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Am I more likely to make sexual misconduct accusations at any given level of sexual pestiness? That’s news to me. What evidence do you have that maintains that belief? And what is a “non-feminist” woman, according to you?
I am a woman who is not a feminist. I will not adopt an amorphous philosophical label that means different things to different people, and I find that many currently-popular strands of feminist philosophy poorly model social reality.
Yes, I have directly benefited from work by first-wave feminists. I have been paid for my work on the same level as my male colleagues. I vote, and while my vote counts for little except in very local elections, many politicians take women's issues into account, so I benefit from women having a vote.
I have also benefited directly from work by second-wave feminists. They pushed for increasing percent of women in various well-paid professions. I participated in well-financed programs geared to attract women into mathematics, then I benefited from graduate programs trying to increase female representation among their grad students, then I benefited from math departments trying to increase female representation among their full-time faculty.
Benefiting isn't the same as buying into the underlying philosophies, though. I gladly take equality of opportunity and equality under civil law, that I buy into. I question everything else, including the push expanding female representation in various professions that I personally benefited from. As for the third-wave feminist strands, I have yet to find one that I am willing to adopt.
So let me toss a question back at you: what specific currently-not-widely-adopted feminist philosophy do you find helpful in modeling social interactions?
I don’t split things into the “first wave” “second wave” “third wave”thing. To me, feminism is feminism; a social movement that advocates for equality between men and women in all aspects of life. Anything else is…not feminism. So, to answer your question I’d say none, because I don’t believe there’s a “currently-not-widely-adopted feminist philosophy”.
I think you are being a little naive here. Not disingenuous, but you are presenting something of a straw man. You're basically making the Marie Shear argument: "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people."
Now to steelman this, I know what feminists would say is "Duh, we know anti-feminists don't think we're literally not human, we mean they don't treat us as people like themselves with agency and full equal rights." Which would be fair enough, but if you look around (even in a place like the Motte with no shortage of anti-feminists), you will find very few people who think women aren't "people." Yes, we do have a few posters who literally do think women are p-zombies or should be property, but they are a minority.
The people here who oppose feminism are mostly not tradcons who want to repeal the 19th (though there are some of those too). They are people who have grievances with feminism as it manifests today, particularly third wave or "intersectional" feminism. Such "currently-not-widely-adopted" feminist philosophies would be things like #BelieveWomen, which is a classic case of motte-and-bailey, the Motte being "take women's claims of being harassed or assaulted seriously and don't assume they're making it up," the bailey being "Believe any woman uncritically and never express doubt about a rape story," even if it doesn't pass the sniff test.
Intersectional feminism is what also brought us trans ideology, which got many previously feminist women terfed out. JK Rowling, unambiguously a committed feminist, is now called a fascist and worst by many modern feminists, simply because she doesn't agree that trans women are women.
I try to be sympathetic to feminist arguments, because I do in fact believe women are people, but very much of modern feminist writing seems to fall within the stereotype often described here of women wanting all the privileges, none of the responsibility. The memes are kind of mean, but they also aren't... wrong. (I note that the linked article makes an earnest argument that "AKSHUALLY the problem is when men flirt and it's unreciprocated!" Which entirely misses the point.) I think of people like Amanda Marcotte and Jessica Valente, who were vanguards of modern third wave feminism and are some of the most bad faith writers I've ever had the misfortune of once taking seriously. They are practically memes themselves, with zero self-awareness.
Saying "feminism is feminism" and you don't split it into "waves" is kind of like a Christian saying he doesn't split Christianity into denominations. Well, great, you can say "Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship with God" all you want, but it is, in fact, a religion, and people ostracize, cancel, and even kill each other over denominational differences. I don't know if I can think of examples of feminists literally killing each other over sectarian differences, but as JK Rowling would point out, they most certainly care about them even if you claim they don't exist.
Point of order: SJ intersectional feminism is generally considered to be fourth-wave feminism, not third-wave (fourth-wave feminism being basically defined as "social justice orthodox feminism", and the dividing line being social media mostly welding feminism/gay-rights/trans-rights/anti-racism into a single movement with consensus on a wide range of issues). I think you'll find a lot less opposition around here to (actual) third-wave feminism than to fourth-wave (though not by any means zero).
The most notable current third-wave feminist movement would be the gender-critical feminists/TERFs (who rejected being welded into the SJ coalition, and are thus not fourth-wave).
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The TERF/TIRF debate has come pretty damn close at times, which is hardly surprising given that the latter denomination contains a higher proportion of male testosterone-y people than probably any nominally feminist denomination in history.
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Well, I don’t appreciate being insulted by being called naive. I heard a lot of that growing up in life, and through sheer statistics I’ve must’ve contemplated the declaration too many times to appreciate it anymore.
As an ex-Christian who went from Lutheran to Methodist to Baptist and then just plain Protestant, I don’t really split it into denominations either and consider it antithetical to the whole Christianity kaboodle. If people are ostracizing, cancelling and killing eachother over denominational differences I can’t imagine God would sanction such behavior since I can’t find it in the 10 Commandments. That a lot of Pharisees think they’re Christians, to me, doesn’t change the definition of being Christian. If God is real, I’m certain there is a great deal of people in for a violent awakening dancing to the tune of “Charlie’s Inferno” when they die.
In my opinion, when I look around the Motte, I actually see a majority in people who think women are not people. Thinking a woman is secretly happier being a stay at home mother and TV shows, newscasts, movies and teachers have convinced her to be miserable removes her agency and treats her own choices as math results, or that women are inherently less funny, less intelligent, less emotionally resilient than men because of their genes. The casual language around here about women is so very much not centered on speaking about them as if they are people capable of the same quality of thought as me in my opinion. In the same vein, if a bunch of misandrist and misogynistic people call themselves feminists, they’re wrong and hopefully will cringe at themselves with enough introspection.
I can’t comment much on your opinion on transgenderism since I don’t think it’s an ideology. I certainly wouldn’t call JK Rowling a feminist since she thinks “femaleness resides in the sexed body”. I’m not a woman because I have titties and estrogen, I’m a woman because I identify with the Western cultural construct of a woman, and in elaboration, I don’t wear a skirt because it’s biologically wired in me to do it. Implying anything else removes my agency, which doesn’t treat me as a person, and therefore isn’t feminist.
You're the one who thinks that any woman in a romantic relationship with a conservative or non-feminist man is secretly miserable and filled with self-loathing but isn't consciously aware of it. I've described this attitude as condescending before and I'm happy to do so again.
I think men are (on average) inherently less physically flexible, empathetic and emotionally intelligent than women, and more prone to aggression and violence, because of our genes. Does that mean I don't think men are people?
Or could it possibly be the case that I think men and women have different, complementary strengths and weaknesses?
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Out of curiosity, do you have a womb?
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How is this the same as “not seeing women as people”? You’ve focused on three specific vectors along which men have an innate advantage on women; men are, on average, better at making women laugh than women are at making men laugh. When we’re talking about intelligence differences between the sexes, it’s not a simple as “men are more intelligent than women”; rather, men are more represented at both tails of the intelligence distribution. There are more highly-intelligent men than there are highly-intelligent women, which is what you seem to care a lot about; however, there are also far more very stupid men than there are very stupid women.
I could easily focus on vectors along which women outperform men. Women are more conscientious, more kind and empathetic, and better equipped to navigate egalitarian and heavily procedural social-professional environments. (And given evolutions in the culture and structure of the modern workplace, this is one reason why women are beginning to economically outpace men in most strata of the white-collar world.) It would be absurd to accuse me of “not thinking men are people” because I have acknowledged women as superior in these specific ways.
I do not believe I am any more kind or empathetic than my brothers, my father, my boyfriend, his friends, my male coworkers, my cousins, my uncles and my grandfather because of how I was born. I think thinking otherwise removes agency from all those people - that no matter how hard they try, they’re always going to be a little less than me - dehumanizes them and doesn’t treat them as a whole person with free will and the choice to be better.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on the whole “men are funnier than women and there are more smart men than women” thing.
"I do not believe that I am any taller than my friend from Japan because of how I was born. I think thinking otherwise removes agency from Japanese people - that no matter how hard they try, they're always going to be a little shorter than me - dehumanizes them and doesn't treat them as a whole person with free will and the choice to be better."
Maybe you believe that blank-slate thinking is "nicer" than recognising the genetic components of various physical and psychological traits. That doesn't mean that blank-slate thinking is true: that it makes more accurate predictions than the alternatives. I think you're getting confused on the is-ought distinction.
As an aside, I'm consistently baffled as to how blank-slatists did such a good job of marketing themselves like they're the ones who are promoting a kinder, more charitable worldview. I recognise that, genetics being what they are, some people are just smarter than other people through no fault of their own, and there's not really much they can do to change that, so they shouldn't feel bad about it. But blank-slatists would have us believe that, because there's supposedly no genetic component to intelligence, then if someone is bad at maths, the only possible explanation is that they're lazy. Which is both untrue and extremely unkind to a person who may well be driving themselves to distraction trying to understand algebra and just failing to get it for reasons entirely outside of their power to change.
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Wait, does this only apply across gender lines? Do you agree that some people are more empathetic or kind than others on an individual level? If no then that's wild, please expand. If yes then why would you expect these variable traits to be equally distributed between groups that have wildly different hormonal profiles which cause behavioral differences in a very straightforward manner?
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Are most, if not all, of the individuals you just brought up taller than you are? Do they have greater grip strength than you do? Assuming the answer is yes, do you believe it invalidates their agency? Do you think tall people just simply work harder at stretching their bones than shorter people do, and therefore the difference in height is a matter of agency?
Similarly, do you think it dehumanizes me to suggest that no matter how much effort and resources I dedicate to improving my appearance, I will never be as physically-attractive as Henry Cavill? That he simply has better baseline genetic potential than I do? Do you think that makes me less human than he is?
Yes, they are taller. I have no idea what their grip strength is but I'd hazard 50/50 have more strength than mine. I don't think it invalidates their agency because I don't think the physical differences between the sexes has anything to do with a person's ability to be funny, or intelligent, or the myriad of other aspects of a personality. So no, I don't think tall people work harder at stretching their bones lol.
I think you're dehumanzing yourself by boxing yourself into a rigid view of attractive, I guess? So what if he has better baseline genetic potential if I think, and therefore others think, that his chin and neck are too thick to be a 10, much less a 9? That doesn't make you any less capable of reaching the objective level of attractiveness you want than him.
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Well, the alternative is believing you're just being disingenuous, which is more insulting imo.
You seem to define a lot of things according to how you personally feel about them. JK Rowling definitely considers herself a feminist, and on every single issue except trans women, she is probably on the same page as you. Yet you feel comfortable asserting that she is not a feminist because you are a third wave postmodernist feminist.
My opinion is that you are in fact a woman because you have "titties and estrogen" and that woman is not purely a social construct. You can disagree, and maybe there is some way you could prove me wrong, though I doubt it. But it doesn't mean I cease to consider you a person.
Agree to disagree? I don’t think I’m giving the impression of being honest and sincere, I think I am being both lol. That you struggle to understand how I can sincerely have my beliefs is one thing, but saying at best I’m inexperienced and at worst I’m a liar, well, Idk what to say other than “think what you want” and “that’s not very nice”.
I highly doubt JK Rowling and I are on the same page about every single issue except trans women. She probably doesn’t agree gender roles are a social construct, since she’s a TERF. She also likes to deadname trans women on Twitter; digging into the myriad of opposing sub-issues in that would be too long.
To be clear, my statement regarding the fact that you are naive or insincere concerned specifically your claim that "feminism is feminism" and that you don't consider there to be divisions or different schools of thought within them. You may genuinely believe that, but it's so obvious that these divisions do exist (and that other feminists are very aware of them) that it just seems kind of silly to claim you are following the One True Feminism and everyone else is either also on the same team as youor they've got it wrong.
... Have you ever actually talked to a TERF?
They very much do believe that gender roles are social constructs. That is their primary objection to men claiming to be women! They consider sex to be a biological reality, and gender roles to be social constructs, and from their point of view, trans women willingly adopt, play act and reify gender roles while claiming that they are based on some innate property. It's trans women who claim that wearing a skirt makes you a woman, and being a woman makes you want to wear a skirt.
Even if this is true, while I'm perfectly willing to have the Rowling debate again, it's irrelevant to whether or not she's a feminist, unless you think being a bad person (according to your ethics) means someone can't be a feminist.
I just feel like if I said something along the lines of “I think you’re being obtuse/pedantic/ignorant/childish/naive about this topic” to someone on here I’d be justifiably moderated, so it’s tough to feel like I’m getting dealt a lot of “you’re a troll, you don’t really believe these things”. But, as I said, the moderation on this site is not for me. I don’t want to bring it up a lot.
I’d retort to Mr. TERF that if gender roles are social construct as we agree they are, then there’s nothing wrong with a Western socially-construct man decided he wants to be a Western socially-constructed woman, because it’s all arbitrary in the end. A trans woman wants to identify with the Western social constructs that define a woman, how is that different from a Hindu deciding to be a Muslim? I technically consider myself to be non-binary because I don’t believe in gender. But, I’m also very comfortable with the aspects that make me a Western socially-constructed woman so much that I’m okay calling myself one despite not really believing in it. I admit I might be sounding a little confusing. I struggle sometimes to find an appropriate way to explain my opinion on gender since I consider the whole thing arbitrary and think everyone is actually a non-binary meat computer with either titties or balls.
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