Why do I get so irrationally angry at all these "poor men" threads?

A blast of Zombie breath from the past though, this thread is almost three years old.

Fair enough molesworth.

I'm sorry for my tetchiness blinder. I must admit I found the 'interrogation' thing annoying. This thread is making me tetchy now and life's too short, so I'm going to leave it.

Oh and for the last time dittany, no-one is claiming Foucault is a feminist! This has been said at least three times on this thread. Thank you for the links and recommendations for further reading: I will be following these up and joining in with other threads in this topic.

Molesworth I did actually state that I wasn't referring to any specific poster but that the effect of Dittany having to field questions from several different posters was a bit like an interrogation.

Tbh your series of rhetorical questions to me 'is it ok to blah blah and blah' is an interrogative style which isn't particularly necessary. Neither is the raised eyebrow.

At any rate I merely raised a concern about the tone of the thread and checked out whether Dittany minded. She doesn't mind so no harm done.

I haven't time to post substantively right now but:

1. BSDM is not sexual violence. Its defining hallmark is consent. If there isn't consent all the way through it, it's not BDSM.
2. If we are talking about Foucault with respect to this, he was famously gay. No question of sexual violence against women there, surely. NB this doesn't mean I claim Foucault as a feminist.
3. Why are we suddenly conflating postmodernism and queer politics? Was that a typo perhaps?
4. Dittany has been very active in prolonging the discussion. Specifically there are various points I wouldn't have gone anywhere near if not for questions that she raised - as I said, my original post was about making sure we tried to clarify some of our terms.

On the plus side, as dittany also says, it can be and is being quite invigorating.

Dittany, I can't believe you're suggesting that a thinker must have led an ideologically spotless life before you're willing to engage with their ideas. That's going to disqualify an awful lot of thinkers.

I have asked questions (not 'interrogated', blinder ) because I want to improve my understanding. If someone puts forward strong views - as dittany does - is it not OK to enter into a debate with that person? Is it not OK to ask them to clarify their views, to define their terms? Is it not OK to expect a reasoned engagement with ideas?

Cool. I'll leave this thread now to get on with that work, but look forward to chatting again in this topic with everyone.

I'll read up on some McKinnon too.

Dittany, I understand your posts. I do not understand many of the points made by other people on this thread. People cannot be swayed by arguments that make no sense to them, so I wouldn't worry too much about the weight of academic theory.

Dittany, if I have made you uncomfortable at all I apologise unreservedly. I don't ever contribute to AIBU threads because I really dislike the way that what would be a chat in person becomes an interrogation online. I've probably got all excited here and forgotten that distinction.

Your views have made me wriggle in my chair and huff grumpily but I really have enjoyed agreeing and disagreeing with you.

I'm concerned that this is turning into an 'interrogate Dittany' thread. I can't participate in the discussion (because I wouldn't know where to start!) but I just want to register my general sense of discomfort at the tone of the thread. I appreciate that these are issues that are close to people's hearts and identities. And I don't mean any poster in particular but it seems that Dittany is fielding questions from all sides. Obviously, you're used to debate Dittany but I hope you're comfortable with this.

As an aside, redlentil's clarifications of various points of argument are helping me to follow along.

Glad you're (someone's) still with us Molesworth!

Was the BDSM bit to do with Foucault or something? I got into this a bit later on than that and skimmed some of those parts of the discussion.

I should probably also say that I'm not a theorist myself and have read little theory of feminist or queer thought - what I have done is talked and thought things through with a lot of queer and queer-friendly folks, and read things like the magnificent Dykes to Watch Out For, which engages with a lot of theory and concerns of feminism, gay, bi, lesbian, and transsexual issues; and (whisper) isn't above parodying them a bit too sometimes. Queer thinking has shaped a lot of my own thoughts about feminism and about gender, and one of those thoughts is precisely that feminism is more like feminisms - it seems to be something that means different things to different people. It's not a monolith - and why should it be, indeed?

But what Leader does in that article is what I'd do with those ads in my class anyway. I'm not trying to give young men a pass to 'move the furniture' of patriarchy.

Blinder and wubblybubbly both suggested that we should be able to use the category of 'humanity' as a kind of neutral ground and we often can in a strategic kind of way. But that too is a category that gets filled up with ideas relating to the patriarchy as Leader shows.

Ideas of equality and neutrality always get nicked ... For example, sometimes women come on to mumsnet to say that their dps or dhs are getting stroppy about the woman's wish to bottle-feed or to use pain relief in labour. In the name of equality and 'shared parenting' they feel they can dictate how these women use their bodies (I know one woman on here off the top of my head who has been in this situation but I can't find a link).

Did anyone read the 'why is it called mumsnet and not parentsnet' or some such thread a few weeks ago in this vein?

Radical movements get pulled back towards the norms they seek to question as Leader shows, and I think third-wave feminists are actually more alive to that fact (though I know we won't agree on that).

Leader's article is much more coherent than Nussbaum's, but both challenge third-wave feminism with the spectre of women in South-East Asia. These women become the ?poor neglected group needy but unaware of all your high-faluting debates? whose ?reality? (known apparently to Leader and Nussbaum) gets deployed reduced to a rhetorical device. Leader?s case using the offensive phrase ?third world?. Which is why Spivak tells Nussbaum where to take her kindly concern.

These critics reassert other kinds of hierarchy and reduce other women to a group who are ?spoken for? rather than speaking. It is almost impossible not to fall into kinds of thinking that reassert one or other kind of stereotype.

That?s where Butler picks up McKinnon, not to say ?cease and desist your awful work? but to say ?isn?t there a danger that by asking the state to enforce your goals you are helping to make the state?s power seems more efficient than it is, and therefore helping it to use that imagined power elsewhere.? We can agree on the rights and wrongs of this or take it up another day.

I don?t own feminism just because I?m an academic. Nor is feminism owned by activists ? Being critical of each other can be constructive. I hate relativism with a mortal passion, but I do really love to have my views forced into a new shape.

I have a work deadline now, so sorry if I disappear a bit. You have really made me think, and ?act up? a bit this week Dittany so thanks for that.

Hi there Molesworth .

Still following this discussion with interest, even if it is increasingly abstruse

I am disappointed that certain strands of thought/thinkers are being misrepresented and/or attacked on spurious grounds (being into BDSM, for example). Surely criticism should be offered in the form of a reasoned argument based on an engagement with their ideas?

You have indeed answered various other questions on this thread but you didn't actually answer my question to you, on whether you are also using the words feminist/feminism here to mean something specific, such as second-wave feminist/feminism.

If you don't think this discussion is too abstruse for this general forum - then a) I think queer politics probably reacts to separatism and (what I perceive as) essentialism in second-wave feminism. I think this ties into the stuff we're talking about with respect to gender - you want to dismantle it, I want to redefine it (or you could somewhat crudely put it like that). b) I don't see why latecomers can't get to set their own terms for their own debates. Surely each wave will re-set terms to some extent or another, in reaction to what they think doesn't work for them.

You can call yourself or not call yourself what you like, it's nothing to do with me. I should however like to know what you mean by it, rather than us all using the word feminism or feminist and meaning different things by it behind the scenes, without being clear about it. That doesn't mean that in general discussion we all need to come up with special words for the sort of feminist we are, but here where we are talking definitions and theory I still haven't heard what your definition is.

And I still don't appreciate you linking queer politics to backlashes, sexism, and people 'laying claim to feminism'. Do you actually think a queer feminist is a contradiction in terms and/or someone talking in bad faith?

You're repeating your question, dittany, but you must already have a view on the answer as you originally said that "queer politics was part of the backlash to feminism" - I think that "backlash" is rather a loaded term, mind you. I think that answering it will take us further off the point here - and again you were the one who originally said this was pretty obscure stuff to be discussing here. (Not that I was massively chuffed with your linking of it to "arguments that do attempt to undermine feminism and women's liberation" either.)

Let's leave this here I'd say.