Feminism described / defined / characterized

[Freelanderness]

sniiiip

That's a controversial position here.

It goes on.

True, I was trying to generalise when I shouldn't have. Again, I also don't spend a lot of time talking about the patriarchy, because I think it's too narrow of a concept. Just my opinion, other's have different takes on it. Anyway thanks for pointing that out. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the patriarchy only rewards those who follow the rules, so to speak, so if a man were to step out of his narrowly defined role, he is subject to consequences, thus the patriarchy also negatively affects men.

[Tahar Joblis]

It's cute because I never implied that men couldn't be sexually assaulted by women.

You didn't directly say that, no. However, the idea is very widespread, and you happened to mention men getting raped only in the context of "male victims of prison rape." Which, for people who are misinformed and believe that rape of men by men is more common than rape of men by women, will be taken as confirmation of their beliefs.

The clarification is accordingly useful for the peanut gallery even if you yourself are educated on the topic and are aware that men are raped by women more often than by other women. [Yes, this is true even accounting for widespread rape within the incarcerated subpopulation.]

[Forsher]

That's a controversial position here.

It goes on.

True, I was trying to generalise when I shouldn't have. Again, I also don't spend a lot of time talking about the patriarchy, because I think it's too narrow of a concept. Just my opinion, other's have different takes on it. Anyway thanks for pointing that out. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the patriarchy only rewards those who follow the rules, so to speak, so if a man were to step out of his narrowly defined role, he is subject to consequences, thus the patriarchy also negatively affects men.

The general use here is that patriarchy is always bad. Generally restricts individuality and personhood when you conform and bites you when you don't. If you're a man it also means that you run the risk of valhalla.

However, it is ill defined and there are competing definitions out in NSG. It has all the elements of "tin foil hat" conspiracy except the lack of popular support.

I could have found, quite easily, quotes that support what you said.

[Central Slavia]

You know, the problem with this thread is that one of the fundamental aspects of feminism is choice (e.g: a woman's choice to have an abortion, a woman's choice to have a career, etc) and this means that the movement ends up being extremely diverse, with all kinds of different aspects within it. If you're looking to explore the different aspects of feminism, I can link you to one of my favourite pages Unpacking the F word which takes different viewpoints and quotes pertaining to feminism and woman's issues as a whole and then explores them.

As for Valerie Solanas, she was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, for God's sake! It's just as ridiculous to include her as an exemplar of a feminist, simply because she identified as such, as it would be to include Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot as exemplars of atheism, since they all identified as such. You can't logically antagonise feminism for the actions of the few, just as you can't logically antagonise atheism for the actions of the few.

Atheism is an ideology in the same sense not playing chess is a hobby.
And the three are consistently being used as an examples of the evil of marxist-leninist ideology . . . using Solanas as an example of the evil of feminism holds exactly as much ground.

[Ashmoria]

i think it does to some extent.

a woman like phillys schaffley who worked tirelessly to defeat the equal rights ammendment had no problem with taking the lead, being a strong woman doing what needed to be done to get what she believed is right.

im sure she has been an inspiration to generations of conservative women who found their proto-feminist voice in following her example.

yes you have to subtract out that she was working against women's rights and women's equality. thats a big subtraction. but her position at the top of her movement put the lie to what she was working for. her life demonstrates that women can and should be free to work hard as they want to achieve whatever aim means the most to them.

the real non-feminist woman would have stayed home where she felt she belonged and have maybe encouraged the men around her to take up the cause of defeating the ERA.

Let me draw the common thread, then, between the cases you've mentioned. If I have your opinion correct, you are stating that:

• Hugh Hefner assigning his daughter control over the magazine is a feminist act.
• Sarah Palin's political career, election as governor, nomination for vp, etc are feminist acts.
• Phyllis Schlafly assuming leadership roles in activism against the ERA is a feminist act.

And these feminist acts must then be balanced against:

• Self-identification as a feminist.
• Other acts that may not be feminist.

In determining whether or not they are feminists.

What is the common thread there? Placing a woman in a position of power/leadership, if I am not greatly mistaken. So; one act which you use to characterize someone as feminist is placing a woman in a position of power/leadership; and the corresponding statements, i.e., endorsing particular women or women in general for positions of power/leadership, should therefore be characteristically feminist statements, as you see them.

Is that a fair expression of your opinion?

its fair enough. women taking their own power is more feminist than women being granted power by someone else. but if that is real power it is feminist to some extent no matter who does it. the move to declare that the eventual baby of the heir of the british throne will rule even if it is a girl followed later by a son is a feminist act, for example, even though the queen in question doesnt exist yet.

im not declaring phillys schaffley to be a feminist icon. im saying that taking power and control as she did is a feminist act that had positive feminist reprocussions for younger conservative women.

[Ashmoria]

the problem with your contest is that *I* dont get to decide who is and who isnt a feminist.

i can look, for example, at sarah palin (chosen for her fame) and say "she is not a feminist"

but when you look at sarah palin objectively she fits any common definition--she is a strong working mother who has reached the top of her profession through her own hard work and determination. she wants no less for her own daughters.

so...first of all the person has to define themselves as feminist. ( i dont know if sarah palin does or not) THEN we have to look to see if that persons life and words match that definition, how well they do, and whether or not they are feminist enough to outweigh the spots where they fall short. because EVERYONE falls short of a perfect feminism. whatever that would be.

we might also be ready to claim a person as a feminist even if they DONT make that claim for themselves. even if sarah palin says she isnt a feminst (again, i dont know if she does or not) its obvious that she only gives lip service to any non-feminist crap she might say. she has no problem being #1 in any situation.

One does not become a feminist because one lives what feminists want any more than one is a soccer star because one does what a soccer star says people should do.

When a movement is about doing stuff taking advantage of what that movement has done is simply good living. Trying to get more stuff done is being part of that movement.

Do we say that an African-American born yesterday is part of the Black Civil Rights Movement of the past because he or she lives what that Movement accomplished? No, we don't and the priniciple is the same.

obviously i disagree.

you dont have to be out on the ramparts fighting for some new feminist cause in order to be feminist. you can be feminist in your own life and your own actions. it doesnt have to be more than that. every woman who decides her own path and her own way of life is a feminist. every person who thinks that women should be able to decide her own pay and her own way of life is a feminist.

and yes, the same is true of african americans.

[Freelanderness]

It's cute because I never implied that men couldn't be sexually assaulted by women.

You didn't directly say that, no. However, the idea is very widespread, and you happened to mention men getting raped only in the context of "male victims of prison rape." Which, for people who are misinformed and believe that rape of men by men is more common than rape of men by women, will be taken as confirmation of their beliefs.

The clarification is accordingly useful for the peanut gallery even if you yourself are educated on the topic and are aware that men are raped by women more often than by other women. [Yes, this is true even accounting for widespread rape within the incarcerated subpopulation.]

Alright. I can understand where you are coming from. I wish we had more education on sexual assault, because people don't realise what it is. /tangent

True, I was trying to generalise when I shouldn't have. Again, I also don't spend a lot of time talking about the patriarchy, because I think it's too narrow of a concept. Just my opinion, other's have different takes on it. Anyway thanks for pointing that out. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the patriarchy only rewards those who follow the rules, so to speak, so if a man were to step out of his narrowly defined role, he is subject to consequences, thus the patriarchy also negatively affects men.

The general use here is that patriarchy is always bad. Generally restricts individuality and personhood when you conform and bites you when you don't. If you're a man it also means that you run the risk of valhalla.

However, it is ill defined and there are competing definitions out in NSG. It has all the elements of "tin foil hat" conspiracy except the lack of popular support.

I could have found, quite easily, quotes that support what you said.

Alright, well I appreciate the feedback. I guess my idea of patriarchy is much less abstract, since it's limited to things that I've experienced first hand, or have witnessed others experiencing (Eg: gender-based discrimination, for both genders. My friend gets a crazy amount of flack for wanting to be a nurse that it almost makes me lose faith in humanity)

You know, the problem with this thread is that one of the fundamental aspects of feminism is choice (e.g: a woman's choice to have an abortion, a woman's choice to have a career, etc) and this means that the movement ends up being extremely diverse, with all kinds of different aspects within it. If you're looking to explore the different aspects of feminism, I can link you to one of my favourite pages Unpacking the F word which takes different viewpoints and quotes pertaining to feminism and woman's issues as a whole and then explores them.

As for Valerie Solanas, she was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, for God's sake! It's just as ridiculous to include her as an exemplar of a feminist, simply because she identified as such, as it would be to include Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot as exemplars of atheism, since they all identified as such. You can't logically antagonise feminism for the actions of the few, just as you can't logically antagonise atheism for the actions of the few.

Atheism is an ideology in the same sense not playing chess is a hobby.
And the three are consistently being used as an examples of the evil of marxist-leninist ideology . . . using Solanas as an example of the evil of feminism holds exactly as much ground.

I could have easily found Christians (or any other religion, for that matter) who committed bad deeds. Or any other ideology, really. My point was that she was mentally ill, obviously, and as a result, trying to hold her as the epitome of feminists was ludicrous, just as I wouldn't try to claim that all communists were Pol Pot, et al.

[I Want to Smash Them All]

A number of times, I've mentioned that simply defining feminist is problematic.

This is especially true on the internet, where all you have to go by are the simple things you say. And yet, in spite of these difficulties, it only takes a few simple sentences of discussion in order for people to immediately start labeling someone "feminist" or "not feminist." Even if feminism doesn't come up.

I firmly believe that if we reflect a bit - very self-consciously - about what people say and why it is taken as a feminist or not feminist thing to say, some of us will learn some things that are useful to know. Possibly even me. So, I'd like to start a little collaborative project here on NSG, to construct a description of what characterizes a position as a feminist position, and aid us in this bit of reflection.
*snip*

Interesting "project" -- although I am not sure what this will accomplish and I am certain this inevitably will turn into yet another "bash feminism" thread (which it already is starting to do).

Regardless, I hope these are constructive comments:

1. I think you accurately identify a real problem. People (including myself) tend to use labels as an intellectual short-cut. This is especially true regarding ideologies, political views, etc. And this is particularly evident on the internet and forums like this.

As you say, even though defining feminism is problematic (and often hotly contested), "it only takes a few simple sentences of discussion in order for people to immediately start labeling someone "feminist" or "not feminist." Even if feminism doesn't come up." This seems to be true regardless of whether the labler views feminism positively, negatively, or some combination thereof. This really is not constructive.

I am not sure this problem is fixable -- let alone have suggestions on how to fix it. Simply calling attention to the general vacuity and counter-productive nature of such labeling may be the best we can do.

2. To be clear, I think there is a distinction between labeling other posters or posted views as "feminist" or "not feminist" (as well as "masculinist" and related terms) and try to describe or discuss feminism or feminists (or masculinism, etc). The first is rarely useful. The latter can be difficult in many ways, but is far from meaningless. Although feminism can be hard to define (particularly if one is trying to define it without a specific context), feminism has existed and does exist. Feminists have and do exist.

3. I am not sure, but I think we agree there is an inherent difficulty and even a trap in trying to define "feminism" or "feminist," as well as in determining whether a specific statement, viewpoint, event, individual, etc, is "feminist." People (including myself) will tend to define such terms to match their own ideas of the label as positive, negative, or some combination thereof. People (including myself) will tend to label statements (for example) as "feminist" or "not feminist" depending on how they view the label and whether they agree or disagree with the statements.

Words are inherently slippery, even when they do not touch on political and social hotspots. "A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used."* People in a wide range of fields debate and discuss the meaning of words. For example, a large portion of what the judiciary in most countries do on a regular basis is try to determine what a word or set of words mean in contracts, statutes, constitutions, etc. It is easy to think of dictionaries as evidence of the concrete meaning of a word. We all know, however, that not only do individual dictionaries usually provide multiple meanings for the same word and even sometimes recognize contradictory definitions, but different dictionaries often define the same word differently (sometimes subtly, sometimes starkly). Jorge Luis Borges observed: "It is often forgotten that (dictionaries) are artificial repositories, put together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a magical nature."**

Anyway, despite this rambling discourse, words do have meaning. Labels like "feminist" and "feminism" have meaning. I simply think it important to recognize such terms may not have a meaning and it is all too easy to misuse them. "Feminism" of various types has arguably existed for millenia (although discussions usually narrow the focus to at least the last 150 years or so), spans the globe, and includes not only an extremely wide range of viewpoints but also many completely contradictory ideas. Attempts to place boundaries on such "feminism" or "feminist" may obfuscate, rather than clarify discussion.

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* Towne v. Eisner, 245 U.S. 418, 425 (1918) (Holmes, J.); see also Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. G.W. Thomas Drayage & Ry. Co., 69 Cal.2d 33, 38, 442 P.2d 641, 644-45 (1968) ("If words had absolute and constant referents, it might be possible to discover contractual intention in the words themselves and in the manner in which they were arranged. Words, however, do not have absolute and constant referents. 'A word is a symbol of thought but has no arbitrary and fixed meaning like a symbol of algebra or chemistry, ...' The meaning of particular words or groups of words varies with the '... verbal context and surrounding circumstances and purposes in view of the linguistic education and experience of their users and their hearers or readers (not excluding judges). ... A word has no meaning apart from these factors; much less does it have an objective meaning, one true meaning.'" (internal citations omitted)). The latter decision tends to overstate the case, but makes notable points.

** Prologue to "El otro, el mismo."