“Men’s Studies” has existed as an academic discipline for several decades now. Not surprisingly, most of those involved in it identify themselves as feminists – as people interested in studying gender tend to do. But not all of them: A couple of years back, a group of mostly anti-feminist academics and popular writers with an interest in gender decided to try to do a sort of end run around the discipline of “Men’s Studies” by conjuring up a whole new, altogether un-feminist discipline called “Male Studies.”
Recently, The University of South Australia announced that it would start offering postgraduate courses in Male Studies sometime in 2014; our old friend Eoghan/Sigil1 brought this earthshattering news to the Men’s Rights subreddit the other day, where it was greeted with … suspicion and hostility.
GotMyFrogHatOn wrote:
Great, now men have the same opportunity as women to waste their time and money on a worthless degree!
Liverotto was even blunter:
YES, because the cure to bullshit is… MORE BULLSHIT! /s
That’s right: Men’s Rights Redditors hate Women’s Studies, and Gender Studies, and apparently every academic discipline with the word “Studies” in it so much that they’ve transferred this hatred to a new academic discipline that could well have been (and sort of was) designed just for them.
But don’t worry, they still hate Women’s Studies the most:
What was I saying the other day about projection?
And from left field Ruby’s back. It’s the traditional gender roles, not the brain wiring. Reread Pecunium’s comment.
Shut up, Ruby.
Cassandra — I’m reading some of the comments after Jill’s apology, and I blame the same asshole I wanted to strangle on that NA thread. Run a find on R.Dave and you’ll see what I mean >.<
When it's not letting the trolls take over I like it, but it seems like lately the trolls outnumber people willing to swear at them (and pull gaslighting/derailing "watch your tone" shit 3 times in the same thread — that “small boobs” post)
I’ve tried to block out my memories of that discussion, but I believe the asexual/sex-positive Feministe thread went to shit because somebody started up the “asexual/sexual relationships are abusive to those with sexual attraction” nonsense, and then someone else started the “why would asexuals want a relationship anyway” nonsense, and then it snowballed.
Ruby – seriously consider reading this book. Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine
http://www.amazon.com/Delusions-Gender-Society-Neurosexism-Difference/dp/0393340244/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338093752&sr=8-1
No one ever said that men and women are alike, but this idea of hardwired gendered behavior is a whole lot of bullshit.
lauralot89 — that sounds about right. One of? The only? asexual on that thread was variously accused of lying or rape (because “I wouldn’t consent if I knew my partner was just pleasing me”) — people were actually comparing a lack of enthusiastic consent to rape by deception >.<
Oh and slut shaming, not wanting sex yourself is slut shaming also made an appearance. It was just a damned disaster. As is "kill it with fire" why has R.Dave not been banned? Can we at least mock him outright then? I think the lack of banhammer around here only really works because “misogyny, we mock it” — no need to try playing nice to the tone police and that shit. (and no going to mod queue for saying shit!)
I think R. Dave actually was banned in the Kill it with Fire thread. At least, I thought I saw a post saying such. Maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part.
I’m not done with it yet, so here’s hoping you saw right!
lauralot89 — you are correct! Excellent! His comments on this thread had truly grated my nerves. It gets bad around #114, and turns to total shit by #173 (the infamous “you’re minimizing genocide” argument), and then #193, Native Americans have higher suicide rates because tribal practices are inherently abusive — mind you I lack tribal practices because of USA policies regarding Natives 100~ years ago, and I’m pissed, I can only imagine how much he upset Native Americans (I kind of get the “let’s bred white women out of existence” logic, it’s the same logic that’s been successfully breeding Native Americans out of existence)
And since this topic apparently cannot be broached without a disclaimer — I’m not saying white Americans are committing genocide, but that the UA gov’n is (slow, systemic, but genocide all the same) — great, now I’m fuming at R.Dave again, I just had to review that thread? >.<
Ruby, just fuck off. Your pseudosciencing ass isn’t wanted here, and you are enjoying it what happens whenever your stupid-ass beliefs go on display. Just leave.
You know, I took classes about feminist history as part of my political science classes, and I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as Extreme Feminism (sponsored by the X Games, maybe?). There’s radical feminism and socialist feminism and liberal feminism and environmental feminism and Marxist feminism, even Maoist feminism, but somehow we did not cover Extreme Feminism. Maybe Ruby can dig up someone talking about it on YouTube,
Maybe it’s like radical feminism but without the transphobia? Which, to Ruby, reads as men and women are “wired” exactly the same in all ways? (um, it doesn’t really work like that, but assuming the brain is hard wired is the least of the issues)
Extreme Feminists is a Rush-Wing of the Conservative Movement phrase.
It’s related to Feminazis.
Argenti: Pointing Ruby to a comment of mine is pretty much a wasted effort. For some reason she has always pretty much completely ignored me.
Ruby does rather remind me of a less articulate version of this laughing stock.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Hoff_Sommers
Ah, well, you make actual points, which would require her to make actual points in response, and I don’t think she really has many of those that she can back up. Opinions, sure, but how much would we care if she’s state them as opinions? She doesn’t find penises (penii?) attractive, well ok then? (She seems to ignore me too, or maybe she just doesn’t ever reply to people directly *too asleep to tell*)
Argenti: Penes.
It bothers me that I know that that makes it 3rd declension not 1st…I haven’t tried reading Latin in almost a decade and never knew this shit all the well to begin with >.<
Thank you though
err…second, not first…I just called penis a feminine noun, I should maybe go to bed… (and this is kind of moot since it’s apparently sitting out there in 3rd declension land) — It is a miracle I passed Latin btw.
Ruby, I don’t care what science says about average differences between men and women, you’re wrong. You’re saying women don’t like to look at naked men, and I do. And I know many women who do too. So when you tell us women are this or that, you’re erasing completely our existence.
Do you not see how that is extremely bad feminism?
Ruby: I top your dictionary definition with a BETTER dictionary definition:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-topics/
Why do you care so much about what people here think of you in relation to feminism?
Look at how many flying fucks are not given at your claim that we make feminism look bad (a claim often thrown at feminists by misogynsts), or that we are “Extreme Feminists” (not a sport I’m interested in).
Here’s the bottom line: as long as you keep spouting a patriarchal discourse like “all men and all women are inherently/essentially different” (and thus all women are alike), feminists are going to be judging you, some of them hard.
That’s life.
Ruby’s consistently evaded the issue of where queer people and trans people fit into her little schema. I suppose that’s better than saying horribly wrong things about them or brushing them off with “well you’re just a rare exception to everything,” but it shows a severe lack of willingness to question yourself.
And it’s hard to call yourself a feminist when you’re completely ignoring or erasing millions of women because they don’t fit your ideas.
It’s bad feminism to ignore science. Or call it pseudoscience if you don’t like the results. And personally attack fellow feminists because they don’t toe your particular belief system.
Also, there’s nothing about being wired differently that says we can’t have equality.
It’s bad feminism to ignore women’s experience. Our experience contradict your blankets statements. Or do you think we all lie? Calling yourself a feminist doesn’t mean we owe you any particular respect after all you’ve said.
Ruby, you can toe whatever belief system you want, you’re still a shitty feminist. At this point, you really have no leg to stand on and tell us what’s bad feminism.
Science does not consist of “calling things science.”
It does not consist of things that involve big words and fancy equipment.
It does not consist of any activity that involves Designated Science Subjects like genetics and neurology.
It consists of rigorous observation and testing of reality, without making assumptions.
Most often, in the case of the studies you cite, the actual science is okay, but the conclusions are spun up in the news. That study you showed earlier showed that men’s and women’s brains appear different under fMRI when viewing sexual images. That part was science.
However, taking that information and then using it to say “therefore women aren’t turned on visually, which makes sense because it’s widely known in the making-things-up-about-cavemen community that cavewomen weren’t interested in cave porn” is ludicrous. That’s not science. That’s pure speculation. Nothing has been rigorously tested in that statement.