about the feminism/WR area?

[fleacircus]

I don't like dogs, and I think most television is irredeemably stupid drivel and that there's no excuse for anyone with an actual life of their own to watch 'Made in Chelsea', and although I like knitting I don't really get the point of scrap-booking. Those are my opinions, and I'm entitled to hold them, and I would construct arguments to support them if pushed, but I don't go onto the TV thread and find people who like 'Made in Chelsea' and then go on about how wrong they are and when they get angry keep saying 'you just can't take it that other people don't share your opinions' until they get bored and give up on the thread altogether.

And I've got all the kids I want, thank you very much, so I'm not TTC, and I was lucky to conceive my kids in a very straightforward manner, so I don't actually know anything about how it feels not to, and I don't have any useful advice or insights for those who are TTC, and I don't have any medical expertise about TTC, so I've set my MN preferences not to display those threads.

So why is it that people who clearly have no interest in feminism or women's rights, and no knowledge of the often complex political, social and personal ideas being explored, and don't actually hope to learn anything or contribute anything of any value, hang around that area spoiling for a fight? Because there's a whole section of MN dedicated to expressing your opinions. It's this one. There's a question mark in the title and everything.

Or AIBU?

Yes can you imagine if every single discussion of racism was interrupted by "but not all white people are racist" or every single discussion of anti-Semitism had to have the platitude that "not all non-Jews are anti-Semitic."

It would be so bloody tiresome.

No-one intelligent assumes that when people use a group term like "men" "the middle classes" "the germans" they mean every single one everywhere, ever. Only with men does this assumption occur, only with men are we supposed to anxiously reassure everyone that we don't mean all of them always.

Who was it who said that when she remarks that "birds land in my garden" she doesn't mean every bird everywhere on the whole of Planet Earth? I always think of Tippi Hedren screaming with feathers blowing at her when someone says "but not all men... etc." nowadays

"The concept of Jews being a secret power cabal allows people harsh views because they perceive it as addressing an injustice."

right. Larry is actually standing by his comparison, he is explaining that (some) feminists, while posing as aiming to correct injustice, are actually comparable in being deluded and pernicious to those who think the main injustice in the world is a Jewish cabal.

By way of illustration he is then pointing out that antisemitic views can manifest in subtle ways. so .... similarly, all the less obviously dangerous feminists are presumably equivalent to people who are only a bit antisemitic?

Larry, do you think that men are an oppressed people who through the centuries have been hounded from their homeland and disallowed their names, their lands and their autonomy?

If so... I guess those feminists are a nasty bunch.

I have seen Larry argue hard in favour of the status quo on things like, for instance, the inevitability of sexual harrassment if you are a woman. He has argued hard that it would be unromantic and impractical to change this. It is clear that what he means is: denying men the right to feel up random women is like Pharaoh enslaving the Jews. I see what you mean now Larry.

No-one intelligent assumes that when people use a group term ... they mean every single one everywhere, ever

One of the things that feminism teaches us is that language is important; Of course no-one intelligent assumed that when people used the term "chairman" they meant that the chairman was male. But yet we now use the term "chair" or "chairperson" instead.

Another example. You OK with someone saying "women don't know how to park"? Why not? Surely no-one intelligent would assume that means every single woman everywhere, ever?

Well said Sal

So do you never, ever use group terms Fester?

Do you always qualify every single time you ever use a group term, that you don't mean everyone in that group? (So you've never referred to babies, dogs, birds, Asians, women, men, doctors, teachers etc.?)

Why are you bothering to argue this? Is it really that important to you? If so, why?

Are you arguing that we can never, ever analyse anything in terms of power relations between different groups?

Basil, I love the "birds land in my garden" one.
Suppose the person said "birds land in my garden and eat the crumbs I put out for them" they neither mean ALL the birds, nor ONLY birds. Maybe once a cat came and nibbled the bread. but cats usually don't like bread. By and large the birds landed and ate the crumbs; or, by and large, the crumbs were eaten by birds. This is so unproblematic it is ridiculous. Perfect

Fester, you're conflating different uses of class nouns.

I can say 'birds fly' without having to explain that there are also some birds that do not fly. It is generally true, to the degree that I may speak as if it were always true. The fact that we all know there are exceptions doesn't prevent that.

When you say 'women don't know how to park', you appear to be making the same kind of assumption: that it's so normal for women to be unable to park, it may as well be 100% true. Such an assumption is, of course, wrong and insulting. Women are not lousy parkers in the same way that birds are flying animals.

If I say 'men earn more than women', I'm clearly aware that there are lots of individual women who earn more than individual men. But I can demonstrate, in numerous ways, that this is true as a generality. So it's a valid class statement.

Some feminists say 'men rape'. I don't like it, but I understand that the speaker means the vast majority of rapists are men. I also understand the speaker isn't implying that men rape like birds fly; she's merely saving 66% of the words needed to say 'the vast majority of rapists are men'.

The same speaker would also say 'women get raped', without having to explain that she knows men get raped, too, and women are not universally raped.

The two rape statements are examples of how English economy with words can sometimes cause misunderstanding: in some other languages, one would use the longer expression, or have an extra term to describe statements that appear to be class descriptors but are not. We are English, however, and are able to distinguish the correct meaning.

I'm killing off my urge to go on about this even more, because it's a linguistic point rather than a political one. I think it's worth repeating every so often, though, on threads about Unreasonable Feminists!

Are you arguing that we can never, ever analyse anything in terms of power relations between different groups?

It looks a little like it, Basil

"Misogynists are selectively pedantic" - class statement, could be more accurately expressed as "Misogynists like to attack feminists' language whenever feminists speak of men."

You know, going back to Larry's Jewish world conspiracy thing, the only people who think women/ feminists have some kind of organised power structure which oppresses men, are those demented Men's Rights Extremist groups - you know the ones.

Just sayin'.

You can't possibly mean this Larry? Even you?

Do you always qualify every single time you ever use a group term

Yes, I think that I do. I'll qualify with "some" or "often" or "tend to", depending on context.

Why are you bothering to argue this? Is it really that important to you? If so, why?

Because I agree with the mainstream 2nd/3rd wave feminist idea that language is important in that it shapes perception. So to say "X do " has a cumulative effect of belittling and othering X - whether X is "blacks", "whites", "Jews", "Muslims", "women", or indeed "men".

I think Garlicvampire has covered that tbh.

I don't think class analysis has to involve generalisation or over simplification, though.

If I said (for example) that alcoholics as a group have issues with drinking, that's not an oversimplification, that's describing a group of people.

If I said that someone I knew personally had such-and-such a specific issue with drinking (eg., binging) and couldn't stop, and that therefore all alcholics must be like that, that'd be a generalisation.

Kotinka, you've hit on the reason I prefer to talk of the patriarchy, if I can sensibly use it instead of 'men'.

But somebody usually comes along and wants to start an argument about what 'the patriarchy' is and whether it exists

A point in hand: It's usually a feminist who comes along to a thread about "men are stupid" or "men can't be faithful", to highlight the sexist generalisation. If there's one thing feminists are acutely aware of, it's sexist generalisations!

Oh, yes, you're right. And I didn't mean it that way.

I was thinking more like this: alcohol is a poison, and it is addictive. Lots of people live in our society where we drink alcohol, and do fine. And lots of people don't really get why it would be a problem.

In the same way (IMO), the patriarchy is fundamentally bad, but also seems like a lot of fun to lots of us, and is addictive.

I don't think it's 'men' who have the problem with equality. Plenty of women do too. It's the patriarchy that is the problem. And some of us see the red flags with it more than others, because of our experiences with it.

I'm not assuming everyone has an understanding. But I'm also not coming at it from a researcher's background.

For me, the reason I compare to something like alcholism (and there'd be other comparisons) is simply that if you're on the 'outside' and have never had a problem, your natural humane response is to make light of the problem. But if you're on the inside, you pick up on tiny hints and sometimes, sure, you make too much of them. But you know why you're picking up on those hints.

I stick my head in the FWR boards occasionally but frankly the level of debate would embarrass a sixth form common room. Indeed its telling that some of the so called 'MRAs' and 'handmaidens' that occasionally pop up usually make the better, more reasoned argument - even if I disagree with them.

The thing is, I'm a very senior woman in a very male profession. I work hard to nurture and coach women in my organisation. I work hard to ensure equality of opportunity and clamp down hard on the low level sexism that until recently was (and arguably still is) prevalent. I'm pretty certain I do more to improve the opportunities and lives of women than most - but call myself a "feminist" and associate myself with the kind of idiot who posts on the FWR boards? No thanks.

"complex political, social and personal ideas" You keep telling yourself that while you crack on with page 3 or whatever irrelevance is important to you today.

Ooh, we have a successor to Xenia.

Where is Xenia?

Haven't seen her around for ages.

I sort of miss her.

Sort of.

I don't think that's true, that the debate would embarass a sixth form common room. Though I also think it's nothing to be ashamed of that a fair few threads aren't by people who have A Levels or university degrees, and I don't see why that would be a bad thing.

I do think a lot of the debate is properly complex, though. I accept there are lots of threads and we probably read different ones. But I've discussed issues in FWR that my academic supervisor, who is a feminist working in a university, thought were at a high level. In fact this is something I think is really valuable, that there are lots of posters who are posting their experiences and who are not posting about academic feminism, but who in their own lives are working in male-dominated areas and at high levels.

I dunno. Maybe she got banned, as scottishmummy allegedly was.

I had a soft spot for Xenia; it was good having a 1980s-style ball-breaking career woman around, narrow though her viewpoint was.

Oh was Scottishmummy bannned? Really? I didn't know that!

Such is the word on the street... I think she got carried away by her own persona.

The quality of debate in FWR is much higher than that in my sixth form or indeed undergraduate common room. There was certainly no dissection of Dworkin's Intercourse in my sixth form... conversation was more likely to go along the lines of 'Can you get pregnant without actually having sex?'