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BarbarianElephant posted:I wonder how long it is before I've posted so often that I annoy someone and am not a whiny newbie baby anymore Well I want to say thank you to both you and TinyBrontosaurus for how welcoming you have been. 
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Dec 29, 2016 19:27
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Hmmm. I told you all to be very cautious about this discussion on TERFs, and I forgot to qualify that with "trans-exclusionary radfem" is the pejorative for them. Personally, I barely consider them feminists, but that's just me. There are many shades of radical feminism, and even a lot of the old school radfems like Dworkin, MacKinnon, et al. advocated for trans-inclusivity. You have to bear in mind that the endgame of radical feminism isn't say, being radicalized; rather it's an advocation for the radical realignment of society and the immediate end to male dominance and patriarchy. But again, this is very broadly speaking, as radfem is itself very broad. Anyway, my point being please don't take the pejorative on its face. I think it's fair to say that most of us in this thread and in the real world view TERFs for what they are: a hate group attempting to co-opt feminism.
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Dec 29, 2016 19:35
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Eimi posted:Well I want to say thank you to both you and TinyBrontosaurus for how welcoming you have been. Aww, thanks 
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Dec 29, 2016 19:38
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The core tenet of radical feminism, the one thing that defines what makes it "radical" as opposed to just "feminism" is the belief that reform within existing societal/cultural structures is impossible. Those systems reinforce male dominance by their nature and purpose. That's the one blanket statement you can make about radical feminism. Everything else depends on the individual or group.
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Dec 29, 2016 19:41
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FactsAreUseless posted:Popular theory is that it's like three or four lurkers who spend hundreds of dollars, but we have no way of knowing because lmao. It's like how the people who vote on threads are never the people who post in them. For another example see how this thread is already rated "poo poo' while the men's version of the thread, which is just a half-dozen men going "no take, only throw" over and over again doesn't have enough votes to be rated at all.
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Dec 29, 2016 19:43
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FactsAreUseless posted:The core tenet of radical feminism, the one thing that defines what makes it "radical" as opposed to just "feminism" is the belief that reform within existing societal/cultural structures is impossible. Those systems reinforce male dominance by their nature and purpose. That's the one blanket statement you can make about radical feminism. Everything else depends on the individual or group. Right! Exactly! Hence why the discussion that radfems are transphobic isn't necessarily productive.
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Dec 29, 2016 19:44
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stone cold posted:Right! Exactly!
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Dec 29, 2016 19:46
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Ooops I missed there was a feminism thread. Now I want to respond to everything. EVERYTHING!!BarbarianElephant posted:I find this insight very valuable. This often comes up when women complain about something in the context of internet abuse. Something like "Everyone gets flamed on the internet! Grow a thicker skin or take a break from the internet!" Without realizing that one nasty message a day is *very* different than 500 vile, threatening messages every day. The content of the abuse is different too. I can't find it, but there was some article from a dude married to a fellow reporter/blogger/whatever, and they compared the kind of flaming/criticism they got. Dude's responses were all about the content of the article he wrote and how he was dead wrong and why. Lady's responses were all "loving oval office I'll kill you" and poo poo like that. Very little about the actual content of the article. Defenestration posted:The doctor thing is a serious loving issue. Like how women's heart attacks present differently than men's, and women's pain is more likely to be dismissed as attention seeking or not that bad. Ugh yes. My husband and I share a doctor who is really nice but when I go to her about something - say heartburn - that I have been treated for in the past and am pretty familiar with, I get a huge lecture on what exactly that is and the mechanism of how it works and how to treat it and I'm like "yes thank you, treatment please." (Note: this was a few years ago before omeprazole and other poo poo was OTC) My husband had a similarly minor thing that he went in for and I was like "how was your lecture?" and he was like "what lecture? I told her about X and she said ok and prescribed me some medication." When I came in, it was like I was misinformed or something and needed to be educated. When he went in, it just was. Because he said so. No fair. proletarian_pixie posted:Rationally, I am aware that it is unreasonable to expect people who are socialized female to behave in these same ways after society has taught them the opposite their whole life. Yet there is still a part of me that resents it when assigned-female-at-birth people don't act these ways. To give a concrete example: in my experience with organizing spaces, I've sometimes found out after the fact that something I said or did bothered a woman I was working with, and rather than telling me so, they simply disengaged from the space. This actually may have played a significant role in the collapse of a socialist organization I tried to help launch at my university. Obviously there are good reasons why AFAB people would choose this course of action--AMAB people aren't known for being good at taking criticism. We have the tendency to retaliate, emotionally and rhetorically if not physically. Yet at the same time, I still feel angry that they made a choice to simply stop working with me rather than telling me what I did wrong so we could move forward together. Yeah ok like this is kind of the catch-22 here. You bothered someone, didn't pick up on it at the time, and are now angry that you didn't get a chance to advocate for yourself. Well - she was right then. You are angry now. She didn't want to deal with that. If she had tried to talk to you, you most likely would have had an angry response, even if you made a conscious effort to shove it down and be cool. Not like you can really control initial emotional responses, so not your fault really, but still very uncomfortable. She probably would have been able to pick it up even if you squashed it and honestly, most people don't handle their emotional responses well, so it's just easier to bow out and avoid the situation. And hey, she's still helping you learn something. You obviously found out what happened somehow, and now you can work to be better at whatever it was that made these ladies uncomfortable. Anyhow, I don't think legitimacy is the right word. You're a person, you have feelings, it's not like that's not allowed. But yeah it does sound a bit like you're like "I shouldn't have to change, AFAB people should have to change!" And that attitude is pretty sucky. Like I said, you heard through the grapevine what happened and that should give you a good starting point on reflecting on your behavior and how you can be better. Trying to make women, even as a fellow woman, do your emotional labor for you by informing you of your transgressions and how to fix them is a holdover of your AMAB socialization, IMO. Hawkperson fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Dec 29, 2016 |
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Dec 29, 2016 19:52
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So, I wanna talk a little more theory, even if people ITT may or may not be into it (hard to tell, I didn't get any responses last time) but I think that some of the problem with talking about trans exclusionary radical feminism and trans inclusive feminism is vocabulary. I don't think there's any contradiction at all with respecting a trans person's navigation of gendered signifies and working to abolish gender. Note that I come from a perspective that's very very influenced by writers like Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, as well as earlier feminists like Simone de Beauvoir. Before I get into it though, I'd likes to make an important point. While trans experiences are instructive in illuminating some of the ways that patriarchy works, trans lives are loving real, and not rhetorical devices. Trans people are not laboratory animals we can use to test our ideas about how gender works, and bloviating about how we think they might be different, and what their experiences might be is lovely, transphobic, and pretty loving common in feminist writing and discussion. Gender dysphoria kills people. Gender transition saves lives. Trans people are a population in crisis, with very pressing, visceral needs, most of which can be addressed by loving listening to them. There are several trans women in the thread who can absolutely speak to this, but as we discussed earlier, it can feel way safer to dip out of conversations like this than to engage with them. Being trans and talking about these issues in a public place can paint a massive target on your head. So let's do some definitions. Gender (as I use it in this thread): Socially mandated role while living within the patriarchy. This is a system that largely shunts us into two castes, "Man", and "Woman". Humans, in this system, are made to perform their gender in order to survive, by adopting behaviors, vocabulary, dress, and other cultural signifies. This is a socially constructed, enforced, position, but it's ultimately more a question of actions, reactions, and experiences than it is anything innate to a person. "One is not born a woman, one becomes one". Gender (more commonly): Someone's status as a Man or a Woman. This is generally used as an existential category. It often is, but should not be confused with the former definition. This is sort of one of the inherent problems with philosophical jargon. Gender Identity: one's relationship to navigating this system. This has been historically meant a whole gently caress ton of things, ranging from women's ability to tolerate their social role, to one's identification with traditionally "masculine" or "feminine" ideals. More recently, it has developed a pretty specific definition relating to trans experiences, which seems to be the one we're operating on ITT, which is fine, since it's the most relevant one. (As an aside, let's note how cis people get genders (definition two) and trans people get gender identities. Funny, huh?) Gender Dysphoria: A suite of dissonant, painful, feelings experienced by trans people relating to their bodies, their position within the gendered heirarchy, and many other things. Without going into specifics that a trans poster would be better talking about, it's incredibly painful, and this is entirely in addition to the social consequences of being trans. I'm going to repeat that it kills people. Regardless of your views on gender, all of the reputable research we've done demonstrates that gender transition saves lives. When radical feminists (including me) talk about abolishing gender, I would argue that we mean to talk about the first definition of gender I just used. The problem is not masculinity or femininity, the problem is the caste system. People have offered lots of visions of what a post-gender society might look like. Simone de Beauvoir envisions something that is essentially androgyny, with feminine signifies mostly being abolished. Hélène Cixous instead talks of an embracing of femininity, and an elevation of nurture, creation, feminine rage, and creativity. Michel Foucault sees an end to gender coming only after an end to liberal categorization of individuals and behaviors, with its focus on opposition. What all of the writers I've studded have in common, however, is the liberation of humanity from socially enforced category, that constant, inescapable demand that we perform. We search for an escape from destinies that were assigned to us at birth. It's pretty easy to get that tied up in the existential realities of gender though. Gender, while a social construct, is absolutely real in its effect on humans. While (TB forgive me) like race, your genetics influence what caste you're born into, the trappings of gender have gently caress all to do with them. There is nothing in the female physiology that makes us more nurturing. There is no physical reason why in the west women tend to emphasize speech more with pitch than men, who tend to emphasize with volume. There is nothing in our genetics or hormonal makeup that makes men better at math, or more likely to take charge or lead. These, however, are all things that we're taught to do over the course of our lives, both by the rewards that we're given, and the punishments we receive. We've mentioned numerous times the way that society punishes female assertiveness, and enforces gendered roles about nurture and domestic work, even in an office environment. When I say that we are made to perform our genders in order to survive, this is one of the things I'm talking about. When it comes to transgenderism, one of the key questions is body integrity. While the "woman trapped in a man's body" metaphor is outdated and lovely, it does get a little bit at the picture. We can argue about how or why gender dysphoria develops if we really loving want to, and whether or not it would exist in a post-gender society (I sure as hell don't) but gender transition is for many trans people the best means we have for alleviating very intense suffering. Regardless, existence precedes essence. What trans people "are" is irrelevant. What is important is what they do, as is what's done to them. We live under a patriarchy, and we are well aware how severely deviation from your caste is punished. Trans women*, as a result, are held to an extremely high standard of feminine performance. I think it's a mistake (that many cis observers make) to assume that trans people's performance or even embrace of gendered norms are integral to a trans person's being. These things are first and foremost a survival tactic. The liberation a trans person feels on transitioning is not about their joy at their place in the gender hierarchy, but rather one of validation, and the easing of their pains. This returns us to the performance and imposition of gender. Trans women, as far as I can tell, share way more experiences with cis women than our experiences differ. The gendered assumptions we make about women, the policing of hair and dress and speech, the impositions we make on women's time and space, the silencing, the catcalling, the imposition, the stigmas that come with speaking up, those all still exist. Sure, there are some different experiences growing up, there are differing experiences with regards to reproductive health (which are not shared among all cis women either!) but the trans women posting in this thread have already made it pretty clear that society teaches you "how to be a woman" real loving fast. One transphobic assumption I see reading between the lines of a lot of the times we talk about trans experiences is that trans people are always read as trans, which, anyone who interacts with trans people regularly can tell you is a completely laughable. To be flippant: the most common street harassment a close friend of mine experience is about her being visibly a dyke, followed by her Ashkenazi features. The t slur comes like, sixth or seventh if it happens. I'm also pretty skeptical about the idea that you can somehow "retain" any male privilege you grew up with. Male/white/straight/cis privilege is something that everyone else gives to you by the way they react to you, not something that you "have". That means they can also take it right the gently caress away. *Or any woman, cis or trans, whose body does not fit "archetypal" white feminine molds including, women of color, fat women, women with physical disabilities (especially visible ones), etc Octatonic fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Dec 30, 2016 |
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Dec 29, 2016 19:55
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:For another example see how this thread is already rated "poo poo' while the men's version of the thread, which is just a half-dozen men going "no take, only throw" over and over again doesn't have enough votes to be rated at all. I was hoping that both would be good, especially after the seperation. I can't even keep up with that one. What does "no take, only throw" mean if you don't mind? ("Pretend" I'm on a highschool graduate ecucation level here.) Hawkgirl posted:The content of the abuse is different too. I can't find it, but there was some article from a dude married to a fellow reporter/blogger/whatever, and they compared the kind of flaming/criticism they got. Dude's responses were all about the content of the article he wrote and how he was dead wrong and why. Lady's responses were all "loving oval office I'll kill you" and poo poo like that. Very little about the actual content of the article. I see a lot of this online, and it loving baffles me. Who are these men? I can't fathom someone so insane and hateful that they'd send threats, however anonymously, to women they've never met, for reasons that don't begin to make any sense.
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Dec 29, 2016 20:07
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Talmonis posted:I was hoping that both would be good, especially after the seperation. I can't even keep up with that one. What does "no take, only throw" mean if you don't mind? ("Pretend" I'm on a highschool graduate ecucation level here.) Reference to my favorite comic, Dog Logic  
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Dec 29, 2016 20:12
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Octatonic posted:So, I wanna talk a little more theory, even if people ITT may or may not be into it (hard to tell, I didn't get any responses last time) Can't speak for anyone else, but for me personally posts like this are hard to respond to because they're fuckin' good and interesting and educational. Hey, it's like a microcosm of my socialization as a white woman, because basically, I don't want to post something demanding attention when I don't have anything particularly useful to say. But now that you've asked for feedback, I feel comfortable giving you some!
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Dec 29, 2016 20:16
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Reference to my favorite comic, Dog Logic 
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Dec 29, 2016 20:19
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BarbarianElephant posted:One of the reasons that I really enjoy online debate is the "permission" to talk about things as aggressively as men do. I would never talk so aggressively in real life as I do here - it would make me very unpopular. And I would simply be too scared to bluntly disagree with some huge guy who was frothing with rage about politics. stone cold posted:Same, and I used to pose as a man elsewhere on the internet for this exact reason. I think it's important to have a carved out space where female voices can be heard precisely because of this marginalizing you've seen, and all of us have seen. Lady with an avatar of and a quote about one of the more fascinating (male) Russian composers of the early 20th century chiming in with concurrence. Hawkgirl posted:Can't speak for anyone else, but for me personally posts like this are hard to respond to because they're fuckin' good and interesting and educational. Hey, it's like a microcosm of my socialization as a white woman, because basically, I don't want to post something demanding attention when I don't have anything particularly useful to say. But now that you've asked for feedback, I feel comfortable giving you some! Thanks for letting me know! There's a lot of times, especially when it comes to radical and postmodern stuff, that I really want to respond to conversations that are going on, but the "line by line response to quotes" style we use on SA has never really felt right to me. I also have an academic's terminal desire to contextualize loving everything, illustrated with a million run-on sentences. Anyway, if people read these, I'll keep writing them from time to time. I haven't really gotten to do much writing like this recently. Octatonic fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Dec 29, 2016 |
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Dec 29, 2016 20:26
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Milo Yiannopoulos, a gay white man who has directly incited violence against women (including getting booted from twitter for harassing Leslie Jones) has received a $250k book deal from Simon and Schuster Women are the print book industry's majority customers, and S&S is still happy to throw us under the bus and profit off that Nazi blood money. http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/29/technology/milo-yiannopoulos-book-deal/
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Dec 29, 2016 20:43
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The president is a known rapist and nothing matters. Thank goodness sexism is over though.
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Dec 29, 2016 20:49
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Defenestration posted:Milo Yiannopoulos, a gay white man who has directly incited violence against women (including getting booted from twitter for harassing Leslie Jones) has received a $250k book deal from Simon and Schuster Always nice to see wingnut welfare come through for fascist men.
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Dec 29, 2016 20:49
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:For another example see how this thread is already rated "poo poo' while the men's version of the thread, which is just a half-dozen men going "no take, only throw" over and over again doesn't have enough votes to be rated at all. I just tipped it over and it's worse than this one. don't worry.
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Dec 29, 2016 20:49
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stone cold posted:Always nice to see wingnut welfare come through for fascist men. Women work ten times as hard as men in this country and what the gently caress do we get for it?
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Dec 29, 2016 21:30
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Defenestration posted:This has been driving me insane since Bush. if you're white enough, male enough, wealthy enough, the system is designed for you to fail upward every time. Milo didn't *fail*, he backed the winning horse. It's interesting that after a certain level of wealth it is literally impossible to fail. It is much better to be $100 million in debt than have $500 in the bank.
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Dec 29, 2016 21:33
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BarbarianElephant posted:Milo didn't *fail*, he backed the winning horse. Now that I think about it, it's kind of crazy that Martha Stewart saw more jail time than the architects of the CDO economic collapse of 08.
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Dec 29, 2016 21:39
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Defenestration posted:Women work ten times as hard as men in this country and what the gently caress do we get for it? Credit stolen from us
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Dec 29, 2016 21:40
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stone cold posted:Now that I think about it, it's kind of crazy that Martha Stewart saw more jail time than the architects of the CDO economic collapse of 08. BarbarianElephant posted:Milo didn't *fail*, he backed the winning horse. other men who have definitely failed up - W Bush - Jeb Bush (please clap) - Trump I know there are business examples too.
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Dec 29, 2016 21:49
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Talmonis posted:I see a lot of this online, and it loving baffles me. Who are these men? I can't fathom someone so insane and hateful that they'd send threats, however anonymously, to women they've never met, for reasons that don't begin to make any sense. They're men. So many otherwise normal rear end dudes go loving bonkers when a woman challenges them or says no. Like almost every woman I know that has tried online dating has some story of crazy poo poo dudes have said or done. Speaking of which, what was that site that compiled a whole bunch of the harassment women were facing?
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Dec 29, 2016 21:50
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Defenestration posted:Milo Yiannopoulos, a gay white man who has directly incited violence against women (including getting booted from twitter for harassing Leslie Jones) has received a $250k book deal from Simon and Schuster A curious way to describe him. Does Milo's whiteness cancel out his gayness in determining how Oppressed he is? Is there a handy chart I can refer to to calculate how he scores less Subaltern Points than heterosexual females?
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Dec 29, 2016 21:54
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kapparomeo posted:A curious way to describe him. Does Milo's whiteness cancel out his gayness in determining how Oppressed he is? Is there a handy chart I can refer to to calculate how he scores less Subaltern Points than heterosexual females? Nah Milo is just a racist piece of poo poo. Any further queries should be directed to literally any other thread.
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Dec 29, 2016 21:55
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Residual male privilege or whatever isn't really a thing, but it also is. Like there's no doubt in my mind I wouldn't have been a physics major if I were AFAB or had even transitioned earlier in life, so part of me is sympathetic to that argument, but at the same time no number of physics degrees is gonna stop men from being patronizing when we talk science. 
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Dec 29, 2016 21:56
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kapparomeo posted:A curious way to describe him. Does Milo's whiteness cancel out his gayness in determining how Oppressed he is? Is there a handy chart I can refer to to calculate how he scores less Subaltern Points than heterosexual females? Maybe because he's a huge piece of garbage who doesn't even believe in gay rights let alone rights for women?
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Dec 29, 2016 21:57
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kapparomeo posted:A curious way to describe him. Does Milo's whiteness cancel out his gayness in determining how Oppressed he is? Is there a handy chart I can refer to to calculate how he scores less Subaltern Points than heterosexual females? this is called oppression olympics. don't play it. https://twitter.com/ptrmsk/status/814518685868183552
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Dec 29, 2016 21:57
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Privilege is so insidious. It lets you believe that everything is equal because you are happy, and the world begins and ends with you, after all. So when something happens to disrupt that feeling of equality, like women posting on the internet I guess, it's really upsetting and scary. Your entire world is literally being attacked. It makes you do some stupid poo poo. You make sure that someone else's world gets upended in revenge for upending yours. I don't know how to keep that from happening, especially when our society - working as intended, of course - makes it so that the person exerting their privilege feels like they are in the right.
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Dec 29, 2016 21:58
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kapparomeo posted:A curious way to describe him. Does Milo's whiteness cancel out his gayness in determining how Oppressed he is? Is there a handy chart I can refer to to calculate how he scores less Subaltern Points than heterosexual females? Please leave.
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Dec 29, 2016 22:00
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Well, that was nice while it lasted.
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Dec 29, 2016 22:10
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OwlFancier posted:Well, that was nice while it lasted.
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Dec 29, 2016 22:10
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I mean the other one, I was hoping to discuss that topic a little more with some of the less tiresome people in the thread and I'm not sure it would be suitable for here.
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Dec 29, 2016 22:12
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Gloryhold It! posted:They're men. So many otherwise normal rear end dudes go loving bonkers when a woman challenges them or says no. Like almost every woman I know that has tried online dating has some story of crazy poo poo dudes have said or done. This might not quite be what you're after but When Women Refuse http://whenwomenrefuse.tumblr.com/
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Dec 29, 2016 22:12
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FactsAreUseless posted:Thread's fine. Sometimes there will be trolls. Yeah, there's been a lot of discussion going on that's been pretty good
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Dec 29, 2016 22:12
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Philip Rivers posted:Residual male privilege or whatever isn't really a thing, but it also is. Like there's no doubt in my mind I wouldn't have been a physics major if I were AFAB or had even transitioned earlier in life, so part of me is sympathetic to that argument, but at the same time no number of physics degrees is gonna stop men from being patronizing when we talk science.
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Dec 29, 2016 22:13
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OwlFancier posted:I mean the other one, I was hoping to discuss that topic a little more with some of the less tiresome people in the thread and I'm not sure it would be suitable for here.
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Dec 29, 2016 22:13
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FactsAreUseless posted:If you continue that discussion here I will scream. Not the stupid housework one.
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Dec 29, 2016 22:14
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Hawkgirl posted:Privilege is so insidious. It lets you believe that everything is equal because you are happy, and the world begins and ends with you, after all. So when something happens to disrupt that feeling of equality, like women posting on the internet I guess, it's really upsetting and scary. Your entire world is literally being attacked. It makes you do some stupid poo poo. You make sure that someone else's world gets upended in revenge for upending yours. energy t It's frustrating as gently caress is what it is. I don't know how to keep it from happening earlier. It made me think of something kind of tangential though. A little thing that goes around the marxoweb every so often is the idea that depression and anxiety are as much symptoms of living under capitalism as they are diseases/disorders. I wouldn't take it that far, but it's food for thought. Psychiatric intervention has made really big positive impacts for me and many people I'm close to. To be honest, the energy that's giving me the wherewithal to participate in this thread comes at least in part from an SNRI i started a couple months ago. That being said, I think I've come to the conclusion recently that our generational despair is the system working as intended too. It's a surrender to the forces trying to hold us in place. I don't need to tell you that resistance is hard. It's taxing emotionally, and it's exhausting to have the same conversation over and over, to feel like you have to always defend yourself. That's on top of minority stress to begin with. Thanks for making the thread, stone cold, and thanks to everyone for posting in it 
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Dec 29, 2016 22:14
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