Like so many waves eroding the cliffs of the patriarchy (FEMINISM THREAD)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Like so many waves eroding the cliffs of the patriarchy (FEMINISM THREAD)

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Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

I'm very excited for this thread. Please please please let's not ruin it.

Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit = new classic
https://www.guernicamag.com/rebecca-solnit-men-explain-things-to-me/

Last time around I was doing summaries of The Second Sex, which I can dig up again if people care

VV
popped it back onto gdocs
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N-tf2M10Jf1rbJuyOvfJA2EfzTgGPZfpdifvc1-Hw2Y/edit?usp=sharing

it's in bb code since it was posts

Defenestration fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Dec 27, 2016

# ¿ Dec 27, 2016 05:04

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 13:49

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

Please also don't post to brag that you do, in fact, you'll have us know, contribute equally to the housework. Perhaps you even do more than the little lady! You're the one who needs to read this stuff most, because you're the one who doesn't even know all the work that needs to be done or who does it.

Here's a classic feminist piece, the best response I've ever seen to the reflexive "but you're just better at it, sweetie!" response men have about the chores they don't feel like doing. The Politics of Housework

Here's a blog post by a man who figured out the ingrained sexism he'd had regarding housework on his own.
Anyway. She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By the Sink

I post these partly because men reading this thread in good faith might still have the impulse to whine "but what can I do?" You see us criticizing the structures of power, and you see yourself as powerless, and it's true. Odds are you're not a CEO cackling on the golf course about how no woman is ever going to make VP in your company, gat-dammit. But are you a man living with a woman who works just as hard as you, trying to succeed in a job just like you, who always has to put your dishes in the dishwasher for you because "who cares"? That's a drop of energy she has to burn and you don't, and those add up.

A good post, and a good reminder that, ladies, if we want this to be a good thread we must provide good content for it.

So here's a thing I wrote from the Second Sex summaries, about an early chapter in Simone de Beauvoir's book. I know there was more relevant content about chores and household work (something like "you can't be existentially fulfilled keeping a house clean because you will never accomplish this task. It's always dirty again") but I must not have gotten round to that chapter.

Note the bourgeois class themes in here. There's a reason the buzzword is Marxist-Feminist Dialectic

quote:

if a woman will merely stay in the house and kitchen, wear uncomfortable clothes, and never show any signs of independence, they will be honored and respected. Again the imagery is one of royalty. A queen of the house. �Of course, men must give in to women in all irrelevant circumstances, yielding them first place,� [129] Beauvoir snipes back. �Women must not carry heavy burdens�they are readily spared all painful tasks and worries: at the same time this relieves them of all responsibility. It is hoped that, thus duped, seduced by the ease of their condition, they will accept the role of mother and housewife to which they are being confined.� [129-130]. It works. It is drilled into the bourgeois woman that if they didn�t cooperate with the strict family structure, they would be �condemned to work� [130]. The bourgeois �clings to the chains because she clings to class privilege� [130]. �She feels no solidarity with working-class women: she feels closer to her husband than to a woman textile worker. She makes his interests her own� [130] lest she lose her class standing completely.

Page references from this version of The Second Sex

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

A big thing well-meaning men will do is brag that they do "anything their SO asks." Which sounds nice, but it's already an unequal division of labor because now only one person is looking at the house and taking stock of what needs to be done. Managing people is labor itself

absolutely. an SO might say "just ask me, just remind me" but I am always super conscious that I don't want to be a "nag." What I value most in a person is someone who anticipates your needs. Someone who is thinking about you so you DON'T have to ask.

And emotional labor is labor too. Remembering to send gifts, thinking of what would be good gifts in the first place, thank yous, soothing over hurt feelings between others, all of it.

Jessica Valenti got poo poo for the bad title of her "No I won't wrap the Christmas presents" article but it made an excellent point, that women are expected to do a lot of extra work to make the holidays so drat magical for everyone else.

botany posted:

I realize we've moved on but I wanted to adress this:

I do activist stuff as well but I still refer to myself as an ally rather than a feminist, because men who feel like they are part of a movement have the tendency to coopt it and take over. This happens even in feminist meetings, well-meaning guys will talk over everyone and, in their (again, well-meaning) attempt to "make things right" will take charge and try to lead the group.

yes! one theme I've seen over and over is men especially who refuse to take their egos out of the picture, no matter what the venue. It's especially harmful in activism.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 00:10

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Sharkie posted:

And thanks for the notes on The Second Sex btw, though I'm also not sure how "transcendant" is being used in it; did you ever clear that up?

Transcendent is an existentialism term. I looked back and even in my notes I said if anyone could explain it better I'd like to hear. But in general she uses it in context of like "humans transcend their biology" and transcendence as an ongoing "project" where a person strives toward existential validation through something outside of themselves (usually this includes defining yourself as a subject in relation to some other object that you have achieved dominion over. which makes a lot of sense when we read about objectification today but man that is deep stuff to come up with for the time)

quote:

Because man is transcendence and ambition, he projects new demands with each new tool: after having invented bronze instruments, he was no longer satisfied with developing gardens and wanted instead to clear and cultivate vast fields. [66]

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

I think a big thing about Trump, any aspect of his success, is that he was just more than we were prepared for. You can build a ten-foot floodwall but if a twenty-foot wave comes you're hosed. The things he said and did were so outrageous that our usual process of tut-tutting in the press wasn't sufficient. We couldn't create a sense of scale to illustrate how much worse he was than a normal candidate, especially to conservative voters who are used to hearing everyone's Stalin-Osama-Hitler.

I've been thinking about the gish gallop a lot lately. Trump and his ilk absolutely gish galloped every time they opened their mouths, so by the time you've responded to one horrible thing they've said 10 more.

quote:

One of the reasons sex-positivity is a big deal in feminism even though it makes the marxoteens screech with fury is that a world that can't imagine women ever desire sex is a world where women are not safe. There's no way to explain that a woman didn't want sex if your worldview tells you women never want sex. That reduces rape to a question of whether the woman "belonged" to the man or not. Recognizing and learning to articulate your desire helps you articulate the lack of it too.

I had not thought about this. Especially the line "There's no way to explain that a woman didn't want sex if your worldview tells you women never want sex"

I've struggled with this the opposite way too. Like, I rarely to never get catcalled. But I believe women when they say they do regularly, and I see it happening to others. So if men want sex all the time, then I must be really unattractive somehow if they don't bother catcalling me. If men are supposed to want sex all the time, then this man not wanting to have sex with me (even though he seems to enjoy my company other ways) must mean there's something wrong with me.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 04:46

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

I would also like to add that I had a major feminist awakening when I caught the tail end of the LF feminism thread and saw that it consisted of men trying to shout down women about how wrong they were and the women couldn't get a word in edgewise. In their own thread.

So that served a purpose.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 04:48

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Mixodorian posted:

Same. I've read this site since I was 16ish and then got an account when I finally got my own debit card. I think I read and got turned onto feminism by the same exact thread as you.

I remember reading it out of boredom, seeing ideas that challenged my teenage kid beliefs and getting upset/annoyed, but kept reading and ultimately ended up being convinced. I remember some old posters I still see here like Joementum, Powercrazy, and Fauxton but sadly don't seem to see anyone from that feminism thread still posting on here.

It is something I was thankful for tho.

This is partly why, even as poo poo and patriarchal as SA can get, I'm grateful for the space. It is known how this sort of thing turns out on reddit. *spits

I would never have said I wasn't a feminist, but those older threads expanded my definition of what feminism encompasses, and revealed a lot of problems that I just hadn't experienced or hadn't been able to define. It's like the joke DFW told in his commencement address.

quote:

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 05:39

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Water is, for example, a very otherwise well-meaning male friend and colleague interrupting my presentation to say literally the thing I was going to say next. Water is those men in the study Sharkie mentioned where they thought women dominated the conversation when they spoke 30% of the time. When we point these out, we're not pointing fingers. Hell, even I didn't notice many of those pernicious little things.

So gentlemen, one thing you can do to be an ally is if you are in a meeting or another work situation where a woman says something and then a man tries to say the same thing later without giving her credit (whether he's doing it on purpose or not), chime in with "yeah I agree, like Susan said, XXXX"

You can deliberately solicit women's opinions, and not just on "women's issues." You can SHUT UP for a second and let women finish what they were saying before you weigh in. And, while you're there, consider if it's really crucial that you weigh in or not in a given situation.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 05:52

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Ghost of Reagan Past posted:

Hi all! I'm going to talk about silencing today. It's come up in the thread a bit, since it's pretty common and widely experienced, but I figure I can give a bit more of a 'theoretical' perspective to it. What is silencing, you ask?

Silencing is when a woman cannot express something she otherwise would be able to--she has the words, the ability to speak them, a conversational partner(s) who is theoretically listening, but for some reason there is no uptake on the words. A stark example (from Rae Langton's work on silencing) is rape culture: our culture silences women's refusals, by asserting "actually, she enjoys it," or "she really means yes," etc. A woman can say "no", but her words have no assertive power. Her voice is silenced because the words she utters don't actually do what words are supposed to do. Her intention is erased and ignored, her words ignored or taken to mean something else.

This is a good post, thanks Ghost of Reagan Past.

I'm seeing the right co-opt that term (along with other terms like safe space) and claim that they are being "silenced" when people criticize their hate speech or protest against rapists like Roosh V coming to campus. It's important to remember that silencing is not "Milo doesn't get to be on television" or "a woman told me to shut up and not bring my stupid opinions and poo poo all over a women's space"

Content, people. We need content, otherwise it's going to be all trolls and drama all the time

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 21:14

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Deified Data posted:

You have a fairly decent FAQ in your OP. In cases of doubt I think "Read the OP" is a decent response. There's not really anything leading a troll can counter that with, right? At least more productive than "get out".

I realize this sounds like tone policing. I'm not asking you to spare anyone's feeling. It's a simple choice between whether you want discussion to happen here on a long-term basis or not.

"Conduct this conversation by my terms or it will be a total failure"?

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 21:23

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

stone cold posted:

Yeah, that was a very good post.

This co-opting of terms is extremely distressing, but I hadn't seen it come up for safe space yet. How has the right-wing been using that?

Maybe I'm seeing more "ironic" posting of the safe space thing, which is not entirely co-opting.

And I don't think there's a substantive difference whether they're co-opting the term by 'accident' or as a coherent effort. Lord knows there's little the misogynist right can do as a coherent effort that isn't "harass, abuse, and complain about women"

I highly recommend We Hunted the Mammoth for a thorough mocking of the latest in the manosphere.
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 21:26

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Hexmage-SA posted:

If someone comes to interpret any questions asked of them in this way then maybe it's better if they leave proselytizing to someone cut out for it.

I mean, can you imagine someone reacting this way to any non-Social Justice issue?

Person A: "Anthropogenic climate change is real and a very serious issue!"
Person B: "I'd always heard climate change is natural, though! How do you know it's manmade?"
Person A: "Goddamn I'm sick of this poo poo...I don't have to prove anything to you! I bet you're just a climate change denialist who's trying to waste my time. Look it up for your loving self if you're so goddamn curious!"
*Person B Googles "climate change", first result is "Climate Change is Marxist Conspiracy to Destroy America"*

When I was studying abroad, I wrote a paper on structuralism in my literary theory tutorial. In it I included a whole section that, in an attempt to explicate what structuralism was, made use of hypothetical Structuralist A and Formalist B. That part went something like "A structuralist would analyze this passage by saying XYZ. Meanwhile a formalist would say ABC."

The tutor pointed to this part of my paper and said "that's a straw man. don't ever do that."

http://www.harkavagrant.com/?id=341

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 22:15

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

FactsAreUseless posted:

I wonder why this isn't happening in my "men's issues in a feminist lens" thread? Oh right, because that is a space explicitly set out for men, so men don't feel threatened by it and freak the hell out and come in to be like BUT WHAT ABOUT MY VIEWPOINTS because they see women talking, women who might even be happy to talk to each other without them around.

My friend has a saying, it goes "White Man, Sit Down."

There is a certain kind of (sadly very prevalent) privileged person who does not and cannot understand why a space might not be for him. He cannot understand why his opinion may not be welcome. After all, in the other spaces of his life, people defer to his opinion constantly. In fact, he is told that expressing his opinion in every situation is not only his right, it's a moral necessity. So when he's told to maybe be quiet and his opinion is not what is important here, he takes it as a personal ego trip.

White man, sit down. I promise everything will be ok even if you don't participate in every conversation, or occupy every space.

The maze is not meant for you.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 22:30

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Hexmage-SA posted:

I never thought of it that way, but you're right. I'll keep that in mind from now on.

cool, thanks. I was embarrassed when my teacher said that but it was an important lesson for sure! To save embarrassment later

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 22:31

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

This is a textbook example of the assumed incompetence problem people were talking about earlier. You hate a woman talking, so a women talking must have done it incorrectly. If Stonecold hadn't updated her OP magically that would be proof of her incompetence. Thanks for providing the visual aid. I'm sure you'll provide many more.

Yes. Like you see with Black Lives Matter, where BLM is constantly accused of protesting "wrong," but the actual beef is that they're protesting at all

https://thenib.com/destructive-criticism

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 22:40

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Jarmak posted:

Either your teacher was wrong or you've misunderstood what they were actually criticizing, that wasn't a strawman as it was presented, though it's usually better form to use "might say" rather then "would say".

To over-simplify a bit: it's only a strawman if you're misrepresenting the other side of the arguement .

you can hear the "Actually," in the front of this post

think about this: what have you added to the thread by making sure to tell me that the illustrative lesson I was giving based on a broad example of an exchange I had ten years ago was not QUITE the definition of the concept I was aiming for?

Especially when I know you haven't read the paper because I looked for it and can't find it myself. Must be on my external drive.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2016 22:48

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Hexmage-SA posted:

Seriously, thinking we can solve sexism by telling people to self-educate is about as realistic as thinking we can solve obesity by telling people not to eat so much.

I put forth that the purpose of this thread is not to "solve sexism" nor would a thread with that stated topic be productive.

Nor is the post your transformation thread about solving obesity, and that is OK. Feminist spaces don't need to be held to impossible standards to be allowed to exist

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 01:34

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

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.

However men have recently found some effective ways of using online methods to terrify and repress women online much as in real life (the hordes of GamerGate trolls and the alt-right.)

I am constantly afraid that just the wrong person will see something I've written on twitter and let loose the hordes. I have specifically censored myself and not said something or replied to something because I was afraid of doxxing and death threats and people calling my employer

I don't know how female columnists do it. I'm glad they do but I see the horror stories about for example gamergate victims who had to explain what twitter was to the police. Only to be told "oh they're sending death threats? then don't go online." There is no protection.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 16:00

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Kelp Me! posted:

I hope this doesn't fall under "do my homework for me," but is there a good direction to go in if I'm interested in the next level of this idea? That is, if I'm trying to apply the idea of "little tiny-seeming things are directly connected to gender-biased roots that crop up and cause major problems" to the world around me and not just between my wife and I?

For example, I've noticed that one of the companies I work with a lot has a tendency to dump certain minor tasks on women in the group, even if they're equally positioned. Like, the last few times I've been over there for meetings, the lone woman on the project team (who has the same position as 2 men on the team) is always the one getting coffee for everyone, making sure everyone has a pen if needed, etc. How do I combat that in my own company, and what can I do when it's not my company/team? I don't know if it's my place to try to explain to a different employees about their ingrained gender biases. Lead by example I guess? I dunno. It's really pretty mind-boggling how even an uninformed dumbguy like me can see subtle misogynistic poo poo like that everywhere I look when I actually pay attention to it.

I agree with TB about amplification. I would add that you can make an effort to directly solicit women's ideas, especially in front of other men. And you can listen to them one on one. Take a minute to be like "hey what did you think about that meeting/this strategy?" in private, so that she might feel more inclined to say what she feels without public consequences.

But in general, this is the attitude you want to have. Maybe you can't see the outline of the gender-bias problems in your workplace, but you know they're in there, camouflaged somewhere. So you look a little more closely and carefully.

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

Also frustrating is men tend to really not get that a man and the woman doing the same action will get different results. A man is "assertive" when a woman is "bitchy."

story of my drat life. Even though I've worked in female dominated industries exclusively. Internalized patriarchy is a hell of a drug

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 17:29

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Gloryhold It! posted:

It was really quite jarring seeing just how much less I was being listened to once I started transitioning. Like even my friends started talking over me.
It was most stark with loving doctors though. They just stopped respecting what I was saying all together.

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.

I recently quit a (female) PCP because she likely misdiagnosed a symptom of what turned out to be a serious problem by telling me to lose weight.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 17:34

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

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/

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 20:43

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

stone cold posted:

Always nice to see wingnut welfare come through for fascist men.

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.

Women work ten times as hard as men in this country and what the gently caress do we get for it?

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 21:30

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

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.

It's profoundly wrong but not at all surprising.

BarbarianElephant posted:

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.

yeah ok point taken.

other men who have definitely failed up
- W Bush
- Jeb Bush (please clap)
- Trump

I know there are business examples too.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 21:49

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

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

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 21:57

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

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.
Speaking of which, what was that site that compiled a whole bunch of the harassment women were facing?

This might not quite be what you're after but When Women Refuse

http://whenwomenrefuse.tumblr.com/

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 22:12

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Colin Mockery posted:

many good words about tech

I would add also make sure women on parity with men in pay and promotion opportunities. I don't work in tech but I left my last job specifically because I wasn't making equal pay for equal work. Like blatantly a (gay) male friend of mine (we went to the same grad program ffs) got editor pay and a title promotion and I didn't even though we were both doing the same editorial job.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2016 04:36

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Though that was going to be "point to the door," was disappointed.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2016 04:46

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Talmonis posted:

A group of bad actors came and made the whole goddamn thing about being clueless of housework in an attempt to drive it into the ground. They succeeded. If I get the time this weekend, I'll make a new thread with a much more specific topic and set of rules.

What's that rule? "any discussion of toxic masculinity online proves that toxic masculinity exists?"

And so instead of discussing men's issues, the "but what about the MEN?" crowd would rather trash and destroy their space to spite feminists. It reminds me of what the GOP does to dismantle government institutions: pass bills to hobble them, then when they don't provide the services say "see, the post office doesn't work! we need to privatize it." Wash rinse repeat.

- invade, poo poo up, ruin even the most benign feminist spaces
- "see, feminism is too divisive and hostile!"

# ¿ Dec 30, 2016 15:52

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

http://www.derailingfordummies.com/derail-using-anger/

quote:

You�re Being Hostile
This is a great one to pop out if it seems like they�re going to push the matter. After all, nobody wants to be �hostile�, do they? In a culture rigidly defined by social protocol, invariably designed to favor the privileged, people are very concerned about �getting along with others�. Especially marginalized people! Know why? Well, since they�re marginalized they experience a variety of discrimination usually in many aspects of their daily lives. It is not at all unusual, therefore, for marginalized people to have to be accustomed to being very, very cautious about the way they engage with the privileged. This is because discrimination may mean they routinely encounter violence, silencing, oppression or just good old-fashioned outright ridicule and diminished. That can make life stressful and exhausting, so many marginalized people develop complex strategies to avoid hostile engagements with privileged People. Further to this, marginalized people are forced into a certain sort of social behavior by privileged people � �appropriate� behavior After all, there are different rules for them than there are for the privileged.

This training in �appropriate� behavior usually begins when they are very young, so it is well-ingrained.By accusing them of hostility, you will successfully enliven their sense of caution and anxiety around this matter. You may also provoke a feeling of guilt that they are not �behaving� the way they have been trained to.But even better � by accusing them of hostility, you pass the blame back to them, rather than consider what you might have said that was so offensive and hurtful it caused the �hostility�! This will definitely work in your favor, because it will further insult and enrage them. You are making progress�

You�ve Lost Your Temper So I Don�t Have To Listen To You Anymore
This one is particularly effective because it really pushes home a sense of futility and hopelessness to the marginalized people. Remember they should never get the impression they can win one of these arguments, because you should be consistently implying that there was never anything to argue over to begin with.

If you�ve been following the steps correctly so far, by this point any reasonable person is going to be feeling pretty angry. This anger could lead to them being more aggressive and abrasive. The marginalized people have possibly even decided that you�re simply too obnoxious to waste patience on and is venting their sense of frustration.This is when you whip this step out!You can use it to disregard everything they�ve said to you and just not deal with the issue, in particular ignoring your prior behavior that led to the anger.

Conventions of social conduct hold civil discourse as the ideal at all times. When people get angry, it gives you a convenient �out� without having to concede to any of their objections or acknowledge their pain. Furthermore, with this one you can make it seem as though you were ready and willing to listen, but then they ruined it. This way you can leave them with the sense that if only they�d been a good little marginalized people and toed the line, then they may have won someone over to the cause! It just adds a particular distaste to the whole affair that no derailing should be without!

You Are Damaging Your Cause By Being Angry
By now their feelings are probably deeply hurt and they�re very angry. Don�t forget they encounter this kind of discrimination in subtle ways every single day of their life, so they�re bound to be emotional about it, even resentful.You can take advantage of this weakness to emerge the victor! After all, everyone knows the marginalized have an obligation to conduct themselves with quiet dignity in the face of infuriating tribulation and if your quarry begins to get angry and �aggressive� then you have won! Why? Well, it�s very simple � just hold them as representative of their entire group! You could try saying something like �you realize you�re making all X look bad?�, or �well, congratulations for backing up the stereotype of X as being angry, irrational and oversensitive!�

Maybe you can even say �well, I was about to say I was willing to listen to you, but then you got insulting so now I don�t have to!�Don�t worry about silly things like their feelings � c�mon, they�re grownups, aren�t they! The only thing that matters is defending your discrimination as completely fair and to avoid examining your prejudiced arguments in ways that may challenge them. You could even drop this little bomb: �You are damaging your cause by being angry, real understanding can only happen if all sides are respectful and patient�.

Not only do you come across as a smug, self-righteous asshat (though you may prefer the term �bigger person�) you can also manage to subtly make them feel guilty about their anger, as though it�s undeserved! Everybody wins! Well, except them of course.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2016 16:43

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Jenner posted:

Since the "Patriarchy hurts men." Thread got murdered would it be okay to talk about taking care of babies and parenting responsibilities here? I ask because it's largely talking about men and I know we really don't want to talk about men here we want to talk about women and feminism.

But we had a bit of a short conversation about this in the Ladythread which branched off of "guys don't do housework." To "guys also don't take care of babies, aren't socialized to handle babies, aren't expected to parent, can and do dump all the unpleasant stuff on mom and only do the fun stuff." And to a greater extent. "Women are forced to learn how to handle babies. There is social pressure and extreme judgment on women who refuse to accept and learn baby stuff or participate in the mandatory female socialization of baby stuff."

There is a lot to say re: babies but my pet anecdote is about how from the time I was 14 or so adults everywhere expected me to be competent and willing to do all kinds of childcare. I HATED babysitting and I was terrible at it. But because I was a teenage girl, this was the major avenue of work open to me. It always blew my mind how adults would trust me with their children, since children are supposed to be the most important part of life or whatever.

What they should have done is let me do filing or other grunt office work. I would have KILLED at that.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2016 17:42

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Jarmak posted:

My wife works in big law and is pregnant so it's made me acutely aware of how lucky we are. They have a whole program dedicated to recruiting female talent where they garuntee 12 weeks paid maternity leave and if you don't take any more then that they garuntee staying on the same promotion track as male peers of the same hiring class.

I'm currently weighing the decision of giving up my nascent career to be a stay at home dad and facilitate hers.

That certainly is better than 10 years ago when I was writing about biglaw. I hope this translates into partnership opportunities too, because that's the real rub when you're expected to bill 2500 hours and be a rainmaker. Hard to do with a kid.

Man some of the grossest sexist stories I ever heard were coming out of biglaw...

# ¿ Dec 31, 2016 03:21

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

OH THANK GOD I finally found it. The tweet I wanted that is.

So here is like, #masculinitysofragile ground zero. How does patriarchy hurt men? by policing their actions so hard they can't even put their hands over their face without it being disgusting and feminine.

Under patriarchy a woman is the worst thing you can be. Ergo, the worst way you can insult a man is by saying he is like a woman.

Gentlemen, regardless of your sexual orientation, it must be exhausting to have to live every day navigating a constant minefield of whether your actions are "masculine" enough to avoid ridicule and ostracizing. Like, not even being able to wear certain colors because they're too "gay." Or moving your hips too much when you dance.

Witch Hammer up there is in a social situation that must cause him constant anxiety, that even the smallest mistake can mean he is no longer masculine and acceptable. That's no way to have a healthy society.

e: oh wait gently caress I posted this in the regular thread. Should I delete it or post it also in the other one?

# ¿ Jan 2, 2017 04:18

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

Post it there, they must be tired of listening to the logical man's guide to strip club patronage by now

update: I'm finding it personally liberating to not give a gently caress about the quality of that thread.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ¿ Jan 2, 2017 06:01

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Fados posted:

Sorry if this point might sound a little pedantic but I don't agree that the male chauvinist criticizes that gesture because he thinks being feminine is bad in itself (although he probably does think femininity is inferior in some way). He'd probably also criticize a woman if she were to perform some perceived 'male' gesture. The point is that from that perspective each gender is at it's best when conforming to their predetermined gender role.

I think there's room to interpret this but I would also point out that there are a whole litany of traits associated with femininity which are also considered "negative." Like "weak" and "emotional" and "helpless" and "frivolous"

Sure, we might have gotten to a place where some people consider being "violent" a negative trait but one look in the other thread and we see way more ways society defends (male) violence as good and desirable.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2017 19:29

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

BedBuglet posted:

So, I voted for Clinton in the general but it was through clenched teeth. I backed Bernie in the primary and the attacks I saw and personally received from Clinton supporters was nauseating. Stuff like being told by people identifying as feminists that Sanders was like a rapist for holding Clinton to the debates or that I was a traitor to women or had internalized sexism because I had the gall to back a man over a woman.

This is my general feeling about the Clintonista thing. A lot of prominent feminists I formerly respected went full cult of personality around HRC and insisted that she could Do No Wrong and any criticism against her was 1. horrible misogyny 2. traitorous because it would help the orange one win. To the point where they were saying Bernie supporters and Stein voters were WORSE than Trump voters.

There are stories that make me really feel for Hillary, to be sure. Like the one where she's taking the law school exams and boys are heckling her saying she's taking some ambiguous more deserving boy's place (and that he'll die in Vietnam because she's taking the law school spot that is rightfully his).

It is totally possible to acknowledge that sexism happened a lot to HRC, and ALSO to dislike her platform as a candidate.

before this all went south, I used to say "Hillary is going to be president. That doesn't mean I have to like it."

# ¿ Jan 8, 2017 15:55

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

When your penal code says it's worse to rearrange letters on a sign than to rape an unconscious woman behind a dumpster

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 00:52

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

seiferguy posted:

What someone is "facing" usually won't actually end up getting, depending on how the court session goes. If Hollyweed guy gets a good lawyer he will probably get his sentence reduced to probation only.

That's true. We will see.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 16:14

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

GlyphGryph posted:

It's uh, probably a bit off topic for this thread, but I'll be brief. It's through members of the Governor's Council, the local group responsible for voting on appointments made to the department, especially the board itself. Maybe not 100% relevant outside MA, but at least locally it has historically been made up of white male prosecutors that were personally acquainted with the governor and were willing to make significant "financial contributions" to the members of the Council to get their seat at an "easy, cushy job". Racism and sexism and classism were rampant among those who didn't simply recommend the maximum possible everything and deny parole 100% of the time - whether or not they liked and sympathized with the individual in question seems to be the beginning and end of it for many of them.

It's improved a bit since parole department members were banned from paying Council members to get their seats (well, during the actual nomination hearings at least, it's still legal to send the money over in advance - and even for that, thank Romney! He pushed it through despite a very hostile local congress who thought it was important it stay the way it was), but they still deal with things like getting a call from a VA politician that he would ruin their political careers if they didn't approve of his sisters appointment despite her having almost no relevant experience (and sister subsequently getting appointed when various local congress folk confirmed they would back up the virginia guy on that)

So yeah in my experience the Parole department tends to be the very definition of a good ol' boys club of well connected white folks (we recently made a serious effort to get women included and ours is now over 50% women, but historically it's been a lot worse). I like to think things have gotten a lot better than they were, but I imagine many states aren't far from where we ourselves were not all too long ago. (And the changes have been largely the result of more women pushing their way onto the Governor's Council, so good on them)

So - sorry, thread, for this tangent!

A friend of mine works supervising parole officers in MA and what she's told me corroborates this

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 19:15

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

Everyone's favorite neoliberal egg sucker Jonathan Chait took issue this week with the naming of the Women's March on Washington, which is planned for next week to protest the inauguration.

He has provided a textbook example of... well lots of things. Concern trolling, men demanding access to women's spaces, "allies" who are more interested in getting cookies for their opinions than actually helping, etc.

in other words

The Onion posted:

Man Finally Put in Charge of Struggling Feminist Movement

http://www.theonion.com/article/man-finally-put-in-charge-of-struggling-feminist-m-2338

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 19:27

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

OwlFancier posted:

The issue is that if you don't stamp down on it, then the feminism thread would end up being nothing but "explain why this really basic rape apologism is actually stupid to me" over and over again, stifling anything more in depth.

Sometimes you want to keep really stupid arguments out of a thread so that there is room to talk about other things. You could always make a thread for arguing what is and isn't rape apologism. There doesn't need to only be one thread discussing all aspects of feminism.

Yes, I for one would love for the feminism thread not to be Bad Opinion Party Time and its attendant drunken hangover Explain it All To Me Again Because Some Rando Might Be Walking By.

The feminists posting here are the ones who should decide what the space should be like. We can disagree on various things but I think we would all agree that we don't want it to be arguing about how lenient we should be to rapists.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 22:11

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

doot dee doo, checkin my ok cupid messages

RED ALERT

SHIELDS UP

# ¿ Jan 17, 2017 00:12

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 14, 2024 13:49

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; "It wasn't my fault that my first unconscious thought turned out to be-"
"Jesus, kid, what?"
"That something smelled delicious!"; Grimey Drawer

seiferguy posted:

I've heard that a lot of women put that they identify as a feminist on their dating profiles just because it acts as a deterrents to MRAs / PUAs (I realize there's a lot of overlap here), but then you get the weird creepy messages like this once in awhile.

Yeah I put the word "feminist" right up front to cut the chaff.

I don't get a lot of gross messages. One time that guy that asked if I knew what a cuckold relationship was (as his first message). It's the form letters that piss me off the most. "Hi, ur pretty." Ok and? Could you read a single word I've written and react to me like a sentient human?

# ¿ Jan 17, 2017 05:08

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Like so many waves eroding the cliffs of the patriarchy (FEMINISM THREAD)

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