Would You Support a New Egalitarian Movement?

[Liriena]

Take that to the Supreme Court. Or try and get a constitutional amendment passed. Whichever makes you feel more comfortable.


Yes, yes, Salon is blatantly biased and probably is not going to get a Pulitzer Prize this year.

Now, what about the actual content?

How about an amendment we already have, specifically the 14th Amendment which says no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

On what grounds do you believe that the 14th Amendment is not being abided by when it comes to affirmative action?

Salon has a history of being both biased and dishonest. Forgive me if I don't want to take their word for it. How about a better source?

You mean, like the sources cited in their article?

[Hajaland]

On what evidence do you assert that black people have unfair and unequal treatment by the criminal justice system?

They get harsher sentences on average even when it's the same crime.

Really? I have never seen any real evidence of that. Even the few studies that exist never seem to account for the mitigating circumstances of each individual crime.

[Liriena]

On what evidence do you assert that black people have unfair and unequal treatment by the criminal justice system?

And noe might ask this too: why are Black Lives Matter and other modern feminist initiatives the way to go? it should be possible in free socities to say "You're entitled to your opinion, but I don't like your methods so I'm doing something else about this."

Who is saying that you can't say "You're entitled to your opinion, but I don't like your methods so I'm doing something else about this"? Who is keeping you from starting your own initiatives with other methods?

Certainly not the state, and certainly not society, since it seems that anti-BLM and anti-feminists are not only more than able to voice their criticisms, but even get representation on mass media, and entire websites dedicated to criticising feminism and BLM.

[Hajaland]

That's because points are frequently asserted with studies that have a 'liberal' (in the American sense) bias. They are facts in the sense that they are conclusions of a study, but if the methodology of the study is flawed they are not an accurate representation of reality. They therefore are not real facts.

Indeed. If you start a study by stating "this study is intended to explore why there is unfair bias towards women in the workplace" then it's hardly a scientific one, especially when it is drawing its facts as it calls them from philosophical works or ideological writing. it would be another thing entirely to say at the start of an abstract "refernced statistical studies reveal that women on average negotiate less for salaries than men do. The studies also reveal that men tend to successfully negotiate the salaries that they obtain more often than women do. This study proposes to examine the reasons behind why women may not be successfully negotiating salaries as successfully as men do."

And how do you properly determine the success of salary negotiations unless you take into account the life choices that women make, that men don't? Ignoring such facts would corrupt the data and further skew the results in favour of the ideology of those performing the study.

[Dameth]

I would not, for those reasons :

• Any movement that does not specifically exclude women's rights activists or feminists, or take security measures against them, is slowly eaten from inside. An egalitarian movement is unlikely to take those measures, and as such will soon become feminism 4th wave.
• Men get shit done by themselves, we have nothing to gain by joining arms with moderate feminists. I don't want peace, I want victory.
• Bashing feminists is a fun activity by itself. It's a hobby at this point.

[Jolet]

On what evidence do you assert that black people have unfair and unequal treatment by the criminal justice system?

They get harsher sentences on average even when it's the same crime.

Perhaps, and this could be crazy, since it's not the police departments who write the laws or hand down judgments, the source of the problems lie beyond the police? All they do is follow protocol, which is written for them. Perhaps it's the problem of a far larger, more nebulous entity having far too much control over everyday interaction?

I'm not saying the cops are perfect- they're human, and Lord knows humans aren't perfect or even approaching perfect- but saying, "IT'Z ALL DUH EBUL WITE KOPZ FAULT" doesn't fly, because it simply isn't the case.

[Jolet]

And noe might ask this too: why are Black Lives Matter and other modern feminist initiatives the way to go? it should be possible in free socities to say "You're entitled to your opinion, but I don't like your methods so I'm doing something else about this."

Who I saying you can't say "You're entitled to your opinion, but I don't like your methods so I'm doing something else about this"? Who is keeping you from starting your own initiatives with other methods?

Certainly not the state, and certainly not society, since it seems that anti-BLM and anti-feminists are not only more than able to voice their criticisms, but even get representation on mass media, and entire websites dedicated to criticising feminism and BLM.

Ah, but anyone who criticizes these groups tends to get called bigots in one form or another, whether that be racist or sexist. I've come into contact with plenty of people where this is the case- there is no middle ground. They are outright villified, and feminists and the like are often portrayed having the moral high ground. While they're able to say it, certainly, that doesn't mean that they are treated the same way at all, or even given an advantage of any kind.

[Geilinor]

Individual movements focused on those issues often fail to look at the big picture or understand that other people also face similar problems.

To which I raise the question: Why should individual movements born from outrage at a specific injustice faced by a specific group erase the particularity of their own struggle in favour of broader, universalist maxims? Why should black activists against unfair treatment by the criminal justice system subject their own struggles to the broader struggles of society as a whole? Why should LGBT+ activists speaking out against transphobic violence water-down their rhetoric to also address violence faced by non-LGBT+ people?

I'm not saying it's a bad thing for groups dedicated to fighting specific injustices to also address injustices external to their communities. All the contrary, that's a wonderful thing. But is this an obligation? Would their movements be undeserving of any legitimacy if they didn't?

I don't know. You're one of the posters arguing that feminism and BLM are egalitarian movements.

[Republic of the Cristo]

If there were an egalitarian movement that was practical, focused on goals that helped build communities, develop opportunities and supported valuing people as individuals and self determined groups, would you support such a movement?

If this movement was based on a combination of scientific, scholarly and responsible thought, would you support it?

In other words, would you rather support egalitarianism rather than feminism, would you do so?

I think that modern civilization needs to recognize a few things:
- That family and home life has inevitably changed due to modern economics and technology
- That gender roles have inevitably changed due to changes in economics and technology
- That we must learn to adapt in ways that are generally beneficial
- That some ideologies are getting in the way of this.

However I think that there is no more divisive and pernicious influence than the ideology of feminism, which has even infected anti-racism through Black Lives Matter. So I'm curious--would people be interested in exploring how we might be able to be proactive in exploring a more vital and effective egalitarianism?

How would you respond to the challenges we face today without resorting to ideology and focused more on practicality and realism?

Absolutely not. We already have dozens of these supposed " New Egalitarian Movements " all over the country. They aren't making the situation better, just worse ( and in the case of Black Lives Matter, much worse ). The modern Egalitarian movements of today have managed only to create more social divide across the world. If you are looking for actual societal harmony then your goal should not be equality, it should be morality and prosperity.

And i'm sorry, but the line, " How would you respond to the challenges we face today without resorting to ideology and focused more on practicality and realism? " oozes arrogance and ignorance. Ideologies aren't formed for the heck of it, the people forming ideologies actually do believe that what ever it is they are purposing is both practical and realistic. Any new supposed, " Egalitarian Movement ", would be ideologically driven. Ideology isn't a bad thing, it's universal.

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

Feminism is egalitarianism, and most of you antifems aren't actually committed to egalitarian positions (for example, socialism).

/thread

Feminism isn't very egalitarian when it has a gender specific name. Egalitarianism is gender and race neutral and is the most reasonable and logical banner to promote equality under.

[Liriena]

Who I saying you can't say "You're entitled to your opinion, but I don't like your methods so I'm doing something else about this"? Who is keeping you from starting your own initiatives with other methods?

Certainly not the state, and certainly not society, since it seems that anti-BLM and anti-feminists are not only more than able to voice their criticisms, but even get representation on mass media, and entire websites dedicated to criticising feminism and BLM.

Ah, but anyone who criticizes these groups tends to get called bigots in one form or another, whether that be racist or sexist. I've come into contact with plenty of people where this is the case- there is no middle ground. They are outright villified, and feminists and the like are often portrayed having the moral high ground. While they're able to say it, certainly, that doesn't mean that they are treated the same way at all, or even given an advantage of any kind.

Oh, name calling. How oppressive.

Also... "are often portrayed", "are treated"... by whom?

[Liriena]

To which I raise the question: Why should individual movements born from outrage at a specific injustice faced by a specific group erase the particularity of their own struggle in favour of broader, universalist maxims? Why should black activists against unfair treatment by the criminal justice system subject their own struggles to the broader struggles of society as a whole? Why should LGBT+ activists speaking out against transphobic violence water-down their rhetoric to also address violence faced by non-LGBT+ people?

I'm not saying it's a bad thing for groups dedicated to fighting specific injustices to also address injustices external to their communities. All the contrary, that's a wonderful thing. But is this an obligation? Would their movements be undeserving of any legitimacy if they didn't?

I don't know. You're one of the posters arguing that feminism and BLM are egalitarian movements.

I do believe that they are egalitarian movements... but I acknowledge the regrettable existence of factions comprised of people like Cathy Brennan and that woman who assaulted a guy for having dreadlocks.

[RFI]

I would not, for those reasons :

• Any movement that does not specifically exclude women's rights activists or feminists, or take security measures against them, is slowly eaten from inside. An egalitarian movement is unlikely to take those measures, and as such will soon become feminism 4th wave.
• Men get shit done by themselves, we have nothing to gain by joining arms with moderate feminists. I don't want peace, I want victory.
• Bashing feminists is a fun activity by itself. It's a hobby at this point.

Oh, shit.
I have to admit that I like people who speak so clearly, without pretending to be "egalitarian" or something, that's even...somewhat charming...
You just earned my respect and also the first place in my personal ranking of my preferred anti-feminists

[Liriena]

Feminism is egalitarianism, and most of you antifems aren't actually committed to egalitarian positions (for example, socialism).

/thread

Feminism isn't very egalitarian when it has a gender specific name. Egalitarianism is gender and race neutral and is the most reasonable and logical banner to promote equality under.

Only if you believe that you can solve specific injustices faced by specific groups by pretending that those specific injustices and specific groups don't exist, and that erasing the particularities from discourse eliminates the particularities in reality.

Feminism, if you disregard certain factions within it like TERFs and some genuine misandrists, strives for egalitarianism by targeting the injustices suffered by women, which place them in an unequal position respective of men. For instance, in matters of suffrage or access to education.

[The balkens]

Feminism isn't very egalitarian when it has a gender specific name. Egalitarianism is gender and race neutral and is the most reasonable and logical banner to promote equality under.

Only if you believe that you can solve specific injustices faced by specific groups by pretending that those specific injustices and specific groups don't exist, and that erasing the particularities from discourse eliminates the particularities in reality.

Feminism, if you disregard certain factions within it like TERFs and some genuine misandrists, strives for egalitarianism by targeting the injustices suffered by women, which place them in an unequal position respective of men. For instance, in matters of suffrage or access to education.

Really?

[Jolet]

Ah, but anyone who criticizes these groups tends to get called bigots in one form or another, whether that be racist or sexist. I've come into contact with plenty of people where this is the case- there is no middle ground. They are outright villified, and feminists and the like are often portrayed having the moral high ground. While they're able to say it, certainly, that doesn't mean that they are treated the same way at all, or even given an advantage of any kind.

Oh, name calling. How oppressive.

Also... "are often portrayed", "are treated"... by whom?

I'd actually think of name-calling in this regard as micro-aggressional in nature. The slinging around of that term is meant to discredit the opposition, and more often than not it works. If you're called a bigot enough times, especially when you're a well-meaning, mild-mannered person, you begin to either do one of two things- either shut down and internalize your frustration with the opposing viewpoint, which never ends well, or become more vocal and more extreme in your views. Either way, you lose sight of the communication aspect of the debate, and it devolves into a shouting match. So yes, name-calling is a problem, especially when only one side is allowed to do it without repercussion.

Popular media, for one. The spin in the media is strongly, strongly tilted towards the left in more cases than not. This also extends to education as well- most schools have a severely liberal slant in their teaching and views. For example, I've yet to come across a school that teaches egalitarianism rather than "diversity" or "gender equality", which are both aspects of egalitarianism but most definitely not the same thing at all. Believe me when I say there are things you can and cannot say in the classroom, whether or not it has something to do with the topic at hand and would genuinely contribute to classroom debate. That is the culture we are breeding in our classrooms, and it's unhealthy.

[Liriena]

Only if you believe that you can solve specific injustices faced by specific groups by pretending that those specific injustices and specific groups don't exist, and that erasing the particularities from discourse eliminates the particularities in reality.

Feminism, if you disregard certain factions within it like TERFs and some genuine misandrists, strives for egalitarianism by targeting the injustices suffered by women, which place them in an unequal position respective of men. For instance, in matters of suffrage or access to education.

Really?

I don't think I need to explain myself when it comes to suffrage (by which I meant the fact that, a century ago, plenty of Western nations did not allow women to vote). As for access to education, I was speaking more in terms of the struggles of women like Malala Yousafzai, who live in parts of the world where women are punished for seeking an education.

[Arumdaum]

I already support several egalitarian movements, including feminism and black activism against racially biased police misconduct.

^ This.

[Dameth]

Oh, shit.
I have to admit that I like people who speak so clearly, without pretending to be "egalitarian" or something, that's even...somewhat charming...
You just earned my respect and also the first place in my personal ranking of my preferred anti-feminists

I'm glad to see even feminists can value honesty at some point. Look we're not that different. We despise the wiggly pussybeggers who constitute the ranks of male feminists as much as you do
We too know what they are up to, they are not fooling anyone.

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

Feminism isn't very egalitarian when it has a gender specific name. Egalitarianism is gender and race neutral and is the most reasonable and logical banner to promote equality under.

Only if you believe that you can solve specific injustices faced by specific groups by pretending that those specific injustices and specific groups don't exist, and that erasing the particularities from discourse eliminates the particularities in reality.

Feminism, if you disregard certain factions within it like TERFs and some genuine misandrists, strives for egalitarianism by targeting the injustices suffered by women, which place them in an unequal position respective of men. For instance, in matters of suffrage or access to education.

It would be disingenuous to say that egalitarianism pretends injustices of certain groups don't exist. Egalitarianism doesn't erase anything, it simply brings everything under one name instead of many different ones. There's no logical need to have gender specific names if they were for egalitarianism, like you say, egalitarianism is egalitarianism.

[Ashmoria]

A lot of the practicalities that concern me are things like this:
- making sure people know how to handle dealing with financial matters in the modern world
- making sure people know what their legal rights actually are
- making sure people know how to learn and work their way through the world
- making sure people know how to handle themselves socially
- making sure people know how to defend themselves
- making sure people know how to stay healthy
- making sure people know a general sense of history
- making sure people know how to entertain themselves

And as far as observing human rights goes, making sure that the above can be accomplished. Ideological approaches can be all very well but they can also get in the way of observing why the above cannot be accomplished. So this can create unnecessary conflicts. A lot of these conflicts seem to cloud issues and prevent people from focusing on what actually needs to be done versus what people imagine prevents accomplishment.

oh well then, NO I wouldn't support a movement like that. it seems particularly useless to me.

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

[/b]

Really?

I don't think I need to explain myself when it comes to suffrage (by which I meant the fact that, a century ago, plenty of Western nations did not allow women to vote). As for access to education, I was speaking more in terms of the struggles of women like Malala Yousafzai, who live in parts of the world where women are punished for seeking an education.

Then bring feminism to those parts of the world where there are still suffrage and access to education problems. In the western world women already have those rights.

[Galloism]

Men and white peoples are not oppressed as a social class;

Regarding white people, this is true - there's no significant social or legal disadvantage to being white.

Regarding men, however, that's bullshit, for a myriad of reasons. Lack of equal protection of the law, lack of equal access to support services, lack of empathy as a societal matter, institutional discrimination in criminal justice, extremely high relative suicide rates, extremely higher homeless rates, and higher abject poverty rates are all suffered especially by men, for starters.

You can't brush these aside.

[The balkens]

Men and white peoples are not oppressed as a social class;

Regarding white people, this is true - there's no significant social or legal disadvantage to being white.

Regarding men, however, that's bullshit, for a myriad of reasons. Lack of equal protection of the law, lack of equal access to support services, lack of empathy as a societal matter, institutional discrimination in criminal justice, extremely high relative suicide rates, extremely higher homeless rates, and higher abject poverty rates are all suffered especially by men, for starters.

You can't brush these aside.

And yet she does, because that would harm her perception of reality.

[Liriena]

Oh, name calling. How oppressive.

Also... "are often portrayed", "are treated"... by whom?

I'd actually think of name-calling in this regard as micro-aggressional in nature. The slinging around of that term is meant to discredit the opposition, and more often than not it works. If you're called a bigot enough times, especially when you're a well-meaning, mild-mannered person, you begin to either do one of two things- either shut down and internalize your frustration with the opposing viewpoint, which never ends well, or become more vocal and more extreme in your views. Either way, you lose sight of the communication aspect of the debate, and it devolves into a shouting match. So yes, name-calling is a problem, especially when only one side is allowed to do it without repercussion.

I do agree that name-calling is a problem, but I'm skeptical as to whether it's the problem. As for lack of repercussions... that's another thing I'm a bit skeptical about.

Popular media, for one. The spin in the media is strongly, strongly tilted towards the left in more cases than not. This also extends to education as well- most schools have a severely liberal slant in their teaching and views. For example, I've yet to come across a school that teaches egalitarianism rather than "diversity" or "gender equality", which are both aspects of egalitarianism but most definitely not the same thing at all. Believe me when I say there are things you can and cannot say in the classroom, whether or not it has something to do with the topic at hand and would genuinely contribute to classroom debate. That is the culture we are breeding in our classrooms, and it's unhealthy.

I am very skeptical about the media being "strongly tilted towards the left." This is not Cuban state media we are talking about. This is corporate media, owned almost entirely by a handful of conglomerates that are primarily preoccupied with ratings and profits. Their individual pundits, journalsits and editors might have left-wing biases, and gravitate towards forming circles of like-minded professionals, but from what I've seen, feminism and identity issues have seldom been addressed in mass and popular media beyond a neoliberal (and, you could say, bourgeois) conception of them.

As for classrooms... this is not necessarily a left-wing issue. I believe you that there are things you can and cannot say in the classroom, as someone who went to school and is currently studying at a university. Biases do exist there as well, and some are more widespread than others, but not all biases are tilted towards the left. Let's not forget that, to this day, you have states where sex education is "abstinency-only", where there have been proposals to ban any mention of LGBT+ issues, and where science and history classes and reading materials have undergone extensive white-washing for the benefit of Christian conservatism. Also, I would be shocked to find any class in my university where you would be allowed to say "Hitler was right in killing Jewish, Romani and LGBT+ people", "I think there should be another military coup", or "I wish the president would get assassinated" with no repercussions.