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.
i never said all feminist arguments must be dismissed. you're reading something that isn't there. and i'm not a misogynist. probably the opposite -- i don't seem to have any male friends at the moment.
my point is that although there are a lot of people that CALL themselves feminists, the movement as a whole is tending in another direction than women's rights.
listen, i could call myself a creationist here and get away with it. i personally believe that god created the heavens and the earth. but read my arguments on this board - i certainly sounds in favor of evolution, don't i? yet i can call myself a creationist because i fit the technicality of the title.
I say thats an appeal to the irrational female stereotype.
no, that's a valid argument. take a class in it, you'll understand. they're not there to fix things, they're there to poke holes in stuff. therefor, there is no pleasing them, as a whole.
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.
you misunderstood. i'm not making up this "problematize" word. we must have used in class a hundred times. it's not creating poblems where none exist (although that IS my play on the word), it's pointing out inequalities, personal biases, and oppression where they may not be so obvious, an -- as you put it -- using the individual example as a bat to beat the whole area with. (see the francis bacon example)
The English language is not some objectively external phenomenon over which we have no control; it is a tool at our disposal.
arguable, but i'll agree.
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.
um, no, i was citing the feminist position. i should have made that more clear. i do not object to using "it." it's a perfectly acceptable solution: it dehumanizes everyone equally. it's entirely not my fault that we think of "it" as being non-human (such as an infant) as a society. since the language is a tool at our disposal, let's change that.
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.
i agree. i think the few cases where we use "him" to a refer to a group that could include a "her" or two is not hurting anyone. in fact, i wouldn't have a problem with using "her" as the gender neutral pronoun. it's just a freaking word.
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".
alright, that's fine too. just get my english professor to shut up about it next time i use it in a paper.
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.
yeah, except this wasn't an argument i just made up.
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.
yeah, except the word they used themselves was "problematizing."
and yes, post-modern feminism is implicitly irrational. not because it has anything to do with women, but because it's post-modern. i have not found a shred of logic in anything dubbed post-modern.
again, i have no problems with old feminism, with women, or equality and women's rights. i have probelms with the post-modern academics.
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