Livredor and feminism

[jack]

Unsurprisingly, I think a lot of it comes down to definition of terms. Identifying as a feminist feels like a big deal, because it's often used in a heated way. But saying you made two related decisions:

1. "I have decided that some problems that affect women are important to me, and something I will do things about"
2. "I have decided that attitude is described by the word feminist"

Are two decisions that are hard to criticise.

And I applaud your decisions, your commitment to being able to change your mind, and your helpfully complete descriptions of the situation :)

On the other hand, you feel apologetic/defensive about identifying as feminist, and joke about the stereotypes of feminists, and I'm sure you don't need to.

The concept of "what constitutes feminist" is something that's come up before, and isn't really relevant here, but possibly is a useful way of conceptualising. Say there are circles of feminism.

1. Thinking that women should have equal rights and opportunities[1].
2. Thinking that women don't yet.
3. Actively doing something about that
4. That being a defining feature of yourself
5. Thinking that this is one of few most important issues in society.

I think that when women couldn't vote, and there were many other awful injustices, that was an incredibly important issue, and many people heroically embraced one through five.

Now, I think an awful lot has been achieved, and this is not the overriding issue in society: certainly I think it's important, but I think people who say this is the problem are over-the-top[3]. I think either they have been carried away by the momentum of it previously being most important, or cannot manage the dissonance to think that because it's important, and very central to them, that it's not the most important thing.

Thus, to me, belief (5) is off the table, and so we are faced with a sticky issue of terminology. Does "feminist" apply to people who believe (5), and by implication I think are overreacting? Or does it apply to people who think (1-4) or (1-3) or (1-2) or even just (1)?

I think this doubt colours an awful lot of debate. I think there's a stereotype that anyone to whom activism for women's rights is important also thinks (5), and so it's hard to draw a line.

And also that terminology cries out to have meaning. Supposing in a distant future equal rights was a long-won issue. I'd be happy to say everyone was a feminist because they all believed (1). But words evolve, and "feminist" would mean someone who seized on little arbitrary sex differences and proclaimed women were horribly oppressed.[2]

Many of my friends are happy to call anyone who believes (1) a feminist. I have often described myself as a feminist in this sense, to stretch the minds of people who can't conceive that a man might be feminist, or that feminism might mean anything other than loony. And partly out of notional solidarity for people who did and do do valiant feminist things; it seems disrespectful to reapply a laudable word to things you disagree with.

Now I feel embarrassed, because in some sense that holds, but really, it's much more properly applied to people who actually do something about it (3).

It sounds to me like you are moving from (2) into a bit of (3). But will probably never go to (4) -- like other worthy causes, this needs some people to devote themselves to it. But I happen to think other things are your calling, and this will be important to you, but not most important.

The good news is, I think you have lots of company. I think most of the men and women I know are (1) and probably (2), and many of them unabashedly seize the word "feminist", and we definitely counted you in our cozy (1-2) community already, whether or not it could be described as feminist.

And I know some people who do (3), either a little or a lot.

The question is, what communities do you envisage? Obviously you can do a lot of (3) without ever belonging to a specific community -- eg. funding a charity which gives start up small-business loans to women in a third-world country, or teaching your female bat mitzvah students that they being female is not a bar to aspects of Judaism. It's not specifically feminist, it's just a right thing to do. But I think it's included in what the feminist thing to do would be.

Conversely, you are likely to meet communities of (3), and any community of (3) is likely to contain (4) simply because of course some people are going to be most committed, and will no doubt also contain (5).

But I think you need to be clear on whose opinion about you you care about having. Probably people will correctly point out things you do that maybe are counter-productive. But on the other hand, they may not be very big things.

Conversely, in any group, some people will take things out of proportion. For instance, my gut reaction is that campaigning for changing spellings is useless. But I admit that some things I thought were stupid turned out to be a good idea when I examined them. But either way, I don't think it's that important: I think there are visible examples of gender inequality that can be effectively fought, whereas changing spellings of common words is (a) very difficult and (b) unlikely to provide much benefit.[4]

And you ought to be able to do some feminist things, and cautiously accept the label "feminist", without necessarily having to bow to everything people who call themselves "feminist" think. Obviously.

That went on a long time. I'm not sure how relevant it was to you, but I think it had some interesting ideas in. I may repost it to my journal.

Footnotes

[1] Interestingly, this sentence means the same thing as "men should have equal rights", it just correctly implies that women are more short-changed. I think someone saying "women should have equal rights" is probably -- or at least ought to also think that men should have equal rights.

[2] Here I'm tying back into my thoughts on "atheism" and "darwinist". Because everyone sane is a darwinist, "Darwinist" comes to mean "people who believe loony stuff that in some way could be seen as an extension of darwinism"

[3] That is, in this society. In many countries, I think (1-5) would be completely valid beliefs, and anyone who goes to fight for them would be one of the most laudable and epitomeic examples of feminism.

[4] Changing the meaning may be useful, eg. not using a generic "him" is a good thing. And it might be useful as a way of drawing attention to things.

Comments

[redbird]

It looks as though you're palming a card there, between "is one of the few most important issues to society" in your original list of 1-5, and "is the problem."

That is, I don't think it's more of an error for someone to think that women's rights are the most important issue for her than for someone else to think that global warming is the most important issue for him. Priorities are not a well-ordered set. (Probably even an individual's aren't, and certainly there's no well-ordering that would cover the priorities of everyone who lives within a kilometer of me, let alone all human beings.)

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

In my personal framework, I tend to frame it as
1) people should have equal rights and opportunities
2) they don't yet.

That in no way implies superiority of any given section of society; it may (and I think does) imply that some people have improved rights and opportunites when compared to others.

And of course I don't imply that equal rights and opportunities give rise to an equal outcome; there are people involved and we will do our own thing.

[blue-mai.livejournal.com]

hello. this is very clear, i liked reading it. it is nice to read things that help one to think about things.

[miriammoules.livejournal.com]

Does a man have the right to define whether people who believe (5) are over-reacting, or is this another abuse of male privilege?

I think there is also a difference according to where one lives. In Sweden it's fair to say a lot of things have been ironed out and safe-guarded. In the USA, that's not the case.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I apologise, I sort of am, but didn't want to introduce another category in between.

I think any cause does and should have some people who devote themselves to it, and many will be the most important obstacle in some people's lives.

But that's different to thinking it's one of the few most fundamental problems in society, and in (5) I sort of lumped together "is the most important" and "is one of the few most important" and "is more important than it really is". Obviously one falls somewhere on that scale. But I think the has to be a distinction between someone who devotes themselves to X, someone who thinks that every single problem in society is due to X. Obviously that latter is an exaggeration, but I think some people place too much importance on a cause, and that's what I wanted to find a place on the scale for.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

that's what I wanted to find a place on the scale for.

Even if somewhere in (5) is the right place to be.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I think there is also a difference according to where one lives.

Totally. I pointed out that there were most extreme examples in footnote [3], obviously, there's a whole scale.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Does a man have the right to define whether people who believe (5) are over-reacting, or is this another abuse of male privilege?

It's hard to say. Obviously, several hundred years ago, white Americans thought that the slavery situation was A-OK. Now, they think the current situation is A-OK. This demonstrates the problems of taking privileged people's opinion on the matter.

On the other hand, if only the opinions of people in the group are counted, any group can claim to be oppressed, and however false that looks to everyone else, if their opinion on it can't be trusted, how can they decide what to do?

Certainly my opinion isn't especially valuable, it's not something I deal with a lot. But on the other hand, even if someone who hasn't experienced something can understand it less well, I think you have to decide the same way as you do for other things, listening to people justify positions and coming to some sort of agreement.

Conveniently, "women" are group who contain many intelligent, articulate, well-reasoning people (about half as many as contained by "people"), who can almost certainly judge the issue better than intelligent, articulate, well-reasoning men can, having had more experience with it.

But I don't think that it's automatically enough to declare the answer, I think any answer has to be justified. (Not that you have to justify it all the time, but that what you say should in principle have a justification.)

And that in principle, a rational person can listen and agree or disagree. And in principle, a man might happen to have something to say, which is suspect, but might on examination be shown to be valid.

It might certainly be abuse to insist on an answer. But nor do I think it can be right to recuse oneself from the question completely, that's nearly the same as ignoring it.

I'm certainly willing to be corrected on (5). Though I still think it's an important distinction, even if I'm wrong. And though I still think a lot of people (and a lot of women) definitely do think (5) is over the top. I think this is the cause of a stereotype portraying some people as over the top feminists in a manner I'm sure you're familiar with. I've most definitely heard women equate "feminist" with "over the top".

Inner voice: Ah, but what if any woman who thinks X is not evidence of abuse of male privilege is brainwashed! You can't trust their opinion blindly.

Indeed, that definitely happens. Many times, people who are oppressed are indoctrinated as thoroughly as the people who are privileged.

But on the other hand, that statement is non-falsifiable. That always might be the case. So if you accept that there are any people, ever, who are not oppressed, that inner voice can't be conclusive.

FWIW, quite possibly I am wrong in this case, I don't know. But even if I exaggerate, might it be accepted that some beliefs are too extreme? And I still think, even if I'm wrong, people believing what I said is behind the linguistic drift, and that opinion should be understood even if not agreed with.

[fishpi.livejournal.com]

Does a man have the right to define whether people who believe (5) are over-reacting, or is this another abuse of male privilege?

Has any man attempted to define such a thing? What do you mean by "define" in this context? I can imagine a lot of men holding that opinion, but what you're describing sounds like something more than just voicing an opinion.

Looking at the definition of (5) when compared with (1)-(4), I can't see how you could agree with (1)-(4) and not agree with (5), and not think that anyone who did do so was over-reacting. This may be an artifact of the way the sentences are phrased: possibly "This is one of the few most important issues in society to me" or "This one of the few issues in society I will spend most of my efforts trying to correct" would work better here.

[fishpi.livejournal.com]

"women" ... can almost certainly judge the issue better than ... men can, having had more experience with it

"the issue" being whether ensuring equality of oppotunity for women is one of the most important issues facing society? I disagree that this is obviously true, for several reasons.

The issue isn't whether it's important, the issue is whether it's more important than other things (e.g. racial equality, freedom of expression, political freedom). People who've suffered from one issue and not from another are possibly worse placed to judge the issues' relative importance to society than people who've suffered both or neither (before anyone jumps on me, this isn't an argument that women are less qualified, only an argument that they are not trivially more qualified).

But I don't think that's actually the core problem here - it seems to me that even having a coherent discussion on the relative importance of issues to society presupposes an agreement on what principles we are using to determine an ideal society, e.g. a libertarian and a utilitarian may have exactly the same experiences in life but come to different conclusions on the relative importance of gender equality.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

What do you mean by "define" in this context?

I infer "believe, and implicitly think your opinion is authoritative"

Looking at the definition of (5) when compared with (1)-(4), I can't see how you could agree with (1)-(4) and not agree with (5),

Possibly 5 was calamitously mis-phrased since everyone seems to disagree completely with my interpretations.

Eg. when google was invented, there were no really decent internet search engines. Someone devoting themselves to inventing google fulfils (1) to (4) for the problem of "no decent internet search engines". You define yourself as the guy solving that problem (4). But that doesn't mean you think that lack is one of the most important issues facing society (5) and go around saying "vote for the design a search engine party" and "we should all change the dictionaries to use words indicative of a mindset supportive of designing search engines", and I think if you did you'd be a loony.

Conversely, if you're a civil liberties campaigner in America when slavery was still legal, (5) is entirely justified and anyone who didn't agree was selling themselves short.

I think in current day england, women's rights (5) falls somewhere between those two cases. For instance, possibly a political party devoted to equal rights for women would be a good idea, but maybe respelling common words is too much.

[pavanne.livejournal.com]

Also there's "I think it is a very important issue that women have fewer rights than men in many countries, and that also exacerbates effect other important problems, but I do not live in one of those countries".

While active discrimination still undoubtably exists in Western culture, I have very little patience with women in the developed world who are too quick to assign differences in their status and pay to their femininity. I don't think there will ever be as many female CEOs as male ones, partly because there are fewer women who are status-driven to the exclusion of normal life than there are men. I'm not sure that is something which it is necessary or desirable to address - I just want a world in which everyone finds a place dependent on ability and willingness to sacrifice time for status, not on gender.

Um, does that make me a 1/2?

[cornute.livejournal.com]

--"Supporting women's equality is one of the most important issues that affect us all, because we all interact with women every day. When we have false beliefs about women's mental and ethical abilities, and about the rightness of treating them unfairly, this is bad for us as people-- whether we personally are women, or not."

--"Supporting women's equality is one of the most important issues that affect us all, because if men keep treating women shabbily, they will cut off the supply of sex and devour their boy babies in secret ceremonies."

Women, and feminists, are allowed to think whatever they like as fervently as they like it, but when they start trying to make changes in the real world, men and non-feminists are not "exercising their privilege" when they express concern.

Unless rational thought is now a privilege, and I slept in today so I might have missed the memo on that.

[cornute.livejournal.com]

Also to point out-- the existence of male-heavy "top of the chart" leadership doesn't prove women's inequality today. It merely means that women haven't had as much time to work their way up the leadership chain.

[cornute.livejournal.com]

"Many times, people who are oppressed are indoctrinated as thoroughly as the people who are privileged."

Please also consider that women can benefit, even greatly benefit, from male privilege. After all, doesn't it benefit you if your spouse gets a promotion and pay rise[1]? Does it hurt you personally[2] if they only got it because the more qualified person was the same sex as you are, and thus "less worthy"?

---

[1]It is "pay rise" isn't it? We'd say "pay raise" here.
[2]I mean in the taking food off your table way, not the emotional twinge way.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Please also consider that women can benefit, even greatly benefit, from male privilege.

It doesn't necessarily have to be bad. Eg. if one partner works in a field and one in the home, doing about equal amounts of work, the asymmetry may be the least of their problems.

But I can't bring myself to believe in the example you gave. One woman benefited, one woman was damaged. Presumably to about the same amount. So in some way it evens out. But if that's the norm, some women are quite literally screwed, because they are forced to marry a man to get that advantage.

[cornute.livejournal.com]

It only "evens out" on the average, and only if you consider "women" to be a group of people. If you were let go from your job and someone with the same first initial as you were hired instead, would you think to say "Oh, well, it all evens out for people with a name beginning with __" instead of "That really stinks for me!" You probably wouldn't think that, because you don't normally think of people as being grouped by their first initials. In the same way, Mrs. Businessman isn't hurt because Ms. Businesswoman doesn't get the promotion-- at least not in the same way that Mr. Businesswoman (the stay at home father of their mutual children) is!

Feminism is, in a way, ABOUT seeing the female half of the species as a group of people. It's about lumping together the experiences of all kinds of women: the unfairness, the expectations, and so on. It's about saying, for instance, "I see that women's work, in many cultures, is considered less important or taxing than men's work"-- and that applies to discrepancies in pay in the "pink collar" fields, to ways that traditional women's work isn't counted in gross domestic product, and to everything in between.

I would say that seeing women as a group is a defining characteristic of feminism. Saying that one isn't necessarily a feminist doesn't mean that you don't think all those injustices happen, it just means that you think the other things you can find in common for those injustices are more important, or that rather than grouping injustices according to who they happen to, you ought to think more about some other cause and reasoning.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I can't make out what you're saying at all. Do you mean "Hey, prejudice is ok because it benefits some of the supposedly disadvantaged group of people," or "Hey, don't think of prejudice as affecting only that group, it's a bad thing for everyone", or something else?

Your first comment sounded like you meant the first, which stunned me. If the second then I totally agree: I think the prejudiced against group is likely to be disadvantaged much more, but I think it's certainly a bad thing for everyone.

It only "evens out" on the average, and only if you consider "women" to be a group of people.

But it doesn't even out. "Evening out for women" is what I was rebutting because it sounded to me like you said it. Certainly some people are too ready to see things in terms of how it affects a group of women (or other group).

But if women are discriminated against, I think it makes sense that of all subsets of society, "women" is the one that is hurt on average most by it. That group is not just arbitrary: it is who shares a set of problems. Maybe if the prejudice weren't there it would be just as arbitrary as "people who start with J", but it is.

In your example Mrs Businessman is fortunate, the prejudice isn't really hurting her directly at this point, but: she is forced to stay with Mr Businessman; if Mr Businessman leaves her she can't get a good job; she was born into a trap she managed to escape, that doesn't mean she just shrugs and says "that's ok then"; she may want her children to have equal freedom, and Mr Businessman almost certainly isn't putting much effort into fighting prejudice on behalf of his daughters so it's up to her. If she wants to change any of this, her natural ally is Ms Businesswoman, (and maybe her husband, but I bet there are lots more Mrs Businesswomans).

[cornute.livejournal.com]

"If the second then I totally agree: I think the prejudiced against group is likely to be disadvantaged much more, but I think it's certainly a bad thing for everyone."

Certainly, and that's where I am too. However, and I should have said this straight off, I was talking about your use of "indoctrinated" specifically in this sentence: "Many times, people who are oppressed are indoctrinated as thoroughly as the people who are privileged." (You had said this upstream in the comments.)

I don't think that you should state that either the people who benefit or the people who don't benefit are "frequently indoctrinated." (emphasis mine) I have three reasons for this.

One is that using the word is-- please pardon the pun-- patronizing. If I disagree with you and say that you're indoctrinated, I'm saying that I'm right because I've thought about my position and rationally considered it, whereas you just parrot back what you're told. If it's not obviously true, that's rather an ad hominem attack, isn't it?

It's also divisive because "indoctrinate" is a loaded word that implies that those doing the teaching are doing a bad thing. If a non-feminist woman thinks that the male breadwinner/female homemaker is the most ideal family because that's what she saw growing up, calling it "indoctrination" is asking her to suddenly get the idea that her parents were doing an awful thing and she didn't even know it. "Your very parents were conspiring against you" is not likely to win someone converts.

And third, as you said just above, some lucky women happen to escape the bounds of oppression in one or more ways. Most women, if not all, have moments in their life when they are not actively being oppressed. (These may only happen when they're alone, but hey, that counts.) So, not-being-oppressed can be a semi-permanent position (see Mrs. Businessman) or a fleeting one, but it is real. If a woman tells you that she's not being oppressed right now, or that it doesn't really affect her life that much, she may actually be right.

After all, it shouldn't hurt feminism to say "You know, some women have it pretty good most of the time, and lots have it good some of the time; but we're more interested in getting a fair chance for those who don't have one." It makes a lot more rational sense than "Many women don't even know they're oppressed, poor dears."

[liv]

There's a particular definition of "radical" feminism which is something like, the belief that sexism is the root of all oppressions. I have definitely come across people whose identity as feminists is very much that feminism is the issue. But I agree that most people don't have such an explicit hierarchy of priorities as that.

[liv]

I think a man has just as much right to decide whether someone is over-reacting as a woman does, when we're talking on a general sociological level. Part of why I was so reluctant about feminism for a long time was that I don't, by virtue of being female, have any magical conduit to the experiences of other women. In order to perceive systematic injustices, you have to make an analysis that goes much deeper than just personal experience. cartesiandaemon is just as much capable of reading around the subject and drawing a conclusion as I am.

(Personal experience is different; if a woman complains that a man is harassing her, it would be an abuse of male privilege for a man to tell her that she's just over-reacting and doesn't have the right to be upset by that. That is a dynamic I unfortunately see happening rather a lot.)

[miriammoules.livejournal.com]

Hence asking the question. On the one hand if you have a group of a hundred, where half the women are saying that this is the most important issue to them, and the men are saying they are over-reacting, then that could be seen as male privilege.

On the other hand it could be that a correct call has been made, that those 25 women are over-reacting and the other 25 are under-reacting...

[liv]

I like this analysis, it's rigorous and helpful.

As to how important the issue is, well. On one level I don't think it's helpful to make a hierarchy of importance; something is either important enough for me to put effort into, or not important enough. Contrary to that though, if feminism is important at all, it's got to be pretty high up on whatever imaginary list of important causes one might make, just because sexism affects more people than almost any other form of discrimination.

When I first joined LJ, I was more or less (1), and didn't feel like that should be defined as feminist at all; it is pretty much a given that everybody non-evil thinks women should have equal rights. But I didn't really even completely agree with (2), more or less thinking we were already in that distant future where everything important was sorted out. After a while I started to be more 2-ish, but didn't think that feminism had the right answers, so even as I was moving more towards (3), I wasn't calling that feminism. As you say, you can do stuff just because it's the right thing to do, without being specifically feminist. My instinct is to apply the word most precisely to someone who is (4), and my post really meant that I was moving from (3) to (4) than (2) to (3).

I don't know if I'm (5) or not. You have after all defined (5) in pretty negative terms. The thing that's prompted me to redefine my position on your little scale is the issue of rape. I don't know if it's even possible to be over the top about that. Forcing someone to have sex with you ought to be a freakishly rare event, on the scale of kidnapping someone and torturing them horribly for no reason, or opening fire on a bunch of total strangers. And yet it's happened to so many of my friends, and it's sort of everywhere, and a clear majority of women fear rape and sexual assault even if they haven't actually been raped.

I didn't realize this for a long time, because for one thing I've never been in a sexually dangerous situation (slightly uncomfortable, yes, but not where I felt seriously in danger). And for whatever reason, I don't feel as scared as many women do in my day to day life and interactions with men. Obviously rape isn't something that is talked about much, so it was easy to imagine that it is a freakishly rare thing, and for a long time I didn't regard it as a gender-based attack, but rather one individual attacking another.

In recent years I've discovered that lots and lots of people I care about have been raped, cos they've been brave enough to tell their stories either to me directly or in LJ posts. That also means I have some idea of just how bad the consequences can be on someone's life and sanity. I couldn't explain that, how could something as horrible as that be so prevalent? So I started to look for common themes, and started to notice how often it happens that there's just a generally sexist atmosphere, where people will talk about how horrible and evil rape is, but in the same breath defend and justify lots of stuff which is in fact rape. (Like in the open source boob discussion, there were several people who were saying, we all know that "no means no" but we need to go further than that when we're talking about consent. And so many people were actually disagreeing with that and saying "no doesn't always mean no", and seriously trying to make arguments why it's ok to continue having sex with someone who has clearly asked you to stop.)

There are other things too, applying the same kind of analysis to other incidences of injustice that women face, and realizing that it's a common theme and not just lots and lots of individual cases of specific men behaving like bastards to specific women. Some of them aren't all that important; I'm just not going to devote my life to making sure we have equal numbers of women MPs, millionaires and company directors. But it does seem to be all part of the same thing.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see, then yes, I see what you're getting at. And I'm sorry, I agree with everything you just said in this comment, so that was probably a misleading word to use, and I should have avoided it.

I was rebutting the hypothetical comment "Inner voice: Ah, but what if any woman who thinks X is not evidence of abuse of male privilege is brainwashed!".

It sounds like you may have the impression that I thought "indoctrinated" applied to the current situation of gender inequality, that I might think "Many women don't even know they're oppressed, poor dears"? For what it's worth that's almost exactly what I was rebutting. If I had meant that, I would have written an argument much more delicately and backed it up a lot, precisely because I know how insulting it can be. I shouldn't have assumed it was obvious I disagreed. And probably should have been more clear and not used troubling concepts in proximity to each other.

With "indoctrinated", I was considering other cases where people really are convinced that the inequality is the natural order of things, perpetuated by the way they bring up the next generation, and really are oppressed without realising it (eg. if white people keep black slaves, and both are convinced that's necessary). "Indoctrinated" is a little misleading as the indoctrination isn't deliberate -- but the effects are sufficiently dire that I naturally used a loaded word anyway.

I didn't think that applied to the current situation of gender inequality, but implicitly so it probably wasn't clear at all.

I don't think that you should state that either the people who benefit or the people who don't benefit are "frequently indoctrinated."

I don't think it makes any difference but fwiw, that was also an ambiguity: I didn't mean that "Of all cases of inequality, most people are indoctrinated" but "In many[1] cases of inequality, (almost) all people are indoctrinated."

One is that using the word is-- please pardon the pun-- patronizing.

I know what you mean. (In fact, I so hate patronisation that I may subconsciously choose to jokingly use something that could be patronising assuming it's clear that I don't mean to be, forgetting that's not obvious.)

But I considering if it is ever the case that people are wrong about whether they are oppressed/favoured, and think that sometimes it really is. And so it seems only fair to use a word that says that.

I precisely think that you shouldn't casually assume someone is -- if you're going to claim someone doesn't understand their own opinions you inherently need a large body of evidence. But since I wasn't describing anyone in particular I didn't bother picking an example and trying to justify it, trusting that people could see there would be some examples.

[1] As in, there are many examples, not that it has to happen in a majority of cases.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Um, does that make me a 1/2?

:)

I'm not sure. It seems quite possible that there will always be differences, and I'm certain some people are too ready to attribute problems to sexism when it really isn't; but I think inequality (of opportunities) is still very present.

[cornute.livejournal.com]

"For what it's worth that's almost exactly what I was rebutting."

"I precisely think that you shouldn't casually assume someone is -- if you're going to claim someone doesn't understand their own opinions you inherently need a large body of evidence."

I really like this discussion, but you do realize that we can't properly argue unless one of us switches sides?

(As in, I agree with everything you've said here and you said it much better than I could have.)

Perhaps we need a word for "an argument in which people agree strenuously." Agrue?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

Thank you. And that was a very thoughtful comment.

I don't know if it's even possible to be over the top about that.

When you put it like that, maybe I'm convinced of (5) after all. I was thinking about people who feel oppressed by any word with certain sequences of letters in (rather than being reminded by them that some word choices may indicate subconscious but intransigent prejudices, which could be reasonable) which I felt was too over the top. But you point out a problem which could well be as overwhelming as I described (5).

And now I'm also persuaded that maybe (5) was the wrong choice. In fact, the hierarchy only really works for causes which aren't overwhelmingly important, where falsely-believing-(5) is indeed the most extreme position, but if (5) is actually true, then you might well believe (5) without the others. I think it's an interesting was of viewing things which aren't overwhelming, but not as generalisable as I'd like.

I don't know if I should accept that (1)-(5) don't necessarily come in order, or reword (5) to be always over the top. I'd like to have some way of marking out people who in my opinion have gone over the top, and seeing shadows everywhere even where they aren't, but I'm not sure how to do so fairly, or even if I can do so objectively.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I really like this discussion, but you do realize that we can't properly argue unless one of us switches sides?

ROFL. Quite. I'm glad we've agreed, I was worried we'd go on stridently agreeing (or not agreeing) forever. I think the point is, now we agree, we can stop :) You could even count that as both winning :)

I was going to go back to your post and agree with some of the things you said in more detail :) because I worried that a post that said "I agree with everything you just said in this comment," wasn't sufficient, and I should also make sure that a greater proportion of my writing agreed than disagreed, just to give the right impression. I'm glad that's wasn't necessary :)

Perhaps we need a word for "an argument in which people agree strenuously." Agrue?

LOL. But I think the main thing to do about strenuously agreeing is not to do so. If you want to hammer it out into a more coherent narrative, that's good, but strenuously agreeing generally means two people agree but don't know that yet, and so are arguing past each other until it clicks :)