[Flipside]

Of course there's such a thing as feminism in isolation, isolation does not mean they are living in a complete vacuum, only that it's possible to become so focused on one aspect of feminism that it is no longer viewed as a whole. Feminism itself is a perfectly good and healthy concept to follow, but live in a bubble, become too obsessed with the idea that men don't want an equal society (and that's one that could be argued over for hours) and you start to isolate yourself from the mainstream, communication becomes soured with the belief that it is men, not patriarchal society that is the 'enemy'.

Trust me, I worked for several years for someone who believed being a feminist was openly declaring all men to be 'born liars' at every available opportunity. That's not real feminism by any degree, but it is what those frustrations can become if allowed to exist in isolation.

[General Battuta]

That's as much feminism as the Soviet Union's economic policy was communism.

[Flipside]

Exactly, but this was a woman who had worked for local government for nearly 40 years, right through the 70's etc when male-dominated workplaces were incredibly sexist in nature, so in many ways her experiences were not dissimilar to many who take up the mantle of feminist, but her reaction to it is the sort of thing that gives proper feminism such a bad name.

[Phantom Hoover]

That's as much feminism as the Soviet Union's economic policy was communism.

Weren't there a lot of communist parties which were officially supportive of Soviet economic policies? This kind of sounds like a no true Scotsman to me: OK, then, that woman wasn't a true feminist; but she was calling herself a feminist, other people evidently thought she was a feminist. I think it's fair to include her in "the feminist movement", if you're going to talk about such a nebulous group in the first place.

[karajorma]

I spent about 5 minutes trying to phrase this as a No True Scotsman argument but I'm not sure it is. I can see why Battuta would be against such a person claiming she is a feminist when she quite clearly doesn't believe in equality.

However...

That's as much feminism as the Soviet Union's economic policy was communism.

c.f my post about man-hating feminists and Westbro Baptist. Both feminists and Soviet Communists self-identify themselves using that name.

Arguing that she's not an example of "feminism in isolation" as Flipside put it, is fine if you give him another term to use in its place. If you don't you're basically making a rather pointless semantics argument.

[General Battuta]

I guess you could call her a misandrist. It's hardly a no true Scotsman argument. There are radical feminists (Dworkin) who might have some pretty nasty things to say about men in modern culture, but 'men are liars/evil/wrong' is not a tenet of feminism.

Of course you're bumping into a broader philosophical problem here of how to define an entity.

[karajorma]

Of course you're bumping into a broader philosophical problem here of how to define an entity.

Yes but given the entire last page of the debate has basically been about this exact problem.....

This all started with someone getting upset at 666maslo666's comment about "Man-hating feminists" but instead of simply saying that misandrist is a better term since these people are really not feminists everyone lined up to deliberately misunderstand his point and act like there is no such thing.

Then when Flipside uses the term "feminism in isolation" for the same behaviour, the exact same thing happens again. Even though clear examples have been posted of the kind of behaviour under discussion.

If people weren't being so deliberately confrontational about minor semantic points, the entire last page of the discussion need not have happened.

[General Battuta]

I guess we would need to be very precise about what, exactly, it's isolated from, but I read it as 'feminism isolated from men', which is a nonsensical statement - feminism goes beyond 'making women better, at any cost'; it's about undoing a toxic gender structure that encompasses all genders and both biological sexes. 'Masculinism' is not a meaningful binary to 'feminism' since 'feminism' doesn't mean 'advancing the cause of women'.

They're not all minor semantic points. A huge part of the anti-feminist backlash of the past 20 years has been an effort to redefine 'feminist' as 'man-hater' or 'female chauvinist'.

[karajorma]

A huge part of the anti-feminist backlash of the past 20 years has been an effort to redefine 'feminist' as 'man-hater' or 'female chauvinist'.

I know, but to act like they don't exist actually helps the anti-feminist backlash. It makes it seem as though that is the secret agenda of feminism when people act like there are no people who claim to be feminists who are actually man-haters. All an anti-feminist needs to do is wait until someone claims that there are no man-haters and then post a link to someone claiming that all men are rapists when they have sex with women.

You can make a very good argument that Westbro Baptist have such an intolerant view of the world that they aren't Christians. You could back that argument up. Problem is that you're never going to succeed in convincing people. They self-identify as Christians and most of their beliefs are ones that fit within the sphere of Christian beliefs even if they are extreme.

Which is why no one tries to make that argument. Instead people simply point out that they are fundamentalists. Idiots. Extremists. Not representative of mainstream Christianity. And that's an argument people will easily accept.

The lunatic fringe needs to be held up as not being representative of feminism. Trying to deny that they are feminists when they self-identify as such is an uphill battle that doesn't really need to be fought. Calling them fundamentalists or extremists instead would quickly point out that although they may at times sound like a mainstream feminist on some issues, they most definitely are not.

[General Battuta]

These are labels defined and applied by humans. If someone says 'I am a feminist' and I, a feminist, don't think they're a feminist, I say they're not a feminist, and I appeal to the definition of feminism as I understand it. As far as I am concerned, there are no man-hating feminists, and the feminists I know and read would agree.  We are talking about this on a forum as a way to make that clear to people who don't understand why feminism is not about misandry.

I don't buy the WBC analogy. If WBC denied the existence of Christ they would probably have a hard time making anyone believe they were Christians even if they self-identified as such. 'Man haters' are not extremist or fundamentalist feminists because they do not take feminist beliefs to an extreme or adhere to some hard-line fundamental form of feminism. They simply are not feminists; they do not engage with or participate in the basic project of feminism.

Mainstream feminists are generally assumed to be man-haters, thanks to some very successful PR over the past two decades. Disentangling the two and making it clear why they are not compatible ideologies - why, indeed, feminism benefits men - is a critical project.

[karajorma]

Well I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. I think by trying to argue that they aren't feminists you help the PR against feminism more than advance your cause.

[AdmiralRalwood]

I don't buy the WBC analogy. If WBC denied the existence of Christ they would probably have a hard time making anyone believe they were Christians even if they self-identified as such.

Exactly! "Feminism" is a word with a clear-cut definition; misandrists clearly fall outside of that definition, because they aren't trying to bring about equality of the sexes. "Christian", on the other hand, is a word with a lot of ambiguity, meaning different things to different people (which results in falling back on the literal definition, as in your example).

Mostly, if someone self-identifies as "Christian", you pretty much just have to take their word for it. If someone self-identifies as "feminist", though, there's a clear-cut definition of the word we can look at, and see whether or not they fit that definition.

It's almost (but not really) like claiming to be a rock, or a tree. You can claim it all you want, but everyone else is free to disagree, because that's not what those words mean.

[Flipside]

Just like a chauvinist is a belligerent patriot obsessed with glory, and not a woman hater you mean?

The problem is that the people define the meaning of the words, not vice versa. Feminism is in danger, partly by accident, partly by patriarchal design, of having it's meaning misinterpreted. It happens widely, and the more popularised the more extreme ends of feminism is, the more that meaning will be change in the eyes of the public.

[Luis Dias]

His point isn't that there are no issues, it's that nobody thinks of this dogma that she's spouting when making games. Games are meant to be fun. Games are meant to please people. They do so. If they don't, they don't make money.

... and are therefore free from criticism? Of course not. What *she* is saying is that the games are made using existing tropes, and the ones most commonly picked are sexist garbage. We can argue how sexist they are, if they can be salvageable, etc. But that kind of conversation only can take place once we acknowledge that the conversation is worth having, which Thunderf00t completely denies.

His criticism is even dumber when he acknowledges that she makes videos "for a market". Well then, if that's your rationale, why are you ****ing criticizing her? According to this dimwit, she's perfectly entitled to make these videos like this because she made a ton of money! Hey, what's your problem, thunderf00t, it's only the market!

What a moron.

As the tropes go, she wants them wiped out. And that's wrong. The Damsel in distress trope is old, but it's still capable of being well used, and you're just stifling creativity if you remove it from a developer's arsenal. Every generation of gamers should be able to enjoy being the hero and saving the girl. That's why Double Dragon got it's remakes, because it's a classic. I haven't heard Double Dragion mentioned in years, but as soon as it came up I thought "Marian". I remembered the girl's name even though you barely see her.

Perhaps she does want them wiped out. Perhaps that's bad. But this is a whole another level conversation that these dimwits are not even willing to let others discuss. To point out these tropes, even if in an exagerated manner, is a very useful thing. It makes us aware of the ideologies that surrounds us everywhere, and how they are incredibly skewed in some manner.

I'll give you that the "bollocks" part was unnecessary. There's nothing wrong with having an opinion, but she's so arrogant, just telling you how you think and how the game makes you think and how you should think, and it doesn't work like that.

Yes, I think ideologies function *exactly* like that, they are subtle and they tell you things, even though you might think they are "stoopid" and "too obvious" for your intelligence and so on. (That's the main reason why advertizing always works, despite all our cynicism towards them, "ahhh as if I'd buy anything just because it showed on tv", yes, yes you will).

Arrogance might be bad, but the level of abuse she got is way over the top. That's unexcusable.

Thing is, if you take feminism in isolation it is dangerous, much as if you take masculinism in isolation, it suggests that we are not two sides of the same coin, it's easy and accurate to say that women don't want to feel like victims, but all it feels to me is that she's sitting in front of a camera saying 'This is wrong, that is wrong', and making no real attempt to identify the cause beyond the assumption that it is because men are doing it.

DANGER! DANGER! FEMINISTS ON THE LOOSE!

What is this ****? She makes videos from the FEMINIST point of view. It's right there on the ****ing name of the channel. What did you expect? A treatise on how men are being victims of this or that? I mean, what the ****.
[/quote]

[Luis Dias]

That's as much feminism as the Soviet Union's economic policy was communism.

You know, running the risk of derailing this topic, that was communism. Just like today's western countries *are* capitalistic. This stupid idea of communism being a platonic ideal that was never realised is a bull**** way of thinking. "Communism" was enacted in Russia, with all its ideological, technological, social and psychological consequences. You will only be able to rehabilitate communism once you start admitting that Stalinism was one of the strongest and purest renderings of it in the 20th century.

[General Battuta]

Admittedly my only source on this is Radio Yerevan jokes, but I'm pretty sure that even the rank and file citizen of the USSR saw communism as something they were working towards in the future (and would probably never reach).

[Luis Dias]

Communism was ideological. It functions as present (as in building it), as an eye (In the name of it, for it, etc.), as Utopia. Stalinism was the consequence of following this ideology.

According to your semantics, we never actually knew what capitalism is like, and that is patently ridiculous.

[666maslo666]

"Feminism" is a word with a clear-cut definition;

Is it? Feminism is defined as movement seeking equality for women. By this definition, extreme feminists that believe men need to be taken down a peg to achieve equality could be considered feminists, at the very least from their own point of view. The definition of feminism is subjective and broad enough to potentially encompass even the crazy ones.

I agree with kara here, the comparison with religious extremists is a good one. And it does not make a good impression at all if feminism, or any sociopolitical movement or ideology for that matter, refuses to admit that it may contain an extremist fringe.

[Flipside]

What is this ****? She makes videos from the FEMINIST point of view. It's right there on the ****ing name of the channel. What did you expect? A treatise on how men are being victims of this or that? I mean, what the ****.

1 : Learn to reply using a more mature approach, it doesn't make you look big when you just start saying '****' all the time, in fact, quite the opposite.

2 : Read the thread, learn what people's positions are before blowing a gasket.

[redsniper]

If we want to take back "feminism" as not being a dirty word, then the label for people who hate men and then claim to be feminist should be "liars."