Open Thread: November 2009

This thread is for the discussion of Less Wrong topics that have not appeared in recent posts. Feel free to rid yourself of cached thoughts by doing so in Old Church Slavonic. If a discussion gets unwieldy, celebrate by turning it into a top-level post.

If you're new to Less Wrong, check out this welcome post.

The discussion here helped me reanalyze my own attitude towards this kind of issue.

I don't think I ever had a serious intention to back up my arguments or win a debate when I posted on the issue of why men hate feminism. I am not sure what to do when faced the extreme anti feminism that I commonly find on the internet. I have a number of readers on my blog who will make totalizing comments about all women or all feminists. Ex, one commenter said that women have no ability to sustain interest in topics that don't pertain to relationships between individuals. Other commenters say that feminsm will lead to the downfall of civilization for reasons including that it lets women pursue their fleeting sexual impulses, which are destructive.

i suppose I do not really know how to handle this attitude. Ordinarily, I ignore them since I operate under the assumption that people that expouse such viewpoints are not prone to being swayed by any argument. They are attached to their bias, in a sense. I am not sure if it is possible for a feminist to have a reasonable discussion with a person that is anti feminist and that hates nearly all aspects of feminism in the western world.

I am not sure what to do when faced the extreme anti feminism that I commonly find on the internet.

If these commenters are foolish enough to disparage and denigrate any political role to women generally, then do them a favor and flame them to a crisp. If that's not enough to drive them off your site, then feel free to ban them.

These are thinly-veiled attempts at intimidation which are reprehensible in the extreme, and will not be taken lightly by anyone who cares seriously about any kind of politics other than mere alignment to power and privilege--wh... (read more)

3ShardPhoenix17y

Personally I'd say you shouldn't "be a feminist" at all. Have goals (whether relating to women's rights or anything else) and try to find the best ways to reach them. Don't put a political label on yourself that will constrain your thinking and/or be socially and emotionally costly to change. Though given that you seem to have invested a lot of your identity in feminism it's probably already hard to change.

2CannibalSmith17y

Ban them.

5

Open Thread: November 2009

5

5

5

Open Thread: November 2009

5

5