One
more
total
communication
failure.
I wrote that there would only be an obligation for them to also help men IF they want to claim that 'feminism' is about pure equality of the sexes and not just working for women's rights, which is what had been contended. It was a reply to a claim, not a suggestion.
Please try reading again.

Sexual objectification is sexist, even if it's objectifying a man. What do you think the word means?
from dictionary.com
Sexist - relating to, involving, or fostering discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex or gender, or attitudes and behavior toward someone based on the person's gender

This is the exact thing I've come to dislike about 'feminism'. It seems you're saying his objectification and devaluation isn't up to par with the objectification and devaluation many women suffer from, so it's not "actual sexism", doesn't matter, and he should just shut up about it and quit his whining.....but if a woman said the exact same words about being uncomfortable being required to do the exact same actions there would be (and has been) a serious discussion of how to solve that disturbing sexist trend and a move to fire and shame the disgusting pig director/photographer that forced her to do something she was uncomfortable doing, and if someone dared to say her issues were minor, outrage and attack.

@newtboy

Look, man, I've been watching you dig your grave deeper with every post. I'm not really sure what you're not getting, given the patient explanations everyone has provided. No one is saying you can't want equality for all, but to get equality for all you have to start by helping groups that are clearly NOT equal in society achieve some level of equality.

Ergo, Feminists focus on helping women achieve equality. And let's be clear, when we say equality we're talking about achieving equality with white males, because they are the ones who historically and currently hold the privledged position in Western society.

So, your whole, "But what about men?" schtick is insulting to feminists precisely because men are already better off than women in most areas. Feminists have no obligation to make men's lives--particularly white men's lives--better than they already are. This is not to say white men have no problems or that in some areas (child custody comes to mind) they aren't at a disadvantage. And there are activist groups working towards improvement in these areas. But demanding that feminists work for men's issues shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what feminism is all about.

This reminds me of the whole recent Kit Harington flap, where Kit claimed Hollywood is "sexist" towards men and displayed a similar fundamental misunderstanding of what sexism is. His point was that male actors can be sexually objectified (he refered to being asked to take his shirt off on a photo shoot). But being occasionally objectified is no where near the same thing as the well documented actual sexism that goes on in Hollywood--vastly different paychecks for lead actressess compared to actors, the number and types of nude scenes actressess are asked to do compared to male actors, etc. No one is saying objectification (of either sex) isn't a problem but there's a much bigger problem for women (as usual) than there is for men and that's why there needs to be a group (feminists) advocating for women to tackle these larger problems before getting to the problem of Kit Harington's discomfort at disrobing for the camera.

Does the sexism factor cancel it out, what with the female being the judge and all?

It'd be nice if straight white cis males weren't guilty at birth of oppressing everybody else...

Daily Show - Sexism on the Soccer Field has been added as a related post - related requested by ChaosEngine on that post.

"Push back? Do you mean intentionally suppress laughter for fear of being un-PC? Heckle (thats fine BTW)? Defame? Ban? Throw stones? Chase out of town? Burn books? Worse?"

Awfully hyperbolic. You seem to think someone saying "I don't like this" is brushing up with burning books?

Because I see that as an act of free speech. Protest, boycotts, etc aren't suddenly forcing anyone to do something or preventing anyone from saying anything. It's meeting speech with more speech. The pinion of free speech principles.

But free speech has never been freedom from consequences. You can say whatever edgu thing you like but you can't expect everyone to just shut up and be fine with it.

Either you accept being edgy is going to rile people up and get you reactions or you go back to doing boring ass material. Imagining that someone not enjoying your joke is akin to a mob trying to murder you only really shows how thin skinned comedians are to any criticism. Ignore it.

And the issue of disinvitations to colleges is, again, more free speech acts. Yet somehow, unless the speech is toothless and ineffective, its a melt down by thin skinned comedians.

Look, you need to know your audience when you do a gig. You don't walk into a bar mitzvah gig and tell all your edgy antisemetic jokes then get wounded at the "PC outrage" when people get mad. Yet somehow going to a college during a rise in college activism against racism/sexism and telling your "women are shit, right?" jokes is supposed to be no issue?

And the other issue in this: colleges are viewed more and more as a services paid transaction: I'm paying thousands to this place to provide me a product. So its no wonder students feel more empowered to complain, especially when their money from activity fees is being spent on something they don't like.

Saying "you owe us $500 and we're going to use it to pay the 'Muslims are all rapists' guy to come here and talk" isn't the best way to make people feel like their money is being used with their best interests in mind.

Honestly, if you feel like protests or any act of free speech you disagree with is akin to burning books or destroying lives... Maybe you should grow a thicker skin. Everyone doesn't have to like what you say and its not some afront to your rights when they don't.

I was right with you up to this point. I'm going to give you a the benefit of the doubt and assume that was a typo rather than a pointless antisemetic tangent and address the point directly.

Criticism of a piece of art does not equal desire to suppress or censor that art. I thought Twilight was a fucking awful piece of writing; and yeah, part of that was because of the horrendously misogynistic abstenience promoting bollocks. Would I ban it? Fuck no.

Sarkeesian and her ilk 100% have the right to criticise lazy sexism in video games, and they don't have to "have the skill to make themselves" to criticise it.

There's a difference between dictation and criticism.

I never said you can't oppose institutional rape. That was a counter-example to your "history wasn't universally sexist" point. I thought that was pretty clear.

I'll concede that sexism wasn't universal, but nothing is, so that's a completely meaningless point. I was illustrating that history in general has been pretty fucking awful to women.

As for that definition, it's not mine. I actually looked it up before I used it to make sure I wasn't using it incorrectly.

"the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities"
- Merriam Webster
"The advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes."
- Oxford
"Feminism is a range of movements and ideologies that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women"
- Wikipedia
Do I need to go on?

And yes, the concept has been around for ages. Support for the concept is relatively recent and has brought great change.

I think article linked below on reading level is important to note in regards to this.
https://contently.com/strategist/2015/01/28/this-surprising-reading-level-analysis-will-change-the-way-you-write/ By keeping his language simple, he is able to reach, and have his keywords understood by a larger American audience. Of course understanding speech and reading are slightly different, but it's word choice still becomes important.

As this video notes. Trump is a salesman. And he's selling his crap expertly well. He circumvents the answer with babble that never actually answers the question. He never answered if it's un-American to have a religious litmus test to allow people to visit the US, he just says we have a problem, and implicates all the people of one faith in that, which ISIL itself said sometime ago was their goal, to turn the world against all of Islam to make it easier to recruit and radicalize more people... which is off topic. He doesn't address the point of the question, he sort of skirts it and generalizes it into his overall framework. One could argue that yes, saying there's a problem is itself an answer to the question, but it isn't a direct answer.

I don't know as if he's intentionally talking at that low a level though, or if he's just his style period.

It'd also be interesting to see if Hitler's run-up to being elected, if he used similar style. That is if he used a simple style to appeal to the masses. Not just Hitler, but other leaders of his ilk. I choose Hitler here as more an example of an elected leader gone wrong, that had mass appeal to his people, but later regretted to the point of shame.

Even if Britt's famed Warning Signs of Fascism isn't fully accurate by all scholars (and I'm aware he doesn't actually have academic scholarship) many do come close. I think most can agree that it requires at least Extreme Nationalism, warmongering, a loss of civil liberties and rights (Patriot Act, wanting to increase the spy power of the NSA, etc), corporatism a merger of the state and corporate power, racism (Britt's warning signs says sexism, but I think racism is more apt and I don't think what people normally think about sexism applies, though we need more of a racism slash something, to note those who "sin" differently than others, such as the gays).

Quite true, and it's a risk you take when you do that and suffer the consequences if it bombs, comedians push these boundaries all the time (the good ones at least, IMHO). When he joked with that disabled person about the sign language was that person genuinely offended or did they connect over the joke which might have occurred to them as well?

And I honestly can't see how hidden racism/sexism/ or any other isms I can think of is an improvement. You can't fight an enemy you can't see, you have movements like Black Lives Matter and others having to first convince everyone that there is actually a problem before they can even begin to address the problem itself. So, no, not fantastic, pretending you don't have cancer doesn't make the cancer go away, it just festers and eventually spreads throughout the whole system.

I'm glad we both agree it was a stupid decision and while it may be their stupid decision to make it doesn't mean that Zizek and others can't criticize that decision and explain why they think it's stupid.

And censorship comes in many forms, Governmental is only one of the easiest to recognize. The tyranny of the majority is a very real thing, maybe they can't throw you in jail, but they can make your life very difficult and that can be enough to silence many. And that can make it into a totalitarianism of it's own kind, I find a lot of Left Wing extremism to be equally as dangerous and crazy as the Right Wing brand.
It's been shown time and time again that even without the law behind you you can pretty much destroy someone's life just because they said something you didn't like, all I'm saying is "maybe you SHOULDN'T".

I listen to the Intelligence Squared debates sometimes and I thought this seemed relevant, interesting debate.
http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-debates/item/1310-liberals-are-stifling-intellectual-diversity-on-campus

@Zawash
PC Master Race, checking in!

There's a difference between public and private speech. If you're talking to someone you know, well, by definition you know them and you know where to draw the line. My friends throw all kinds of anti-Irish racist slurs at me that I would take serious offence at coming from someone else.

As for the idea that PC "hides" racism/sexism/homophobia, fantastic! The more it's hidden away, the less people are exposed to it, until it becomes more and more socially unacceptable to be a racist, sexist, homophobic asshole.

Again re the opera: first, it was Perth not Sydney, and second, I agree it's stupid. But it was the opera companies stupid decision to make. No-one forced them to do this.

Here's the importance point: PC is not censorship. Censorship is saying you CAN'T say this, PC is saying "maybe you SHOULDN'T".

Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences of speech. If someone says something racist or sexist or whatever, I have the right to express my opinion that they shouldn't have said those things. If that's PC, so be it.

Leaving aside that the mormons are on barely on the legal side of sexism, racism and homophobia (to say nothing of the unfathomably dubious origins), if someone WANTS to stay in the church, well, that's their problem.

I'd probably think they're kind of an asshole, but whatever, maybe they have a nice (aka white, straight) community or something.

None of that explains why you think that anyone (good or otherwise) NEEDS the mormon church.

A sense of community, or spiritual well being can easily be had outside the mormon church (or any church for that matter). I admit that it would be difficult if your whole family was in the church, but it'd be difficult if your whole family was in the klan too.

@newtboy

I don't think I'm much in danger of contradiction in suggesting that you yourself have yet to crack a book of feminist theory or engage with a feminist activist making no more extravagant sex/gender claims that the one you quote from that unimpeachable source, dictionary.com (and when did dictionaries move from being an aid to understanding obscure words to the ultimate arbiters of political thought?).

There is no separating the movement from the ideology; this is an ancient truism. Without the movement, the idea dies. Without the idea, the movement doesn't exist. My unfollowable second paragraph comprises only examples of actual, nasty feminist doctrine which I have encountered in the real world, and could probably even document with a few google searches. I can hardly be blamed that this group is so dissolute, so indiscriminately inclusive of maniacs and criminal fanatics that no single representative feminist can be found, no central text can answer for the whole.

But for the sake of increasingly and inexplicably divisive argument, let's attempt to isolate just that 'small-f' feminism in the definition you give: "feminism: noun: the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men", which I will unconditionally repudiate and abjure, for the following reasons.

i) Let's be boring and start with the name. A name that has rightly attracted much criticism, and which Virginia Woolf - not a feminist, merely a devastatingly intelligent and talented woman - called "a vicious and corrupt word that has done much harm in its day and is now obsolete".* Anyone can see the defect here, an implicitly sexist term that apparently calls for the advancement of one sex at the expense of - whom? Well, whom do you think? A special politics for women only and exclusionary of those other incidental members of the human species, once allies and comrades and now relegated to the other side of what has become a literally unending antagonism.

You may say, "it's only a name", but how little else your dictionary leaves me to examine. No, were there no other social or intellectual harm in feminism, I would reject it on the ground of its name alone.

ii, sailor) Would that there were a known equivalent for the term 'racialism' that could relate to the cultural fiction of gender. The demand for women's rights necessarily requires that such a category 'women' exists, and is in need of special protection. Well what virtue is there in any woman that exists in no man? What mannish fault that finds no womanly echo? Then how is this distinction maintained except through supernatural thinking?

There are no women; and if there are no women, then there is nothing for feminism to accomplish. You may sign me up at any time for the doctrine of 'anti-sexism' or of 'individualism', but I will spit on anyone who advocates for 'women's rights'.

iii) This has been touched on before, and praise satan for that time saving mercy, but I reject the implicit assumption that there is a natural societal opposition to the principle of sex equality and that those who fail to declare for this, again, historically very recent dogma fall by default into that opposing force.



*The quote is worth taking in its fuller context, written in a time when the word 'feminist' was a slur on those heroes whose suffering and idealism has been so ghoulishly plundered for the tawdry use of @bareboards2 and her cohort:

"What more fitting than to destroy an old word, a vicious and corrupt word that has done much harm in its day and is now obsolete? The word ‘feminist’ is the word indicated. That word, according to the dictionary, means ‘one who champions the rights of women’. Since the only right, the right to earn a living, has been won, the word no longer has a meaning. And a word without a meaning is a dead word, a corrupt word. Let us therefore celebrate this occasion by cremating the corpse. Let us write that word in large black letters on a sheet of foolscap; then solemnly apply a match to the paper. Look, how it burns! What a light dances over the world! Now let us bray the ashes in a mortar with a goose-feather pen, and declare in unison singing together that anyone who uses that word in future is a ring-the-bell-and-run-away-man, a mischief maker, a groper among old bones, the proof of whose defilement is written in a smudge of dirty water upon his face. The smoke has died down; the word is destroyed. Observe, Sir, what has happened as the result of our celebration. The word ‘feminist’ is destroyed; the air is cleared; and in that clearer air what do we see? Men and women working together for the same cause. The cloud has lifted from the past too. What were they working for in the nineteenth century — those queer dead women in their poke bonnets and shawls? The very same cause for which we are working now. ‘Our claim was no claim of women’s rights only;’— it is Josephine Butler who speaks —‘it was larger and deeper; it was a claim for the rights of all — all men and women — to the respect in their persons of the great principles of Justice and Equality and Liberty.’"

Not true, and that's why I posted the actual definition, rather than my personal feeling on what the word means. Then we can all start from the ACTUAL definition(s) rather than just making some up and arguing about it.

Your second paragraph/sentence makes no sense at all to me, and sounds like a disjointed red herring/straw man/bad attempt at creating a false argument you can shoot down....but it's so all over the place it's unfollowable.

You continue to confuse feminism with Feminism, and also continue to paint all Feminists in the worst possible light based on a few overboard examples rather than describing the normal, average Feminist.
For instance, many Feminists see pornography and prostitution as empowering and taking control of their own sexuality, and it was actually prudish anti-feminist men who tried to censor it in the courts.

In fact, there ARE many people in the civilized world who still think women don't deserve the same rights as men in many areas, and insist they are unable to perform tasks men can perform, must be coddled and subservient, and are lesser beings based purely on gender, despite all evidence to the contrary.

It's only because of this continuing misunderstanding on your part that you claim anyone said anything like "The implication, in any event, that this is somehow a novel position, for which we have feminist advocacy to thank... "...you are again confusing feminist with Feminist, and using the wrong one. We don't have Feminist advocacy to thank, we do however have feminist advocacy to thank for the advancements in women's rights...it's what the word means.


It doesn't sound at all like you 'appreciate the attempt at consensus building', or even understood my point, since you continue to conflate feminism with Feminism. I can't be certain, but it seems you are doing that intentionally in order to argue a moot point.



EDIT:sorry, I thought I quoted you @gorillaman, so I'll cut and paste....

gorillaman said:
Everyone has a different definition of feminism; that is to some extent the problem. Rather, this is the final bulwark to which its advocates retreat when their main arguments have been punctured and deflated.

"But surely," says the distorter of domestic violence and rape statistics - says the agitator who runs dissenting professors off campus - says the censor of allegedly harmful pornography - says the fascist who criminalises prostitution or BDSM - says the conspiracy theorist who sees systemic sexism in places it couldn't possibly exist, like science and silicon valley (and videogaming, and science fiction) - says the proponent of patriarchy theory in societies in which men are routinely sacrificed to war, to dangerous jobs, to extreme poverty; whose genitals are mutilated; whose children, houses and paychecks can be taken away essentially at the whim of their partners; for whom there is vanishingly little support in the event of domestic abuse or homelessness; who are assumed to be rapists and wife-beaters and paedophiles; and who are told, throughout all of this, that it is their privilege - "I'm just claiming that women have rights. How can you disagree with that?"

The implication, in any event, that this is somehow a novel position, for which we have feminist advocacy to thank and to which there is actually anyone in the civilised world who objects, is a laughable and insulting one.

Still, I'm sure we all appreciate the attempt at consensus building.

Everyone has a different definition of feminism; that is to some extent the problem. Rather, this is the final bulwark to which its advocates retreat when their main arguments have been punctured and deflated.

"But surely," says the distorter of domestic violence and rape statistics - says the agitator who runs dissenting professors off campus - says the censor of allegedly harmful pornography - says the fascist who criminalises prostitution or BDSM - says the conspiracy theorist who sees systemic sexism in places it couldn't possibly exist, like science and silicon valley (and videogaming, and science fiction) - says the proponent of patriarchy theory in societies in which men are routinely sacrificed to war, to dangerous jobs, to extreme poverty; whose genitals are mutilated; whose children, houses and paychecks can be taken away essentially at the whim of their partners; for whom there is vanishingly little support in the event of domestic abuse or homelessness; who are assumed to be rapists and wife-beaters and paedophiles; and who are told, throughout all of this, that it is their privilege - "I'm just claiming that women have rights. How can you disagree with that?"

The implication, in any event, that this is somehow a novel position, for which we have feminist advocacy to thank and to which there is actually anyone in the civilised world who objects, is a laughable and insulting one.

Still, I'm sure we all appreciate the attempt at consensus building.

I respect your position and defence of it. I must say though that on inspection, the quoted reasoning can and therefore probably has been used in the past to condone slavery in America, and other awful stuff.

The problem with it is that you state your dedication to something regardless of the morality of it.

I'm trying to think of other things that have used the same reasoning. Sexism, bullfighting, fox hunting, anti-semitism, age old wars like the irish feud (until common sense prevailed)?

It really isn't a great way to set out your stall. There are so many things that we used to think were ok that needed to change, and the world is a better place because we didn't follow that "it's tradition" ethos.