Christina Sommers on the election

[PinkIsRad]

www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/12/05/how-to-make-feminism-great-again/?utm_term=.ac20de6aba9d

Any comment, OP?

I'm assuming that as you've posted this in the feminist section, you're preparing a blistering analysis of how profoundly Christina Hoff Summers has misrepresented and misunderstood feminism? No?

I doubt it pooch

I dont see the point of the photo at the top...i have seen the same reactions from men when their football team loses

And yes if any football fans are reading i do understand that it is much more important than the results of an election

We went down 4-3 to Bournemouth - Bournemouth, for f'sake - at the weekend. Yes, I do look like the women in that picture, Rufus.

Hmm, the article is like a check-list of MRA-friendly feminism-lite. (But then I wouldn't expect much different from Christina Hoff Sommers). Pay gap is a myth - check (hmm, funny that one - my equal pay claim is going through the courts right now). Total failure to mention reproductive rights - check (despite the fact that the president-elect and his veep want to get rid of Roe vs Wade). Men have it hard too - check (well, yes they do, feminism has long pointed out that toxic masculinity - and I'd include a workplace culture where the reaction to anyone bringing up safety concerns as "elf and safety gorn mad, man up" as one example of toxic masculinity in action). Feminism would get further if only women would be nice about it - check.

I wonder how many voters Lena Dunham cost Clinton. I can't imagine why anyone would want to subscribe to "Lenny"

I am surprised she is a "feminist". You might recall if you were on the trans thread that I was ostracized, called naive/young and even doubts as to whether I was a woman and not just a man pretending to be a woman. But even I think Sommers is, well peculiar is a nice way to put it.

Het "Feminism would get further if only women would be nice about it - check." - Well that is the one thing I agree with her on. Though maybe nice is the wrong way (implies women need to be nice, can't be aggressive, etc.), but maybe rather diplomatic, less extreme.

People disagreeing with you is not "being ostracized", Pink.

I think being accused of being a man (and with the implication of how dare you come on here) because you disagree with other posters is not far from it.

Which aspects of feminism do you feel are too extreme, pink?

It's hard to create change by being "nice". I'm not sure what that would look like.

Ostracized isn't a word that describes the level of attention Pink's posts received, Lass, attention which to my mind greatly outweighed their merit.

but maybe rather diplomatic, less extreme. is this all women or just feminists pink?
I'm sure I should be calling a number here

Not sure the implication is that you shouldn't come on here to be fair, more, stop acting like an utter fuckwit and throwing tantrums if your views aren't immediately capitulated to. I might be wrong.

Prawn If you think all people did was disagree, that would actually explain an awful lot.

Xenophile "stop acting like an utter fuckwit and throwing tantrums" - funny, much what I was thinking about your posts :)

Pooch go out and ask people what they think feminism is. Some will talk about equality, but you will find many that won't, that have an idea of feminism that you wouldn't agree with. As a start you would have to change that.

Devi not sure I understand your implication, but feminists.

Pink, I was asking you. Are you a feminist?

I am very aware that there are many strands of feminism, not all of which I agree with, and that there are also a people and organisations who call themselves feminist, but who really aren't - such as Hoff Summers and Everyday Feminism. It's not a question of disagreeing with their brand of feminism, but more that it doesn't hit the very low bar of being even vaguely feminist, which is that it needs to understand the historical disadvantages that affect women, centre women, take women's concerns seriously, and want to do something about fixing them. If it's not doing that, it ain't feminism, it's some sort of neo-liberalist individualism, most likely, or just ramblings that someone hasn't really thought through (hard to tell the difference between those two).

Should I be taking you seriously, pink? Do you actually want to discuss these things or just snipe?

This isn't even effective trolling.

Honestly, I don't even mind feeding it because I actually feel a bit sorry for the op.

Feminism is good op! You are wrong! Enjoy! =)

I find it interesting that the only one of my comments re Hoff Sommers' s article that Pink picked up on was the somewhat tongue in cheek comment about women just need to be nicer. No mention of the pay gap or (in the current political climate in the US) her omission of reproductive rights.

At a very basic level i agree with poochs definition of a feminist

So if someone asked me if i was a feminist i would say yes

I wouldnt say no because of some plonker on the internet or because one strand of feminism i didnt agree with

In the same way that i wouldn't expect a christian to hide that because there are some extremists around

And women should be diplomatic and less extreme? As devi said is that all women or just feminists (i know you said feminists i am just checking...so is that feminists who admit it out loud or all women just in case they are feminists)

I do agree with pink re sommers

Pink as I wasn't referring to you specifically, I would have to suggest that it's not me who is throwing the tantrum here. But you are absolutely free to be rude about me if it makes your day brighter.

Have fun.

Hoff Sommers is a slightly odd one, she's obviously a fairly intelligent woman not sure why she really thinks modern feminism needs to be made great when she seems obviously not really a feminist.

Mostly

Sommers obviously thinks the pay gap is a myth, she covers it in her article in the bit about repeating fallacies i.e. that 1 in 4 women will be raped based on the extrapolation of some college study. I did find the bit about white men being less likely to go to college that hispanic or native american women interesting, and it highlights the problem I have with privilege theory, is that now these stats are out there, white men can start saying that in this regard they are under privileged, I believe that the most privileged sector of american society is asians anyway ?

...an obviously i need to stop using the word obviously so often...sigh

We seem to be slightly at cross purposes, girl. I picked up on Sommers' claim that the pay gap was a myth because in my experience it isn't - my employer has done an internal audit, by job class, and shown that it's very much in place in my workplace. A few years back there was a study of all the universities in the UK showing women were paid less than men, not simply because there were more male professors, but actually paid differently at each grade up the pay scale (lecturer A, lecturer B, senior lecturer, reader, professor). Yet people like Sommers keep coming along and saying "the pay gap is a myth" and claiming it's down to women choosing to do less well paid jobs (ignoring the fact that there's an interesting question in and of itself as to why the "traditionally female" jobs like nursing, librarianship, teaching, etc, are paid less than "traditionally male" ones requiring similar levels of skill and training - to go back to Dagenham in the 1970s, why was spraying paint on a car seen as more skilled work than machining the seat covers?)

The rape/sexual assault statistics - again, an interesting one. I'm inclined to put more faith in the 1 in 4 statistic simply because you can arrive at it via two independent methodologies. Either ask women directly. Or do as David Lisak (American criminal psychologist) does, and ask men. He finds that when given anonymous questionnaires, approximately 6% of men on American campuses will admit to behaviours which meet the legal definition of rape, with an average of 6 rapes each to their names. So (allowing for the fact that some women are unlucky enough to be raped more than once), 1 in 4 women as victims of that roughly 1 in 20 men's repeat offending sounds about right to me.

I think our misunderstanding arose because I was wondering why Pink hadn't addressed the substantive comments I made about Sommers' article, choosing only to home in on the "women need to be nicer" (which I'll agree was a bit flippant - but it is tiresome continually to be told that you need to be nice - does this get said to other civil rights movements?)

Honestly, I don't even mind feeding it because I actually feel a bit sorry for the op

This comment really confirms Pink's point. "It" - just because Pink does not go with the favoured radical feminist line she must be a troll and can be referred to as "it".

Well - it depends what women you talk to I suppose, that is the thing.

1 in 4 women as victims of that roughly 1 in 20 men

The trouble is that this implies that the 1 in 20 men who are rapists are spectacularly successful at getting women into bed unless they are "stranger rapists" ? 25% of women in other words are basically sleeping with the same guy if you reduce the sample size ? Have i not understood that ?

Sommers would engage in what you would call "whataboutery" I expect and point out that men are the ones who do dangerous jobs that women have no interest in getting into. She would say that a small pay gap is not important when men are being "mangled" at work in jobs women simply do not want to do.

As for the idea the feminists need to be nicer, I feel conflicted about this. Although its not popular to say so, most rights are granted by the powerful rather than being won by the powerless. e.g. William Wilberforce - his statue is deserved and doesn't IMO discredit the slaves who fought for their own emancipation. Maybe I am too cynical, but I am with George Carlin on the issue of rights - something is not really a right if someone can take it away from you, men need to be on board in order for feminism to succeed and sadly it appears that many of them are feeling that they don't want to be on board with it ?

I think you are doing women a disservice there girlwiththeflaxenhair. None of the rights that women have fought for have been granted by men out of the goodness of their hearts. They have all had to be fought for, sometimes violently. Certainly with threats.

Men have had millennia of women being nice to them and they still didn't see fit to treat us as equal human beings worthy of the same respect as us. What makes you think that way is going to work now?

I do agree that a right that can be taken away is not really a right. It is the same with all oppressive struggles though. There is always that danger of backlash when the oppressors thinks you are just getting a bit too uppity and put you down again. That's way the oppressive structures need to be removed.

I have been raped twice and seriously sexually assaulted. Each of the three men were acquaintances. I am not surprised by the number of men who admit to committing rape. It tallies with my experience. In each case I would not have been in the room or in the car if they had been total strangers.

In fact, have you read the Femicide Census Report (I'm currently reading it)? From the Global Study for Homicide 2011, homicides have decreased globally but the murders of women have increased. Overwhelmingly the perpetrators of murders are men.

It really isn't women who need to be nicer.