With #GamerGate floundering, the Internet Douchebag Squad whips up a #Shirtstorm

I’ve come to think of the prof as a walking penis that talks out its urethra. Haven’t yet decided whether it’s got the Richard Dawkins floppy hair or not.

It needs the hair, and it also needs to be lying on a bearskin rug.

(With or without the wife? Haven’t decided that part yet.)

Lucky, I’d guess.

Herding cats? Then we MUST have this ad again.

http://youtu.be/Pk7yqlTMvp8

Wow, I didn’t start studying feminism academically until my junior year in college, and my alma mater, well, let’s just point out that they didn’t even start admitting women at all until the mid-70s and they’ve not yet come to a point where women are even 40% of the undergraduate population, and even *there* CHS was not considered a feminist and she was considered, and discussed, but the conclusion was not that she was a feminist.

@katz

I agree that Pacific Rim doesn’t subvert the “guy gets girl” trope, but I what I wanted to point out that it wasn’t really as clear-cut that Mako and Raleigh were going to end up being a couple.

Like, in that scene you posted above, IIRC that happened earlier on in the movie. My personal interpretation of their story arc is that while they were initially maybe attracted to one another (Mako looking at a shirtless Raleigh), their relationship grew into friendship rather than a romance.

But that’s just my interpretation. Yours makes sense too. There’s going to be a sequel (and maybe a part 3) so I guess we’ll find out there if they really do end up with one another or not.

I wish Mako was the main protagonist instead. She was the far more interesting character and contrary to what studio execs think, that would not have driven away the vast majority of male audiences. It was a decent movie but suffered from a lack of compelling main character IMO. That would have been fixed if they focused more on Mako and made Raleigh a supporting character.

Sorry, I can’t let this go:

As a pansexual lady, I love sexy ladies! Even if they’re on shirts!

As I pansexual lady I love actual sexy ladies, not the physically impossible, airbrushed, male-gazey, objectified female forms the patriarchy holds up as ideal.

Also, I’m not entitled to boner-pleasing ladies if those images harm women as a group, and the fact that you’re basically saying “so what if it’s hurting women, I like to look at it!” makes me doubt your commitment to feminism. But good job being one of the cool girls, I guess.

It’s the same old pattern of dudebros getting irrationally and completely disproportionately defensive and, dare I say, offended at the offense of others who only displayed some mild criticism. While telling the original offended party that they’re the ones who need a thicker skin, of course. Happened with “guys, don’t do that”, happened with “hey let’s look at these obvious sexist tropes in vidyagaems”, and now it’s happening over an obviously inappropriate-for-work shirt. All the same tactics, all the same bullshit arguments and false equivalences to social justice arguments purely as an attempt at a “gotcha, feminoids!”. Because mild criticism directed at the privileged people in society is the worst, most offensive behaviour ever EVER, right. I ain’t even surprised at this point.

Kat Goodwin:

And, no, having somebody actively trying to destroy feminism and feminist gains is not a good thing for feminist efforts.

I didn’t say it was.

FFS. You said:

Sommers has obviously chosen a different path – but even she has feminist beliefs, and is marked by the advancement of the idea of feminism from the past. And that’s a good thing for feminist efforts, even if Sommers is not. There’s nothing wrong with looking at that contradiction — that she holds feminist beliefs and yet works against feminism as her career. We’re not going to be able to do much about what she’s trying to sell if we don’t look at it and consider where it comes from.

These are your words, that you have posted, that we can go back and read. You did indeed say that Sommers has feminist beliefs, and that the fact that she has a career and is a professor and all – that this is a good thing for feminism. I’m telling you that no, Sommers making a living attempting to destroy feminism and all that feminsists have worked for is not a good thing. There is no silver lining there. Saying that well, at least women can have jobs and go to school now, because here’s this antifeminist woman who has done so is fucking asinine. That’s like saying, in the middle of a flood, that well, we should be thankful for all the water because at least there’s not a drought!

And fucking no, we can’t know what the fuck beliefs she has. We can’t read her mind. The fact that she is taking advantage of progress and advancements brought about by feminism does not make her a feminist or mean that she has feminist beliefs. All evidence we have about Sommers points directly to the contrary.

The question of why some women like Sommers choose to make a living working against women’s rights, the contradictions of their words and actions, is a common one. It’s one that this blog sometimes look at, and that feminists study. Raising the issue is not the same thing as calling Sommers a feminist.

OK, but:

And that’s because feminism is an idea, not an identity. Feminists are people who advocate the idea that women are innately equal and should be equal in the society, economically and under the law. But there’s a fair amount of variety in how they advocate for that. Does that mean that Sommers is a feminist? For me, she is not and works against feminism in the law, etc.

But, as we so often point out to folk, there are no feminism police who dictate what you get to call yourself. She does express support for part of the idea (above), she calls herself one which rather unwittingly supports feminism as a good idea, even if she then advocates against the idea. Her sheer existence as a working woman and a professor advocates for the idea of feminism, even as she advocates against feminist policies. She is damaging to feminism, to advances in equality; at the same time her life involves feminism. This is the conundrum of anti-feminist women. It actually is complicated. We’ll never know if she actually believes she should be fully equal or not, if she believes there’s discrimination or not; she isn’t an honest person. We do not have to accept her as a feminist advocate, anymore than we accept a man who says he supports the idea, but then works against putting it in practice. But that she espouses some of the idea of feminism — an idea that has helped her — in trying to advocate against the full expression of the idea, shows the power of the idea itself.

“She isn’t a feminist, but there is no feminist police and she has feminist ideas and she calls herself a feminist and she’s personally benefited from progress made by feminists so it’s complicated.”

…I don’t even know. Like, what are you trying to prove? Christina Hoff Sommers is not a feminist. She doesn’t hold any feminist ideas. Her existence is not a credit to feminism. Her work is not a credit to feminism. The fact that feminism has been successful is good. The fact that Christina Hoff Sommers has dedicated her life to tearing it down is not. Yes, she directly benefits from feminism. That makes her a hypocrite. Yes, she calls herself a feminist. This is part of a strategy to set herself – an antifeminist – and those who think like her as the “true feminists.” This is a strategy to invalidate feminism. Whether or not Christina Hoff Sommers thinks feminism is a good idea or not doesn’t matter, because of what she is doing right now. She is acting like she doesn’t think feminism is a good idea.

Saying that the existence of a successful antifeminist woman is indicative of how successful feminism has been is really just asinine. There has always been successful antifeminist women. Antifeminist women tend to be successful because they are antifeminist.

@Kat Godwin, I think the biggest factor you’re seemingly oblivious to is that there are several branches of feminism here among the regular commenters. Not all of us are liberal feminists; hell, I’d lay odds that libfems are just one of many here. Making assumptions about what a ‘feminist belief’ is, isn’t going to get anyone very far. I don’t think all of us even define feminism the same way. Trying to achieve agreement with the Hivemind isn’t going to happen because we’re not all starting from the same point of view.

FWIW, I don’t see any contradiction at all with CMS. She’s a privileged antifeminist. Who ever said she was like an educated JB was absolutely correct.

Here is a pertinent quote:
“Lifestyle feminism ushered in the notion that there could be as many versions of feminism as there were women. Suddenly the politics was being slowly removed from feminism. And the assumption prevailed that no matter what a woman’s politics, be she conservative or liberal, she too could fit feminism into her existing lifestyle. Obviously this way of thinking has made feminism more acceptable because its underlying assumption is that women can be feminists without fundamentally challenging and changing themselves or the culture.”
— bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody (via mahakavi)

I am old and nothing makes me feel my age as much as these kinds of discussions on how many impossible things we can believe before breakfast.