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The internet is like cruising down a highway in rural West Virginia. It all looks looks normal enough until you take an off ramp at 3am looking for gas. Then things get a little weird. It was on such a ramble down the links of the interwebs that I came across the Anti-feminism movement. Now, that anti-feminism exists shouldn't exactly be surprising. We are all familiar with the idea of a dialectic. The existence of a movement - feminism - necessarily entails the existence of an anti-movement. Taking a position on anything necessarily puts you in opposition to someone. Any attempt at change breeds some haters. But what is surprising is that often feminists and anti-feminists start from the same place to arrive at opposite conclusions. For some context, let's look at this Op-Ed in Time Magazine that talks about the online social movement "Women Against Feminism". quote:Female anti-feminism is nothing new. In the 19th century, plenty of women were hostile to the women’s movement and to women who pursued nontraditional paths. In the 1970s, Marabel Morgan’s regressive manifesto The Total Woman was a top best seller, and Phyllis Schlafly led opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment. But such anti-feminism was invariably about defending women’s traditional roles. Some of today’s “women against feminism” fit that mold: they feel that feminism demeans stay-at-home mothers, or that being a “true woman” means loving to cook and clean for your man. Many others, however, say they repudiate feminism even though — indeed, because — they support equality and female empowerment: Links in the original article. These are women asserting themselves in their own words. One common theme is that feminism in practice differs sharply from feminism in theory - that feminists who do things like presume to speak for all women, engage in mysandry, and encourage women to be fearful of men - do not speak for them. Feminists will counter that academic or intellectual feminism doesn't include those things, but as the article says - the way people act is often not consistent with what's in the book. How much of anti-feminism is recursive irony versus genuine differences of approach vs being annoyed at being shouted down because you agree 98% vs 100%? I don't know, but let's talk about it ITT.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 14:42 |
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# ? May 3, 2024 02:42 |
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Edit: actually you know what I'm awful at this so never mind.
Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Jan 23, 2017 |
# ? Jan 23, 2017 14:44 |
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Pollyanna posted:Edit: actually you know what I'm awful at this so never mind. I don't think you're awful! There's nothing wrong with expressing an idea that's not fully formed and talking around it to develop it better, IMO. That's good discussion. It doesn't have to be perfect, just post.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 15:21 |
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so is this the place for anti-feminist movements/people in general, like Elam, Roosh, Sommers, HBB, etc
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 15:24 |
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Cease to Hope posted:so is this the place for anti-feminist movements/people in general, like Elam, Roosh, Sommers, HBB, etc Sure. I envisioned it as a place to pull the movement / participants into the light and examine them in a neutral (or derogatory, or whatever, but let's talk about it) way. What are they saying and why do they exist? In what ways are they a response to practical feminism and in what way are they something else? That sort of thing.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 15:30 |
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This thread will be people just unironically posting their anti-women opinions by the third page.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 15:34 |
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:This thread will be people just unironically posting their anti-women opinions by the third page. that's optimistic.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 15:38 |
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:This thread will be people just unironically posting their anti-women opinions by the third page. What sort of opinions do you think people will be posting that are anti-women? Asking unironically - feminists dismissing some views as anti-women or uninformed or etc, even when they come from women who identify as feminists, is actually a complaint of the "women against feminism" movement.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 15:38 |
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ch sommers is an aei pundit who specializes in redirecting feminist arguments to right wing goals. feminism is somehow hurting boys in schools (she doesn't know poo poo about pedagogy so she doesn't really articulate how) so privatize schools. women are oppressed in iran so bomb iran. queer women and black women are co-opting feminism from ACTUAL women wink wink. roosh v is just get-rich-quick scam artist except that he's a rapist instead of an entrepreneur. he doesn't really go in for ideology past "women deserve it" and "secretly women like being coerced". the community he helped create is important because how-to spaces are vulnerable for fringe ideology and cult recruiting, and a lot of out and proud neofascists got started here. a voice for men and the various mra spinoffs require some more effort another time, but it's important to remember that paul elam, founder of AVFM, decided he had to prevent women from ruling his life because his mother tried to force him to take his diarrhea pills. btw i recommend setting ground rules about atheism/rationality, gamergate, and neofash, because if you're gonna talk about anti-feminism on the internet, there's a whole lot of overlap.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 15:48 |
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I did some research myslef, and came to the conclusion that GBS respects women
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 15:54 |
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Sommers is kind of funny since a lot of mainstream feminism never actually stopped being white feminism (and straight, middle class, cis) writ large, and it's still not exactly hard to find dumb poo poo like political lesbians, racist suburbans, swerfs and terfs even within the movement, which contributes to a lot of mistrust from minority groups.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 15:56 |
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yeah. she usually writes aei talking point white papers for a conservative woman audience - not the sort of person you'd encounter too often outside of, like, national review or the federalist. but she was catching the youtube anti-feminist wave at exactly the right time to latch onto gamergate.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 16:02 |
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Anti-feminism isn't new nor did it start with the internet. The movement has been opposed since at least women were fighting in the U.S. for the right to vote. The main thing that bothers me about the anti-feminism movement is that it's entirely about "us vs. them." All comparisons made are done with a "well women do this too" or "but men have this to worry about." These arguments are weak and not relevant. No one has to identify as feminist and at the same time can still be for equality, but when your entire reason for being is "the other side is a bunch of doodoo heads" then you lose all ground. And none of this is to say there aren't a lot of complaints about the feminism movement. I find it weird when I see men who are feminist and their only focus is on women's issues, usually speaking over women and telling them how they need to believe a certain point of view in order to be a true feminist. Or the Tumblr.com level of feminism which is just "what Harry Potter character is your personal sexual preference of the month?"
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 16:03 |
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Gonna be a lot of trilby hats in this thread.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 16:08 |
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Here's Matt Forney, author of "How to Beat Your Girlfriend or Wife and Get Away with It," trying to start poo poo with antifas and getting chased down the street. Enjoy. https://youtu.be/KNlCCqd0SY4
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 16:25 |
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I said come in! posted:Anti-feminism isn't new nor did it start with the internet. The movement has been opposed since at least women were fighting in the U.S. for the right to vote. The main thing that bothers me about the anti-feminism movement is that it's entirely about "us vs. them." All comparisons made are done with a "well women do this too" or "but men have this to worry about." These arguments are weak and not relevant. No one has to identify as feminist and at the same time can still be for equality, but when your entire reason for being is "the other side is a bunch of doodoo heads" then you lose all ground.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 16:48 |
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A Buttery Pastry posted:"A too significant portion of the feminist movement champions negative policies, or uses arguments that are tied into a hateful view of men, for us to be able to support it" On the face of it, that seems like a pretty reasonable reason to object, if you accept their characterization. True, IF you accept their characterization. This thought isn't fully formed but I don't see why "anti-feminist" women can't stand under the Feminist umbrella because of the presence of women under there who don't agree with them 100%. I'm not ditching feminism because of the trans exclusionary policies a small group of self-identified feminist have.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 17:23 |
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Yadoppsi posted:True, IF you accept their characterization. This thought isn't fully formed but I don't see why "anti-feminist" women can't stand under the Feminist umbrella because of the presence of women under there who don't agree with them 100%. I'm not ditching feminism because of the trans exclusionary policies a small group of self-identified feminist have.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 18:07 |
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I think feminism got into trouble with a lot of those people when it made the movement the same word as the concept. Kinda like you could have anti-communist communists in a country with a communist party if they were communists who disagreed with the communist party; you can have anti-feminism feminists if people who agree with the concept of feminism do not like the feminism movement. Plus the whole trying to equate feminism with absolute gender equality rather than one aspect of the struggle for gender equality was always going to piss people off and should probably not have been attempted.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 19:37 |
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wateroverfire posted:What sort of opinions do you think people will be posting that are anti-women? Asking unironically - feminists dismissing some views as anti-women or uninformed or etc, even when they come from women who identify as feminists, is actually a complaint of the "women against feminism" movement. So wait, being anti-women and having that dismissed by feminists as such, and then getting mad about it is valid? Can you provide an example where you think this is wrong, op? Also, op, hypothetical scenario. A man runs a company and pays the women who work for him 60% of what they're worth. Not only that, he boasts about it everywhere, in real life and online! What would the anti-feminist response be to such a man? Would it be, us dames should be grateful to have a job, or what, I'm not sure about the paradigm? Anti-feminism on its face seems to drink very deeply from the well of misogyny, and it's a pretty unpleasant thing to see these women have internalized so well.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 20:12 |
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stone cold posted:
I think you misunderstood the objection. The anti-feminists don't see themselves as anti-women. They'd say that they're disagreeing about what policies are good for women.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 20:39 |
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Here's an overly long copy/paste Facebook statement that's been infecting my feed:quote:I am not a "disgrace to women" because I don't support the women's march. I do not feel I am a "second class citizen" because I am a woman. I do not feel my voice is "not heard" because I am a woman. I do not feel I am not provided opportunities in this life or in America because I am a woman. I do not feel that I "don't have control of my body or choices" because I am a woman. I do not feel like I am " not respected or undermined" because I am a woman. I am not a "victim" because you say I am. tl;dr: Women here have it better than third-world countries, so you marching for equals rights is dumb.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 20:39 |
I guess not being gang raped to pay for my crimes is the best she thinks a woman can aspire to. (Is help available for this woman? If so, she should talk to a professional about whatever's happening to her that's better than being a child sex slave. I bet it's being beaten, but it might be having a loved one with cancer, which is also marginally better than being part of hundreds of murders, and which there's also help for.)
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 20:44 |
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It took nearly a decade, a bartending job where she got hit on daily by gross old married men, and her dad leaving her mom for someone half his age and blaming her for it for my GF to finally ditch the whole anti-feminism thing. She was raised by a woman who believes women shouldn't be allowed to vote though so it's understandable how some of those things can get ingrained.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 21:23 |
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IronDoge posted:Here's an overly long copy/paste Facebook statement that's been infecting my feed: And the follow up to that argument is that getting slapped is better than getting stabbed, but neither would be preferable.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 21:25 |
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falcon2424 posted:I think you misunderstood the objection. Nobody of consequence is against the mere existence of (cis) women for obvious reasons.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 21:31 |
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IronDoge posted:Here's an overly long copy/paste Facebook statement that's been infecting my feed: Ugh yeah, my mom and a couple aunts posted this one. Not surprisingly, I have never heard any of them mention the plight of women in third-world countries, ever. It's almost as though this was a convenient thing to say in order to feel morally superior to the women who marched. Also, I sincerely doubt it would "impress" any of them to see people marching in support of women in third-world countries. At best it would be ignored, at worst they'd find some reason to hate it because they would associate it with left-wing politics. That chain post comes off as so phony to me, and I'm very disappointed that so many of my family members liked it. Sorry, I had to get that out. It's been bugging me and I couldn't say all of that to my mom. I like this thread though...I'll think of a way to contribute to it more constructively.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 21:39 |
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Many prominent advocates of feminism seem to give off the impression of being unhappy and constantly aggrieved - i would think that some of the backlash against feminism is from women (and men for that matter) who look at the standard-bearers of the movement and don't see somebody they would want to emulate.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 22:31 |
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Ian Winthorpe III posted:Many prominent advocates of feminism seem to give off the impression of being unhappy and constantly aggrieved - i would think that some of the backlash against feminism is from women (and men for that matter) who look at the standard-bearers of the movement and don't see somebody they would want to emulate. For example, who?
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 22:33 |
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Cease to Hope posted:For example, who? Laurie Penny, Lena Dunham, Anita Sarkesian, Jessica Valenti, Amanda Marcotte
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 22:41 |
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Ian Winthorpe III posted:Laurie Penny, Lena Dunham, Anita Sarkesian, Jessica Valenti, Amanda Marcotte Dunham aside, can you point to some examples of these writers being particularly "aggrieved"? It seems especially out of place for Penny and Sarkeesian. Doubly so for Sarkeesian compared to the typically apoplectic tone of YouTube video game criticism. Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Jan 23, 2017 |
# ? Jan 23, 2017 22:48 |
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Ian Winthorpe III posted:Many prominent advocates of feminism seem to give off the impression of being unhappy and constantly aggrieved - i would think that some of the backlash against feminism is from women (and men for that matter) who look at the standard-bearers of the movement and don't see somebody they would want to emulate. Unsurprisingly it's hard to affect an optimistic tone when discussing gender inequality. Would you suggest they smile more?
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 22:50 |
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Deified Data posted:Unsurprisingly it's hard to affect an optimistic tone when discussing gender inequality. Would you suggest they smile more? Im not suggesting the do anything, just saying that constant critique might alienate some people whose lives do not revolve so much around culture wars and online activism.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 23:01 |
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They're free to not watch femfreq on a loop; like, it's barely feminism 101 to begin with.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 23:03 |
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Ian Winthorpe III posted:Im not suggesting the do anything, just saying that constant critique might alienate some people whose lives do not revolve so much around culture wars and online activism. There's nothing actionable in this. Critics can really be less critical. If people don't like criticism of the status quo because it's too critical, that's their problem.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 23:05 |
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To be fair the OP just asked for ideas and talk around this phenomenon, not solutions.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 23:09 |
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Ian Winthorpe III posted:Im not suggesting the do anything, just saying that constant critique might alienate some people whose lives do not revolve so much around culture wars and online activism. Excluding Dunham no one knows who those people are unless they're a culture warrior of some degree. Also I don't know how one changes a culture other than critiquing it. If it alienates some it'll inspire others.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 23:10 |
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Higsian posted:To be fair the OP just asked for ideas and talk around this phenomenon, not solutions. It's not even an idea. People characterize their gut reaction to ideas they don't like as some sort of non-specific problem with the speaker's manner.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 23:10 |
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It's also worth mentioning that painting feminists as humourless and unable to feel joy is a big part of how anti-feminists promote their cause. A lot of this image of feminists comes from specifically what those mocking them decide to promote the most. If we're assigning blame (and i can't tell if we are or Just Asking Some Questions) then it's as much due to whatever trends in media as a whole allow for this image to gain traction.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 23:28 |
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# ? May 3, 2024 02:42 |
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Feminism has been completely hijacked by attention seeking SJW's that scream about completely meaningless nothings and then get OUTRAGED when the general population does not give a poo poo. Ten minutes later the topic is dropped and never mentioned again as the next OUTRAGE has happened.
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# ? Jan 23, 2017 23:37 |