Thoughts on the #messagetofeminists thing?

pharphis

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This thing was started a few days ago and it's somewhat interesting. Well, some of it is predictable of course but some of it is more than simple anti-feminist talking points.

Here is the twitter link (I think - I don't personally use twitter) and here is one of the youtube examples by noelplum99 (only the first 2 mins are necessary)

Does anyone know of a feminist response? Any self-identified feminists who contributed?
 
You're almost walking into the fire, pharphis. I hope you've got a flame-resistant suit. :D
 
Well I think the most accurate definition of feminist (reflective of feminists in reality not just a dictionary) is someone interested in advocacy for women's issues. This doesn't necessarily mean they are anti-men or anything like that though it often does translate to this.

Feminists also seem to accept a variety of presuppositions in their world-view such as one or more of the following: patriarchy, rape culture, wage-gap... Of course, definitions for these things are varied but I'm also not really sure why you're asking me. I didn't start the hashtag, I just noticed that some youtubers were following along and was wondering what thoughts were going around here and elsewhere.

To some extent, it doesn't even matter WHAT feminism is as long as it has a huge number of people self-identifying as one,as Harmful Opinions noted in his video
 
Thoughts on the #messagetofeminists thing?

Mind-numbingly uninteresting.

I hear there's a chain letter going around about something too. :boggled:
 
pharphis said:
Well I think the most accurate definition of feminist (reflective of feminists in reality not just a dictionary) is someone interested in advocacy for women's issues. This doesn't necessarily mean they are anti-men or anything like that though it often does translate to this.

Feminists also seem to accept a variety of presuppositions in their world-view such as one or more of the following: patriarchy, rape culture, wage-gap... Of course, definitions for these things are varied but I'm also not really sure why you're asking me. I didn't start the hashtag, I just noticed that some youtubers were following along and was wondering what thoughts were going around here and elsewhere.

To some extent, it doesn't even matter WHAT feminism is as long as it has a huge number of people self-identifying as one,as Harmful Opinions noted in his video
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Because you asked for "feminists" to provide their views on it to you, and I had no way to know if I qualified.
 
RogueKitten said:
How do you define feminist? That's a pretty broad range of people.
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Well, there's quite a few who identify as such, and while they often trot out the dictionary definition, they often will simultaneously advocate for public policies or make claims that would appear to run contrary to said dictionary definition. Or they'll use the dictionary definition in a 'No True Scotsman' manner to disavow other self-identified feminists who do hold more radical or strident views.

I guess what I'm saying is to judge them based on actual statements, actions taken, and policies supported, rather than dictionary or other definition.
 
Corsair 115 said:
Well, there's quite a few who identify as such, and while they often trot out the dictionary definition, they often will simultaneously advocate for public policies or make claims that would appear to run contrary to said dictionary definition. Or they'll use the dictionary definition in a 'No True Scotsman' manner to disavow other self-identified feminists who do hold more radical or strident views.

I guess what I'm saying is to judge them based on actual statements, actions taken, and policies supported, rather than dictionary or other definition.
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Then I have no idea if I can help you loll
 
RogueKitten said:
Then I have no idea if I can help you loll
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Yeah, I know. Too general comment is generally useless. ;) Let me try again.


RogueKitten said:
Because you asked for "feminists" to provide their views on it to you, and I had no way to know if I qualified.
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Upon further reflection, to answer your question more usefully, from the few videos I've seen, which, I believe. are attached to the matter mentioned in the OP, while the general term 'feminist' is used, what they are really referring to are the third wave, intersectional feminists. Those are the ones who seem to be steering the ship of feminism at present, and who seem to wield a considerable degree of influence in terms of public policy, academia, and in at least some media outlets.
 
RogueKitten said:
How do you define feminist? That's a pretty broad range of people.
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Which is basically what makes all social level discussions about almost everything train wrecks these days, anyone can join, slap any label they want to both themselves and others, and without fail it almost always immediately degrades into bickering about categorization and various levels of "One True Scotsman" against overly broadly lumping everyone together.

Am I a feminist? I guess. I mean all the textbook definitions and tenets of feminism (that is the basic idea that women should be treated equal to men) are a no brainer to me. If you're still stuck at the "barefoot and pregnant property of the husband" level of thought I probably aren't going to see eye to eye with you anytime real soon.

But like many, perhaps most, ideas feminism despite being a broad collection of ideas does tend to coalesce into "movement" which start to develop it's own... personality I guess you'd call it for lack of a better term. And feet to the fire has "feminism" the movement always picked the best hills to die on, rhetoric and languages to use, and methodologies? No.

My agreement with feminism the intellectual concept does not obligate me to agree with every social movement that applies that same level to itself.

But I do think the boogeyman of the "Feminist" is way overblown. Yeah I've done my share at eyerolls at some of the Tumblr nonsense and news articles where some ditz claims that killing women in a video game should be considered rape or whatever but... honestly I never meet people like that in real life so I'm tempted to just dismiss them as trolls and Poes at worst, people who are so disconnected from reality they can't operate in it at best. The hard core really crazy stuff doesn't seem to leak over into the real world all that often so while I do feel that opinions professed in an anonymous environment do have sometimes have a certain value in looking at the underlying mentalities of certain opinions and movement, I have hard time really taking the super-seriously.

Where does that leave me? *Shrugs* Hell if I know. Pro-feminist ally or neck-bearded MRA or somewhere in between I guess.
 
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RogueKitten said:
Because you asked for "feminists" to provide their views on it to you, and I had no way to know if I qualified.
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Now that I've given my definition, do you fall within it? Even if you don't, you're free to share your thoughts.
Shadowdweller said:
Mr. Plum's video was surprisingly articulate and intellectually valid at the very least.
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Noelplum is one of the more articulate people in the youtube community of atheists/skeptics/non-feminists. A lot of people claim he is a "fence-sitter" or too neutral on topics but I don't think that is true at all. I think he is simply more charitable than most when interpreting his "opponent's" (for lack of a better word) message.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
They can't get to the point, I don't have time to listen.
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Well, like many of these things that are "challenges" they have rules that go with them. So, people tend to explain the rules and purpose and then give their statement. The thought provided in noelplum's video is around 1.5 mins iirc.

Of course, you're free to browse the twitter *shrug*
 
I highly, sincerely, exasperatedly doubt anyone other than their anti-feminist peers will be viewing these messages.
 
A hashtag is a rather amorphous thing to respond to. I read the first several tweets in the OP link and was kind of underwhelmed. If you picked out certain tweets to respond to I could, but it just appears to be a grab-bag of anti-feminist statements or links to youtube videos or other sites, but I'm not going down that rabbit hole.

There are certainly strains of feminist thought that should be subjected to critical analysis, as well as anti-feminism, but I don't identify with either tribe, although I am broadly in favor of women's rights.

ETA: I will say this much: I am rather suspicious of people who just lump all feminism together and cherry pick the most extreme or easy to mock examples as reasons to dismiss feminism altogether. I mean, sure: Andrea Dworkin, that chick was cray-cray, but just because she exists and said some stuff that is easy to mock doesn't mean that all feminists agree with her extreme ideology.
 
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In it's simplest form, Feminism is this....

All people are humans and as such should be treated equally as humans, without regard to their gender.
 
PhantomWolf said:
In it's simplest form, Feminism is this....

All people are humans and as such should be treated equally as humans, without regard to their gender.
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That gets repeated a lot, but there are many instances of feminists who don't want or even advocate for equality.

For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Daly

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Miller_Gearhart

People like that, by your definition, could not be feminist, yet that is how they are widely regarded. Thus, feminism must mean something else. IMO, feminism is simply female identity politics. There is no underlying philosophy that encompasses all of feminism.
 
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PhantomWolf said:
In it's simplest form, Feminism is this....

All people are humans and as such should be treated equally as humans, without regard to their gender.
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But that excludes any feminist who advocates for affirmative action. Also, not that feminists HAVE to deal with men's issues (there's nothing wrong with focusing on one problem over others), it does suggest a certain level of dishonesty when almost all feminists advocate STRICTLY for women's issues. "equality, equality, equality... for women" seems to be the message that almost all feminists give via their actions. It is rare indeed that a feminist advocates for men outside of the nebulous excuse that "patriarchy hurts men, too".

Note: I'm NOT appealing to the more radical groups of feminists ("all men are misogynists", air conditioning is sexist, etc.) either. I'm appealing to what I think represents the common denominator of feminists: People (mostly women) who advocate solely for women's issues while claiming that they fight for equality of everyone.
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
I highly, sincerely, exasperatedly doubt anyone other than their anti-feminist peers will be viewing these messages.
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This is also my suspicion, though there is some overlap in communication between the feminist/anti-feminist communities (at least on youtube). Maybe one of the feminists will respond to a handful of the messages.

Puppycow said:
A hashtag is a rather amorphous thing to respond to. I read the first several tweets in the OP link and was kind of underwhelmed. If you picked out certain tweets to respond to I could, but it just appears to be a grab-bag of anti-feminist statements or links to youtube videos or other sites, but I'm not going down that rabbit hole.

There are certainly strains of feminist thought that should be subjected to critical analysis, as well as anti-feminism, but I don't identify with either tribe, although I am broadly in favor of women's rights.

ETA: I will say this much: I am rather suspicious of people who just lump all feminism together and cherry pick the most extreme or easy to mock examples as reasons to dismiss feminism altogether. I mean, sure: Andrea Dworkin, that chick was cray-cray, but just because she exists and said some stuff that is easy to mock doesn't mean that all feminists agree with her extreme ideology.
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Fair enough
 
PhantomWolf said:
In it's simplest form, Feminism is this....

All people are humans and as such should be treated equally as humans, without regard to their gender.
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That's egalitarianism, not feminism. Feminism seeks the advancement of women. This means it overlaps a lot with egalitarianism, but then so does men's rights advocacy then.
 
pharphis said:
Noelplum is one of the more articulate people in the youtube community of atheists/skeptics/non-feminists. A lot of people claim he is a "fence-sitter" or too neutral on topics but I don't think that is true at all. I think he is simply more charitable than most when interpreting his "opponent's" (for lack of a better word) message.
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Of course a lot of people dismiss "antifeminist" movements as being typically the substanceless ravings of a bunch of self-entitled white guys who scapegoat other sociopolitical groups rather than facing up to their own personal shortcomings; notwithstanding that such causes are far more often aimed at straw arguments rather than any sort of intellectually honest inquiry or discussion.

Case in point: Ignoring for a moment that fact that "feminist" isn't a particularly monolithic or cohesive grouping, what "message" do you feel needs to be sent to feminists?
 
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JoeBentley said:
The hard core really crazy stuff doesn't seem to leak over into the real world all that often so ...
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The law against 'manspreading' on NYC transit—something for which individuals (men) have been arrested. The 'yes means yes' laws in New York and California. The general erosion of due process on university and college campuses for those accused of sexual assault. That's just a partial list. These are real issues, which have arisen as a result of the actions of third wave intersectional feminist types and their campaigning.


Puppycow said:
I am rather suspicious of people who just lump all feminism together and cherry pick the most extreme or easy to mock examples as reasons to dismiss feminism altogether. I mean, sure: Andrea Dworkin, that chick was cray-cray, but just because she exists and said some stuff that is easy to mock doesn't mean that all feminists agree with her extreme ideology.
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Understood. But, again: While the general term 'feminist' is used, what is usually being referred to are the third wave, intersectional feminists. It is they who seem to be steering the ship of feminism at present, and it is they who seem to wield a considerable degree of influence in terms of public policy, academia, and in at least some media outlets. As it is rather unwieldy to continually say 'third wave intersectional feminists' it gets shorthanded to 'feminists', and since that is the brand of feminism predominant at the moment, such shorthanding is not entirely unreasonable, if somewhat imprecise. By context most folks can gather what is actually being referenced.
 
Shadowdweller said:
Of course a lot of people dismiss "antifeminist" movements as being typically the substanceless ravings of a bunch of self-entitled white guys who scapegoat other sociopolitical groups rather than facing up to their own personal shortcomings; notwithstanding that such causes are far more often aimed at straw arguments rather than any sort of intellectually honest inquiry or discussion.

Case in point: Ignoring for a moment that fact that "feminist" isn't a particularly monolithic or cohesive grouping, what "message" do you feel needs to be sent to feminists?
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I think there are several great messages that feminists should consider. In fact, I think both what noelplum99 said and what Harmful Opinions has said are worthwhile, more nuanced messages to consider.

Not sure why you're throwing "white guys" into your stereotype or suggesting that criticizing a movement (feminism) has anything to do with "facing up to their own personal shortcomings". What the hell does that even mean?

I do agree that there is a lot of straw-manning (or more accurately, attacking a smaller subset than suggested by just saying "feminist/feminsts do/say X") but I think that's bound to happen with any political commentary. I try to ignore or criticize the continuously hyperbolic (thunderf00t is a good example here) and I take the minority that have actual discussions more seriously (noelplum99, Vernaculis, Gad Saad, and others)
 
Shadowdweller said:
Of course a lot of people dismiss "antifeminist" movements as being typically the substanceless ravings of a bunch of self-entitled white guys who scapegoat other sociopolitical groups rather than facing up to their own personal shortcomings ...
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Not to mention the numerous women who are anti-feminist, the more notable of which are probably Karen Straughn, Alison Tieman, and Hannah Wallen, but there are plenty of others. Then there are women feminists such as Christina Hoff Sommers and Camille Paglia who firmly oppose the excesses and nonsense spouted by third wave intersectional feminism (and get decried by those third wavers for not toeing the third wave intersectional line).
 
RogueKitten said:
How about, I'm a woman, I demand to be treated equally to men in all sectors. I do believe women are treated as objects in our culture, and men are too. Both need to stop. I don't enough about "feminism" to know if I qualify.
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That makes sense. Feminists believe that women and girls deserve the same rights and opportunities the men and boys have. This includes equal pay for equal work.
 
Corsair 115 said:
The law against 'manspreading' on NYC transit—something for which individuals (men) have been arrested.
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As to this first point, I hadn't heard about that so I googled it and found this Snopes article about that:
http://www.snopes.com/2015/06/02/manspreading-arrest/
The bottom line seems to be that it isn't clear that there actually is a law against 'manspreading' or that anyone has really been arrested for it.
Missing from all claims about the manspreading arrests were the specific criminal codes under which the men were purportedly charged, the date of the infractions in question (or whether "recently" was in the last week, month or year), the names of the men charged, their ages, where the incident may have occurred, or any other information attesting to the fact two men were arrested in New York City at any point in history for quality of life crimes related to manspreading. Moreover, the original claim specified that the two men purportedly arrested for manspreading both had outstanding warrants, which in and of itself is cause to be ordered to appear in court and rarely culminates in being let go with just a warning. And, as New York magazine observed of this news:

Gothamist points out that it's against the MTA code of conduct to "occupy more than one seat when to do so would interfere or tend to interfere with the comfort of other passengers," but it's highly doubtful the train was actually crowded after midnight.​

It's possible that two unnamed men were arrested in New York City for manspreading, but no details about the claim were made available in the original report or any of the many later repetitions of it. The scant information suggested that the men were arrested not for manspreading but for arrest warrants already active at the time they came to the attention of the NYPD.
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So even if there is a law (or probably just a 'rule for subway riders'), it's not written in a way that targets men, but people who "occupy more than one seat when to do so would interfere or tend to interfere with the comfort of other passengers".
(Occurs to me that some people are so fat they might be breaking that rule just by sitting!)

The 'yes means yes' laws in New York and California. The general erosion of due process on university and college campuses for those accused of sexual assault. That's just a partial list. These are real issues, which have arisen as a result of the actions of third wave intersectional feminist types and their campaigning.

Understood. But, again: While the general term 'feminist' is used, what is usually being referred to are the third wave, intersectional feminists. It is they who seem to be steering the ship of feminism at present, and it is they who seem to wield a considerable degree of influence in terms of public policy, academia, and in at least some media outlets. As it is rather unwieldy to continually say 'third wave intersectional feminists' it gets shorthanded to 'feminists', and since that is the brand of feminism predominant at the moment, such shorthanding is not entirely unreasonable, if somewhat imprecise. By context most folks can gather what is actually being referenced.
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Fair enough.
 
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Puppycow said:
As to this first point, I hadn't heard about that so I googled it and found this Snopes article about that:
http://www.snopes.com/2015/06/02/manspreading-arrest/
The bottom line seems to be that it isn't clear that there actually is a law against 'manspreading' or that anyone has really been arrested for it.

So even if there is a law (or probably just a 'rule for subway riders'), it's not written in a way that targets men, but people who "occupy more than one seat when to do so would interfere or tend to interfere with the comfort of other passengers".
(Occurs to me that some people are so fat they might be breaking that rule just by sitting!)


Fair enough.
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Why use the term manspreading then? Why not just have posters to remind people to be considerate of other riders? Also regarding the hilighted, can you imagine the reaction if subways had posters saying 'no fatspreading'. :jaw-dropp
 
mcb77 said:
Why use the term manspreading then?
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The term came from the people who started documenting the problems a few years ago. They noticed that people who did the, spread your legs so much wider than your shoulders using two seats thing, were well over 99% men. With women the problems were primarily having their bags and/or backpacks take up an extra seat.

mcb77 said:
Why not just have posters to remind people to be considerate of other riders?
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Previously they just used posters and had been since the 1920s. In fact there was even a poster in the 30s or 40s, I think, that showed a man with his legs spread taking up two seats and asking that men stop doing it.
 
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