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Tag Archive | strawfeminist

Feminism Friday: that “why are Western feminists such cowards about atrocities in other countries?” lie

By tigtog December 7, 2007 6 Comments

Shorter Pamela Bone: feminists are such cowardly hypocrites for being against FGM and rape in war whenever any culture does it instead of just specially castigating Islamic societies where such brutalities occur. I posted over at Hoyden About Town a few days ago with more background to Bone’s article about how she bravely spoiled a […]

Open Thread: Feminism, Sexual Orientation and Social Hostility

By tigtog October 8, 2007 17 Comments

This thread is a response to a comment from Astrodyke in the Suggestions thread: I don’t see tags for “lesbian” or “sexual orientation”. It’d be nice to have some FAQs about lesbianism and how it relates to feminism. There are the straw questions, “Don’t all feminists hate men?” or “Aren’t all feminists lesbians?” But there […]

FAQ: Some feminist said/did something offensive/stupid/crazy/evil, so isn’t feminism a failure?

By tigtog August 12, 2007 53 Comments

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 […]

Feminism Friday: SotBO (Statements of the bleedin’ obvious)

By tigtog June 23, 2007 28 Comments

Rational people often assume that some opinions and judgements are so obviously part of their worldview that they really don’t need to be said. Unfortunately, some maliciously disruptive people take delight in assuming that if something has not been clearly stated then they are safe in assuming the worst of others, even when such assumptions […]

FAQ: Aren’t feminists just sexists towards men?

By tigtog June 3, 2007 84 Comments

AKA Aren’t feminists just “reverse sexists”? Short answer: Neither feminists as a group, nor feminist theory, engages in sexism or “reverse sexism” against men. Often times the feminist focus on women’s issues, as well as their recognition and continued efforts to correct the imbalance of power (see male privilege), are seen as looking to privilege […]

Call for links: debunking the malicious stuff

By tigtog May 11, 2007 3 Comments

Mandolin had a suggestion I’d like to highlight and get some input on: Andrea Dworkin/Germaine Greer/someone else said something complicated, and I have a reductionist summary of that which comes out to “men hate women” / “all sex is rape” / “something else catchy” … why am I wrong? Only, competently stated. The competent concise […]

FAQ: But men and women are born different! Isn’t that obvious?

By tigtog May 10, 2007 79 Comments

That idea is known as “essentialism”: the belief that there are uniquely feminine and uniquely masculine essences which exist independently of cultural conditioning. Both actual (minor) and alleged (major) differences between the sexes have been used to justify inequities and constraints which harm women emotionally, financially and physically. Even where (and if) such differences do […]

FAQ: what do you mean by “Not my Nigel”? (feminist abbreviations/jargon)

By tigtog April 17, 2007 23 Comments

[2013-01-10 Update: some broken links fixed to point to revised URLs – thanks to the reader who reported!] Like any other field of debate and controversy, a lot of issues and positions in feminism end up being discussed so often that they are abbreviated for convenience into acronyms, initialisms and shorthand phrases that make up […]

FAQ: Why are you concentrating on X when Y is so much more important?

By tigtog April 12, 2007 13 Comments

Short answer: People talk about subjects that interest them and that they are passionate about because these tend to be the areas in which they have the most experience. Choosing to concentrate on one thing does not mean that the person thinks that it is the most important subject, or that it’s the only subject […]

FAQ: Why "feminism" and not just "humanism"? Or "equalism"? Isn’t saying you’re a feminist exclusionary?

By tigtog April 12, 2007 18 Comments

This question implies that one must be either one or the other. People and philosophies are far more complicated than that. A feminist may also be both a humanist and an equalist. There’s no law that says only one box can be ticked here, and it’s hugely important not to get sucked into thinking that […]