Noir, I've been finding it pathologically difficult to pull away from the discussion, honestly. I feel like, if I'm not clear enough about ((waves hands)) various things, I'm making feminism look bad, and that's a horrible thought. It's also punching all my "if I can just be nice enough and reasonable enough and explain enough daddy won't hate me" buttons.
Why, gentle readers might ask, am I blurting this out in public like a silly emotional women? Because, dudes (and I'm talking to the dudes right now, darn straight), part of what makes this shi...
Phil Goetz, the characterization you've made of me gives me the disturbing impression of looking at a reflection of myself in a fun house mirror. It's very distorted. I certainly didn't put the implication of any of that into my words deliberately; I have only to wonder if I communicated so very badly, or if perhaps the fault is partly yours for seeing a raving man hater where there is none.
((shrug)) Badly said or not, I doubt I could do better by trying again, so I'll let my words stand for themselves, and hope that your interpretation isn't the dominant one they receive, since what you got out of them wasn't put there at all.
Michael Vassar, Women still don't receive equal pay for equal work. In the case of Ms. Ledbetter, a woman appealed to the law after receiving wage discrimination for years and the Supreme Court of the land used a loophole to overturn the decision of a lower court which had awarded her damages. Wage discrimination and the constant struggle to reduce women's reproductive rights are both areas where there's still a pretty blatant fight going on to secure and hold equal rights under the law for women living in the United States.
It's not just men in Muslim cou...
rfriel, I'm glad that we can agree on this point.
Ithiliana (the commenter I believe you're referring to?) talked to you about how there are many feminisms during that discussion, I believe? That being the case, I think you might want to interpret what she said in light of that. I won't go further into guessing or explaining her motivations, since it's not my place to speak for anyone else.
I've been careful to mention several times that the particular orientation of feminism which appeals to me is intersectional feminism, and that that is obviously not the only approach around, despite my obviously finding it the most effective personally.
michael vassar, it's deeply inaccurate to use any one type of feminism or any one voice to characterize an enormous variety of opinion and shame someone about using the label.
The most basic definition of "feminist" is a person who believes in equal rights for men and women. I think that, despite the behavior of any one individual, that is an aim that anyone could be proud of. Everything beyond that is a distinctive variation and shouldn't be used to characterize the whole.
Cyan, yeah. That was where the miscommunication came in. Thank you for untangling that.
Eliezer, I don't see your perspective as a product of sex difference, I see it as a product of male privilege. The thing about privilege is that the primary privilege of any privileged group is to be unaware that they're enjoying privilege. I can go to the store and buy a cellphone from Verizon Wireless and never know that my new phone has coltan in it that's been mined very cheaply due to the instability in the Congo region and that the same instability which has affo...
Oh, hell. Left my italics tag open. There. Closed. Apologies for triple-posting, I realize it's a violation of the site's rules. Mea cupla.
*for not fitting nicely, rather
Frank, I've heard it said that there could be at least 6 genders, if people weren't arbitrarily silenced or excluded for fitting nicely in the dual gender boxes like good little girls and boys. I don't see why a broader set of options would be a negative thing: whatever is human should not be foreign to us; we shouldn't erase people from existence who don't fit neatly into our categories; people are more important than categories.
Anyway. The sex/gender division isn't the be all end all of gender discussion, but it's a pretty fundamental point that has to be got across before the effects we observe can be understood more clearly. It's one of the stepping stones to seeing the territory as it is, instead of the map.
*from, not for.
Eliezer, feminists speak for women in the sense that feminism(s) have the effect of expanding the definition of what it is to be "women" to include the true diversity of people who are biologically female. There are women who are misogynistic and racist on varying levels of virulence, just as there are misogynistic and racist men of all sorts. Anti-racist, anti-sexist women aren't going to be able to speak for those women anymore than anti-bias men speak for their racist, sexist brethren.
It seems more beneficial to give a list of concrete things ...
rfriel, that's about the sum of it, yes. One perspective within a tradition shouldn't be selected out to represent the entire tradition. Gender essentialist feminism isn't anathema by any means but it cannot alone claim the label "feminist thought"; there are other perspectives and arguments which need to be considered. This could have been accomplished prior to the post going live with the mere addition of a single sentence saying "it is true, though, that not all feminists agree with this outlook, so maybe things aren't as clearcut as they...
Robin, on the contrary, I felt that it framed the discussion nicely, discouraging people from conflating the two in their comments as has happened in previous OB posts. It, along with Eliezer pointing out that "A good deal (perhaps a majority) of what we think of as 'manly' or 'womanly' is gender rather than sex," combines to set the tone for a clearer, more civil discussion by getting two points of misinformation and bias out of the way to begin with.
Tom, when Robin asked me for concrete examples of how the site could do better, I gave four suggestions, and he told me he didn't want my silly "wishlist."
That experience has made me somewhat doubt his good faith, so his following a pattern of thinking (Othering women) which has been used so negatively for so long doesn't look terribly good upon reflection.
I'd like to mention that Eliezer was kind enough to make the distinction between bio sex and gender very clear in this post, which is one of the things I suggested, and which I appreciated. Des...
Because men have been and are currently considered human and women Other, the reinforcing of this trope by a man carries a lot more force and hurt than if a woman were to speak about men as if they were strange, unsympathetic Others. Robin is a person with privilege denying the humanity of disprivileged people. He's following a pattern that's been used to justify the rape and abuse of women for thousands of years.
If a woman says something about how strange and foreign men are, she's not supported by that kind of history, and she's not speaking as a member of the dominant group. Also, she wouldn't be saying it on an Oxford Institute supported blog, would she?
"Top hits appear to be David Boreanaz,"
Eliezer is a Buffy fan.