Feminism Explained

Posted: May 20, 2011 in Uncategorized
15
Comments
  1. redpesto says:
    May 20, 2011 at 5:23 pm

    Very droll.

    Parts of this highlight some of the nagging contradictions that just won’t go away; other parts of this sound like baiting the ‘liberals’ and ‘feminazis’. But I’ll admit that this exchange made me laugh:

    Her: We need more women to study science and math.

    Him: What did you study?

    Her: English.

    Footnote: a few years back, I checked the A Level stats and male/female numbers: even where girls were in the minority for Physics, they still outperformed the boys. So more female scientists by all means, but the data is shifting clearly in favour of female academic achievement anyway.

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  2. Olga Wolstenholme says:
    May 20, 2011 at 5:47 pm

    Haha.

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  3. Tim says:
    May 20, 2011 at 8:05 pm

    Lol.

    I think we have all heared a few of the things in this video. Though it must have been hell of a job to collect and put that all together so neatly. And yeah, some libtard baiting is there, other than that it is pretty cool.

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    • Tim says:
      May 20, 2011 at 8:13 pm

      Ough.

      I just browsed the website this video came from and I must say, whoever runs that side is very obsessed with liberals. Seriously, there is a 8 sentence long text and said person used the word liberal or one of its iterations 10 times. And there is a lot of bullshit on there.

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  4. Quiet Riot Girl says:
    May 20, 2011 at 8:17 pm

    yes I think the American context is possibly a bit grim with the whole conservative versus liberal discourse going on. But I like the way she waves her arm and says ‘paaatriaaaarchy’ so I posted it!

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    • Tim says:
      May 20, 2011 at 8:57 pm

      I know what you mean. I almost said something along the lines ‘This person is totally delusional and believes in silly half-truths, only this one video is good’, but then I thought that if I thought the rest of his or her work is nonsense except for that one piece then maybe it is me who is delusional and believing in half-truths.

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      • Quiet Riot Girl says:
        May 20, 2011 at 9:00 pm

        I think one issue is that feminism is so firmly lodged in ‘liberal/left’ ideology that if you are going to criticise it you are going to find yourself flying headfirst into some ‘right-wing’ politics. Because feminism is not being critiqued from the left.

        I am a socialist if a rather dejected and unmotivated one. But I think it is more important to critique feminism (not without thought but carefully, from all angles) than to remain ‘politically correct’)

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      • Gs says:
        May 21, 2011 at 12:07 am

        Your doubt, as to who is the believer in half-truths, is indicative of the current confused state of feminism.

        Feminism has, depending on one’s ideological views, satiated itself or progressed. It may be argued, it has done both.

        Feminist gains seem glutonous, yet ideologically correct. From campaigning for voting rights to work-force rebalancing and continuing with ‘rape culture’. All these are indicative of a broad agenda. Who benefits? Society or woman? Some would say both, some would say woman do, but nobody would say men do.

        If patriarchal, altruistic, blue-bloods meant to support feminism, they certainly didn’t mean to support turning over every CEO’s seat to a woman.

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  5. Sarah AB says:
    May 21, 2011 at 4:51 pm

    Thanks for linking to this – I’ve blogged about it myself – and I must also thank redpesto for transcribing exactly the bit I wanted to quote too!

    Reply
  6. Lori Adorable says:
    May 21, 2011 at 9:26 pm

    There’s so much that’s wrong with this I’m not sure it’s even worth addressing. But I’ll try.
    1. Since when is expecting more the same thing as not valuing what you have?
    2. That’s not what ‘patriarchy’ means
    3. This is incredibly U.S.-centric, but anyway… voter participation? Not the only thing that determines how society works. This is where it becomes clear that the person who made this has zero understanding of sociological concepts.
    4. Feminism isn’t more popular because of shit like this that completely misrepresents it, not because women are stupid.
    5. “If I already respected them I wouldn’t be advocating for change.” I don’t…what?
    6. There is nothing feminist about thinking women should be less (stereotypically) feminine or should all work outside the home.

    This is such a piss-poor strawman it’s not worth spending more time on.

    So I’ll just say this: I am entirely confused by hostility to feminism Just baffled.. If you’re not down with the movement, fine. I get that. There’s a lot that’s wrong with it. But not being down with the ‘feminism’, the dictionary definition- that women are treated as less than men and shouldn’t be- is something that I do not understand, and promoting shit like this that isn’t even a critique of feminism? Why?

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    • Schala says:
      May 22, 2011 at 12:16 am

      “But not being down with the ‘feminism’, the dictionary definition- that women are treated as less than men and shouldn’t be- is something that I do not understand, and promoting shit like this that isn’t even a critique of feminism? Why?”

      People online usually say that to be feminist, one needs to believe this axiom, or one is not feminist, or even anti-feminist:

      “Men are, on the balance, advantaged compared to women (including in Canada/US/Europe). Male privilege exists. Female privilege does not.”

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      • Lori Adorable says:
        May 22, 2011 at 10:57 pm

        I’m impressed by your ability to quote something I said and then completely ignore it.

        “But not being down with the ‘feminism’, the dictionary definition…”

        “People online usually say…”

        The dictionary is not people online.

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  7. redpesto says:
    May 23, 2011 at 12:09 pm

    Lori Adorable: The dictionary is not people online.

    However, the dictionary isn’t politics or ideology either, but that’s where ideas such as feminism are argued for (and against) in practice.

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    • Lori Adorable says:
      May 26, 2011 at 1:16 pm

      Online feminism and womanism are so incredibly diverse, though. It’s impossible to say that there’s only one popular conception of feminist ideology.

      Reply

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