The NationStates Feminist Thread II

[Frenline Delpha]

That would be great, but we have quite a few voices here that simply want feminism to be destroyed entirely.

And we have some feminists who believe that feminism is the be all end all of equality. This isn't unique to either side.

[The Grene Knyght]

Just do what I do - ignore everything and make occasional snide comments from the sidelines. Try to rickroll as many people as possible. watch the anti-feminist circle-jerk and laugh

You know it wouldn't be a circlejerk if more feminists bothered to bring in good ideas. "Circlejerk" is a funny way of shaming the fact that only one side's arguments have regularly prevailed in the face of criticism and scrutiny.

It'd probably be considered a bit spammy/flame-y/going off topic if I attempted another rick-roll here, right?

[The Emerald Dawn]

That's fine, but you can't dismiss criticism as "anti-Feminist", and you certainly can't change the position entirely and assume that's what people mean.

Assumption of noble intent needs to increase on both sides.

You seem to think that "anti-feminist" is an insult and a damning slur. It is not. It is a rather broad label for anyone who is not a feminist, and advocates efforts to counter or reverse feminist policy. Just because I identify the very, very strong criticism of feminism here as "anti-feminist" does not mean I am dismissing it. I am simply identifying it for what it is.

[Wallenburg]

You know it wouldn't be a circlejerk if more feminists bothered to bring in good ideas. "Circlejerk" is a funny way of shaming the fact that only one side's arguments have regularly prevailed in the face of criticism and scrutiny.

It'd probably be considered a bit spammy/flame-y/going off topic if I attempted another rick-roll here, right?

Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" is sexist and objectifies women as objects of conquest.

[Tahar Joblis]

Speaking of which... Wallenburg, do you have any defense to make of your statement that "many" rape victims are murdered, or are you going to avoid that sort of fear-mongering misrepresentation in the future?

1) I have already offered my defense. "Many" is a subjective term. When I said "many", I didn't mean millions of people. Sure, maybe my word choice could have been better, but your obsession over one little word is absolutely ridiculous.
2) I didn't realize the word "many" was "fear-mongering misrepresentation". You must think we live in a world where everyone is repeatedly screaming about the end of the world.

1-A. "Many" is a subjective terms. "40 out of 80,000, 200,000, or 1.3 million" is not what belongs with this.

1-B. There was more than just the word "many." You implied it in some way provided a salient distinction between "raped" vs "raped+murdered."

1-C. As a defense of the use of the term "survivor," as I pointed out, we may as well describe men as "male survivors," seeing as existing for a year as male rather than female comes with a comparable side order of being murdered.

2. Read your statement to 100 people who don't know the stats and then have someone else ask them (a) what fraction of rapes are accompanied by murders and (b) if they believe the statement. Those who believe the statement will probably answer with something over an order of magnitude higher than the highest possible defensible rate.

That makes it misrepresentation. The fear-mongering part comes from the fact that it's misrepresenting the world as being a scarier place than it is.

[Jello Biafra]

To be honest - and I'm not just being contrary here - I really think that 'rape survivor' leads people to think along the lines of the rhetoric of once a person is raped, their life is over than 'rape victim.'

I know that the sales pitch for using the term is often to claim that it gives more positive ground to stand on than 'victim,' but we use the term 'victim' for all kinds of wrongs that aren't life-ending. 'Survivor,' on the other hand, is generally otherwise reserved for situations in which surviving is considered noteworthy in some fashion (whether it is by result of luck or skill).

Correspondingly, I seem to see 'rape survivor' more often coupled with ideas like rape is worse than murder. (Which it really isn't; it's pretty bad, but murder IS worse.)

I guess we can agree to disagree here.

No. Men do not set the standards of what counts as "slutty" clothing. Nor do men lead the way in slut-shaming activities. Women have decisively more negative attitudes towards promiscuity, including both promiscuity in men and promiscuity in men. Women also pay a great deal more attention to fashion, and are much more concerned with clothing as a signifier.

I'm not sure where you got that from. According to this study, Twitter users slut-shame equally. This study of college students (thanks, Galloism!) found that men slut-shame women more than women do - though women slut-shame men more than men do. Of course, these are twitter-users and college students, so they may not be the most representative populations. Based on what do you think women slut-shame more than men do?

[The Grene Knyght]

It'd probably be considered a bit spammy/flame-y/going off topic if I attempted another rick-roll here, right?

Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" is sexist and objectifies women as objects of conquest.

Well to be serious for once, it kinda does?
Like him saying "you know the rules and so do I"
The way he says "I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling, wanna make you understand"
Like, he wants to make her understand. He's inficting his own patriarchcial rules on her
Watch the full video and actually listen to the lyrics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7akjeomUck

[Giovenith]

Well, I'm pro-choice, and I am rather candid about how the abortion megathread is usually a pro-choice circlejerk.

The other side's lack of confidence to defend their positions is not to be blamed on their opposition, the blame lies solely with themselves. We didn't throw up any iron doors or locks and put up a sign that says, "NO FEMINISTS WELCOME," they chose not come here of their own volition. What are we supposed to do about? Drag them in here kicking and screaming?

Instead of pro-feminist people whining about how this thread doesn't cater to the subject in the way they want, maybe they should get their asses in here and MAKE IT cater to the subject in the way they want. There's plenty of them to make it happen. A good argument will always stand on its own merits, if none of them feel secure enough to trust that fact, maybe they should start asking themselves why they feel that way about their arguments.

[The Emerald Dawn]

Well, I'm pro-choice, and I am rather candid about how the abortion megathread is usually a pro-choice circlejerk.

The other side's lack of confidence to defend their positions is not to be blamed on their opposition, the blame lies solely with themselves. We didn't throw up any iron doors or locks and put up a sign that says, "NO FEMINISTS WELCOME," they chose not come here of their own volition. What are we supposed to do about? Drag them in here kicking and screaming?

Instead of pro-feminist people whining about how this thread doesn't cater to the subject in the way they want, maybe they should get their asses in here and MAKE IT cater to the subject in the way they want. There's plenty of them to make it happen. A good argument will always stand on its own merits, if none of them feel secure enough to trust that fact, maybe they should start asking themselves why they feel that way about their arguments.

"I'm not here to educate you" counter-argument in
3
2
....

[The United Providences of Perland]

Feminism in theory, is a great thing. And when it was created, it was certainly needed. But now, (and read my entire post here as this may offend a few people if not read correctly), it's filled with people who have idiotic and down right hypocritical ideologies (like all men are always out to hurt woman, or that woman are the master race, and so on). A decent amount of feminists, are not like this. But the idiotic minority is drowning out the good intentioned majority. Plus, feminism has frankly done its purpose. There is, frankly, not that much sexism but in small clusters. Sure, there is some. But for a great majority, there isn't, which is good. And realistically, all sexism, racism, and so on will never be gone.

[The Grene Knyght]

Feminism in theory, is a great thing. And when it was created, it was certainly needed. But now, (and read my entire post here as this may offend a few people if not read correctly), it's filled with people who have idiotic and down right hypocritical ideologies (like all men are always out to hurt woman, or that woman are the master race, and so on). A decent amount of feminists, are not like this. But the idiotic minority is drowning out the good intentioned majority. Plus, feminism has frankly done its purpose. There is, frankly, not that much sexism but in small clusters. Sure, there is some. But for a great majority, there isn't, which is good. And realistically, all sexism, racism, and so on will never be gone.

fair argument, but a few counter-points:
1: there is a world outside the first world. Feminism is very much needed in places like Saudi Arabia
2: Just because sexism (and racism etc) might not ever be eliminated, doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Just because it'll never be eliminated, doesn't mean it can't be reduced.

[Giovenith]

Feminism in theory, is a great thing. And when it was created, it was certainly needed. But now, (and read my entire post here as this may offend a few people if not read correctly), it's filled with people who have idiotic and down right hypocritical ideologies (like all men are always out to hurt woman, or that woman are the master race, and so on). A decent amount of feminists, are not like this. But the idiotic minority is drowning out the good intentioned majority. Plus, feminism has frankly done its purpose. There is, frankly, not that much sexism but in small clusters. Sure, there is some. But for a great majority, there isn't, which is good. And realistically, all sexism, racism, and so on will never be gone.

I don't think feminism has entirely done it's purpose, there is the third world and even some instances in the first world, but feminism has definitely failed to adapt in light of changes to Western society. Instead of focusing on gender equality as it actually manifests itself, they attempt to use vague, unproven social hypotheses to spook it's followers into believing that our society is the same as it was 80 years ago.


And hey Jello, I replied to your SAGE thing last page. Sorry it took long, I missed it.

[The United Providences of Perland]

Feminism in theory, is a great thing. And when it was created, it was certainly needed. But now, (and read my entire post here as this may offend a few people if not read correctly), it's filled with people who have idiotic and down right hypocritical ideologies (like all men are always out to hurt woman, or that woman are the master race, and so on). A decent amount of feminists, are not like this. But the idiotic minority is drowning out the good intentioned majority. Plus, feminism has frankly done its purpose. There is, frankly, not that much sexism but in small clusters. Sure, there is some. But for a great majority, there isn't, which is good. And realistically, all sexism, racism, and so on will never be gone.

I don't think feminism has entirely done it's purpose, there is the third world and even some instances in the first world, but feminism has definitely failed to adapt in light of changes to Western society. Instead of focusing on gender equality as it actually manifests itself, they attempt to use vague, unproven social hypotheses to spook it's followers into believing that our society is the same as it was 80 years ago.


And hey Jello, I replied to your SAGE thing last page. Sorry it took long, I missed it.

I suppose you're right.

[The Grene Knyght]

Feminism in theory, is a great thing. And when it was created, it was certainly needed. But now, (and read my entire post here as this may offend a few people if not read correctly), it's filled with people who have idiotic and down right hypocritical ideologies (like all men are always out to hurt woman, or that woman are the master race, and so on). A decent amount of feminists, are not like this. But the idiotic minority is drowning out the good intentioned majority. Plus, feminism has frankly done its purpose. There is, frankly, not that much sexism but in small clusters. Sure, there is some. But for a great majority, there isn't, which is good. And realistically, all sexism, racism, and so on will never be gone.

I don't think feminism has entirely done it's purpose, there is the third world and even some instances in the first world, but feminism has definitely failed to adapt in light of changes to Western society. Instead of focusing on gender equality as it actually manifests itself, they attempt to use vague, unproven social hypotheses to spook it's followers into believing that our society is the same as it was 80 years ago.


And hey Jello, I replied to your SAGE thing last page. Sorry it took long, I missed it.

I agree with most of that, except I don't think you can dismiss all of feminism as being guilty of this, just a part of it (which I would argue is a small minority).
And as for feminist theory being "unproven social hypotheses", like a lot of sociological theory is unproven by a number of measures... Doesn't mean they're dismiss-able out of hand

[Giovenith]

I don't think feminism has entirely done it's purpose, there is the third world and even some instances in the first world, but feminism has definitely failed to adapt in light of changes to Western society. Instead of focusing on gender equality as it actually manifests itself, they attempt to use vague, unproven social hypotheses to spook it's followers into believing that our society is the same as it was 80 years ago.


And hey Jello, I replied to your SAGE thing last page. Sorry it took long, I missed it.

I agree with most of that, except I don't think you can dismiss all of feminism as being guilty of this, just a part of it (which I would argue is a small minority).
And as for feminist theory being "unproven social hypotheses", like a lot of sociological theory is unproven by a number of measures... Doesn't mean they're dismiss-able out of hand

I did not say feminism itself was an unproven hypothesis, I said it uses unproven social hypothesis. Gender inequality and the oppression of women are things, but the way many feminists attempt to explain these phenomena reek of hysteria and confirmation bias. When you tell a bunch of university students that misogyny is everywhere, them suddenly seeing it everywhere is not confirmation that you were right, it's confirmation that you've taught them to look for it and their brains are now twisting whatever information they garner to fit their preconceived notions. It's like that one study where they told one group they were investigating an old building for real estate and another they were looking for ghosts: lo and behold, the later group swore they saw paranormal activity everywhere and the real estate group saw none. The building never had any reports of ghostly activity.

I also know that not all of feminism is like that. I understand it can be hard sometimes to differentiate when someone is speaking in general vs when they're making a generalization though.

[Des-Bal]

I don't think feminism has entirely done it's purpose, there is the third world and even some instances in the first world, but feminism has definitely failed to adapt in light of changes to Western society. Instead of focusing on gender equality as it actually manifests itself, they attempt to use vague, unproven social hypotheses to spook it's followers into believing that our society is the same as it was 80 years ago.


And hey Jello, I replied to your SAGE thing last page. Sorry it took long, I missed it.

Feminism cannot create gender equality, we've seen that it's fundamentally unsuited to the task. Spreading it around, even to places that would benefit would ultimately be leading them down a road we know does not reach the desired destination. In countries that are struggling to develop basic education systems feminism's total inability to address the needs of male students could cause serious harm that's not easily fixed. Likewise, I have no faith in the movement's ability to handle the social issues that fuel the impressment of men and boys into militias and transnational rebel groups.

[Wallenburg]

The other side's lack of confidence to defend their positions is not to be blamed on their opposition, the blame lies solely with themselves. We didn't throw up any iron doors or locks and put up a sign that says, "NO FEMINISTS WELCOME," they chose not come here of their own volition. What are we supposed to do about? Drag them in here kicking and screaming?

Instead of pro-feminist people whining about how this thread doesn't cater to the subject in the way they want, maybe they should get their asses in here and MAKE IT cater to the subject in the way they want. There's plenty of them to make it happen. A good argument will always stand on its own merits, if none of them feel secure enough to trust that fact, maybe they should start asking themselves why they feel that way about their arguments.

To be honest, I think that the insanity of extremists on both sides and their refusal to accept basic facts have drained feminists such as myself of much of our desire to keep participating here. Especially when my mere identification as a feminist inspires half a dozen people to respond with "lol fuckin SJW u h8 men go back to your safe space".

[Frenline Delpha]

The other side's lack of confidence to defend their positions is not to be blamed on their opposition, the blame lies solely with themselves. We didn't throw up any iron doors or locks and put up a sign that says, "NO FEMINISTS WELCOME," they chose not come here of their own volition. What are we supposed to do about? Drag them in here kicking and screaming?

Instead of pro-feminist people whining about how this thread doesn't cater to the subject in the way they want, maybe they should get their asses in here and MAKE IT cater to the subject in the way they want. There's plenty of them to make it happen. A good argument will always stand on its own merits, if none of them feel secure enough to trust that fact, maybe they should start asking themselves why they feel that way about their arguments.

To be honest, I think that the insanity of extremists on both sides and their refusal to accept basic facts have drained feminists such as myself of much of our desire to keep participating here. Especially when my mere identification as a feminist inspires half a dozen people to respond with "lol fuckin SJW u h8 men go back to your safe space".

You know, you could just say who you have a beef with instead of playing the pronoun game.

[Tahar Joblis]

I'm not sure where you got that from. According to this study, Twitter users slut-shame equally.

There was a maleness classification bias in their calibration sample in after-the-fact analysis of tweets identified as "aggressive" (gender annotator classifying as male 44.8% of accounts in sample instead of 37.4%). Then the gender annotator's classification of "aggressive" tweeting users identified by their algorithm. was 42% male and 48% female.

When the summary says that 50% were women, that is out of a classification of "male," "female," and "unknown / institutional," and means that women had the edge on men in this sort of activity on Twitter.

It's not completely clear where the 50% comes from, but they measured calibration errors in the gender annotator that were biased towards maleness in gender classifying the "aggressive" tweets. Applying that calibration error directly gives 51% women and 35% men, give or take some rounding error.

Mind you, this is anti-female slut shaming activity specifically. Per the below, we would not typically expect the gap to narrow any when we consider anti-male slut shaming activity.

This study of college students (thanks, Galloism!) found that men slut-shame women more than women do - though women slut-shame men more than men do.

It shows that women hold double standards favoring women more often, and that men hold double standards favoring men more often. It shows that women have more conservative attitudes towards sex overall. (6% gap in liberal attitudes, 24% gap in conservative attitudes, for a giant 30% gap outside of double standards.)

Both men and women are more likely to have self-serving double standards, which means that men and women are somewhat similarly likely to approve of female promiscuity (37% vs 41% for a 4% gap, not particularly significant), while women are much more likely to disapprove of male promiscuity.

[Giovenith]

I don't think feminism has entirely done it's purpose, there is the third world and even some instances in the first world, but feminism has definitely failed to adapt in light of changes to Western society. Instead of focusing on gender equality as it actually manifests itself, they attempt to use vague, unproven social hypotheses to spook it's followers into believing that our society is the same as it was 80 years ago.


And hey Jello, I replied to your SAGE thing last page. Sorry it took long, I missed it.

Feminism cannot create gender equality, we've seen that it's fundamentally unsuited to the task. Spreading it around, even to places that would benefit would ultimately be leading them down a road we know does not reach the desired destination. In countries that are struggling to develop basic education systems feminism's total inability to address the needs of male students could cause serious harm that's not easily fixed. Likewise, I have no faith in the movement's ability to handle the social issues that fuel the impressment of men and boys into militias and transnational rebel groups.

The only standards people have presented to state that feminism is wholly ineffective is that feminism has made mistakes. This dichotomy of "either feminism is perfect or we abandon it altogether" is exactly the same one that irrational feminist apologists use, only they stand on the other side. It's plainly obvious that feminism has been effective in making strides in gender equality, society did not just suddenly shrug it's shoulders and decide to stop treating women like men's property, let them vote, and let them have equal opportunity to work. Did it do everything it should have? No, but that doesn't mean we throw our arms up and go, "OH WELL, IT'S TOTAL DOGSHIT THEN!"

That does not mean feminism is the only tool. I don't think you need to call yourself a feminist or identify with feminism's history to care about gender equality, but I do think credit where credit is due is just an important as blame where blame is due. Feminism is not going to be the sole savior of the sexes, we ALL need to stop expecting it to be.

The other side's lack of confidence to defend their positions is not to be blamed on their opposition, the blame lies solely with themselves. We didn't throw up any iron doors or locks and put up a sign that says, "NO FEMINISTS WELCOME," they chose not come here of their own volition. What are we supposed to do about? Drag them in here kicking and screaming?

Instead of pro-feminist people whining about how this thread doesn't cater to the subject in the way they want, maybe they should get their asses in here and MAKE IT cater to the subject in the way they want. There's plenty of them to make it happen. A good argument will always stand on its own merits, if none of them feel secure enough to trust that fact, maybe they should start asking themselves why they feel that way about their arguments.

To be honest, I think that the insanity of extremists on both sides and their refusal to accept basic facts have drained feminists such as myself of much of our desire to keep participating here. Especially when my mere identification as a feminist inspires half a dozen people to respond with "lol fuckin SJW u h8 men go back to your safe space".

I understand. Rule of thumb, "there are always idiots on both sides." People have become way too invested in buzzwords, labels, and stereotypes, anti-SJWs often act just as bad as SJWs, there is very little middle ground. People would rather mindlessly parrot the opinions and arguments of their favorite social and authority figures and defend those to death than look at what everyone is saying equally and come to their own balanced conclusions.

But if you feel like talking does nothing, not talking does less than nothing. Often times, here and in other places, I see the two sides frequently accuse each other of not listening simply because neither has completely converted their way of thinking to the other side after a mere assertion of what they believe in. Sometimes it's not that they're not listening, sometimes it's that you're not taking their perspective into account and explaining it in a way where they can understand it. I have had plenty of times where I as a feminist was able to show a traditionally feminist idea in a positive light for non-feminists just by tweaking the language, making it more gender neutral, leaving out the propagandic emotion, and above all, taking into account their criticisms. People do not change their minds overnight, it takes little by little influence and the change is often private. Debate can be frustrating, but it can be significantly less frustrating when you don't go in with idealistic standards about giving the other person an amazing epiphany.

People aren't always going to understand or agree with you, but you have no right to complain if you never even properly try to make them. Instead of all those feminists who I know are sitting here reading this and grousing about the unfavorable nature of this thread doing what they're doing, they should swallow their pride and get used to the fact that influencing others is a hard and thankless job, but one that is necessary if they ever want to see things go their way.

[Wallenburg]

To be honest, I think that the insanity of extremists on both sides and their refusal to accept basic facts have drained feminists such as myself of much of our desire to keep participating here. Especially when my mere identification as a feminist inspires half a dozen people to respond with "lol fuckin SJW u h8 men go back to your safe space".

You know, you could just say who you have a beef with instead of playing the pronoun game.

I want to make it clear that my post criticizes that sort of behavior in general, rather than specific people. Naming names would not only be borderline flaming/baiting, but also extremely detracting to my actual point.

[Pelo Vista]

That would be great, but we have quite a few voices here that simply want feminism to be destroyed entirely.

Hello!

[Costa Fierro]

I don't think feminism has entirely done it's purpose, there is the third world and even some instances in the first world, but feminism has definitely failed to adapt in light of changes to Western society. Instead of focusing on gender equality as it actually manifests itself, they attempt to use vague, unproven social hypotheses to spook it's followers into believing that our society is the same as it was 80 years ago.

Actually the hypotheses is more trying to spook followers into believing that they suffer from the same oppression as women in extremely conservative societies like those of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. It's why Western feminists tend to blatantly ignore or even justify the oppression in third world countries because of "cultural differences" or the fact that they regard helping third world feminists to be bad because it would be a white woman telling a woman of colour how to be a feminist, and thus be "condescending".

[The Grene Knyght]

I don't think feminism has entirely done it's purpose, there is the third world and even some instances in the first world, but feminism has definitely failed to adapt in light of changes to Western society. Instead of focusing on gender equality as it actually manifests itself, they attempt to use vague, unproven social hypotheses to spook it's followers into believing that our society is the same as it was 80 years ago.

Actually the hypotheses is more trying to spook followers into believing that they suffer from the same oppression as women in extremely conservative societies like those of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. It's why Western feminists tend to blatantly ignore or even justify the oppression in third world countries because of "cultural differences" or the fact that they regard helping third world feminists to be bad because it would be a white woman telling a woman of colour how to be a feminist, and thus be "condescending".

1st world =/= white

[Costa Fierro]

Actually the hypotheses is more trying to spook followers into believing that they suffer from the same oppression as women in extremely conservative societies like those of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. It's why Western feminists tend to blatantly ignore or even justify the oppression in third world countries because of "cultural differences" or the fact that they regard helping third world feminists to be bad because it would be a white woman telling a woman of colour how to be a feminist, and thus be "condescending".

1st world =/= white

First World feminist theory is largely dominated by white women, because countries like Japan, South Korea, Singapore etc. don't really have societies that are conducive to feminism.