[Undead Dungeon Master]

Max the Mostly Mediocre, on May 20 2009, 14.44, said:

You don't see overt sexism, or you don't see sexism, period?

Overt sexism. I don't see anyone in the mainstream promoting the idea that women are inferior to men, or that men have a rightful dominion over women. June Cleaver is dead and buried.

Quote

We're going to have to agree to disagree then. The basic idea behind feminism (imo) is progress toward equality for women. Different people have different ideas on how to approach and solve issues within this framework; I see nothing wrong with allowing anyone to consider him or herself a feminist if they've an honest desire to see true equality between the genders.

Ah yes, progress towards an impossible goal. What does equality for women mean? Women have legal equality, there are no meaningful legal differences between men and women, with the possible exception of the barring of women from frontline combat positions (I have yet to meet the feminist willing to champion that cause).

So then you can't mean legal equality. But then what else is there? There can never be perfect equality between all people, unless we kill all but one person and then clone them a bunch. Because people are fundamentally different from one another, and given the freedom to succeed or fail, some will thrive in some ways and others will not, and the end results will always end up falling across a broad spectrum.

So then what? Statistical equality? We're only a non-sexist society if half of math professors are women? Do I really have to explain how silly that is? Or how totalitarian the society that achieves that will necessarily be? Do you want to live in a world where the state tells your daughter she must study auto-engineering because too few women are choosing to pursue careers as grease monkeys?

See, this is why I think feminism went off the rails. Legal equality was achieved, and legal equality is the only meaningful expression of equality. Equality by any other definition comes at the cost of human freedom, of choice.

Quote

Global South. As opposed to the Global North. Nothing to do with the United States.

Oh. Never heard the term. What exactly is the difference between that and the third world? Doesn't the term third world include the everything south of the equator? Given that the first world is the NATO countries, the second world is the (former) Soviet states, and the third world is everybody else...I think it does.

Quote

It's your middle class white privilege that makes it so that those people do not matter to you. Not all of us have that luxury.

No, I'm not talking about mattering to me, I mean mattering to society. As in the people who hold the reins of power have embraced feminism. I mean hell, even an idiot conservative redneck jackass like Bushie loaded up his cabinet with women. There is no chance that an openly sexist person will achieve meaningful power in our society. Look at what happened to Larry Summers.

Quote

What's "theirs"? What's "ours"? Hint: you're making some assumptions about your audience here wink.gif But yeah, I agree that the last thing we want is those people over there, like cross-town, coming and telling us what issues define our feminist struggle.

What? You mean everyone on the internet isn't American? Dammit. I miss the old internet, where you could reliably assume everyone was an American man, even the women. ;)

Quote

That's actually Woman on the Edge of Time. The beginning is awful, but it does kind of redeem itself as they really get into the future world where babies are all incubated, people all live separately, and there is no marriage.

That's the one! So basically the utopian future she imagined was A Brave New World? That's kind of creepy.

Quote

ETA: And I should add that there are plenty of people focusing on gender in other disciplines who are adamantly against the interdisciplinary program called "women's studies." It has no method, nothing holding it together as an academic discipline, unlike biology. So, in all fairness, please don't base what feminism is on what the most radical, least intelligent people studying it have to say about. It would be like saying intelligent design theorists are the leading experts on metaphysics.

Ah, see, now here you and I are thinking the same thing but seeing things from a different perspective. I see it as feminism has escape the movement and become the mainstream. "Everyone" is a feminist now, yeah? That was, of course, the movements goal, to change the mainstream.

But it's like Harvey Dent says in The Dark Knight, you either die fighting or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. And this is what has happened to feminism the movement. Having won its major battles, and influenced the world so greatly that inevitably the small problems will sort themselves out, the movement simply didn't have much appeal to most women.

Like I have this friend, Celine, who is 23. She does not consider herself a feminist at all, and thinks feminism is a bad joke. But she's not some wilting flower who thinks men should rule the world. She assumes she is the equal of men, but she has internalized it so deeply that it isn't even something she consciously thinks about. She is feminist, she is in fact exactly what the feminists of my mother's generation wanted, a woman who has lived her entire life never questioning her right to have it all and live her life on her terms. Most of the women I know are like that, strong and powerful and self-assured and completely disinterest in feminism, which to them just seems like less capable women making excuses for why they fail. I mean, they are all feminists in a very real sense, but the label to them doesn't mean empowerment, it means wallowing in victimhood. Yes, they know they experience sexism, but their reaction to it is the same as my reaction to it when I experience it: to laugh at the offensive person and go on with their life.

But the movement, the movement more and more becomes a refuge for those who want an excuse to explain why they fail. For those looking for someone to blame for their problems other than themselves. For causeless rebels seeking windmills to tilt at.

What is the goal of the feminist movement now? A society where no one marries, everyone is born in a tube, and we all live separately? A society where we have no gender, where being prettier than the next girl is an offense to all women, where we all wear the same clothes and earn the same money and do the same jobs and take drugs so we can be the same amount of happy?

The Hell of Harrisson Bergenon?

To most women, I think these goals sound crazy. They sure sound crazy to me. And more importantly, they require changing society in a way that society cannot be changed. The Soviets tried to force the world the change to match their ideals -- and they were noble ideals! -- but look at the result. Would the feminist movement be any different? When push came to shove, and some measurable portion of society said "F* off, we wanna get married and experience natural childbirth!" would they cede the point or force the issue?

Reasonable women recognize that they must cede the point. Because to do otherwise would require an assault on human freedom, on individual choice, and would thus become a totalitarianism, a new fascism. And so more and more, reasonable women abandon the movement. They pursue other dreams, and bring their new feminist consciousness with them. They become the people you are discussing, the people who study gender -- not in a vacuum (or worse, an echo chamber), but as part of a grander discipline. Law, science, philosophy.

Not to get all Hegelian, but if patriarchy is the thesis, and feminism the antithesis, then these women (and men) are the synthesis, the new society rising from the old. Not feminist, but post-feminist. Those who are no longer fighting a battle to change society, but instead becoming the leaders of society.

But then who are the Feminists? They are those who remain in the movement, the movement with no goal, no direction, just a need to validate its own existence. In another generation, they'll be laughably irrelevant and sad.

PS to Nous: New thread! New Thread! Objectivism = massive topic drift!

[Undead Dungeon Master]

Oh damn, I just can't let it slide.

Quote

It is fascinating how you, considering your philosophical views, make such absolute claims about the psychology of Objectivists, while Ayn Rand, an arch-advocate of objective, knowable reality, considered it improper and nonobjective to pass psychological judgment on a person based on his ideas.

But it's not surprising at all that someone with ideas as crazy as Rand's would object to being psychoanalyzed via her writings. It can only make her look bad.

Like, anyone think that the fact that Rand was involved in a bitter failed marriage to a communist bureaucrat has any part in her later fanatical hatred of communism? Is Dagny Tabert (or whatever her name is) just an Mary Sueified Author Insert of Rand so that she can write capitalist fanfic where she gets to nail a series of increasingly absurdly self-reliant geniuses of capitalist He-Men?

Why are there no ugly capitalists in Ayn Rand's work?

Also, neither of the pages you linked to really support your claim. There really just projections of Rand's own flaws. Her entire philosophy is based on arguemnts from intimidation and psychoanalyzing -- if you support any amount of socialism, you hate truth and seek death! Right? Wrong.

Quote

Objectivism is not predicated on condemnation of compassion and community. If I'm wrong about this, it should be easy enough for you to find an Ayn Rand quote to back up your assertion. Which you will not be able to do.

Should I just quote the entirety of the Virtue of Selfishness to you?

It's all horsepoop. Altruism is the natural expression of compassion and community. It is not, as Rand so ridiculously claims "self-sacrifice—which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction—which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good."

But here is the best example of how much Ayn Rand Does Not Get It:
"I regard compassion as proper only toward those who are innocent victims, but not toward those who are morally guilty. If one feels compassion for the victims of a concentration camp, one cannot feel it for the torturers. If one does feel compassion for the torturers, it is an act of moral treason toward the victims."

To which I counter with:
"Compassion compels us to reach out to all living beings, including our so-called enemies, those people who upset or hurt us. Irrespective of what they do to you, if you remember that all beings like you are only trying to be happy, you will find it much easier to develop compassion towards them. Usually your sense of compassion is limited and biased. We extend such feelings only towards our family and friends or those who are helpful to us. People we perceive as enemies and others to whom we are indifferent are excluded from our concern. That is not genuine compassion. True compassion is universal in scope. It is accompanied by a feeling of responsibility. To act altruistically, concerned only for the welfare of others, with no selfish or ulterior motives, is to affirm a sense of universal responsibility." - The 14th Dalai Lama

Eat that Ayn Rand! Seriously, at the end of the day Ayn Rand was a bitter, unhappy woman who died miserable and alone, while the Dalai Lama, through a life of devoted compassion to others, is one of the happiest and kindest people in the world at this moment -- and he has WAY more reason to be bitter than Rand ever did. Guess who I'm listening to.

But seriously. New thread.

This post has been edited by Undead Dungeon Master: 20 May 2009 - 11:26 PM

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

Undead Dungeon Master, on May 20 2009, 21.06, said:

Overt sexism. I don't see anyone in the mainstream promoting the idea that women are inferior to men, or that men have a rightful dominion over women. June Cleaver is dead and buried.

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are alive and wel--er. You know what I mean.

[Red Sun]

UDM,

Undead Dungeon Master, on May 20 2009, 23.39, said:

My big problem here is that by making the argument you are making, you kill all possibly of conversation about feminism. Because the word then refers to nothing, just a nebulous cloud of random ideas had by random people with no connecting. You can't discuss something that vague in any meaningful way, so to discuss feminism we have to first have some solid idea of what feminism is.

I guess I see "feminism" more as a political movement to raise awareness about structural injustices and for a fair treatment of men and women than as an academic discipline, but I think that the political movement can and did have influences on the academia. However, gender theory is only one philosophy that is influenced by feminism, it's certainly not the only area.

For example, in my discipline (history of the middle ages), I see inputs from feminism in researches concerning female spaces, groups and their roles in society, because many of those studies show that even in unequal societies as we can find them between the 6th and the 15th century, women did have their places, functions and interests. And this is a recent field of research, because in the historical studies of the 19th and early 20th century, dominated by men, the contribution of women were simply not considered interesting or valuable. So, this new impulse in history is a very positive result of feminism, and I'm not speaking about generalising theories but of positivist studies that are based on sources and evidences and are rooted in the classical historical methods. Most of those studies will only have a little footnote concerning the academic "gender theories", because in most cases, their methods don't fit with historical methods.

ETA: What Raidne said was also most excellent.

I would consider everyone who said that women should not learn to defend themselves as a moron. However, if those people pretend to speak for all women or pretend to be the voice of feminism, that's silly.

This post has been edited by Red Sun: 21 May 2009 - 01:09 AM

[Triskele]

I take all of my cues on feminism from Camile Paglia. She is smarter than everyone.

[Nous]

Undead Dungeon Master, on May 20 2009, 23.25, said:

But it's not surprising at all that someone with ideas as crazy as Rand's would object to being psychoanalyzed via her writings. It can only make her look bad.

She actually had a pretty good argument why, in general, one shoudn't judge person's psychological motives from his or her ideas. I happen to think she held her position because she thought it is right, and not because of psychological flaws of her own.

Quote

Like, anyone think that the fact that Rand was involved in a bitter failed marriage to a communist bureaucrat has any part in her later fanatical hatred of communism? Is Dagny Tabert (or whatever her name is) just an Mary Sueified Author Insert of Rand so that she can write capitalist fanfic where she gets to nail a series of increasingly absurdly self-reliant geniuses of capitalist He-Men?

Since she never was involved in a marriage to a communist bureaucrat, it couldn't have. The latter, I doubt.

Quote

Why are there no ugly capitalists in Ayn Rand's work?

There are some. Howard Roark, for example, is described as having a face like drill sergeant or a chain-gang convict.

Quote

Also, neither of the pages you linked to really support your claim. There really just projections of Rand's own flaws. Her entire philosophy is based on arguemnts from intimidation and psychoanalyzing -- if you support any amount of socialism, you hate truth and seek death! Right? Wrong.

Yes, that's wrong. It's also not Rand's position.

Quote

Should I just quote the entirety of the Virtue of Selfishness to you?

It's all horsepoop. Altruism is the natural expression of compassion and community. It is not, as Rand so ridiculously claims "self-sacrifice�€�which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction�€�which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good."

Rand's definition is the one that agrees with Auguste Comte's, who coined the word, and to whom altruism meant living for others.

So by Objectivism being predicated on rejection of compassion and community, you mean it rejects the kind of "true", unlimited compassion advocated by Dalai Lama? Rejecting compassion in some cases does not mean your ethical system is "predicated on condemnation of compassion".

Quote

But seriously. New thread.

That would mean a level of commitment I'm not ready for. Actually, this will be my last post on this thread; try not to tempt me too much. I advise anyone interested in finding out what Objectivism actually stands for to read the overview on Ayn Rand society page, or to browse the lexicon I linked to earlier.

[Errant Bard]

Undead Dungeon Master, on May 21 2009, 06.06, said:

So then you can't mean legal equality. But then what else is there? There can never be perfect equality between all people, unless we kill all but one person and then clone them a bunch.

It seems to me that there is still a big step between having laws and internalizing the behaviour.

It is not because there are some vague laws that women are still not more likely to cook while men watch football on TV. One thing that shocked me a few years past, on that subject, was a study on MMORPG behaviours (source) where it appeared that there were significant differences in other player's reaction depending on the gender of the avatar (despite the difference being purely cosmetic) : females were more protected, helped and forgiven while males were given more responsibilities, put more to the frontlines and had their opinion hold more sway, and that was the young generation. It seems to me that this sort of gender-specific behaviour modification is not equivalent to those induced by individual differences: it's not a reaction to the individual but to a stereotype of a group comprising 50% of the population.

But then again, even on this board, the suggestion that men abandon their preprogrammed "chivalry" mentality was pretty controversial, iirc. There is always this duality between equality and victimhood talk whenever a "feminist" thread arises. This cannot change with just laws.

[Undead Dungeon Master]

Max the Mostly Mediocre, on May 20 2009, 21.41, said:

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are alive and wel--er. You know what I mean.

They're also way, way outside the mainstream. Seriously, walk up to the average conservative christian and start acting like either of those guys represents them, and they'll insist they don't. Because they don't!

Those guys represent a very small, dwindling audience of very old people.

[mormont]

Undead Dungeon Master, on May 21 2009, 05.06, said:

Overt sexism. I don't see anyone in the mainstream promoting the idea that women are inferior to men, or that men have a rightful dominion over women. June Cleaver is dead and buried.

But overt sexism is not the only type. Winning the battle against any type of overt prejudice is relatively straightforward. But what happens when you do that is not that prejudice completely disappears. Instead, , much of what was formerly overt becomes covert. You're right that most people - not everyone - in the public eye would now shy away from making overtly sexist claims. You're wrong if you think this means that the struggle is over. One could compare such a stance to Bush standing on that aircraft carrier and declaring 'Mission Accomplished'.

Quote

Ah yes, progress towards an impossible goal. What does equality for women mean? Women have legal equality, there are no meaningful legal differences between men and women, with the possible exception of the barring of women from frontline combat positions (I have yet to meet the feminist willing to champion that cause).

If you want to argue that equality is an impossible goal, you'll need to define your terms better. As it is, you appear to be indulging in a fallacious false dilemma: either there is legal discrimination, or every individual is exactly equal. Complete nonsense. Again, let's use a comparison. After the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, were all races equal? Legally they were, so according to you there was no more problem. After all, they can't expect perfect equality, can they? So the devastating poverty of the townships is... what? Not a reflection of racial inequality, certainly. Not according to you. ;)

edit for clarity

This post has been edited by mormont: 21 May 2009 - 03:43 AM

[Lyanna Stark]

Undead Dungeon Master:

A couple of things:


I am neither American, born middle-class not have I taken gender studies at University.

As I am neither (well, I have a MSc, but I approach this from a science perspective) I can tell you that few people take the Academic gender studies women seriously. Most of them are nutjobs and do more harm than good. There are a few exceptions.

However, Raidne mentioned some of the "hard" issues, where stuff like politics, divorce legislation, other legislation regarding "women's issues" like domestic violence are dealt with etc. Feminism has always been far more political than academic, and frankly, most feminists I know ignore most of the Academics and find them tiresome. Instead they focus on political issues, to work on issues within the work life, etc. Things that matter and effect our every day life.

To me, it seems really odd to think that the Gender studies women are the ones forming and leading feminism, since few of them care about things that most working women deal with. Instead, to me the Leaders of Feminism are the ones championing new and more stringent legislation regarding work life discrimination, domestic violence, divorce legislation, rights for parents, support for working mothers and single mothers, sex education, abortion rights and so on.

As for everyone being middle-class, speak for yourself. :) We don't seem to have that extreme urge in Europe to try and force everyone into the middle-class, or at least it serves no purpose. I am making slightly above the average salary in the UK, and I barely consider myself middle class. None of my parents were University educated, as were none of my Parents-in-law. I'm not afraid to say I have a working class background, it's not shameful. And yes, you'll find other issues among working class women and working class families, which are EXTREMELY far removed from the aloof gender studies so called researches, but more important. Working class women don't normally have the level of education, nor the social protection that middle class and upper class women have. They are more likely to end up in unequal relationships or as vulnerable single mothers.

Third world feminism is also very much needed. There is also the issue if immigrants from third world countries having issues with western equality and how that should be treated in the best way.

All of these issues and situations will often perpetrate sexism to future generations, and here it is important to act, important to conduct research and important to lay down money and resources in order for this not to happen.

In my eyes, feminism is still needed. Not only for the above reasons, but also for average, middle-class women. You think most men are onboard the equality boat: I beg to differ. This is not only based on my experience, but many of my female friends' as well. Maybe American men are extremely equal, but European men as a group (I have lived and worked in two European countries) still have a long way to go. Perhaps it is because I have worked mainly in the technology sector, and while it is often welcoming to women, you can also end up in some really, really odd situations.

As Errant Bard mentions, in order to have internalised behaviour, we need something else first. We need legislation, we need broad consensus that what we do is morally right.

You claim feminism and its goals are almost universally internalised with people, I KNOW for a fact it is not. :)

Quote

Like I have this friend, Celine, who is 23. She does not consider herself a feminist at all, and thinks feminism is a bad joke. But she's not some wilting flower who thinks men should rule the world. She assumes she is the equal of men, but she has internalized it so deeply that it isn't even something she consciously thinks about. She is feminist, she is in fact exactly what the feminists of my mother's generation wanted, a woman who has lived her entire life never questioning her right to have it all and live her life on her terms. Most of the women I know are like that, strong and powerful and self-assured and completely disinterest in feminism, which to them just seems like less capable women making excuses for why they fail.

Not at all, it just means she has listened to bad PR and doesn't know what feminism means. Can I recommend a dictionary? The fact that she lives like a feminist but still rejects it just makes me think she is uneducated, sorry.

As for us "uncapable women" making excuses...... :rolleyes:

You really ought to stay a bit longer on this board and read some of the rape threads ("She asked for it"), the Bakker threads ("Women are metaphysically inferior according to the author and extremely oppressed in the series, yet a lot of male readers don't see the sexism as anything to react to") or the Women in Fantasy and Sci-Fi threads ("I don't read stuff by female authors, they don't write anything I am interested in"). Or maybe try all the Sansa and Catelyn hate threads? There are numerous. Not that internet forums are normally representative for the Real World, but it is a distinctive trend, especially since this is not a special interest forum like Childfree or any of the other nutjob forums.

This post has been edited by Lyanna Stark: 21 May 2009 - 03:56 AM

[Raidne]

Undead Dungeon Master, on May 21 2009, 00.06, said:

But then who are the Feminists? They are those who remain in the movement, the movement with no goal, no direction, just a need to validate its own existence. In another generation, they'll be laughably irrelevant and sad.

PS to Nous: New thread! New Thread! Objectivism = massive topic drift!

Nah, I'm a feminist - the people who cried foul when the Supreme Court gutted equal pay by changing the statute of limitation rules and supported the Act correcting it that just passed when we finally got a President who's a Democrat. That wasn't last decade, that was this year.

We're classic liberal feminists. We're not as exciting as the radicals and the Pagila's (Trisk, if you really like that woman, I don't think we can be friends anymore), but we're still the majority of feminists.

[potsherds]

Uh. What Lyanna said. And Mormont. And Errant Bard.

This post has been edited by potsherds: 21 May 2009 - 09:40 AM

[Bellis]

Undead Dungeon Master, on May 20 2009, 22.06, said:

No, I'm not talking about mattering to me, I mean mattering to society. As in the people who hold the reins of power have embraced feminism. I mean hell, even an idiot conservative redneck jackass like Bushie loaded up his cabinet with women. There is no chance that an openly sexist person will achieve meaningful power in our society. Look at what happened to Larry Summers.

Sorry, couldn't let this pass. I don't want to get into a debate about whether or how very sexist Larry Summers is (which is quite debatable). But you have picked an unfortunate example - last I heard, he had a pretty important position in the Obama administration. Link

[denstorebog]

Quote

There is no chance that an openly sexist person will achieve meaningful power in our society.

:bang:

Silvio Berlusconi wants a word with you over in the corner.

Danish study from last year shows that you are speaking out of your ass - people with sexist tendencies are likely to earn something like 20% more than the rest. Open sexism is not only common in power circles dominated by white, middle age to senior males, it's often also part of the bonding. It carries on the cycle since it puts the same white males in the position of selecting who gets promoted - and so it goes.

At first, I thought you showed some promise and sense. Now you've just degenerated into the usual tripe of willingly wearing blinders so you can feel good about life. No sexism in mainstream media? No sexism among people in power? Blah. Next.

Quote

Legal equality was achieved, and legal equality is the only meaningful expression of equality.

What the hell does legal equality even mean as long as it's not properly enforced?

This post has been edited by denstorebog: 21 May 2009 - 10:38 AM

[Undead Dungeon Master]

mormont, on May 21 2009, 01.35, said:

But overt sexism is not the only type. Winning the battle against any type of overt prejudice is relatively straightforward. But what happens when you do that is not that prejudice completely disappears. Instead, , much of what was formerly overt becomes covert. You're right that most people - not everyone - in the public eye would now shy away from making overtly sexist claims. You're wrong if you think this means that the struggle is over. One could compare such a stance to Bush standing on that aircraft carrier and declaring 'Mission Accomplished'.

And that right there is where my big break with feminism comes, that's the point where feminism becomes scary. Because how does one demonstrate covert sexism? How does one prove its existence? How does one defend oneself from the claim that one if engaging in covert sexism?

This is why I abandoned feminist forums. Because I was accused of misogyny, of covert sexism, every time I disagreed with an argument. Not by everyone, but every time I disagreed with anyone, there was always someone there to accuse me of being a covert sexist.

For example, Raidne noted that she had never realized until I mentioned it that some women react to women's studies programs by becoming very reactionary misandrists. Now, it's a real credit to Raidne that she not only recognized the truth in that, but recognized it in herself. The ratio of feminist-identifying women who have agreed with that observation compared to the number who have accused me of engaging in covert sexism (usually labeled misogyny) is about 1:10, favoring the hostile reaction.

In the pseudo-religion of Discordianism there exist a concept called the Law of Fives. "The Law of Fives states simply that: All things happen in fives, or are divisible by or are multiples of five, or are somehow directly or indirectly appropriate to 5...The Law of Fives is never wrong."

The trick to the Law of Fives, the thing that makes it never wrong, is that it is dependent on the imagination of the person seeking to prove it. For example, the number 8 is appropriate to 5 because 2 to the power of 3 is 8 and 2 plus 3 is 5. This is how the Law of Fives works. Or you could take my age, 33. 33 is 2 threes and 2 plus 3 is 5. It really is never wrong, given a flexible enough imagination.

Covert sexism is a lot like the Law of Fives, but it tends to rely less on imagination and more on what Salvador Dali called the paranoid-critical method. The paranoid-critical method is a way of looking at the world for secret meaning and symbolism, which Dali used in his art. Feminists do this too when they search out for covert sexism, actively interrogating their surroundings, searching for signs and symbols. Some people are really gifted at this, and can making very cogent and powerful arguments that a thing -- a song, a show, a book, a political position, etc. -- is actually just veiled sexism. Other people completely suck at this, and the worst see sexism in every gesture, in every word.

You can compare covert sexism to covert satanism. Ozzy Osborne's music contains covert satanism, just about anyone can see that. You have to be a special sort of paranoid to see covert satanism in Harry Potter. If you really go off the deep end, maybe you too can be like far right Christian Texe Marrs and see covert satanism in new age music and self-esteem boosting programs for schoolchildren.

Quote

If you want to argue that equality is an impossible goal, you'll need to define your terms better.

But my argument is that equality is an impossible goal because the term is nebulous and vague. If the term could be defined better, then it wouldn't be an impossible goal. You can't achieve something you can't define, and no one seems to want to define equality. I think the reality is that if one wants to argue that equality is an goal to strive for, then the person making that argument has to start by defining what equality means.

Quote

As it is, you appear to be indulging in a fallacious false dilemma: either there is legal discrimination, or every individual is exactly equal. Complete nonsense.

Y HELLO THAR STRAWMAN!

I very strongly disagree with your summation of my argument on the grounds that it makes me look like a total nimrod and idiot, and I don't even really understand how anyone could suggest such a thing with a straight face. You are correct, what you just said is complete nonsense, but that isn't remotely what I argued.

Quote

Again, let's use a comparison. After the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, were all races equal? Legally they were, so according to you there was no more problem. After all, they can't expect perfect equality, can they? So the devastating poverty of the townships is... what? Not a reflection of racial inequality, certainly. Not according to you. ;)

First of all, you've changed the subject from feminism in America/Europe to racism in South Africa. What's up with that? Sexism and racism are not the same thing, and cannot be used interchangeably. They have completely different consequences. I really think it's incredibly lazy to treat racism and sexism as entirely interchangeable concepts.

Race is inherited, sex is not. Thus if a society prevents one race from accumulating wealth and/or steals the product of their labor (ex: white oppression of blacks in America), then over a period of generations that racial group will fall deeper and deeper into poverty. Simply eliminating legal inequalities won't suddenly make all those people rich.

Doesn't work like that with sex. Centuries of preventing women from accumulating property through sexist laws doesn't affect women's ability to accumulate wealth once those laws are removed, because women are not a race. Rich people have daughters, poor people have daughters. There has never been a period in history in any nation anywhere where women were only allowed to marry others of their own sex and denied the right to property, thus being unable to pass on generational wealth to their children. Because duh, women can't have children with each other. Biology does not work that way.

Second, let me turn that question back at you. Can they expect perfect equality? It seems entirely reasonable to say they can't. How could that be achieved? What would it mean? Define perfect equality.

[Lyanna Stark]

Quote

Doesn't work like that with sex. Centuries of preventing women from accumulating property through sexist laws doesn't affect women's ability to accumulate wealth once those laws are removed, because women are not a race.

Good grief.

Somebody needs to read a bit of Simone de Beauvoir methinks. :)

Quote

But my argument is that equality is an impossible goal because the term is nebulous and vague. If the term could be defined better, then it wouldn't be an impossible goal. You can't achieve something you can't define, and no one seems to want to define equality.

Recommendation: de Beauvoir. She did define it quite well in transcendence, which in turn has numerous implications, of course.
Unless you mean from a political point of view, in which case I have to wonder what you mean with "no one seems to want to define" as there are a lot of issues being fought for this very moment.

Quote

I very strongly disagree with your summation of my argument on the grounds that it makes me look like a total nimrod and idiot, and I don't even really understand how anyone could suggest such a thing with a straight face.

I don't think it is a strawman at all, to me it seems perfectly valid.

Quote

Second, let me turn that question back at you. Can they expect perfect equality? It seems entirely reasonable to say they can't. How could that be achieved? What would it mean? Define perfect equality.

Your way of using pronouns makes my eyes hurt. "They" indeed. Recommendation: More de Beauvoir.

This post has been edited by Lyanna Stark: 21 May 2009 - 11:17 AM

[ljkeane]

Undead Dungeon Master, on May 21 2009, 16.57, said:

Race is inherited, sex is not. Thus if a society prevents one race from accumulating wealth and/or steals the product of their labor (ex: white oppression of blacks in America), then over a period of generations that racial group will fall deeper and deeper into poverty. Simply eliminating legal inequalities won't suddenly make all those people rich.

Just because women are not all reduced to poverty as a result of centuries of sexism does not mean that there are immediately no barriers to women's success as soon as overt sexism is declared illegal.

I'm not saying that all women are subject to covert discrimination but I don't think it is too much of a leap to say that centuries of women not being permitted to work in certain fields and generally being assumed to be inferior might mean that there are still some areas were sexism even if it is not overt might occur.

This post has been edited by ljkeane: 21 May 2009 - 11:37 AM

[Ran]

Okay, reopening this one since there's a good argument that people can have this discussion in a constructive way that falls within the general use guidelines of the forum. Three quick points:

Discuss the arguments put forward, and not the poster putting them forward. If you find your post features a substantial section about another member of the forum as a means of trying to cut down their arguments, edit it or don't post it.

If you can't find yourself able to read the thread without getting annoyed enough to come in snarking, flaming, or otherwise not raising the level of discourse, don't read the thread.

And going on about whom you do or do not have on ignore is just pointless. Do not do it.

Failure to follow the above will lead to temporary suspension of posting ability.

So, feel free to post here if you've something to say on the discussion, and if all goes well a continuation thread will be okay.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

Mods are such killjoys.

Undead Dungeon Master, on May 21 2009, 01.00, said:

Those guys represent a very small, dwindling audience of very old people.

Could be. I was using them as shorthand for the entire crowd that goes in for things like the Left Behind series, which...is larger than a small dwindling bunch of old people. ETA: for example, the Southern Baptists, fifteen million strong, who 'overwhelmingly' voted to ban female pastors.

This post has been edited by Max the Mostly Mediocre: 23 May 2009 - 04:35 AM

[Thor85]

I'm a werefeminist actually. I turn into a total male feminist when I'm first dating a girl. Then when I get comfortable with her I go back to my normal asshole self. Is that weird?

This post has been edited by Thor85: 23 May 2009 - 09:25 AM