I'm tired of the anti-feminist circlejerk here (and every where else on the internet)

[Nickolai77]

Last week i was in the kitchen of my flat with two of my female house-mates, and when the topic of feminism came up they were very quick to criticise it and came out with a lot of similar things said to what i've read on these forums. I think when you have female grad students being hostile to feminism you know the ideology or movement is in trouble- and at least one of them was informed about feminism, having done her first degree in English Lit. I know more people who would identify as a socialist than a feminist at my university.

I think the main problem is that for whatever reason a lot of feminist ideas don't resonate with the general public anymore. Back in the 60's i feel there was public interest because women wanted to be paid the same as men and be able to pursue the same career paths- but now that public interest has gone. Does this mean women don't feel oppressed anymore? I'm not going to answer that question, but i certainly think feminism has been relegated to the corners of public debate, and so we now only hear those radical feminists who shout loud enough to be heard, which only serves to dig feminism deeper into the hole its already in.

What i think is interesting though is how feminism is a topic that keeps coming in internet debates between geeks and nerds. My personal impression is that female geeks are more pro-feminist than regular females, which i think is evidence to say that there certainly are issues about gender that need to be resolved in geek culture- and that most likely comes from the fact that demographically we're very male orientated, so the views and values expressed in video games- being made by and made for chiefly men, and so its quite natural that women are likely to feel marginalised. And i think men, who don't really feel there's that much of a problem, are influenced by wider public scepticism of the feminism as a whole. It's not entirely because, as some put it, teenage sexual frustration. That's far too simplistic and condescending but i wouldn't deny that it's a factor among others.

But i think its certainly a valid and useful question to ask how we can increase female participation. I'd love it if more women shared the same hobby as i do, and that's not just because i'm a hetrosexual male I think greater female participation is happening as games diversify as the industry matures, but its slow going.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Mankind has evolved to havwe a duality of meanings. It has long since become equivalent to humankind, with no implication that men are running the show when you refer to it unless you use it deliberately in that fashion.

Language is co-constructed- in other words the meaning of words arises out of the mutual understanding of both the speaker and the listener. And there are a lot of listeners who hear the archaic, sexist connotations of "mankind" very clearly whenever it is used.

I could be pretentious and quote a dictionary but I won't.

Good. That wouldn't have made you pretentious, that would have made you wrong. You're talking to a linguist who has studied the meanings of words. Dictionaries are poor, often useless for understanding the subtle nuances or connotations of words among people who already know the words. They are only useful for people who are learning the language to get a rough idea of the meaning of a word.

If you want me to get really technical, there is a theory of lexical meaning that says the meanings of words are formed in comparison to other words in someone's vocabulary. When my nephew learned the word "ball" he assumed it meant all round objects, including the chestnut he found in the yard. When he learns different words for other round objects, his meaning for "ball" will be refined until it more closely matches the word as used by adults around him. Originally, "mankind" was used in a manner equivalent to our modern word "humankind" which wasn't widely used in the middle ages. Then the word "humankind" was created to be more gender inclusive. That means the meaning of "mankind" must now be refined to be non-inclusive.

What I see that approach as equivalent to is condemning the use of actors playing parts which are not their natural race because of the history of that practice being used to prevent jobs being given to minorities, regardless of the intent behind it (Cloud Atlas)

These two things have absolutely nothing in common.

If I want to be particularly unambiguous, or particularly mindful of the person I'm talking to, I may use 'humankind' instead, but I am not obligated to do so and most people are sensible enough to know which meaning I intend, the other being archaic.

Hey, I think you just spelled out your privilege very nicely here. "If I want to consider the feelings of an excluded person I can, but I don't have to if I don't want to."

Sorry, not good with the quote boxes:

1. There can be plenty of listeners who hear sexist connotations but realise that the word is not being used in a sexist way. Not everything that can be construed from a word or its usage is part of the intended meaning.

2. (Well I feel like an idiot) I can understand how the meaning of ball is refined as it is used. But I fail to see how, in an environment where the word 'mankind' is very scarcely used to mean exlusively males, its meaning is anything other than gender inclusive. From what I understand (which may not be much...) you're suggesting that since the word 'humankind' exists, using the word 'mankind' instead is deliberately being exclusive, because humankind is inclusive (because no two words are exact synonyms...?). I think they're synonymous in common usage, and that when you use the word 'mankind', you are referring either to all males or to all humans. There's no middle ground where you're referring to all humans but the implication is males are more important. It may just be that I'm not exposed to many situations where mankind is used exclusively, but my understanding of the word is that it means humankind exactly, although its origins were from a male-dominated society. I doubt that many people using the word 'mankind' WANT to imply males are more central to what they're saying.

3. I'm suggesting that condemning a practise based on assumed intent inherited by the history of that practise is not a sensible thing to do without considering what the actual intent is.

4. A bit like keeping my elbows off the table when I eat. In the company of particularly sensitive people to table manners, I may change my behaviour to accomodate that. In my own house, I probably won't, and in many situations in between, I probably won't, because it's more comfortable, and more practical, and simply happens, that I have my elbows on the table. What I'm saying is that I do not use the word 'mankind' deliberately, to make a point or to offend people. It is just part of my language, and I should not be expected to deviate from that purposefully when the responder can be practically certain I am not using it to exclude anyone or to imply anything. Which, if someone wanted to abbreviate my views even further and make me look stupid at the same time (I know I do), roughly translates to "I shouldn't have to consider the feelings of excluded people because I think they shouldn't feel excluded and because I don't intend to exclude them".

 

[Quadocky]

Wuh... I'll put this nicely. Mate, I don't think you're good at first posts, because that first post is a jumbled mess of assertions and half-points.

Every time this sort of thread gets made, the first thing I think is that it's far less productive to just make a thread for you to have your own soapbox (even if it's for one post) instead of finding one of the offending posts and replying to that person. "Boy, you lot are this and that" is a pretty meaningless and masturbatory way to have this discussion.

I don't have patience enough to decode your OP, nor the inclination to, but sort of on topic - I think most of the points made by feminists in these sorts of discussions are rather thoughtless and inane, and the non-stop outrages really grate my nerves. In a nutshell, I'm all in favor of actual women's rights, equal pay, all of that stuff, but talking about gaming (or any sort of art form) as something that has to meet a quota of equality (equality here being approval from equality advocates, which isn't quite the same) is really kind of ludicrous to me.

There is no quota, if its misogynistic or racist or problematic or otherwise, its just that.

If there isn't, explain to me why "under-representation of women" exists as a problem in videogames, or why token minority characters do.

It's not a literal quota, either.

Its dehumanizing. I don't know how else to put it other than to say it contributes to wrongheaded ideas about people in a cultural context if those ideas continue to be perpetuated.

 

[Quadocky]

-snip-

"Rape culture is pretty much anything that supports the removal of sexual sovereignty"

Oh so we'll remain a rape culture until every last single person who supports rape is gone? If that's so then term is useless.

"or justifying it through terribly misguided thinking (blaming the victim, etc)"

You know when people blame the victim it's usually only partial blame and they aren't exactly justifying it.

If someone had their car stolen and someone reacted with "well you were an idiot and left your keys in the ignition" that person is not saying "and that made it OK" or that we shouldn't punish the thief.

No, Rape Culture stands independently, WE are not a rape culture, you can can support 'rape culture' or be against it. Obviously one should do their very best to be against such terribleness. The term is not useless because it pretty much describes the problem with rapists, they quite literally think its okay to rape.

Let me put this as plainly as I can state: Under No Circumstance one should blame the victim. There is no middle ground in this regard. You do not blame the victim because the victim is not the one who committed the crime.

 

[Treblaine]

A female gamer previously unknown outside of feminist circles launches a kickstarter for constructive criticism on a medium she enjoys.

That doesn't apply to Antia Sarkeesian. It was far from constructive, it was misrepresentative from the start.

And I neither approve nor control the minority of psychopaths who make criminal threats to famous people. The Republican Party who opposed JFK in 1960's is not responsible for Lee Harvey Oswald shooting the President with a rifle. Nor are democrats responsible for that other nutcase taking a few shots at Reagan.

Judging a large group making reasoned and restrained arguments by the actions of a few nutcases is disingenuous in the extreme.

And I'm pissed off because after all this time you most likely have heard that explanation and ignored it.

 

[Treblaine]

No, Rape Culture stands independently, WE are not a rape culture, you can can support 'rape culture' or be against it.

But obviously most people are against it. You have nothing to suggest anyone significant proportion are "for rape".

 

[DevilWithaHalo]

Snip.

Are you seriously trying to argue that false rape charges are a serious problem? Why would a woman lie about that? Do you not consider how misogynyistic that is?

Huh... it's funny that I still can't tell whether or not your serious. I suppose it speaks to the style of the narrative that such statements can, and often are, still made in direct face of reality. It reminds me of the people that say dinosaur bones were placed there by the devil to trick us.

snip.

http://unwinona.tumblr.com/post/24598000184/they-dont-even-fit-heres-the-thing-about-mens
This is for you.
You know what also destroys people's lives?
Being raped and having the person get the fuck away with it because everyone else wanted to talk about what you did and what you wore.

Yes, false rape claims are bad- but they are not as prevalent as actual rapists getting away with rape.

I agree on both counts. False accusations are a minor issue when compared to rape. However, comparing the two is still somewhat permissible given the potential outcomes of each crime. We live in a very complex world where people's lives are affected through physical means, mental means, financial means, emotional means, social means, etc.

Rape has a high chance for physical damage, and near universal emotional damage. These two things then have a chance to damage the person in other areas of their life from the fallout of the first two traumas.

False Accusations had a low chance for physical damage, a high chance of emotional damage, a high chance of social damage and a high chance of financial damage.

A somewhat twisted sense of irony in that when someone is sent to jail on a false rape charge, are often subjected to they very crime they were accused of committing; which then creates an equal and sometimes greater disparity on those being falsely accused.

I honestly can't say how prevalent either crime is considering the nature of the research that has gone into the subject; but I can say that typically crimes committed do statistically outweigh the accusations of said crimes. Having said that though; I find no fault in people fighting for whatever cause they want regardless of the mathematical severity of the issue when compared to alternative or even similar problems others might face in society. And arguments against such discussion based solely on statistical significance seem rather counter productive to any discussion regarding basic human suffering.

 

[A Weakgeek]

Its becoming evident that as time goes on its less and less wise to identify yourself as "feminist" or any other label. When you start throwing names like that around the discussion never manages to stay on topic, since people already have opinions on those labels and the conversation will sift to those opinions instead.

I advise if you really want to have an intellectual conversation about anything, don't label yourself, or anyone else feminist or anti feminist.

 

[Terminal Blue]

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snip

Reading back in the cold light of day, I think I owe you guys a bit of an apology. I wrote the first post as a message of support to our original poster, and I didn't really think about my use of language. Anyway, reading back over the post today I can see how it would sound kind of bad to someone who wasn't already sympathetic to the point.

I'll still stand by what I said, but I should have expressed it differently. What I mean to say really is that there is the average dude has a great deal of misunderstanding about feminism and privilege in particular because, to a large extent, it just doesn't make sense to them. I wrote this as if it's a one sided thing which can be explained by subject positions, but really.. it's not just that. It's a weakness in the theory, or certainly the language around the theory, and one which pro-feminists, myself included, need to learn from.

I think the concept of privilege remains incredibly useful in explaining many elements of society which could not otherwise be reasonably explained, and I don't think it's something you can dismiss because it doesn't fit your personal experience as a man. There are very good reasons why it wouldn't. However, it is wrong for me to sit here and talk down to you about your lack of understanding when it's as much a consequence of my failure to communicate as anything else. I shouldn't be blaming you for my poor communication, that wasn't on and I shouldn't have gone anywhere near it.

That said, @FatherTime. I'm really not sure what you think I'm talking about. Also, don't mean to get technical but what I said is no more "sexist" than saying "most women like buying shoes". At worst it's just an unfair thing to say, and I accept that the way I worded it it probably was.

So, let me get this straight. Even if nearly every single facet of public life (which is not exactly the case... yet... but we're moving in that direction) were to be intentionally skewed to give females the advantage, even if males are judged to be almost universally treacherous when encountered out of context, and females are judged to be almost universally "safe" if met under the same conditions, if some private interactions, somewhere, unfairly fell in males' favor, then all males would still be privileged?

Not really.

I gave a more detailed explanation later on, but let me try again.

"Male privilege" is a manifestation of male hegemony, that is to say the social dominance of men in all the arenas which are really important. We use the word "hegemony" because this is not necessarily a violent or coercive dominance. Instead, it's an expectation that almost all the people who really mean anything in our society, who wield genuine power or whose opinions are most valid, will exhibit traits deemed (arbitrarily) to be "masculine", associated with (though not limited to) men.

If our world was ever in a position where it was dominated by women. Where women occupied all the key positions in society and the valuable traits which made the eligible to do so were considered "feminine". In a world where being "feminine" meant being strong, intelligent, self-sufficient, sexually agentive and all the other things which it currently does not, in a world where the default position in human society was that of a woman and men became the marked category, if the opinions of men were seen to be peripheral and tainted by their own subjectivity, then there would be a "female privilege".

Most of the disadvantages described in this thread are actually themselves symptoms of male privilege, because of course the hegemonic organization isn't as simple as just having a homogeneous bunch of men who are superior to a homogeneous bunch of women. Very few men will ever live up to the demands of "real" or "proper" masculinity, and none of us can do it forever. It is a competition which we are doomed to lose at some point.

Men don't suffer the overwhelming majority of violence in society, become the overwhelming majority of suicides, live shorter lives, die more frequently from preventable diseases and so forth because society doesn't care about them and thinks they're useless. Quite the opposite. These things happen because society expects and on some level believes men to be invincible. When you can buy into that, when you are healthy and strong and able and you know how to fight and can look after yourself the rewards to you are significant but, of course, not everyone can keep this up forever, and that's where the disadvantages start to show up.

Women don't get off lighter in court (at least for petty offenses) because society considers them to be innately good people. Again, kind of the opposite. Women are seen as weaker, both physically and emotionally, and thus their choices are seen to be more limited or less malicious.

Again.. privilege is not advantage. Advantage is completely situational based on what you're trying to achieve, privilege is related to broader social trends regarding what is considered important and valuable in a given society.

 

[Quadocky]

No, Rape Culture stands independently, WE are not a rape culture, you can can support 'rape culture' or be against it.

But obviously most people are against it. You have nothing to suggest anyone significant proportion are "for rape".

That doesn't matter. If you make light of rape or some such you are still contributing to rape culture. If you do not call them out on their error you are complicit with rape culture.

 

[Treblaine]

No, Rape Culture stands independently, WE are not a rape culture, you can can support 'rape culture' or be against it.

But obviously most people are against it. You have nothing to suggest anyone significant proportion are "for rape".

That doesn't matter. If you make light of rape or some such you are still contributing to rape culture. If you do not call them out on their error you are complicit with rape culture.

That's a complete U-turn from saying people active support monsters. Now you are undermining the very idea of humour.

Humour is a coping mechanism that is needed more than ever for the worst traumas of the human condition. When British Sailors in the Falklands had their ship blown apart and were floating in the Antarctic ocean - scores of their comrades dead and dying and their fate extremely uncertain. They all banded together and sung in chorus "Always look on the bright side of life"


First responders to disasters and soldiers will regularly seen joking and laughing, with their hands covered in the blood of people they tried and failed to save... because if you don't laugh you'll cry. And you'll lose all ability to go on.

Making light of unbearable horrors is as human as it gets. It doesn't somehow make us in favour of such evils in the world, they are just part of making it bearable. If I make a joke making light of death and human mortality, that doesn't mean I'm in favour of people dying. I mean if I make a joke about Hitler, one that explicitly makes fun of him, that doesn't mean I support genocide.

 

[8a88leph1sh]

and lo the problem with labeling complicated ideologies with single words has been revealed. For instance, I am pro-strong women. Strong women who don't feel they have to rely on other people (male or female) for support are awesome. Women who are intelligent, creative, and motivated are the only kind of women (or even men) that I respect. But I am not a feminist. Labeling is so narrowing! One word can't convey all of my beliefs! I want all people to be strong and self-sufficient, not just women. I don't think anyone should be forced or want to be in a subservient position. "Feminism" doesn't convey all of that.

And then we come to the strange concept that just because men, in general, have been in a dominant position of society for...well a very long time, that they are never abused or oppressed. Let me point you to this: http://news.ufl.edu/2006/07/13/women-attackers/
tl;dr on that article: women can be abusive in relationships too!

YES there is a dominating anti-woman mentality on the internet. YES there is a trend in the media including video games to display women as sexualized objects. NO, THESE ARE NOT OK. most of us here, I would say, believe that women and men are equal and should be treated that way. but implying that ALL white, heterosexual male internet users are SOMEHOW ALL ok with treating women poorly is what creates such a massive distaste for feminists. because the most vocal feminists always seem to be the most annoying and unwilling to co-exist peacefully with their male counterparts. trust me, we know that there are less extremist feminists out there and wherever you are we respect you and we want to help you change our society and open it up to both females and males.

also OP, you keep bringing up the amazing atheist and claiming that no one bothered to call him out. yet I remember just reading about how he had to leave reddit for his comments because of a swarm of negativity. He also lost a ton of Youtube followers. a lot stuck around but I think we can pretty much agree that anyone who agrees/defends him is an arse.