The feminism/equality thread

[DigitalChaos]

For additional perspectives:

A woman who works in the space industry had these things to say:
- don't these women and their male cohorts understand that *they* are doing the damage to what/whom they claim to defend!?
- imo shirt is an ode to women. Not demeaning! My female collaborators and I, we were watching live, loved it!

[Leviathant]

So, a few years ago, I cleaned up a thread about some band - might've been Guns 'n Roses. In that case, there were one or two dudes who were posting news about GnR, and then there were a handful of other dudes who were just in there to say over and over again that GnR sucks.

And here, in a thread about feminism and equality, are guys dropping phrases like "titty shirt" and "tell everyone to go suck a dick" and having trouble contemplating why that's a problem.

Frankly, I'm not sure how to handle it. I don't think it's a topic that should be shut down. I think that posts like Tony's and Sallos' in particular are an amazing testament to how large this rift in understanding is. But if you're jumping into the GnR thread to say "GnR sucks" then you're trolling. If you're in the Feminisim & Equality thread telling people to suck a dick, I'm pointing out now (better late than never), that's not cool.

I do think there is potential for good discussion here, but it's not going to happen if there's actively antagonistic language being bandied about. So from here on out, try and keep it civil, or I'm just going to start pulling posts apart.

[orestes]

Cookie belly!

[allegro]

For additional perspectives:

A woman who works in the space industry had these things to say:
- don't these women and their male cohorts understand that *they* are doing the damage to what/whom they claim to defend!?
- imo shirt is an ode to women. Not demeaning! My female collaborators and I, we were watching live, loved it!

That's fine and I'm glad these women have their say, but they DO have to remember that he is at work, in the workplace. And I think that's something they are forgetting. There could be plenty of ways to wear a shirt that is an "ode to women" that has them wearing clothing. Second Wave feminists like Steinem (who went undercover as a Playboy Bunny) have a pretty bad view about all this.

[DigitalChaos]

lol at those fucking cats. I didn't realize people actually saw it as anti-feminist. It always seemed a direct critique to tumblerFeminism (still waiting for someone to angrily correct me on this term), and possibly an ignorant categorization of "true" feminism just because of the sudden loudness of some.

[DigitalChaos]

@Leviathant - The "suck a dick" was already handled pretty well. just FYI

[allegro]

From the Feminist Cat Guy, Shirtstorm is GamerGate, Part Two.

"Call it GamerGate Part Two: The Straw Graspening"

[allegro]

@Leviathant - The "suck a dick" was already handled pretty well. just FYI

No, we still had to explain the definition of trolling and he still didn't listen. Just an FYI.

[allegro]

lol at those fucking cats. I didn't realize people actually saw it as anti-feminist.

There have always been antifeminists. See Phyllis Schlafly as being one of the best known in history.

You Don't Hate Feminism: You Just Don’t Understand It.

Unabashed feminist author Catlin Moran lampooned women who did not identify as feminists in her book, How To Be a Woman. But in her criticism, she stressed that women who don’t identify as feminists don’t realize what feminism implies, nor all that feminism has secured for them:

"What do you think feminism IS, ladies? What part of ‘liberation for women’ is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay? Did all that good shit GET ON YOUR NERVES? Or were you just DRUNK AT THE TIME OF SURVEY?"

Feminism has a clear PR problem, but mocking Women Against Feminism isn’t the solution. Its campaign is an easy target, but painting these women as a bunch of ignorant, outrageous, self-hating women proves their point. Grace Chapman at Vagenda precisely articulated the problem of getting angry at Women Against Feminism. She compared it to her own experience fighting a woman who declared herself not a feminist. She recalled how the other woman’s face “hardened in quiet confidence that she had just been proven right. That we feminists were all the same. Shouty, elitist and actually a little bit mean. Men haters and blamers, women victimizers and blamers.”

Mocking Women Against Feminism validates their argument that they don’t belong in the movement and affirms their belief that feminism has no space for them. We—and by “we,” I mean feminists—need to be the bigger person in this battle. We need to make every effort to promote feminism as a big-tent movement, and we need to admit that it doesn’t always appear so welcoming. As Chapman writes, “In order for feminism to be truly powerful it needs to be accessible and engaging, to everyone, and at the moment it’s just not, not yet.”

Women Against Feminism and like-minded opponents try to distort the meaning of feminism by saddling the movement with unnecessary, limiting prerequisites. Feminists, we shouldn’t bite at their baiting. Instead, we should use Women Against Feminism constructively, but not as a legitimate criticism (which it is certainly not). It is a wakeup call for how poorly misunderstand our movement is.

Just as we need to continue to advocate for equality between the sexes, we also need to remind women and men what feminism entails, rather than let our opponents claim to define the movement for us.

[orestes]

The thing about tumblr, and to an extent twitter, is that it is largely populated by a young demographic. I'm on tumblr a lot but I'm highly selective of who I follow back. I know people have a tendency to take the piss with tumblr "activists" and trust me, much of it is warranted with the lack of fact-checking sources and being histrionic, but it's also platform for people that wouldn't normally have a voice.

If you notice, most of the women labeling themselves as anti-feminists are rather young. I've identified myself as a feminist from a very young age and when I was a teenager, a feminist was a woman who didn't want to stay at home (at least in my circle of friends at school) so this very limited definition put me at odds with girls who wanted to be stay-at-home mothers. This was of an age when Pat Robertson was equating working mothers with witchcraft and lesbianism, heh. It's a shame that these young women feel the need to ostracize themselves from womanhood, all the while playing into patriarchal roles, because they have a wrong definition of what is feminism. These are probably the same people slut shaming other women or doubting accusations of rape. :/

[allegro]

Yes, but it's up to feminists to point out that now women can do whatever we want as feminists, including staying home. Feminists can stay home, too. As women, we now have a CHOICE. We didn't used to have that choice, we had to stay home or just be teachers or nurses. Putting all feminists into one box is what we feminists get wrong, and it's up to us to make sure that people understand that we have choices and we respect each other's choices.

Even in the 70s, there were feminists who were categorized as bra-burning men-hating "feminazis." This isn't a new thing. They were categorized as women who didn't like men, who never wanted to marry, who wanted to dress like guys, etc. And, of course, this is / was a myth perpetuated by men and by antifeminists and by scared people.

I did know a few hardcore men-hating feminists when I was a member of N.O.W., yes. But, they were RARE and they had some issues. They were using the feminist movement for personal reasons, just like women use the antifeminist movement for personal reasons. This one woman, in particular; she was the president of a local chapter of N.O.W. and she constantly used her period as an excuse for EVERYTHING, including stuff at work, which was SO counterproductive to the very movement, itself, it made zero sense.

[orestes]

Now it's just labelled as misandry.

[allegro]

I'm not sure this woman (well, sometimes she was just plain old GIRL) hated men; frankly, I think men scared the shit out of her.

[xmd 5a]

From the Feminist Cat Guy, Shirtstorm is GamerGate, Part Two.

"Call it GamerGate Part Two: The Straw Graspening"

It's always the same core gang of shitheads who just find new guises to dress up their misogyny in. In 2010 there was Elevatorgate, then in 2011/12 there was the initial wave of backlash against Anita Sarkeesian. Then in early 2013 there was the first wave of anti-Zoe Quinn bullshit. Late 2013 there was the Mighty No 9 "scandal". All of the above hate campaigns have continued to simmer over the years and kind of coalesced into GamerGate, which has now "evolved" into ShirtStorm or whatever. These people flat-out hate women and rather than owning up to it and addressing it they'd prefer to excuse it away with " no, it's actually about [x]".

We Hunted the Mammoth (previously Manboobz) is a great overview of all of the above. Check out the tags for each "scandal" and you'll see the same anti-feminist names and faces pop up in each instance.

[aggroculture]

Guys trying to argue that feminism is wrong, or misguided, or...anything: please stop.
You don't really have solid ground - not being women - from which to doubt women's experience.
Just because it doesn't ring true to you - being dudes, there is no reason it should.
You have grown up in a male-constructed reality and have a hard time believing that not everyone shares this reality. Especially when in the feminist account of what's happening you don't always come out looking so good. I understand the impulse to say "I don't believe this, it can't be true." This impulse must be resisted and overcome.

Men come to feminism and are shocked by what they hear: behaviours they grew up thinking and being taught were normal and natural: now they are hearing they are oppressive and abusive. And this makes them angry, because we all like to believe we are good people. Well, beyond the anger and the denial there can be empathy and understanding and humbleness and change. Staying angry at feminism for pointing out things you were doing but didn't know they were wrong, and persisting in your prior behaviours makes you part of the problem.

And this is not just some "overly sensitive" women on twitter last week or last year. As allegro has pointed out it's a movement with a 100+ years of history, and while feminism has evolved, its core message hasn't really changed that much. For you to say to 100+ years of intense conversation, study, activism, and scrutiny of men and patriarchy "no, you are wrong" is unwarranted, presumptuous, ignorant, and disrespectful at best.

As the saying goes: read a book. Or several hundred.

@allegro : it's a phd in comparative literature btw. Even more worthless.

[allegro]

^^ LIKE X 100

Oh I LOVE comparative lit, that's awesome, I'm green with envy. Seriously!!! :-)

[aggroculture]

Actually I am considering going to law school and doing the LSAT in a few weeks HA! (but this is drift...

[allegro]

Makes perfect sense, look at Stanley Fish!!

Reader-Response Theory! (SURPRISED BY SIN!!!) :-)

English nerds commonly also love law. Law = comparative analysis. Lots if it.

/drift

[allegro]

Not drift: the aforementioned "We Hunted the Mammoth" site is operated by a very empathetic male who has obviously seen right through these "scandals."

[Madmya]

Guys trying to argue that feminism is wrong, or misguided, or...anything: please stop.
You don't really have solid ground - not being women - from which to doubt women's experience.
Just because it doesn't ring true to you - being dudes, there is no reason it should.
You have grown up in a male-constructed reality and have a hard time believing that not everyone shares this reality. Especially when in the feminist account of what's happening you don't always come out looking so good. I understand the impulse to say "I don't believe this, it can't be true." This impulse must be resisted and overcome.

Men come to feminism and are shocked by what they hear: behaviours they grew up thinking and being taught were normal and natural: now they are hearing they are oppressive and abusive. And this makes them angry, because we all like to believe we are good people. Well, beyond the anger and the denial there can be empathy and understanding and humbleness and change. Staying angry at feminism for pointing out things you were doing but didn't know they were wrong, and persisting in your prior behaviours makes you part of the problem.

And this is not just some "overly sensitive" women on twitter last week or last year. As allegro has pointed out it's a movement with a 100+ years of history, and while feminism has evolved, its core message hasn't really changed that much. For you to say to 100+ years of intense conversation, study, activism, and scrutiny of men and patriarchy "no, you are wrong" is unwarranted, presumptuous, ignorant, and disrespectful at best.

As the saying goes: read a book. Or several hundred.

@allegro: it's a phd in comparative literature btw. Even more worthless.

Let's just expand this to: white men aren't allowed to have an opinion on anything slightly controversial.

[allegro]

Let's just expand this to: white men aren't allowed to have an opinion on anything slightly controversial.

here we go again ... poor poor white males ... in the FEMINIST THREAD.

Perhaps you should start another thread?

[Madmya]

I'm so oppressed, people in this thread would have no idea what I'm feeling right now.

[allegro]

I'm so oppressed, people in this thread would have no idea what I'm feeling right now.

Are you female?

If not, this fits what @Leviathant described in his post.

[allegro]

We Hunted the Mammoth (previously Manboobz) is a great overview of all of the above. Check out the tags for each "scandal" and you'll see the same anti-feminist names and faces pop up in each instance.

Yeah, I found this (the original comment was made by a science writer at The Atlantic, wow) and learned a lot.

[Madmya]

I was intentionally being a dick in the second post. I just think it's outrageous that you can say men aren't allowed to have an opinion on feminism.

[allegro]

Note: you need to re-read his post very carefully, because that is NOT what he said. Don't skim, read.

First, you'd probably need to understand that "feminism" is synonymous with "civil rights." In fact, it predated the civil rights movement. Without "feminism," women couldn't vote, enter into contracts, own property, get a driver's license, go to college, sign her own Will. So remember that offering an "opinion" on "feminism" is just like offering an "opinion" on civil rights.

[Madmya]

Thanks for introducing the concept of reading to me. I still find the idea that a guy can't have any slightly negative opinion towards anything feminism-related as ridiculous. It is, in its own right, sexist.

Edit: Maybe I'm confusing the subject of feminism to disagreeing with a feminist.

[littlemonkey613]

What the frick fracking fuck all ya'll talking shit about tumblr feminism. Comparing it to MRA trash are you KIDDING. ME.

I just seriously doubt that ya'll are even involved in feminist discussion on tumblr? It seems to me that you are just commenting on whatever story actually makes its way to the infinitely more out of touch mainstream news and then decide that its magically indicative of most feminist discourse on tumblr? I don't even see the innate connection between the two... Not to sound like a young hipster but some of this thread is literally starting to read like "get off my lawn" people completely not understanding a movement of younger people they aren't even a part of....

Its so funny too because me and a bunch of my buddies were just talking about how lost we would personally be without feminism on tumblr....if you truly are interested I could make my full ass case for it. But its honestly kind of annoying to even humor people who are commenting on something they are so out of touch with. Like are you literally only following the single stupidest feminist on tumblr's blog? Probably not even, which is why I'm hesitant to even humor this discussion.

Like obviously there is some really stupid shit, some people dont fact check and have dumb opinions but guess what?! All of that problematic shit is discussed all day.... ON TUMBLR.

[allegro]

Edit: Maybe I'm confusing the subject of feminism to disagreeing with a feminist.

that's the difference, yes. of course it's okay to disagree with a feminist.

What the frick fracking fuck all ya'll talking shit about tumblr feminism. Comparing it to MRA trash are you FUCKING. KIDDING. ME.

I just seriously doubt that ya'll are even involved in feminist discussion on tumblr? It seems to me that you are just commenting on.

I think only one person is discussing Tumblr, actually @DigitalChaos . I am never on Tumblr so I thought it was about as relevant as LiveJournal. And Shirtgate started on Twitter. The anti feminist cat thing was in response to a hash tag that exists all over but it's also a Facebook page.

The really important women's rights stuff that I read are in legal papers and business journals. Lilly Ledbetter probably doesn't have a Tumblr.

But @DigitalChaos might be interested in being enlightened by your recommendations re Tumblr. He seems to think there are only bad feminists, there.

[Madmya]

Yeah, sorry it took me a while to realise this. My apologies!