Women's Studies - Do Feminists Hate Men? (Lauren Southern)
20 replies, posted
[video=youtube;JowiDnuBTHU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JowiDnuBTHU[/video]
So this chick (Lauren Southern) goes into a Women's Studies course and talks about her experiences.
Do Feminists hate men or are they a bunch of reasonable-ish people with a different political viewpoint?
Find out on this episode of Gender Wars Z!
(that was a joke, btw).
Seems that feminism is accelerating towards the deep end, even though there's still a lot of proper issues to fix.
Perhaps soon people will start taking egalitarians seriously?
I'm going to hazard a guess here and say the answer is definitely yes.
I'm going to hazard a guess here and say the answer is definitely "it depends on the feminist"
The problem with many radical feminists is that they scrape up everything they can to be geared to be "against the patriarchy" and literally slap it onto everything they see. The video's pretty much on point, a lot of debates don't open dialogue on the gray areas and directly target black & white issues.
Trying to target absolutes in any political discussion only closes the door for a lot of topics in-between.
The people who are dumbing every second post in this thread, would you like to explain your viewpoint on the issue?
[QUOTE=Zyler;49093532]The people who are dumbing every second post in this thread, would you like to explain your viewpoint on the issue?[/QUOTE]
Go back to /pol/.
[QUOTE=Zyler;49093532]The people who are dumbing every second post in this thread, would you like to explain your viewpoint on the issue?[/QUOTE]
Because these super scarywary ~radical feminists~ are a hilariously small minority who very rarely do more than kick up dust and whine. The idea that all of feminism is here to "ruin men" and "feminize genders" and "make a women only environment" is asinine and helps legitimize radical feminists, letting anti-feminists/progressives use it as fuel.
Egalitarianism, also, is not a real ideology and is usually brought up by people neutral on the issue who don't achieve anything.
[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;49093544]Because these super scarywary ~radical feminists~ are a hilariously small minority who very rarely do more than kick up dust and whine. The idea that all of feminism is here to "ruin men" and "feminize genders" and "make a women only environment" is asinine and helps legitimize radical feminists, letting anti-feminists/progressives use it as fuel.
Egalitarianism, also, is not a real ideology and is usually brought up by people neutral on the issue who don't achieve anything.[/QUOTE]
The "Radical feminists" are the only ones anyone actually pays attention to. Almost everyone worth talking to already agrees with equal rights for men and women, but we've already achieved as close to that as we reasonably can through law and legal discourse in favor of women. Almost all current "feminist" issues are based on misinformation campaigns and extremely abstract concepts with minimal basis in reality that focus on non-issues. These radicals don't want to push for equality anymore because that would erode the special protections they enjoy from the past, hence why they've repeatedly killed the Equal Rights Amendment (Look it the fuck up), and why it's not campaigned for today.
The problem here is that "gender studies" as a whole largely perpetuates a misinformation campaign that disadvantages EVERYONE who isn't one of the radicals benefiting from the campaign itself.
There is NO wage gap caused by sexism in the united states or the UK, the government can not fix problems that don't exist. If you want women to earn as much money as men, then you should insist they go into the same fields, work the same positions, and work the same hours. Don't forget to remind them that their wages are more important than having children so they aren't allowed to do that either if they want to earn the same as their male counter parts.
By demanding that women make the same exact amount of money as men you're either asking them to sacrifice their happiness and well balanced life choices in favor of money, or telling the government that they need to be payed MORE for less work and to write laws enforcing such. All this does is distract from actual issues that deserve a lot more attention and waste everyone's time to ride the feminist high-horse.
[QUOTE=Gable Tostee;49093540]Go back to /pol/.[/QUOTE]
Stop shilling.
Beyond the wage gap, what do you consider "real issues" for feminist to focus on? Another question, have you ever taken a gender studies class? I have not, but I'm wondering about you.
[QUOTE=axelord157;49093772]Beyond the wage gap, what do you consider "real issues" for feminist to focus on? Another question, have you ever taken a gender studies class? I have not, but I'm wondering about you.[/QUOTE]
I consider all the real issues in favor of feminists (in first world countries) that can be fixed by the government to have already been won. At this point so many of their points SEEM ridiculous because they can't find anything reasonable that doesn't risk them having negative repercussions.
For some reason people think that it's the government's job to prevent all possible violence against women and enforce a culture that prevents them from feeling uncomfortable, but that's literally not a possible goal to achieve. We will never be able to completely prevent crimes, they claim that we live in a "Rape culture" despite the fact that rape has never been so loosely defined nor so easy to prosecute for. They live in a delusion where they simultaneously want government to protect their own freedoms but strip freedoms from everyone else to serve their interests.
The growing ridiculousness in demands and expectations of the radical feminist left is evidence of perceived slights and a lack of realistic things to campaign for.
You don't need to take a gender studies course to see the effects and misinformation they instill in the people who take their courses and accept them at face value. The fact that "gender studies" is a major that people expect to be taken seriously as a legitimate career path fucking baffles me. They've turned a political movement into a CAREER, or vice versa, I suppose you could argue that they converted the career of gender studies into a political movement.
The problem is that it's a major that is vastly over-populated due to it's inherently small usage in actual GENDER STUDIES, and the political campaigns that people go into gender studies to support are not a sustainable career path, firstly because it should not be profitable to be a career feminist (Especially not on the scale that people major in it), and secondly because their primary purpose as a movement has already died.
Now they're just trying to find things to do, and all they can think of is to police everyone who disagrees with their perception of reality.
If you can give me an idea of what issues you feel they face that they campaign for so I can look into them and form opinions on them I'd appreciate it, because I honestly can't think of a real issue that they campaign for anymore (Abortion was one of the last things they won that had merit IMO) that the government can solve while preserving freedom in the U.S. OR the U.K.
The irony here is that they're at the U.N. demanding that they censor the internet on a global scale to "protect them" from internet trolls whilst collectively ignoring the plights of women in all the third-world shit holes that exist. Does it not seem to anyone else that they're exploiting the women's movement to limit freedoms enjoyed by first world nations?? Because that's what they're trying to accomplish.
[QUOTE=soulharvester;49093678]The problem here is that "gender studies" as a whole largely perpetuates a misinformation campaign that disadvantages EVERYONE who isn't one of the radicals benefiting from the campaign itself.
[/QUOTE]
Boy this sure sounds like something someone who knows nothing of what he is talking about would say. I mean way to reduce an entire academic field to the level of a conspiracy against whatever.
[editline]11th November 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=soulharvester;49093891]You don't need to take a gender studies course to see the effects and misinformation they instill in the people who take their courses and accept them at face value. The fact that "gender studies" is a major that people expect to be taken seriously as a legitimate career path fucking baffles me. They've turned a political movement into a CAREER, or vice versa, I suppose you could argue that they converted the career of gender studies into a political movement. [/QUOTE]
I would suggest that actually taking one of those courses might make you aware that what you are talking about and what is studied under gender studies aren't one and the same.
[QUOTE=Lonestriper;49093895]Boy this sure sounds like something someone who knows nothing of what he is talking about would say. I mean way to reduce an entire academic field to the level of a conspiracy against whatever.[/QUOTE]
Please tell me what complaints or issue they can solve at this point that won't negatively impact women whilst eroding freedoms and equal treatment of the genders with their misinformation campaigns.
[QUOTE=soulharvester;49093922]Please tell me what complaints or issue they can solve at this point that won't negatively impact women whilst eroding freedoms and equal treatment of the genders with their misinformation campaigns.[/QUOTE]
I really do not understand this sentence but I think I may have its general thrust so I'll try anyway.
The issue is that your are making a sweeping generalisation about a very real and very serious academic field. And like any academic field there is a wealth of differing opinion within it. You're doing it a disservice by claiming it is essentially governed by radical feminists. Suggesting that is dipping into consipracy style thought.
You misunderstand, there is no "governing" of the feminist movement. Feminism is not self critical. Radical feminists don't run it, they exploit it.
There are hundreds of millions of reasonable self-identified feminists, but this self-identification is shrinking by large percentages because the majority of people in first world countries are actually satisfied with how far gender equality has come and don't wish to risk throwing off the balance that has been struck. This isn't very evident because people don't make a huge fuss when they're content with something.
The problem lies in that there are so many career feminists that use the movement to further political agenda that has minimal positive impact for the majority of people and puts the rights that protect everyone at risk. Modern feminism is no longer about furthering the rights of women across the world.
edit: Food for thought: [url]http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/04/09/82-percent-of-americans-dont-consider-themselves-feminists-poll-shows/[/url]
[QUOTE=Lonestriper;49093895]
I would suggest that actually taking one of those courses might make you aware that what you are talking about and what is studied under gender studies aren't one and the same.[/QUOTE]
That's the whole reason this video exists. Lauren went to the class, learnt what they were teaching and obviously knows what she's talking about. She isn't criticizing some radical group, she's criticizing the regular stuff people get taught in women's studies courses. I can't speak to what soulharvester is talking about, but everything Lauren talks about in the video is what is studied under gender/women's studies, they ARE one and the same.
Sorry if I misinterpreted what you meant, but what you're saying doesn't make a lot of sense since we have a person's experience of undertaking gender studies right in the OP.
Did you watch the video?
[editline]11th November 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;49093544]Because these super scarywary ~radical feminists~ are a hilariously small minority who very rarely do more than kick up dust and whine. [b]The idea that all of feminism is here to "ruin men" and "feminize genders" and "make a women only environment" is asinine and helps legitimize radical feminists, letting anti-feminists/progressives use it as fuel.[/b]
Egalitarianism, also, is not a real ideology and is usually brought up by people neutral on the issue who don't achieve anything.[/QUOTE]
None of that was said in the video. Did you watch it?
Subscribed. Can't find much to disagree with, honestly. As a disclaimer, I call myself a feminist, but more and more I've been dissatisfied with the movement because I feel it's moving towards extremism.
Especially since only [I]women's[/I] issues are discussed, while I think men and women suffer equally, just in different ways.
I've been reading an awesome book and it made the point, "Misandry is misogyny." That's what I think a lot of radical (especially sex-negative) feminists utterly miss.
[QUOTE=soulharvester;49093891][B]I consider all the real issues in favor of feminists (in first world countries) that can be fixed by the government to have already been won.[/B] At this point so many of their points SEEM ridiculous because they can't find anything reasonable that doesn't risk them having negative repercussions.
[B]For some reason people think that it's the government's job to prevent all possible violence against women and enforce a culture that prevents them from feeling uncomfortable, but that's literally not a possible goal to achieve.[/B] We will never be able to completely prevent crimes, they claim that we live in a "Rape culture" despite the fact that rape has never been so loosely defined nor so easy to prosecute for. [B]They live in a delusion where they simultaneously want government to protect their own freedoms but strip freedoms from everyone else to serve their interests.[/B]
[B]The growing ridiculousness in demands and expectations of the radical feminist left is evidence of perceived slights and a lack of realistic things to campaign for.[/B]
You don't need to take a gender studies course to see the effects and misinformation they instill in the people who take their courses and accept them at face value. [B]The fact that "gender studies" is a major that people expect to be taken seriously as a legitimate career path fucking baffles me.[/B] [B]They've turned a political movement into a CAREER, or vice versa, I suppose you could argue that they converted the career of gender studies into a political movement.[/B]
The problem is that it's a major that is vastly over-populated due to it's inherently small usage in actual GENDER STUDIES, and the political campaigns that people go into gender studies to support are not a sustainable career path, firstly because it should not be profitable to be a career feminist (Especially not on the scale that people major in it), and secondly because their primary purpose as a movement has already died.
[B]Now they're just trying to find things to do, and all they can think of is to police everyone who disagrees with their perception of reality.[/B]
If you can give me an idea of what issues you feel they face that they campaign for so I can look into them and form opinions on them I'd appreciate it, because I honestly can't think of a real issue that they campaign for anymore (Abortion was one of the last things they won that had merit IMO) that the government can solve while preserving freedom in the U.S. OR the U.K.
[B]The irony here is that they're at the U.N. demanding that they censor the internet on a global scale to "protect them" from internet trolls whilst collectively ignoring the plights of women in all the third-world shit holes that exist.[/B] Does it not seem to anyone else that they're exploiting the women's movement to limit freedoms enjoyed by first world nations?? Because that's what they're trying to accomplish.[/QUOTE]
1.) Very vague, politician-like answer. I appreciate that. You still have not told me what you consider real issues, so I'll give you two: The recent accusations against Planned Parenthood and how many states seem to have hundreds or thousands of untested rape kits piling up until they eventually become useless.
2.) No duh that's impossible. But is it really that unreasonable to ask the government to protect you when you pay taxes and all that social contract jazz? I don't think so?
3.) Strip rights from who and how? You are being very vague again.
4.) Your first mistake was expecting reasonable demands from people you label as RADICAL. Radicals don't make reasonable demends, cuz ya know, the whole being radical thing. Did I also tell you that radicals are always the smallest pop. while being the loudest/dangerous to make up for their small numbers?
5.) If you don't understand why Gender Studies can be taken seriously, you must be more ignorant or not as clever as I thought you were. Gender Studies, more or less, is like viewing history (and the now) through the eyes of women from many different classes, races, and etc. If viewed with nuance and tact, Gender Studies can produce some mindblowing stuff like most subjects that undergo the same treatment.
6.) What do you expect to happen? Politics is some serious shit, man. It isn't some gig you can checkout of when the mood strikes you - you have be dedicated to a cause to make the changes you want to see. World-changing activists don't half-ass what they did. Those men & women were passionate as fuck (I don't feel like color metaphors now).
7.) You think after women got the right to vote, they said "GG" and went home? Hell no. They looked at what else they could fix and fought to change that as well. On the policing thing, being told by some nobody you don't respect is not being policed; that's somebody - wait for it - practicing their 1st amendment rights!!! As long as you're not threatening people with violence, you can say all the shit you want.
8.) The UN? Those useless fucks? Mainstream political attention is nice and all, but do you think the people who couldn't stop the Rawandan massacre could do a thing about people saying stupid shit on the internet? Hell no. Please don't start on the plight of the 3rd world shithole women; that's one of the oldest anti-feminist attacks in the book. I know for a fact you have no idea what intersectional feminism is, but I'd recommend you to research it up - good stuff.
In conclusion, I don't think you are absolutely ignorant about women/feminist issues beyond the stuff you see on places like (I'm guessin) reddit or tumblr, but you definitely think you know enough about them to vomit a bunch of words and give yourself a nice, warm pat on the back afterwards. Hell, you admitted it yourself ("You don't need to take a gender studies course to see the effects and misinformation they instill in the people who take their courses and accept them at face value."
Thoughts?
[QUOTE=soulharvester;49094046]You misunderstand, there is no "governing" of the feminist movement. Feminism is not self critical. Radical feminists don't run it, they exploit it.
There are hundreds of millions of reasonable self-identified feminists, but this self-identification is shrinking by large percentages because the majority of people in first world countries are actually satisfied with how far gender equality has come and don't wish to risk throwing off the balance that has been struck. This isn't very evident because people don't make a huge fuss when they're content with something.
The problem lies in that there are so many career feminists that use the movement to further political agenda that has minimal positive impact for the majority of people and puts the rights that protect everyone at risk. Modern feminism is no longer about furthering the rights of women across the world.
edit: Food for thought: [url]http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/04/09/82-percent-of-americans-dont-consider-themselves-feminists-poll-shows/[/url][/QUOTE]
Hundreds of millions?
[QUOTE=axelord157;49094789]1.) Very vague, politician-like answer. I appreciate that. You still have not told me what you consider real issues, so I'll give you two: The recent accusations against Planned Parenthood and how many states seem to have hundreds or thousands of untested rape kits piling up until they eventually become useless.
2.) No duh that's impossible. But is it really that unreasonable to ask the government to protect you when you pay taxes and all that social contract jazz? I don't think so?
3.) Strip rights from who and how? You are being very vague again.
4.) Your first mistake was expecting reasonable demands from people you label as RADICAL. Radicals don't make reasonable demends, cuz ya know, the whole being radical thing. Did I also tell you that radicals are always the smallest pop. while being the loudest/dangerous to make up for their small numbers?
5.) If you don't understand why Gender Studies can be taken seriously, you must be more ignorant or not as clever as I thought you were. Gender Studies, more or less, is like viewing history (and the now) through the eyes of women from many different classes, races, and etc. If viewed with nuance and tact, Gender Studies can produce some mindblowing stuff like most subjects that undergo the same treatment.
6.) What do you expect to happen? Politics is some serious shit, man. It isn't some gig you can checkout of when the mood strikes you - you have be dedicated to a cause to make the changes you want to see. World-changing activists don't half-ass what they did. Those men & women were passionate as fuck (I don't feel like color metaphors now).
7.) You think after women got the right to vote, they said "GG" and went home? Hell no. They looked at what else they could fix and fought to change that as well. On the policing thing, being told by some nobody you don't respect is not being policed; that's somebody - wait for it - practicing their 1st amendment rights!!! As long as you're not threatening people with violence, you can say all the shit you want.
8.) The UN? Those useless fucks? Mainstream political attention is nice and all, but do you think the people who couldn't stop the Rawandan massacre could do a thing about people saying stupid shit on the internet? Hell no. Please don't start on the plight of the 3rd world shithole women; that's one of the oldest anti-feminist attacks in the book. I know for a fact you have no idea what intersectional feminism is, but I'd recommend you to research it up - good stuff.
In conclusion, I don't think you are absolutely ignorant about women/feminist issues beyond the stuff you see on places like (I'm guessin) reddit or tumblr, but you definitely think you know enough about them to vomit a bunch of words and give yourself a nice, warm pat on the back afterwards. Hell, you admitted it yourself ("You don't need to take a gender studies course to see the effects and misinformation they instill in the people who take their courses and accept them at face value."
Thoughts?[/QUOTE]
1. Thanks, I guess? I've found that refusing to choose delicate wording brings out debates on semantics instead of the issues I'm actually interested in discussing, so I try to cover my bases so as to avoid that.
I fail to see how accusations and inquiry about potentially illegal activities of a group are considered a major feminist issue in need of support. Preventing investigation into potential illegal activity sounds, well, illegal. If they find illegal activities to be happening and start having to close down centers and this impacts women, then it will probably turn into another conflict about the ethics of birth-rights. If that's the case, then so be it. They'll win the issue anyways, it'll just take some time.
Can you elaborate or link to the concern about untested rape kits being an issue? I've never heard about this and am unsure of it's relevance.
2. No, it's not unreasonable to ask the government to protect you, and it does the best it can in most cases. The problem is that they have an expectation that the government should magically be able to create a society in which some people can act however their wish without any risk of becoming a victim. It's unrealistic and goes against common sense, the only method of which even attempting to achieve such a state would be to the detriment of everyone's human rights. an extreme and admittedly poor example would be something like locking away anyone perceived as being capable of violence.
3. To be more specific, one of the more common place changes currently taking place on these college campuses is that people that fall under these "marginalized" groups are demanding "safe spaces". It's a play on emotion, the implication of which requires the perception that these groups are automatically victims and cannot defend themselves from differing opinions. The reality is that modern feminism is rapidly losing popularity and they're trying to salvage what they can by preventing the spreading of ideas that challenge their own.
4. I never said that they made reasonable demands, that's the point, and we agree, they are a small, vocal group of people. The problem is that they have WAY more influence than is reasonable because people are afraid of criticizing people who call themselves feminists, regardless of what they're advocating for.
5. Gender studies, as a group that actually studies the effects of gender roles, the evolution of such, and impacts of, is pretty cool. I have no issue with people who properly perform studies of the social psyche, the issue is that too many people are being radicalized by how these classes present their information and pose questions in a way that stifles questioning of feminist "theory" that is often in dispute and is in no way fact, and miss-attribute anything that they feel under represents women/minorities as sexist/racist oppression caused by the patriarchy/white privilege.
Wage gap? Not caused by sexism. in 2012, males were incarcerated at 14 times the rate that women were. This is not considered sexist, yet it's considered racist oppression that blacks are incarcerated at a rate higher than their population represents (Instead of the result of poverty and gang/ghetto culture). They're creating a narrative that misrepresents statistics and forgoes logical analysis of what's actually happening and how to realistically solve these issues. What's their primary response to these statistics? "Stop being sexist! Pay women more!" and "Black lives matter, Whites need to stop killing blacks!" regardless of the statistics showing that women tend to choose to work jobs they're more comfortable with, and tend to be less aggressive about working overtime or seeking pay raises (Which I'm all for, more power to you, negotiate for raises, you have the right to do so! Choosing not to do so does NOT make the practice sexist, however). Nor is it about how blacks are incarcerated more BECAUSE they are statistically much more likely to commit violent crimes per capita. The problem isn't with the justice system, it's with the social one. However people don't want to tackle that because they don't want to be seen trying to "break black culture" or some other non-sense, despite the fact that it [url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4751835]hurts and represses them[/url].
6. Yes, and up until about this time frame there have been some huge injustices in first world countries if you consider equality to be the ideal, which almost no one will dispute, I certainly wouldn't oppose that stance. The problem is the in the interpretation, most reasonable people agree that the ideal would be for equal opportunity, that people who try and work hard should be able to create similar success regardless of their gender or race, if they want it and try for it. The problem is that now it's trying to be interpreted as "Women must have equal or MORE representation than men in everything or else it's inherently sexist!". This is neither fair to women nor to men, it creates a pressure that tries to prevent women from pursuing things that would otherwise make them happy so as to try and fit them into more traditionally male roles/work spaces. It's unfair to men that they're being singled out and called sexist for pursuing their interests or desire for success when that's what society has pressured THEM into doing their whole lives.
The thing about fighting to promote equality, as any feminist would tell you is what their movement is about, is that the implication of obtaining equality is to create a balance. Once you reach that balance, the movement has to slow down or refocus it's goals or risk creating further imbalance. I think most people who are neutral on these issues and actually have a reasonable world view would agree that first world countries have for the vast most part hit that balance. You might cite that men are still in more senior and higher political positions than women, the thing is that it takes time for that to change, and it will.
7. The right to vote was a key step towards equality, a principle not fully developed then. the public at that time didn't hold the same values on equality that we do now. The thing is that they're running out of things to fix, but being what I like to call "career feminists" requires that they have something to work towards, the problem is that they're no longer pro-women, they're now in the business of censorship and radical ideals, and a lot of their views have shocking similarity to those previously deplored as christian right ideals, who funnily enough also used to have hilariously anti-gaming sentiment.
8. The UN is absolutely useless on solving international conflict, I agree. But that's because none of the relevant big players there are willing to cause a significant shift that could result in international hostilities. That's not what they're bringing up at the UN, though. They don't want them to act against a certain nation or coalition, they're asking the UN to buckle down and enforce restrictions on the free speech of their citizens, many of whom already support censoring free speech and actively do so. The UN Already wants to demand that the U.S. hand over the basis of internet infrastructure to them, are you starting to see how this becomes problematic?
Oh, and normally I wouldn't pull the "Yeah but women in South Africa are more likely to be raped than graduate high school" thing because everyone just ignores you and derails the subject, but when you're complaining to the UNITED NATIONS about internet trolls, you're fucking asking for it.
Thanks I guess for the interest in this debate, I won't be able to respond any more until tomorrow though, so don't think I'm ignoring you if I don't respond promptly.
[QUOTE=Jack32;49094992]Hundreds of millions?[/QUOTE]
If you accept the statistic that approximately 18% of Americans self-identify as feminists, and that there's approx. 320 million people in the U.S. (I'm sure it's slightly higher), then there's approximately 58 million people that identify as feminists in the United states alone (Obviously this is prone to error such as where the samples groups were taken from and etc). So I guess expressing it as hundreds of millions is possibly hyperbole, depending on the ratios in other countries. It honestly wasn't one of the main points I was concerned about being accurate with. At the very least it's in the tens of millions.
I apologize for the wall of text btw.
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