Feminism or death?
Here’s the entirety of a recent post by an MRA who calls himself Snark:
Uh, dude, I think you’ve confused “feminists” with “Daleks.”
Our new friend Fidelbogen thought this was such a brilliant idea he devoted a post to it himself, declaring:
Such economy, such concision. …
Really now, we wouldn’t go far wrong to make our rhetoric revolve around this above all, and very little more. The saying is deceptively simple, for it goes deep and reaches into many corners.
It puts them on the spot, and nails them there.
I knew Fidelbogen was a bit of a pompous doofus, but this is a whole new level of stupidity for him. I don’t even know what to say about something this idiotic.
Also, check out the comments to Snark’s piece. There’s something about potatoes you kind of have to see to believe.
Posted on September 22, 2011, in antifeminism, idiocy, MRA, violence against men/women. Bookmark the permalink. 1,516 Comments.
Your reality may be “that matriarchy does not exist” but my dictionary says otherwise. What you object to is my putting it in the context of THE Matriarchy, and refering to it in the same context as feminists do THE Patriarchy; as a cohesive and deliberate force of all evil in the world. I’m sure in your reality “all men are potential rapists,” but you probably would not agree that “all women are potential whores.” It’s the same thing. I would comment that the majority of rapists and whores were abused as children. But then again, pathological malnurturing doesn’t fit into your definition of reality.
Rutee: My previous comment was directed to you as well as this one. I made no such attempt to “force” through child protective legislation in the U.K. The Violence Against Children Act was introduced by American Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Bower several years ago and has languished in Judiciary Committee ever since. Since then American feminists have “forced” through the Violence Against Women Act and the White House Council for Women & Girls. I stand by my sentiments that if American feminists truly cared about child abuse the Violence Against Children Act would be the law of the land. They “forced” the others to be ratified.
Note, the word matriarchy exists as a definition of concept. The point being made is that matriarchy is not a societal force in the same way that patriarchy is. Both are abstract concepts, but looking at a basic distribution among law and wealth (Strong indicators of overall power in a society) we can note that they serve as indicators of patriarch system. Do note, that along intersection lines you can still have a system that disadvantages some men over others and it can remain a patriarchy (and could still be what we think of as a matriarchy), but when tracking for what places itself on the top of the hierarchy, and what has historically been the top of the hierarchy, patriarchy exists as a system where as matriarchy primarily exists as a concept. Individual and interactional levels can provide exception to this. But we are not describing that level of view, we are describing systemic. There are no strong indicators of a matriarch type system when looking along lines of classical power.
If we want to talk about what words exist in the dictionary, that’s another thing. As a practical matter in a societal context, there is no matriarchy; women are the disadvantaged class, not the advantaged one. There is not matriarchal oppression, because there is vanishingly little advantagement of women specifically and in general it is a side effect of the narratives that advantage men.
You don’t really understand the concept of patriarchy either. Color me unsurprised. Go read a book, you might learn something.
In that you do not understand the positions you oppose? I’m inclined to agree.
No, you insisted feminists do it. Your choice of words betrayed a lack of understanding over who possesses power in the USA, and it isn’t primarily feminists. I don’t mind that these bills are passed, if that’s the case. I would like them passed. I mind the implication that feminists control congress. THis is demonstrably untrue.
Flib: Thanks for the thoughtful comment. The dictionary definitions of matriarchy and patriarchy are pretty much the same. But I do agree with you that patriarchy is much more of a social system while matriarchy is more of a “concept” as you say, or a philosophy. That social philosophy traditionally denies maternal domestic violence even exits. Moms, like feminists, at least the true blue ones, just don’t abuse… ever. But those maternal concepts, or matriarchal philosophies depending on your semantics, are based on women having procreative power, which is undeniable. And procreation was a force of nature that largely created the so-called patriarchy. The pill changed all that. But it was none the less real power that is unrecognized by feminists, who prefer women think of themselves as powerless to patriarchal domination.
Rutee: American feminists have huge political lobby with big funding. If they made as big an issue for child abuse as they did for breast cancer the Violence Against Children Act would have been passed years ago.
For those in need of citations: I knew I still had this article from the American Journal of Psychiatry, which is published by the American Psychiatric Foundation. It’s the 2005 “Child Murder by Mothers: A Critical Analysis of the Current State of Knowledge and Research.”
ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/162/9/1578
Why do some links copy and paste, and turn blue like an actual link, and others not?
because they have http://in them
I disagree. I’d argue Patriarchy itself denies maternal domestic violence. We can’t argue that a matriarchal system would deny the idea of maternal domestic violence because we don’t have any strong examples of such a matriarchal system that has been developed. Where as we do have empirical evidence of a patriarchal system. Do note, I am not defending matriarchy, I’m saying it does not exist as a demonstrable power structure.
What you are describing above is a system that identifies individuals with a form of power (or lack of power) based on biological characteristics (Women have reproductive power). If a true matriarchy were to exist, I have no doubt that, by it’s definition, it may construct similar biologically determinist arguments, even if those ‘roles’ that were determined are not actually biologically deterministic. The issue comes up again that such a matriarchy does not exist in any form of primacy.
Take discussions of child rearing for instance (part of this ‘reproductive power’ concept), in the form of how gender roles were constructed (Sociology of Childhood) even though the basis we see constantly in this day and age (that is slowly changing due to economic shifts) is that “Women must be caretakers, and men must be breadwinners”. This is not something that is biologically determined. The primary child rearing duties was once that of the father for a period of time, until we had a massive change in the form of economics and ‘bread-winning’ was becoming more of a norm. The role shifted to women, and the discourse around it vastly changed (Cue a billion nature/nurture statements and a need to explain why all of a sudden it was ok for women to be primary caretakers). This is largely why the concept of “reproductive power” isn’t really considered a major power. The discourse around it has changed so much. This is also where much of the anthropological roots of women as caretakers in our western society comes from. The notion that women can’t abuse children also comes from this. I sadly don’t have my resources on me for this, they are back at home, but areas to investigate would be to look at how writings on children shifted from early 19th century to how they were in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Phillippe Aries goes into this discusses this in his book “Centuries of Childhood”, though he is a little dated at this point for contemporary discussions. Another thing to take note on the writings of the era on children, look at who wrote them and from what positions they were writing. Anthropologically, child rearing no longer became an aspect of male identity (Though there are other aspects of control) due to a change in economy, the discourse of the time de-emphasized the male role as it shifted to the nurture concept once work was no longer near home, yet men were still the primary earners. This is a thing born out of patriarchy, created because of an economic need.
Now, in the modern age, we have it thus that because of that shift, child-rearing is strongly identified as the purview of women, not men. We know that these roles are entirely socially constructed however. We also know why those roles changed due to economic shifts in the environment and power structures. In modern feminism, I’d say it seeks to deconstruct those roles of care-taking so that both men and women can be care-takers.
As for the feminist lobby, keep in mind when comparing it to the vast power exerted by business, prisons, and many other lobbyist groups, they pale in comparison. Having a lobby that is feminist is not indicative of a dominant power structure within law and government. I’d ask to do a quantitative count of the amount of money lobbies spend, who they are represented by, and how much does their stuff get passed to determine power. Ideologies differ, obviously, but when looking at systemic power, you look at what is considered the norm, not the exception.
Finally, as a constant reminder, I am speaking in systemic terms. I know for a fact that there are individual exceptions and experiences.
As a quick apology, I am quite busy right now. So my editing is atrocious. My bad >_<.
No apologies necessary. I’ll write more later. Give me a chance to let all this sink in. I appreciate your candor and well-reasoned diplomatic approach. Downright civilized compared to some of these posts.
Are you connected to reality at all? Do you not remember 2010 and 2011’s huge increase in anti-abortion laws throughout the country? Those are flatly unconstitutional and they still got pushed through. Planned Parenthood almost lost all federal funding. And feminists control congress and have a big huge lobby with superpowers? Whatever planet you’re from, take me there.
No, no you’re not connected to reality at all.
“huge increase in anti-abortion laws throughout the country…”
Does that mean some states passed laws against late term abortions or Republicans were trying to shut down Planned Parenthood? What else is new? They want to shut down PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts every chance they get too.
It’s ridicules to claim Feminists don’t have a powerful lobby and even more power in the media. Title 9 is ancient history at this point and feminist political clout has grown from there.
The word unicorn is in my dictionary, hence unicorns exist. The word communism is in my dictionary, hence the US is a communism, right?
It is bleeding obvious that the western world is not a matriarchal system. There are a few extant matriarchies, but there are very, very few statistical studies of specific social phenomena within them (though anthropologists who have done observational work tend to suggest that violent crimes of all sorts are very low in these cultures). The big colonial powers of both Europe and Asia were patriarchies, and they destroyed a variety of matriarchal cultures. Of pre-colonial matriarchies of non-isolated colonized peoples, we have some small collection of data on their cultures and legal systems, but rarely anything extensive. Due to hundreds (in some cases thousands) of years of colonialism and genocide, there are no large scale matriarchies left. This means that the issue of controlling for things like family group dynamics in tribal cultures makes comparisons difficult, unless one finds a similarly situated patriarchal tribal group (this is difficult, considering that contacted tribes have been usually exposed to major patriarchal world powers, often leading to cultural conflicts distinct from patriarchal tribes).
Also, RevSpinaker, quite conflating all “abuse” statistics with murder, intentional assault, etc. Women only make up the bulk of abuse death and injury perps when “neglect” deaths are considered. Let me give you an example of what could be considered a neglect death in a large number of US jurisdictions: Parent A is giving Child B a bath. B is three. A leaves B alone for less than four minutes to answer the door. B drowns in A’s absence. This could be prosecuted as a neglect death in many jurisdictions (things like income class and race make a big difference in which deaths are considered accidental and which are considered negligent as well, but that’s another point). While A was not being the most cautious/best parent in the world, A did not murder B. This is not the same issue as if A goes and stabs B with a butcher knife. And, only the person who is the primary caretaker of the kid is liable for neglect (with certain exceptions in some jurisdictions regarding leaving children with known violent felons, for example). So, the fact that women, who make up a good 90% of primary caretakers, are the majoriy of perps in neglect cases is sort of a no brainer (women do not neglect at disproportionatly high rates). Neglect is a pretty broad category (in some cases, too much truancy from school can be criminal neglect), and it is certainly not the same as intentional murder or assault in most cases.
If you are discussing murder and physical abuse deaths, fathers commit these crimes at similar or higher percentages as mothers (according to the department of justice’s 2001 report, more recent stats fall into the neglect inclusion trap again). Only if neglect homicides are included do you get dramatically higher rates of female perpetrators. The typical neglect perp lives below the poverty line, has no high school diploma (very young parents are neglect perps more often), and has a high incidence of depression. Putting higher penalties on neglect deaths is not effective, providing social and financial resources or education is a much better strategy.
I know, you hear abuse death and you think of someone beating their child do death, but that is not the majority of cases, and women do not dominate physical abuse death cases.
And my point remains that the opinions of Catholics, even influential ones, is not the same thing as the teaching of the Catholic Church as an institution. Pecunium’s claims were consistent, in that he was referring to the second one the whole time.
Here’s a social work journal piece on gender and child maltreatment that may be of interest to you. http://www.socwork.net/2006/1/articles/maychahal
And my point remains that the opinions of Catholics, even influential ones, is not the same thing as the teaching of the Catholic Church as an institution.
Both are still terrible.
darksidecat: See if your defense of “neglectful” mothers stands up for mine. My mom left me in the bath like that. I was little enough to swim back and forth a couple feet in the tub. She’d go off and do laundry until my fingers looked like prunes from soaking. I’d call for her and she wouldn’t come. Sometimes if I got real quiet she’d lear around the corner and then walk away. I don’t ever remember her touching me. If I drowned you bet she would have been crying crocodile tears and carrying on about going to the phone for a few minutes. She used to leave me to look at toys while she indulged her shopping fix for a couple hours at a time. The American Psychiatric Foundation study I linked earlier mentions women are being accused more because the evidence is there. Mothers are also more suspect these because of that growing body of evidence.
Also, men do kill more children than women. I never said they didn’t. Your stats are close to the CDC. Mothers and fathers murder children, I believe five or less years old, at about the same rate, 30% each (though some stats spike way higher for mothers if questionable “neglect” cases are classified murders). The other 30% are male paramours and 10% other, baby-sitters abductions… Mothers, however act on their own more often than natural fathers and are either tacitly involved with or are co-offenders in the majority of child murders.
The Canadian Child Care Federation classifies my mother’s behavior as “Target Abuse” when one child is singled out for abuse. I heard Joy Behar make a joke about “women who pick out one of their kids just to hate them.” When the joke fizzled and everyone looked uncomfortable she repeated, “you know, we’ve all seen that… when a mother picks out one of her kids just to hate them… Unfortunately, we HAVE all seen that. And it could feasibly be construed as evidence of how entrenched child abuse is in the matriarchal system. Women even make jokes about it on mainstream TV and no one complains. Accept people like me.
One point we do agree on. “Neglect” as a sentencing guideline is vague, ineffective and antiquated. I refer to it as “abandonist malnurturing” and if it results in the death of a child it should be considered a crime. Redefining and criminalizing “neglect” is the reason we need to ratify the Violence Against Children Act. And that’s exactly the reason Feminists are dead set against it.
darksidecat: Found this on the link you provided.
“In addition, a national incidence study found that in the US boys were significantly more likely to be reported as emotionally neglected and that rates for boy’s physical neglect increased greater than for girls over a 6 year period (Sedlak and Broadhurst 1996). Cawson et. al. (2000) hypothesise that this may be because boys are allowed more freedom than girls and are subject to less supervision, again reflecting cultural norms in gendered socialization (see also Straus et. al. 1998).”
“Emotional Neglect” sounds alot like abandonist malnurturing and target abuse to me. While hard to prove and impossible to prosectute, it needs to be included in discussions about domestic violence as criminal behavior. Even if it’s just for the emotional and psychological liberation of those effected by it.
At the moment, your arguments are doing a brilliant job of proving the feminist case. Please keep going.
There already are “criminal neglect” laws in the US, in every state. The exact limits of those laws varies state to state. But the US still has far higher rates of child death than other developed nations. In fact, nowhere else in the developed world has infant mortality stats as high as the US. And none of the psychological institutions or social work institutions advocate harsher penalties as the solution-they advocate education and resources. Because neglect perps generally lack just that-resources-they lack medical access, safe housing, educational resources (they typically do not have a high school level education), etc.
In the US, cooffenders are charged as primaries, so they count in the statistics. So you can’t just state that women who were not offenders “tacitly approved” of their children’s murders without sufficient evidence of that fact.
That might be criminal neglect, it might not. There are a lot of social issues around what is considered neglect and who gets charged. But there is no evidence that women who are caretakers neglect more than men who are caretakers (the opposite, in fact). There is no reason to be more suspicious of female parents than male parents. Male parents commit murder and physical abuse in comparable numbers. Male parents sexually abuse in far higher numbers. You are grasping at straws here to try and make women the scapegoat for all child abuse, rather than just the abuse they actually perpetrate.
Again, you are not living in a matriarchy. Acts of women in “women’s sphere” positions of a patriarchy do not suddenly become matriarchal acts. Considering that most recorded matriarchies involve kinship group models different from the “nuclear family” model, projecting acts of women within a patriarchal society’s nuclear family roles social dynamics becomes more absurd.
Emotional and psychological abuse and neglect are not grouped in with physical abuse and neglect in the study. Emotional neglect does not include starving.
“Similar patterns can be found in relation to ‘emotional abuse’. Intra-familial childhood violence studies find that emotional or psychological violence is more prevalent amongst girls but that if extra familial emotional violence is included the rates are high for both boys and girls, who seem to be affected in almost equal proportions (see Table 7).”
“In addition, a national incidence study found that in the US boys were significantly more likely to be reported as emotionally neglected….”
Notice the distinction? Boys are more likely to not receive affection and support from parents, girls are more likely to be proactively attacked (metaphorically) emotionally and psychologically by parents.
tatjna: I’ve never heard a feminist use the term pathological malnurturing because, to my knowledge, I coined the phrase and I am not a feminist. I’m not an anti-feminist but will be if confronted with misandrist harangue-banging. And I’m not an MRA, or MRM, or LGBT or ROTC. If you need to categorize me lets say I’m a CRA, Children’s Rights Advocate. And that’s no bollocks. That’s a great word. Is that feminist term? Canadian?
darksidecat:
“There already are “criminal neglect” laws in the US, in every state. The exact limits of those laws varies state to state. But the US still has far higher rates of child death than other developed nations.”
As we agreed earlier “neglect” is vague. “Criminal neglect” like “felony neglect” sound more like oxymorons than sentencing guidelines. And the fact that there are no clear standards and laws vary state to state is all the more reason to ratify the Violence Against Children Act.
And bollocks to you too!
darksidecat: The theory does not just apply to broad societal scenarios like a government position, but to all situations, such as interpersonal relationships. Read Hugo Schwyzer’s blog if you need an example of feminists applying it like that. According to the Child Maltreatment 2009 report shows that mothers account for the majority of child fatalities, and most of the fatalities include a combination of neglect and some other type of abuse.
Rutee Katreya: Some of us develop faster than others. One person’s disprivilege is not another person’s privilege. Your rape analogy is off. This is closer: do you think that a rich woman has power and privilege over a poor man as he rapes her? If she does, why does she not use her power and privilege to stop the rape? That is the fallacy and contradiction of “patriarchy” argument. If the power and privilege only applies in the broadest sense, then no individual person possesses power and privilege over others. If power and privilege do exist on an individual level, as feminists argue, then all males, regardless of their social status, are always privileged and empowered over all women. If person’s privilege and power stops applying at any point, you must explain why this could not happen broadly.
Bagelsan: My contention is only that feminism caused my aunt’s thinking, which then led to her actions. Curiously, you do not disagree with this. You stated, “if anything I’d say she abused despite her feminism”, implying that feminism would normally affect her behavior for the better. Look, I understand that no feminist wants to believe feminism can cause harm, but you cannot have it both ways. Either feminism affects a person’s behavior or it does not. If can prevent a person from being violent, then can also cause a person to become violent.
That…makes no sense whatsoever. “We know ideology can influence people, so if Mormonism can persuade people that Joseph Smith was a prophet, it can convert people to THE EXACT OPPOSITE of that belief and become athiests. It’s all influence, right? RIGHT?”
The stated position of feminism is anti-abuse, which is what Bagelsan said in the first place.
Well, that was a poorly edited post. “Convert people to the exact opposite of that belief and [make them] become atheists.”
“The stated position of feminism is anti-abuse, which is what Bagelsan said in the first place.”
I’m not sure, but I think darksidecat might agree, I know Toysoldier would, but feminism doesn’t really state a position of anti-abuse. Nor does what darksidecat describes as the “woman’s sphere,” but he blames the patriarchy for that. I call female silence about maternal child abuse the inherent fascisim of the Matriarchy.
That is idiotic. Things can affect people directionally you know; systems of belief or ideologies usually influence people towards particular behaviors and away from others. I argue that feminism influences people away from sexually abusing children because it explicitly condemns both sexual abuse and harming children. Just because your aunt rationalized her abuse to you with a false stereotype of feminism does not mean that feminism caused her thinking — if she had claimed to abuse you because of solar flares that wouldn’t mean they caused the abuse either, it would just mean she’d picked a different brand of bullshit to excuse her inexcusable behavior.
Hmm, what part of “treat people equally no matter what” and “don’t ever rape” sound like they don’t mean that you shouldn’t abuse children? Do you really think that there needs to be a more specific statement that “yes, we mean ‘equally’ like totally equal, and ‘no rape’ like really no rape, and this also means you shouldn’t rape little kids in case that wasn’t obvious.” …Do you think feminist ideas somehow exclude children from “people” or freedom from abuse from “equal treatment”? ‘Cause they don’t. We mean equal equal EQUAL.
Fixed that for ya’.
Seriously dude, you don’t seem familiar with even the most basic tenets of feminism (“is raping children considered a bad thing?”) or gender studies. Go read a damn book.
Bagelsan: Please leave darksidecat’s opinion about my statement out of your quasi-censorship. We see some common ground and I value darksidecat’s opinion.
Also, you quoted me…
“about anything so I should probably learn what things like “patriarchy” and “woman’s sphere” and “statistics” are before I continue blabbering barely coherent things about “Matriarchies” and fascism.”
Don’t put your fallacious words in other people’s mouths as their own quotation. I think it’s illegal.
And FYI my mother really was a fascist matriarch. That’s my reality. Just like Toysoldier’s aunt, and Demond Reed’s aunt and Oprah’s mom.
By the way Bagelsan, how do YOU think Carla Poole’s behavior affected her children in the Demond Reed murder? Where are her kids now?
Man-Up and answer the question.
Oh no, I dun goofed! Now you’re gonna call the cyberpolice and backtrace me!
While you’re reading up on feminism and basic social theory and fascism maybe google how FTFY works, too. :D
Censorship is generally done by governments (or other groups with power). Someone ‘fixing’ a quote is a standard internet meme. If you can’t keep the two separate, how exactly are we supposed to take you or your arguments seriously?
Privilege is NOT ABOUT INDIVIDUALS but about classes of people.
You’re the stupid one who made it; I merely extended it along other axes.
Considering she is not in danger of going hungry this month, yeah. And in the immediate aftermath, her superior resources and social status are going to make damn sure that poor dude is going to suffer, even if he doesn’t go to jail (Which is highly unlikely unless she’s a PoC)…. yeah, she does after that too.
And not to belabor the point, but you are not being raped right now, presumably.
You really don’t know how power or privilege work. Power doesn’t mean you always get your way, it means you are substantially more likely to over someone who doesn’t. Privilege doesn’t mean NOTHING BAD HAPPENS.
Do you believe that white women are beaten to the death by the police almost as often as black men? You are the one who proposed that it is only as easy as getting raped to lose your privilege. There are nearly as many white women who are survivors as there are black men total. According to you, privilege is lost this easily; Therefore, they should have lost their white privilege. Except if you knew a fucking thing about anything, you’d know that they DON’T lose their privileges. Even if white women are less likely to be survivors than black women, even if they are raped, they are much more likely to be believed by a jury, than a WoC, and much more likely to see justice done.
Intersectionality, motherfucker. Learn it.
Seriously, you’re arguing over what is at best 30 year old understandings of these concepts. All else being equal (Class, Race, disability, etc), men will do better. That’s why the Civil Rights Movement, for color, has some rather infamous bullshit said about women (My favorite is ‘The position of women int he movement is prone’, because it’s also fail). I’d argue a rich woman has it better off than a poor man, because Class is such an amazingly strong privilege, but even Class won’t prevent him from having ANY privileges over her. He isn’t really going to be judged for his gender, for instance.
But evend espite privilege, some individuals will gain power over others. Are you seriously going to argue white people aren’t privileged? Even though we have a black president?
Are you stupid? Because it doesn’t happen broadly. Whether it could or couldn’t is immaterial; we don’t pull discussions about who’s privileged out of a hat. It wasn’t randomly decided it’d be white people, the rich, the cis, heteros, the able-bodied, and men. The statistics indicate that these groups gain substantial advantages over the alternatives. We have clear evidence that things that might suck to happen to individuals do not still remove privilege from them or their groups.
Ditto what comrade svilova said.
@toysoldier, I think one of the issues here is that “liberal feminists” (used here to describe a branch of theory, not people who are by happenstance both “liberals” and “feminists”) overfocus on how privilege-oppression dynamics are expressed in interpersonal relationships (rad fems do this on occasion as well by with more narrow issues, not as broadly). But that is not what privilege is. Privilege and Oppression properly describe social classes and institutionalized power dynamics. Those privilege lists, for example, do not describe properly what privilege is, they describe some ways that privilege is expressed in certain social settings. So, to answer your question, yes, a rich woman has class privilege even if she is the victim of crimes and a poor man has male privilege even if he were to be the victim of crimes. Being privileged in one ways does not mean that nothing bad can ever happen to you ever. A person can even be simultaneously privileged on one axis of oppression and oppressed on another, for example, a disabled white person has white privilege, but is oppressed on the grounds of disability status. The intersections of these privilege-oppression dynamics can create differences in the ways that both are expressed in the interpersonal day to day as well.
@RevSpinnaker and Bagelsan, I think there are two distinct ways of looking at this. One could limit feminism to only things involved in gendered oppression (or perhaps that and intersections of gendered oppressions with other oppressions to some extent). If one did this, it would be proper to say that feminism does not per se have a position on non-gendered violence, any more than the Theory of Evolution has a position about the Big Bang. That position would be to say that feminism is not per se pro-abuse or anti-abuse, except insofar as abuse is gendered. But, there is another way of looking at feminism, a broader way. Women are not an extremely narrow class, women, and gender oppression issues, span across a number of axis of oppression. And, oppression is fed by a social dynamic that supports dominance by coercion and force. This view would say that, for a truly feminist society, one would have to eliminate all forms of oppression and the social dynamics of dominance behind them. Under this view, feminism would be anti-abuse per se, as abuse is clearly dominance by coercion and force.
NO. Single or violent women acting in a patriarchy are not matriarchs. Women expressing coercive domination are not even matriarchies with in a patriarchal system. The social system does not allow for such a thing. Matriarchy and Patriarchy involve gendered class social power dynamics. We do not suddenly live in, say, a disabled dominance society suddenly whenever a disabled person does something bad to an abled person either. That’s not how it works. Also, self identified political fascists are damned rare, so it is difficult for you to know that every random abuser is amongst them. In fact, taking this position actually undermines the reality that people of all political positions can abuse. An anarchist parent could abuse a child as well. Though, arguably, fascism is especially prone to this due to its tacit endorsement of coercive dominance regimes, just asserting that abusers are “fascists” is unhelpful. As is the scapegoating of women’s attempts to gain equal socio-political power by asserting that abuse by women is per se matriarchal. It is worth noting that there is no evidence to suggest that women with less internalized sexism abuse more than women with more internalized sexism. “Matriarchal”, “feminist”, and “fascist” are terms with their own distinct meanings, they are not all purpose insults.
Sidenote: I am genderqueer, my preferred pronouns are ze and hir, or the singular they.
Sure. And I generally do think of feminism as necessarily having a gender or sex component, even if it is minor or heavily intersectional, but even in the case where child abuse is not gendered I think that some principles of feminism would really easily apply: children are usually physically smaller than adults and have less legal and social power than adults, oppressions they share with women (when compared to men.) Both situations are informed by a model of “ownership” where the family patriarch (or parent) is encouraged to control the other family members. Also, the methods and effects of child abuse can play out differently depending on the kid’s gender and/or sex, so I don’t think that a gendered analysis can be completely excluded (and so we sneak in some feminism!)
More specifically to this discussion, the child abuse aspect was kicked off by an account of sexual abuse of a boy reportedly targeted due to his gender, so feminism definitely has something to say about that both on the rape issue as well as the gendered targeting. So yeah, perhaps in the abstract there can be non-gendered and totally-inapplicable-to-feminism child abuse, but in practice there always seems to be an aspect of sex or gender (if only to a minor extent.)
And, well, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a feminist defense of child abuse but I’ve heard plenty of feminist condemnation. So even if the movement doesn’t strictly include the issue of abuse I think it’s been pretty well adopted — the feminist position on child abuse may be unofficial but it’s definitely not “pro.” :p
VoiP: It makes perfect sense. For example, if Mormonism can affect people’s behavior, it can cause people value their families and also cause them to devalue certain ethnic groups. To my knowledge, Mormonism is anti-discrimination, yet clearly the ideology caused some of its adherents to discriminate. But for the sake of clarity, are you arguing that feminism in no way affects how people treat women?
Bagelsan: My argument is that if feminism can influence a person’s behavior for the better it can also influence it for the worst, and it is easy to show that feminism does lead some feminists to discriminate against, fear, hate, and even harm boys and men. Even other feminists acknowledge the capacity for the ideology to cause or perpetuate inequality and hatred, despite its purported doctrine. And who said my aunt rationalized her actions with feminism?
RevSpinnaker: I would argue that feminism in theory possesses a general anti-abuse position, but in practice possess an anti-abuse against women position. Abuse against males typically gets ignored or a casual mention, usually with some “women have it worst” caveat.
comrade svilova: If it is about classes of people, why do feminists tell individual men to “check your privilege”? Would that not imply that men as individual possess power and privilege? Again, you cannot have it both ways.
Rutee Katreya: Thank you for demonstrating the flaw in the feminist privilege doctrine. Power means one has the ability to get what one wants. If one cannot do that despite one’s power, technically one does not have power, or more accurately, the power is as not extensive as one believes. The same with privilege. Feminists argue that male privilege prevents or protects men against bad things happening to them. If it does not actually do that (and it does not), technically men do not have possess universal privilege. At best they would possess it only in certain circumstances. At any rate, I do not agree with the privilege doctrine. What many call privilege is actually disprivilege, i.e. people receiving less than they deserve (such as your police brutality against black people example). Yes, I am aware the feminist concept of “intersectionality”. It is just an attempt to dodge the obvious flaw in the feminist privilege doctrine, and typically fails because the majority of men and women fall into some special “intersectionality” class.
darksidecat: The individual-level privilege-oppression dynamic is so common among feminists that it is taught Women’s Studies courses. It is clearly not limited to “liberal feminists”. See my response to Rutee regarding the feminist privilege doctrine and “intersectionality”. On a related note, the problem with the feminist privilege doctrine is that it treats a group of people as a monolith. Feminists created “intersectionality” to try to weasel around that, but the inherent problem remains: there are members of the group who simply do not possess power or privilege.
You know, I wasn’t going to get insulting in this thread. But really, Toysoldier, you are not the intelligent. In fact, you are just lacking in much knowledge. You claim intersectionality is a “dodge” but you demonstrate in NO MANNER how it is such. Sorry, but your pitiful ignorance does not dismiss scholarship for the past 40 years. Claiming it fails because many people are intersected along different aspects of privilege is not actually failure. That is fact, part of intersectionality. There is no way a “failure” here.
The fact that you believe it as a “dodge” or “weasel” truly indicates just how ignorant you are of the epistemological background of feminism. Not only do you fail to demonstrate how it is such, but you are so stupid that you claim that the existence of individuals who have no power or privilege discredits the entire system. Think about that for a moment. Now think back to what privilege and intersectionality is. If you are having disconnect, I assure you, it is due to your own ignorance.
For example, if Mormonism can affect people’s behavior, it can cause people value their families and also cause them to devalue certain ethnic groups. To my knowledge, Mormonism is anti-discrimination, yet clearly the ideology caused some of its adherents to discriminate.
Ugh, no. My point is that, like Rutee said, it doesn’t make sense for an organization to influence people in ways contrary to its stated beliefs. That was why — and I’ll go slowly, I remember that you are not super big on that thing we in the real world call “logic” — my example was of Mormonism making people into atheists, not of Mormonism spreading racism. ATHEISTS. THE PEOPLE WHO DON’T BELIEVE IN A GOD. WHICH IS THE OPPOSITE OF (most) RELIGION(s).
What many call privilege is actually disprivilege, i.e. people receiving less than they deserve (such as your police brutality against black people example).
Who here has been saying that black people have privilege, and that being subject to police brutality is an example of it?
My point is that, like Rutee said, it doesn’t make sense for an organization to influence people in ways contrary to its stated beliefs.
For that read ‘deliberately influence;” I know that ideologies are complex and murky things, but a Mormon missionary coming to your door with a copy of “The God Delusion,” while hilarious, is not gonna happen.
Toy Soldier, you’re not actually engaging with the factual underpinnings of privilege at any point in your blog post. The simple fact is that you don’t disprove privilege by talking. It is not an ‘opinion’. It is in fact a documented sociological fact. You said you don’t like the theory, more or less, because you apparently don’t understand it. No. Your opinion is worthless in the face of the facts. Privilege is part of a theory with predictive power; that is, an actual, scientific theory. It is supported by the facts on the ground, and although I think you’re too stupid for me to teach, were I inclined to, I could demonstrate this, and have repeatedly to others.
Frankly, it’s well established that there are particular classes and factors that are strongly indicative of future success. Your blog post is more or less so much whiny drivel, like Owlslave’s rants about evolution; it has no validity, no factual basis with which to attack a theory and its components when that theory and its components are supported by the evidence. And frankly, you don’t even understand that theory, despite a number of 101s that would teach you. You are motherfucking stupid, and apparently have nothing worthwhile to add to this conversation. I’m not going to keep wasting my time on you. Read a fucking book; you might learn something. Hell, read a god damn website, this time for content. You might learn something. But don’t waste our time and frankly, your own, and that of your readers, with this uneducated, wannabe-intellectual vomit. If you want to talk about facts, use facts, not “I wish it were so”s.
Like the Jehovah’s Witness who became a Unitarian and went door to door for no particular reason.
Now there’s a joke you don’t get to use in context very often.
And yet you still haven’t actually shown that. At all.
I think Flib called it; you aren’t particularly bright or well-informed on this issue, so talking about this much more with you is probably just a waste of time.
@toysoldier
“To my knowledge, Mormonism is anti-discrimination,” That is so wrong it is hilarious.
On “intersectionality”, that is a term created by Kimberle Crenshaw, a black women, in the course of her criticisms of certain upperclass white second wave feminists notions. Did you skip basically every black feminist theorist ever, including the one who created this specific theory, when coming up with this conclusion of yours? While I grant that there are some white feminists who pay lip service to intersectionality but in practice suck at it, intersectionality was created by marginalized women in critique of certain second wave narratives about “women” and “women’s needs”. Intersectionality was not created to silence black feminist critiques, it was created as a black feminist critique. It is worth noting that a lot of the terms and phrases I used in my description are pulled directly for feminist theorist works that have been around for decades. Did you just read Dworkin and Greer and skip Hooks and Collins?
As to liberal feminism and the academy, I would argue that liberal feminism has a large, large amount of prominence in many third wave feminist circles. Feministing and Feministe, for example, are solidly liberal feminist spaces. This theoretical error is confined to liberal feminist theories (many radical feminist theories have other theoretical problems around conceptions of class, but not this one), liberal feminists are just damned common these days, in part because liberal feminism is far less threatening to patriarchal social institutions and mindsets than socialist feminsm/well developed class feminisms, making it an easier sell. Liberal feminist often use terms from class feminisms/socialist feminism improperly. For example, the leftist phrase “raising consciousness”. Liberal feminists often use the term to mean “informing people about current events/issues”, but the phrase is actually a Marxism derived phrase. Raising consciousness in the traditional Marxist sense means providing tools against or combating “false consciousness” (what might be known as “internalized oppression” in some theoretical contexts). While it is not always the case, too often when liberal feminist talk about privilege and oppression, they are not really talking about those issues at all, they are talking about the old liberal feminist stalwart-“discrimination”. Which does tend to confuse the issue (though the original privilege list piece does not in fact do this, the list is meant to be examples of how white privilege has daily lived effects, not a definition of what white privilege is).
@RevSpinnaker, I wanted to discuss the legislation you support a bit further, because it occurred to me that it likely would not even pass constitutional scrutiny as proposed. You do know that the federal government is not allowed under the US political system to just pass widestretching criminal law that is not within the scope of one of its delegated powers/jurisdictions, right? You mention VAWA, but the civil provisions, and every criminal provision not dealing directly with interstate commerce was thrown out by the Supreme Court. With the current conservative Court, it is very unlikely that the court would accept either a commerce clause or fourteenth amendment justification for such criminal legislation. So, beyond the question of whether or not such a law would be a good idea, as a practical matter it is not likely to actually be deemed constitutional.
“and every criminal provision not dealing directly with interstate commerce was thrown out by the Supreme Court.”
Interesting. What’s the difference between the VAWA and the Mann Act?
Still no responses to how Carla Poole’s behavior effected her children. Or whatever happened to those children. Keep in mind her’s is not an isolated instance.
And feminists do defend female child abusers, literally. The N.O.W. Legal Defense Team has defended maternal abusers. In fact one example is posted in other manboobz comments, “N.O.W. defends woman accused of stabbing child.” I searched it and found pages of “woman stabs child” articles. I stopped at page 18.
As I recall, SCUM (Society to Cut Up Men) Manifesto author Valerie Solaris shot Andy Warhol. Isn’t that an example of feminist incited violence? She’s still a hero among some feminists.
I don’t really have time right now, and possibly not hte inclination, to deal with most of your bullshit, Rev, but can you be less stone cold stupid? Even the most cursory reading about Solanas attempting to murder Warhol will show you that it has nothing to do with feminism and everything to do with a perception that Warhol was stealing her work as an artist. So no, actually, Solanas’ attempted murder is not really feminist-inspired violence. I mean, it could have been, if she did it to make some misguided attempt at ending patriarchy, I guess, but in this case it’s really just one author trying to kill another out of a possibly misguided belief that the other was stealing her work.
Really, that sort of idiotic misunderstanding is at the core of every single fucking post you’ve written. You’re a moron, and you don’t deserve any time.
Bollocks to you Rutee. You’re the biggest name caller in these posts.
“You’re a moron, and you don’t deserve any time.”
So there.
Who cares? You can’t respond to substance. You can’t read substance! Nobody gives a fuck about your opinion. You’re an idiot. Oh no, I’m a name caller? At least I fucking learn about an issue before I speak about it, however mean I might be. You spew your idiotic crap at passerby and expect us to clean it up. And then you dare to claim some form of ‘civility’, when you don’t even have the good graces to actually learn about something before you form an opinion on it, and us? No, the ‘name calling’ is perfectly justified at this point. Learn, then speak.
Huh. Google tells me “No results found for “N.O.W. defends woman accused of stabbing child.” Oh, wait, the Rev must be thinking of his earlier bullshit comment that he couldn’t find a link for “NOW defends woman accused of drowning child”, even though that’s the first hit you get (Andrea Yates) for that search term.
S.C.U.M. never existed. That title was slapped on Solanas’s psychotic manifesto by a male editor who was doing the print equivalent of trolling for pagehits.
@Rutee, the guy’s a liar. DNFTT.
OOPS! You’re right mythago, It was a drowning. And it does appear in manboobz posts for another article. There are pages of listings for “woman drowns child” and not near as many for “woman stabs child.” The stabbing listings also include alot of “man stabs child” headlines. Apparently drowning is the favored MO of women who kill their children. You mention Andrea Yates and there’s Susan Smith, both drownings.
So you tell me, since you have all the answers. You can’t deny women kill children, so how do they do it? How often? Show me your citations.
People jumped on my case for saying maternal abuse has increased and that the most vulnerable are poor, single and undereducated. darksidecats stats said the same thing. darksidecat, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think those stats are for post-natal murders, in the first week or days after birth. They often result from a young girl being unprepared for the responsibility, overwhelmed with no support system and possibly suffering post-partum.
I’m all for Planned Parenthood and educating kids, so young girls don’t get pregnant to begin with. And if they do they need all the help they can get, if not from family, then from social services. Especially during that crucial first week of the child’s life.
VoiP: Ugh, yes. My point is that an ideology can influence people in ways contrary to its stated beliefs. That was why — and I will go slowly as I remember you are not super big on that thing we in the real world call “logic” — my example was of Mormonism making people turn to racism, not Mormonism making people atheists. RACISM. AN IDEA. A SET OF BELIEFS THAT OFTEN CAUSE PEOPLE TO DO HARM TO OTHERS. WHICH IS THE OPPOSITE OF (most) IDEOLOGIES’ STATED INTENTIONS. Honestly, it does not do any of you well to keep resorting to straw man arguments when it is clear I am talking about ideologies’ influence on people’s views and behaviors towards other groups of people. As for who says black men have privilege, check Bagelsan and Rutee’s comments. Both argue that as a result of “intersectionality” black men have privilege and power as men, even though that notion is demonstrably false in the vast majority of situations.
Bagelsan: I did show examples of feminists discriminating against, fearing, hating, and even harming boys and men. However, you ignored the links. How typically feminist to ignore evidence that does not fit your argument.
Flip, Rutee Katreya, and darksidecat: I am aware of the history of the theory of “intersectionality”. What led Crenshaw to create the theory supports my argument that privilege is not as universal as feminists claim. Clearly there are instances in which women possess power and privilege, yet the initial feminist argument was that women (meaning white women), regardless of their social status, were disempowered. Crenshaw’s theory turns that notion on its head. However, the theory still holds to the flawed notion that privilege and power can be universally held by every member of a group, which is demonstrably false, hence VoiP’s comment, “Who here has been saying that black people have privilege?”. My point is that privilege and power are not constant, and that plenty of people who belong to a “class” have no privilege or a means using it use it if they had it. The only reason feminists object to this notion is because I applied it to males, specifically abused males. Simply put, the only reason the existence of people without privilege within a purported privileged “class” discredits feminists’ theory is because feminists apply the theory universally. If you applied it only to specific circumstance, which better reflects how privilege and power actually works, there would be no issue. And darksidecat, my aunt had me read feminist books, particularly bell hooks, aloud to her, so I am quite familiar with these theories. I just find them as irrational and illogical as believing in original sin, creationism, or the Matrix.
Dude, if you think SCUM was an actual group or that Valerie Solanas is lionized among modern feminists, you’re dumber than advertised. Maybe you should… oh, what’s the term? Oh, yeah, LOOK SHIT UP before you spew it, eh?
“They often result from a young girl being unprepared for the responsibility, overwhelmed with no support system and possibly suffering post-partum.”
Funny, at the start of this post you were blaming feminism. Maybe you’ve learned something through being called out so much.
Re, intersectionality: There was an excellent article in the New Yorker a couple of years ago about Southern liberalism and race relations in the early part of the 20th century. Yes, a black man accused of raping a white woman would be faced with an extremely biased system and likely be convicted — provided that the victim fit the standard of a “proper” white woman: that is, middle- to upper-class, well-to-do and of impeccable behavior. The author showed that white juries in segregationist South were more than willing to acquit a black defendant of raping a white woman even in the face of incontrovertible evidence, if the woman in question was poor, “slutty”, came from a family that was not respected in the local community, or if she was known to, Heaven forbid, associate with black men. If a black defendant was nevertheless convicted in such a case, he stood a fairly good chance of being pardoned or paroled, anyway, on the ground (again) that the victim was not a “good” victim. In other words, if ever racism and misogyny had a contest for the souls of those men in power, they went with misogyny.
Let me set this comparison up for you correctly: feminist theory has useful predictive power. It has evidence supporting it. We’re more or less arguing for heliocentrism, with the observations of Brahe, Copernicus, and dozens of other astronomers. You’re whining about how everyone knows we must be wrong, because everyone knows that a geocentric model with the planets and stars painted onto beautiful celestial spheres, must be accurate. I am positive current feminist theory is incomplete; but you’re not actually debunking it, nor are you providing useful competing explanations for the observable effects (Observable effects even you concede. Shit, son, you think not being beaten isn’t a privilege, because you’re still thinking of the dictionary definition of the term, not the technical one sociology uses).
You have no evidence to countermand even a cursory examination of privilege. You have failed to understand every clarification, and despite your loud insistence that you know the history and the terms, you have failed to even meet the low standard of “Can successfully regurgitate a wikipedia article”. You clearly have not had a remotely decent education in general, and you don’t understand what you’re trying to talk about now; I almost feel bad, but the stupid shit you’re saying has consequence if it’s believed. Learn something before you talk. Learn a *LOT* of things.
Toysoldier, do you not read your own language. I’m sticking with the “You are not as knowledgeable as you think” because that’s the only way you are reaching those conclusions by basic language.
Privilege CAN be held by all groups. Privilege IS NOT a zero sum game. Did you miss the “can” in your statement? Why are you the one assuming it is a zero sum game? You have started off from the wrong assumption. Of course privilege and power are not constant, not all models assume constants. Systems change. This is why I think you have no knowledge of intersectionality, because you have clearly never seen it applied, and likely have read only part of the wikipedia page at that. The conclusions you are reaching are extremely indicative of that. Hell, your claim, that it is applied universally and therefore, in ALL cases white men can never have problem with intersection is just incorrect. Have you seen labor studies of the “default” (White, cis, middle class, able bodied hetero men) aiming to be nurses or child care workers? http://www.jstor.org/stable/4120914 is not a bad place to start.
Furthermore, you are continuing this claim of constant rather then looking at how most anthropological and sociological models define at what level of society they are looking at. As a current picture now, patriarchy is systemic (as in, it largely exists in a majority). There are interactional (Interaction events between two smaller subsets, Male nurses and the nursing industry for instance) and individual (Your abuse by an abuser when women are stated to not be abusers) elements as well. Systemic is not universal. Go read many of the applied intersectionality studies before you start making claims that simply just don’t work.
Toysoldier:
Wow, “I know you are but what am I.” Not only is that not really, um, impressive, but as history would have it, Mormon doctrines are actually pretty racist. Mormon men weren’t allowed to be priesthood holders until 1978, a position granted to all other Mormon males when they hit the age of 12, if I recall correctly.
That’s two fails in one response. We’re golf-clapping over here, just for you.
Katz:
Have you heard about the militant agnostics? They don’t know, and they’re willing to die to prove that you don’t either.
ERRATUM: BLACK Mormon men weren’t allowed to be priesthood holders until 1978…
Amused: Now that is interesting. I’d always assumed (probably thanks in part to To Kill a Mockingbird) that white juries almost always voted to convict black men when it came to rape. I guess i kinda thought that racial purity trumped class or being a ‘good’ victim.
VoiP: Honestly cannot resist:
I’d thought so too, because it would fit with the rest of the criminal justice system, where a low class black man is almost certainly going to go to prison if that’s a possibility. If what you said is true, that’s.. an interesting exception, yes.
Dude, Toysoldier. You said:
And your link was to a blog post you wrote about “Mary Kay Letourneau hosting a ‘Hot For Teacher’ night at a bar.” So what about that “Hot For Teacher” night was caused by feminism? How did feminism lead to it?
‘Cause I’m not saying boys and men are never harmed, or even that women/feminists never harm boys and men; I’m saying that you still haven’t shown how feminism can influence people to hate or abuse boys and men. That claim of causality requires a lot more rigor than you have shown so far — just linking to ‘bad crap some women do’ isn’t proving anything.
Here is the article I was talking about.
It’s not just about misogyny, and, this being New Yorker, it takes a very long time to lay out the background, but it’s really thorough. And it includes a searing critique of “To Kill a Mockingbird”.
Tatjna:
“They often result from a young girl being unprepared for the responsibility, overwhelmed with no support system and possibly suffering post-partum.”
Funny, at the start of this post you were blaming feminism. Maybe you’ve learned something through being called out so much.
Funny, at the start of this post I said the exact same thing, The biggest increase in maternal abuse and murder has been among poor, uneducated, single women. I was trashed for stating it. Once darksidecat provided the same evidence and agreed with the stats, all of a sudden I learned something. He still blames the great boogey-man patriarchy for maternal child abuse and that’s where we disagree.
It will always be matriarchal oppression to me.
Still haven’t heard any comments about the Demond Reed murder or what happened to Carla Poole’s children. I dare you to read about her. Then ask yourselves, “where’s the violence come from?” Mom’s like Carla Poole who teach it, that’s where. What organization have feminists implemented to stop women like her from teaching children that kind of violence? What are they doing to prevent her daughter from repeating the behavior and continuing the cycle of matriarchal violence and murder?
TS: The 2009 Child Maltreatment Report was a real eye-opener. First of it’s kind and the beginning of an ongoing study.
Folks at this blog could learn something if they actually read it. But I’m sure several won’t bother because it’s obvious they already know everything.
Well, you keep true to your delusions.
Feminism does not have any initiatives for combating antisemitism, either. Does that mean feminism endorses antisemitism?
http://archive.glennbeck.com/archives/08-28-01.shtml
Turns out N.O.W. was raising money for the defense of Andrea Yates. They said something positive could come out of the multiple child strangulation-drownings.
Isn’t that special.