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Author | Topic: what is feminism? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
contracycle Inactive Member |
The identification of a "one true feminism" is pointless, but I too would like to see a response to this question. Because it seems to me that the allegations levelled at the womens studies courses are essentially character assassination. As I see it, if the feminist criticism of society as male-domnated is correct - and I think it is - then it is entirely appropriate to systematically develop an alternate analysis based on presumptions other than those that commonly prevail.
I will agree that there are elements of the feminist movement which present arguments with which I disagree; but I do not therefore conclude that all feminism is nonsense by association. I'm entirely capable of criticising individuals, or tendencies, or ideologies, without using such a broad brush. So for those who DO assert that faminism is and must be a specific and particular set of arguments, please also explain how this invalidates all OTHER arguments that go under the term feminism. I find this expecially ironic in the Western context of the two party system, in which we are all well used to movements being broader than singular issues, and containing multuiple tendencies, factions et al. Do Democrat voters here hostile to Al Sharpton accept that Al Sharpton invalidates all aspects of the Democratuic platform? Do Repbulicans critical of Trent Lott therefore also believe the entire Republican party is delegitimised? I've never seen this at all. I don't believe this criticism is valid. It reeks of parroting conventional wisdom to me. This message has been edited by contracycle, 09-22-2004 10:03 AM
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contracycle Inactive Member |
quote: So who is? you've thrown plenty of stones at Feminism yourself, Holmes, so who do you hold to be the face of feminism, and why? Because people keep saying feminism this, feminism that, and using slanderous terms like femi-nazis, so I want to know who this disreputable face of feminism is. Cough it up. Or you, born to preach. Put your money where your mouth is.
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contracycle Inactive Member |
quote: Ah, Holmes. You were a fool to challenge me to show you attacking feminists when I had compiled a list of such attacks in the porn thread already: quote:5- Where, specifically, holmes has abused feminists.
quote: Becuase of course Feminism cant be real academic reserach, and nothing wrotten for a women audience could possibly be legitimate. (although, in this thread, its the turn to knock academic feminism. No form of feminism is acceptable, apparently).
quote: Feminists of course are subjective, as is only to be expected of meotional, irrational women. Unlike anti-feminists who are coldy rational and analytical.
quote: Thus totally contradicting yourt later claims to have attacked only individuals...
quote: Note the total absence of qualifications. Feminists must get their arguments straight. Not this person or that person, all Feminists.
quote: displays confrimation of bias; presumes the only basis for objection is the irrationality and ignorance of the critic, cos of course if Feminists were informed they not be feminists. Ahuh. And again the lack of any qualification of feminist.
quote: ... and yet again. The later conceit you adopted of distinguishing between pro-porn feminists (whom you like, and consider raitonal, becuase they agree with you) and anti-porn feminists (whom you dislike becuase they do not agree with you. amnd hence call irrational) came far too late in the day to be convincing.
quote: I didn;t ask you to reprersent anyone; I only asked you who the Bad Feminists are. If feminism is as badly discredited by these Bad Femnists as you claim, surely they should be easy to identify? No? How about you, brennakimi, who are your Feminist Evildoers? Born2Preach? I doubt you could name ANY feminist at all, but I'd be willing to accept your nominations. Come on people. "everyone knows" that feminism is nuts, discredited... don't they?
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contracycle Inactive Member |
I don't particularly care either, I just want holmes to give us the names of these "anti-porn feminists" who are, allegedly, bringing feminism into disrepute.
I imagine Born2Preach will then give us his list of anti-marriage feminsts who, by being anti-marriage, bringing feminism into disrepute. In neither case do I expect Holmes or B2P to actually engaged with one or other femninist critique about porn or marriage.
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contracycle Inactive Member |
quote: Sure. And on the odd occassion, you'll find someone waxing lyrical about the mysticism of the moon. But thats exactly why I raise the question - why is it legitimate to criticise feminism en bloc in a manner which would not be legitimate in any other sphere? It seems to me that much of this criticism is misogynistic; it is the application of collective punishment. All feminist arguments must be dismissed because of a few nutters who have arrogated to themselves the term feminist.
quote: Thats an appeal for pity. It does not happen when you criticise AUTHORS. It does apply when the error of one individual is used as a bat to beat other individuals, even though they were not complicit in the original error.
quote: I say thats an appeal to the irrational female stereotype. Now I will say that I am broadly critical of the "academic" post-modern strand, and as I see it it carries all the problems of post-modernism, including the uncritical acceptance of the consumerist argument to the application of social leverage. So I agree that quite a lot of this strand of analysis is, IMO, counterproductive - and thus we end up with absurdities such as lipstick being retailed as a feminist product because it makes you look good/feel good. But I disagree with you that there is a great deal of problematising; that is only to argue your own conclusion. If someone argues that practice X is symptomatic of oppression, you need to engage with their analysis, not just dismiss it as creating problems were none exist. As I shall now show:
quote: The English language is not some objectively external phenomenon over which we have no control; it is a tool at our disposal. Your argument is prima facie contradictory: first you acnkowledge that by default we use "him" to refer to "her", but then object to the use of "it" because it denies female gender identity. Well, so does the generic use of "he"; so this offers no solution and no objection to a proposed solution. Second, its unlikely that any change would in practice rob anyone of their gender identity, as its embedded so often: geder-specific names, and titles, make it nearly impossible to talk about anyone without conveying their gender, even if using a generic pronoun. Third, the allegation that this is a "mangling" of the language is contestable. As I understand it, the deliberate and formal adoption of the MALE specific pronoun as the generic pronoun only occurred in the C18th, 1783 IIRC. Certainly, if you read English Napoleonic-era naval dipsatches, as I have done, they DO use the plural pronoun for the generic pronoun; there is a good case to be made that the use of the male pronoun is in fact "mangling the language". Thus, the allegation that feminism "problematises" issues that do not exist, and propose "silly" solutions like changing the language, is falsified: because the Feminist position is only to reverse a change to an older form of English which, they argue, is eliminates some of the misogyny in the current version. And as THAT shows, the argument is much more solidly based than just "problematising" an issue by people who can "never be pleased". And both of those arguments seem to be an appeal to an implicit irrationality of feminism. It seems to me that in fact it is those who oppose feminism who problematise unnecessarily, and can never be satisifed. There would be not much lost if we altered the lnaguage again to is pre- C.19th structure, and ceertainly society would not come crashging down. What do we have to lose by making this change and not subsuming 50% of our populace into the other 50%? So why the vehement resistance? Why the accusations of "problematising"? This message has been edited by contracycle, 09-24-2004 10:07 AM
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contracycle Inactive Member |
quote: Actually, as you well now, I attacked your blunderbuss blasts at Feminism precisely because some feminist authoers do support porn, at which point you backpeddled with shameful haste.
quote: Pull the other one, its got bells on. This message has been edited by contracycle, 09-24-2004 10:10 AM
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contracycle Inactive Member |
quote: Your protestations achieve nothing, your behaviour is consistently biggotted, and you remain racist scum.
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contracycle Inactive Member |
Umm, so whats new here? Women play a central role in their own oppression - this is standard stuff and inherent to an analysis of social conditioning. Thats exactly why it takes action and determination to bring about change, not merely piously hoping for better.
This message has been edited by contracycle, 03-28-2005 07:32 AM
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contracycle Inactive Member |
quote: I think the effects of feminism on popular culture can be discerned from the ease with which "bitch" passed into widely-used acceptable slang: that is, pretty much nil.
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contracycle Inactive Member |
quote: Absolutely not - I'm dubious about the idea of "reclaiming" stereotypes anyway, and am of the view that it mostly comprises pandering to said stereotype rather than challenging it. But bitch was a term of abuse before it passed out of rap into the mainstream as referring to a pimps bitches. That sense of bitch passed right into the mainstream - demonstrating that this statement of dominance and ownership did not get a rough ride from the main stream at all. And now this is so widespread that "not being so-and-so's bitch" or similar sentiments are commonplace. If feminism had any grip at all on our popular culture, this should have been resisted. But it fact it was welcomed and disseminated with anti-PC glee. The idea that world is overrun by interventionist feminists is so absurd that I regard people who advance the claim as paranoiacs. Probably the single greatest effect feminism has had on mainstream pop culture was the semi-removal of the Miss World cattleshow.
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contracycle Inactive Member |
quote: Thats the old usage of bitch as a not-too-offensive term, rather like "bastard" for men. I already acknowledged it had an existing career as an insult. This message has been edited by contracycle, 04-05-2005 05:38 AM
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