Suffragette - Feminism, The Movie

[cleric of the order]

They beat the shit out of them. Then the ladies beat the shit out of them right back.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34425615

Jez, this is shit straight out of a comic book.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Does it have that woman that runs in front of the kings horse in it?

Also apparently I remember stuff from History class.

Yes, that would be the Emily mentioned in the article. I do wonder how the movie treats that particular incident, since it usually gets held up as some great noble sacrifice that feminists everywhere should look up to...but in fact was more than a little damning to the cause at the time since it just made the men in power go "well, look at the crazy things women do, looks like its a bloody good idea not to give them the vote". Which, you know, kind of the opposite of what you're trying to achieve there Little Miss Martyr

 

[Zontar]

Does it have that woman that runs in front of the kings horse in it?

Also apparently I remember stuff from History class.

Yes, that would be the Emily mentioned in the article. I do wonder how the movie treats that particular incident, since it usually gets held up as some great noble sacrifice that feminists everywhere should look up to...but in fact was more than a little damning to the cause at the time since it just made the men in power go "well, look at the crazy things women do, looks like its a bloody good idea not to give them the vote". Which, you know, kind of the opposite of what you're trying to achieve there Little Miss Martyr

It's made worst by the fact it was an accident based on actions we would today nominate for a Darwin Award. It wasn't even a sacrifice, it was a casualty.

 

[CaitSeith]

"Feminism, the movie"
That sounds like a sarcasm from a Youtube commenter towards a video he disagrees with.

 

[Norithics]

Ah yes, the 'Feminists shamed men to their deaths, SEE THEY'RE MISANDRISTS ACTUALLY' argument.
This hilariously ignores that every single political movement that wants to succeed has to do things they don't like in order to get what they want. This is called 'politics.' If you look at History with a wide view, instead of clipping out specific examples to create your own narrative, you can easily see where this fit pretty handily in with everything else that was happening at the time- and would happen for decades to come!

Yes, even your favorite political group has made shady deals to get things done! If you think it hasn't, then you're exactly the kind of mark that everyone loves.

 

[Areloch]

Ah yes, the 'Feminists shamed men to their deaths, SEE THEY'RE MISANDRISTS ACTUALLY' argument.
This hilariously ignores that every single political movement that wants to succeed has to do things they don't like in order to get what they want. This is called 'politics.' If you look at History with a wide view, instead of clipping out specific examples to create your own narrative, you can easily see where this fit pretty handily in with everything else that was happening at the time- and would happen for decades to come!

Yes, even your favorite political group has made shady deals to get things done! If you think it hasn't, then you're exactly the kind of mark that everyone loves.

"Sure, this group mass-shamed people to go fight and die in a war, but everyone else a jerk too, so there's no point in commenting about it!"

Where'd you get the misandry thing, by the way?

I'd think it's perfectly valid to point out that the Order of the White Feather was, factually, utilized to get men to go off and fight in a war via mass public shaming. It's also documented that it was applied in many chases where it should not have been, such as children, or young men too young to even legally enlist, or even veterans that DID do their service.

Fact is, is that the campaign had a political start completely apart women's voting rights, and was utilized by feminists and suffragettes in order to shame men en-mass to go off and fight in a war that they weren't legally obligated to (until they started rallying to get a forced draft in place) - as apparent recompense for having the ability to vote, ignoring the fact that many of the men that fought and died in the war couldn't even do that.

You're correct that every political movement does shady crap, but why would that be a reason to not point it out when you see it here?

 

[jklinders]

Forgetting about how this thread got derailed for a moment. There really seems to be a love in for period pieces at this time of year. Specifically European period pieces these days. Does the Academy love them so much that they become Oscar shoe ins?

Anywho, this one looks pretty dry and that's before we ignore how in all likelihood they are going to gloss over some of the shadier shit brought up by Zontar. I mean for fucks sake, a Victoria Cross recipient was issued a damn white feather by one of those "ladies." For those who don't know, that's the highest military award possible in the Commonwealth on the same level as the Medal of Honor. Even worse were the teens who were given them as well even though they were too young to enlist.

Pretty sure the movie Malcolm X didn't skip the shitty stuff but somehow I think this one did.

 

[Terminal Blue]

You're correct that every political movement does shady crap, but why would that be a reason to not point it out when you see it here?

I take it, given that it's armistice day tomorrow, you're planning to go up to everyone you see wearing a poppy and remind them that it was used as a propaganda symbol to encourage people to sign up for the British army during world war 2 (assuming you live in the UK, if you don't then why the fuck do you care?)

The suffragettes firebombed buildings and sent death threats to politicians. Do we really need some pointless MRA wanking to add moral shades of grey here?

 

[Zontar]

Does it feature feminists being force-fed via tubes until they die of suffocation because the food ends up in their lungs? No?
Thanks, not watching a dried-out version of a civil rights battle.

Given how the only suffragette who dies was though an accident of their own making in what would today receive calls for a Darwin Award nomination, I think it's safe to assume that no, a fictional part of the history of the Suffragette movement was not featured in the film.

 

[Areloch]

You're correct that every political movement does shady crap, but why would that be a reason to not point it out when you see it here?

I take it, given that it's armistice day tomorrow, you're planning to go up to everyone you see wearing a poppy and remind them that it was used as a propaganda symbol to encourage people to sign up for the British army during world war 2 (assuming you live in the UK, if you don't then why the fuck do you care?)

The suffragettes firebombed buildings and sent death threats to politicians. Do we really need some pointless MRA wanking to add moral shades of grey here?

Well, I dunno about 'pointless MRA wanking'. I'm American, so I was largely unawares of how the suffrage movement occurred in context of England, so with this review (and this thread's discussion around it) I read into it a bit more, and learned some interesting stuff, like with the Order of the White Feather.

That, and this thread is specifically talking about(or around) a movie pertaining to history, and so additional information surrounding it is valid to bring up, I'd think. Which is different from walking up to random people in the street on a holiday and talking about propaganda symbols. Same thing as if we were discussing the history of the holiday of Christmas, which is different from walking up to a random person and talking about how it's not really a Christian holiday, but a re-purposed pagan one.

The point is, if everyone just throws their hands into the air and goes "Everyone sucks, don't bother talking about it", no one is going to learn anything about history(especially, ironically, with all this talk of historical revisionism in this thread).

 

[Terminal Blue]

That, and this thread is specifically talking about(or around) a movie pertaining to history, and so additional information surrounding it is valid to bring up, I'd think. Which is different from walking up to random people in the street on a holiday and talking about propaganda symbols.

Okay, this may require some context.

Tomorrow is November 11th. 97 years ago (at 11:00 tomorrow) the first world war ended. We call this "remembrance day" or "armistice day" and it's the UK's equivalent of memorial day in the US.

It is customary around remembrance day for people to buy and wear artificial red poppies, with the proceeds going to a charity called the Royal British Legion which provides support for veterans of the armed forces. There is a whole mythology built up around the use of the poppy as a symbol of the first world war, supposedly because it was one of the first flowers to bloom in the disturbed soil of no-man's land. The symbol comes primarily from a poem by John McCrae, a Canadian poet who served during the war.

Poppy wearing is considered by many to be an extremely important part of British national culture, to the point that public figures and sports personalties not wearing a poppy is still considered highly controversial. Burning a remembrance poppy in public has lead to several people being arrested, and is generally treated in a similar manner to burning the flag in the US.

However, both "in flanders fields" (the poem) and the poppy itself were used extensively as war propaganda. The poem was used explicitly to shame and attack pacifists, while the image of the poppy appeared extensively on war propaganda from both world wars, particularly in encouraging people to enlist or buy war bonds. This is something which has been completely erased from the conception of what the poppy actually signifies today, with people going so far as to state that political opposition to armed conflict cannot justify the refusal to wear the poppy because it's purely an impartial symbol of respect.

Also, unlike the white feather, this is still going on today. The white feather is meaningless in a modern context save to a bunch of loons on the internet who think there is some kind of secret genocide going on against men throughout all of human history. The poppy is being used right now, is being sold right now, is being misrepresented right now, it's not even a lie of omission, it's an outright barefaced lie.

So why does everyone care about the white feather? What penance is required for it? What accounting needs to be made? Who needs to get on their knees and issue an apology?

If this is an argument about history, well.. the essence of history is not passing judgement on the past. Because if it was, then the deaths of millions of people in the first world war could, in fact, be entirely justified because the vast majority of them were racists, sexists, homophobes or other bigots. If that doesn't matter, then why does this matter?

 

[Areloch]

That, and this thread is specifically talking about(or around) a movie pertaining to history, and so additional information surrounding it is valid to bring up, I'd think. Which is different from walking up to random people in the street on a holiday and talking about propaganda symbols.

Okay, this may require some context.

Tomorrow is November 11th. 97 years ago (at 11:00 tomorrow) the first world war ended. We call this "remembrance day" or "armistice day" and it's the UK's equivalent of memorial day in the US.

It is customary around remembrance day for people to buy and wear artificial red poppies, with the proceeds going to a charity called the Royal British Legion which provides support for veterans of the armed forces. There is a whole mythology built up around the use of the poppy as a symbol of the first world war, supposedly because it was one of the first flowers to bloom in the disturbed soil of no-man's land. The symbol comes primarily from a poem by John McCrae, a Canadian poet who served during the war.

Poppy wearing is considered by many to be an extremely important part of British national culture, to the point that public figures and sports personalties not wearing a poppy is still considered highly controversial. Burning a remembrance poppy in public has lead to several people being arrested, and is generally treated in a similar manner to burning the flag in the US.

However, both "in flanders fields" (the poem) and the poppy itself were used extensively as war propaganda. The poem was used explicitly to shame and attack pacifists, while the image of the poppy appeared extensively on war propaganda from both world wars, particularly in encouraging people to enlist or buy war bonds. This is something which has been completely erased from the conception of what the poppy actually signifies today, with people going so far as to state that political opposition to armed conflict cannot justify the refusal to wear the poppy because it's purely an impartial symbol of respect.

Also, unlike the white feather, this is still going on today. The white feather is meaningless in a modern context save to a bunch of loons on the internet who think there is some kind of secret genocide going on against men throughout all of human history. The poppy is being used right now. Is being sold right now. Is being misrepresented right now. It's not even a lie of omission, it's an outright barefaced lie.

Wow, that's really interesting.

Yeah, I have no problem with the armed forces(several of my friends joined up in different branches), but shaming people for not going into it, or openly supporting everything about it is a big dick move, and using that as political pressure is really skeevy.

 

[Karma168]

Wow, that's really interesting.

Yeah, I have no problem with the armed forces(several of my friends joined up in different branches), but shaming people for not going into it, or openly supporting everything about it is a big dick move, and using that as political pressure is really skeevy.

Oh that's not the half of it. Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition was criticised for:

A) Normally wearing a white poppy (a pacifist version that represents all dead). He decided to wear the usual red poppy instead this year.
B) writing a message on a poppy wreath that didn't deify the British war dead, instead writing a message to 'all war dead'.
C) (and I'm serious) not bowing deeply enough when he laid his wreath.

The UK is obsessed with the poppy and remembrance day. Anything less than total 110% commitment to how great our army is and you're a traitor. In England their poppy has a little leaf; [https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=poppy+with+leaf&sa=X&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=643&tbm=isch&imgil=bVAYlU6EixexVM%253A%253BTq5lSIZETafhBM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fen.wikipedia.org%25252Fwiki%25252FRemembrance_poppy&source=iu&pf=m&fir=bVAYlU6EixexVM%253A%252CTq5lSIZETafhBM%252C_&usg=__mfAD7OEp2zMsao03Z3rVkxdn8Ts%3D&ved=0CC4QyjdqFQoTCLCG5JPKiMkCFQZVFAodmvgDDQ&ei=dVBDVvD3LoaqUZrxj2g#imgrc=bVAYlU6EixexVM%3A&usg=__mfAD7OEp2zMsao03Z3rVkxdn8Ts%3D] apparently if it doesn't point at 11 then you don't support the troops (I wish I was joking).

We've bigged up our remembrance tradition so much that the guy who doesn't want another war is more hated than the guy that cut funding for veteran healthcare and gave thousands of active servicemen the sack.

 

[SeanSeanston]

golden age of feminism spam. It's gonna stop soon and things will be back to normal

The way I sees it; things presumably work in cycles, and the reason the world today feels like some kind of reactionary 1960/70s nightmare world is that the people running the world are mostly those who were SJWs in the 60s and 70s (which was probably the golden age of SJWs TBH). Hence, these people still have a chip on their shoulder from when they were student union president in 1971 and couldn't do anything about some social issue. Now that they're actually in power, they're so petty that they haven't forgotten and want to try and retroactively solve a problem that doesn't exist anymore.

Hence why it's like looking into a living old-people-mirror and how people like Sarkeesian get attention; because of the backward old people who are in a position to give her attention and positive press because they can understand or get over that they're no longer "hip" or "with it" anymore, and that in Seymour Skinner fashion if young people today don't think like young people 40 or 50 years ago then it must be the children who are wrong.

 

[Nailzzz]

It was the entire empire. Nice try on the historical revisionism to try and fit your narrative though.

I don't see how it being adopted throughout the empire changes the fact the far right and far left worked togther on it, with the far right conceiving it and the far left implementing it.

It was the empire that got people to fight in the war, not feminism.

I didn't realize Suffragettes where not feminists.

Of all the things I thought I'd hear feminism blamed for, it wasn't WW1. I honest to god laughed out loud by how bizarre that was, I mean my god. I mean this is like blaming feminism for the Nazi's. I wish that was a hyperbole.

Good think literally no one is blaming feminism for WW1 then, because no one at all on any side of the argument here has stated or even implied that except for yourself.

It's not far from what has been said or implied. Thems the cwaziest things...

You have to remember that the mainstream feminist movement of the mid 20th century was used as a way to co-opt the civil rights movement. The American civil rights movement of the time was focused mostly on blacks, which the US government was very concerned with. Especially as they had growing and popular militant movements among them (the black panthers for example).

So the government used feminists as useful idiots, which they were all to happy to do. They began funding feminist groups to co-opt the black civil rights movement to take the focus off blacks who the government felt genuinely threatened by and focus instead on women who the government found far less threatening. Gloria Steinem admitted to being aware as an administrator of an organization which was being funded by the CIA.

So as you can see feminists do as the OP suggested in relation to other minorities as a matter of course historically.

We'll since I'm being dragged into this side of the discussion, it isn't as though feminists/suffragettes were entirely blameless during WW1 either, considering how they were more than happy to work with the government to shame men and boys into throwing themselves into the meat grinder of trench warfare that characterized WW1. Not counting all the young boys that committed suicide out of shame for the crime of being too young to enlist or the veterans that were insulted while on leave for trying to take a moment out of their lives to be something other than cannon fodder. Or is the white feather campaign suddenly something no one remembers ever happening?

 

[OneCatch]

Just because a far right nationalist comes up with an idea doesn't change the fact it was far left feminists who accepted and implemented it, though you'd know that if you actually watched the video.

Actually it wasn't 'far left' feminists at all, so stop being obnoxious.
Those that supported the White Feather movement (like Emmeline Pankhurst) were broadly speaking nationalistic, traditionalistic, pro-Empire types who often were quite removed from working class concerns.

'Far left' feminists (as well as anarchist and proto-progressive feminists) ended up schisming from Pankhurst's WSPU [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmeline_Pankhurst#First_World_War] precisely because of it's support of the First World War. The WSPU and affiliates ended up basically aligning itself with the Conservative Party[footnote]Incidentally, you can make a case that the only reason Emmeline is venerated and lefty feminists aren't is that the former got plenty of Tory and Establishment friends in her later years[/footnote], hardly a far left bastion.
Emmeline pressured one of her daughters (Adela) to emigrate to Australia because she was too communistic, and was permanently estranged from another (Sylvia) because she refused to support the White Feather movement [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Pankhurst#First_World_War].

'Far left feminists' were probably, as a demographic, the most vocally anti-war and pacifistic movement outside of the Quakers.