the paddling pool

[Alameda]

get your flotation aids here (don't look at me though, I genuinely can't swim)

And please other posters, don't let this put you off. You can ask questions that seem daft, say something that you think others might think is wrong, etc - it is all fine here.

Um, isn't this kind of defeating the point of this paddling pool thread?

Fwiw, I have no knowledge of posters from other threads and though it was bad form to carry things across threads.

I'm quite happy to talk about feminism with men and women. If other posters prefer not to, that's fair enough, but there is the option of simply not engaging.

Scroobius you're right.

I thought it made sense to point out why I don't really engage with men on feminist issues though.

But yeah, it's bad form.

yes is not supposed to be a sort of inverse popularity contest, does it say 'flouncers corner' at top of the thread? No, thought not.

That makes sense yellow - I think I feel rather the same.

Eats - So, when you told me to "look at scientific stuff, not crappy sounding websites posing as science", you were referring to blog.world-mysteries.com?

That blog about "world mysteries" says:

"The world population can be divided into 4 major races, namely white/Caucasian, Mongoloid/Asian, Negroid/Black, and Australoid. This is based on a racial classification made by Carleton S. Coon in 1962."

... which is funny because Coon actually divided humans into 5 races: Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Australoid, Congoid, and Capoid. If you don't know what some of those are, don't worry. It is not a classification that holds sway these days.

you still havent told me why i'm unwelcome eats?

In any case, let's believe you when you say there are 4 races of human beings.

Those 4 races have physical, immediately recognisable differences. We don't see those differences because they are a "social construct". We see them because they are real.

Cote - I explained I was making dinner and that would just give you a basis on which to search for the serious stuff. Only had time for a 30 second google look. The point is that there are some physical differences in some areas, but other stuff is a social construct. But I think posters back up the thread have explained this far far better than me. Maybe have a look at those posts?

cat got your tounge eats?

any new comers and lurker-learners here i have a little challenge for you, look at me posting history, find me a post that isn in any way sexist or anti-femminist.
then try to convince yourself that to be a feminist isnt to hate men.

i'll be off now, i wont try to pretend that i'm not upset, i came here to discuss feminism, not to tell you how to do it, just to talk about it, i just dont understand why i'm being treated this way , it seems having a penis disqualifies me.

who do you want equality with? if nor men then who?

just a voice with the others, thats all i wanted to be , not to domminate the discussion.

eats , your personality shines through these threads , i know your a nice person, you go out of your way to help newcomers, so your post hurt the most i think.

I have read the other posts but they don't tell me anything except that all of you sound like you have read the same books that make the same claim: races don't exist in the physical sense but are a social construct.

... which is demonstrably false. You say there are 4 races (although the guy you point to says 5). I'm not going to bicker about the number here, so let's accept there are 4 races.

This is no "social construct". If you RadFems manage to eradicate all social stigmas, prejudices, and apprehensions about race, there will still be at least four major groups of people who are instantly identifiable as visually very different from each other.

So, the chairmanmeow, you think feminists hate men? Why are you here then?

The forum isn't all about you. No-one HAS to answer you. I know you men are used to getting what you want all the time and I'm pretty much 100% positive that no-one can be arsed trawling through your posts trying to discover the inner workings of your mind.

Can someone explain to me in short sentences why you are trying to kick chairmanmeow off this thread? What have I missed?

I'm not trying to kick anyone off. I'm explaining why I don't discuss feminism with men.

But I will stop it now, I always rise to the bait, it's something I need to stop doing.

I'd be happy to discuss feminism with a man. Or atheism with a born-again Christian, or whatever.

Is there a reason why he is unwelcome other than being a man?

have missed the race thing somehow, what is it if it's not a social construct then? Even when I was at school a Very Long Time Ago we were told there was no such biological classification

although obviously not disputing the importance of development of strong racial identity for the mental health of various groups

Hi ScroobiusPip, I have to say that refusing to fund abortion as a contraceptive option is something that is pretty unfeminist and definitely anti-woman.

Melinda Gates is entitled to do what she wants, and I don't think that using her husband's money is a big deal (plus: who enabled him to go out and earn that money and not spend his time rearing children? It's as much hers as his, I think).

But women have to be able to control their reproductive capacity by whatever method that is most appropriate for the woman and her personal situation. That is going to be abortion for a number of women, so I think it's actively harmful for anyone to limit women's access to that procedure (I'm assuming that Bill and Melinda Gates have more than enough funds so that women can access safe surgical and medical abortions).

Like others have said, Cote, not good form to discuss other threads.

I also used to be happy to discuss feminism with men, but I just don't get much out of it these days. We might get somewhere sometimes, but too often there's too many issues they just don't get and never will, so I lose interest.

I've read most of this thread and wonder how we got on to discussing race ?
It seems a bit of a tangent - even for me

Alameda - After WWII's horrors of racism, this subject became a minefield. I'm not surprised if you were taught that race is a social issue. Didn't you raise your hand and ask if the obvious differences in facial features of an Asian and an African are an illusion?

no, because there are loads of differences between people - some are really tall, some have freckles, some have blue eyes some green so I think I assumed that if you start classifying people according to aspects of physical appearance it would be hard to know where to stop and probably wouldn't be that taxonomical, just millions of overlapping circles instead?

there are such massive differences between Asian faces though, and African?

We got on to discussing race because Beachcomber said it is all just a social construct just like (in her opinion) gender is a social construct.

The RadFem case for gender being entirely a social construct wasn't convincing and the case for race being merely a social construct is looking even weaker.

The feeling I get from this thread is that RadFems have read the same books and are repeating the memes found in them. It all seems to make sense to them but reading them here and now, it doesn't to me. At least not without some explanation and links to actual research & experiments backing up their claims, but they are unwilling or unable to support those links.