Feminism

[dium]

Oh, see I thought the "he" was in reference to Dan Savage! HA! But yeah, I'm a she.

 

Some of those "he"s DID refer to Dan Savage! Because pronouns are great and aren't confusing, and specificity in language is mostly for chumps.

Also, sincerity is bad and the best form of communication is to say the opposite of what you mean and hope that people pick up on your sarcasm.

 

The YouPorn thing baffles me. I understand it from YouPorn's perspective, sure, it's a brilliant marketing move. And I guess this is naturally what happens when nothing is set up to stop them. But... if one of your goals as an e-sport is to help legitimize and broadly popularize e-sports, I couldn't think of a more natural impediment. So much so that I kinda doubt this team (with those jerseys) is gonna last very long.

[Twig]

The team is full of nobodies. They're completely unknown. Also, unlike Riot, there is no "official league". Valve runs The International, but there are probably hundreds of smaller tournaments (some bigger than others, but relative to The International, much smaller) that are completely community run. This team would never, ever make it to Valve's tournament. So there's no real danger of it happening. But even if it was... Originally YouPorn was soliciting a much bigger team, one that still doesn't have a sponsor (the aforementioned Team Secret), or at least didn't at the time. I dunno if they do now. Anyway, obviously that didn't pan out, and I'm fairly certain it's because Team Secret knew it was a bad idea. It could've also been maybe YP wasn't willing to fully financially commit, and I doubt we'll ever know the details of those conversations, but. Whatever the case. YouPorn won't be at The International.

 

EDIT: None of this is meant as a defense of it happening, in case it came off that way. As I said in my initial post, I agree with Philippa Warr / RPS on this topic. It's bad in a number of ways. But I just wanted to clarify some things.

[Bjorn]

The Montana legislature enacted a new dress code that appears to focus far more on what women wear than men.  This delightful post shows examples of would, and would not, make the cut.

[Twig]

"If you think something is sexist just ignore it and it'll go away."

"Why do they have to call it feminism? They should just call it equality."

Just a couple paraphrased gems from today's lunch time conversation. Merry Christmas everybody! Fucking see you next year, coworkers.

[Nachimir]

I'm talking to a few people going through exactly the same stuff with family at the moment; "It's not sexism! You're just overreacting" etc.

[Griddlelol]

"Why do they have to call it feminism? They should just call it equality."

Apologies for my ignorance, but my initial thought on reading that was "why not?" Can someone explain for me?

[tegan]

Whenever people say they'd rather use terms like "equalist" or "humanist" or whatever, they're displaying a fundamental lack of willingness to even acknowledge -much less try to change- the fact that the scales are unquestionably weighted against women.

[Griddlelol]

That makes sense. Your reply seems to imply malice though. I'm sure there are many cases like me where it's mere ignorance.

[Bjorn]

Also, humanism or claiming to be for some general "equality" are concepts that are historically breathtaking in their ability to exclude significant portions of humanity.  Like everyone who isn't a man.  Or everyone who isn't white (see, "All men are created equal" for the perfect example of both).  So there's some historical justification for creating a new word/philosophy instead. 

 

I also think there's plenty of modern day evidence to show that there are people who adopt the humanist label specifically to try and mask their opposition to the goals of feminism. 

[SuperBiasedMan]

Also often the reason said in favour of using those other words is that it's more inclusive, but that means it's trying to welcome in people who are being resistant just to the word. These are not open minded people that can have a productive discovery of how sexism works.

[Griddlelol]

Also often the reason said in favour of using those other words is that it's more inclusive, but that means it's trying to welcome in people who are being resistant just to the word. These are not open minded people that can have a productive discovery of how sexism works.

That's a pretty important point too. If someone refuses to do something because of the label associated with it, they probably wouldn't want to do it no matter what it was called.

I also always assumed (apparently incorrectly according to Bjorn), that feminism was an aspect of the all encompassing label of humanism.

To be honest, I find many of the labels (specifically humanist) to be a bit grating on me. Do you really need a word to describe "for people"? I'm comfortable with not being part of any specific movement, but trying my hardest not to be an asshole to any particular group of people/individual. That's not to say there isn't a need for large scale movements like feminism, as obviously they do a world of good.

Curious: is there such an equivalent to feminism regarding equality between races? This is another thing I attributed to humanism (my ignorance on humanism is showing, but I guess they chose a good word if someone like me just assumes these things).

[Problem Machine]

Saying you prefer humanism/egalitarianism to feminism is like saying you prefer the idea of equality over the effort of trying to achieve it, IMO. Feminism is the idea of humanism as applied to a specific problem: Denial of the term is denial of the problem.

[Twig]

These are good posts because I'm really bad at arguing things and all I could think of was "why does the word even master?" Which, as far as I'm concerned, is more than adequate a response, but obviously it doesn't work with people like that.

[BadHat]

I don't necessarily think that everyone who says something like "why not just call it equalism/humanism" is doing so out of malice, mostly I just assume ignorance on their part. Often the most visible portion of feminism, or any social cause, is the most ridiculous part, because those are the things that spread the quickest and play to the largest audience (and, let's be honest, feminism can be easy to poke fun at from the outside sometimes). So someone with no real interest in engaging it sees those things and figures it's just a bunch of hipsters whining on tumblr.

Then there's places like reddit where it's hard not to be exposed to arguments against feminism which are very reductive but also quite seductive (hey I'm a poet), which often come very close to toeing the line of MRA thought, but when presented/received naively can seem very straight forward and logical. For instance, it's not uncommon to see statements about "equalism" or whatever followed by a comment like "well, what's wrong with men's rights?" And, on the face of it, there isn't anything. But it takes so much context and information to unpack and contest that point that, unless the person is in a position where they're willing to take on a new perspective, it can be difficult to talk them off that ledge without sounding like you're just being dismissive towards them.

I sometimes wonder if a proper men's movement whose ideals were sympathetic towards feminism and institutionalised sexism would help attract more people to the idea. But then I read a little about the men's lib movement in the 70s and it seems like that's where the current men's rights movement came from, so...

[Merus]

I think it's very easy to claim that you're "for people" and then have a lot of problems with treating women and minorities as people and not as, say, bitches and thugs. The point where the rubber hits the road - that the system is racist and sexist, and isn't necessarily driven by prejudice people - is the tricky bit.

[Gormongous]

Then there's places like reddit where it's hard not to be exposed to arguments against feminism which are very reductive but also quite seductive (hey I'm a poet), which often come very close to toeing the line of MRA thought, but when presented/received naively can seem very straight forward and logical. For instance, it's not uncommon to see statements about "equalism" or whatever followed by a comment like "well, what's wrong with men's rights?" And, on the face of it, there isn't anything. But it takes so much context and information to unpack and contest that point that, unless the person is in a position where they're willing to take on a new perspective, it can be difficult to talk them off that ledge without sounding like you're just being dismissive towards them.

 

Honestly, I think some of the "humanism" talk also comes from the discomfort that many people, usually speaking from privilege, feel when they have to interact with a ideology that doesn't expressly reflect or prefer their personal experiences and opinions. It's a very human to have a "what about me" response, but since feminism actively opposes the "what about me" response from the straight white male, the dominant voice in Western culture for millennia, the name becomes a sticking point, as a means to have the straight white male voice championed anyway. I'm sure there are plenty of guys who'd be on board if feminism were "humanism" instead, but they'd be as invested in the movement as Kentucky Fried Chicken is in whatever events take place in the Louisville KFC Yum! Center. So long as they own it, have their name on it, and know it's about them, feminism itself can go twist. That echoes a lot of what everyone's saying here.

 

Curious: is there such an equivalent to feminism regarding equality between races? This is another thing I attributed to humanism (my ignorance on humanism is showing, but I guess they chose a good word if someone like me just assumes these things).

 

"Intersectional feminism" is one I often hear from academically inclined activists when they talk about issues of color. "Issues of color" or a similar variant is another. In the States, among red-blooded and right-thinking folk, you probably ought to stick to "civil rights" if you can't tag it to another more specific cause, because look how people reacted to #BlackLivesMatter when there were black kids dying on the streets. To make a nod back to the first part of my post...

[Griddlelol]

Thanks for the information. Don't really have anything to add any more, but all the posts have been helpful.

[Twig]

I forgot to mention that the conversation also included a name drop off that bastion of logic, the Factual Feminist.

Ugh it makes me especially mad because I was finally starting to think "hey I like these people" about my new job and then this happened.

[BigJKO]

An old childhood friend also dropped a casual Sommers video response to a catcalling video I posted on Facebook. My reply was just "nooooo, ugh no not Christina Sommers" and he never replied back..

[clyde]

This article makes me ask some interesting questions such as:

-What is femininity when abstracted from women?

-What is the relationship between femininity and women?

 

http://killscreendaily.com/articles/remaking-Video game-canon-rachel-weil/?utm_content=buffer0de9d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 

 

 

Curious: is there such an equivalent to feminism regarding equality between races? This is another thing I attributed to humanism (my ignorance on humanism is showing, but I guess they chose a good word if someone like me just assumes these things).

 

Also look into "anti-racism"

It's useful to find out that racism is not some sort of natural tendency to favor one's own race, but instead a fiction created to delegitimize the rights of one group so that the race in power can steal all their shit.

 

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-racism

 

On a related note, I watched this video this morning which points out that current U.S. policy towards native americans is strongly tied to this technique of systematic dispossession. 

http://billmoyers.com/episode/american-indians-confront-racism/

 

 

But all this would probably fit better in the Social Justice thread so we don't derail intersectional feminism.

 

 

[SuperBiasedMan]

It's a big struggle to think about. I've had discussions with people that hate Katniss (from the Hunger Games) being used as an example of a good female character because in one sense she rejects typically feminine things for more masculine ideals. But my view was that she still had aspects of femininity, her choice to volunteer at the start is to protect her sister that she's served as a parental figure to. She is very hesitant about combat and killing others, she spends plenty of time in the games taking care of others.

 

I don't entirely know where I land on it? I plan to make things so it's something I'll inevitably come across (I'm currently writing a narrative heavy game with a central female character who tends towards being outwardly cold and unemotional) but I'm mostly viewing it in terms of individuals. Trying to define a person's character, taking femininity as something they could possess but always being conscious of why they have it and using "because they're a girl" is a terrible excuse, but "because they were raised in the gender role of being a girl" does work, as long as it's considered and not throwaway.

 

Also there's a weird dissonance in running that article on a site called KillScreen (not sure if the site's name is sincere or ironic?).

[Bjorn]

Also there's a weird dissonance in running that article on a site called KillScreen (not sure if the site's name is sincere or ironic?).

 

Kill Screen is an old school arcade term, and I'm 99 percent sure that's why they named it that. 

[Reyturner]

Oops, hit post before I was ready. Still chewing on this.

[Apple Cider]

Femininity is a complicated topic for many reasons and that's because it's really hard to have a discussion about it when the subject itself is part of a culture that demonizes it so thoroughly. Part of working in feminism thought is the idea that rejecting femininity utterly doesn't do much but send the swing back into praising masculinity (in as much as people still believe there's binaries in gender, but that's a whole other topic), but rather we need to tackle what people SAY femininity is or should be and that women need to be confined to femininity as society dictates, versus what they make of it for themselves. 

 

Women can be feminine, if they would like, not because society says they have to be (and people in general too!) Anyone can and should embrace femininity if they want to for themselves, but also decide what that means for them, not just what society says it should be. For instance, I am not an overly feminine person, as a woman, but on the other hand, I love some aspects that are typically coded as feminine: I love the color pink, even if all my pink clothes are fairly neutral. I love fashion and art and whatnot, but I don't think that is the sole of who I am or how I feel I should behave. Many instances of what society believes as inherently feminine is restrictive (fragility) or demonized beyond belief (emotionality), without letting femininity mean so much more and be viewed as positive at the same time. 

 

However, there's still a lot of instances of /performing/ femininity in a societally accepted way that comes with the added context of meeting the status quo and that's where many feminists tend to talk about "recognizing what that does for you" at the same time. 

 

Trust me, it's pretty hard to navigate, especially as a woman.

[Gormongous]

Trying to decide my feelings on this recent article about nerd culture's repudiation of "privilege" as a concept: http://www.newstatesman.com/laurie-penny/on-nerd-entitlement-rebel-alliance-empire

 

Mostly, the extremely conciliatory tone has me ready to bristle, but it seems like it hits all the important points in a time when they need to be hit. So much of #GamerGate and associated trends have been fueled on the entitlement of a social group that perceives itself as oppressed even when complicit (or actively engaged) in oppression.