Imperator_DK said:
Indifference in regard to the woes other innocent groups face.
God damn that Martin Luther King! He was an awful person.. did you know he actually campaigned for black people to be treated better and he didn't specifically mention gays!
Do you see how silly that statement is. Sensitivity to the existence of gendered imbalances of power actually lends itself (and usually includes, at least nowadays) an appreciation of other imbalances of power. Disability studies, critical race studies and sexuality studies all grew out of and are still in many cases a part of 'feminist' scholarship areas like gender studies. There's a very good reason for that. Heck, I've found Franz Fanon a million times more relevant and useful than Germaine Greer.
In fact, one important feminist realization is that these things are almost always interlinked to the point where you can't think about gender without thinking about race, class, sexuality and particular 'normative' bodies. Remember, gender
isn't sex, gendering happens for everyone.
Imperator_DK said:
Had they taken it from the top down, communicated a willingness to fight against any and all discrimination, then applied that general view to gender equality as well, that's a whole other story.
I don't really care about 'gender equality'. Well, I do in the kind of abstract way that I think it would be a nice goal for society to work for and I'll generally support measures to that effect, but it's not what I really care about. What I care about is gender
ing, or as some have called it the sex/gender system which lies at the root of prejudice and ideology of discrimination. That's not as simple as just saying 'yay women!' and then knocking off and saying 'my work here as done' once women have been handed the right to go to work and vote and whatever else society deems important enough to give them.
I'm interested in how people, not just women, are organized in relations to concepts and ideas like 'fem' on a structural level. Thus, 'feminism' is a pretty good description.
Imperator_DK said:
As for the methodology of bringing it about; complete reciprocity of the lowest anyone is willing to treat an innocent (innocent in the capacity the treatment is applied to, like "Blacks" or "Gays" etc.). This oftenmost goes for negative treatment - discrimination to discriminators - but a lack of positive treatment and interest in the problems of others can be reflected as well.
All I can say is that noone is harmless, who has ever got through life without inflicting emotional harm on another person or supporting ideas or practices that do? You're not really determining harm, you're distinguishing 'rational' or 'acceptable' harm from 'irrational' or 'needless' harm.
For example..
Imperator_DK said:
None (necessarily, though both men, as well as individual women who would voluntarily choose - prefer even - a more traditional family form, might be discriminated against by some despicable branches of it). A pure feminist just isn't helping out anyone who doesn't belong to a specific group, and thus have earned no help from anyone outside it.
And you don't think the 'traditional' family form is harmful?
How many divorces, how much domestic abuse, how much pressure on women to relegate themselves to the domestic sphere is 'acceptable' before traditional marriage becomes 'harmful'. And you're supporting that? You're saying that attacking an institution which causes untold misery to millions of people is a 'harmful' practice, while that institution itself and the people who uphold it as socially normal are 'innocent'?
Need I remind you that almost all of the horrific cultural practices of the past were entered into voluntarily and in many cases outright consented to. I'm sure had you explained your principle to people of the time, they would have maintained the 'innocence' of their position in exactly the same way.
It's a stupid question though, and I'm playing devil's advocate. My point is that dividing the world into 'aggressors' and 'victims' is is a bit pointless. I'd rather determine the social, linguistic and identity-based elements which cause and vindicate harm in the first place than worry about how much I'm allowed to harm people whom I don't think are innocent.
evilthecat said:
The one who exclusively labeled him/herself a feminist rather than committing to general non-discrimination.
Again, 'fem' = women.
evilthecat said:
I don't dispute it's a worthy cause (or part of a worthy cause); I despite whether those who single-mindedly pursue it in lieu of the woes of others are themselves worthy of being helped?
Okay, let's take feminist activism for a second, and this is the only time I'm going to do this because I don't think being a feminist necessarily means being involved in activism.
Sure, feminist activism is usually concerned with 'women's' issues such as equal pay or reproductive rights.
Now, why is that a bad thing? Is it bad because they don't specifically
mention non-gendered forms of discrimination (ignoring the fact that such things don't exist in the real world) or is it bad because there are presumed to be active hostility towards other 'worthy' groups?
Because if it's the former, then you're saying that no form of activism is possible without the broadest of possible liberal goals and non-specific aims, and that would be a terrible loss. To go back to my above example, Martin Luther King was a clergyman and devoutly religious, it would be reasonable to say he likely had 'traditional' views on the family and homosexuality. Does that mean everyone should have stopped listening when he spoke out against racial discrimination and segregation? Does that mean that the white people, the women, the gays who got involved in the black civil rights movement shouldn't have done so because they weren't specifically included?
If that's the kind of society you want to live in, count me out of it. Yes, feminist activists can be tiring, but what is actually the problem with them and their agenda? The theory they draw on is good, the people they want to help are often as good as anyone else. I fail to see how you could possibly construe a few slightly cringeworthy speeches as being somehow equal to simply allowing sexual discrimination to occur and doing nothing about it in terms of the harm caused.
evilthecat said:
See the apartment complex analogy above. It suggest limited interest, and thus a lack of positive interest in the woes of others.
Why?
Do the words I mentioned imply limited interest? Because they certainly have done in the past.
