

 

Feminists are not magically more in need of mental health care as any other group of people. If anything, we should just have better mental health care in general. 

 

In "abortion stories that are depressingly TRUE" - let's talk about Missouri state legislature and their determination to reduce safe access to reproductive health care:

http://rhrealitycheck.org/ablc/2015/02/06/missouri-legislature-imani/

[Blambo]

Don't most girls get aborted in China? Isn't that the main cause for the huge gender inbalance, along with the 1 child* law?

*not including girls

 

From what I've read, it's a bigger problem in cities because the law is more loosely enforced in rural areas, but the preference for males stays about the same. The dynamic where it's predominantly male is that despite a scarcity of females, cultural factors make them only valued in a position of little power. Explains why despite the population weirdness in the most extreme cases, Chinese people still remain monogamous.

[feelthedarkness]

Infowars is Alex Jones' total nonsense conspiracy site. He's a long time hack, and professional conspiracy theorist. An unfun Art Bell. 

[BusbyBerkeley]

Yeah infowars is largely paranoid delusions. And regardless, if that story were true what would posting it in the feminism thread accomplish? Everyone saying, yeah we don't think that all men should be murdered/aborted?

[Bjorn]

Wrong link?

Yes, that was a broken link, fixed it. It was a link to the TLDR interview with the author of this piece about Vivek Wadhwa.

[twmac]

Yeah infowars is largely paranoid delusions. And regardless, if that story were true what would posting it in the feminism thread accomplish? Everyone saying, yeah we don't think that all men should be murdered/aborted?

 

 

Not sure I can apologise enough about this.

[SuperBiasedMan]

The point about the actions of a terrorist should not reflect the attitudes of people of the same ethnicity, gender, sexuality is spot on but given that it hasn't been debunked (yet) I ended up feeling 'well, if it is true then she needs help' and not 'well, this proves to me that Feminism is fucked'

I'm not trying to just hammer on about this since you've already rethought the article, but you missed my point here.

The legitimacy of the article is irrelevant to determining what this says about feminism. A social movement for change isn't responsible for every action of those who identify it. Just like terrorists don't represent Islam. Just like the Westbro Baptist Church do not represent Christianity. The fact that you posted the article in this thread means you unconsciously bought into the connection being drawn that claims feminism was involved. At best, feminism was involved because it gave this woman a freedom to choose to have that abortion, but I doubt you're arguing against abortion here.

[Bjorn]

And totally fucking done with the Nightly Show.  Last night's episode was about America's relationship with war.  Wilmore and his writing crew decided they needed to drop in a joke about Bruce Jenner and the ambiguous state of Jenner's genitals.  It was by far the most mean spirited and unnecessary joke so far. Just killed the browser window as soon as he said it.  Trans women, hilarious, amirite?

[Inferno313]

That's unfortunate. I'm a big Daily Show fan, and Wilmore seemed cool when he was on Marc Maron's podcast but the only episode I saw of The Nightly Show was the "Black Women are Bossy" episode, and it didn't leave a good impression.

[Apple Cider]

That is really upsetting. It's triply upsetting because Daily Show/Colbert Report also really liked transphobic jokes all along as well, trans women still feel like women that comedians don't feel the slightest bit bad making jokes about.

[BusbyBerkeley]

That is really upsetting. It's triply upsetting because Daily Show/Colbert Report also really liked transphobic jokes all along as well, trans women still feel like women that comedians don't feel the slightest bit bad making jokes about.

 

It took me a couple re-reads to parse this, but yeah I totally agree on that point. As cool as the Daily Show was (kind of cool) they had a lot of lazy and straight up shitty jokes in most episodes.

[twmac]

I'm not trying to just hammer on about this since you've already rethought the article, but you missed my point here.

The legitimacy of the article is irrelevant to determining what this says about feminism. A social movement for change isn't responsible for every action of those who identify it. Just like terrorists don't represent Islam. Just like the Westbro Baptist Church do not represent Christianity. The fact that you posted the article in this thread means you unconsciously bought into the connection being drawn that claims feminism was involved. At best, feminism was involved because it gave this woman a freedom to choose to have that abortion, but I doubt you're arguing against abortion here.

 

 

Here is my utterly crappy chronological line of thought:

 

1 - See it in my facebook thread and see people on my facebook commenting on it who should know better

2 - Do a perfunctory search around injustice weekly, see a bunch of suspect posts (including a response from Lana) but can't find anything that straight up says it is bullshit

3 - Hastily and unthoughtfully post it on here as a sound box, as usually you guys are pretty good at sniffing out a rat and or pointing out stuff I missed as this more and more sounds like someone trying to blame Feminism for the actions of an individual(real or imagined)

4 - Realise I haven't explained why I put it here in the first place and all I am really doing is fueling discontent but don't have time to go into my reasons and quickly post an apology with another half formed thought in the post

5 - Post another apology but don't want to justify it because I feel like the damage has been done and an apology would be better

 

Basically - I am at work and busy with other stuff and should never have posted the original link without explaining myself fully and then continued to not do so.

 

Anyway, I don't think I needed that point about individuals vs movement explained to me twice as I understood that in the first place.

 

Sorry, won't post on this thread in haste again.

 

Can't guarantee I won't in other threads though.

[Griddlelol]

I'm surprised you could read past that title.

 

I thought it was satirical. Not a conspiracy theory website.

[syntheticgerbil]

Ahaha, Infowars might as well be. Their printed publications have the some of the dumbest fucking ads made especially for men with paranoia and problems with their masculinity.

[Apple Cider]

Well didn't you know, feminists are vampire that create a shroud of femininity and suck masculinity out of the air, which we use to fuel our baby killing machines.

[Argobot]

Great piece from the Awl on the Dead Girl trope in fiction and reality. It covers Gone Girl, Serial, and some real life cases and looks at what makes men act the way that they do. I really enjoyed it. http://www.theawl.com/2015/02/the-husband-did-it
 
Choice quotes:
 
"This is why Nick’s is the more damning characterization: because Amy bears no resemblance to any person who has ever walked the planet, but she bears a resemblance to women as conceived of in the nightmares of men like Nick, and there are many of those men walking the planet. For “decent” guys like Nick, comfortably vested with patriarchal authority, the nightmare is to no longer be the narrator of their own story. In Gone Girl, Flynn cracks open the culture and lets Nick say one of our unsayable beliefs: that it is scarier for a man to be accused than to be killed."
 
and
 
"It’s clear we love the Dead Girl, but we don’t empathize with her. If we did, we might ask why we did nothing to protect her—why we, as Prickett writes, 'make these crimes by emasculation feel as common, and unstoppable, as acts of god.'"

[Gormongous]

Great piece from the Awl on the Dead Girl trope in fiction and reality. It covers Gone Girl, Serial, and some real life cases and looks at what makes men act the way that they do. I really enjoyed it. http://www.theawl.com/2015/02/the-husband-did-it

 

Wow, yeah. It draws some strong connections near the end:

 

When a cop kills an unarmed man, it is because he senses his power being threatened by fear that he should never have to feel. When a man kills his ex-girlfriend because she leaves him, he is saying the same thing: shame and sadness are things I should not have to feel.

[marblize]

http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/abortedboy.asp