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ALoveSupreme:
--- Quote from: Ptommydski on 04 Mar 2011, 03:08 ---
--- Quote from: ALoveSupreme on 03 Mar 2011, 18:21 ---To this logic, white people should not support equality among races and just keep their mouths shut and never try to take Black/African American Studies courses in college to educate themselves? Sorry, I'm really not buying any of that at all.
--- End quote ---
By all means go but don't black yourself up and tell people you know what it's like to be African American.
--- End quote ---
It feels like you have encountered every kind of asshole male faux-feminist ever.
My problem with your definitions of what you have seen in males in feminism is that none of these traits are feminist traits. They're traits of people that are assholes.
A suburb-y white kid that puts on a backward cap and some baggy jeans and starts talking like Seth Green from Can't Hardly Wait once they get into a black studies course isn't someone who is interested in the gradual "eradication" of racism. He's just an asshole.
And a dude that takes a women's studies course that wants to "meet chicks" isn't a feminist. He's an asshole.
Either way, yes, I completely agree with you. People like this are an insult to black people and women. But what I'm gathering from your stance is that every other white person and every other male should just "stay out of it," because of people like this? Actually, from the quote above it's o.k. for someone that is not black to take a course to educate themselves but guys who take women's studies courses are jerks?
I think this is becoming a cyclical argument and obviously no one here will be "changing anyone's mind" on the internet, but of all the weirdest and most foreign-to-me viewpoints I have ever encountered on the internet, this one takes the cake. I don't mean offense by that, I'm just trying to give a rationale for why I keep responding, I usually don't let myself get into such long winded "internet debates" like this.
pwhodges:
How much of the effort put into discussing the meaning of the label "feminism", and who is allowed to wear it, has any effect on the possible progress towards greater equity or equality? In fact, does not arguing about it too much end up discrediting the whole idea in many people's minds to some extent?
Elysiana:
Tommy, for some reason what you'd said before had led me to believe that you didn't want to call yourself a feminist because female feminists thought it was wrong that you should. I don't know why, but it wasn't clear to me that YOU are trying to distance yourself from those who call themselves feminists wrongly. Is this closer to what you are saying? To some extent I can understand that, but (I hate this example, it feels trite at this point, I apologize) just because the WBC calls themselves Christians doesn't mean that those who truly follow a Christ-like path should not also call themselves Christians; or that because some of the proponents of racial equity have gone off the deep end, those who are truly fighting for equality should feel the need to step back.
That's not to say you are wrong (I don't feel that any of this is a matter of right and wrong); but I do feel sad that you feel it's gotten to the point where the vocal minority has hurt the cause so much as to have to distance yourself from the name of the movement because of the fear/frustration that you will be misunderstood. Has the word "feminist" really become that loaded? If so, I feel like something has gone terribly wrong somewhere along the line.
Labels frustrate me to begin with. I hate that we as humans feel the need to put things in little boxes and then act like we understand them. Labels shouldn't define us, but they tend to give us that book cover that people judge us by.
<edit > P.S. Thank you for being patient with all my questions and prodding; my brain has been kind of muddled lately. I'm not meaning to argue, just needing to clarify for my sake. </edit>
Yunior:
There are also, like, legions of women who misappropriate the label for transparent political gain and whose conceptualization of feminism is, to my mind, fairly antifeminist. Like, should I drop the label because Sarah Palin tries to join the club? To me, that's just more reason to be loud about taking ownership of the label and pointing out the ways I disagree with her and the ways in which I feel she's sullied the label by tacking it onto her own political views.
It really is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for pro-feminist/feminist men, so I can appreciate the lengths you've gone to find a label that works for you and your conceptualization of feminism. But I'm just saying, y'know, open invitation from me to you, or if you just wanna whisper the label quietly to yourself from time to time, it wouldn't, like, explode my brain or anything.
Radical AC:
--- Quote from: Yunior on 04 Mar 2011, 10:47 ---There are also, like, legions of women who misappropriate the label for transparent political gain and whose conceptualization of feminism is, to my mind, fairly antifeminist. Like, should I drop the label because Sarah Palin tries to join the club? To me, that's just more reason to be loud about taking ownership of the label and pointing out the ways I disagree with her and the ways in which I feel she's sullied the label by tacking it onto her own political views.
--- End quote ---
I think that is why it is important to understand the ideology of feminism, be confident in it, and correctly assert it. If someone claims to be a feminist then you can make general claims about their beliefs. If they come back and say, "That isn't what I meant, I don't believe that," then you can call them on being feminist. If I, as a man, claim to be feminist and am told by a woman also claiming to be a feminist that because of my gender I can't be a feminist, then I would call her out on understanding what the feminist ideology is. That is not to advocate calling people out on their beliefs as a fallacy monger, but rather the right to question someone's convictions who questions yours. Or, question people who claim equality and hypocritically assert the antithesis. It can all seem very semantical, but it is important to avoid confusion and assert equality.
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