A young idealist attempts to lecture /r/TumblrInAction on why it's bad to be anti-feminist. Does not go as planned. (np.reddit.com)
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37 ups - 27 downs = 10 votes
62 comments submitted at 23:02:01 on Feb 13, 2014 by WayOfTheShitlord
A young idealist attempts to lecture /r/TumblrInAction on why it's bad to be anti-feminist. Does not go as planned. (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
37 ups - 27 downs = 10 votes
62 comments submitted at 23:02:01 on Feb 13, 2014 by WayOfTheShitlord
I fee like everyone in that thread has their own definition of what constitutes feminism, antifeminism, and misogyny.
Feminism's the one with the gay Jewish gargoyles, right?
God, I hate this whole fucking gender politics debate. Gender politics is the next battleground of civilization and it just makes me long for the time when every person couldn't blare their shit at every other person and ideas took a long time to diffuse among the population.
Who needs to listen to anyone else when I have something to say that everyone has to listen to right now.
>Even after I clarify that all I mean by feminism is the progression of women for gender equality (nothing more nothing less), people still comment saying they're anti-feminist.
Also, if you define feminism as "doesn't want to eat babies and set your house on fire" those guys look like even bigger dicks.
Is wanting the progression of the female gender in order to achieve equality of the sexes not what feminism is? Genuine question, because people seem to think I'm skewing the definition when I'm pretty sure that's what it means.
To some people, yes, that is what it means. To others, including many self-identified feminists, it's way more complicated than that. Nailing down a criteria for who is or who is not a feminist is pretty much impossible, and will get you nothing but grief. From all sides.
It's like coming up with a criteria for who is or who is not a Christian. There's no shortage of people (including many in my own extended family) who are adamant that Catholics are not really Christians. My grandfather on my mother's side is of the opinion that you're not a Christian if you haven't been baptized the "right" way.
There's a meme floating around that says "do you believe men and women should be equal? then you're a feminist". Look around, and you'll find plenty of feminists who angrily disagree with that.
OP pretty much says if you aren't feminist, then you're misogynist... in TiA of all places. I'm calling troll.
I think part of the problem is the nebulous definition of "anti-feminism." Clearly it doesn't mean "anti-women," but, like feminism (and I would argue even more so) it's a very wide umbrella term, and (also like feminism) it probably has people who identify with the term without really understanding it. Personally, I think the whole "feminism/anti-feminism" divide is overly simplistic. You can believe multiple things. I identify as a feminist--I also think custody laws are currently unfair in the U.S. and I think we need to change them to favor fathers' rights. These two ideas aren't in opposition. Feminism, as I see it, opposes the assumption that women are "fitter" parents.
TL;DR I think this whole debate is overly simplified and that the word "misogyny" is often overused and often shuts down constructive conversations when it is misused.
I think most people on both sides are alot closer in opinion then they think, but the difficulty of communicating through Reddit comments plus all the meta-filters/context everyone applies while reading those comments (which are all different from person to person) make the divide seem like chasm to deep to cross.
Add to that the small number of people on each side who are actively trying cause conflict and you end up with these all-out fights between people who are really in near total agreement.
Oy. My fingers are so tired of typing this out. By feminism I've been meaning the original definition of it, not what it's become that makes people so scared of the word.
Scared? We aren't scared of the word feminism, we reject it as an extreme political movement.
edit: should have clarified; me and some others arguing against Eerie's META-post reject it [feminism], not TiA as a whole.
>We aren't scared of the word feminism, we reject it as an extreme political movement.
If I didn't know better I'd think TiA was to /r/mensrights as /r/TheBluePill is to /r/TheRedPill.
There are lots of people in tia who are feminists, I was only speaking for myself and a group ofmaybe 4-5 people who expressed similar views as my own in eeries thread. Tia is only united in ridiculing ridiculous sjws on tumblr, bluepillers are 99% feminists.
I read TiA every day and would assure you that 95% of the userbase agrees with feminism but disagrees with extremism. The OP of this thread though just screams troll to me. They had no intention of learning anything from a discussion. Their minds were already made up/they were just doing it to get a rise out of everyone.
Okay, "opposed", then. It doesn't skew the point of my last comment in the slightest.
Now give me some proof please. Since you seem to be dodging that one.
Your definition does not fit the common definition at least in the United States. 80% of people don't identify as feminists, yet 82% believe "men and women should be social, political, and economic equals". So that's probably not helping.
But… but… my opinions…
Well that's what I always thought feminism was. Now that we know that I actually didn't mean the kind of feminism that everyone thinks I mean, can i go home?
Yeah just don't do it again.
Well, come on, that's not fair--how people view feminism doesn't define it. People often disapprove of stuff without knowing anything about it (just look at how some people misunderstand socialism, or Islam, supply-side economics, or any other number of complex things). We started seeing a backlash against feminism in the late 80s/early 90s and popular media's representation of feminism has created a boogeyman in a lot of people's minds.
To be fair feminists have never really helped themselves. They always kinda prided themselves on being the squeaky wheel, but are confused at why people don't whole heatedly agree with them. The lack of a central leader is a big negative too, as it becomes a free for all. Finally telling someone that equality is all that's needed for feminism is often disingenuous as it always seems to come from someone who believes patriarchy theory.
How thick are you. You do not get to dictate the meaning of a word that encompasses over a century of thought. When you say feminism do you mean Susan B Anthony, Andrea Dworkin, Judith Butler? Are we talking about third-wave feminism, or fourth-wave? Do you think de Beauvoir is timeless addition to the feminist movement still today? It grates my gears to no end when you fucking SJW types don't even understand your own ideology. Feminism isn't some simple word you get to decide has an arbitrary, one sentence definition. This is also coming from someone who identifies as a feminist.
>Feminism isn't some simple word you get to decide has an arbitrary, one sentence definition. This is also coming from someone who identifies as a feminist.
It's even worse than that, it seems like some people change what it means from context to context.
When I say feminism I mean the progression of the female gender to achieve equality between the sexes. I thought that was what it was. My mistake.
That's not a bad definition, and I would agree with it, but if someone disagrees with that specific definition (not the idea, if you disagree with the idea than yeah, you are sexist) it does not make them a misogynist as you said in the main thread. You consistently created either/or and if/then situations where you said "if you disagree with this, then you're sexist." That is not good.
A bit more here.
http://np.reddit.com/r/TumblrInAction/comments/1xtzvx/twmetalongishpostimafraidsomepeoplein/cfem6d6?context=1
~~He~~ She was downvoted everywhere, then complained about the downvotes in an edit -- now appears to be getting even more downvotes (which is the norm).
She. And yeah, because I'd like to know why people were disagreeing with my posts, especially the ones that were agreeing with posts that everyone was upvoting.
TiA is filled with a lot of people who believe that men and women should have the same rights and privileges, much like feminists. But they see this as already being the case (and some would argue that the pendulum has swung too much in the other way, and boys/men are the ones being hit), so to them, the only reason someone would support feminism would be to promote female supremacy.
Perhaps. I think it's more a reaction to internet-y SJW types and the kind of absurd mental gymnastics they engage in.
Which is what TiA focuses on. So when TiA is poking fun at Tumblr SJWs and that particular brand of feminism, and then someone comes in to defend feminism, users at TiA will be thinking it's still the SJW radfem stuff. Because that's the context of the thread and subreddit.
I used to be an active commenter over there a while back, and for the large part, TiA seems to be pretty center-left. One of the last positive posts I remember was from a FtM transgendered person. They were posting about their perception of tumblr feminism and the vitriol and how it is (to them) hurting rather than helping trans* rights movements. It was actually one of the most pleasant conversations I've ever had on reddit.
edit: This is one of those convos I found, and is fairly typical of my experience on that sub. Calm, friendly discussion all throughout
Edit 2: And here is the other really pleasant convo threads. For the most part the community is fairly supportive. So long as you're not an asshole.
Interia. Most people follow the crowd and downvote downvoted comments even further.
Plus, complaining about downvotes is an express route to getting even more.
Hey, if I'm gonna be downvoted regardless, might as well complain a bit. A few more won't make a difference
all we asked for is some proof of our sexism, is that too much to ask for when you post a 500 word essay in a sub, accusing it for sexism and homophobia?
Okay, first of all, it's not just proof of sexism I need to provide, it's proof of ALL THE OTHER GODDAMN THINGS I MENTIONED THAT EVERYONE KEEPS IGNORING.
I was never not gonna do it, I was just trying to respond to all of my messages first. Now that they have died down, I think I will now.
Unfortunately, it seems that on TiA you have to walk a very fine line. While most claim to be egalitarian, insinuating that women, racial minorities, and gender/sexuality minorities are discriminated against to a degree above a certain threshold won't fly. I think what got you in trouble was they thought you were a little too SJW-apologetic. You used terms like PoC and LGBTQ that they strongly associate with tumblr illogic. Apparently too many times for them.
Should I just have said black and gay people then? I dunno, there are more races besides black and white, and more sexual orientations besides gay and straight.
Maybe you should have provided proof instead of calling us misogynist gay haters? I am 100% supportive of women's rights and equality between the sexes but I am not a supporter of feminism, the ideology, doesn't make me anti-woman.
Looks like we're dealing with another scoooooooooooooooooooooot.
Refer to every other shitting response I've given you regarding proof.
> You can't say that gender equality is good but then not try to support a gender that is not considered equal
all genders are equal but some are more equal than others
Oooh, post got deleted.
Is the argument going to migrate into this thread?
> Oooh, post got deleted.
Thank god for snapshot bots
> Is the argument going to migrate into this thread?
it's way ahead of you
A mod removed it.
>Oooh, post got deleted.
I didn't do it.
If you go into a joke sub and tell people they should be ashamed of themselves they might take it badly. Who could have guessed?
Benned
Oh come on. That wasn't the point of my post.
I'm trying to learn about people who self-identify with feminism. What are your thoughts and or ideas on the following words:
Conflict theory
Patriarchy
Oppressors
Oppressed
Intersectionality
I'm curious because I've been learning about various forms of conflict theory as I discussed in this comment on another post.
It may not have been your original point, but that's what happened.
So then that's the fault of the people who misinterpreted, not mine.
I don't think anyone misinterpreted you--I think they just didn't care what your definition of feminism is. TiA is a subreddit that spends a significant amount of time witnessing the shitty side of feminism. Even if you are a decent person, and perhaps even if most feminists are reasonable, the presences of the shitty ones is often enough to turn people away.
If I were to join a club with a bunch of people I like, but there are a couple people who absolutely hate my guts, I might be inclined to stay away from the whole group. Especially if the decent people don't do a good job of keeping the shitty people from having an impact.
I'm fairly sure the vast majority of people in TiA share a lot of the same ideas as you when it comes to equality (gender-related and otherwise). But a lot of them aren't going to use the feminist label. This doesn't make them bad people.
Just let it go. The anti-SJ jerk is going to be strong in this one. For the record, I didn't see anything wrong with your post.
There was a really big, glaring, incredibly common problem: declaring a "correct" definition of feminism. IE: "this is my definition of feminism, and it is the correct one everybody should use". Much like Christianity, everyone seems to have their own idea of what it means. It gets worse when somebody says "if you're not a feminist, you're a misogynist", and then declares by fiat what everyone else is supposed to understand that to mean.
If you wanna do that, go ahead and do that. Nobody is stopping you. But if your objective is to convince anyone, you're gonna fail. People don't like being told that they're bigots who are thinking wrong.
>"this is my definition of feminism, and it is the correct one everybody should use"
Yeah, because my definition of it was the original definition of it, which said nothing of misandry and the like.
No, it was not. Just stop, you are so clearly misinformed I'm cringing for you. Feminism is a complex movement encompassing over a century of thought, and it has manifested itself in a multitude of political and social movements. It doesn't just mean "arbitrary, one-sentence definition I made up without regard for history or context."
Yeah, it was so. That's what I've been meaning my feminism this whole entire time. If that's not what it is, which apparently it isn't, then I'm very sorry.
What it originally was or was not is irrelevant. If you want to discuss people's views on feminism today, you can't pretend that the Tumblr-style shrieking wingnuts who claim to have the "real" definition of feminism (which contradicts yours) don't exist.
I simply didn't know that the majority of people had a definition of feminism that was different than mine. That's all. I wasn't doing any pretending.
Fair enough.
It's a minefield I'm confident you won't wander into again.
You're not wrong. There are just multiple ways to interpret feminism. People in TiA mostly just see one type of feminist, so they think we're all the same. That's why they refuse to accept it when a feminist is for equality. Ignore it and keep doing what you do.
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