A: No. No one person represents the whole feminist movement, or all feminisms. Not this feminist, not any other feminist.
Often both the people asking this sort of question and the responses conflate two separate arguments:
- Did the person actually commit the alleged offensive/stupid/crazy/evil action?
- Does committing that offensive/stupid/crazy/evil action reflect badly on feminism?
Trying to turn those two separate debates into one single argument is sloppy.
Argument 1 can rage on indefinitely, contradictions and speculations can multiply on and on. But no matter what conclusions are eventually reached in Argument 1, they are still separate from Argument 2. People can do wrong things while still doing other right things. The right things don’t cancel out the wrong things, and vice versa. They are separate acts, separate aspects of people’s characters, because people are complex.
Some feminists may defend another feminist accused of offensive/stupid/crazy/evil actions because they don’t accept the allegations against them. If the allegations are later proven, that still means nothing about the feminism movement as a whole, or any particular branch of the feminist movement that the accused might have self-identified as.
Feminists don’t have to defend any alleged offensive/stupid/crazy/evil actions of someone in order to defend the positive social movement of feminism.
Or should we conclude that every offensive/stupid/crazy/evil act done by Fred Phelps reflects badly on all one-time civil rights lawyers, or that every offensive/stupid/crazy/evil act of Dick Cheney reflects badly on every father of a lesbian, or that every offensive/stupid/crazy/evil song of James Blunt reflects badly on all one-time officers of the Household Cavalry Life Guards Regiment?
Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog 
I have a general question, and I am unsure of where to direct it, so I’ll just post the comment here.
My question is:
On one hand, feminism claims to be about total gender equality, but on the other, feminism demands special treatment for women. How is this justified?
Altair, if you had bothered to read the PLEASE READ THIS FIRST page, you would have noted that all readers are asked to read the Comments Policy before posting comments to any post.
If you had read the Comments Policy page, or the Navigating the FAQs page, you would have noted links to the Ask a Question open thread.
I don’t believe in spoonfeeding grownups. Do make a tiny effort at least. How about you look at those pages and post what particular “special treatment for women” you are referring to in the Ask a Question open thread?
Since he falls for the old canard that equal rights for people he thinks are lesser are “special” rights, his grown-up-ness is far from certain.
Point.
It’s so frustrating to me that you have to point this kind of stuff out. It should be self-evident to reasonably intelligent twelve-year-old.
Indeed, Elaine. Despite my comment above pointing “Altair” to the Ask A Question thread (do the suggested reading to find the link), some other dude chose to pose 3 vexatious questions in this thread.
Ask something substantive, on the proper thread, and I have no objection to approving the comment.
Ask an obnoxious and off-topic question and the comment simply won’t be approved. It is possible to disagree without being a jerk.
“It is possible to disagree without being a jerk.”
Then we’d be all out of feminists, wouldn’t we.
It is not your blog that is “101,” it is your own mind. You do not have the mental firepwer to go toe to toe with me, sweetheart.
[…] What tigtog said. […]
Is it possible to judge a movement based on the reactions of its prominent members to some feminist saying or doing something offensive, stupid, crazy or evil? (I assume this has to do with the [redacted] fiasco currently in progress.) Saying that you can’t is like saying that you can’t judge Instapundit because he links to comparatively inoffensive screeds from nutballs with a “heh-indeed” and thus confers upon them the Instapundit Seal Of Approval. The sole discussion of [redacted] actions I’ve seen from anyone not a flaming wingnut was on a pro-porn feminist blog, which likely had no love lost with her in the first place.
Why do feminists hate men?
Snark tags didn’t show up. Oops.
Isn’t Alec Leamas a feisty one? I’ve let through one other comment of yours, but in future drop the ad hominem and vexatious abuse, or your comments will be deleted.
Anonymous, why are you equating judging Instapundit for Instapundit’s own actions with judging feminism for the actions of certain “prominent members”? Can’t you see the oranges and apples there already? Forming an opinion about a person based on their own actions is fine, but no matter how common it is, it would be just as sloppy to judge all conservatives based on Instapundit as it would be to judge all feminists based on any particular scandal.
As I wrote above: the way that a person’s actions may reflect on their own character and the way that a person’s actions may reflect on any larger social group/movement they belong to are two separate arguments.
In terms of the debate taking place in the comments, and to offer a clarification or extension of Amanda’s observation about the old canard that equal rights = special rights, a simple reality needs to be specifically noted: For 99% of the people, “equality” is a step up from their prior condition. For the privileged class, however, it is a step down. The privileged class needs to recognize that equality, equal protection, and justice alike do not include the preservation of inequality. I’m aware that certain classifications of people are feeling the heat these days: men, whites, and Christians are first to mind in terms of the United States. Frankly, it’s about time. And these folks ought to be thankful that, now that it’s their turn, all they’re giving up is their special privilege and not their dignity, humanity, or ability to participate in society. I find it rather disgusting to hear these and other privileged classes, as their unfair advantages erode, to insist on rhetoric that, when you strip away the appeals to emotion and arguments ad hominem state nothing more than, “Oh, how horrible! We have to be equal to our neighbors!”
[…] FAQ: Some feminist said/did something offensive/stupid/crazy/evil, so isn’t feminism a failur… No. No one person represents the whole feminist movement, or all feminisms. Not this feminist, not any other […] […]
[…] FAQ: Some feminist said/did something offensive/stupid/crazy/evil, so isn’t feminism a failur… No. No one person represents the whole feminist movement, or all feminisms. Not this feminist, not any other […] […]
Amanda said elsewhere:
Meanwhile, enjoy this humorous new entry at Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog. She is so wrong. Since all women are basically the same person, surely all feminists are.
I’m not sure I see what Amanda’s objection is. Tigtog does not say what she claims she has said. Unless this is snark, but it’s usually helpful to label sarcasm as such on the internets.
to go toe to toe with me, sweetheart.
Quite difficult to go “toe to toe” when one set of those toes is firmly planted in mama’s basement.
Noen, yes it is snark. Amanda’s aimed it at the sort of people who do see women as basically interchangeable assortments of ladybits.
Is labelling it realy necessary? She knew that I would know it wasn’t aimed at me.
“Quite difficult to go “toe to toe” when one set of those toes is firmly planted in mama’s basement.”
Or . . . I’m a attorney working in commercial litigation and a small business owner whose toes are firmly planted on the clutch and gas pedals of my ’07 Porsche. Whichever.
Comment #19 by Leamas has been approved because it’s only fair to allow him to reply directly to a personal taunt, and he at least managed to not escalate the taunting.
No further taunts from anybody will be published on this thread.
Substantive comments are, as always, welcome.
Or . . . I’m a attorney working in commercial litigation and a small business owner whose toes are firmly planted on the clutch and gas pedals of my ‘07 Porsche. Whichever.
There’s a textbook description of someone with more money than sense if I ever heard one.
Financial security clearly does not equal security in masculinity. If one must wander the internet for places to barge in and declare oneself superior, both personally and as a member of a certain classification, then exactly how accomplished can you be?
What are the trolls that turn up in these places generally afraid of? Having to prove that they have truly earned their privileges rather than simply accruing them or more easily achieving them due to the springboards of race, class, and gender? Having to compete on even footing with a larger talent pool? I think it could bear some analysis, because I’m having a little difficulty understanding why they aren’t out enjoying their wealth and stature rather than trying to defend it from nasty feminists who just want the same opportunities.
“If one must wander the internet for places to barge in and declare oneself superior, both personally and as a member of a certain classification, then exactly how accomplished can you be?
What are the trolls that turn up in these places generally afraid of?”
Well, I was sent here by others who couldn’t answer my challenges – so have I really trolled at all? Just so that you are aware, the above was my second post, and as has been acknowledged, you raised the issue of my living in my mother’s basement which was rebutted.
Look, football season and baseball playoffs are around the corner, so I will probably find much better things to do with my time than argue with people whose ideology could be reduced to the pleas of Fredo: “I’m smaaaat! I can do things!.”
the post is basically a clarification of a logical principle:
Ms. X is part of group Y, if she does something judged to be positive or negative, it does not necessarily reflect on the values or success of group Y.
This logical relation warns us that there is no NECESSARY connection between the evaluation of Ms. X and the group from which she comes. In this case, it simply follows that:
“If some feminist said/did something offensive/stupid/crazy/evil, that does not mean that feminism is a failure.”
We can however, also replace “feminist” and “feminism” with “Nazi” and “Nazism”:
“If some Nazi (perhaps Hitler himself) said/said/did something offensive/stupid/crazy/evil, that does not mean that nazism is a failure(or evil)”
or, the more banal:
“If some mathematician (perhaps Hitler himself) said/said/did something offensive/stupid/crazy/evil, that does not mean that mathematics is a failure(or evil)”
You can just plug in any Mr./Ms. X and whichever Y group.
……..
but, if there is no necessary logical connection, it does not mean that there might not be an empirical or contingent one: the fact that a bunch of Nazis did something I consider to be an atrocity, means that there is good reason to believe that Nazism is behind this act, or related in some way.
So I would have to disagree with what you mean to say when you remark that :”No one person represents the whole feminist movement, or all feminisms. Not this feminist, not any other feminist.”
Of course, no one represents “all” of anything, that’s what “representation” means, if you could represent all of something, you would just BE it. But, I do think that each individual part of a group, especially such as political/social movements represent a living current within it. There is nothing wrong with saying that you represent feminism in an important and significant way. But there is also nothing prima facia wrong with someone who evaluates the meaning and significance of feminism according to individual feminists’ speech, writing and actions. At the same time, we also need to take responsibility of what our comrades do and say, step up and critique, keep them accountable, disagree, sometimes denounce, what other feminists say, do and write. Its important.
There is a underlying ideological tinge to our age that opens up the movement to being individualistic (in the sense of being open to mutually incompatible interpretation and projects) and uncritical (in the ways that count). This spells the death of any radicality left in our just and true cause.
sorry a few typos… yea. Hitler was not a mathematician
Alec – if you were sent here by someone who “couldn’t answer your challenges”, have you looked through the blog to see if your questions are answered elsewhere here? As far as I can see, you’ve come here and all you’ve done is be rude to tigtog and claim that feminists can’t disagree with you without being a jerk. Have you actually read the FAQs?
There are many ways misogynists express their fear and fear-based rage. “Alec Leamas” amply demonstrated the “minimizing” and “ridiculing” techniques. The attacks on various feminist boards have used other techniques, all designed (whether or not they are truly for “lulz”)to silence women and have them return to the roles that misogynists find them more comfortable in, or to use Anonymous’ own words, “get back to the kitchen”. My answer, clearly, is “Hell, no.” I’m too busy making a difference to make you a sandwich.
“That’s easy to answer. They’re afraid of female autonomy. In other words, they’re afraid of women who reject the traditional roles of being servants to and sex objects for men.
Misogynists, for the most part, love their mothers (servant), wives (servant and sexual outlet), and girlfriends (sexual outlet), and their daughters and sometimes sisters (opportunity to act out the “protective” meme of “good” misogynists). They will usually tolerate women working in roles that mirror these essentialist roles, such as secretaries, maids, teachers, social workers, etc.
However, when women move into the autonomous sphere, such as working in politics or business, choosing to be single mothers, or having sex on their own terms, misogynist become both angry and fearful, because they are losing a valuable “objects’.”
Hmmm . . . thanks for putting words in my mouth, ma’am. They are tasty. Like pie.
How facile it must be to simply make your opponent’s worst case, to accuse him of all manner of horrid thoughts and beliefs, and then to argue against his caricature.
This seems to resonate rather well with the initiated, but you ain’t convincing anyone on the fence.
Err…dang formatting errors. Before the rest of my post should have been the quote “What are the trolls that turn up in these places generally afraid of?”. That, and minor typos. Deal.
Alex, you have already demonstrated ample lack of respect, and the fact that you return here again and again not to argue, but to ridicule.
A misogynist hates female autonomy. That is the core of the definition of misogynist. The fact that many misogynists believe it to be more broadly “hatred of women” allows them to say “but I love my mom, and my sister, and my wife, and they’re women, so I must not be a misogynist”, all the while supporting policies and rhetoric that attacks the autonomy of women.
Also, you’re not on the fence, and anyone reading knows it. You are not arguing in good faith, just pretending to be reasonable in order to amuse Anonymous. Honey, we’ve been at war for hundreds of years against misogynist assholes like yourself and the legion. To think that their tired little antics or your pathetic “non argument” trolling does anything to lessen our resolve only proves you understand absolutely nothing about us.
Since anonymous found it, here’s a kiosk created to help defend against attacks. Please pass the word: beeandflower.livejournal.com
There is no way to comment on the site, it is strictly for information. I hope it helps
[Moderator note: this comment (responding to Here We Go Again) has been copied to the “What Do Feminists Want?” thread, because this side-discussion is hijacking this thread]
In reply to Tigtog on August the 12th:
Instead of blasting me, you could simply have redirected me to that place. It was a question, not a scathing attack on your ideology.
“Since he falls for the old canard that equal rights for people he thinks are lesser are “special” rights, his grown-up-ness is far from certain.”
You are correct, maddamme. I’m in High School, I’m hardly an adult.
“It’s so frustrating to me that you have to point this kind of stuff out. It should be self-evident to reasonably intelligent twelve-year-old.”
Forgive me, but a reasonably intelligent twelve year old on the internet would not even bother to punctuate his or her sentence. If only I had a dollar for every time somebody typed the word “lol” or spelled the word “you” as “u”, or “your/you’re” as “ur”.
“Ask an obnoxious and off-topic question and the comment simply won’t be approved. It is possible to disagree without being a jerk.”
Perhaps you misinterpreted my initial comment. It was not obnoxious, it was an actual question. I want to know. It appears to me to be contradictory, and I wanted to find out how this is justified “straight from the horses mouth”, as it were (as I am sure there is valid reasoning behind it).
“Isn’t Alec Leamas a feisty one? I’ve let through one other comment of yours, but in future drop the ad hominem and vexatious abuse, or your comments will be deleted.”
While I agree his comments were a little harsh, they were no more harsh than yours were. It should not be too much to handle a little personal attacks now and then – we don’t want a place like this to be run by the thought-police now do we?
Altair, this site is laid out so that information is easy to find. I’m not into mollycoddling those who don’t look around and figure out that it would be a good idea to click on a link that says PLEASE READ THIS FIRST, even if you are only in high school. That said, if you can ask your questions on the appropriate threads in future, welcome.
Now, a netiquette issue: when you’re replying to more than one commentor, can you make it clear whose comment is whose? You’re replying to three different people above, not just me.
Regarding my actual remarks:
The remark I made about obnoxious comments in #6 was quite obviously pointed at the comment I had not approved, not your comment which I had earlier approved.
The vexatious abuse I mentioned in #12? Leamas has a history of anti-feminist abuse (edited to add: scroll down through the comments to that review) of which many of us are well aware. As a newcomer I suggest you refrain from assuming that people have no historical basis for hostile behaviour.
Leamas argues in a comment I’m not about to publish that his review linked to above is not “abuse”. The review itself may not quite cross that line, but I contend that much of what he says in the comments on that page is definitely abusive.
He says this in a thread reviewing a book by Jessica Valenti, who is by no stretch of the imagination unattractive, unfeminine or unhappy.
Leamas: you’ve dominated discourse on the blog for long enough this time. Try again in a few months maybe. *Plonk*
Or . . . I’m a [sic] attorney working in commercial litigation and a small business owner whose toes are firmly planted on the clutch and gas pedals of my ‘07 Porsche.
Was that you at the bar–the guy who wouldn’t leave me alone and had to go on and on about what a catch you were because you have Teh Awesome Jobz!!1! and teh flash car?
Look, football season and baseball playoffs are around the corner, so I will probably find much better things to do with my time than argue with people whose ideology could be reduced to the pleas of Fredo: “I’m smaaaat! I can do things!.”
Yet you’re posting compulsively and doing the same thing you accuse the women here of doing. See above.
Ooh, Leamas is a gender essentialist. Gotcha. Then, because males are essentially unable to grasp logic, subtlety, and complexity, we’re wasting our time bothering with him.
*giggles*
(Says another happily married, professionally successful, attractive to most men feminist). Honey (yeah, you Alec), you don’t like feminists because they see through your crap in five seconds flat and won’t give you the time of day. It’s not our fault that you can only prey on women who have bought into the patriarchy and haven’t quite figured out how much men like you actually hate them. But we’ll be happy to educate those women, too.
Where do I start? Has anyone seen the new HARPERS, which contains a sustained attack on Andrea Dworkin? (no link yet)
The Ariel Levy-esque “this is why feminism failed” blah blah blah is all over the article.
Sigh.
Readingmao: The problem with your Nazi analogy is that we can look back at the historical documents and see that it was Nazi policy to oppress and murder Jews. The Holocaust was state policy, not the mere act of a bunch of individuals.
Now if you can demonstrate that feminism has an official state policy and that that policy is to be mean to men and give women special rights that men don’t have, knock yourself out.
Ariel Levy attacked Andrea Dworkin???
…Damn. And with everything I’d heard about her up til now, I really liked her.
Oh no wait, you said “Ariel Levy-esque”. Never mind. Sounds like I still need to investigate this for myself; it sounds like she’s got some tendency I’m not going to like very much.
Dude, Alec and “Tony Palmyra” from Feministe are the same guy. Ranting about the ugly, insufferable feminists and his stellar job.
Sarah, I’d bailed out of that thread about 100 comments in, so I missed the Tony Palmyra stuff. The comments [1,2,3 ] about how it was all feminism’s fault that his mum divorced his dad to concentrate on her business and also neglected/mistreated him are quite revealing, and totally apropos to this thread: his abusive and selfish mother professed feminism, she was horrible to him, therefore feminism is a failure.
what was going on here is way outside of anything I wanted to talk about, i.e. the superiority of homeboy with the porche. With trollers I have had the policy of simply deleting/blocking their comments, simple quick easy.
Now, what I thought was interesting in the post is the way in which tigtog put the argument which seemed to do several things at once:
1. demonstrate a straight foward logical principle
2. advocate a sort of individualism
3. defend feminism against the sort of mediatic backlash
My response was simply this: maybe we (feminists, myself included) have to defend/denounce what other feminists say and do? In doing so, perhaps we can recuperate what is lacking in the more culturally/litigational forms of feminist action we have seen in recent years ~you know, like really having a large militant movement again.
In particular what I was trying to show with the Nazi example was that just because, abstractly, we cannot judge Nazism by the conduct of its particular members, this does not mean that the two aren’t related, because indeed they are. To respond to radicalearthling, yes! we agree -the heart of the question of why I dislike nazis come from elsewhere -this means that saying that we cannot judge feminism by the actions of some is empty. The argument was empty in the sense that it did not express the heart of what pertains to the question, it was simply hollow rhetorical tautology.
Now, the question itself was good, but the response left much to be desired:
Should the actions of some feminists define the meaning/significance of feminism today?
why only take the good ones and not the bad? Why should fighters for democracy forget Robespierre, or anti-colonialists forget the Khmer Rouge, or Egalitarians forget Mao Tse-Dong. Who decides which feminists to include with those considered “representative” and those “unrepresentative”? By most measures, I dislike the work of Luce Irigiray, but I would be damned if I didn’t consider her to be one of the most important feminist thinkers around.
So, finally, what is this feminist’s relation to someone whom I consider have written books that are complete failures? Does she represent me, demonstrate something about myself that I didn’t see before: how can the failure of this thinker show me my own failures? More importantly, what are the failures of feminism? a question that should be asked more and more today…
Well I have a point about this, which ties in to the double standards post too.
A few years ago some high profile women were trying to resurrect the reputation of Leni Reifenstahl.
When discussing her achievements as a film maker, they claimed that she was a strong woman who took on men in an almost universally male profession (pre WW2 film directing) and succeeded greatly despite their opposition.
When discussing her seniority in the Nazi party and friendship with Hitler, they pointed out that Hitler was very charismatic and essentially ran the “just a girl” defence.
It’s not the fact that one woman was a Nazi, or even that the Nazi Party did slightly better with women German voters than men, that reflects badly on feminism. It’s that defence above. Similarly if someone defended the said Hitler on the “boys will be boys” ground mentioned in the other thread.
And why are you going all Ministry of Truth on whatever controversy has spurned this?
My personal preference in the Riefenstahl case would be to point out that yes, she was an innovative artist who succeeded despite the stereotypes and constraints on women at the time, who was also politically flawed and perhaps even a real jerk. Unfortunately there appears to be a double standard about successful women who are jerks: male high achieving jerks compromise kindliness for success with hardly a whisper of blame, female high achieving jerks compromising kindliness for success are viewed as ghastly unwomanly harpies who just show why women shouldn’t be encouraged to succeed.
If profiles of high-achieving women were less concerned with painting them as “still normal women” and acknowledging that being a high achiever often (not always) means being an entitled jerk in other areas for women just as much as it does for men, perhaps the toxic portion of society that insists entitled jerkdom is essential to masculinity would get less oxygen. (Which might mean that the culture that asks for kindliness to be relinquished for success might actually get a retooling for both men and women: win-win.)
As to any current controversy, the FAQs are meant to be resource documents for a long time, not a journal of current events. The current attempt to smear all feminists through the actions of one or a few is merely the latest in a long series, and will be irrelevant to the next time, which is when this FAQ will again be cited.
Tigtog I don’t buy in to that mindset myself, though I certainly accept it exists and is one of the media’s paint-by-numbers way to colour facts. However, I don’t think any high achieving male Nazis escaped “with hardly a whisper of blame”, did they? Speer ran a similar defence to Reifenstahl and got 20 years.
As to the use of the memory hole, why doesn’t that apply to Fred Phelps, Dick Cheney and James Blunt?
[James Blunt?!?! Did he launch a war of aggression between sets?]
I’m currently enjoying my red wine with dinner, so I’ll address your points tomorrow when I’m sober.
But c’mon – anyone with a pulse and functioning ears can tell that James Blunt is Pure Evil.
Just the ones we could use.
Cheers to feminism 101 blog! I don’t know if I could put up with ignoramouses like ‘Alec Leamas’with such patience and generosity. Thanks for fighting the good fight.
[…] of people in-thread rightfully called strawfeminists, resulting in some new names popping in to say how very mean they were treated when they tried to go to the feminist parties because they were just… I’m sure it was just like when Julia Roberts tried to go shopping in Pretty […]
Sean, sorry to delay my reply, but it just would have been a wordier version of Chris Clarke’s. With an added dash of let’s not confuse “high-achieving” famous artists with “high-achieving” famous generals and public office-holders.
[…] than it does with true incidents of “man-hating” perpetuated by feminism/feminists (see this FAQ entry on conflating the alleged actions of an individual with the ideology of a […]