Thursday, June 3, 2010

The boyfriend

It seems a lot of people are having trouble commenting on my blog, including myself and my boyfriend. So here verbatim is the comment he wanted to make. Drum roll please...


Dr. Snark: "Being a feminist is a political affiliation, not a biological fact. You CHOOSE to ally yourself with people who have made explicit their hatred for me, as a male and for no other reason. They have laughed about the idea of me being raped and genitally mutilated. They have entirely dismissed my human rights and have wished the most grotesque tortures upon me. Not for being an MRA, but for being a MAN. All the while demanding that I must stand up and fight for THEIR issues. And you proudly wear that label 'feminist' then ask me to try to understand, to sit down for a nice reasonable conversation, and to reach a compromise."

Incurablesanity: Then you aren't like any feminist I've ever met. And I've met a lot. Aligning yourself with a group in the way you do means taking responsibility for some of the stereotypes that come with it. If you want an honest discussion on gender relationships don't come in waving a banner of a group that has damaged the discussion demanding you be treated differently."

AFOTC: "Well I liken this to christianity. People chose to be christian and as such align themselves with people with extreme views, such as homosexuals are evil and ruining society (marriage) etc. Do you think everyone calling themselves a christian should answer to why this is? I sure don't, I hold people accountable only for their own opinions."

Incurablesanity: "Are you saying Feminism is a faith based group or that Christianity is political? A. If feminism is faith based rational debate isn't going to happen. Just won't. So many reasons why. B. Christianity being political. Yeah I think you missed the point of religion some where. One can believe in gender equality and not be a feminist. However it is a lot harder to believe in Christ as the son of God and not be a Christian. I'm not going to debate politics and religion and where the line is here but it does exist." I think you should define what you mean by "feminist" clearly we have very different views on what this could mean."

AFOTC: "I was merely responding to your argument about choice, as in being feminist as a choice and being a man as not a choice, both feminism and christianity are choices so within that framework I think it applies."

Incurablesanity: "I really think I made my point that feminism and Christianity are not the same when it comes to being a choice."

AFOTC: "In regards to christianity and feminism, yeah I can't say much as your criticism seems to be based on the fact I can't call feminism religion or christianity politics, which I am not doing. I don't see how believing in god is not a choice.So I guess agree to disagree there. I attempted to discuss the issue with my boyfriend but he is busy with study. He said he would look at my blog and comment later, so perhaps he can help me clarify. (he is a genius apparently, 140+ IQ)."

I am the boyfriend :)

Apologies for the long list of quotes but I wanted to have (most of) the (most) relevant parts of the thread to the discussion I intend to contribute to. To start off with I would like to suggest a piece of common ground, hatred of a person due to their gender is seriously wrong ( I do not mean to suggest that it is worse than hatred for other reasons but nor do I mean to deny this). Also the treatment Dr. Snark claims to have received (and I see no reason to disbelieve his claim) from self-professed feminists is deplorable. It is of course ridiculous that there would be call to affirm this common ground but the call for it is created by the crazies who deny it rather than anyone posting here. Interestingly enough it seems that a further piece of common ground is that there is some notion of gender equality that is desirable but not fully realised or not fully realised on a broad scale. Holding this view is probably sufficient to get one labelled a ‘feminist’ among many of the people I talk to (unless you objected to being so labelled I would guess).I don’t mean to suggest that this is the only common ground or even the most important common ground, but it does seem to be common ground and it seems worthwhile to point it out.

Now to the argument between DR. Snark, IS and AFOTC (pronounced ay-FOT-chee or Cassie). It interests me since I think the posts of each suggest three different possible sorts of thing the act of identifying oneself as a feminist could be. It could either be:

1 declaring a political association,

2.identifying oneself as a member of a group define by family resemblance, or

3. it could be declaring one’s adherence to a particular ideology, world view, perspective, philosophical, political or moral position or something of that sort.

Dr. Snark is the most explicit on this in seeing feminism as a political affiliation. I suggest the second notion is implicit in incurablesanity’s suggestion that one should take responsibility for some of the stereotypes that come with a group that one aligns oneself to. For if a group is defined by family resemblance then to fit the stereotypes of that group is to be a member of that group. Hence identifying with that group at least if done voluntarily is to endorse the stereotypes, and hence one should take responsibility for them. Neither 1 nor 3 would explain why someone who identifies as feminist should answer for the stereotypes of feminists in the way incurablesanity claims they should (a claim I could argue for but wont unless asked to). It seems to me that AFOTC was explicit in using feminism in the third way in her original post, and is relying on it in her analogy between feminism and Christianity. Regardless of whether one can choose to be a feminist or Christian, to call oneself a Christian is to do an act of the sort listed under 3, and AFOTC’s analogy illustrates that in general declaring adherence to an ideology (or whatever) does not require answering for the views or actions of others who share that ideology (or claim to) when those views and actions aren’t themselves endorsed.

What to make of all this? Well it means that we have to decide how to use the word ‘feminism’ if we are to distinguish valid and invalid arguments (obviously). Now this choice is not made in a vacuum not is it free from various political concerns (as incurablesanisty notes ‘feminism’ is a charged term). In fact it seems to me that the best way to understand the point of contention between Dr. Snark, incurablesanity and AFOTC (I mean the point of contention highlighted in the quotes I made at the start) is over how to understand the word feminism and I don’t think it belittles that dispute at all. I suggest that what we want is the most expedient definition of ‘feminism’ which is plausible given ordinary usage. I believe that ordinary usage of the word (at least in middle class white Australia or the bits of it I’ve seen) would support definitions of each of the three sorts I distinguished. However given that Cass started this blog to discuss ideas it seems to me that a definition of sort 3 is what is required. As for what such a definition should be I think there are two main considerations of political expediency that should be considered, first of all we want it to be easy to denounce the nasty self professed feminists of the sort everyone who has posted so far has expressed concern about. Second we want it to be easy for people with concern for gender equality to express their views. The first consideration makes me sorely tempted to define ‘feminism’ in such a way that the nasty ones don’t fall under the definition. The reason is calling these people pseudo-feminists seems to me to be a particularly effective sort of denunciation. Calling them extremist feminists might have its own advantages but ‘pseudo-feminist’ seems better to me. On the other hand defining feminism as simply a belief in gender equality seems too thin, and has the potential to alienate men from discussion of gender issues. For example masculinism (I find masculism to be an ugly abbreviation, are there any reasons for it?) would seem to have little point since masculinist’s concerns would just fall under the heading of feminism. I thus suggest two different definitions of feminism:

D1. Belief that there should be gender equality and that there should therefore be a certain level of campaigning for women.

D2. Belief that there should be a certain level of campaigning for women.
I leave what it is to campaign for women undefined to avoid excluding any views we’d want to call feminist.


Using D1 would allow us to call the nasty views discussed pseudo-feminist, using D2 we could call them extremist feminists. Either would allow AFOTC to classify herself as a feminist in order to make a political statement and neither should have any tendency to silence masculinists (in fact defining feminism this way gives a clear way to define masculinism).

“I'm all for talking to lots of people on subjects but you really just came off as "I don't get it so I'm going to ask my boyfriend and then I'll tell you what I think" Also I grew up in a household of genius. I don't care what your boyfriend's IQ is, and no one else on the internet really probably does either. I'll be interested in what he has to say, but not his IQ”

Actually I think Cass’ remark about my IQ was an attempt at wry humour on her part. Perhaps you only get that reading if you know her. In fact we were laughing at how her comment might sound to people when she told me she’d made it.

PS I typed this up last night but could not post it explaining why it does not address more recent posts.

17 comments:

  1. Due to the wall-to-wall italics, and the extremely long paragraphs, I find myself afflicted with both eyestrain and mental fatigue. I will try later to tackle this wall of text, probably by cutting and pasting it into a text editor, minus the italics, and broken up into short paragraphs at my own discretion. . ."

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  2. "1 declaring a political association,

    2.identifying oneself as a member of a group define by family resemblance, or

    3. it could be declaring one’s adherence to a particular ideology, world view, perspective, philosophical, political or moral position or something of that sort."



    I find the distinction between items 1 and 3 on this list difficult to grasp. It is oversubtle.

    Compare "declaring one's adherence to. . a political position" with "declaring a political association".

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  3. To be honest, I found all three too indistinguishable. I stopped reading after that.

    TL;DR.

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  4. The extremism is not "pseudo-feminist" because the people espousing these views are at the very TOP and CENTRE of the movement. The LOCUS of the movement is misandry. If you guys want to be gender egalitarians then that's fine, but that doesn't work with the 'feminist' label. Adopting that label signals that you are my enemy and an enemy of free men everywhere. It's like waving a swastika in my face.

    To quote myself,

    "These are the people who are representing you, and if you, a feminist, find yourself disagreeing with what you see written there, you must either drop the label 'feminist', or you must take great pains to qualify yourself by relentlessly bashing those who are misdirecting what you believe to be your cause. The only other choice is to endorse those words. There are no other options."

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  6. Personally, I am neither obligated, nor particularly inclined, to separate the wheat from the chaff. If any particular Feminist takes issue with being cast in the same light as 'those other Feminists', then tough titties.

    That label, that ideology, is based on the hatred of men, and the removal of male power. Other than that, there is very little to say about 'equality' in Feminism.

    For instance, AFOTC brings up the phrase 'my body, my choice', yet fails to see the hypocrisy in celebrating the assignation of rights to solely one sex (women) while denying men those same rights, based solely on the genetalia they possess. If Feminism was about equality, AT ALL, these issues wouldn't exist. I remind you that the LAW, not biology, is what makes men little more than second class citizens constantly under threat of indentured servitude every single time they have sex.

    Feminism is a Female-Supremacist hate movement. And I haven't seen much of an argument to dispute that, from any quarter (including 'educated Feminists').

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  7. "yet fails to see the hypocrisy in celebrating the assignation of rights to solely one sex (women) while denying men those same rights, based solely on the genetalia they possess."

    Are you one of the crazies who think men should be able to "abort" a child, in the way that no longer have responsibility for the child if they say they wanted it aborted? Or the ones who think they should be able to force a woman to carry through with a pregnancy she doesn't want because they want the "child"?

    "If any particular Feminist takes issue with being cast in the same light as 'those other Feminists', then tough titties."

    I don't think bitterly defending your position and refusing to believe you could be wrong is helpful in debate or in life.

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  8. Comment from the boyfriend-


    On the distinction between 1, 2 and 3 on my list. Maybe a toy hypothetical example will make this clear:

    Suppose in a high school somewhere a group students form a club The Anti-Home Work Group who claim that students are given too much homework, lobbies the school for more holidays and organises student boycotts of some assignments. The club is run by incredibly well organised, well groomed anti-intellectualists and every member has a club badge and a place in the club records. It also has a clear statement of its ideology:
    I1. Education should be designed to improve the welfare of students.
    I2. Too much homework is bad for the welfare of students.
    I3. Students get too much homework.
    I4. Students who believe I1-I3 have the power and responsibility to change this state of affairs. Suppose the term ‘AHWGer’ (pronounced AW-jer) becomes widely used. There are three ways it might be used.

    AWHG1. It might be used to refer to members of the club
    AWHG2. It might be used to refer to people who are like the typical members of the club or perhaps the leaders of the club.
    AWHG3. It might be used to refer to people who accept I1-I4.

    Someone could be an AWHGer on the first usage without believing I1-I4 though this we would expect to be rare and would probably involve stupidity, or dishonesty on their part. Also someone could be an AWHGer on this usage without being organised or anti-intellectualist.

    Someone could be an AWHGer on the second usage without being a member of the club or believing I1-I4. Though we should generally expect on AWHGer on this usage to believe most of I1-I4 and most likely endorse what the club does. Note on this usage someone who identifies as an AWHGer very probably should have something to say about anti-intellectualism since that is one respect in which people can be like members of AWHG.

    On the third usage someone could be an AWHGer without being anti-intellectualist or endorsing lobbying to have more holidays (assuming that endorsement of I1-I4 does not imply endorsement of lobbying for more holidays).

    I could go on and describe 8 different people who each fall under a distinct combination of these three notions but I shall leave that as an exercise.

    Hopefully I’ve said enough to clarify the difference between AWHG1-3. Of course they are supposed to correspond to 1-3 in my original post. The way to do this is to simply replace AWHG in the example with the feminist movement. Of course ‘the feminist movement’ is not as well-defined a term as ‘the AWHG’ and in particular it is not clear what is to count as being a member of the feminist movement. This isn’t a problem for Cass or me however, since we have suggested defining ‘feminism’ in terms of an independently specified political belief. There are plenty of people about who define feminism along similar lines and some aspects of ordinary usage of the term support this sort of definition. To help clarify the debate on the issue on how to define the word ‘feminism’ I shall list and label the points I have been arguing for:

    T1. Common usage of the term ‘feminism’ does not preclude a definition which makes feminism out to be a political belief or set of political beliefs.
    T2. In particular common usage does not preclude either D1 or D2 (of my OP) as definitions of ‘feminism’
    T3. It would facilitate communication of ideas if ‘feminism’ is defined as an independently specified belief or set of beliefs.
    T4. It is politically useful to define ‘feminism’ in such a way that people like Andrea Dworkin and Catherine Mackinnon do not count as feminists.
    T5. The best definition of ‘feminism’ all things considered is D1 (of my OP).

    T2 implies T1 but apart from that these theses are logically independent (although I take T2-T4 to provide strong support for T5). When arguing against me it would thus be helpful to say exactly which of these points you dispute.

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  10. Here, perhaps this article sums up your misandrist views.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1251868/Of-course-women-dont-want-male-pill--end-happy-little-accidents.html

    "A rather more common scenario — and one that is a constant on the parenting site Mumsnet — is a woman desperate for a first, second or third child with an unwilling and very determined man.

    This situation, especially if the woman senses time is running out, tends to cause not just sorrow and anguish, but also a sort of furious frustration. A sense that her human rights have been unfairly and unreasonably denied her."

    Yes - the right to a man's body, to his sperm, and to his money and resources - Apparently a WOMAN'S HUMAN RIGHT, UNREASONABLY DENIED TO HER if she has not managed to get pregnant.

    Do you endorse this? Seems like you would.

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  12. @ Snark

    I support men having contraception they are responsible for

    "Do you endorse this? Seems like you would."

    No, I don't endorse stealing sperm

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  13. "For instance, AFOTC brings up the phrase 'my body, my choice', yet fails to see the hypocrisy in celebrating the assignation of rights to solely one sex (women) while denying men those same rights, based solely on the genetalia they possess."

    I was not celebrating anything, merely pointing out an example of choice.

    If you have further issues with that statement can you direct them towards the appropriate entry. I would like to see this one return to the original topic.

    On that note, has anyone got any responses regarding Thomas' (the boyfriend) arguments?

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  14. Whether you like it or not, 'masculism' is THE correct term for the movement or political orientation. It is derived directly from the Latin noun, just like 'feminism', and unlike 'masculinism' which is derived from the Latin adjective. Wikipedia is flatly wrong to say that 'masculism' is a shortened form of 'masculinism'. I will be correcting this soon.

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  15. Thomas (the boyfriend) arguments are hair splitting, red herring and smoke screen.

    We, the Other Students whose lives and prospects are directly harmed here and now by policies lobbied for or supported by AHWG1, AHWG2 and AHWG3 all alike, have neither time nor resources for those fine distinctions. We fight the policies. If you get hurt because you are emotionally attached to the policies, tough crap, and if you aren't then This Is Not About You(TM).

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  16. "If you get hurt because you are emotionally attached to the policies, tough crap"

    Nobody stated anything of the sort.

    I will leave the rest to Thomas to defend.

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  17. "Whether you like it or not, 'masculism' is THE correct term for the movement or political orientation. It is derived directly from the Latin noun, just like 'feminism', and unlike 'masculinism' which is derived from the Latin adjective."

    This is a good point which I hadn't considered in calling 'masculism' an abbreviation. I still think 'masculinism' sounds nicer but the etymological ground for 'masculism' is a definite point in its favour.

    "We, the Other Students whose lives and prospects are directly harmed here and now by policies lobbied for or supported by AHWG1, AHWG2 and AHWG3 all alike, have neither time nor resources for those fine distinctions."

    The hair-splitting I'm doing is necessary because there need be no policy which all AHWGer1s, AHWGer2s and AHWGer3s support. For example suppose possibility AHWG2 were actual and that just by being incredibly well organised and well groomed while devaluing higher education someone could be labelled an AWHGer. Such a person might find it important to claim the title 'AHWGer' but deny support for the policies lobbied by the AHWG. Perhaps to show that there is no necessary connection between being an AHWGer on the usage that has been adopted in the society and supporting the sort of policies lobbied for by the AHWG. Similarly for possibility AHWG3 and even AHWG1 (though the scenario in the latter case would have to be a bit more complicated).

    "We fight the policies. If you get hurt because you are emotionally attached to the policies, tough crap, and if you aren't then This Is Not About You(TM)."

    Did you read the quotes I started my OP with? The dispute there was not about policies - it was about what arguments could be used as valid criticisms of Cass given that she had identified as a feminist. If you read the thread there you will notice that Cass did not even support the "policies" attributed to feminists, but the response was not 'Well this is not about you then'. If you think this should have been the response it seems that you do not care so much about the definitions of words, and all you should take from this thread is that Cass and I prefer a definition of 'feminism' along the lines of D2 (not that I speak for Cass of course).

    Further I'm not sure what you consider the analogue of "the policies" in the real world to be, but it seems to me that my argument for T4 is an argument about how to best fight this fight.

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