Fucking idiots

Show, I wish I could tell you the relief of knowing that you 'get it'. That we constantly have to walk this tightrope in terror of falling on one side or the other (No, Ian Tomlinson should not have been knocked to the ground. No, not all police officers are violent thugs etc. etc. etc. ad nauseam).

The love and respect I have for my DH will far outweigh any ideology I could ever espouse. And I know (from talking to people who vigorously disagree with me on every imaginable point ) that one of my 'failings' is that I simply cannot see the general, only the personal. Everything is filtered through an empirical standpoint: I simply cannot and will not throw all that away because it fits more neatly within a frame set by others. I am looking forward to learning more about feminism (see: I nearly called it 'the feminist agenda' but that is implicitly derogatory....) and about whether it is more flexible and capacious than I had feared....

Your Dad was right and I feel privileged!

Bloofer, I was raised by an old hippy who warned against labels because once the label doesn't fit in the smallest of ways, you either have to change in the smallest of ways (with a ripple effect outwards) or be seen to abandon a principle.

He would agree that you do what you do and don't do what you don't do through your own considered conclusions.

Not that I think feminism is rigid really. You just reminded me of my Dad. In a good way.

Bloofer, you know that we have similar 'issues' with being married to police officers. I've had a diet of feminist tomes for about 10yrs now since meeting some very inspirational women whilst at university. I do have definite views about the police force in general and I am forced to confront them and have them challenged daily by living alongside an institution in a very different way to just knowing it in theory.

The thread did tread that fine line that I think you must find between having some interesting ideas that I could otherwise debate, but implying something categorical that I just know cannot be empirically true.

But the way I know misogyny and the way I know dh are two very different things. And I have to reconcile the two. Sometimes I fail miserably, but I will not be called a fucking idiot and I will not have my dh labelled a rape apologist because of a single situation that is open to conjecture and interpretation.

Is that to me, AyeRobot? re. the 'I don't want to be a feminist' thread? (Don't want to wrongly flatter myself that it would be great to get my input!!)

on the off-chance it is - yes, I saw it, and was tempted to join in, but didn't for all the reasons as per outlined above!

I will forever live in terror of being labelled with an ideology so to that extent: no, I don't want to be a feminist. I don't want to be an anything-ist. I want to believe that I do what I do, and don't do what I don't do, because those are positions I have reached out of my own thoughts and life experience and not because they fit within a regimen of thought. I had 26 years of that, and I don't want to revisit it...

I was meaning the tone arguments and the like, rather than the issues themselves. I'm sure you came across that a lot back in the day. Would love to hear all about that - have you read the "I don't want to be a feminist" thread? Would be great to get your input.

And computer I was going to take up that point about 'newbie mistakes' and forgot - you've said what i was thinking far better than I could've done.

Hi there Show. Your post demonstrates why I had to stay away from the original thread - I spend far too much time trying (often vainly) to assert that my DH and every cop I personally know are good decent people doing an impossibly difficult job in impossibly difficult circumstances. And yes, it frequently reduces me to tears.

This is where I cling on to Iris Murdoch's view on all kinds of philosophy, faith and political ideology: that there is always this tremendous jarring between the demands of the philosophy and the empirical evidence of one's own eyes (in this case, on the one hand that a policeman is an engine of a woman-hating society and tacitly supportive of rape, and on the other hand my almost certain knowledge that no, he isn't).

I am not sure that I will ever reconcile the two (but as I say, I am willing and ready to at least try and understand).

This thread should be deleted

There was no need to call other posters fucking idiots

you lost the argument as soon as you started this thread lotm

LOTM, you referred to my 'apologist' attitude on that thread. Am I to assume that I'm one of the fucking idiots to which you refer? I'd just like to know for future reference.

Because, in case I didn't say it enough times, I was merely trying to stress that it is entirely possible that as Bloofer and I both said, that when our dh's say something well intentioned to a man or a woman in an unlit, deserted area, it can just be that, well intentioned. What then happened was I was told I (and dh) were apologists when my point all along was that I didn't think the op of the other thread could necessarily be seized categorically as an example of misogyny (but could merely be seen as a police officer approaching a person they did not know in a dangerous area). Not when Bloofer and I know very well two men who do this job day in and day out and probably several times a day are just trying to make contact with the general public in a positive way, male and female.

You know you've been on MN too long when being called a fucking idiot for defending the job of your dh and his colleagues reduces you to tears. And no it's not about me or him and yes there are wider patriarchal issues that are rightly challenged. But presenting the very possibility that a well-intentioned, kind officer was merely making his presence known means that I'm called names and accused of denying full culpability of rapists?

Err, that's exactly what happens.

And btw, I'm 37 and didn't know any of this stuff a year ago. I learned by lurking, following links, checking out recommended books. Oh, and seeing people make newbie mistakes (on all sorts of feminist blogs not just here) so you have probably done some lurkers a favour.

Sorry for lack of originality....

Hm. I can see that it's a tool for derailing or silencing even - and is all the more contentious because historically women are 'supposed' to have a more emollient 'tone'. However, the fact that it can be used for wholly negative purposes, to eliminate or belittle a point of view, doesn't mean that that is its only purpose (and it's most emphatically not what I was trying to do: I assure you I am not bright enough for that sort of sophisticated agenda!)

Perhaps there is scope for 2 'tones': the necessarily loud (because otherwise it will be unheard) for debates challenging the status quo or, worse, outright oppression and women-hatred, and the more moderate?

I dunno. At any rate, the longer I linger the more painful my ignorance and lack of ability to contribute anything fresh or useful becomes clear . Thank you all for your time.

See? xposted.

Bloofer, check out this link

What you are saying is not original, I'm afraid. The "tone" argument is not confined to feminism either, but it is a useful derailing tool.

One last thing Bloofer re: your point about our tone. That's probably the single most frequent thing that feminists hear on the internet. That if we weren't so strident, agressive, rude etc, then maybe everyone would agree with us. It's like a carrot held out to get us to be 'nice'. Not saying you don't deserve niceness, but a lot of the people telling us to 'moderate our tone' really bloody don't. And, in our experience, our tone makes no bloody difference whatsoever.

Google 'the tone argument' - a long and storied history on the web relating to discussions about gender and (even more so) race.

Fup!

Egg if this is deleted I'll lose evidence of my first ever online interaction with actual living intelligent speaking feminists. Not that it matters (and in my heart of hearts I agree with you) but someone might have to teach me how to do a screen shot....

Sorry Bloofer, wasn't trying to embarrass you, honestly It just kept jarring with me because the rest of your posts were so eloquent.

Now that's cleared up I can sleep easy

I think that this thread title is horrible.

I do understand why you are pissed off OP.

Am just about to go and add my 2p worth to that thread.

I have certainly been guilty of posting thread about threads before but really really horrible to see a thread here entitled "fucking idiots".

If you want to alert feminists to a particular thread you can do so on the Feminism Chat thread.

OP - was there never a time when you thought like the majority of the posters on that thread?

I'm going to report this thread for deletion on the basis that it is a thread about a thread and that the title is an attack on many of the posters on the other thread.

Ha, Guppy, I'm so sorry and am blushing violently in shame!! I have spent a lot of time on MN in other capacities (largely in my dismal failure to get my ancient Lidl carrier-bag of a womb to conceive a child) and used to say 'fred' and 'fanks'. I suppose it's also an embarrassing attempt at whimsy so as to keep the tone light and un-pompous . ForumFAIL

Fanks for the recommendation - and yes, I understand and indeed agree with your statement there (about feminism v. patriarchal status quo).

As to what I am trying (and plainly dismally failing!) to say - there is a tone of harshness and impatience in a lot of what you and others post on these issues - and on feminist-adjacent issues - that is unappealing and alienating to those who are not already on side. Now, I am not saying that you intend that to be the effect, and (as on the recent porn thread, and indeed any porn thread) I understand the source and the validity of the anger. All I am saying is that the effect is there. That's why I can certainly apologise for a direct attack on you, but I can't apologise for feeling this way about it, or having received an impression, because that was a genuine response. And I still maintain that howling fucking idiots! at people who do not see a policeman's advice as symptomatic of a woman-hating society is fair. I do not see it that way, and I'm not an idiot, fucking or otherwise.

Bloofer, totally off subject but I'm intrigued... you come across as very intelligent and well educated in the way you write so why the 'fanks', ''appens', 'edumacated' bits? Genuinely interested.

Sorry for the hijack.

That's a start. Dittany gets it in the neck all the time on here and it's not nice.

I think you'll see at the start of the thread that I disliked the language of the OP. I put it down to too many coffees. I think LOTM is a relative newcomer to feminism, so the rage you are seeing might become familiar in a little whole for you too. We all handle it differently, though.