Study: Everyone loves feminists and environmentalists!

[Perelandra]

Thank you for sharing those excellent points, parel.

[JackRiddler]

parel! It's so good to see your post.

Not everyone "loves" feminism. I have misgivings about it because "the movement" is white-centred and white-dominated. Women of colour are often forced to choose between their race and their gender, and naturally, race will always win out.

You should know the origin of this thread a year ago or whenever was as a response to a thread titled, "Study: Everyone Hates Feminists and Environmentalists."

As I should have expected, this set off a pavlovian response from one now-departed "Carol" Newquist, much like the stuff that's inhabited the thread throughout, and on it went from there.

I bumped it last week after I'd seen enough of the new MRA look at RI, and you've seen the rest and characterized the main thrust.

I agree completely with what you say, but there is very little room to discuss and criticize the white-centred mainstreamed liberal-corporate feminism in the U.S. discourse, when the mere mention of feminism, gender, women's issues, violence against women and women's rights and so on immediately brings out these frustrated men who speak of "man-hating" and "gender war" (against men) and characterize even the male violence as an understandable backlash, etc. etc. Against a backdrop of the Republican/Christianist war on women's rights in this country.

It's hard to be blind to the awfulness of American, liberal, corporate, celebrity-centered, (mostly) white-woman feminism that has been mainstreamed in the media for decades. Just look at this Huffington Post piece on celebrating "35 inspiring feminist moments from 2015."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fem ... 945ff16ea5

It includes celebrations of future wartime Commander-in-Chief Clinton. And of the decision, not to shut down the Pentagon or at least cut back on the war machine murdering so many women and men, but rather to allow unlimited combat roles for women. And who are the women who get sucked into that? In part exactly who you're talking about in Australia, too.

Most of this nonsense is predictable U.S. media fluff (award ceremony speeches, but the nationalism already come in at #2: Why is the AMERICAN team winning the world cup more "inspiring" as a feminist moment than any other women's team that could have won it?). Not too waste too much time on it, why is the Jenner reality-TV thing at #3 but the full marital rights for gays down at #12?

Some of it is worthwhile but most of it exposes the same sad culture that sells the missiles and toothpaste, a fusing of feminism as an adjunct of neoliberalism. (I recommend the video in #11 as funny, however.)

Still I can't agree with those on this thread who are still, like, "why can't we get along," and by that they mean tolerating the way that the Neo-RI MRA crew is trying to flood and flush out all discussion about reality with their fantasies of "man-hating" women causing men to kill themselves and others, even as they deny and try altogether to reverse the reality and pervasiveness of misogynist violence.

And a big reason is everything you talk about:

To elaborate, a few months ago, there were five domestic violence related murders in my hometown of Brisbane in one day. There was a public outcry about it - the government should do more, perpetrators must be held accountable etc etc. I lost a few female friends in that week (FB "friends" whatever that means) who were calling for harsher penalties for perptrators of Domestic Violence. A lot of these women were traumatised by their own experiences of DV and clearly, want things to change.

Why we fell out is because I disagreed with the "harsher penalties", "more police" line because law and order initiatives tend to affect indigenous people the most (currently, I'm in Australia). When aboriginal women get beaten up, the last thing they are likely to do is to report to police. Aboriginal people make up 60% of the prison population in Queensland compared to being only 2% of the population. They also have a habit of dying in custody. I was attacked for allegedly "attacking" these white feminists for trying to "do something" about DV. I hardly got to even offer my solution which is for more funding to be made available for community-based initiatives. They were lauding the government who set up a State "DV helpline". I was castigated for pointing out what a bad idea it was because women in distress who spill their guts could face punitive consequences later. Nobody else saw the potential conflict of interest there. So I was defriended and blocked by a bunch of well-meaning "lefty feminists". They didn't understand that the survivial of indigenous races is of paramount importance to indigenous people, and that gender politics comes second. Within the framework of indigeny though, there are many "movements" of women trying to break barriers and effect change. There is no feminist sisterhood that i have ever encountered, unless you count those who think success is about advancing a career or being able to display vast sums of wealth.

Feminism has never included women of colour, let alone centred on them.

But if you've been looking at PW's posts (lost in all the back-and-forth to-do with the MRA flood), that's not always the case. Second-wave feminism (i.e., 70s in response to the original equal-rights/equal-opportunity feminism) was all about economic struggle and race. How could it not be?

Radical (read: unreconstructed) feminists are also hunting down sex workers in the name of 'rescue' by redefining violence and labelling prostitution AS rape.

This kills me, the long-running inability to see what prohibition does to the sex workers.

So we have to deal with the carceral feminists who want us all locked up and segregated from "clean" society in the interests of "saving" us from our own oppression (you'd be surprised how many times the term "Stockholm Syndrome" is invoked to describe any sex worker who does not subscribe to the idea that sex work is inherently exploitative) and the mainstream feminists who think they have all the answers and that the "white" worldview is the only one that is valid.

I won't come out openly and bag feminism anymore. I used to, but now see it as counterproductive. Instead, it is better to regenerate something new, with sisters and allies and any person with a conscience to see that our collective liberation lies in adherence to basic principles of love and respect.

I don't want to be equal to men. I already know, that as a woman I am better.

[Elvis]

it is better to regenerate something new, with sisters and allies and any person with a conscience to see that our collective liberation lies in adherence to basic principles of love and respect.

[Sounder]

Thank you sincerely for that fine post parel.
parel wrote:

it is better to regenerate something new, with sisters and allies and any person with a conscience to see that our collective liberation lies in adherence to basic principles of love and respect.

This was written a few days ago for the gender thread but is being re-purposed for the divisiveness issue

I’m going to take a chance and get a little personal then hopefully show a connection to a larger picture.

In my early twenties I was a bit of a freak, did not do mating rituals and expected to remain single because very few people, let alone women seemed to care a wit about things that were serious matters to me.

About a week after this ‘deep realization’ I met my future wife. She was and still is largely a neurotypical type of person, yet she humored my eccentricities then and still listens and responds intelligently to any given ‘dodgy’ subject I may bring up. I derive a benefit in knowing some of what the neuro-typical response will be to any given subject.

Back then one thing I was determined to do was to not pass on my pathologies on to other people. My dad was sensitive about what his father passed on to him; he tried to break the habits but still did his fair share of pushing his pathologies.

Having children was a useful reality check for me, causing much thought on the nature of being and becoming. The conclusions (after about ten years of study) were very broad and have been useful both in raising wonderful children, seeing reality stripped bare, and in getting along well others.

One result of this attitude was and is that my wife and I never tell each other what to do. We have learned to do what is needed to show respect for a partner.

We were talking about the gender thread a few days ago and her comment was that we are here on Earth to learn how be nice to each other.

I love the women in my life because for the most part they value being nice.

And this gets back to this;

guruilla wrote…

It's called scapegoating, and it doesn't mean there aren't real crimes begin committed, only that the focus is being redirected to protect the dominant group.

slomo wrote…
I think this is quite likely, although it is more in the realm of parapolitics than anything that could ever be proved. Thus, the action to take away from this idea, if you believe it, is to sow harmony instead of divisiveness, and to consider that all these different and apparently contradictory positions could be true at the same time.

I don’t know about the apparently contradictory position part, but Abraham Heschel said that ‘evil’ was sowing divisiveness. This was similar to my position before reading Heschel, who was recommended to me by a Jewish friend who commented that my rhetoric had similarities to his.

This has been a quite natural reason for me to have reservations about trying to digest anything AD posts. He (and his new puppy Jack) revels in demonizing the other, while many consider that the ‘other’ is a critical element in ones own enfoldment.

I will stick with the second camp, thank you very much.

[guruilla]

I bumped it last week after I'd seen enough of the new MRA look at RI, and you've seen the rest and characterized the main thrust.

If that's the main thrust of this discussion then I must be at the wrong forum. I am generally dis- and even un-interested in the subjects of feminism, MRA, and rights or social issues in general, being as they are cultural phenomena that shifts and changes every time you look at it, and even as a result of being looked at. (Short version: it is all Maya.) What I'm interested in is ideology and identity-creation and to me these current subjects are no more than useful lens to look at that, and a means to engage with others at a meaningful level. So your main thrust is lost on me ~ FYI.

I don't want to be equal to men. I already know, that as a woman I am better.

This is a good opportunity to illustrate something that's part of the "main thrust" of one side of the arguments here: suppose I were to make this same statement with the sexes reversed?

Does anyone think I'd be congratulated for my fine post?

[JackRiddler]

I don't want to be equal to men. I already know, that as a woman I am better.

This is a good opportunity to illustrate something that's part of the "main thrust" of one side of the arguments here: suppose I were to make this same statement with the sexes reversed?

Does anyone think I'd be congratulated for my fine post?

Well, for starters it would be untrue.

For seconds, it actually matters what she wrote up to that point.

For thirds, ah never mind.

I don't know, maybe you are at the wrong forum. You'll have to decide that, I guess.

[Sounder]

Oh come on guruilla, it was rhetorical quirk at the end a fine testimony about how to try and keep control of ones own life.

[guruilla]

Oh come on guruilla, it was rhetorical quirk at the end a fine testimony about how to try and keep control of ones own life.

Define rhetorical quirk. Maybe I missed the playful irony. But the point stands. Had I or a non-kosher male made it, there'd be repercussions.

Well, for starters it would be untrue.

Personal jibe or a declaration of a philosophy (i.e., that women are better than men)?

I don't know, maybe you are at the wrong forum. You'll have to decide that, I guess.

& meanwhile you can nurture that hope.

[Iamwhomiam]

I've been reading your story and find it unenlightening. In fact, I find it offensive. And I've always respected you and your opinions before, to the best of my knowledge.

But this fear of women I find astounding coming from a homosexual man who has identified himself as "queer." I find it bizarre, actually.

Due to the discrimination you must have been subjected to in this masculine patriarchy for merely being the person you feel you must be, I would imagine you to be sympathetic to women who seek only the same, rather than hostile.

I this, I find queer.

Rather than setting forth the truth, you allow me my fantasy. How very unkind! Surely, you must remember the epiphany that first formulated your misogynistic philosophy, so why not share it with us, rather than keeping us guessing about the roots of your evil thoughts towards women? There's no harm is sharing your mom or dad or siblings, possibly in combination, really fucked up your head. It's not really all that unique, you know, if that's the case.

I mean you no harm. But your motivations are indeed a curiosity.

I mean, considering your philosophy is based upon fantasy, rather than fact.

Since you're reaching out with what I imagine is an olive branch (rather than veiled insults), I'll engage. Before I answer you, do you really believe I hate women? Honestly? You might want to read what I've written, in this thread and maybe the thread I started (ignoring the bitch-slapping session Jack and I engaged in, which was borderline disrespectful on both sides). To help you out, I'll remind you that I've repeated the name Karen Straughan several times, a woman who articulates a position a notch or two more anti-feminist than my own. Guruilla embedded a video with a good example of her work. She jokes about how she doesn't quite look the part of an anti-feminist woman (the stereotype of which I imagine would be a quiverfull woman wearing an apron) with her "short hair and sensible shoes". I don't know that she mentions it in that particular video, but she has children and a boyfriend. In other words, an ordinary sort of person I might have in my circle of friends, and probably you as well. But more to the point: she recounts what she views as the history of feminism, and how and why she believes it is both anti-woman and anti-man. She does rightfully point out that there are multiple feminisms, and she is attacking specific ones; and so I'll admit that I need to be more careful with a word that has the potential to be triggering, as Jack points out, and specify that my position concerns specific feminisms, not all of them. I'm not asking you to agree with her, or to agree with me for that matter, but I am asking you to see both her and me as non-psychopathic individuals who have rational reasons for believing as we do. I personally feel that way about Christian fundamentalists, for example. I disagree strongly with some of their views, however I still believe that all but a few of them are regular people just trying to make sense of the world with the experiences they have had.

Beyond that point, my position is not based on "fantasy". It may certainly be mistaken (obviously I don't think so), but it is based on actual statistics and (other people's) research. My interpretation of that research (characterized as "truthy" by Jack) is that it refutes the theory of Patriarchy that proposes that (western) society systematically benefits men over women. The statistics demonstrate that there are substantial and important areas for which this is not true. You may disagree that these are important areas, or you may believe that other factors explain these phenomena, but if you want me and others like me to modify our positions (and, speaking for myself, my position can be modified by a convincing argument), then a careful and evidence-based explanation of why the statistics are wrong or not representative is in order. And it's really the concept of Patriarchy I have a problem with, because it's a very divisive concept, and (in my view) it doesn't really help society in the long run. As I mentioned here or in another thread, I'm actually OK with practical solutions to (e.g.) the wage gap issue, like encouraging women to take negotiation seminars or young women to enter STEM fields.

Also, I don't really have much actual skin in the game. I have a cushy white-collar job and a pretty good life (other than occasional odious professional tasks that motivate me to waste time on the internet). I work with many competent women who do not in any way threaten my professional standing, and I've written recommendation letters for quite a few of them. However, for various reasons related to volunteer activities undertaken by myself and my partner, I have met some pretty down-and-out young straight guys who have it rough (mostly for reasons having nothing to do with gender), and I have some compassion for their situation, and their point of view.

No, slomo, I do not believe you feel hatred toward women, nor have I suggested that you did. I apologize for my tone. I've not attempted to insult you, nor would I. Sorry to come across so personally, but your position has me greatly confused. I am seeking a clear understanding of how you derived your view. I am unsympathetic towards nearly all men's complaints about women, and I do recognize some tiny percentage of men do suffer both mental and/or physical abuse from their female partner. Regardless of one's sex or their sexual orientation, no partner should be forced to suffer abuse from their spouse.

Also, I have not yet begun to read the thread you've started you've referred to and truly don't know if I will, but I will look it over.

I do wish I could improve my writing; yours is eloquent, although if I do find some things you've written presently objectionable. I must remind you I've been unable to view videos. Also, it matters little to me whom Karen Straughan is or what her views are. I've never before heard of her, and I've worked intimately with more than a few notable 1st and 2nd gen feminists. Perhaps you'll think me ignorant, but I would rather grow from direct experience interacting with folk, than have my opinion formulated from reading about others experience, even when it coincides with my perceptions.

You say statistics will support your view, so I will peruse what you've offered as supporting evidence. Being baffled by your view, I hope I can come to accept yours as valid, though right now I doubt that's possible

"I'm not asking you to agree with her, or to agree with me for that matter, but I am asking you to see both her and me as non-psychopathic individuals who have rational reasons for believing as we do." This I can do. But not quite yet.

[guruilla]

No, slomo, I do not believe you feel hatred toward women, nor have I suggested that you did.

Surely, you must remember the epiphany that first formulated your misogynistic philosophy, so why not share it with us, rather than keeping us guessing about the roots of your evil thoughts towards women?

Do you so detest yourself and condemn assertive women because your own mother was a feminist?

...

Whatever the case, I feel sorry for you, to be so filled with anger towards women seeking equality with men and your jealousy of women I find psychopathic.

Denying this sort of gross reality-distortion and personal-attack-disguised-as-psychoanalysis by blaming it on a lack of writing ability seems like pretty bizarre behavior to me.

[Sounder]

It is bizarre behavior, to think nobody reads close enough to see what was written a few hours before.

But Iam loves that dog whistle.

[JackRiddler]

Oh come on guruilla, it was rhetorical quirk at the end a fine testimony about how to try and keep control of ones own life.

Define rhetorical quirk. Maybe I missed the playful irony. But the point stands. Had I or a non-kosher male made it, there'd be repercussions.

Well, for starters it would be untrue.

Personal jibe or a declaration of a philosophy (i.e., that women are better than men)?

I don't know, maybe you are at the wrong forum. You'll have to decide that, I guess.

& meanwhile you can nurture that hope.

Well, you raised it in the first place. Kind of mean to prompt the hope.

I doubt you read parel at all. I mean, you read the words, I'm sure. But obviously you don't get it and don't care. She's telling you about murders and struggles and the hard life as she's experienced it. She's telling you about the experience of being pushed down by men and finding strength among her sisters. All you know to do is to pick the last line in schematic fashion and start whining. One-trick pony.

Look, she did that! Why don't you get to do that?! You've been robbed, cheated! Poor sad, ungenerous thing that you are. (Meanwhile, there are posts above claiming that domestic violence is a myth, that women are initiating half or more of it!)

So yeah, if we're going to do averages, there are differences between men and women, and on the whole women are better than men. Plenty of bad women, plenty of good men. But an average, they are less likely to kill you, more likely to care about you, less likely to vote for the extreme right, way less likely to be Hitler-level sociopaths, etc. All that touchy-feely rot is true. Most of the time. Well, I don't know about you.

.

[guruilla]

It's true I don't know parel and maybe it came off a bit mean-spirited to only acknowledge that one line and not extend the required niceties first (sorry parel!), but surely the context has to count for something? (The context being an investigation into whether feminism may have gone a bit too far in demonizing men, among other things.) And the fact (or at least my experience, and that of my wife, too) is that men (and boys) are being told now that they are less than women, in ways both subtle and overt.

So yeah, if we're going to do averages, there are differences between men and women, and on the whole women are better than men. Plenty of bad women, plenty of good men. But an average, they are less likely to kill you, more likely to care about you, less likely to vote for the extreme right, way less likely to be Hitler-level sociopaths, etc. All that touchy-feely rot is true. Most of the time. Well, I don't know about you.
.

Did you even read my former post or are you just trying to get this pony to repeat his only trick?

Studies such as the survey by Lie, Schilit, Bush, Montague, and Reyes (1991), showing lesbian verbal, sexual, and physical abuse rates to be higher than heterosexual rates, are simply dismissed, as are studies showing female intimate violence to be equal or higher in incidence than male intimate violence (Magdol et al., 1997; Archer, 2000).

Or is this inadmissible in Jack's court since its not sourced in the archives of Feminist Orthodoxy?

Here's some more heretical materials, since you goaded them forth:

The feminist paradigm supports the notion that domestic violence is primarily a culturally supported male enterprise and that female violence is always defensive and reactive. When women are instigators, in this view, it is a "preemptive strike," aimed at instigating an inevitable male attack (see Bograd, 1988; Dobash, Dobash, Wilson, & Daly 1992; inter alia).

Disconfirming research data appear to have had little impact on supporters of this perspective over the past two decades. For instance, speaking to intimate partner homicide, Serran and Firestone (2004) recently asserted we live in "a society where almost every major institute accepts or ignores the problems of gender inequality" ...and "The law and the patriarchal hierarchy have legitimized wife beating and control, resulting in unequal power relationships between men and women" (p. 12). In fact, considerable evidence suggests that there are strong social prohibitions inhibiting men from aggressing against women (e.g., chivalry; Arias & Johnson, 1989, Archer 2000a), legal sanctions against men who transgress (the U.S. Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA); Brown, 2004) and fewer social prohibitions inhibiting women from aggressing against men (for reviews see Brown, 2004; George, 1999). These legal and social policies, well intended though they might be, are based on erroneous information both about the causes and incidence of most intimate violence. They have evolved based on the needs of the small but significant proportion of women who experience chronic "wife battering," they do little to serve the much larger majority of men, women, and children coping with the more frequently encountered "common couple abuse" (Johnson, 1995; Stets & Straus, 1992b).

Among the data sets cited by Dutton in 1994 as contradictory to the feminist view were the following:

1. Unidirectional "severe" female intimate violence was more common than male unidirectional intimate violence (Stets & Straus, 1992b);

2. Lesbian abuse rates were higher than heterosexual male-female abuse rates (Lie et al., 1991);

3. Only a small percentage of males were violent over the life course of a marriage (Straus et al., 1980);

4. As many females as males were violent (Straus et al., 1980);

5. Very few males approved of the spouse abuse (Stark & McEvoy, 1970); 1

6. Only 9.6% of males were dominant in their marriage (Coleman & Straus, 1986); and,

7. Male violence was not linearly related to cultural indicators of patriarchy across U.S. states (Yllo & Straus, 1990).

...It is because of intimacy that lesbian and heterosexual rates of abuse are similarly high; the impact of attachment and related anxieties produce anger and abuse. Dutton (1998, 2002) further elaborated the psychological phenomena that would increase an individual's propensity to experience such anxiety and react with abuse. The "intimacy problem" explanation constitutes an alternative to gender explanations and posits that abusiveness in intimate relationships occurs for both genders and that certain psychological features increase risk for individuals independent of gender. Dutton (1994) cited data from a study on lesbian relationships by Lie, Schilit, Bush, Montague, and Reyes (1991) that showed, for women who had been in past relationships with both men and women, abuse rates were higher for all forms of abuse in relationships with women: physical, sexual, emotional. Hence, Dutton argued, intimate violence is not specific to men and cannot be explained on the basis of gender or gender roles.

An alternative would be to view intimate violence as having psychological causes common to both genders. Psychological explanations for intimate violence have come from numerous sources. One good review by Holtzworth-Munroe, Bates, Smuztler, and Sandin (1997) cited psychopathology, attachment, anger, arousal, alcohol abuse, skills deficits, head injuries, biochemical correlates, attitudes, feelings of powerlessness, lack of resources, stress, and family of origin sources for male intimate violence. Follingstad et al. (2002) found anxious attachment and angry temperament predicted dating violence in both sexes. Feminist "intervention" discounts all of these as "excuses" despite empirical support for the relationship of each to marital aggression and the utility of these risk factors for prevention and intervention.

...

A dangerous "ingroup/outgroup" form of siege mentality has enveloped feminist activists and those researchers who share their dogma. It is based on a perceived threat that somehow, services for women will disappear if male victimization is recognized or that those who raise issues about female violence or intervention are somehow against progressive goals for women's equality.

http://www.ejfi.org/DV/dv-50.htm#feminist

[tapitsbo]

Victimhood can be acknowledged without becoming the only criterion for political claims.

None of us are without an "ideology" but once we get stuck in perpetrator/victim as the only modes of interpretation, we're deep in the woods ideology-wise, and the gulf between friend and enemy yawns wide...

[parel]

Look, I certainly didn't mean to come off as a victim. I'm far from that and don't believe I have suffered any more than anybody here or anybody I have met working in the developing world. I just wanted to illustrate the tension that exists between sex workers and self-identified "radical" feminists, the ones I call "anti-prostitutionists" or the "carcerals". My critique of feminism is not of second wave feminism. There was a time and place for the rads and I considered myself to be one (at one point), until. In fact, I still do. But secretly. Sex workers are the radicals because we are the ones undermining the patriarchy. In fact, I posit that if all women were aware of the sexual power they possess, and utilised it en masse, we would have world peace within a month. The "radicals" of the Andrea Dworkin, Catharine Mac Kinnon, Janice Raymond, Melissa Farley ilk, and that includes the Swedish Government (feminazis in the correct sense) have a radical analysis but do not follow it up with radical action. Their answer is further criminalisation. And the disingenuous "we don't want to harm the women" Swedish Model, that decriminalises sex work but criminalises clients of sex workers. They and the "anti-trafficking" industry that has sprung up around them in the last 15 years are truly evil in the way they are forcibly trying to exact their brand of "feminism" onto everybody. US is in bed with the Swedes on this. Hence, sex workers get nothing of the PEPFAR funding from the US or the SIDA funding from Sweden. It all goes to other key populations - men who have sex with men, transgenders, people who use drugs. My issue is with these "rads" influencing mainstream feminists and people with their unsubstantiated claims of trafficking and "sex slavery". It's a messy business partially because the language people employ is so sloppy. Slavery for example. It's usually white people that invoke it.

Equality Now is another evil organisation, NY based, that supposedly exists to 'end violence against women and girls'. A bunch of anti-prostitutionists with Gloria Steinem on the board (Meryl Streep too). Anyway, back in 2013 they started going after the UN when they recommended decriminalisation of sex work. They were circulating a petition claiming that the UN supports pimps and spammed the inboxes of the heads of WHO, UNDP, UN Women & UNAIDS. At that time, I was surfing the net looking for articles on them and came across this: a practicum that basically showed they were spying on us. Once news hit the blogs and mags about the New Milano School spying on the sex worker movement, they withdrew. But they are still there, still frothing at the mouth and no doubt are spying on us still --

As for this:

This is a good opportunity to illustrate something that's part of the "main thrust" of one side of the arguments here: suppose I were to make this same statement with the sexes reversed?

Does anyone think I'd be congratulated for my fine post?

My response is, that I represent Papatuanuku (Mother Earth) who IS a woman and who IS being abused, and without whom we cannot sustain life. Do you represent Rangi (The Sky Father)? If so, then you represent Papatuanuku as well. We are equal and together we can fix the mess their children are making of her bones.

If not, then I guess we part ways.