This is topic I'm trying to learn something new about Feminism today in forum Discussions About Orson Scott Card at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
Someone I know was talking about a class they are taking for a family therapy program concerning gender and it was explained that there is a slanted perspected used in Feminism that has been utilized in every minority policy issue since the 70's. He said the professor was very open about this slant, and that the use of this slant is called feminism even when applied to other minorities. It is simply that because the minority has so long been oppressed, they will only engage in discussion from the high ground.

If this is true, and I am looking for independent corroboration, it would explain so much of what baffles me and other conservatives about the liberal agenda. See, we have the assumption that people wish to be equals, not to place themselves in the higher status that the majority was formerly in.

What is really interesting is that the whole idea of making someone humble themselves to converse with you sounds... kind of... Christian. It is similarly somewhat mystical why someone would want to be elevated to the status of oppressors, then call it the high ground. I mean, there's the moral high ground, and then there's the material high ground. I guess they are sometimes independent of one another. I have a theory that mercy and forgiveness come from different points on this kind of power gradient.

I post this on the OSC side, in case it's not obvious, due to his long struggle to have intellectuals recognized as a religious body. "Religion" shares a root with "relinquish". I think it refers to relinquishing one's autonomy to pursue a common belief system with others.

[ January 29, 2007, 04:31 AM: Message edited by: pooka ]
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
I don't mean to nitpick, but "religion" doesn't share a root with "relinquish."

"Religion" comes from, IIRC, "re-ligare," or "to bind."

"Relinquish," according to Dictionary.com, comes from "re-linquere," or "to leave behind (for someone)."
 

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Posted by Survivor (Member # 233) on :
 
Heh heh...I hate to have to agree with Tom, but there you have it.

I'm wondering whether you did that on purpose, though. I'd think that you'd be pretty familiar with the whole "re-ligare" thing. I think that you make an interesting connection between these two somewhat opposite words...to reliege to one loyalty, you have to relinquish others. Sort of a word-play invoking the concept of trying to serve both God and Mammon.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
No, it wasn't on purpose, I just didn't look them up first. I guess somehow I got both of them mixed up with some kind of fifth conjugation verb. But what would "reliquor", if it existed, mean anyway?

Then again, someone was telling me "desire" derived from aster the other day, so maybe it kind of fried the Latin center in my brain.

But, yeah, it's not really central to the point, which is that Feminism does require adherents to toe a line. It's just kind of upsetting to me for all the times I've called myself a cultural feminist, or gotten angry at people for using the term "femi-nazi". I mean, it's still not a nice thing to say, but I always said something equally nasty back, when equality is not the feminist way. To be specific, I'd invoke the phrase "unrighteous dominion" which is actually what the Feminists are up to.
 

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Posted by Survivor (Member # 233) on :
 
"disaster"

So...feminists, the Ghem-Hadar, the Founders...it all makes sense to me now.
 

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Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
 

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Originally posted by pooka:
No, it wasn't on purpose, I just didn't look them up first. I guess somehow I got both of them mixed up with some kind of fifth conjugation verb. But what would "reliquor", if it existed, mean anyway?

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I post this on the OSC side, in case it's not obvious, due to his long struggle to have intellectuals recognized as a religious body. "Religion" shares a root with "relinquish". I think it refers to relinquishing one's autonomy to pursue a common belief system with others.

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But the fact is that a large number of people have struggled long and hard, with a certain amount of success, to define "intellectual" as meaning "believing x,y & z."

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You lost me when you said "only engage in discussion from the high ground." I don't know what that means.

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I think where this argument is seriously flawed is in saying that intellectuals have a common belief system.

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Kind of like "the religious right" which includes a bunch of denominations that have very different doctrines? I mean, you can get a fair disagreement on doctrine between people who answer to "Mormon" right here on this board.

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If this is true, and I am looking for independent corroboration, it would explain so much of what baffles me and other conservatives about the liberal agenda. See, we have the assumption that people wish to be equals, not to place themselves in the higher status that the majority was formerly in.

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I oppose most modern forms of feminism only because it is too one sided. Men are still expected to uphold certain customs for women but change when women want them too, if i was to suggest that any of the women in my immediate circle change something about themselves I would probably be called a sexist. equal rights is great if the movement goes both ways.

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I believe that you may be expecting too much from the feminist movement too soon. Change happens slowly, and I believe that women are struggling to find their new roles more than men are right now. Women ARE changing...a lot. Men seem to be a bit slower coming around, IMHO. But either way, it will take decades of give and take to finally settle into our new roles.

And now I want to give specifics but when I look back on the initial post, I am finding it too vague to comment on further. If you wanted to be more specific about your complaints, we could discuss them. How do you want women to change? How are you being expected to change? How have you changed?


Puppy -- Fetus is the technically correct term for an unborn baby from about 2 months past conception to birth (before that it's an embryo). A baby is not a baby until after birth, technically. You can say "unborn baby" but fetus has fewer syllables.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 

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Puppy -- Fetus is the technically correct term for an unborn baby from about 2 months past conception to birth (before that it's an embryo). A baby is not a baby until after birth, technically.

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Based on what, exactly? Sure, fetus is the correct term medically speaking, but so is human organism. We don't demand that adolescents be only called adolescents - we call them teenagers, or boys and girls, or kids, or a host of other things. The demand that only the medical term for this particular stage of development be used is an attempt to blunt the strongest pro-life argument.

It makes good sense from that perspective, of course. But it doesn't change the fact that the language purported to be "neutral" actually isn't. There isn't a neutral word to use here.
 

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Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
Well, I looked it up in the dictionary. Also, you could turn this around and say that by calling it a baby you are ignoring the strongest pro-choice argument. Either way, it fits neatly into the topic because BOTH sides are attempting to use language to create a moral high ground.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 

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Also, you could turn this around and say that by calling it a baby you are ignoring the strongest pro-choice argument.

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I'm not denying that. In fact, I said that there is no neutral word.

And in two dictionaries I looked at, fetus is included in one of the definitions of baby.

But you didn't really answer my question. I never said fetus wasn't accurate. We acknowledge that almost all individual points in human development has more than one name - a medical name, several common names, etc.. Why is the medical name insisted on in this instance only?
 

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Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
I'm not really sure what you're asking. I said fetus was the technical term. I didn't say it was the only one. In fact, I usually do use "unborn baby" in conversations to or about pregnant women because it sounds nicer. I did say that a baby was not a baby until after birth. I use Merian-Webster, and it did not say that a baby was an alternate name for a fetus or unborn baby. Having had a baby relatively recently (14 months ago), I can personally assure you that in practical terms, there is quite a big difference between an unborn baby and one that has been born.

But I don't really want to take this up with another abortion debate. There's one going on in another thread...if we need to continue this discussion maybe we could take it there.

[ February 01, 2007, 11:56 AM: Message edited by: Christine ]
 

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Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
 
Are we talking about language?

If so: there is a strong temptation to frame it all in ways to make our side sound good. This may be misguided. For example, if you oppose spanking and you call it "beating children," you're telling those moderates that you might like to have on your side, "I'm too hysterical to be relied on."

Or maybe not. I had a college roommate who said he was a socialist. I asked him why, and he gave me an outraged look. "I don't want to love money!" he said.

So: capital means money; "capital" is part of the word "capitalism"; "socialism" and "capitalism" are opposites. Therefore he concluded that in order to avoid loving money you had to be a socialist.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 

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If you wanted to be more specific about your complaints, we could discuss them. How do you want women to change? How are you being expected to change? How have you changed?

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I don't think you could point out any beliefs, let alone entire belief systems, that all intellectuals have in common.

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Originally posted by pooka:

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If you wanted to be more specific about your complaints, we could discuss them. How do you want women to change? How are you being expected to change? How have you changed?

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It doesn't sound like you understood my initial post. I'm asking for corroboration on 2 items.

1) "Feminism" is a method of advancing a social agenda that requires reversal of majority/minority role before negotiation can commence.

2) It is called "Feminism" even when it is being used by other minority groups.

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1) "Feminism" is a method of advancing a social agenda that requires reversal of majority/minority role before negotiation can commence.

2) It is called "Feminism" even when it is being used by other minority groups.

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quote:

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1) "Feminism" is a method of advancing a social agenda that requires reversal of majority/minority role before negotiation can commence.

2) It is called "Feminism" even when it is being used by other minority groups.

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So: capital means money; "capital" is part of the word "capitalism"; "socialism" and "capitalism" are opposites. Therefore he concluded that in order to avoid loving money you had to be a socialist.

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Umm, hm. More interesting. The two don't exactly work as antonyms, since one is a market system and one is a social structure. Ideologically, the most that socialism is 'opposite' to would have to be conservative neoliberalism, since they are pretty opposed on a moral matrix. And the most that capitalism is 'opposite' to would probably be full communitariansim.

And plus you don't have to be socialist to not love money. But I sure do! Mmm, money.
 

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Posted by Survivor (Member # 233) on :
 
That's "Oooo, money!"

Looking at the roots and current usage of "Feminism", I can fully see the position for the first definition pooka mentioned. The second definition is a little more abstruse, but still quite arguable.

One thing to remember, this isn't pooka's argument. She's reporting something said by a professor, albeit one who might not qualify as an "intellectual" by some lights

On the other issue, "intellectual" is defined various ways depending on the speaker and the context. Card uses both definitions, though he generally feels impelled to put the term in quotes for one definition and precede it with "true" or "real" for the other. This is actually becoming common practice in our society, due to just such arguments as the one we see here.

I'm a feminist, if we can take the dictionary definition. But then so is Paul, if you take the actual dictionary definition. Almost no one does...as shown by the fact that Paul is not generally considered a feminist. Nor am I

Given that the actual dictionary definition doesn't match actual usage, it is valid to at least discuss the causes behind this discrepancy and try to develop a working "real" definition that allows us to predict which persons will be considered feminists in actual practice.

The definition provided by pooka's professor isn't flattering and may be motivated by personal/political bias. But it certainly does a better job of predicting who will really be called a feminist than does the dictionary definition. Which makes it superior as a definition.

The second assertion, that "feminist" is also applied to the general tactic of assuming that the prior roles have to be reversed before negotiation can commence, is a bit sketchier. I have heard of "feminist tactics", but always thought it refered to the tactics being used by feminists, not those same tactics being used by anyone else. You could make an argument that the term should be used that way, but I don't see that it is.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
I didn't actually hear the professor, this was based on the student's explanation they reported. But since this person was grew up watching Star Trek and Seinfeld and so forth, I would take it they would not be easily surprised by learning about feminism.

The #2 definition is something they mentioned encountering last term (okay, well at this point I'll let on that my informant is male). At the time he got shredded for being a man asking the question of why it is called feminism when applied to other minorities. This quarter he was in a class where a woman asked the question, and she was treated not as unkindly but still as if she were ignorant of reality.
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
pooka,
Is this someone who you know well and trust? Because it sounds a lot like some of the false stories from the PR campaign that many conservative sources waged during the 90s when they created the PC label.
 

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Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
 
I dont' think this use of "feminism" is ordinary; at least, I've never heard it before. Admittedly, PC folk do some pretty strange things with words (like using "multicultural" to mean "African-American"), but this would confuse anyone.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 

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Is this someone who you know well and trust?

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1) "Feminism" is a method of advancing a social agenda that requires reversal of majority/minority role before negotiation can commence.

2) It is called "Feminism" even when it is being used by other minority groups.

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I consider myself a feminist and have taken a course or two on the subject back in college. #1 does describe a specific school of feminist thought, but absolutely does not describe feminists in general. I've not heard of #2 at all.
 

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Posted by Cashew (Member # 6023) on :
 
On a lighter note, a couple of years ago I was introducing some art works to my Year 11 (age 15) Art class that had feminist content, and I asked the class what they understood feminists are. There was silence for a few seconds until one of the more able (female) students responded uncertainly, "Lesbians?" I nearly fell over.
 

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Posted by Richard Berg (Member # 133) on :
 
I'll take a stab at #2. It's very likely that the student is confusing feminism (a social & political movement) with cultural studies (an academic discipline).

That mistake in itself is easy to make because feminist theory, critical race theory, queer theory, etc. all have roots in the same Continental philosophy & semiotics. What's less forgivable is the inane caricature in #1. No honest professor of humanities could give that impression to his students by accident. I strongly suspect that someone in this telephone chain is trying to slant his classes' opinions instead of presenting the arguments objectively. Even if you feel that critical theory is a bunch of self-important hogwash -- and much of it is -- you sacrifice your intellectual honesty if you don't give it a fair shake.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
I haven't had the opportunity to follow up with my informant, but when the thread about Obama's church came up on the other side, I thought of this thread.
 

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Posted by Survivor (Member # 233) on :
 
I think that part of the problem here is that the meaning of "reversal of majority/minority role" is a little unclear.

The other part of the problem is that the statement is clearly true, as demonstrated by the fact that people are attacking it and claiming that feminism just means arguing from a position of equality. That would make a person arguing that men should have more social advantages a "feminist" as long as the arguments were based on the assumptions that men and women should have equal rights.

I assume that society has to provide women with some rights that men do not have, simply because protection of women is one of the fundamental pillars of society. Men are typically stronger and more aggressive than woman, if these tendancies are left unchecked by rules that definitely favor women, then the society will fail to give women the status they need to succeed as mothers and home-makers. Such a society will produce ever less civilized children until it suffers a total collapse into barbarism of one form or another. This has happened to countless civilizations, it's one of the primary factors driving the decline of Islamic nations despite their enormous material advantages.

If women were stronger and more aggressive, then such rules would be unnecessary (though they would obviously come into existance, as there would be no clear bar to a society's survival in them).

To be feminist, you have to argue from a position that women should have more advantages in society than they already have. Only by denying the data that clearly show that women already enjoy a far higher standard of living, quality of life, and level of personal fulfilment than men can you make this consistent with the idea that feminism is only asking for equality.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
I think feminism is perfectly consistent with the assertion that women should have more options than they realistically have, whether or not those options are advantageous.
 

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Posted by Survivor (Member # 233) on :
 
I would tend to agree, but it's important to recognize that nominal options can be made so unattractive as to be virtually meaningless. I'd say that you need to consider the quality of options in addition to the raw number of possible choices.

After all, a person chained to a sewer grate in a flooding storm drain still has lots of options. It's just that very few of those options are actually worth having
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
Hmm. I guess "options" is not the same as "standard of living, quality of life, and personal fulfillment".

My position, when I considered myself a cultural feminist, was that women should employ definitions of success that were different from the dominant paradigm.

I'm not sure which options women in theory lack at this point. I think there are a whole lot of options women may individually deprive themselves of, like not wanting to walk around a dark city alone.
 

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Posted by Survivor (Member # 233) on :
 
Dark City...wasn't that a...movie or something?
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
Okay, here's the email:

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Yes, you are right on both accounts. We just spent 4 months studying family and social theory...and that's exactly what feminism is. There is no misunderstanding.... I didn't read the actual text of your chat, but your email sounds correct. Why don't they believe you?

F

[my email tag] wrote:

Okay, when you last were here it seems you said you
were told 2 things about feminism. I've been
discussing them with people on Hatrack and people keep
saying I must have misunderstood you or you
misunderstood your professor

I'm asking for corroboration on 2 items.

1) "Feminism" is a method of advancing a social agenda
that requires reversal of majority/minority role
before negotiation can commence.

2) It is called "Feminism" even when it is being used
by other minority groups.

If you want to have a look at the discussion, it's at
http://www.hatrack.com/cgi-bin/ubbmain/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=004666;p=0&r=nfx
but it's just a bunch of people telling me they don't
have any idea why I would say such a thing. I go by
pooka over there.

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To clarify, this person attends the University of Maryland and not some red state backwater. Though I can't imagine why anyone would assume that about someone I knew.

[ February 22, 2007, 04:54 PM: Message edited by: pooka ]
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
You know, I would consider Maryland a red-state backwater.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
Yeah, it's almost like a different country or something.
 

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Posted by Survivor (Member # 233) on :
 
It's more green than red...I think that it is certainly a backwater (using the methaphorical meaning, of course, though the stage contains many literal backwaters).

I hit a deer there once. It's the only time I ever hit an animal with a motor vehicle (a truck in this case). I was going pretty slow, so I probably didn't even hurt it that much, which is a shame, because after the way that little punk was playing around in the road and actually ducked directly into my path at the last moment, I really wanted it dead. Or at least...no, dead. Hopefully someone has shot it by now.
 

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Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
 

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To clarify, this person attends the University of Maryland and not some red state backwater.

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You understand why this doesn't further your point, don't you? You come up with two points I don't even recognize as feminism, both principles strangely without the word "equality," and then somehow it's up to us to show that you are wrong because you have the word of a college student saying you are right.

I don't know what kind of axe you have to grind against feminism, but you are going to have a hard time getting an honest debate if people have to agree to your terms.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
In pooka's "defense," what she's saying is that a student she knows is under the impression that at least one professor at the University of Maryland is using this definition. I see no reason to not accept this at face value, and would like to go on record, without knowing any more details, as an opponent of that professor's approach.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
Also, I think there's a slight difference between a college student and a Master's candidate. I only have a B.A. myself. That's why I am asking if anyone else out there knows anything more about this.
 

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Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
I have a Master's Degree, and I do not believe that that is a standard definition of feminism.

Does that help?
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
Depends, what was it in Really, though, I probably have the ability to track this professor down and see if I can find some evidence.
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
I was able to find out who the professors were, though I don't know how advisable it is to get into that on a public forum and possibly damage my relative's candidacy. That the label of feminism is applied to other minority struggles was affirmed, and in this vein my relative asked "why isn't it called humanism?" to which the professor replied "because that would imply we are all equal. Who is to say when we are equal?"

In sum, the majority's definition of equality is rejected. That, my friends, is what I have a problem with.

So is equality a matter of opportunity to reach the majority definition of success, or to establish a unique definition of success, or to call for the disestablishment of the majority definition of success? I had generally been aware of the first two concepts, but the third just seems insane to me.
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
I talked this over with a bunch of friends in various related fields (demography, social work, sociology, and psychology - with some of them focusing on women and minority issues). None of them had ever heard feminism used anyway like how you are describing.

edit: spelling

[ March 12, 2007, 01:29 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
I asked a Canadian sociologist, and American philosopher, and an American lawyer (specializing in women's issues), and they were also at a loss to give this any credence as a common viewpoint. First any had heard of it.

I wonder is your relative's professor is strikingly misrepresentative of the field, and that maybe you and she should be getting the information on feminism that you actually use [as opposed to just get through in a classroom setting, distasteful as that is] from elsewhere.

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Edited to add: I reread that, and I think it could come across as snippy or dismissive of you, pooka, and that would be totally off what I meant. I'm trying not to say, "Sounds like the professor is an idiot, if that's what's being taught as feminism."

There. I said it.

[ March 12, 2007, 02:09 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
I think I understood what you mean by just getting through in the classroom. Something that came up yesterday is that they now are saying that just by being born white and male, my relative is unavoidably racist and sexist. As if by that standard everyone isn't racist and sexist.
 

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Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
There is a school of literary analysis called feminist criticism that prioritizes the perspective/voice of marginalized groups. Could that be what the professor is refering to?
 

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Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
 
Except they aren't studying literary criticism. Maybe it's something like Standpoint Feminism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standpoint_feminism

What becomes clear, looking around wikipedia, is that feminism doesn't have a single definition as it applies to it's own field, let alone social studies generally. Maybe this is one of those cases like geneticists or educators who try to invoke linguistic theory in their research.
 

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Posted by Andrew W (Member # 4172) on :
 
Well this is very interesting. I've always considered myself a feminist, or rather someone who believes that feminism (where that refers to a pursuit of equality or equity for the sexes) is the right idea, and would always self identify as a feminist, but it seems that people have lots and lots of different ideas about what it means when you say "I'm a feminist.

A lot of people I've talked about this to recently have said that when they hear feminist they think "Crazy man hating radical with ridiculous ideas" rather than anything else. I find this simplistic to the point of being insulting. I think the only thing you can be sure of when you hear "feminist" is that they believe in at least equality for women.

What I wasn't expecting is what I've encountered when reading some feminist blogs is that there is a large amount of lay-feminist opinion that actually wouldn't consider me a feminist at all unless I agree to uncritically accept a set of beliefs/theories, that I'm incapable of judging for myself due to the inherent condition of my place in society and experiences as a man.
Not that I'm inherently unlikely to have come up with these theories myself, but that I cannot accurately judge myself, even once I have had it explained to me, and if I disagree for any reason, it's my 'lacking worldview' and male privilege that is really at fault, and I am automatically wrong.
Now seeing as I hold some vaguely outre views on why words have a meaning, essentially in short, that there is no 'actual' or 'right' meaning for a word, it's entirely relative and etc, I disagree with some of their opinions. But I'm not allowed. Not because my reasons for disagreeing are lacking , or in fact for anything to do with my opinion, except that it's mine, and through my blindnesses and privilege I'm incapable of assessing the situation.
Personally I think that's just so much bullshit. And because I won't immediately abandon all my preconcieved ideas about all sorts of things without any critical evaluation, and in fact try to critically evaluate everything I'm told, to the best of my ability and understanding, I'm not only labelled a non-feminist, but an evil!eleventyone!?! anti-feminist troll out only to cause trouble.

So to summarise what has become a rambling and quite pointless post.

Feminism means lots of different things to lots of different people, and the only people who are wrong are the ones who insist that their belief on what a feminist is, is the only possible one.
Mostly feminists are awesome, but some really radical ones exist. (insert : 'which is awesome' or 'which is really shite' as preferred)
I will however continue to consider myself feminist, and people who draw the wrong conclusion from that statement are people with ill-judgement and poor understanding of the range of views that that label covers.

AW
 

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Posted by Nikisknight (Member # 8918) on :
 

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What is really interesting is that the whole idea of making someone humble themselves to converse with you sounds... kind of... Christian. It is similarly somewhat mystical why someone would want to be elevated to the status of oppressors, then call it the high ground

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Feminism means lots of different things to lots of different people, and the only people who are wrong are the ones who insist that their belief on what a feminist is, is the only possible one.

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Forcing other people into humility is a way of exalting your own self.

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At the same time, he calls on people of color to give up the mantle of victimhood and persecution that, he believes, limits their ability to reach their full potential.

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Being poor and hardworking does not in and of itself make you virtuous, believe me.

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