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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Good Breitbart article on the tactics of the political left

374 replies

Zinco · 24/07/2020 15:49

www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/07/23/nolte-mens-health-wants-joe-rogan-blacklisted-for-vile-transphobia/

"We all know how this bullshit of “safetyism” works on the fascist left. You fascists accuse someone you disagree with of making you or POC’s or whoever feel “unsafe,” and suddenly expression that speech become “violence” and that physical act of violent speech must be blacklisted and canceled.

Meanwhile, according to the left, the terrorists in Black Lives Matter and Antifa who are burning, looting marauding, and toppling are not committing violence. Their actual violence is speech."

"When you accuse someone of “putting lives in danger” over a perfectly reasonable and science-based discussion about transitioning, especially when just a few years ago these arguments were treated as mainstream; when you accuse someone of “fanning the flames of hate” and being “dangerous,” that is way beyond a debate.

That is about silencing someone, about accusing them of being responsible in some way for a suicide or hate crime they had nothing to do with."

OP posts:
Dervel · 24/07/2020 16:16

This is the whole point, when you frame speech as actual violence, you are then free to initiate physical force and it can be re-framed as self defence. The endgame is to be able to beat, threaten and worst case even kill your ideological opponents.

Bishybarnybee · 24/07/2020 16:17

Do you never worry about the company you are keeping?

nauticant · 24/07/2020 16:24

It's important for anyone who wants to be informed to read a wide variety of sources. This is especially the case at the moment when things are so polarised and the views one reads are largely pushing one polarised view or the opposing one.

You don't get a proper understanding of the world by viewing it solely from within your safe space.

Bishybarnybee · 24/07/2020 16:35

You don't get a proper understanding of the world by viewing it solely from within your safe space

The OP specifically cites this as a good article.

I am interested that some feminists are happy to consort with the far right as long as it supports their agenda on one issue.

I also find it interesting that a feminist is happy to throw the BLM protesters under the bus.

That's not the feminism I identify with.

A few more choice Breitbart articles here:

www.entitymag.com/10-breitbart-headlines-make-us-cringe/#:~:text=10%20Breitbart%20Headlines%20That%20Make%20Us%20Cringe%201,Had%20Feminism%20or%20Cancer%3F%E2%80%9D%20%E2%80%93%20More%20items...%20

Dervel · 24/07/2020 16:36

I don’t worry about ideological purity tests. I have a set of values and am happy to be allied to anyone who shares one of those principles. I see it as a duty to oppose both the left or the right when either slide into authoritarian extremes. We end up in basically the same place either way.

MadBadDaddy · 24/07/2020 16:45

Today on MN/FWR comments:
AOC="Kool-Aid drinker"/ "blathering on about sexism" for objecting to being told to shut up about being called a 'fucking bitch'
(+ bonus "BBC=openly misogynist" for 'is bitch a bad word?' article about HRC "trump that bitch" t-shirts vs. young people's vernacular)
++and now++
Breitbart article='good' (I wouldn't advise reading the comments)

0_0

JanMeyer · 24/07/2020 17:01

You don't get a proper understanding of the world by viewing it solely from within your safe space.

And you think reading breitbart will help anyone understand anything? I mean anything other than making it clear that there are some really racist people out there.
Because the phrase "a good breitbart article" is a bit of an oxymoron.

I have a set of values and am happy to be allied to anyone who shares one of those principles.

How far would you be willing to take that? So you're happy to be allied to racist, anti-semitic and anti-women views - as long as they share your views on trans issues? Where do you draw the line?

DerbyshireGirly · 24/07/2020 17:04

Many of my views would be considered right of centre but I'm still allowed to be a feminist. Why not?

Musto · 24/07/2020 17:06

"happy to consort*

Are you serious? Reading a range of opinion is the only way to establish and understand how society is taking in what is going on. To react to that intelligent approach with daft words like consort is to demonstrate a closed mind.

nauticant · 24/07/2020 17:24

And you think reading breitbart will help anyone understand anything?

This is how a broad swathe of US progressive people couldn't understand how Trump could end up as a presidential candidate and nearly died of shock when he was elected.

Feel free to not bother understanding what the opposing side is saying. And continue to be horrified when reality goes against your preferences of how the world should be.

Childrenofthestones · 24/07/2020 17:25

Tribalism is exactly that got us where we are now.

CommunistLegoBloc · 24/07/2020 17:30

@MadBadDaddy you could write for Breitbart with that fantastic ability to take things completely out of context and put your own spin on them to suit your agenda.

As an aside, funny how men always have make sure we know they are male via their usernames...

wellbehavedwomen · 24/07/2020 17:32

@Bishybarnybee

Do you never worry about the company you are keeping?
Agreed.

The Nazis will have been clear and accurate in pointing out Stalin's evil doing. Stalin will have been at point out the Nazi's evil doing.

Doesn't mean approval for either side was, or could be, ever justifiable.

Musto · 24/07/2020 17:36

I call Godwin's Law.

teawamutu · 24/07/2020 17:38

I'm a leftist libertarian by principle (just did the quiz to check) who:
Can't vote Labour because of their capture by demented, spiteful children
Stopped reading the Guardian because of their dishonesty
Subscribed to the Times but largely hates the comments
Still don't think I could ever vote Tory, but will happily work with people like Baroness Nicholson on an area where our desired end goal is the same
Will read a Breitbart article if I want to, thank you. Even a stopped clock etc etc etc

As a PP said, sticking religiously with Labour and the Guardian meant I missed a awful lot of things happening under my nose. Keeping my eyes open now.

Gronky · 24/07/2020 18:14

There's a fascinating example of what happens when the notion that the sins of the individual taints all their ideas progresses to the notion that the sins of an individual taints facts they state: Lysenkoism. Through ideological purism, they effectively uprooted the concept of Darwinism and genetics, setting Soviet life sciences back by decades. It did have the slightly fortunate side effect of sabotaging their bioweapons programme.

wellbehavedwomen · 24/07/2020 18:59

I agree reading all sides is important. But there's a difference between wanting to read all sides, and thinking either extreme are generally worthwhile reporters. I don't trust any media, either, and I think that's healthy. But there are extreme outliers. And I think the assumption that you can read extremism regularly, and remain unaffected is mistaken, personally. We are, all of us, a product of what we consume.

Even extremists will make good points at times. People behave as though past totalitarian regimes are fictional, and could never happen again. They're not - as we saw a couple of years ago, in Charlottesville. If aspects of such ideologies could never appeal to anyone sensible, they'd not have got very far. They always managed to offer a coalition of angry people - often with good reason to be angry - just enough to keep them on side... at least, while they still needed them. And while I'm more than willing to vote for whichever mainstream party protects women's basic right to exist as a definable group of people, I wouldn't vote for the BNP, even then. Breitbart is more BNP than Tory and nope, won't touch them.

Of course I understand why women turn to those who don't demonise us for daring to point out that we're fully human, and have a right to our own personhood. That we exist as a sex, and that there is indeed an erasure being vehemently demanded: our own. It's absolutely horrifying, that we are even having to have this conversation in 2020 - that no, male people do not have the right to dictate to women, not only what provision we may have but who and what we even are. The hypocrisy that this is coming from groups that bleat about lived experience and 'nothing about us without us' is quite extraordinary, and the epitome of male entitlement. That doesn't mean that I'm okay with anyone using slurs, or treating any other group as less than human, no matter what support they offer us here.

Anyone who thinks women should be forced to accept a male in a space where they're getting undressed, or asleep, or otherwise vulnerable is an absolute arsehole. Anyone calling women who protest about that horrendous abuse of our rights a bigot is a misogynist abuser. Plain and simple. They are foul. This is a human rights issue - and women's human rights matter. But as soon as you're willing to loosen that principle for any other group, then you're treating all people's human rights as dispensable, and conditional on behaviour you approve of. And, as we've seen on the left of late, that's a path to nowhere good. Not least, for women.

I appreciate views on this differ, and that many women feel that when you're facing an existential threat to feminism, you have to focus on women's rights above all else. I just don't feel that a world that allows anyone's rights to be jettisoned, even if the group in question often seem to despise our own, is a good place to be.

That's just supping with the Devil with an insufficiently long spoon.

Delphinium20 · 24/07/2020 19:08

Please...please...please do not equate Breitbart with journalism. I agree that democracy benefits from a liberal exchange of ideas but Breitbart is not any kind of reliable source. It's nothing but misused facts, lies and propaganda from the far right. It does not follow journalism standards.

Musto · 24/07/2020 19:15

Of course I understand why women turn to those who don't demonise

Reading a page of written words is not turning .
If you wish to address women as simpletons turning because they read something then I fear you must think we are simpletons.

wellbehavedwomen · 24/07/2020 19:16

Thank you, @Delphinium20 - you're very much more concise than I am! Grin

Zinco · 24/07/2020 19:18

OK, so obviously, the only thing that matters is whether a particular article is accurate, or whether it makes a good point or not. If 99.9% of Breitbart articles are completely wrong, they can still be correct about something occasionally.

Also...

"The New York Times Magazine acknowledges in an exhaustive feature that Breitbart News has amassed a news and editorial staff with more racial and gender diversity than most American media outlets."

www.breitbart.com/the-media/2017/08/16/nyt-magazine-breitbart-news-record-promoting-women-minorities/

But hey, they are the wrong kind of women and minorities, as they clearly have the wrong opinions.

OP posts:
Zinco · 24/07/2020 19:21

"It does not follow journalism standards."

If real standards of journalism are key, I think we are going to need to throw out a lot of the mainstream media... Breitbart is the least of our worries.

OP posts:
Musto · 24/07/2020 19:23

It's like we are back in Bath with Jane Austen here sometimes. Cover your ears and eyes lest they permit you to see and think freely.

Maybe hop over to the washing threads and check out how to get your petticoats clean.

nauticant · 24/07/2020 19:24

I view reading a wide variety of sources akin to exposing yourself to a wide variety of germs in order to build up a healthy immune system.

Also, you've got to read the original stuff too. Reading the view of the Right filtered via The Guardian or those of the Left via Fox News is no good.

TornadoOfSouls · 24/07/2020 19:29

Surely everyone has views and beliefs that are ‘outliers’? I’ve certainly got a few views/beliefs that might surprise some people who probably think of me as a generic lefty. Nobody sticks rigidly to a prescribed set of beliefs unless they are in a cult.

I agree that tribalism is a big part of the problem.