loquacius posted:

How much better would the world be if you were simply forbidden from writing culture war articles when you got divorced

Eason the Fifth posted:

What 0 chicken does to a mf

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Divorced people and people over 60 should not be allowed to write, run for office, or vote.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Divorced people and people over 60 should not be allowed to write, run for office, or vote.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

Though understating the effect of loveless marriages, which are unfortunately not only a boomer thing

loquacius posted:

Divorced people can still vote imo, I just do not want to read their thoughts about gender politics because they're never gonna be a good source on it. I'd bet like 95% of manosphere guys are divorced too (and the other 5% will be soon)! Either the divorce wasn't their fault, in which case they're gonna be bitter and have a warped view of the opposite gender, or the divorce WAS their fault, in which case they're an rear end in a top hat anyway.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Fine, you can't do any of that from the moment you get married.

This is an argument for not letting straight people write, but what about gay divorcees?

Some Guy TT posted:

i think it depends on whether they have kids i suspect a lot of divorced person energy is because theyre unwilling to acknowledge that the real reason their marriage collapsed was because kids and everything that goes along with them were completely incompatible with their previous lifestyle

Some Guy TT posted:

I am the creator of a girl empowerment business. We created curriculum kits that use the stories of notable women in history to teach girls about their worth and potential. I am the writer and researcher, and B, my business partner (and one of my favorite guy feminists), is the creative and marketing guru.

We work well together. When there is a disagreement, we listen, find common ground and solve problems together. Sometimes finding a solution feels impossible. Sometimes the solution turns out perfect.

Before the pandemic, we partnered with schools to deliver our curriculum. When the shutdown occurred, we lost those partnerships, but we found the homeschool crowd. This community accepted us wholeheartedly.

For the past three years, we’ve traveled to more than 20 homeschool conferences. Our company has a lot of supportive and excited customers. We even get return customers whom we love reconnecting with at these events.

However, there is a faction that prickles at our presence. B and I try to brush it off, but even the smallest splinter, when not addressed, can cause an infection.

A mom enters our booth in the exhibitor hall in Missouri. “OK, my daughter loves Harriet Tubman. Tell me what you got!” she says.

I explain our product, how we use historical women to teach girls about their worth and potential. The mother says: “But is it woke? I mean, I don’t want to teach my daughter about woke.”

I look around at our curriculum kits. They are all women who fought for equality. I think to myself, Hell yes, it’s woke. The irony is lost on this potential customer.

I pause and take a different approach.

In my head, I hear Inigo Montoya from “The Princess Bride”: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I understand what she thinks she is asking. She doesn’t want anything liberal, progressive, or written by “snowflakes.” But does she know that “woke” is not a bad thing?

“What do you mean, ‘woke’?” I ask.

She opens her mouth. Half-words and phrases stumble and tumble around. A few talking points from news sources fall out. Finally, she sighs. “I don’t know. Just tell me again what you write.”

In Ohio, a mom breezes into our booth.

“Oh my goodness, I love this. I am going to have to buy this for my girl!” she tells me. “I do have one question, though ― do you teach feminism? I mean, I believe in equality, but I am not a feminist, and I don’t want to teach it to my daughter.”

I take the approach I used in Missouri.

“What do you mean?” I ask her.

“Well, do you teach that women are better than men?”

“No, I teach all genders are equal and should be treated as such.”

She buys three kits.

I am in Texas, my home state. A mom wanders in, picks up a journal, and reads about Kate Warne, the first woman detective.

“Where do you do your research?” she asks. I give her several sites. “That’s good, that’s good,” she says.

“Now then,” she begins again, “what is your slant?”

“Slant?” I ask.

“Which way do you lean?”

“Just historical facts,” I tell her.

“OK. But listen, I need you to do something for me.”

She reaches out and takes my hand. Apparently we are best friends now.

“Write about Biblical characters,” she says. “We need that. Especially the men.”

I tilt my head to the side.

“Well, we focus on actual women from history,” I say.

Wrong answer.

“Well, I will have to think about this.”

She drops my hand. The friendship is over.

I am sitting in my booth in South Carolina. It’s been a long morning. Suddenly I feel a presence. I turn around, and slowly, into my sights, the face of an older man scrolls down. Chin, nose, glasses.

“You gonna do more?” he asks.

I hold off a grimace caused by his coffee breath.

He glances up at an illustration that highlights our historical women. I stand up and take two steps back, putting the chair between us.

“Yes, we hope to add two more women. In the fall, we will add the first Asian American woman accepted into the Army. Then we are working on a Latina in 2024.”

“Well, hopefully not Frida Kahlo,” he says.

“You never know,” I reply.

“No, she’s no good, a communist,” he tells me.

“She did a lot of good.”

“Not all women are good,” he explains.

“Not all men are good,” I respond.

He walks away and I exhale. I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath.

I’m still in South Carolina. A couple comes to the booth. They were here yesterday, and I talked to the wife. Yesterday, her husband stayed silent. Today he sees B and gets excited.

“Here’s a guy,” he says. “He is ready to answer all of my questions.”

I side-eye B while welcoming the couple back. I talk to the wife, and they wander over to look at our product.

A few minutes later, the husband walks over to B.

“My wife doesn’t know the story of Rosie the Riveter,” he says. “I’m gonna tell her, but I need you to fact-check me.”

B glances my way.

“Actually, Heather is the one who wrote the biographies.”

“Yeah, I know, but check me,” he tells B.

No one else is in the booth, so the husband stands in the middle. Center stage. He spreads his legs wide, slightly bending his knees, and his wife preps for the show.

“OK, he and I...” he begins. With both arms, he dramatically gestures to B and himself, a platoon of two. “We are off fighting the war. You and her —” he indicates us girls — “stay home and support us by making airplanes. We —” another swing of the arms to indicate the platoon — “use the airplanes to win the war and come home.”

He looks triumphantly at B. “Is that right?”

I am baffled by this 10-second World War II reenactment. An awkward giggle escapes me. B looks at me and I shrug my shoulders. B’s on his own with this guy.

He clears his throat and says, “Well, there’s more to it than that, but yeah, I guess.”

The couple buy the curriculum and tell us they are opening a co-op school.

Back in Texas, a woman walks by. She stares at the booth and looks at me. There are tears in her eyes.

“This is amazing. Please give me one of everything,” she tells me.

She does indeed buy one of everything. She thanks me for the diversity and representation. She whispers: “You don’t see this type of curriculum at homeschool conferences. Instead, you see those types of things.”

B and I look at where she is pointing. At the next booth, a company is selling books with rhyming Bible stories. Their banner sports a cartoon version of white Jesus with six-pack abs, biceps for days, and nail holes in his hands. Around him are brown-skinned people with large, crooked noses.

We are stunned into silence. Later, B and I wonder what rhymes with Jerusalem.

Another city in Texas. A woman and her older mother walk into the booth. They pick up products and make comments, but neither acknowledges me.

One picks up a journal that tells the story of Sarah Grimké. On the cover, it says “Follow Your Heart.”

The younger woman turns to her mother and says, rather loudly: “You know what (insert daughter’s name) said to me the other day?”

“What?” her mother asks.

“She said in Sunday school she learned you can’t listen to your heart, only to the Lord, because your heart lies to you.”

The younger woman finally looks at me and says: “Even my daughter gets it. She is only 9.”

She puts the journal back, and they leave. I don’t tell her a girl’s heart is the only thing that speaks truth.

We’re in Florida. I walk down an aisle and notice a red glare, a tinge that no other aisle has. It takes me a moment, and then it hits me: This whole aisle is political organizations. None of it has to do with education — just politics — and every booth has some red in it.

I pass some signs that read “Ron DeSantis World.” B says it looks like they’re mimicking the Disney font. Several booths are conducting podcast interviews. I look up the podcasts on my phone and see that each one spreads conspiracy theories.

I pass another booth where a man and a woman are talking about gun rights... at a homeschool conference. Then I pass a Moms for Liberty booth. My stomach drops.

We’re in Missouri again. We are selling a lot of product — in fact, we had our first mother and son make a purchase so he could learn about Sacagawea. It made me happy.

A voice comes on the intercom: “All boys are welcomed to the _____ booth for a push-up contest.”

Boys of all ages go to the booth and form a circle. Their heads are in the middle, feet on the outside. The contest starts. There is a lot of yelling and grunting. Girls stand around the circle watching. I wonder what they are thinking as they watch the boys. There isn’t a contest for girls.

I’m in California. It’s our last conference for the season. I threw up again from the anxiety of anticipating more offhand remarks and rude questions. This morning I am presenting to a full room. I am discussing ways to build confidence in girls. I am 20 minutes into the presentation when a woman interrupts me.

“When are you going to talk about God in all of this?” she asks.

Her rudeness throws me off. I take a breath and smile.

“God is wherever you want God to be. I can’t tell you that,” I reply.

Two other women get up and leave.

Later, one lady comes back to apologize. She admits that walking out of my presentation wasn’t very Christian-like. Sometimes I forget I am around Christians — “Do unto others” doesn’t get universally applied at these conferences.

That evening, I finally tell B that I am throwing up before the conferences. He asks if we need to stop going. I want to say yes, but I don’t.

Although throwing up is new, this conversation isn’t. One thing about B — he will follow my lead. He gets the double standard without me needing to verbalize it. Deep down, neither of us is ready to be forced out. So once more, over drinks, we hammer out reasons why we want to be in places that cause strife.

“We make a lot of money at these events,” I say. It feels dirty coming out of my mouth. B nods and orders another round.

“Your thing is changing the conversation,” he says. “Changing the conversation on beauty culture. Changing the conversation on how we raise empowered girls. How about we change the conversation about feminism at these events?”

He gets that look in his eye, the one that signifies he has a wildly genius thought.

“What if we actually start talking about feminism instead of avoiding the conversation? Maybe the workshops you give could be why feminism is good. You could be the woman that blatantly teaches about feminism... at a conservative homeschool convention. It’s brilliant!”

I laugh out loud, partly intrigued, partly because I think he is insane.

“We will get canceled,” I tell him.

“For all the right reasons,” he replies.

The bartender brings over two dirty martinis.

Catharine MacKinnon posted:

"In other words, women’s oppression is enforced through gender, specifically gender hierarchy, a social and political, not biological, arrangement."

Catharine MacKinnon posted:

The key question here is not (the endlessly obsessed-over) what is a woman, but what accounts for the inequality of women to men. Women are not oppressed by our bodies—our hormones, chromosomes, vaginas, breasts, ovaries. We are placed on the bottom of the gender hierarchy by the misogynistic meanings male dominant societies create and project onto us, attribute to us, which on my analysis center on women’s sexuality.

MacKinnon posted:

But trans people, in addition to all else they do and are, highlight feminism’s success—gender’s arbitrariness and invidiousness was our analysis originally—and feminism’s failure, or better our incomplete project—as the world is still largely stuck in what feminists oppose and fight to change, and trans people are determined to escape.

57001 posted:

Tried to search the thread but I don't have platinum or whatever but Catharine MacKinnon recently published a (imho) great article in the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism entitled "A Feminist Defense of Transgender Sex Equality Rights" further proving that TERF-ism is fringe and trans women rock.



I find her analysis cathartic, especially as it pertains to my own pet theories of gender (basically, straight cis white men are men, everyone else is some degree of woman, in the sense that there are only truly two categories: those who are afforded the full privileges of being perceived as men and everyone else) (not saying it's a particularly good or novel way of categorizing, but it helps explain to some of my non-theorypilled friends why traditional feminisms still have worthy arguments).

And, my last highlight, from "Exploring Transgender Politics: A Conversation with Catharine MacKinnon":

hold on boys this is what real cooking looks like

tokin opposition posted:

"guy feminist" might be my least favorite word combo in that

I also like how their reasoning starts with "we make a bunch of money" followed distantly by "changing the conversation" I can smell the gen x

loquacius posted:

The parts about making conservatives do the NPC meme when you innocently ask them to clarify "woke" for you was p good but all the stuff transparently promoting the author's business was a bit much

I think conservative women are kind of in a rough spot about second-wave-style feminism because they *should* love everything about it but it is technically "woke" and they can't reconcile these ideas for even a second if forced to

so really kudos to the author for carving out a niche exploiting this weakness in the right-wing ideological armor

57001 posted:

Tried to search the thread but I don't have platinum or whatever but Catharine MacKinnon recently published a (imho) great article in the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism entitled "A Feminist Defense of Transgender Sex Equality Rights" further proving that TERF-ism is fringe and trans women rock.

I find her analysis cathartic, especially as it pertains to my own pet theories of gender (basically, straight cis white men are men, everyone else is some degree of woman, in the sense that there are only truly two categories: those who are afforded the full privileges of being perceived as men and everyone else) (not saying it's a particularly good or novel way of categorizing, but it helps explain to some of my non-theorypilled friends why traditional feminisms still have worthy arguments).

Ohtori Akio posted:

the point she drives to at the end is interesting and i'm going to need time to fully digest it, but it tends to agree with my own priors: a rights-based feminist assessment of sex work/prostitution is subject to the same issues as any rights-based feminist framework, in that it neglects the social content and coerced nature those rights are exercised under. i do think she is collapsing the broader sense "sex work" is used in to a more specific word with a negative and extreme sense, "prostitution", along with missing the importance of the word "work" - a labor relationship rather than assessment of dignity and value.

Some Guy TT posted:

a real intriguing point is made early on in this about how the act of physical transitioning isnt really particularly helpful or useful its just technically easier to accomplish than the complete reordering of society is why transpeople do it and not even as many transpeople do it as everyone tends to assume the act only really exists at all as a concession to the biological determinist argument to prove dedication to the concept of gender but as we can see terfs arent even slightly persuaded by this if anything the focus on biology has just given them an extra weapon in that they can argue that transpeople are engaging in self mutilation

one useful way to conceptualize this is to try to imagine an actual person and not an abstract concept like lets say youre a transteen kicked out of your house maybe for being trans maybe for having oppositional defiant disorder maybe because mom cant make rent this week the exact reason isnt really important what is important is that lacking options turning tricks seems like the best possible option so thats what you start doing

now did you really choose to do sex work or was that just the only option available to you i think most of us would agree that in this situation a real choice isnt being presented however within the context of the sex work itself there is a choice for a wider possible presentation of gender roles which can definitely be appealing but this doesnt fundamentally change what sex work is anymore than being able to work remotely fundamentally changes your job

the big problem with a lot of popular so called feminist rhetoric imo is that it presumes that everyone is basically a cis bougie white male and it also assumes that any analysis which does not presume that level of agency is misogynist because it implies that men and women are different which like they are this is literally the entire premise of gender studies and i genuinely dont know what a lot of these people even think oppression is if they consider nearly any possible choice a person could make as being a means of expressing meaningful agency

Some Guy TT posted:

the big problem with a lot of popular so called feminist rhetoric imo is that it presumes that everyone is basically a cis bougie white male and it also assumes that any analysis which does not presume that level of agency is misogynist because it implies that men and women are different which like they are this is literally the entire premise of gender studies and i genuinely dont know what a lot of these people even think oppression is if they consider nearly any possible choice a person could make as being a means of expressing meaningful agency

Ghost Leviathan posted:

Basically probably the core of feminist analysis like a lot of things things it is ends up hitting a brick wall if it doesn't acknowledge material conditions, and when what gets promoted is entirely cis bougie white women takes on things the bias is absurdly obvious when you look for it, and ends up with people saying 'check your privilege' to people with demonstrably less privilege than them.

Some Guy TT posted:

a real intriguing point is made early on in this about how the act of physical transitioning isnt really particularly helpful or useful its just technically easier to accomplish than the complete reordering of society is why transpeople do it and not even as many transpeople do it as everyone tends to assume the act only really exists at all as a concession to the biological determinist argument to prove dedication to the concept of gender but as we can see terfs arent even slightly persuaded by this if anything the focus on biology has just given them an extra weapon in that they can argue that transpeople are engaging in self mutilation

57001 posted:

Dr. Stab posted:

I took estrogen because it makes me feel good in my body, not because it makes me conform to cisnormative expectations of gender. Cisnormative society is what kept me from starting sooner. Nothing about my transition is for anyone but me.

Dr. Stab posted:

I took estrogen because it makes me feel good in my body, not because it makes me conform to cisnormative expectations of gender. Cisnormative society is what kept me from starting sooner. Nothing about my transition is for anyone but me.

Dr. Stab posted:

I took estrogen because it makes me feel good in my body, not because it makes me conform to cisnormative expectations of gender. Cisnormative society is what kept me from starting sooner. Nothing about my transition is for anyone but me.

SdB posted:

As soon as a girl is born, she is given the vocation of motherhood because society really wants her washing dishes, which is not really a vocation. In order to get her to wash the dishes, she is given the vocation of maternity. The maternal instinct is built up in a little girl by the way she is made to play and so on. As long as this is not destroyed, she will have won nothing. In my opinion, the abortion campaigns as such are nothing except that they are useful in destroying the idea of woman as a reproduction machine.

[i]Friedan: You do believe, then, that women should not be mothers?[i]

de Beauvoir: No, I'm not saying that, but since you're talking about choice, a girl should not be conditioned from her childhood to want to be a mother. I don't say either that men should not be fathers, but I do think it should be a choice and not a result of conditioning.

Some Guy TT posted:

the presumption of the importance of becoming a mother is something thats always bugged me in more popular feminist rhetoric you can hate marriage you can hate men but you should still want to be a mother even if youre using a surrogate and also a nanny and basically outsourcing pretty much anything you could describe as being a motherly or even parental task to some other person with the most absurd part being that these same people are perplexed when their kids grow up and basically want nothing to do with them as theyve never made any real emotional connection

on the flip end of it theres also the extent to which motherhood has been simplified into an emotional commitment with no materialist concerns whatsoever and since women just naturally have built in emotional superpowers any woman is presumed to be mother material if they bootstrap it hard enough this is an implicit assumption of the safe legal and rare centrist abortion plank that hillary clinton put into vogue in the nineties and the real frustrating thing about this superficially girl power position is that it actually increases the social burden women are expected to shoulder for childrearing since the same fetishized role doesnt apply to fatherhood

Whirling posted:

Also, the other thing that really pisses me off is that, despite how much TERFs go on and on and on about how men are these inherently dangerous brutes that do the vast majority of violent acts, they'll gleefully make use of male violence to harm trans women. Its some real loving diseased thinking to try and make these laws that will result in male police officers brutalizing trans women for stepping out of bounds into places like the women's restroom or changing room or whatever the gently caress, and then send them to men's prisons where male inmates and guards will brutalize them. I can't even begin to understand how they think they're not participants in this violence! It makes me so loving upset, and god do I hate it when I see Marxists adopt this moronic liberal thinking and putting a pseudo-materialist spin on it.