Urgg Facebook debate

[Hazchem]

I'm having a debate from my uni facebook group. It started out as a bit about trans pronouns which is great. But has some how go into feminism and it just feels like every point I say the man is being dismissive of me. It's hard not to say. see this thread this is you dismissing feminism because you are a man and I am a women.

I used the "feminism is a radical idea that women are people too" but he just said oh that is first year then quoted bits of Webber's iron cage which was in the same unit the feminism quote.

Urgg Urgg urgg.

Hazchem wrote - "I used the "feminism is a radical idea that women are people too" but he just said oh that is first year then quoted bits of Webber's iron cage"

"The Earth orbits the Sun" is first year astronomy. That doesn't diminish the fact that it's a fundamental truth. Just because something is basic, simple or obvious shouldn't negate it's value.

The main pillars of feminist ideology are simple. They are perhaps too simple, too valid and too unsettling for the cosy lives of far too many people, hence feminism is derided and dismissed so much by supporters of the male-dominated status quo.

I suspect that your comment about feminism is more accessible and succinct than Webber's theories about teleology and bureaucratisation. Yet many people say it's feminism that's too intellectual and divorced from women's lives.

Thanks.
I think the women are people too is so beautiful in it's clarity but is so complex. I think the thing that is amazing and great about feminsisim is it places people and their actual experience at the heart of how we view the world.

I have a feeling he is trying to bambozzle me with clever pompous phrasing and trying to twist arguments. I had better unengaged.

Hazchem wrote - "this is you dismissing feminism because you are a man and I am a women."

He can do this without a second thought and it is no big deal to him because it will not result in any negative consequences for him. He actually benefits because he will keep his male privilege for longer.

Yes I stopped myself from saying it because I felt like the next logical step in the argument was for him to say no I'm not it's just the arguments of feminist theory aren't strong enough to hold up this argument.

It's likely he is a bit of a jerk and I should try not to worry.

Hazchem wrote - "he is trying to bambozzle me with clever pompous phrasing"

I recommend that you stick with the simple but good quote from Rebecca West that you have been using.

In my experience, it is often a waste of time trying to debate feminism with a person who prefers to impress, intimidate, confuse, gaslight, dismiss or silence you about feminism, rather than listen to how you feel about men-as-a-class oppressing women-as-a-class. Most of those people give me the impression that they don't understand or accept feminism, and they probably never will understand or accept feminism because they probably don't want to.

feministing.com/2014/05/30/an-open-letter-to-privileged-people-who-play-devils-advocate/

Any help?

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

Does he also think Abraham Lincoln was "first year" stuff?

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Martin Luther King. Also Rhetoric 101?

Bill " Imagine having weights tied to your feet and a gag around your mouth, and then being asked to explain why you think you are at an unfair disadvantage." from your linked article is exactly how I feel.

Is his view that, unless feminists can make Really Good Arguments, women don't "deserve" to be equal?

If that's his starting point, it speaks for itself about his privilege, doesn't it?

What I think he is saying is that feminism doesn't stand up as a complete meta narrative so I shouldn't try to include feminism when I am looking at trans issues even when trans issue impact on women and that rather then looking at power I should seek to have a society built on truth.

Right ho.

I prefer to have a society built on practice, not theory.

Do you WANT to have this argument? Is there anything I it for you?

No. I think there is little in it for me. I don't think it will explore feminism in new ways nor where the boundaries of transgender issues and womens issues met, cross, but heads.

I think It's best I step well well away now. before I get cross and shouty.

Hazchem wrote - "rather then looking at power I should seek to have a society built on truth."

Feminism's truth is that society has been shaped by male power to advantage men-as-a-class and disadvantage women-as-a-class. Removal of that male power and entitlement could lead to women's liberation from male-dominated oppression.

Does this man not even acknowledge the male power aspect of feminism's truth? What non-feminist truth does he think explains male-dominated society? Or does he think e.g. we are all equal now? How nice it must be for him to have that privilege.

If you care about the issues and he only cares about. "Winning" in some debating society way, I don't think it's worth your energy, emotional or intellectual .

Well, I have two and a half degrees and I have absolutely no idea what he is talking about. I do understand what you are saying OP. So I am clearly 'sofirst year.'

Isn't part of being educated that you understand the ideas well enough to be able to express them coherently to others. What is he talking about?

I love the way that men like this can conceitedly tell women what they should be seeking to do.

So he gets to decide what you should be doing.

He's decided power is irrelevant but truth (as defined by him) is the only valid thing.

(When I say I love the way conceited arrogant tossers do this, I actually mean I don't love the way they do this.)

How can you have a society based on 'truth'? Does he mean totalitarianism? Surely the point of any other form of society is that all our truths are respected but one isn't privileged over others? Or does he just mean his truth? Or only propositions that have universality? That really confuses me tbh.

So I woke up this morning and then there was an epically long post. from him followed by this

It occurred to be that people might not understand what the hell I'm talking about when I mention post-structural theory. In Foucauldian terms, historical analysis is undertaken to search for knowledge-power relationships. There is no one answer - no truth at all - only competing perspectives that vy for dominance. Epistemologically, power is transferred into claims for knowledge which validates discourse. Ontologically reality is then structured to become based on "official" interpretations of X or Y (an interpretation does not represent truth only another perspective). Methodologically, fluidity and adaptivity against the formation of a structure in theory is prized because of the lack of "truth" out there. Episteme communities or "schools of thought" provide these competing perspectives and they structure our understanding of the world. Feminism might be one strain of conflict theory but post-structuralism doesn't take it at face value and searches for the way discourse has represented reality in the sense of Plato's cave where we can never be sure we know something is real.

"Let me make a note of that, sweetie, as my riposte next time a passerby yells "nice tits". Now off you pop to your ivory tower."

I think he is trying to illustrate the idea that given typewriters and enough time monkeys could recreate the works of Shakespeare.

He certainly seems to have strung together a lot of random big words to no meaningful effect whatsoever.

That seems fairly common in Uni feminist groups on fb. The guys seem to out-bore each other with long spiels of nonsense peppered with post-modernist theorists, and the women get shouted down if they pop up and talk about actual feminism, then they get banned if they use the word mansplain, etc.

I have to say the responses here have really cheered me up.

What I like about studying is trying to apply it and understand it so I can talk with others about it. As I tend to use plain words and simple sentences, because my grammar is not very good, I worry I'm not clever.

I'm feeling a bit excited now about tackling the next section of my essay which is on feminist educational theory.

Someone who starts a post : "It occurred to be that people might not understand what the hell I'm talking about"
and then comes out with the rest of that post has a poorly developed sense of self-irony, at the very least.

Don't compare yourself to him and think you're not clever, OP.

I'd just be tempted to reply 'No I understand you perfectly - you are talking shit. The end.'