Struggle against "masculinistes" / "mens' rights" activists

Neither do I claim any expertise.  Queer theory, basically understood, or in other words as I understand it, can provide for zones of engagement where politically demarcated gender identities merge to facilitate political indistinction.  The more constructive discourses acknowledges the core elements of second wave struggles as being necessary to the evolution of social dialogue.  It opposes non-evolutionary ways of thinking that are cemented in the past.

Of course men having an obsessive seige mentality and forming boys clubs to protect what they see as their turf - the subject of this thread - is a revolutionary new idea that isn't at all rooted in the past.

And making a big righteous stink as the icing on a flounce cake. Never seen that before.

I encountered "social justice warrior" for the first time this year and was at first confused as to how that could be an insult. Wow, though, there is such an intensity to this form of online misogyny. I spent a morning trying to understand the contorted positions held by those who support that hateful hashtag, but really, Timebandit's explanation above is probably the best summary I've read so far.

And while it all sounds nice in theory, it's not quite the same when it is guys whining about how hard their lives are because of nasty, intolerant women.

I don't think anyone actually says so, SJ, but there are times when mushy post-structuralism and/or third wave ideas don't stand up to asking "Why?" and it becomes a pointless exercise.  But not one without drama and accusations of fogey-ness.

Wondering, tho, what this has to do with MRAs?

Why don't you pose a queston with the word 'why' in it then, and we'll see how we fare?  As to your question about MRAs, I wouldn't know about that.

Ok then, I'm out.

Slumberjack wrote:

Why don't you pose a queston with the word 'why' in it then, and we'll see how we fare?  As to your question about MRAs, I wouldn't know about that.

Ok then, I'm out.

Oh, I do.  I also ask "How does that follow?" when encountering arguments that amount to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  Evolution, you will note, involves incremental change following from what went before.  Post-structuralism is often reactionary and seeks to "overcome" as you put it, rather than evolve.

The ageism isn't so much on the guy side.  They're not interested in "women of a certain age".  They all see themselves as virile and deserving of younger partners.  Any objections that we older feminists might raise over their worldview is because we are utterly shattered that they wouldn't desire us because of our age and unattractiveness.  We're bitter, you see.

ETA: The Chrissie Hinde thing makes me so sad.  She's really absorbed the old cultural line that women are responsible for the violence against women and men just can't help themselves. 

Timebandit wrote:

They're not interested in "women of a certain age".  They all see themselves as virile and deserving of younger partners.  Any objections that we older feminists might raise over their worldview is because we are utterly shattered that they wouldn't desire us because of our age and unattractiveness.  We're bitter, you see.

My favourite example in pop culture of this is Hitchcock's North By Northwest. Cary Grant stars, obv. His mother is played by Jessie Royce Landis who at the time claimed to be one year younger than Grant. It turns out she had been disguising her age (a necessity in Hollywood), but was still only seven years older than Grant. HIS MOTHER.

Here's an interesting opinion piece from Amanda Marcotte :

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/the-weird-woolly-and-now-dangerous-fanta...

I haven't watched the embedded video - not enough brain detergent on hand today.  But there are some interesting points about straw feminists and the links between Gamergaters and the MRA groups.

lagatta wrote:

And even in cycling activism, we'd come up against this kind of misogynist crap: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/26/bike-women-cyclist-...

If I may intrude for one post, IMHO the Guardian story you link to does not depict misogynist crap. It’s about a pedestrian taking revenge because an exasperated cyclist told him his attitude on the street increased her risk as a cyclist, which is true. When you cycle in town, you cross this type of idiots all the times and half of them are women. Sometimes you react, and when you do, they sometimes fight back. It happened to me on incalculable occasions, less today then in the 1970, however.

This guy did not fight back because she was a woman. The article points to no evidence of it, nor does the video. He fought back because he was angry at what a cyclist said to him. The gender of the cyclist is irrelevant in the story. It could have been a trans, a gay, or a male cyclist. The story would have been the same.

What I feel in your post is your disgust for someone showing no respect to a woman (and cyclist and could also be an elder and crippled). The guy obviously lacked such respect. But this is not de facto misogyny unless you characterize all violence against woman as misogyny. It’s misogyny when the gender explains at least part of the violence. It would make no more sense then pretending that all violence against women by women is automatically misogyny or that all violence against men, by men or by women, is misandry. 

I remember very well Claire Morissette, the founder of cyclo feminism at Le monde à bicyclette. She used to get angry at guys who would propose to repair her bike. But I doubt she would have associated the road conflicts with gender conflicts. We, girls and guys, were all talking about the same types of road conflicts. The only difference between her and us was that we were not cat called once in a while. But that’s an other story.

 

Its like the term anti-union animus in labour law. Screwing the union does not have to be the bosses main motivation to be anti-union animus.  Nasty gender focused behaviour doesn't have to be the primary motivation to be misogeny.

Catchfire wrote:

Can I just say that If-I-may-intrudes is pretty much a textbook play of the feminist dudebro or manarchist?

Not at all, Catchfire. It's a textbook polite way to ask permission to intervene in the feminist forum after being thrown out of an other discussion by you, be it for good or bad reasons. Thanks for the "dudebro" but it's a compliment I do not deserve. Manarchist? Really? I'm neither masculnist nor anarchist. I think my post was polite and that Timebandit's respose was also polite and intelligent. So I'll take the opportunity again.

Timebandit wrote:

However, you can't discount that a woman in that situation is often treated differently than a man would be. Would the pedestrian have gone after a man physically?

I think women are indeed treated differently than a man in such circomstances and that the overall consequence is most probably better for women because of it. The culture within which we live, and patriarchy may indeed be an explanation, teaches us that it is less permissible to hit a woman than a man. The sentence "you never hit a woman" has a specific sense, different than "you never hit anyone". I have no statistics to back this up, but I believe a man in the same situation is more likely to get an aggressive response than a woman. Your example is most probaby true: the pedestrian is likely to suffer more severe consequences if he hits your partner instead of you. That's true. But the chances he decides not to hit you anyway because, among all things, you are a woman, are high enough to classify the even an exception to the rule. It's a discrimatory attitude, it may even be a protective patriarcal attitude, but it's not misogyny.

I can't imagine a situation where I would hit someone in the exception of necessary self defense in which case I would not discriminate. But there is some ideology stronger than my capacity for rationalisation: gender, I think, is one reason among others not to hit someone. The case discussed by the Guardian tells us that this happens to a women, in the the sense that "it happens to women also". 

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Screwing the union does not have to be the bosses main motivation to be anti-union animus.  Nasty gender focused behaviour doesn't have to be the primary motivation to be misogeny.

The point of the post was precisely that the article does not show such gender focused behavior, neither such misogyny. It may be in the guy's head. We just don't learn such information in the article. We know the victim is a woman. We ignore if she was targetted because, among other things, she was a woman. The point is, more simply put: being a woman victim does not suffice to call the aggression an act of misogyny.

what a piece of work you are sj...

Slumberjack wrote:

You're not doing it right Gustave.  To gain provisional acceptance, you'll need to be puckered up and down on all fours.  And silent pretty much...that's the key element.  You're permitted a gesture, which is to nod up and down like a bobblehead.  Use smith for inspiration.

Really?

I don't know if you have visited A Voice For Men, but they sure seem to have the whining, grovelling and victim-playing down. Have you seen their "Why don't you trust us" posters and the compassion one with the guy rolled up into a ball of self-pity?

It is the only note they seem to know how to play.

And Catchfire: Maybe this guy:

Slumberjack wrote:

When something like "feminists demand your silence' is stated, it repeats a common mistake imo, one that makes rounds all too frequently in discussions of this nature imo, in that, such a position doesn't account for a wealth of variance, and to avoid genealization, it has to be assumed that the entire range of feminism doesn't require something like that.  It's such a ridiculous thing to say that it cancels itself out of consideration as the product of logical thought processes.

But Slumberjack, you just said exactly that about me:  that my role here is just ass-kissing, and being silent except to bobble my head in agreement.

And if you haven't gone there, perhaps you should do so and inform yourself about the subject of this thread. It is THEIR posters which show up on the street here, as much as some like to pretend that they aren't connected to that organization.

Considering you just said you don't know, and don't want to know anything about what we are talking about, I am not sure you have any basis for anything at all. Someone is telling me to be silent, and I am supposedly kissing someone's ass?  I have been accused of lots of things; being a silent yes-man is kind of a first.

Anyway, speaking of guys who aren't doing the right thing by ass-kissing and being subservient to women, this has been making the rounds on facebook. I guess these poor oppressed white guys with the chiseled features, and fashionable haircuts aren't playing the victim card right (although they do whine a lot on their rather thin website).

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/white-students-union-posters-torn-...

And I noticed that women don't seem to be welcome in Valhalla.

... and that that tower looks like it is tucked in his pants.

Hi Slumberjack. Love you as always. It's a pity you don't agree with the way the feminist forum is run, but your attempts to explain why you can do so and still hold the moral high ground are tiresome and stale. Please keep them out of this discussion from now on. Gustave, your concern is also less welcome than you may think.

I wrote a comment yesterday but then thought better of it and didn't hit post. I came across articles a few times that I was going to start a thread on and then thought, nah, not worth it. This isn't a place to discuss feminism or feminist issues it's a place to defend feminism. It's depressing so I rarely participate in this forum. 

If this were the racism forum we wouldn't be debating whether or not racism is involved in the murders of black men by police or the incidence of FN men and women in prisons. 

Catchfire, you are nothing if not cruel. Are you going to make him beg for it, with no satisfaction?

(actually, I'd kind of like to see that; he did bring up the whole power play thing, after all)

But we are drifting.