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Feminism 101

  
  

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Regrettable Juvenilia
20:11 / 28.02.06
I think the difference is that men can only indirectly be the victims of or suffer as a result of misogyny, whereas sexism affects men too - and I'm not talking about some hypothetical defensive special case "he didn't get the job because of those evil feminists who've taken control of the world!" bullshit, I'm talking about the way existing power inequalities, fucked-up attitudes towards sex and gender, etc, harm men by, for example, confining them to certain predefined roles, behavioural expectations, encouraging them to be emotionally screwed-up in a fundamental way, potentially alienated from their own sexuality, etc.

The most effective forms of feminism have often been about unpicking the assumptions about gender that surround us, too.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
20:11 / 28.02.06
I stand by my basic point that there's a tradition of not seeing women's contributions, making their work invisible, not hearing our voices. So the desire to pretend that there's a way to fight for gender equality that doesn't have its roots in and isn't borrowing from feminism is, to me, the same process.

Which is why I also dislike Gender Egalitarianism, we're just not there yet as the mainstream press pretty much points out here, here and here
 
 
Tryphena Absent
20:19 / 28.02.06
sexism
1. Discrimination based on gender, especially discrimination against women.
2. Attitudes, conditions, or behaviors that promote stereotyping of social roles based on gender.

misogyny
Hatred of women
 
 
ibis the being
20:36 / 28.02.06
I would say that I am a feminist because one of the ways in which it has developed is into a far-reaching examination of how expected/assumed gender roles are a trap/confinement for bods of many different genders, and works to undermine those gender assumptions. (GGM)

I like the above a lot as a personal definition of being feminist, or maybe it's a motivation for being (or both).

For me, feminism is (partly) about being considered first and foremost as a person, to the same full extent that a man is a person. When I'm angry or cheerful, when I'm being clever or thick, when I'm successful or when I fail, when I'm compassionate or absolutely beastly... none of these are because of or despite being a woman. Sorry if that sounds a little After School Special-ish, but that's what feminism means to me in daily life.

I do think misogyny crops up on Barbelith now and then - I'd reckon few of us would disagree with that, but as to when and where and from whence it comes is harder to pin down. The most obvious place I think of just off the top of my head is the woe-is-me lovelorn threads where some girl is callously toying with the honest of emotions of our latest Barbelith Romeo... which is probably the most ironic place to find sexism & misogyny when, really, is there anything more universal than unrequited love?

On another board I visit often there's a poster who I managed to make enemies with by calling him out on making a homophobic slur in casual conversation (and I was the only one speaking up about it). He responded by throwing all the classic misogynistic insults in the book at me, I was overemotional and overreacting, I was stupid and had no sense of humor, and of course from there he dragged the rest of womankind into it by complaining that there were too many women on the board and ISN'T THERE A [TOPIC] BOARD FOR MEN OUT THERE? I found his barrage to be a bit overwhelming... it's hard to retort to someone so emotionally invested in destroying your credibility, and sadly, I'm not the wittiest person even in my best moments.

Compared to that, Barbelith is the safe space it's supposed to be (but yes there is more to be done, always). I manage to make an ass and a target of myself here sometimes, but only for being a moron or ill spoken, never for being female.
 
 
■
20:50 / 28.02.06
Thanks, Nina, I was wondering if it had been used in any specific manner I wasn't aware of, so that clears that up.
I think maybe because it's such a stark accusation that people bridle at being called misogynist. Being called sexist, at least by these definitions, might be seen to offer more wiggle-room; misogynist pins you down.
It's possibly also why the response is usually "I don't hate women but..." as anyone using the offending terms will not have any idea how their sexist attitudes are supporting gender-hatred or vice versa.
Certainly, calling people misogynist gets their attention, but wouldn't it be more likely to produce less walls-up defensive and more considered responses to use "sexist"? After all, in most cases, it's more likely that they are unintentionally misogynist by using such symbols and signs in a sexist manner.
Or, again, am I missing another old debate?
 
 
Sekhmet
20:52 / 28.02.06
Compared to that, Barbelith is the safe space it's supposed to be (but yes there is more to be done, always). I manage to make an ass and a target of myself here sometimes, but only for being a moron or ill spoken, never for being female.

Doesn't that have a great deal to do with the relative gender-neutrality of online interaction under a ficsuit name?

I have a suspicion that things would be different if we were all talking in meatspace.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
20:59 / 28.02.06
Dead Megatron: If you have never asked a woman you have actually had sex with what she enjoys, what she would like, how she likes to be touched, then you may very well have raped someone.

Alas, while I can entirely see why you, personally, may be against the kind of sexual situation where neither partner's particularly interested in anything other than meaningless self-gratification, it's nevertheless hardly unknown for women to indulge in this kind of behaviour, either, as, OK, I'm sure you know ...

But really, to imply, as you *seem* to be doing, that Dead Megatron's supposed behaviour in his (possibly neglible, possibly not, possibly cold and loveless, possibly not, who's to say?) dealings in these matters has been potentially tantamount to rape would seem, and in the context of what he's said in this thread anyway, to be a bit, y'know, much.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
20:59 / 28.02.06
Certainly, calling people misogynist gets their attention, but wouldn't it be more likely to produce less walls-up defensive and more considered responses to use "sexist"?

I think that it's best to express what you see before you and on barbelith I try to be as honest as possible (honesty being something you have to be extremely careful with in the everyday world). I can think of instances of sexism on the board, particularly in the lovelorn threads that Ibis nods to above. Misogyny I regard as more serious and it shouldn't be undermined through the application of a different word, even if it is less provocative.
 
 
iconoplast
21:06 / 28.02.06
So... I'm pretty sure I'm a mysoginist on some level. I mean - I try not to be. But cultural encoding's a deep thing. And so much of what I think of as being 'neutral' really just boils down to being 'like me.' Hence, I don't really mind being told "Hey - that joke? Not so funny." So I think for a bit about why someone might find that joke less than funny. Then make up my mind whether to tell it again.

I am totally capable of having made any of the questionable jokes on the Lost thread, and have told much worse before. Even if I can't think of any now, having gone through Junior High School means on some level I know any number of horrible, deliberately offensive jokes. That, generally, only get brought out when the conversation turns to deliberately offensive jokes.

What makes me stumble, though, is when people point out that I've miscategorized something - that I'm being offensive without meaning to. Because I think that's where a lot of today's prejudices lie. In humor, in stereotypes that we don't think are entirely true, in generalizations to which 'of course, you know, exceptions exist and all that...'

So if I'm being offensive without knowing it, it means I've bought into one of these cultural trojan horses, and that I'm unwittingly... just being wrongheaded. I don't like stereotypes. I don't like mysogyny or whatever flavor of cultural domination I'm being chided for being a part of. But not liking it, saying I'm against it, and doing my best to try not to perpetuate it are three different things.

Mostly, people who have approached me with a feminist critique of something will take 'You may be right, let me think about that' as at least a placeholder for an apology. And, I'll be honest. Sometimes I don't apologize - sometimes they're off their fucking rockers and don't have the slightest shred of reason to their argument. But, being that I'm trying to guage something I've said from the perspective of someone who, because of the nature of this discourse, differs from me in some fashion, it usually takes a bit of thinking to decide whether or not I've verbally stepped in it.

The big stumbling block, I've found, is that for a man to grapple wih feminist issues is to grant some other party a priviledged role in the discourse. It always involves, on some level, a lot of "I imagine" or "it seems to me", and requires us to just accept that our words, once we've spoken them, can impact people in entirely unforeseen and unintentional ways.

(Suddenly, I'm tempted to construct a lexicographical argument for feminism on the basis of clarity of speech and connotation).
 
 
Tryphena Absent
21:23 / 28.02.06
Could you link me to the questionable posts in the Lost thread? I'm a little curious.
 
 
alas
21:43 / 28.02.06
that Dead Megatron's supposed behaviour in his (possibly neglible, possibly not, possibly cold and loveless, possibly not, who's to say?) dealings in these matters has been potentially tantamount to rape would seem, and in the context of what he's said in this thread anyway, to be a bit, y'know, much.

I read this thread, and hear him TWICE suggest that although he has considerable experience with sex BUT he is really uncertain whether women find intercourse per se demeaning. And he pleads for women on this board to answer that question. I know I put my comment in strong terms, but Jesus. Jesus.

I would love to be calm and reasonable all the time. Truly. But Christ, I have my limits.
 
 
iconoplast
21:46 / 28.02.06
When Triplets said "Go to page 12-13 (or so) of the Lost US thread. It's a treat," I figured these were the posts:

Page 10, buttergun: I officially hate this new bitch, Ana-Lucia. When Sawyer promised he'd kill her if she hit him again, I could only hold my breath in anticipation. But then I remembered that on Lost, people have a very slim chance of dying -- despite producer Abrams' promise at the beginning of Season 1 that "more people will die on this show than any other."

Anyway, back to my hatred of Ana (though I'll probably always call her "Faux-Tough Latina Bitch"...FTLB for short). Maybe it's that I don't like the actress. She always plays the same role. And on top of that, she's not even a GOOD actress -- she always has the same loathsome expression on her face.

Page 11, Oddman: My sister noticed that the legs of the others were not very manly. Her theory is that maybe the 'Others' are really a gathering of lesbians needing to meet their maternal needs by stealing a 'gifted youngster'...Walt?

Or...maybe Mary Kay Letourneau is on the island...?

Page 12, Waliullah's Whimsy:Characters they should kill off: Jack. Hurley. Charlie. Kate. and more than anoyone else Tough Latina Cunt.

Page 13: Triplets & Boboss ask posters to think about what they're calling Ana-Lucia and why.

I was guessing those were the posts. (Well, actually, I don't think Triplets meant the Lesbian one, but it's a similar kind of joke-I-might-make-depending-on-context, which seems to not have offended in this context. Or maybe it has.)
 
 
matthew.
21:54 / 28.02.06
It's extremely unfortunate that misogyny still exists. No, scratch that, fucking horrible that it exists. I, too, like persons above, am guilty of "mild" misogyny in which I tell or enjoy a "blonde" joke, or something like that. I know a couple "good" misogynistic jokes that I could tell you. It's too bad that I am like this. I'd like to blame it on "cultural encoding" and the media, and other things like that. But I can't. The responsibility of the misogynist rests on his shoulders.

And therefore, I wear a white ribbon. It is something I do personally to make sure everybody knows that violence or misogyny or other fucking horrible garbage doesn't happen.

I don't want to use Barbelith as a political tool, but I urge some of the male posters to seek out something like this in their community. I understand that simply wearing a white ribbon is not the most effective tool against misyogyny or violence against women.

So I ask Barbelith, is there something feasible and realistic that the male posters can do? What can we do to promote and further the overarching goals of feminism?
(and if that last statement was too general, I ask, "What can I do to stop shit like this marriage/rape issue?")
 
 
The Falcon
21:57 / 28.02.06
But really, to imply, as you *seem* to be doing, that Dead Megatron's supposed behaviour in his (possibly neglible, possibly not, possibly cold and loveless, possibly not, who's to say?) dealings in these matters has been potentially tantamount to rape would seem, and in the context of what he's said in this thread anyway, to be a bit, y'know, much.

Yeah, that thought which had heretofore not occurred to me really makes the blood run cold. I presently think rape is definitive (in a previously consensual situation) by being asked to stop, or words to that effect, and not doing so.

Otherwise (both parties having entered into the consensual situation and no deferral - on either side - having occurred,) one may be guilty of bad sex, something I'm sure many here have had, and something which leaves at best a hollow feeling. There are a very great deal of bad things people can do involving sex without it being physically rapine; I'm (possibly) willing to be convinced otherwise, but it'll take a little more persuasion.
 
 
alas
22:02 / 28.02.06
you, personally, may be against the kind of sexual situation where neither partner's particularly interested in anything other than meaningless self-gratification

1) I'm not against meaningless self-gratification (is that an assumption about us humorless anti-sex feminists? ...) EXCEPT

2) When it comes at the expense of another, non-consenting human being. I don't have the right to hit you in the face if it makes me feel gratified.

If I really don't know if my behavior is demeaning and horrific for you, I should not be engaged in that behavior. If DM really doesn't know whether all women find all intercourse inherently demeaning, he shouldn't be engaging in it.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
22:09 / 28.02.06
What can we do to promote and further the overarching goals of feminism?

In your case, next time you start to tell a blonde joke, stop. In this thread Kovacs said I tend to think that in addressing and challenging your* own racist attitudes (however mild and minor they may be) it's important to monitor your own private language and thoughts, as well as the stuff other people might hear and catch you out doing: not just to try to create a good impression (or avoid a bad impression) among others, but to... police? the way you catch yourself thinking.

I think that's a good rule of thumb for your own response to bias you perceive in yourself, a good rule for all of us. It's something I try to do.
 
 
matthew.
22:13 / 28.02.06
Check this out: Moms should stay home by Michael Coren. And then Columnist Coren just doesn’t get it by Mindelle Jacobs. Both of these columnists work for "Sun Media," which is generally a Conservative (big "c") publication.

I read the Coren piece in my physical paper, and while I didn't think it was radical, I also didn't think we need to hear it.
 
 
Lurid Archive
22:18 / 28.02.06
If DM really doesn't know whether all women find all intercourse inherently demeaning, he shouldn't be engaging in it.

Thats a little unfair though, alas, isn't it?. If we as men are asked to try to consider our privileged status and the ways in which we may be being exploitative or dismissive of women - all of which is very reasonable - then one can't take a man's willingness to consider the possibility that he is behaving badly as *evidence* that he is behaving badly.

DM, for all his faults, sounds like he is hearing much of this for the first time and, as such, he probably doesn't know how to reason in this kind of context. Personally, I think that a little patience might work wonders. (I know what some will say...but thats what I think.)
 
 
alas
22:20 / 28.02.06
and while I didn't think it was radical, I also didn't think we need to hear it.

Could you unpack this, please?
 
 
The Falcon
22:27 / 28.02.06
Surprising no-one, I'mo back Lurid on that.

Further, I'd imagine DM took the fact he was engaged in the sexual act as primary evidence that his partner(s) wanted to be engaged in the sexual act; I know I do, but Barbelith occasionally acts to counter my intuition on such matters.
 
 
ibis the being
22:28 / 28.02.06
he is hearing much of this for the first time

Hearing what? To be respectful of other people, regardless of whether they have a vagina? I don't get it.
 
 
matthew.
22:33 / 28.02.06
alas -

He's not saying burn the witches. From the article:
There is no compelling case that the world would be a better place if more women were lawyers, bankers, soldiers or engineers. There are many such arguments, however, that the world would be a far better place if more women were mothers.
I think he's conflating things a bit. He seems to think that being an efficient (read:good) mother means staying at home and raising the children because only mothers can raise children effectively. I don't think this is radical. And I don't want to hear it. When I read this, it made me think of a friend who stupidly said that our uni should get more black students because they're better basketball players.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:33 / 28.02.06
Yeah, that thought which had heretofore not occurred to me really makes the blood run cold. I presently think rape is definitive (in a previously consensual situation) by being asked to stop, or words to that effect, and not doing so.

And in a situation in which consent was neither asked for nor given? In a situation where one party is so drunk that they cannot reliably give consent? Where one party believes the other party might become physically violent or murderous if asked to stop?

I think it's a bit more complex...
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
22:36 / 28.02.06
I think one of the points alas was trying to make is that if Dead Megatron genuinely has taken the time to make sure that his female sexual partners both consented and enjoyed it, then he doesn't need to ask the question "is the experience of intercourse unconfortable and/or demeaning per se?" I don't think anybody here believes in false consciousness to that extent: if women have enjoyed being on the receiving end of heterosexual penetrative sex with Dead Megatron, then it is certainly possible for women to enjoy being on the receiving end of heterosexual penetrative sex.

In other words, we can demystify feminism to a certain extent. It doesn't necessarily have to be handed down by prominent thinkers or read in weighty books. It can often be learnt from genuinely interacting with and listening to the women you already know.

Having said that, Duncan...

Further, I'd imagine DM took the fact he was engaged in the sexual act as primary evidence that his partner(s) wanted to be engaged in the sexual act; I know I do,

I don't think you can possibly mean what you've just written, if you re-read it and think about it. Think about what you've literally just said, and what it means.
 
 
matthew.
22:38 / 28.02.06
I'm sorry, I need to further unpack this. I don't think people need to read this because it's another cultural stereotype, isn't it? That mothers can only be effective if they don't have jobs? What I want to know is why can't mothers be effective and be lawyers at the same time?
 
 
Ganesh
22:44 / 28.02.06
Further, I'd imagine DM took the fact he was engaged in the sexual act as primary evidence that his partner(s) wanted to be engaged in the sexual act

I engage in the acts of responding to official complaints at work, ironing my shirt and having my mother to stay despite not especially wanting to be engaged in those acts.

Point being, the fact that one is doing something does not automatically mean that one wants to be doing that thing. There's context to consider.

Without wanting to put words in Alas's mouth, I suspect the rape comment was possibly slightly extended as an illustration - but it demonstrates the essential dunderheadedness of asking virtual females a Big Question which ought to be explored with one's partner. If one is genuinely unsure whether all sex is demeaning to all women (and not simply asking this question for effect, or some other reason), then one ought to not do it until one has made the time and effort to discover it in person. Duh.
 
 
The Falcon
22:47 / 28.02.06
And in a situation in which consent was neither asked for nor given? In a situation where one party is so drunk that they cannot reliably give consent? Where one party believes the other party might become physically violent or murderous if asked to stop?

I think it's a bit more complex...

Of course.

No, Flyboy, I've missed out a couple of "consensual"s there, at the very least; I wasn't concentrating. That statement covers anything, actually, and is a mess.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
22:51 / 28.02.06
I would love to be calm and reasonable all the time. Truly. But Christ, I have my limits.

Yeah, fair enough. I had the impression that DM was on about his uncertainty as to the broader cultural situation, rather than anything personal that was weighing on his mind (I'm still assuming that's right,) but, pretty clearly, if he has got some doubts about this, then the next time at least he should probably check...

I'm just not sure if he's the demented, unfeeling, Bateman-esque priapist that he's (argubly) portrayed himself as - he doesn't seem the type, somehow.

DM - over to you!!!
 
 
Tryphena Absent
22:54 / 28.02.06
Matt, my fundamental problem with Michael Coren, is the stereotype that a woman's place is in the home. The reason that articles like his bother me are that they prop up a stereotype that women because they carry children, necessarily need to be the people who look after them. There's no specific evidence for that and it's a societal perception that desperately needs to be questioned and overturned for reasons of equality.
 
 
matthew.
22:59 / 28.02.06
That's what I was trying to say, although I think you've said it better, Nina.
 
 
*
23:00 / 28.02.06
I would love to have taken part in this thread, but at this point it's a bit like saying I'd really have liked to have had a dance with that avalanche before it went by.

Haus-- what were you trying to do with this, exactly?

However, I don't entirely understand why, rather than going to any of these corners and looking at whether in fact this slight was not a slight at all, and therefore whether people were in fact being provably oversensitive, in the light of good, rational masculine analysis, you went of instead into this rather dreamy tone-poem in which the quotations of a woman whose work I don't believe you to have read in any depth were assembled out of context and used as a reason to celebrate her death. That seems a rather emotional, intuitive, tangential and, frankly, womanish approach.

I mean, I'm aware that you were doing this tongue-in-cheek to make a point. Did it have the effect you were looking for?
 
 
Tryphena Absent
23:01 / 28.02.06
Well it sounded like you needed someone to share your disgust at the nasty Coren.
 
 
The Falcon
23:09 / 28.02.06
Reformulating...Reading Ganesh's duty list reminded me of something I had meant to bring up, which is that obviously I know from speaking to women that some of them have had sex primarily as that, as a duty to partners.

However, I don't really generally have a problem with own 'primary evidence' part; it shouldn't be analogous to 'going to work/having family round/household chores', should it? There's generally, in my experience (although not in that of characters in Ayn Rand novels,) some preamble during a romantic encounter in which it is made fairly evident that sex is either desired or undesired. Thereafter, assuming an affirmative, all evidence is that this sex, regardless of the myriad other virtues or abasements that might be affixed, it is sex and not rape, yes?
 
 
Lurid Archive
23:15 / 28.02.06
If one is genuinely unsure whether all sex is demeaning to all women (and not simply asking this question for effect, or some other reason), then one ought to not do it until one has made the time and effort to discover it in person.

You and Flyboy make good points, Ganesh, but...for example, I know women who work in what you might call the sex industry. They say that they don't find it demeaning and are very open about that. But if presented, perhaps for the first time, with an opinion that *any* woman working in the sex industry was demeaned by it, I'd ask the people I was talking to if they also held that opinion. But, of course, there *are* people who think such sex work is demeaning regardless of the opinions of some sex workers.

What I confidently feel I know and what I'm being asked to consider may be quite far apart in this kind of discussion. That is surely part of the point? While I doubt that anyone here is seriously going to argue that all heterosexual intercourse is demeaning to women, its not clear that that would be a completely untenable position if we move back a hundred years or so and consider the status of women within marriage (in Europe, say). "Knowing" what one's partner thinks and feels isn't the whole story, is it?

I'm probably expressing this badly, but I'm trying to say that there is a moment possible in these discussions where the floor falls out from under you. "I *am* rascist, I *have* been sexist. I've been using 'gay' as an insult." Or however it comes to you. I'm just saying that that can be disorienting for the individual and I'm inclined to feel sympathetic to people who may be working through that.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
23:18 / 28.02.06
I think this thread is getting a bit out of control. For instance Duncan's post is as applicable to men in any relationship as it is to women. The very fact that we have mentioned that women engage in sexual acts as a duty to their partners but not that men do too (as I am sure some must) seems fundamentally to fall back onto stereotypes.
 
  

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