[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

I suggest you read this and this. Since you're probably well more into the theory than I am, you can probably explain it to me.

And yes, this is - that you can be a very terrible human being while being a celebrated feminist - one of the reasons why I don't support the movement.

I'm not sure what you want me to explain. I can comment on some of the points in both articles though.

Julie Bindel
First, I am bothered by how Bindel consistently splits the world into the groups "all men" and "all women". From "men hate feminism" to "I would be happy if men were appalled by male violence", and from "men will not change" to "what men do to us in private". The implication is that that the fact that I have a penis means I'm evil, rather than my motivations and actions as a human being.

Second, the number of straw men that are put up is really quite impressive: "it is not fair to exclude men, from anything", "we know you're oppressed, but you have been for ages and you're used to it, but what about us?", "[sarcastic] All violent men need is a big cuddle and an invitation to a feminist meeting.", "Every other liberation movement involves men. So why not feminism?".

Ignoring those two points, I don't think she is not entirely wrong; what makes you free is not the law that's signed by your president; what makes you free is the the very act of freeing yourself. It is therefore not unreasonable for women to politely refuse the help of men in their struggle.

On the other hand, that last straw man I quoted holds the seed to a real argument against barring men from participating in the feminist movement. The straw man itself is fairly weak, but if you translate all of the terms used, rather than excluding some, it actually becomes a proper argument: the campaign against racism in the 60s involved white people. The campaigns against class privilege involved rich people. The movement against disability discrimination involves healthy people. The movements against homophobia and transphobia contains straight and cis people. What basis does there exist for the feminist movement to ignore this rich history of involving both the repressed and the 'oppressors' (obviously, the actual people involved were not oppressors, they merely belonged to a group that was considered oppressive; I can't think of a better shorthand)?

All things considered though, I don't think explicitly banning men from participating achieves much. If someone agrees with your point and wants to help make it reality, then by all means, penis or no penis, put them to work!

Luckynickl
Lucky's post is truly vile. I have no other word for it. I was angry when I read it yesterday, and on second reading, I'm still angry. The consistent use of quotation marks around the words 'trans' and 'transgendered' tick me off, as does the consistent use of the label 'male', as if having (had? I'm not sure) a penis invalidates all of one's opinions. And of course 'transphobic' is surrounded by quotation marks; because apparently refusing to admit the possibility that some people who were born male might simply be happier going through life as a woman is transfriendly.

I read some of the comments too. The author of the article posted a comment calling Lees a "pig in a skirt", and a commenter spoke of how Bindel mentioned she was tired of the "'war' between transactivists and radfems". Apparently there's some history here that I was not previously aware of. These are not generally places I frequent, and I'm happy to report I will continue to avoid them.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Yes, however someone's made the value decision to call "being housewife" the slave, and calling "being a mine shaft worker" the slaver.
(...)
If you really want to compare old-system housewives to slaves, then you'll also want to remember that a husband could be held legally responsible for his wife's crimes, ergo, if your slave murdered someone, you could get hung. It's not a "pick your cherries" festival; but again, a very entwined system of two genders where both have strong roles which both involve responsibilities and (dis)&advantages

I didn't mean to compare the roles of men and women with that of slave owners and slaves, but reading back on it, I guess that's exactly what I did.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Yes, however someone's made the value decision to call "being housewife" the slave, and calling "being a mine shaft worker" the slaver. This is purely a value decision that appreciates the opportunity to participate in work force above the opportunity to stay home. This is very visible because of the history of where feminism came from and how feminists are right now. When the movement came out, it was a movement of those women who already had things excellent. They were upper middle class. Intersectionality is a very new a term for feminists and they still struggle with the issue that the woman really doesn't want to go to the mine shaft even if it'd be "empowering" above a housewife's duty.
(...)
What feminism struggles with is the fact that sexuality can also be a source of power: especially for a very beautiful woman like Beyonce. They're not willing to admit, that through sheer force of a beautiful body, she holds power. This is of course, passive power in compared to say violence, which is active power (bulky caveman). But it is still there, and what "empowerment" is to Beyonce is probably best described as using that power in practise.

Just that, it'd be a bad beat for a lobbyist group to admit that women aren't a homogenous group (and men aren't either) and that what is "priviledge" is mostly defined very heterogenously. It doesn't fit the scheme.

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, but there is a definite difference in quality between feminism's reach for empowerment and Beyoncé's. Beyoncé's sexuality empowers only her. That source of power is not accessible to women who are not as naturally well endowed, or as capable of affording the various means by which to look better, or with as much access to the media's tools of the trade. Feminism, on the other hand, seeks to empower women (and to a lesser degree, men) in general, by removing the gender obstacles/barriers. For all her power, Beyoncé's very explicitly leaves those barriers in place.

That said, even that line of reasoning (which I think is a good one) does not jive well with the notion that some people may genuinely feel better with the current set of gender rules (no matter how limiting) than with any new set feminism may come up with (no matter how freeing). Nevertheless, I feel it is better to strive for freedom than the alternative, even if some of us don't currently feel trapped or don't even mind being constrained. Once free, people can still choose to conform to the gender rules as they previously existed; what would be impossible is for our society to coerce people into conforming to them.

And yes, I do realise how utopian that all sounded; that's because it is. I also realise I've only spoken about my (fairly moderate) interpretation of feminism, not that of so-called 'radical feminists'. I'll get to that.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

I call no true scotsman.

That fallacy went through my mind several times while I was writing my previous post, but it doesn't apply. This definition of feminism that I've been using simply does not cover 'radical feminism', what I call misandry. You won't hear me say everyone who calls themselves a feminist fits that mold, but by the common definition of what feminism is (and you can't get much more common than the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article), they do not. I'll also refer to the 'no true scotsman' article, especially the 'Discussion' section, which explains the subtle difference better than I ever could.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Here's the question: we know what we're being liberated from. Do we know if what we're being liberated into is better than what we're being liberated from, and from whose perspective is it better?

If we stick to (Wikipedia's) common definition of feminism, then yes, by this and my previous post, we do know what we're moving towards. Whether that is 'better' or not is for everyone to figure out for themselves. I think I've done alright so far.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Define privilege. Remember that there are also value decisions related to privilege.

I won't. Two reasons: it'd take me too long (because it isn't a handful of big things, it's tens or hundreds of small things) and I don't feel qualified to list what are largely other people's grievances, not my own. If that's a cop-out, I apologize.

However, I will say this much, regarding military service: I do not consider any such obligation a privilege. Maybe that was your point?

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Which one do you reckon would have more privilege, in Netherlands - a girl born into the royal family or a boy born into an immigrant Indonesian family? Surely the boy, since he's a patriarch-to-be. It's not so easy as to say "all men have privilege x". Male privilege is also attached to social status. So is female privilege. Both downsides are also attached to social status: say, poverty tends to have an inheritage (children of poor tend to remain poor and so on).

I've never said that gender or sex is the only dividing factor in our society. Feminism doesn't either, it just has a certain focus.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

But the point is: If I could label myself a feminist, and know that doing so I would only support the egalitarian feminists I would gladly do so and embrace their tools and knowledge. Hell, I would even donate money for that cause, honestly. But I can't. The true scotsman will always be a massive problem for the movement, and if I'd support the movement, I'd also support things like plans to murder male fetuses.

You can easily support the kind of feminism you agree with, without supporting the kind you don't. The feminist movement does not have a single pot of money, so you can control what kind of feminists you support. You'd probably sometimes have to explain to people that no, you don't support these people, but you do support these other people, but other than that, I don't see the problem.