Does Feminism Logically Conclude to Authoritarianism?

[Juristonia]

These threads are getting more ridiculous (and abundant) by the day.
Dibs on the next "Does feminism logically conclude to eating babies and nuking cats!?!??"

Nuking cats? Are feminists Dwarf Fortress players now?

Yes, but they're fake dwarf fortress gamer girls, so it doesn't really count.

[Esheaun Stroakuss]

These threads are getting more ridiculous (and abundant) by the day.
Dibs on the next "Does feminism logically conclude to eating babies and nuking cats!?!??"

Everyone's paranoid about something these days.

[Sam Hyde]

Shouldn't be long before the thread heads towards "And things were better back when they stayed in the kitchen".

You deny that they were?

[Wallenburg]

Shouldn't be long before the thread heads towards "And things were better back when they stayed in the kitchen".

You deny that they were?

I was not aware you were sexist. Huh.

[Crysuko]

You deny that they were?

I was not aware you were sexist. Huh.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

[The Empire of Pretantia]

I was not aware you were sexist. Huh.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

It's not. He isn't trying to argue, he's just stating the obvious.

[Arcturus Novus]

What the fuck?

[The Cobalt Sky]

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

It's not. He isn't trying to argue, he's just stating the obvious.

You ever get the feeling that these days on the internet, all arguments are pretty much just wild assertions and other people going "lel, u made a fallacy"?

[Wallenburg]

I was not aware you were sexist. Huh.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

If he doesn't want to be called a sexist, he can stop holding sexist beliefs. As said, I'm not arguing, I'm simply stating the obvious conclusion based on his opinions.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

It's not. He isn't trying to argue, he's just stating the obvious.

You ever get the feeling that these days on the internet, all arguments are pretty much just wild assertions and other people going "lel, u made a fallacy"?

Not really.

[The Cobalt Sky]

You ever get the feeling that these days on the internet, all arguments are pretty much just wild assertions and other people going "lel, u made a fallacy"?

Not really.

Agree with me. Agree with me or your whole life is a fallacy.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

Not really.

Agree with me. Agree with me or your whole life is a fallacy.

Life doesn't agree with logic anyway. Why should I?

[The Cobalt Sky]

Agree with me. Agree with me or your whole life is a fallacy.

Life doesn't agree with logic anyway. Why should I?

Because feminism logically concludes to authoritarianism?

{Desperate attempt to stay on topic}

[New Fredon]

To be honest, I have no knowledge of feminist theory and no interest in it.

Probably not? I don't really think that ivory tower academic theories or Internet people have much real sway in how people act day to day outside of their spheres of influence. Most people have a sense of "don't be an ass" and I see feminism as contributing to this notion the ideas of not forcing things upon women, that they have an equal say in politics, etc, so I see it as a general trend away from authoritarianism.

[Keyboard Warriors]

It's not. He isn't trying to argue, he's just stating the obvious.

You ever get the feeling that these days on the internet, all arguments are pretty much just wild assertions and other people going "lel, u made a fallacy"?

All the time. Pseudo-intellectualism and back-slapping has really taken the meaning out of discussing things on forums these days.

[Maoist Britain]

Shouldn't be long before the thread heads towards "And things were better back when they stayed in the kitchen".

You deny that they were?

Troll bait.

[Pope Joan]

The movement does not have to adjust itself to your authoritarian definition, OP.

Take a look at Women's Ways of Knowing, an influential text: women think and act collaboratively. That is not the mark of authoritarianism.

http://www.amazon.com/Womens-Ways-Knowi ... 0465090990

Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir, and Gloria Steinem all hoped women would discover new forms of sharing power rather than usurping or centralizing it.

[Grave_n_idle]

I know, I know, "the radical ones aren't true feminists!" But, forget about them for the moment. Think about the movement itself.

First of all, the definition;

the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.

Now, the second part of that definition is dandy, but the term "advocacy" does display a commitment to the movement. In fact, advocacy could lead onto radicalism. Now, the problem is that it only focuses on one gender to achieve equality of the sexes.

I like to equate the logical progression of feminism to that of Marxism. Of course, the more die-hard Marxists may vehemently oppose that mention, and to be fair it has become somewhat of a scapegoat. However, like Marxism, feminism analyses everything among social lines, as something that needs to change. It advocates the "haves" and "have nots", i.e. the bourgeoisie (patriarchy) and the proletariat (working women).

Now, Marxism states that the end stage of the Dialectic principle, after revolution and consolidation, is communism. Communism is pure ideology; an unimaginable utopia for the politically naïve. In order to uphold this naivety against the logical mind, communists can only employ authoritarianism as a form of methodology for their aim. Hence, how in practice, aspiring communist states tend to cause deaths- both intentional and accidental.

How does this relate to feminism? Well, for three reasons;

1) Marxist-inspired states were hypocritical, in that not all working men united, but- as Lenin proposed- a small group of intellectuals to lead a revolution and a government. Likewise, feminism is mainly a movement for white middle class university professors.
2) Marxists tried to change society by force, as opposed to progress through the Marxist stages in history. Feminists wish to overthrow the dynamic of society by force.
3) Whilst authoritarian feminists and Stalin fanboys are in the minority in their respective movements, they do still exist within their movements. Their opinions are eerily similar to the original ideology.

Does feminism logically conclude to authoritarianism? I don't know, but if a truly feminist state was to occur, it would be restrictive on the freedoms of even its target market.

Whole post is silly.

[Grave_n_idle]

You deny that they were?

Troll bait.

We shouldn't be afraid to ask questions just because we don't like what the answer might be.

Some things were better for some people when 'thy stayed in the kitchen'. Some things were even better for some women... and a lot of things might have been better for a lot of men.

So don't immediately disregard Sam's question because you think it's baiting.

Disregard it, instead, because we've collectively decided that making things better for the part of the population that holds more power is not a paradigm we particularly want.

[Grave_n_idle]

I know, I know, "the radical ones aren't true feminists!" But, forget about them for the moment. Think about the movement itself.

Anti-feminist rhetoric isn't even original - it's the exact same anti-women rubbish that privileged men were attacking women with a century ago.

[Tahar Joblis]

The movement does not have to adjust itself to your authoritarian definition, OP.

Take a look at Women's Ways of Knowing, an influential text: women think and act collaboratively. That is not the mark of authoritarianism.

Thinking and acting as a group, i.e., group conformal behavior, actually is a mark of an authoritarian society.

Mind, the OP didn't say that female leadership logically leads to authoritarianism, but instead specifically that feminist ideology led towards authoritarianism.

I object to your laying the foundation for a claim that women are inherently given to totalitarianism. I object to it on the basis that it is sexist; and also on the basis that your evidence is very poor in quality.

http://www.amazon.com/Womens-Ways-Knowing-Development-Anniversary/dp/0465090990

Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir, and Gloria Steinem all hoped women would discover new forms of sharing power rather than usurping or centralizing it.

That book is situated within standpoint theory. It is deeply sexist and not empiricist. It is worth noting that its conclusions about women are based on interviews with a small number of women selected on a non-random basis (due to the anti-empiricist "feminist epistemology" at hand), rather than involving a large or representative sample. In spite of claiming differences between men and women, no men were interviewed as a basis of comparison.

More to the point, the book in question is actually laying a foundation for future arguments to be made that women are inherently given to totalitarianism, e.g., via rejection of the rights-based framework that all modern liberal democracies are based on, and even rejection of the rule of law, which has been foundational in rejecting authoritarian forms of government.

By listening to girls and women resolve serious moral dilemmas in their lives, Gilligan has traced the development of a morality organized around notions of responsibility and care. This conception of morality contrasts sharply with the morality of rights ...

... People operating within a rights morality - more commonly men - evoke the metaphor of "blind justice" and rely on abstract laws and universal principles to adjudicate disputes and conflicts between conflicting claims impersonally, impartially, and fairly.

There are many more objectionable parts of the book, but ultimately, the book is painting a picture of women as inherently opposed, by cognitive style, to a modern, scientific, liberal, and non-authoritarian society.

As Forsher pointed out, this is one step away from arguing that women are unsuited for STEM fields.

Of course, the methodology of the book is simply not scientific, so it doesn't present convincing evidence that its horrifically sexist claims about women are accurate; but it is presenting a feminist perspective that rejects as "masculine":

• Individual rights
• Individualism more generally
• Skepticism
• Objectivity
• Quantitative reasoning
• Logic
• Falsificationism
• The rule of law

When you are opposed to individualism, individual rights, and objective rule of law, you are, in fact, working in the direction of authoritarianism.

[Ostroeuropa]

I would say yes, it does. Based on this:

(x-post reddit mensrights.)

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v408/n6809/images/408154aa.2.jpg
What do you see? A vase or two faces? Or, the more detached answer, an optical illusion that appears as a vase and two faces dependent on how you are focusing on it.
So it goes with sexism. Feminism, at it's best, is an explanation for how women perceive and are effected by sexism. They say it's a vase, or rather, describe misogyny and it's effects.
The MRMs narrative, is an explanation for how men perceive and are effected by sexism. It's two faces, or misandry and it's effects. The MRM is also explicitly clear that we would have very little issue with feminism as a movement if it stopped pretending to work on mens issues too, and accepted the MRM narrative as valid. We're an open-school of thinking. You can see the vase or two faces, we don't mind, so long as both opinions are accepted as equivalent and we work on the problem from both perspectives.
Feminists, meanwhile, dogmatically assert that it is a vase, and that to say otherwise is hateful. They are a closed-school. The randian objectivists of gender equality.
This causes closed-feminism to be a de-facto hate movement when you consider that women seem more inclined to view the situation as misogyny, and men more inclined to view the situation as misandry. Because of this, and because of feminists hostility to anyone who doesn't accept their perspective, men are driven out of the discussion on gender equality, and because of feminisms perspective, many issues that effect men go ignored or undiscovered.
Further, the feminist narrative means that men will be viewing the behaviors of others and themselves in terms of how it effects women and their status, which is a thoroughly gynocentric worldview to have, instead of viewing sexism in terms of how it effects and degrades men and themselves, giving them a vested interest in tackling it, and arming them with self-respect and such, instead of constantly being worried about women and their status. (You know. Like their wellbeing was your responsibility.) By asserting their perspective as fact, they oppress men, because it prevents them from noticing and acknowledging mens issues until someone with an androcentric perspective points out these issues to them.
An "Open"-feminist would be one who accepts the MRM narrative and thinks it's an important part of the solution to sexism in society. These are Feminist MRAs, or, WRA/MRA, if you think the closed nature of feminism is inherent to it. (Which i'm on the fence about. I'd say that the closed nature of feminism is inherent to it currently, but that could change if enough feminists realize the point about perspectives.)
By pointing this out to feminists, and how every issue can be seen as misogyny or misandry dependent on perspective, and bringing up the optical illusion, you can make them seem like the hateful people they are to third parties, when they continually assert as fact their perspective.
In this manner, we can seize the middle ground. For one thing, it's basically true. The fact is that misandry and misogyny have a similar relationship to eachother as the vase and two faces, in terms of both being a valid way to view a situation, and in terms of both causing the shape of the other to come into existence, and this can be easily pointed out. If we also shift from criticism of feminism, to criticism of "closed"-feminism, we can basically switch the argument on "Not all feminists are like that" to "Well, the ones who don't support the MRM really are all like that, that's the definition." which is useful, I think, as an "open"-feminist is not really a big problem for mens rights, especially if they consistently approach issues from both perspectives. Yeh, basically a bit of waffling there. What's your opinion on the optical illusion analogy for misandry/misogyny?

because of the dogmatic assertion of perspective, it necessitates an authoritarian control of discourse and discussions of sexism, as well as gravitates toward authoritarian control of men and their behavior due to the gynocentricity of that perspective.
I would say that in order for feminism to not end up authoritarian, it must accept the mens rights movement as a necessary counterweight to itself.

[Tahar Joblis]

I know, I know, "the radical ones aren't true feminists!" But, forget about them for the moment. Think about the movement itself.

Anti-feminist rhetoric isn't even original - it's the exact same anti-women rubbish that privileged men were attacking women with a century ago.

It's very strange that you should be so sexist as to characterize opposition to first-wave feminists as male.

Anti-suffragette women were far more enthusiastic and engaged. Seriously.