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Roderick

Feminism

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Also, yeah, BigJKO, I sat there and thought about it for 20 seconds or so before clicking on the first NSFW reddit link, and after I saw that one (the misogyny category) I decided I didn't need to see the other two, as they could only be worse. I originally decided to look at the first one because I think exposing myself to viewpoints I don't agree with is often a good thing, but firstly I already know that kind of stuff exists on the internet and secondly there isn't much "viewpoint" there to learn from. I had been hoping for some real communication that I could analyse, but that isn't really that kind of place.

Yes, there is no reason at all to see the others aside from just confirming how awful and horrible men can be, apparently.

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Yes, there is no reason at all to see the others aside from just confirming how awful and horrible men* can be, apparently.

*People.

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That was a pretty great article. Both it, and posts in this thread have described the idea of implicit ambassadorship which was something I'd never really given much thought to before, and has now opened my eyes to how depressingly prevalent it really is.

Those reddit links were awful and I don't understand how they're still allowed.

Also, it seems I had previously tagged the owner of the misogyny one as "Zionist Nut", so one irrationality often leads to others.

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I think the thing about Feminism is that, even in the name, it implies it's a thing for women, and so a lot of people assume it's about women fighting against men, but as evidenced by everyone in this thread (at the very least everyone believes in equality between the genders even if we don't all agree on how to go about making it happen), it's actually a case of People Who Believe In Equality vs. Dickheads. I don't actually feel like I'm in a different category or fighting a different fight from everyone else in this thread.

I wish that was something that more people realised ;(

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I wish that was something that more people realised ;(

Well, it is, as you say, in the name. It takes a LOT to change an assumed definition or connotation of a word. It doesn't help that, any time feminism gets any publicity, it's at the hands of a woman. Sometimes it's an absurd fanaticist, sometimes it's an entirely reasonable human being, but almost always it's a woman.

I think the only real way you're going to get your wish is if someone comes up with a completely new word for the movement. Even that would be a hard sell, since one of the biggest points the movement attempts to make is that women get the short end of the stick.

After all, how many people, to this day, refer to tissues as "Kleenex"? Marketing has so ingrained the word Kleenex as being synonymous with tissues that some people don't even realize they're using a brand name. I didn't, for the longest time, as a kid. Feminism's, uh, "marketing" has worked out in much the same way, just... whereas the Kleenex company got what they wanted... feminists didn't.

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Twig, we've gone over the word "feminism" already earlier in the thread, near the beginning of it, and I see no useful reason to have the same discussion again. If you'd like to get informed about it please reread that part of the thread. :)

As for feminism usually getting publicity from women, that may be true but I don't see how it is a bad thing. It would be pretty absurd if the movement was spearheaded by men, considering the fact that they are the group that is benefited by the status quo. Picture any other civil rights movement - do they also suffer from bad marketing, or are you buying into the narrative being put out by those who want things to stay as they are?

Bra-burning feminists, the homosexual agenda recruiting our youth, Black Panthers organizing to kill whitey - these are all things that didn't and don't happen, but tons of people think they did and do.

If you care about any of these groups of people, you owe it to them to get informed. If you don't care, there's not much we can do for you here.

Consider, though, that in this thread you have mostly been reading really well-researched, insightful, empathic posts about feminism from men.

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Wow, this article about Sorkin confuses me: the 4 seasons he wrote for West Wing had very varied, very fleshed out female characters and Sports Night as well as Studio 60 were in the same vein. I remember some writers bringing up the mysogyny of The Social Network - but I considered them misplaced because, similarly to Mad Men, the characters and their environments were mysonginistic not the writer' point of view/

But really, if he uses sentences like “Let me manhandle you. and, '“Listen here, Internet girl,' in real life, he is the sort of patronizing douche I never imagined he'd be. :fart:

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Woah, can we say "projection"? That reporter has a massive chip on her shoulder.

Consider the following:

I had to watch the show twice just to believe (a) how good that script was and ( B) how incredibly convinced of its goodness, in every sense of “good,” it was.

Hence, my first question starts, “I watched the pilot twice ... ” But I don't get to the question part because Sorkin looks as if he wants to say something. I invite him to do so, and he asks, “Because you liked it so much the first time, or because you didn't understand it the first time?”

So huge is the hubris in thinking anyone smart enough to write about this show for a national newspaper might not be yet smart enough to understand it, that I just swallow and tell my own truth.

Um. Wow. So if you don't understand the show it's automatically your failing? Any decent writer knows that it could easily be their own fault if the audience doesn't understand something, but she automatically takes it to be an insult directed at her. WTH?

What an embarrassing and self-absorbed read.

And just to be clear, Sorkin can definitely come across like an asshole sometimes, but this is not an example of it.

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Twig, we've gone over the word "feminism" already earlier in the thread, near the beginning of it, and I see no useful reason to have the same discussion again. If you'd like to get informed about it please reread that part of the thread. :)

I'm, uh, only responding to Yufster.

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Twig, we've gone over the word "feminism" already earlier in the thread, near the beginning of it, and I see no useful reason to have the same discussion again. If you'd like to get informed about it please reread that part of the thread. :)

If you care about any of these groups of people, you owe it to them to get informed. If you don't care, there's not much we can do for you here.

If you'd like to get informed about it?

Look, I quietly stepped out when people so generously suggested that if I don't want to post in this thread, I don't have to, but this is getting to be a bit much. I didn't want this thread to continue because I'm pretty sure we've all come to the conclusion that we think feminism is a good thing because society is pretty terrible at the moment. (See: MRA) This thread is just turning into "Sal Heavily-Handedly Informs Everyone About How It Is As We Rehash The Same Discussion Every Week" and I don't think we need that.

I'm all for getting informed, and in fact, thanks to this thread, I have been, but it's going places it shouldn't.

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"Sal Heavily-Handedly Informs Everyone About How It Is As We Rehash The Same Discussion Every Week" and I don't think we need that.

I'm all for getting informed, and in fact, thanks to this thread, I have been, but it's going places it shouldn't.

I was trying to avoid rehashing the same discussion. We have not in fact rehashed anything since the restart of the thread.

Sorry I phrased it in a way that came off as condescending, I didn't mean to do that. But I don't think your accusation that I'm taking over the thread is valid. I've only posted thrice in the last four pages. What places is it going that it shouldn't?

I think there is still a lot that is worth discussing, as evidenced by how the thread is still going, and with really long posts by a variety of different people to boot. "Feminism is good" is not the end of it, there's lots of details that merit exploration.

Lemme rephrase what I said:

"We've been over this and already explained that the word 'feminism', despite its looks, does not mean it's about advancing women's rights over everyone else's, and it would be best if we do not rehash a discussion that already happened."

I do firmly believe that if one is for equal rights there is no reason to react negatively to feminism in general (this is not to say there aren't divisions and problems within the movement itself, but I mean from an outside perspective) unless one is not informed about it, or actually hates women. I do not think anyone here hates women, which is why I said what I said. I apologize, again, for putting it that way. I'm not trying to create conflict.

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If that wasn't your intent then it's mostly me being annoyed over nothing, it just felt very "Here's the way it is, thanks for coming!" It's mostly a reaction based on other, ideals/groups that I've been involved with that slowly imploded over stupid things. Don't worry about it, I'll just stay out of this I think, since I feel like it's just the same conversation we've been having for... 10 months. (Also mildly miffed about getting talked out of the thread, but that's my neurosis, so.)

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"We've been over this and already explained that the word 'feminism', despite its looks, does not mean it's about advancing women's rights over everyone else's, and it would be best if we do not rehash a discussion that already happened."

Well, the problem is, this response makes no sense in the context of what I said.

I'm only talking about the public perception. As far as my post is concerned, I don't give a shit what the word actually implies. Yufster expressed dismay that people don't know what feminism actually is all about. I submitted that, "well, that's probably impossible to change". Never once did I actually supply a definition of the word, or even attempt to, so your shutting me down kind of made little to no sense, and was also kind of dickish (although I actually didn't think you meant it that way, or I would've reacted more harshly).

But! I'm not offended, so don't worry about it. Just know for the future or whateverrrrrrrrrrrrr.

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Christ Al-fucking-mighty, everyone. This is a really interesting thread, but can I suggest that everyone review their posts before submitting to make extra-sure they're not being aggressive, dismissive or patronising in any way, and have properly read the post they're replying to? Pretty much every single person who's posted in this thread has sprinkled or framed their intelligent discourse with confrontation at some point. There's a reason that this thread is getting more "should we take it down?" discussion than any other: it's contentious enough that the usually-acceptable level of Thumbs snark is derailing it at every point. So I recommend we all count to ten and bite our tongues more than usual.

I'm not posting because all aspects of my fuzzy opinion on this are being covered, but I'm very much enjoying reading them all, so thanks.

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To be fair, I think Nachimir read it that way too. But yeah, I misunderstood it and I apologize. My reaction came from what you said about the movement needing someone to come up with a new word - my stance on it is that's probably not a good idea as the movement is fairly old by now and changing its name would only muddle things, people should just learn the definition. The thing is, the definition and all kinds of info about feminism are available for whoever's interested in looking for it, but many people aren't motivated enough to actually do that (and that is where what I said about people caring and getting informed came from). It isn't impossible to change that; making this info available is what people like the article writers Iosef Stalin mentioned are doing, and internet threads, and stuff. Unfortunately they often don't get received very well.

I'm referring to these things as information because that is what they are. They're not opinions, and there is no grey area. I'm talking about things like hard statistics, personal experiences, and things that men may not know because it's never come up in their day to day lives. If you don't know about these things, it's not your fault! I didn't know a ton of things either until fairly recently, when I was kinda reluctantly forced into listening to them by a Gender Studies teacher (it was a required class and I am SO GLAD).

It's difficult to have this conversation in a forum because one can choose to not respond to certain things and it can look as if they were being ignored, regardless of value or actual impact.

also this

it's contentious enough that the usually-acceptable level of Thumbs snark is derailing it at every point.

is very true :sad:

So I recommend we all count to ten and bite our tongues more than usual.

I'm trying really hard I'm sorry :sad: :sad: :sad:

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I'm trying really hard I'm sorry :sad: :sad: :sad:

Aww, I know! Like I say, it's pretty much everyone. The good thing is that we're all cool enough that most of the blow-ups get resolved almost immediately, but the frequency of them is exhausting.

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Yeah I was never saying people SHOULD come up with a new word. Just that it'd probably be necessary. It doesn't matter how much information is freely available to prove people's perceptions wrong - those perceptions are STUCK. It takes a collective desire to reinform on a massive scale. Something like that... just isn't really a feasible thing to expect to happen ever. It would take an enormously huge event to change things. The nuclear bomb of feminism (except, you know, a good thing, instead of killing a bunch of people).

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Oh my, it's robot Jesus!

Artificial Intelligent-Design.

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To be fair, I think Nachimir read it that way too.

I did indeed. Twig, I think I understand that you're not stating personal beliefs, but this kind of thing has End-Up-Carved-Into-Your-Gravestone levels of misquotability:

It doesn't help that, any time feminism gets any publicity, it's at the hands of a woman.

Your detached wording reads like you feel you're peering at ants or something:

Sometimes it's an absurd fanaticist, sometimes it's an entirely reasonable human being, but almost always it's a woman.

I think the only real way you're going to get your wish is if someone comes up with a completely new word for the movement.

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Your detached wording reads like you feel you're peering at ants or something:

Well, that was the point. I wasn't passing judgment on feminism, its contractors, detractors, definitions, or connotations in any capacity. I was attempting to make a purely objective observation on what it meant to people (whether or not I succeeded is, of course, another matter entirely), and then a subjective assertion on what it would take to change things.

I don't feel the need to express any sort of emotion for something like that. Do you?

I honestly don't care if I'm misquoted. If/when it happens, I'll make an effort to clarify for and/or correct the misquoter. Beyond that, it's out of my hands, anyway.

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