Concerned over Cultural Marxism

[thejeff]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Exactly BNW. I mean, if the Patriarchy exists as many feminists believe it does, why would the men who direct society for the benefit and privilege of their own sex have these kinds of issues that blatantly shoot themselves in the foot? Either Fifty Shades of Grey is on to something about the sadomasochistic nature of men, or the patriarchy doesn't exist and the people that believe it does are mistaking the circumstances that led to the current societal build to have been motivated by active malice rather than external pressures like location, or internal factors like brain chemistry.

Or there is a patriarchy, but it's not active malice. It's more like the old boys club. It's not some vast conspiracy, it's the legacy of an even more biased past. Men were in positions of power and organized the world as they thought best. Often with the best of intentions, trying to protect women, for example, but without actually letting them have any say.

It's definitely been changing, because women have fought to have that say, but there is still prejudice. A lot of it is simply that people in positions of power, who tend to be older males raised in an era when sexism was even more common and acceptable, look to other people like them as successors. This makes it harder for women to get into the upper levels of companies or of politics. Not impossible, like it was not that long ago, but harder.

The sexist attitude isn't usually hatred of women or intentionally abusive, it's often well intentioned: Men should protect and take care of women. Which leads to the assumption that they should also be in charge of women. A lot of the things in BNW's list come from that attitude.

[meatrace]

Or that there has been a patriarchy for so long, and equality of the sexes is such a new idea, that ripples of inequality run through our society and the legal system as we collectively try to figure out how to do old things in a new way.

[thejeff]

meatrace wrote:

Or that there has been a patriarchy for so long, and equality of the sexes is such a new idea, that ripples of inequality run through our society and the legal system as we collectively try to figure out how to do old things in a new way.

There may well be some of that. We really are trying something that's never been done before. There are bound to be growing pains.

Also, when you pass explicit laws to address implicit prejudice, it's easier to point at the law and say "That's unfair" than it is to demonstrate the bias that makes it necessary. There is no one legal statement showing the bias, there is a pattern in millions of individual decisions.

[Samnell]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Exactly BNW. I mean, if the Patriarchy exists as many feminists believe it does, why would the men who direct society for the benefit and privilege of their own sex have these kinds of issues that blatantly shoot themselves in the foot? Either Fifty Shades of Grey is on to something about the sadomasochistic nature of men, or the patriarchy doesn't exist and the people that believe it does are mistaking the circumstances that led to the current societal build to have been motivated by active malice rather than external pressures like location, or internal factors like brain chemistry.

Or the patriarchy is not an absolute invariant law of nature that applies in all fields in all ways with no possible exception now or at any time in the past and future, but rather reflects the broad preponderance of privilege that skews radically (if not so radically as it did in past decades) to the benefit of males.

Which is, you know, how actual feminists see the patriarchy instead of how a collection of internet misogynists imagine it is.

[LazarX]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

males

Can be drafted into the military(women can't)

Are automatically assumed to be at fault in a domestic violence dispute (de facto)

Are far more likely to wind up homeless. (Jack goes homeless, Jill gets welfare)

Wind up paying alimony and the kids in a divorce

Go through an educational system where what would qualify as assault is considered normal development.

Are far more likely to wind up in prison.

When marriages break up, women are far more likely to wind up in poverty, as in many cases fathers simply skip on paying alimony or child support by going out of state or simply out of sight. Having spent more time in the involvement of raising a family, women typically are disadvantaged in re-entering the job market after a marriage breaks up.

I've seen almost as many homeless women in the city as men. The children get taken away into the foster system and the woman winds up homeless.

[thejeff]

LazarX wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

males

Can be drafted into the military(women can't)

Are automatically assumed to be at fault in a domestic violence dispute (de facto)

Are far more likely to wind up homeless. (Jack goes homeless, Jill gets welfare)

Wind up paying alimony and the kids in a divorce

Go through an educational system where what would qualify as assault is considered normal development.

Are far more likely to wind up in prison.

When marriages break up, women are far more likely to wind up in poverty, as in many cases fathers simply skip on paying alimony or child support by going out of state or simply out of sight. Having spent more time in the involvement of raising a family, women typically are disadvantaged in re-entering the job market after a marriage breaks up.

I've seen almost as many homeless women in the city as men. The children get taken away into the foster system and the woman winds up homeless.

Or the woman simply doesn't have children.

The first is another example of a where you can easily point at an apparently discriminatory legal situation (men have to pay alimony more than women do), but you have to dig deeper to see the underlying discrimination.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Samnell wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Exactly BNW. I mean, if the Patriarchy exists as many feminists believe it does, why would the men who direct society for the benefit and privilege of their own sex have these kinds of issues that blatantly shoot themselves in the foot? Either Fifty Shades of Grey is on to something about the sadomasochistic nature of men, or the patriarchy doesn't exist and the people that believe it does are mistaking the circumstances that led to the current societal build to have been motivated by active malice rather than external pressures like location, or internal factors like brain chemistry.

Or the patriarchy is not an absolute invariant law of nature that applies in all fields in all ways with no possible exception now or at any time in the past and future, but rather reflects the broad preponderance of privilege that skews radically (if not so radically as it did in past decades) to the benefit of males.

Which is, you know, how actual feminists see the patriarchy instead of how a collection of internet misogynists imagine it is.

GirlWritesWhat is a woman, though...

[Samnell]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

GirlWritesWhat is a woman, though...

So is Phyllis Schlafly. If you want to know what actual feminists think about the patriarchy, you should go read some of them. If you're reasonably polite about it, you can probably get lots of great answers over on the Atheism+ forums.

Here, for example, is the board's glossary definition of Patriarchy:

Quote:

Patriarchy - a social system that aims to keep men in positions of authority and power. Important note: mentioning that something is the fault of the patriarchy does not blame all men. Women can be agents of the patriarchy, too. Blaming the patriarchy is blaming the system, and wanting to dismantle the system.

Right under that is a theme I've hit on these boards a few times in the past and which I've dealt with on occasion in my own life, as I expect most guys have.

Quote:

Patriarchy Hurts Men Too (PHMT) - while patriarchy often aims to keep men in positions of power and privilege, it also causes a lot of harm to men and boys especially due to rigid gender roles that do not allow for men to take part in anything considered feminine without ridicule. (Toxic Masculinity) (See also: Femmephobia)

Serious question: If they cared enough to put that up in their board glossary, do they really seem likely to be Valerie Solanis-style misandrists?

I point you there because of the diversity of learned feminist viewpoints, but also because they have a pretty good, supportive community approach to mental health issues. (They fall under ableism, which is one of the things like sexism and racism that A+ is against.)

[LazarX]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Samnell wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Exactly BNW. I mean, if the Patriarchy exists as many feminists believe it does, why would the men who direct society for the benefit and privilege of their own sex have these kinds of issues that blatantly shoot themselves in the foot? Either Fifty Shades of Grey is on to something about the sadomasochistic nature of men, or the patriarchy doesn't exist and the people that believe it does are mistaking the circumstances that led to the current societal build to have been motivated by active malice rather than external pressures like location, or internal factors like brain chemistry.

Or the patriarchy is not an absolute invariant law of nature that applies in all fields in all ways with no possible exception now or at any time in the past and future, but rather reflects the broad preponderance of privilege that skews radically (if not so radically as it did in past decades) to the benefit of males.

Which is, you know, how actual feminists see the patriarchy instead of how a collection of internet misogynists imagine it is.

GirlWritesWhat is a woman, though...

But you operate under a double standard. You give patriarchy a pass over it's abuses, but you condemn the entire progressive movement because of a few extremists, ignoring both the basic issues and the overall moderateness of it's approach.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

What kinds of abuses? Sure, women didn't have the right to vote, marriages were arranged and childbirth was incredibly dangerous, but women also weren't required to fight and die in war, or do backbreaking manual labor. It's admirable that there are women today that choose to serve in the military, and it's shameful that there are cases of discrimination and abuse of female soldiers, but by the same token, men becoming stay-at-home fathers is considered weak.

What I'm saying isn't that we need to revert to patriarchy, but rather that there needs to be a balance. We shouldn't have patriarchy or matriarchy, and that's exactly what a number of feminists want: All the power and benefits with none of the work or cultural expectations that come along with it.

As Barbara Ehrenreich once wrote, "There is a difference between a society in which sexism is expressed in the form of female infanticide and a society in which sexism takes the form of unequal representation on the Central Committee. And the difference is worth dying for."

Many feminists don't acknowledge these distinctions, instead preferring to paint everything with the same broad brush of patriarchy, and many do not even acknowledge or respond to the criticisms levelled at them, instead resorting to ad hominem attacks and character defamation.

[thejeff]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

What kinds of abuses? Sure, women didn't have the right to vote, marriages were arranged and childbirth was incredibly dangerous, but women also weren't required to fight and die in war, or do backbreaking manual labor. It's admirable that there are women today that choose to serve in the military, and it's shameful that there are cases of discrimination and abuse of female soldiers, but by the same token, men becoming stay-at-home fathers is considered weak.

What I'm saying isn't that we need to revert to patriarchy, but rather that there needs to be a balance. We shouldn't have patriarchy or matriarchy, and that's exactly what a number of feminists want: All the power and benefits with none of the work or cultural expectations that come along with it.

As Barbara Ehrenreich once wrote, "There is a difference between a society in which sexism is expressed in the form of female infanticide and a society in which sexism takes the form of unequal representation on the Central Committee. And the difference is worth dying for."

Many feminists don't acknowledge these distinctions, instead preferring to paint everything with the same broad brush of patriarchy, and many do not even acknowledge or respond to the criticisms levelled at them, instead resorting to ad hominem attacks and character defamation.

And by "arranged marriage" you mean lifetime rape and servitude, right?

Not a big deal, really. At least there were laws about what size stick they could be beat with.
Plenty of women, particularly the poor ones, did back breaking manual labor. And had to f*$! the boss to to get that. Just part of the service.
That's what happens when you're a second class citizen and have no voice in what happens to you. Don't worry your pretty head about, us men will take good care of you.

Now women are joining the army, coming up against the most macho culture around, getting abused at disgusting rates and ignored when they try to report it. They're trying to get approved for "combat duty", despite plenty being shot at in our latest no real front line wars. Are these the women you accuse of "All the power and benefits with none of the work or cultural expectations that come along with it"?

And stay-at-home fathers being considered weak is on anything like the same level as "discrimination and abuse of female soldiers"? This is the kind of equivocation that I can't handle. Women get raped. Men get considered weak. This is balance?

Women are still paid less for the same work, even once all the usual excuses are accounted for. They're still overlooked for promotion. I know of single mothers who were passed over for promotion for a less experienced guy because "he had a family to support". Most of the time the bigots aren't that blatant about it.

As for the Ehrenreich quote, that difference is worth dying for. That doesn't mean you stop fighting discrimination once the female infanticide stops.

Look, I agree in principle with you. Matriarchy isn't a better goal than patriarchy. And I'm sure there are some feminists who do want to go there. But we're not there. We're not even in balance yet. Even those feminists are heading in the right direction, they're just aiming too far.

Are there some individual issues where we've swung too far in the other direction and men are getting screwed? Probably. But every time I get in a discussion about this with the men's rights folks, someone starts arguing that women never really had it bad and I realize where they're coming from.

[Samnell]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Many feminists don't acknowledge these distinctions, instead preferring to paint everything with the same broad brush of patriarchy, and many do not even acknowledge or respond to the criticisms levelled at them, instead resorting to ad hominem attacks and character defamation.

I am unsure how to respond to this staggering level of cluelessness. It's obvious you've never had even the most basic familiarity with feminism and you simply ignore every attempt to acquaint you with the basics. (I could say the same thing about history based on the first paragraph of the post I'm quoting, incidentally.)

So let's try it this way: physician, heal thyself.

[thejeff]

Oh, one more thing.
It's not the feminists who thing men are weak for being stay-at-home fathers. Feminists laid the ground for letting men do that. The whole challenging gender roles thing.
It's the macho jerks who want women to be second class citizens who think stay-at-home fathers are weak.

[Samnell]

A propos to recent posts.

So yeah, take a look at this image! We can discuss military deaths and terrorism deaths without getting into some wildly diversionary screed about how some other party has it worse. Yet when it comes to discussing women, suddenly anyone else is more important.

It's like there's a whole social system built up around male privilege that defends itself in part by screaming we ought not look at the person behind the curtain no matter what that person is up to. I think I heard a name for it somewhere.

[BigNorseWolf]

Samnell wrote:

A propos to recent posts.

So yeah, take a look at this image! We can discuss military deaths and terrorism deaths without getting into some wildly diversionary screed about how some other party has it worse. Yet when it comes to discussing women, suddenly anyone else is more important.

It's like there's a whole social system built up around male privilege that defends itself in part by screaming we ought not look at the person behind the curtain no matter what that person is up to. I think I heard a name for it somewhere.

There is an enormous difference between the actions of freely acting individuals and misandry being an official policy.

[Don Juan de Doodlebug]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

As Barbara Ehrenreich once wrote, "There is a difference between a society in which sexism is expressed in the form of female infanticide and a society in which sexism takes the form of unequal representation on the Central Committee. And the difference is worth dying for."

Yeah, but Ehrenreich is the co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America and, therefore, a Cultural Marxist to the nth degree. What are you doing citing her?

Also, working-class women have always performed backbreaking manual labor. (See Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed.) From the cotton fields to the textile factories, to the settlers out west, to UPS today (where, I would hazard to guess, 25%+ of my truck-loading union brothers are, in fact, union sisters.)

[Don Juan de Doodlebug]

But, Archpaladin Zousha's got a point. I mean, check out the crazy batshiznit that this feminist has been writing lately:

"But the greatest burden that the reader of “Glittering Images” must carry is knowing from the start that the history of Western art will reach its apparent apogee with “Star Wars,” about which Paglia writes, “Nothing I saw in the visual arts of the past 30 years was as daring, beautiful and emotionally compelling as the spectacular volcano-planet climax of Lucas’s ‘Revenge of the Sith.’ ” Lucas’s importance lies in his ability to turn “dazzling new technology into an expressive personal genre.”

Link

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Don Juan de Doodlebug wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

As Barbara Ehrenreich once wrote, "There is a difference between a society in which sexism is expressed in the form of female infanticide and a society in which sexism takes the form of unequal representation on the Central Committee. And the difference is worth dying for."

Yeah, but Ehrenreich is the co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America and, therefore, a Cultural Marxist to the nth degree. What are you doing citing her?

Realizing that I've been incredibly misled in a number of ways, and am citing people more in line with my actual views than just one internet pundit.

I confess I've probably been trying to cling blindly to that one person's interpretation of the situation. I was just listening to some of Dr. Warren Farrell's stuff (according to Wikipedia, he was a strong proponent of second-wave feminism, yet also wrote a book discussing the marginalization of men in society too, all without blaming either side for the problems), and I think he's got a lot of insight. I honestly think that it's not "feminism is bad" but rather that "men and women both have problems, and we need to have a dialogue about it rather than shouting for our only our side." He certainly seems a lot more reasonable than RockinMrE.

I realize I've probably offended most of you with my ignorance over the past few weeks or so. For that, I am very sorry. I fell victim to the same problem I was accusing a lot of the different groups of: poor sampling. Looking for information in only one group or demographic and failing to see the bigger picture. I have a real problem with that, getting hung up on minutiae and ignoring the rest of it. Last month I dropped a tub of dishes at work and broke most of them, and I came very close to having a public meltdown. My manager said it was fine, that everyone had done it at some point and we could get more, but I seriously thought I was going to be fired for it. In fact I practically demanded to be fired for dropping the dishes. But I was ignoring the fact that before then, I'd never dropped a single dish, and afterwards, I never dropped another dish again. I was doing that here too. Getting hung up on small isolated points of data and ignoring the fact that this is a complex and varied issue that I can never hope to completely understand, but you've all given me great insight that will help keep me from backsliding, whether to the far left or right.

I still don't know what to do with myself, aside from continue with my jobs and life as I have. I don't hurt anyone, at least intentionally, and no one in my life really seems to want to hurt me, so why should I be upset? Frankly I'm starting to think I need to take a break from philosophy and politics. I've been bombarded with so much information from different sides that I've been tempted to do this. All this philosophizing and reading and watching You-Tube videos just ends up making me more upset. Thank you all for your help. It hasn't given me the answers I was looking for, but I think I have something much better. Again...thank you. :)

And Don Juan? I actually liked Revenge of the Sith. :P

[Robert Hawkshaw]

Second wave feminism? Nah, go with the classics man. First wave feminism: http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/wallpaper.html. They did gothic horror stories :)

Well, one gothic horror story at least.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Robert Hawkshaw wrote:

Second wave feminism? Nah, go with the classics man. First wave feminism: http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/wallpaper.html. They did gothic horror stories :)

Well, one gothic horror story at least.

GAH! THE YELLOW WALLPAPER! MY LITERARY ARCHNEMESIS!

Seriously, I had to write SO many friggin' papers on that short story I grew to despise it before the whole "research feminism to see how it's destroying the world" thing. It's a good horror story, stop making me write papers on it! The feminist message is about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the temple! The same goes for The Awakening. I've read that novella four times, once in high school and for three different classes in college and I liked it less each time. Ironically, my best paper on it was in a Women's Lit course I took. I wrote about how I disliked Edna's abandonment of life rather than trying to balance her responsibilities and desires. Probably one of the least feminist ways of looking at the book. The professor, a self-proclaimed feminist, gave me an A.

[Samnell]

Zousha, if you want a decent introduction to more modern feminism you could do worse than to watch a season or two of Mad Men. It's also great television in its own right, more like a novel unfolding over thirteen chapters than a TV series.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I'll check it out. I don't have cable in my home, so I'll probably have to get it on DVD.

[thejeff]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

I still don't know what to do with myself, aside from continue with my jobs and life as I have. I don't hurt anyone, at least intentionally, and no one in my life really seems to want to hurt me, so why should I be upset? Frankly I'm starting to think I need to take a break from philosophy and politics. I've been bombarded with so much information from different sides that I've been tempted to do this. All this philosophizing and reading and watching You-Tube videos just ends up making me more upset. Thank you all for your help. It hasn't given me the answers I was looking for, but I think I have something much better. Again...thank you. :)

I think I said it before, but you might want to lay off the political YouTube videos. They're not good for you.

If you want to know what feminists think and want, read what they have to say, don't listen to what some crank on the Internet has to say about them. Then look for some mainstream criticism of the ideas.

I've found that it's much easier to get sucked into someone's viewpoint watching them on video. Reading gives a little distance, makes it easier to think about what they're saying rather than just reacting to the tone and body language.

[Freehold DM]

Samnell wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Many feminists don't acknowledge these distinctions, instead preferring to paint everything with the same broad brush of patriarchy, and many do not even acknowledge or respond to the criticisms levelled at them, instead resorting to ad hominem attacks and character defamation.

I am unsure how to respond to this staggering level of cluelessness. It's obvious you've never had even the most basic familiarity with feminism and you simply ignore every attempt to acquaint you with the basics. (I could say the same thing about history based on the first paragraph of the post I'm quoting, incidentally.)

So let's try it this way: physician, heal thyself.

I see where he is coming from to aneextent - feminism is as much philosophy as movement, and with any philosophy comes namers (planescape ftw) who are ham fisted in their approach and give more nuanced believers /practitioners a bad name. I certainly know a few feminists who are liketthisiin my personal life. Also, like other social movements, feminism is about making things better, not perfect. That said, I am no feminist.

[LazarX]

Don Juan de Doodlebug wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

As Barbara Ehrenreich once wrote, "There is a difference between a society in which sexism is expressed in the form of female infanticide and a society in which sexism takes the form of unequal representation on the Central Committee. And the difference is worth dying for."

Yeah, but Ehrenreich is the co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America and, therefore, a Cultural Marxist to the nth degree. What are you doing citing her?

She's a Democratic Socialist as Daniel Harrington was. "Cultural Marxists" are creations of right wing conspiracy paranoid YouTube posters. There's not even a consistent definition of this term.

[LazarX]

Samnell wrote:

Zousha, if you want a decent introduction to more modern feminism you could do worse than to watch a season or two of Mad Men. It's also great television in its own right, more like a novel unfolding over thirteen chapters than a TV series.

Or you can take a real radical step and go out and MEET people, go to a PRIDE center and learn the issues first hand, instead of from the ravings of paranoid YouTube posters. As always the best way to deal with your fears is to face them head on.

[thejeff]

Freehold DM wrote:

I see where he is coming from to aneextent - feminism is as much philosophy as movement, and with any philosophy comes namers (planescape ftw) who are ham fisted in their approach and give more nuanced believers /practitioners a bad name. I certainly know a few feminists who are liketthisiin my personal life. Also, like other social movements, feminism is about making things better, not perfect. That said, I am no feminist.

I'm always curious what otherwise rational people mean when they say things like "I am no feminist". I know what the raving misogynists mean, but what do you mean?

I assume you don't think women should be kept barefoot and pregnant. I assume you think they should be allowed to vote. Do you think women should be paid the same as men for the same jobs? Do you have problems with women in positions of authority? Problems with women in the military?
What, that feminists are actually working for, as opposed to the ravings of paranoid YouTube posters about feminism, do you oppose?

[Don Juan de Doodlebug]

LazarX wrote:

Don Juan de Doodlebug wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

As Barbara Ehrenreich once wrote, "There is a difference between a society in which sexism is expressed in the form of female infanticide and a society in which sexism takes the form of unequal representation on the Central Committee. And the difference is worth dying for."

Yeah, but Ehrenreich is the co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America and, therefore, a Cultural Marxist to the nth degree. What are you doing citing her?

She's a Democratic Socialist as Daniel Harrington was. "Cultural Marxists" are creations of right wing conspiracy paranoid YouTube posters. There's not even a consistent definition of this term.

Michael Harrington.

Also, wtf? Get a sense of humor.

[Freehold DM]

thejeff wrote:

Freehold DM wrote:

I see where he is coming from to aneextent - feminism is as much philosophy as movement, and with any philosophy comes namers (planescape ftw) who are ham fisted in their approach and give more nuanced believers /practitioners a bad name. I certainly know a few feminists who are liketthisiin my personal life. Also, like other social movements, feminism is about making things better, not perfect. That said, I am no feminist.

I'm always curious what otherwise rational people mean when they say things like "I am no feminist". I know what the raving misogynists mean, but what do you mean?

I assume you don't think women should be kept barefoot and pregnant. I assume you think they should be allowed to vote. Do you think women should be paid the same as men for the same jobs? Do you have problems with women in positions of authority? Problems with women in the military?
What, that feminists are actually working for, as opposed to the ravings of paranoid YouTube posters about feminism, do you oppose?

I have no problem with women doing whatever they want. In my personal experience, women will do just that anyway - trying to tell a woman what to do is a fruitless endeavor unless you get violent about it(which I sure as hell am not going to do). I have a problem (I guess) more with the assumptions feminism makes about men. I have no problem with women in a position of power no matter where it i , andiI resent being told that I am somehow part of the problem because i have not joined the movement.

[Don Juan de Doodlebug]

Vive le Galt!

(Remember, Comrade Samnell, when you asked about the Bolsheviks and sex? Read this. If you get bored, scroll down to "The Early Soviet Government and the 1918 Family Code". Archpaladin Zousha, don't read this article.)

[thejeff]

Freehold DM wrote:

I have no problem with women doing whatever they want. In my personal experience, women will do just that anyway - trying to tell a woman what to do is a fruitless endeavor unless you get violent about it(which I sure as hell am not going to do). I have a problem (I guess) more with the assumptions feminism makes about men. I have no problem with women in a position of power no matter where it i , andiI resent being told that I am somehow part of the problem because i have not joined the movement.

So you actually support most of most of feminism, you just don't want to be part of it. I guess that's fair.

I'm not really sure what assumptions you think feminism makes about men. Hopefully not the standard man-hating nonsense.

[Don Juan de Doodlebug]

"A major failing of most feminist ideology is its dumb, ungenerous stereotyping of men as tyrants and abusers, when in fact-as I know full well, from my own mortifying lesbian experience- men are tormented by women's flirtatiousness and hemming and hawing, their manipulations and changeableness, their humiliating rejections. Cock teasing is a universal reality. It is part of women's merciless testing and cold-eyed comparison shopping for potential mates. Men will do anything to win the favor of women. Women literally size up men- "What can you show me?"- in bed and out. If middle class feminists think they conduct their love lives perfectly rationally, without any instinctual influences from biology, they are imbeciles."

Hee hee!

Man, I love Camille Paglia, even if she does like crappy movies.

Comrades Jeff, Hawkshaw, Samnell, others: if you were to recommend I read one feminist text, what would it be?

[Don Juan de Doodlebug]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

I realize I've probably offended most of you with my ignorance over the past few weeks or so. For that, I am very sorry.

Well, I'm just here for a good time. 'S all in good fun, thrashing away at shiznit on the Paizo boards. Personally, I don't think you're offending anyone, just giving them something to do while they're at work or whatever. We should probably thank you.

Thank you, Archpaladin Zousha.

[Samnell]

Don Juan de Doodlebug wrote:

Vive le Galt!

(Remember, Comrade Samnell, when you asked about the Bolsheviks and sex? Read this. If you get bored, scroll down to "The Early Soviet Government and the 1918 Family Code". Archpaladin Zousha, don't read this article.)

It's hard to read about these genuine leaps of freedom and knowing Stalin is around the corner.

[Don Juan de Doodlebug]

Well, then, stop before you get to the 1936 Code.

[Don Juan de Doodlebug]

Oh, and Sam, this thread being what it is:

Read the first quarter of Harriet Jacobs's book. It's pretty awesome, and easy to read, I'd check it out.

[Samnell]

Don Juan de Doodlebug wrote:

Comrades Jeff, Hawkshaw, Samnell, others: if you were to recommend I read one feminist text, what would it be?

I'd have to have read one to say. I got my feminism informally, mostly from documentaries about the history of sex and gender relations. I know about Valerie Solanis because she's so famously nuts and parts of the SCUM Manifesto read like comedy. My approach when feminist issues come up is generally to listen and consider. I've only found room to disagree with the really out-there postmodernists who think that science is an oppressive, inherently male social construct that needs to be overthrown. Being a fairly egalitarian-minded gay dude probably helps, since I've spent my life staring right in the face of narrow and restrictive gender norms that help no one.

I think those people are backhanded misogynists, honestly. They've taken the lamentable male dominance of the sciences, which is because of how we encourage boys and discourage girls about them, and made it into exactly the kind of gender essentialism that feminism ought to be about ripping out by the roots.

But then I could say that about academic postmodern theorists in general. They're a lot of clueless wankers that insist they're all for the oppressed and marginalized while witlessly adopting the same ideologies that drive and sustain the oppression and marginalization. I'm not sure the movement, outside the arts anyway, isn't just a really terrible performance piece that a couple of French guys thought up after one too many swimming pools of wine and then spent the next thirty years chuckling about instead of just admitting they were so drunk when they stepped outside their livers spontaneously caught fire.

[Don Juan de Doodlebug]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

The same goes for The Awakening.

Yeah, I didn't really like that book, either. Give me Edith Wharton.

[Don Juan de Doodlebug]

Samnell wrote:

Don Juan de Doodlebug wrote:

Comrades Jeff, Hawkshaw, Samnell, others: if you were to recommend I read one feminist text, what would it be?

I'd have to have read one to say. I got my feminism informally, mostly from documentaries about the history of sex and gender relations....

That's interesting, but not very helpful.

I've read a lot of Camille Paglia because she's such an awesome troll, and I've read, of course, various "socialist-feminists" but I've never wandered into the forests of Freidan or Steinem or Wolf or whoever.

I always like Kathleen Hanna, though.

[Samnell]

Don Juan de Doodlebug wrote:

Oh, and Sam, this thread being what it is:

Read the first quarter of Harriet Jacobs's book. It's pretty awesome, and easy to read, I'd check it out.

I'll keep it in mind. I'm working through Road to Disunion at a decent clip. (Up to the Gag Rule Controversy!)

[LazarX]

Freehold DM wrote:

iI resent being told that I am somehow part of the problem because i have not joined the movement.

When it comes to social change, the classic slogan "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem", is more true than most people are willing to admit.

If you're not actively working to change your own taught perceptions and routines about women, minorities, or some other social issue, you most likely ARE helping to perpetuate the issue, frequently without realizing it.

[Samnell]

Don Juan de Doodlebug wrote:

Samnell wrote:

Don Juan de Doodlebug wrote:

Comrades Jeff, Hawkshaw, Samnell, others: if you were to recommend I read one feminist text, what would it be?

I'd have to have read one to say. I got my feminism informally, mostly from documentaries about the history of sex and gender relations....

That's interesting, but not very helpful.

Yeah, I know. :(

[Don Juan de Doodlebug]

Samnell wrote:

Don Juan de Doodlebug wrote:

Oh, and Sam, this thread being what it is:

Read the first quarter of Harriet Jacobs's book. It's pretty awesome, and easy to read, I'd check it out.

I'll keep it in mind. I'm working through Road to Disunion at a decent clip. (Up to the Gag Rule Controversy!)

Oh, Sam, you make even Foner sound sexy!

[bugleyman]

I'm concerned about people who are concerned about Cultural Marxism.

Seriously.

[LazarX]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

I still don't know what to do with myself, aside from continue with my jobs and life as I have. I don't hurt anyone, at least intentionally, and no one in my life really seems to want to hurt me, so why should I be upset? Frankly I'm starting to think I need to take a break from philosophy and politics. I've been bombarded with so much information from different sides that I've been tempted to do this. All this philosophizing and reading and watching You-Tube videos just ends up making me more upset. Thank you all for your help. It hasn't given me the answers I was looking for, but I think I have something much better. Again...thank you. :)

My last words to you.

Fear thrives in the darkness of the unknown. Go out and get to know people. Look for the nearest PRIDE center in your area, spend some time there. and you'll learn to know that behind the labels attached to the LGBT population, people are still people and you'll learn to relate to them as people. You'll learn what kind of fears they had to deal with and you'll both move beyond them as a result.

The vast majority of people who hate and fear, do so because they've walled themselves away from contact in fear of the unknown and live blinded by ignorance. Are there bad people in the LGBT scene? Yes, just like any other kind of person there are good folks and there are some truly rotten apples, but you'll learn that that's a function of the individual, not the orientations.

[Samnell]

Don Juan de Doodlebug wrote:

Samnell wrote:

Don Juan de Doodlebug wrote:

Oh, and Sam, this thread being what it is:

Read the first quarter of Harriet Jacobs's book. It's pretty awesome, and easy to read, I'd check it out.

I'll keep it in mind. I'm working through Road to Disunion at a decent clip. (Up to the Gag Rule Controversy!)

Oh, Sam, you make even Foner sound sexy!

It's William W. Freehling, not Foner. :) He has a few annoying old dude writing ticks and I think he's a little too easy on the "slavery is awful so we'll abolish it one of these days when circumstances are perfect but not a second sooner" crowd, but overall very readable.

I just wish he'd shut up about "intellectuals" and "scholars" that only seem to exist when he's annoyed with them. Dude, you're an academic writing a history book. Glass house. And more annoyingly, he seems to mostly be aggravated with those "intellectuals" for errors that no student of the field would make. So really he's cheesed off at the opposite of scholars and intellectuals.

The book's twenty years old and maybe the field's just moved a lot in that time, but I know of studies of Southern unionism and other stuff about how the white South wasn't monolithic going back to when he was in grade school. I suppose there could have been a bad crop of Southerners as Hivemind scholarship back around 1990, but it seems like a stretch.

[Lord Dice]

Oh pish, keeping slaves is expensive. No matter how badly you want to treat them, you have to provide food and board to keep them healthy enough to work. If, on the other you free them, you can charge them rent, sell them food, pay them too little to cover the cost, and offer them credit against future earnings; that's a moneymaker!

(Don't hate, I'm a job creator.)

Nonsense aside, I am interested about slavery in the antebellum South; I'm interested in how plantations grew out of British noble estates; I'm interested in the fact that freed black landowners sometimes own slaves. I just don't want anyone to think that interest is the same thing as endorsement.

[Irontruth]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

What kinds of abuses? Sure, women didn't have the right to vote, marriages were arranged and childbirth was incredibly dangerous, but women also weren't required to fight and die in war, or do backbreaking manual labor. It's admirable that there are women today that choose to serve in the military, and it's shameful that there are cases of discrimination and abuse of female soldiers, but by the same token, men becoming stay-at-home fathers is considered weak.

This is actually a problem of the Patriarchy. Considering a man weak for staying at home to raise the kids is just a different version of "you throw like a girl." He is being considered weak because he is taking a traditionally feminine role, that means that we as a society, still consider traditionally feminine roles to be for weaker people. A true reversal would be the exact opposite of that, people who adopt traditionally feminine roles would be considered stronger than masculine ones.

Men being considered weak for appearing feminine is NOT the point of feminism, because that still implies an inherent weakness in women.

[Robert Hawkshaw]

Don Juan de Doodlebug wrote:

"A major failing of most feminist ideology is its dumb, ungenerous stereotyping of men as tyrants and abusers, when in fact-as I know full well, from my own mortifying lesbian experience- men are tormented by women's flirtatiousness and hemming and hawing, their manipulations and changeableness, their humiliating rejections. Cock teasing is a universal reality. It is part of women's merciless testing and cold-eyed comparison shopping for potential mates. Men will do anything to win the favor of women. Women literally size up men- "What can you show me?"- in bed and out. If middle class feminists think they conduct their love lives perfectly rationally, without any instinctual influences from biology, they are imbeciles."

Hee hee!

Man, I love Camille Paglia, even if she does like crappy movies.

Comrades Jeff, Hawkshaw, Samnell, others: if you were to recommend I read one feminist text, what would it be?

Hmm - maybe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain%27t_I_a_Woman%3F_%28book%29

I have difficulties with a lot of the feminist writing you get exposed to at university - a lot is so academic and theory laden that the point of the writing disappears, or has no resonance with the reader. I can only be deconstructed or overdetermined so much before I get bored.

Some is so angry or hostile at society as a whole or men in particular that it becomes unconvincing. What the hell am I supposed to do with statements like: "Intercourse is the pure, sterile, formal expression of men's contempt for women," and "Penetrative intercourse is, by its nature, violent." - Dworkin.

The best (IMHO) tackle a specific issue, show you why or what the problem is, why it is in everyones interest to fix the problem, and point to a solution. Stuff like this: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1597446 (problem - tax code has been changed, solution, fix the tax code). Or the yellow wallpaper. (problem - women not having control over medical decisions / confinement - solution, don't lock them up).

[Samnell]

Lord Dice wrote:

Nonsense aside, I am interested about slavery in the antebellum South; I'm interested in how plantations grew out of British noble estates; I'm interested in the fact that freed black landowners sometimes own slaves. I just don't want anyone to think that interest is the same thing as endorsement.

I haven't read any specialized work on the subject, but at least as far as the American South goes, I'm not sure they did. (A few colonies sold titles like Lord of X with associated lands, but the people who went over and expected to be treated like lords found their fellow transplants didn't go for that.) The basic problem was not enough people to work all that land. Proto-planters responded by getting indentured servants (who could be treated just like slaves in most respects, except you had to let them go eventually) from England. In the late 1600s, the British economy improved and thus fewer hard-up Englishmen wanted to sign over seven years of their life for transport and a lot of hard labor. So slavery, which existed informally alongside indentured servitude, won out for basic supply and demand reasons.

At least that's true in the Chesapeake, where the local white dudes didn't have a strong cultural tradition of slavery. The early waves of settlement in South Carolina came not from England, but small farmers pushed out of Barbados by consolidating planters. Many of them grew up in a pervasive slave society and settled on working over one of the small stretches of land in British North America that white people ordinarily did not want: the swampy Carolina lowcountry. They grew rice and indigo (King Cotton came later.) which required huge numbers of slaves to keep up the fields, irrigation, etc. That also meant that Carolina planters spent a lot more time vastly outnumbered by their human property than Chesapeake tobacco farmers, which did not favors to their insular and often paranoid outlook.