Maher may be a libertine and a contrarian but he's a sexist and a racist and not the least bit progressive.

I can see why you'd call him sexist, but what did he say that was racist?

That really just validates his point, qualm. The definition of "sexism" has been hijacked and remodeled by the feminist movement into reflecting normal, Darwinian, evolutionary advantageous, natural male masculine behavior. And then this natural behavior is demonized by way of lionizing feminist values. This creates a "false dichotomy" logical fallacy in which one is artificially pitted against the other. I say artificially because evolution never intended the two value paradigms to be mutually exclusive; they are only useful in a synergistic relationship. Bill Maher is advocating nothing other than the allowance of men to act as dictated by their evolutionary imperative, and for women to allow them to do so. If this, then, is the new definition of "sexism", then I agree that, by that definition, Bill Maher is "sexist". To that accusation, I would respond with a question. "So what?"

Nicely put, Cronyx.

Cronyx,

Great post, wonderfully written. You should be a professor of something! I agree with Maher. The Media is always telling us women are better at everything and how its wonderful, to the point that kids are being thought where I live that there is no such thing as masculinity, men have no "character" they are merely robots programmed by society to (get this) rape, murder, oppress homosexuals, beat their wives and molest children. This is being thought to young men where I live. Mens only hope is the embrace feminism...

The college kid radical feminists of 20 years ago are now running the dept of education here and pushing their own (thoroughly disproved) ideology on the nations young men. Its the young men that will suffer for it, but somehow I dont think feminists will care about that.

"Bill Maher is advocating nothing other than the allowance of men to act as dictated by their evolutionary imperative"

evolutionary imperative is not a tactic, and women have the SAME evolutionary imperative as men, they SHARE it with them, being a part of the same species and all.

Look at ants. WOuld you say that the "queen" is denying the evolutionary imperative of other female ants?

I don't see how Maher is being sexist here, he's calling feminism on a lot of its bullshit and quite right too. Equal rights is a good thing but feminism, even its name, isn't about equality but about prejudice against men. That it has resulted in a load of pretence is one of those things that would be funny if it wasn't true.

Like I said on that "Don't look at her breasts" clip, the world would be a better place if we could all see where other people are looking and hear what they are thinking, because we'd all deal with the fact that some people are gay and a lot of men are perverts and so on and so forth, we'd be comfortable with it and capable of surviving it. Instead, we have people so scared of their own sexuality that they campaign against it, out of denial or fear or whatever and making up stuff like The Devil made me shag that rent boy and get him to set me up with drugs.

You can't take a critique of feminism seriously when it begins with the preposterous idea that sensitivity, feelings, commitment, children and safety are "feminine" while truth, facts, individuality, people and fun are "masculine".

It's a critique of stereotypes berticus, and your reaction to those ideas makes me think Maher nailed it. I tend to agree that there is an over valuation of so called feminine concepts in America. I don't think Maher is being sexist, he is after all not advocating that women stay at home and raise the babies, which was the original stereotype that feminism raged against. I would be interested in hearing his thoughts on so called new wave feminism, or the new found belief that being feminism is acting like a ho... for instance I bet Paris sees herself as a feminist because she has boy toys.

My reaction (that it's absurd) to his belief that those traits are gendered means he nailed.. what?

To assert that feminism is strictly a critique of remote definitions of terms representing intrinsic qualities and adapted features -- considered exclusively as "natural" extensions of gender -- is to participate in a narrowing of these terms; it's also the process of ridicule whereby the feminist narrative is effectively silenced. I can't help seeing it as a cynical strategy supported in the MSM, and the public square, to limit or preclude the general public's awareness of serious feminist thought. There is a structure of power which is threatened by feminist examination. It's called patriarchy. Feminist analysis examines these entrenched structures of power and challenges their validity.

Having said that, I think it's important to remind that men are also victims of patriarchy, even as men inherit various powers of entitlement.

I take awful care of myself, and I still look twenty years younger than my friends with wives and kids.

Loved the video and agree with it and a lot of the commentary. While I can't officially call for it, I think this needs an "NSFW".

Is it just me, or is Qualm just trying to imitate Cronyx?

Oh please. Cronyx is far from the mark. It's not a serious claim that attempts to collapse the scope of feminist thought to an imaginary "hijacked debate" women are supposed to be having over what may or may not be the acceptable limits of pernicious male behavior. If he's read feminists then he knows these concerns are peripheral to the struggle women advance whenever they question the validity of deep-rooted structural norms that extend from the patriarchal legacy.

Like I said, men are also victims of patriarchy.

I think Greer is problematic on many levels, (specifically she has a remarkable allergy to examinations of class privilege), but she is right to point up that the opposite to patriarchy is not matriarchy but fraternity. I think this is an important point.

The regular impulse of 'power-agents' to silence critics when they feel their entitlement is threatened, like we saw in Maher, is very similar to the predictably scornful, cliched reactions the term "politically correct" commonly engenders:

(from a blog) "The phrase "politically correct" can be used in two distinct ways: either with its original literal meaning, or with the mocking sarcasm that's common these days. I'll get to the former in a moment, but I'll begin with the latter. As it's commonly used, "PC" is a deliberately imprecise expression (just try finding or writing a terse, precise definition) because its objective isn't to communicate a substantive idea, but simply to sneer and snivel about the linguistic and cultural burdens of treating all people with the respect and sensitivity with which they wish to be treated. Thus, the Herculean effort required to call me "Asian American" rather than "chink" is seen as a concession to "the PC police", an unsettling infringement on the free-wheeling conversation of, I suppose, "non-chinks". Having to refer to black folks as "African Americans" rather than various historically-prevalent epithets surely strikes some red-blooded blue-balled white-men as a form of cultural oppression---

---Underlying every complaint of "PC" is the absurd notion that members of dominant mainstream society have been victimized by an arbitrarily hypersensitive prohibition against linguistic and cultural constructions that are considered historical manifestations of bigotry. It's no coincidence that "PC"-snivelers are for the most part white men who are essentially saying, "Who the hell do these marginalized groups think they are to tell me how I should or shouldn't portray them?"

Quoted paras from here: http://www.kaichang.net/2006/11/the_sloppy_prop.html

By the way, how many of those fifty odd votes do you think are from women?

Where's my chicken pot pie, bitch?

Hey qualm look at this video, at around 2:30 comes the important bit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXOKMW7sL6I&mode=related&search=

Thanks bluecliff. Actually I just now watched a minute beyond 2:30 and I'll have a closer look once I've made something to eat.

Succinctly put, Cronyx. Love the clip; so true...

On a side note, I never used to care for Bill Maher. I caught him on The Tonight Show one time and he basically belittled and attacked the main guest of the show (don't remember who it was) with absolutely no provocation from the guest. It didn't occur to me at the time that he may have been using the opportunity to retort a previous altercation; I still don't know the facts behind the attack and probably never will) However, I remember anchoring that and, to this day, it is still the first thing I remember about him. Only recently have I come around to seeing he is a very skilled comedian and debater.

Cronyx clearly cannot support his original comment. I'll take that to mean he concedes the ground to me.

That is the most asinine assessment qualm. People have been having arguments on the internet since it was invented and to somehow assert that because someone hasn't responded to you means that you are right is just ludicrous. There are literally 1000 reasons why there is no response and none of them have anything to do with you.

Yah maybe, and Cronyx is still thirty-one flavors of Wrong. Someone stepped up to the plate with a cogent, rational argument and the lot of Maher-"manly-men" (and by the way, he sure is a prime specimen of "natural evolutionary manhood"...not) have no response of any weight.

Maher's got a batting average on the "truth" about as good as A-Rod has been playing lately.

Someone stepped up to the plate with a cogent, rational argument

No, someone stepped up to the plate and did their best to come up with big words like Cronyx did. It's a little ridiculous.

*nsfw

This video has been marked NSFW (called by gold star member silvercord)

Cronyx clearly cannot support his original comment. I'll take that to mean he concedes the ground to me.

Next time you might wanna check if the guy you're arguing with has actually BEEN on VideoSift lately before you go swaggering around.

Anyone who says that feminism is about the ownership and change of terms hasn't read any feminists.

Don't you feel silly throwing in your 2c worth?

Karaidl, even for a sidekick you're unremarkable.

I as a woman, will gladly take to heart what Bill Mahrer said. In that light, I will never bog down a man by having him marry me. This gives me ample evidence that a life full of sex with various partners is the way to go. I can now live the life I've always wanted. Never getting married, never having kids because no matter what any man says to me from now on, he will never want to be with just me for the remainder of his life. I already own an indoor cat, why subject that cruelness to a human being?

Thank you, Bill, for showing me the way. I can now fill my schedule with a plethora of short torrid love affairs, one night stands and never have crying brats furthering the overpopulation of the world. Kudos!

Karaidl, even for a sidekick you're unremarkable.

But it's funny - for such an unremarkable guy, you sure put a lot of thought into it. Had to come on back for three responses.

No, but I understand if it seems like a lot of thought. Seeing as how your Cronyx has nothing more to say on the subject, I "win".

Yay me!

PC is a form of alteration of semantics for agenda-(see Eric Blair)

Most of the folks that are hip and centered, in the U.S., use, with their black, Asian, or Hispanic American friends, colloquial terminology, if referencing their origins for contextual emphasis, endearingly....don't know if you noticed folks, but most of the racism of 40 years ago and beyond in America, has been snuffed with regards to any form of separation of races....it is a new game today, working towards
a new form of ism, based on demographics and citizenship.....and, hello meatbots, race-baiting, class struggle, all the mob-oriented tools are still used by the herders-

Dupes are those who play into it- If one has a lot of baggage, and bitterness, then they will probably be the ones the most upset, when they overhear someone say, "the black dude cross the way", or, "He's that cool Asian cat I met" -personally am honored when cultural heritage is recognized, referenced, or associated in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person...banter-away(here), of a cracker-ass euro-mutt dago....

....whenever you see the uncomfortable look, in the eyes of someone, if you fail to say "African-American", referring to a brother?, you'd be doing him a favor, to shove that shit, straight back up his ass.....

Agree with the political, economic, and social equality of females-buuut....Feminism-?

Feral
Egocentric
Matrons
Irrational
Nihilists
Intimidating
Seminal
Monkeys

I'm all for the political, economic and social equality of African Americans, but the civil rights movement??

a tool, like all tools, believes the constructs of the planet could be better rendered, on a canvass of their own, idyllic, design...

Bah. I love Bill Mahr, but I can't get behind this clip.

I'm a hardcore feminist, and to me that means that I believe that chicks are awesome and should be treated like people. For the record, I also believe that guys are awesome and should be treated like people.

I disagree with Mahr's assertion that American values have become feminized. I do think American popular culture has increasingly come to value polarized, extremist expressions of gender, with our faux manly war mongering Connecticut-born cowboy in chief on the one hand and increasingly stylized and abstract representations of femininity on the other (Mariah Carey, Anna Nicole, etc.).

I think that what Mahr calls "feminine values" are more accurately attributable to a trend away from personal responsibility. Let's not talk about how to fix things or how to be a good citizen or how to get things done. Let's whine about our feelings and talk about how our children are in terrible danger from sexual predators or tinfoil or whatever the threat of the day may be. It's not that we've all turned into chicks, it's that so many of us have turned into soft bellied unthinking buttmonkeys.

I agree. And the suggestion that feminists have "stepped out of line" by grafting the meaning of sexism to "natural male behavior" (whatever that means) is, in a word, sexist. Very often cultures of entitlement are mostly invisible -- until challenged. I find the sexism reflected in many of the posts above to be instructive.

Hey, swingingpagan, welcome back to the Sift, haven't seen you around lately.

Yes - the correct target of his rant was soft bellied unthinking buttmonkeys. It's akin to the message of SICKO.

@Tofumar - maybe qualm was referring to the "Jew's mouth" part of the video? Or perhaps just some completely other reference to something said outside the vid? But that part of the discussion seems to be rather dead.

No, I've heard Bill Maher cross the line into racism a few times on his earlier tv show.

Fine. I have no interest in defending Maher against either accusation, especially since I agree with those here who think he is sexist (and that the criticisms of feminism offered here have been quite stupid).

I just didn't see anything in this video that seemed particularly racist, and would like to see evidence for the claim that he's said racist things on past shows.

I'm a female who voted for this and I believe he's dead on. There is feminism and then there is hypocrisy, the balance between the sexes has yet to have been attained.

Why is it that not just on tv but in classrooms that I grew up in can someone say females are smarter and get loud applause, but when the same is said for boys you get a negative response? There is much bullshit out there, and while the values he listed at the beginning do not hold for all in their respective sexes it is the 'status quo' in the media and elsewhere.

awwwwww *dead

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working embed here:
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Awarding rasch187 with one Power Point for fixing this video's dead embed code.

Conyx: "Bill Maher is advocating nothing other than the allowance of men to act as dictated by their evolutionary imperative, and for women to allow them to do so."

Translation: Men have a "natural" entitlement to power and women need to learn to live with it.

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Awarding Barseps with one Power Point for fixing this video's dead embed code.

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The duration of this video has been updated from unknown to 8:03 - length declared by Barseps.