Study: Everyone loves feminists and environmentalists!

[lunarmoth]

Oh hi --

It's all both familiar to me, and hard to fathom why women and men are still arguing about the semantics of equality. I've wanted to tell this story somewhere - maybe this is the place?

A history lesson:

I joined what they told me was the "women's movement" in 1970. Word got around that McGill had hired a high-profile radical American Marxist-feminist prof to teach sociology and the history of women -- totally unheard of and exciting to us in the boondocks. Since this woman had big credentials, a loud booming voice and was personally acquainted with Angela Davis, everyone thought the revolution was imminent and she began collecting followers. The first group she set up was huge --100 women (mostly in their 20s) meeting at a community centre talking about women's liberation. Some brought their knitting, some were eloquent speakers,some were angry, others maternal, others wounded -- beautiful talking heads with yards of hair who didn't shave their legs. After a while there were factions, e.g. Trotskyites vs. Leninists -- 'Radical feminism' was off in the future --

In fact we didn't even call ourselves "feminists" -- that was for dummies or like being some kind of racist. We denounced male chauvinism and thought we wanted to change society to make it more accommodating to women and children. There was little talk of "patriarchy." We supported things like abortion, free day care, community-based politics, equal pay for equal work. Looking back, we could have been anarchists. Some of the women lived with men who were in left-wing groups. The discussions in the beginning were really sophisticated and intimidating - everything got debated and analyzed and meetings were exhausting marathons of political theory, but quite educational. Our leaders' aimed to write a women's manifesto that could be the basis of an unstoppable mass movement aka Revolution which we would make together with other groups -- proletarians, black people, students -- to overthrow the established system and create a more just world based on equality for all --

Failing at that colossal task, after a year we gravitated to "consciousness-raising groups" where we could just sit and talk and share feelings. I only went to one or two before I got bored with the formula, which was to 'raise consciousness' of ourselves as women and promote 'sisterhood'. This was less complicated than reading Marx but also quickly hardened into dogma, or rather, the most dogmatic and 'maternalistic' women seemed to take over. Sometimes things got lively -- there were demonstrations around issues like abortion, even though the Marxists said 'issues' were a distraction. I went to an abortion demo dressed up as a witch and got my picture in the paper -- this tells me I was already feeling cramped and a bit ambivalent and was looking for ways to rebel. Also, I wasn't even sure I was pro-abortion since my best friend had had one at 18 and never really recovered.

Radical feminism came to town later. It was disastrous. A lesbian couple showed up out of nowhere and put themselves in charge of a women's centre with funding from the Canadian government in Ottawa. These two nasty women, who in fact were PRACTICING witches -- literally into black magic, hexes etc. -- were for some reason the darlings of the bureaucrats. They operated like bureaucrats themselves. Where did all that money come from?? They were also sociopathic man-haters. But their hatred did not stop with men. It took them a year to completely take over the whole women's movement scene, which they did by renting (later buying) a building and setting up 'social services' -- the very thing we "revolutionaries" said we would never do.

They looked for the most self-hating, intellectually challenged, uncomfortable-in-their-own bodies women and started indoctrinating them. Like pros, they sowed paranoia, division and character assassination, slander etc. to discredit and drive away the original leaders who talked of cooperation with men. Looking back, it is amazing that these two women were able to do so much damage in such a short time. They even networked across the country, via other women's centres, creating a secret Enemy List of the women who were 'anti-feminist' and 'homophobic'.

I had thought for a time that I was part of a transformative movement -- only to see it poisoned. After four or five years of 'struggling' I had a dream about a two-headed fish that could not swim forward or backward, and was slowly sinking to the bottom of a pond. I interpreted this to mean that my emotions and thoughts were opposed to each other and I was stagnating instead of living my life. In groups and collectives that I joined, I found myself with other women who seemed stuck. There was a lot of smothering and rage. So I stopped working in the women's movement. I still liked women, but I also liked men - for different reasons.

A while ago, I decided to search the internet for news of the lesbian couple who decimated our group and turned our 'movement' into their personal cash-cow. They have since separated. One is a writer of lesbian crime fiction. The other has had a stellar career in Ottawa as a civil servant. The one who became a civil servant was the one everyone most hated and feared, as she was ridiculously power-addicted, a humourless borderline personality. Not the kind of person you would vote for to lead anything. But she was skilled at seizing power and holding onto it. Before she became a feminist, she had driven a popular left-leaning student editor to the brink of suicide. Considering her string of 'successes' in breaking up positive left groups, and the relentless way she went about her work, I think she had to be trained in the kind of methods that the CIA teaches to its operatives., e.g. in COINTELPRO-style tactics. I think somebody high up had to be coaching this couple in mind control.

They and her loyal flunkies pushed hard-line, gender-based ideology before it was popular. Almost as if the people writing the cheques back in Ottawa had gender politics in mind early on, as a highly effective tool for wrecking real resistance movements and derailing real change --

Just my two cents,

[slomo]

I don't have much substantive to add at this point, as others have already made points I might have. I do have a few comments, in no particular order:

Thanks, Lunarmoth, for your personal story that serves as a parable of what I think has happened to the particular feminisms I criticize.

Thanks, parel, because your critiques mirror some of mine, namely that the feminisms I criticize are substantially focused on the issues of affluent white women, to the exclusion of everybody else.

Luther, in particular, I appreciate your civil tone and obvious good faith in the presentation of your arguments, even though I disagree with much of your position (on the institutional workings, not the end goals of reducing obviously bad things).

Tapitsbo, I appreciate our earlier civil conversations, but I don't understand where you're coming from right now.

Guruilla, you've basically made the same arguments I would have, and they seem to be going over better (so I guess I'm just polarizing).

Iamwhomiam, not sure if I trust where you're coming from. If you don't understand why my position doesn't match my demographics, then I might suggest you examine your assumptions. There are lots more like me, but if your experience is limited a very narrow set of people, you wouldn't know that. I wouldn't have either, had I not made an effort to listen to others.

And Jack: I want to give you credit for the NYT article. Though I'd already seen it, and might interpret its significance differently than you would, it is the sort of counterargument I was hoping for: an opportunity to discuss the meaning of actual statistics rather than individual feelings or extreme examples (BTW I'm not denying that feelings are important, just that they aren't useful for setting social policy). Clearly from the article, white male mortality is about choice, and one could just stop there, but one could also ask why the choices. Of course, that is also possible with the wage-gap discussion (i.e. why do women make certain choices in the labor market), and I was hoping somebody would go there because the reasons for choices are a legitimate point of open inquiry, and productive inquiry because it potentially leads to practical solutions that are not divisive. Instead, I got lots of knee-jerk reaction.

One other thing, that goes back to the adolescent guy complaining about his lack of dating success. I feel like the masculinity everybody hates, the one that makes everybody conclude that men are inferior to women, is characterized by the archetype of an adolescent male typified by this one not-very-bright specimen. On the other hand, the maternal archetype is the one usually pointed to in opposition to the adolescent male (and universally appreciated, as Alice's recent thread demonstrates, and rightly so). I believe the comparison is erroneous because in this comparison, maturity explains more than gender. On the one hand, there is an archetype of an adolescent woman who is deeply cruel (in real life she is of course not universal, but it's easy to find specific manifestations of her energy). On the other, there is an under-appreciated male archetype, that of the responsible, protecting, and often self-sacrificing father. That guy gets almost no credit at all. And I think he deserves quite a bit. I hope it's clear that I'm talking about archetypes or stereotypes, and that individuals of course vary widely in the extent to which they match those types. However, if you are criticizing the reckless aggression of the adolescent male, you might want to consider who that asshole typically becomes later in life, if given the allowance and proper incentives.

[slomo]

So, Iamwhoiam, whether or not you are operating in good faith (it's on your conscience if you're not), I'm going to answer your original question, because it might be illuminating, but then maybe not. (Like Leon in BladeRunner) Let me tell you about my mother...

There's not much to the story, really. It's likely less dramatic than you imagine. My mother didn't really understand men, and she felt profoundly constrained by marriage. At the same time she craved independence, she also expected to be rescued. Ultimately she feared intimacy. She taught her children to fear intimacy, and her daughters and gay son to fear men. With some effort, all of us have been able to unlearn this, except for my youngest sister, who is most like my mother in character, and who is lonely and unhappy. I feel bad for her, and wish she'd let go of some of her fear/anger/whateveritis, because it certainly is not helping. If I am angry at feminism, it has mostly to do with my sister's unhappiness.

Yes, I did go through a period of hating my mother, but so did my sisters, so I think that absolves me of "woman-hating". One evening, in the last few years of her life, my mother opened up, told me her story, and I was able to see that she did the best she could with the personal resources she had. In the very end, she did right by us financially, and in many ways this might have been the clearest way for her to express love.

I've had very positive male role models, and it strikes me that many on this board have not.

And regarding dancing, I freely admit that most of the women with whom I've danced are better dancers; my turnout is awful, no amount of yoga or pilates will fix that.

[Iamwhomiam]

slomo, just a quick reply for now, as it's late. I just managed to get back online after my computer crashed a half hour ago or so. I worked from 11 pm until then preparing my response for you and included a bit of my history, which I noticed you have now done as well. I will read your remarks above carefully and will add any remarks in my forthcoming reply. I had also addressed guru's and Sounder's comments and will do so once again.

[Sounder]

Jack wrote...

All that touchy-feely rot is true.

Well that is a wildly enthusiastic endorsement of a noted feminine trait of showing and learning inclusiveness and respect by being nice.

My thesis lo these ten years at RI has been to assert that individuals need to and can learn to think for themselves, because we build strong communities by interacting appropriately moment to moment, and better decisions are made if actions are determined through ideas in preference to ideology.

The thesis that AD (not you lunarmoth, I love you, -another AD) so ably promotes is that all white men are crazy. The thing is, damning other folk through false associative connections along the way, something that Jack also seems to relish in, are pathetic and primitive ways to 'trigger' people and 'reintegrate' the target into our reactive mind duck soup that we call culture.

It cracks me up when AD says do you like this or that thing every time someone protests his horror porn. See, see, the problem is you, not him.

I do not tell others what to think, AD not only does that, he also asserts that the other is a fundamentally bad person if does not choose to ‘deeply study’ revolutionary ‘theory’, presented through cut and paste articles written by well funded (materialistic and social Darwinist, read Fabian) ‘think’ tanks.

lunarmoth, thank you so much for your story. One of the best things about RI are the descriptions of personal experience in relation to the big issues.

Both you and parel illustrate well reasons for reservations toward aspects of feminism that cannot be dismissed as coming from alleged misogynist men.

[lunarmoth]

Who is AD? Just curious.
I was just going to add that I left the women's movement in 1974, the same year Andrea Dworkin published her first book, Woman Hating. I have a friend who considers Dworkin's work definitive and inescapably all-encompassingly true. This friend lives in a world of chronic pain and depression. She recently unfriended me although she "likes" me, because I questioned transgenderism on Facebook. In fact just yesterday she sent me an email saying she had no choice but to end our friendship after finding out we disagreed over ideology. Up to then, she thought we shared a similar worldview and got along well.

Sorry to personalize, but to me this speaks volumes about a number that's been done on three generations of women. Also, I know many radical feminists were sexually abused as children in secret government programs -- this friend I'm speaking of was, in southern Ontario, and has horrific memories dating back to infancy. So factor in MK experiments. Many of these women have energy blocked in the pelvic area and a lot of difficulty with sex - they learned in childhood to protect themselves from cold, psychopathic rapists in white coats. I believe this is the case for many women who gravitated to extreme ideologies - they are reacting traumatized sexuality that they can't heal or even remember. Or you could say they've been implanted and programmed.

[Luther Blissett]

If I can offer one glimmer of hope, I have observed that the model of millennial feminist will be / is one focused on intersectionality, race, class, sexuality, and gender, taking the lessons of the past and only improving upon them where they need improving (i.e. what lunarmoth and parel say). These people are more inspired by bell hooks, Kara Walker, Michelle Alexander, and Tatyana Fazlalizadeh than…Hillary Clinton. I don't think I could point to any one young thinker because by nature the movement embraces leaderlessness as a tactic more than others in the past.

In general I would say that the young people coming up now are aligned with rigorous intuition in general with the way that they are addressing institutional power. And they certainly seem to be keenly cognizant of the future - the environment and the way that wealth is amassing especially.

[Luther Blissett]

I find those four a-d examples wanting. I don't think less women are studying rape law because of trigger warnings and think that Straughan made it up. I don't think rape convictions are accelerating because of survivor testimony. I think that this retroactive inebriation revoked consent thing is an MRA fantasy devised in chatrooms and has no bearing on courts.

I respect your experience in the campus university and defer to it, while not taking it as a final proof of anything.

About the other ^^^, you may be right and if so it would be of great significance that such a distortion of truth was happening. However, simply telling us what you believe or don't believe carries zero information content except about you. I would think that you would want to find evidence to contest those claims being made by Straughan, which ought not to be hard to do, since if she is both ideologically unsound (i,e., under attack) and lying, then rightly indignant others before you will have already done this work and she will be in the process of being thoroughly and roundly discredited. I wouldn't think it would take more than a 5 minute internet search to find that evidence, if such is the case.

On the other hand, the MO with addressing slomo's data-based arguments seems to indicate, to me anyway (& I confess that I have been mostly unable to read/comprehend Jack's posts, as they seem to be very low signal-to-noise ratio), that a combination of sophistry with ideological conviction are standing in for actual arguments, much less real dialogue.

This could also be because I just don't agree and am blinded by my own ideological prejudices, in which case I apologize in advance. But I do wonder why Jack bumped this thread, as if to contain the situation and bring the battle to his own ground. If so, it may backfire, because the fire of imagined dissidence might only wind up spreading further across the board this way (ie, people start to wake up to seeing how they are being corralled, here and everywhere, into the "correct" thought patterns).

…

I think most people think Karen Straughan is way less important than she is made out to be here. When you're in a feminist community, she's rarely if ever critiqued - there's a lot more important issues to deal with, like murder of women. I think Karen is just for men. It's not really a "great distortion of truth" because not many people care about what she says. Anyway, it wasn't a quick 5 minute search, it took over an hour to find these numbers. Please note I am using the most conservative numbers here from the most conservative institutions (i.e. the FBI). The real numbers are probably much higher. I believe that part of the discrepancy between the fed numbers and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is because the FBI is looking only at convictions and advocacy organizations are looking at reports.

• Rape convictions seem to be near an all-time low, and peaked around 1979 (Bureau of Justice Statistics)
• There were 90,427 forcible rapes reported to police in 2007. (http://www.rccmsc.org/resources/get-the-facts.aspx)
• The FBI recorded 85,593 rapes in 2010 (https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/c ... es/table-1)
• Rape is still the most underreported violent crime (American Medical Association)
• 25% of rape reports led to an arrest in 2008 (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/exclusive-r ... ce-denied/)
• There were 400,000 untested rape kits in 2012 (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/20 ... -congress/)
• According to the 2013 BJS report, in 2010 just 35% of sex assaults were reported to the police (National Research Council. Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2013)
• 2% of rapes still lead to a felony, indicating that the 98% spread between reports and convictions still exists and is not getting smaller as your post presumed. (https://www.rainn.org/get-information/s ... ting-rates)

After looking through all this, I can't even fathom where the idea comes from that there's some massive explosion in rapists being put away falsely.

[guruilla]

Kudos on doing that digging, tho that dismissal of Karen Saughan seems to be based on personal (dis)taste more than anything. I liked her & so did my wife. In fact I plan to ask her onto the podcast.

After looking through all this, I can't even fathom where the idea comes from that there's some massive explosion in rapists being put away falsely.

My impression was not of any massive explosion of false charges but of the groundwork being laid for this, and/or for specific targets.

Again, I stress the option to avoid either/or thinking, even while "reason" screams out it has to be. Julian Assange might be a worthwhile case to mention, regarding the political use of feminist-boosted false rape allegations.

@lunarmoth, that testimony was doubly interesting as I had just that day heard of a very similar set of variables from Erin Pizzey. I'll copy & paste the relevant parts if I get a chance later today.

I do not tell others what to think, AD not only does that, he also asserts that the other is a fundamentally bad person if does not choose to ‘deeply study’ revolutionary ‘theory’, presented through cut and paste articles written by well funded (materialistic and social Darwinist, read Fabian) ‘think’ tanks.

That was like watching a perfect backhand in tennis.

[Luther Blissett]

Is there any evidence of the groundwork being laid to start putting innocent people away for false accusations of rape en masse?

[guruilla]

Is there any evidence of the groundwork being laid to start putting innocent people away for false accusations of rape en masse?

I thought that was what we were discussing?

Your FBI reports don't address KS's data, or my point that she would be being thoroughly and violently discredited by now if she were making them up. The idea that no one but men pays attention to someone challenging the sacred tenets of feminism (liberal and radical) is too absurd to address, considering all we've seen at this forum for starters.

[Luther Blissett]

Are we talking about these four points?

a) rape law is being less and less studied and hence practiced (by women at least) because of its trigger content (wtf?);
b) the requirements for a rape conviction are being rapidly reduced until female testimony becomes sufficient unto itself.
c) the actual criteria for rape are becoming wider and wider/softer and softer, so that, for example, a woman's state of voluntary inebriation can be retroactively presented as evidence of rape
d) rape can also be determined by the "victim's" subsequent feelings about the experience, i.e., a woman can decide afterwards (even days after) that what she had considered consensual sex was actually a rape (perhaps because the guy doesn't come back for more, sorry to be crude, but sometimes the craziness of the context requires it).

What are the sources for those?

[slomo]

I'm adding these into the mix, without editorial comment:

http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/vie ... ontext=dlj

Peer sexual assault is a significant problem on American college and university campuses. On April 4, 2011, the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education sought to address this problem by issuing a new “Dear Colleague Letter” that provided enhanced guidance on how educational institutions should adjudicate such incidents. The letter has the perverse effect of complicating matters further by blurring the already fine line between victim protection and due process for the accused, and it exposes a potential liability trap for educational institutions. This Note explains why the law surrounding victim protection and due process is difficult for institutions to apply and argues that the Department of Education should produce a model judicial policy so that institutions, victims, and accused students will have more certainty in this complicated arena. In furtherance of such a policy, this Note offers specific due-process protections for accused students that should be embraced by educational institutions and the Department of Education alike.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014 ... story.html

In July, Harvard University announced a new university-wide policy aimed at preventing sexual harassment and sexual violence based on gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

The new policy, which applies to all schools within the university and to all Harvard faculty, administrators, and students, sets up the Office for Sexual and Gender-Based Dispute Resolution to process complaints against students. Both the definition of sexual harassment and the procedures for disciplining students are new, with the policy taking effect this academic year. Like many universities across the nation, Harvard acted under pressure imposed by the federal government, which has threatened to withhold funds for universities not complying with its idea of appropriate sexual harassment policy.

In response, 28 members of the Harvard Law School Faculty have issued the following statement:

AS MEMBERS of the faculty of Harvard Law School, we write to voice our strong objections to the Sexual Harassment Policy and Procedures imposed by the central university administration and the Corporation on all parts of the university, including the law school.

We strongly endorse the importance of protecting our students from sexual misconduct and providing an educational environment free from the sexual and other harassment that can diminish educational opportunity. But we believe that this particular sexual harassment policy adopted by Harvard will do more harm than good.

As teachers responsible for educating our students about due process of law, the substantive law governing discrimination and violence, appropriate administrative decision-making, and the rule of law generally, we find the new sexual harassment policy inconsistent with many of the most basic principles we teach. We also find the process by which this policy was decided and imposed on all parts of the university inconsistent with the finest traditions of Harvard University, of faculty governance, and of academic freedom.

Among our many concerns are the following:

Harvard has adopted procedures for deciding cases of alleged sexual misconduct which lack the most basic elements of fairness and due process, are overwhelmingly stacked against the accused, and are in no way required by Title IX law or regulation. Here our concerns include but are not limited to the following:

■ The absence of any adequate opportunity to discover the facts charged and to confront witnesses and present a defense at an adversary hearing.

■ The lodging of the functions of investigation, prosecution, fact-finding, and appellate review in one office, and the fact that that office is itself a Title IX compliance office rather than an entity that could be considered structurally impartial.

■ The failure to ensure adequate representation for the accused, particularly for students unable to afford representation.

Harvard has inappropriately expanded the scope of forbidden conduct, including by:

■ Adopting a definition of sexual harassment that goes significantly beyond Title IX and Title VII law.

■ Adopting rules governing sexual conduct between students both of whom are impaired or incapacitated, rules which are starkly one-sided as between complainants and respondents, and entirely inadequate to address the complex issues in these unfortunate situations involving extreme use and abuse of alcohol and drugs by our students.

Harvard has pursued a process in arriving at its new sexual harassment policy which violates its own finest traditions of academic freedom and faculty governance, including by the following:

■ Harvard apparently decided simply to defer to the demands of certain federal administrative officials, rather than exercise independent judgment about the kind of sexual harassment policy that would be consistent with law and with the needs of our students and the larger university community.

■ Harvard failed to engage a broad group of faculty from its different schools, including the law school, in the development of the new sexual harassment policy. And Harvard imposed its new sexual harassment policy on all the schools by fiat without any adequate opportunity for consultation by the relevant faculties.

■ Harvard undermined and effectively destroyed the individual schools’ traditional authority to decide discipline for their own students. The sexual harassment policy’s provision purporting to leave the schools with decision-making authority over discipline is negated by the university’s insistence that its Title IX compliance office’s report be totally binding with respect to fact findings and violation decisions.

We call on the university to withdraw this sexual harassment policy and begin the challenging project of carefully thinking through what substantive and procedural rules would best balance the complex issues involved in addressing sexual conduct and misconduct in our community.

The goal must not be simply to go as far as possible in the direction of preventing anything that some might characterize as sexual harassment. The goal must instead be to fully address sexual harassment while at the same time protecting students against unfair and inappropriate discipline, honoring individual relationship autonomy, and maintaining the values of academic freedom. The law that the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have developed under Title IX and Title VII attempts to balance all these important interests. The university’s sexual harassment policy departs dramatically from these legal principles, jettisoning balance and fairness in the rush to appease certain federal administrative officials.

We recognize that large amounts of federal funding may ultimately be at stake. But Harvard University is positioned as well as any academic institution in the country to stand up for principle in the face of funding threats. The issues at stake are vitally important to our students, faculties, and entire community.

[signees]

To be fair, here's an opposing viewpoint in response to the above:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/ ... ssors-err/

Also potentially helpful:
https://www.thefire.org/frequently-aske ... ce-letter/
https://www.thefire.org/proof-and-campu ... oceedings/

[semper occultus]

...Slomo ...what's your take on partner abuse & rape within male homosexual relations.. ...is it more or less prevalanet than M on F sexual violence, is it a subject that is more hidden or unspoken about in comparison to its occurrence.....?

[slomo]

Regarding the issue of retroactive withdrawal of consent, there was a very high-profile case a few years back, about an Israeli woman who (apparently) consented to have sex with a man who failed to disclose that he was Palestinian; when she learned the ruth, she charged him with rape. This was widely held up as a particularly egregious example of a murky legal concept, "rape by deception" (not to mention racism). It turns out the case was more complicated than it appeared on the surface. I am citing a Feministe article, which is rather more measured than I would have expected from that source:

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2 ... deception/

I'm not sure if I agree with the authors' conclusions on the theoretical plausibility of "rape by deception", but my opinion would hinge on the extent to which laws regarding fraud intersect with laws regarding rape and sexual assault (i.e. shouldn't some of the examples presented here more appropriately fall under the category of "fraud" rather than "rape"?) I'm not sure ... Whatever ones opinions on the legal issues are, it's clear that some people can sure be fucked up.