Anti-feminist anger, p2

[Lady Blackfish]

Left off talking about political correctness, triage, embarrassing feminist crazies, and all manner of other things.

Alexia, as I was saying, I find it utterly surprising that you think maternity leave and childcare are not on feminists' agendas. Are you dismayed that it is not on every feminist's agenda, and therefore you dislike the term "feminist"?

From an interview of iconic feminist Gloria Steinem (one of the most visible feminists in the US) by young feminist Julie Zeilinger:

We can learn from the women who have prevailed in other countries, and we can help those who have not. It's the common belief in America that despite all this nonsense in the media and the fact that women still aren't paid as much as men, we are the only "enlightened" country as far as women's rights go. In fact, we are one of the last. Take maternity leave. The United States does not have a system of pay for new mothers, let alone new fathers, while in Sweden both parents can split sixteen months of parental leave at 80% pay. Clearly, we have a lot to learn from our Nordic friends. Instead of convincing ourselves that we enlighten other countries, Americans should take a look at reality.

And I mean, Steinem's been saying this since the 70's. Hillary Clinton was known for making such issues important to her platforms, and kind of paid the price for self identifying as a feminist.

That one feminist is fighting for the right to wear male-coded clothing does not mean that they think that all women must wear it. When we get down to the particular applications in particular settings, ie should an office require only pants and shirt, no skirts etc, in the name of equality, that's obviously a legitimate arena for disagreement. But as I said, feminists disagree all the time, it seems a little odd to me to not consider the entire movement.

[Kalbear]

Alexia, as I was saying, I find it utterly surprising that you think maternity leave and childcare are not on feminists' agendas. Are you dismayed that it is not on every feminist's agenda, and therefore you dislike the term "feminist"?

Not Alexia, but this is a problem I face too, so I'll clarify my view on it.

I think that this is part of their agenda - or at least I hope so. However, having something that is so very trivial undermines the message and the messenger. I don't want to be associated with this group of people any more than I would conservatives (despite agreeing in large parts to the fiscally conservative message) or libertarians (despite agreeing in large part to the socially liberal parts of the message).

It's that association - the association of the extremist - that is problematic. It's that way in all sorts of facets, but it exists nonetheless.

And I think it's not just the notion that you can identify and even dislike male chauvinistic language. It's important to note and even try to change the underpinnings of the sexist culture, and making people aware of these things is useful. But to have such vitriol and such drive over such a trivial thing is troubling.

[Ser Reptitious]

TheKassi,

If you are unfamiliar with the term let me wiki it for you:

Where exactly did I say that I was unfamiliar with the term?

Wanting to change one word in the anthem to be inclusive to one particular group while ignoring all the other ways the song is linguistically exclusive is an example of the selective application of political correctness.

Um, no. Quite the opposite, in fact. Political correctness would be to advocate cleansing the entire text of the anthem of everything that could be deemed even remotely offensive by any group, whether such offence is real or imagined.

That is not what is happening here.

[Ser Reptitious]

Kalbear,

It's that association - the association of the extremist - that is problematic. It's that way in all sorts of facets, but it exists nonetheless.

You're absolutely right, but the unfortunate reality is that opponents of any particular movement will always point to the extremists among said movement (and any decent sized movement will inevitably include some extremists) in order to try to discredit it altogether. Short of constantly changing labels, how do you deal with this?

[Tempra]

Um, no. Quite the opposite, in fact. Political correctness would be to advocate cleansing the entire text of the anthem of everything that could be deemed even remotely offensive by any group, whether such offence is real or imagined.

That is not what is happening here.

Where did you get that notion from?

ETA: Are you saying that when Virginia voted to remove "retard" from the state law, but left "he/him" language in the Virginia Code, it was not because of political correctness?

[Kalbear]

Spend more time discrediting those extremists, for a start. Part of the issue is that feminism has had quite a few vocal and supported extremists who have dictated a lot of where feminism has gone in more recent time. The same is true for libertarianism to the point where the movement is utterly useless to me.

Leadership really is key here, and I think that for whatever reason feminism has not had a strong leader with a strong singular message in a long time. Possibly not ever. This lack of leadership and lack of a single message means that the messages that do come out tend to be more extreme and lack focus - and this alone allows for political enemies of the movement to define it as they choose to.

[TheKassi]

Um, no. Quite the opposite, in fact. Political correctness would be to advocate cleansing the entire text of the anthem of everything that could be deemed even remotely offensive by any group, whether such offence is real or imagined.

That is not what is happening here.

Did you miss the word selective?

[Lady Blackfish]

One problem IMO is that everything about the leader would become a template for the "right modern woman". It's hard to embody choice as a single person, if you see what I mean. Obviously I don't think you're really talking about having one sole leader, but people (it seems to me) get very defensive and nervous about feminists who focus on different issues.

But what, also, are we exactly talking about by "extremists" here? Radical feminism? Language neutrality? The language neutrality discussion seemed to be going along a couple different axes:

1) It's not a big enough injustice, focus on other things

2) It's not an injustice, and changing it would be unfair

These distinctions seem important to me, because we're either talking about this idea that feminism can only solve one problem at one time, or that this particular issue isn't a problem at all.

[Kalbear]

Sorry; leadership is probably a more accurate word instead of leader. One representative isn't a requirement, nor is a titular leader of it. But having...something that people could agree on would be a better choice.

As to feminist extremism, I'm talking about fighting the kinds of battles that are embodied by this sort of discussion; the ones that are both trivial and hard to sell. It's not that feminism can't fight multiple battles at once, but at the same time they can't fight every battle - and spending any political clout means it is being redirected elsewhere. Plus, it means that opponents can jump on this as an example of that silly feminism thing, making it harder to get more mainstream support.

So for me, I'd say it's more of 1. I don't really think it's a huge injustice and I'd rather it be brought up as an example rather than a dictatorial request, but it's certainly something to consider.

[Ser Reptitious]

Tempra,

Where did you get that notion from?

ETA: Are you saying that when Virginia voted to remove "retard" from the state law, but left "he/him" language in the Virginia Code, it was not because of political correctness?

So good to see you back in these threads buddy! I was starting to worry I would never get a response from you regarding my inquiry way back in post #41 of the previous thread. Does this mean I will get a response at last?

To answer your question above, I suppose you can deem just about every act to correct an injustice "political correctness". Giving women and racial minorities the right to vote was politically correct after all, no?

But if one wants to argue that changing the words "thy sons" in the Canadian national anthem is solely motivated by political correctness and absolutely nothing else, it sure seems strange that those other blatanly politically incorrect parts of the anthem are not at addressed at all!

[TheKassi]

But if one wants to argue that changing the words "thy sons" in the Canadian national anthem is solely motivated by political correctness and absolutely nothing else, it sure seems strange that those other blatanly politically incorrect parts of the anthem are not at addressed at all!

Thus the term selective. It is made politically correct from a point of view. Sort of the way founding fathers believed in freedom for all... from a particular point of view. In this case the point of view that defines all as white, judeo-christian, and male.

[Lady Blackfish]

You didn't use the word "leader", I did, so no apologies necessary. It's just that in discussions I've had, there's anxiety about the splintered faces of current feminism. People can agree that other people have the right to be themselves, but who gets to be the face that represents all of you, you know? That said, I don't think it's so dire, only that issues need to be framed more in terms of choice. But abandoning the movement while this is happening (and IMO it is happening) seems defeatist to me, I suppose.

I do think that any movement, every movement, has to pick their battles. However, I think feminism gets held accountable for its liabilities (whatever is being considered a liability at the current moment) more than a lot of others. Part of the problem (if you think that "feminism" should be fought for as a legit term) is that people don't realize that they already do support feminism, but they're requiring agreement on every aspect of the movement, which is just not true of any movement IMO. The difference is the history of acceptance, and I don't think feminism's bad image is solely due to its own merits.

See, I say it's also important to point out that the "silly feminism" thing has a long history of dismissiveness and sexism in it, and that is a really important battle. I would not make as big a deal out of an anthem as I would maternity leave, but the quickest way to achieve what I think you would want is to identify as a feminist and stir up talk about maternity leave instead. Political opponents can point to something as an embarrassing example, yes I agree, but that's there in other issues too.

[Ser Reptitious]

TheKassi,

Did you miss the word selective?

Ok, can you maybe clarify for me what point exactly you are trying to make here? Are you saying that the request to change "thy sons" in the Canadian anthem has nothing at all to do with feminism but is solely an attempt at political correctness, but not even consistent political correctness at that (since only one thing is being cherry-picked and all the other politically incorrect parts of the anthem are being deliberately ignored)?

[Tempra]

Tempra,

So good to see you back in these threads buddy! I was starting to worry I would never get a response from you regarding my inquiry way back in post #41 of the previous thread. Does this mean I will get a response at last?

Persistent bugger. See, e.g., MinDonner's and Peggy Leaf's posts in response to mine on the first page. I don't know whether I should be flattered or not that you hang on my every word (or lack thereof).

To answer your question above, I suppose you can deem just about every act to correct an injustice "political correctness". Giving women and racial minorities the right to vote was politically correct after all, no?

Political correctness is not per se wrong. That is why people usually say X is political correctness run amok.

But if one wants to argue that changing the words "thy sons" in the Canadian national anthem is solely motivated by political correctness and absolutely nothing else, it sure seems strange that those other blatanly politically incorrect parts of the anthem are not at addressed at all!

Do you have a point? Issues get fixed when certain groups scream loud enough. In the case of the O Canada, it was feminists who screamed foul. Not pacificists or atheists (though they were most vocal on CBC's message board).

[Kalbear]

However, I think feminism gets held accountable for its liabilities (whatever is being considered a liability at the current moment) more than a lot of others. Part of the problem (if you think that "feminism" should be fought for as a legit term) is that people don't realize that they already do support feminism, but they're requiring agreement on every aspect of the movement, which is just not true of any movement IMO. The difference is the history of acceptance, and I don't think feminism's bad image is solely due to its own merits.

I agree - and it's part of the sexism that it's actually fighting that causes this, sadly or amusingly enough.

What I think kills feminists is that they get very angry at this - that people can't see the obvious dismissal of feminist viewpoints as sexism - and don't anticipate it. They fight even harder, which makes it even more easy to dismiss them due to various cultural stereotypes. And that causes even further issues.

It's not fair or right, but it does occur. I think too often feminists do actions as if these things don't exist. Which is a noble thing to do, but it's not as effective as it could be.

The other issue is that a lot of the extremist views are...well, hugely extremist. There aren't many women, much less men, that will support statements like "I claim that rape exists any time sexual intercourse occurs when it has not been initiated by the woman, out of her own genuine affection and desire" or "Since marriage constitutes slavery for women, it is clear that the

women's movement must concentrate on attacking this institution. Freedom

for women cannot be won without the abolition of marriage". Those are both radical - very radical - views of feminism that aren't shared by all, but it's insane that they're even linked! That they are means that most of the feminist leadership didn't slam these enough ,didn't disassociate themselves enough.

And that meant others could paint the movement as being as represented by this as they were by anything else.

[Ser Reptitious]

Kalbear,

I think Lady Blackfish has already addressed the leadership issue, so I'll just quickly respond to this:

Spend more time discrediting those extremists, for a start. Part of the issue is that feminism has had quite a few vocal and supported extremists who have dictated a lot of where feminism has gone in more recent time. The same is true for libertarianism to the point where the movement is utterly useless to me.

I'm not disagreeing with you, by the way, but the problem I see is that if you spend too much time discrediting the extremists, you spend a lot of time on the defensive, and that is exactly what your opponents want. That is not to say that you shouldn't distance yourself from the extremists in your movement, but I think by and large a simple dismissal of their ideas should suffice. The burden shouldn't be on you to repeatedly prove that the extremists do not represent your point of view, it should be up to your opponents to demonstrate that the extremists have a significant following among the mainstream of the movement.

Another problem is that the mainstream media and the population at large will pay more attention to and discuss outrageous ideas being floated about, but they will hardly pay much attention as to whether the movement as a whole will disclaim those ideas.

[TheKassi]

Ok, can you maybe clarify for me what point exactly you are trying to make here? Are you saying that the request to change "thy sons" in the Canadian anthem has nothing at all to do with feminism but is solely an attempt at political correctness, but not even consistent political correctness at that (since only one thing is being cherry-picked and all the other politically incorrect parts of the anthem are being deliberately ignored)?

The idea behind the argument that the anthem should be changed is that the word 'sons' is insensitive and it makes a small percentage of Canadians feel excluded. The proposed fix is to make it gender neutral so that the language changes from exclusive to inclusive.

This is political correctness.

This logic however is only applied from a very narrow perspective. All the other ways in which the song could be defined as exclusive to a small percentage of Canadians are ignored. I mean come on, what about all the people who don't want their nation to command anything in them?

Thus the political correctness is applied selectively.

[Kalbear]

That is not to say that you shouldn't distance yourself from the extremists in your movement, but I think by and large a simple dismissal of their ideas should suffice. The burden shouldn't be on you to repeatedly prove that the extremists do not represent your point of view, it should be up to your opponents to demonstrate that the extremists have a significant following among the mainstream of the movement.

To be fair, they have had a significant following here and there, though it's not been particularly effective. That's another issue; for whatever reason feminism has attracted a lot people more attracted to the extremist viewpoint.

[needle]

Is anybody else a tiny bit bored with the canadian bloody national anthem?

That was three threads back, people!

*sigh* get back to it, then.

[Kalbear]

The real question should be why Canada has a national anthem. It's like Kentucky having a national anthem.