> As Deborah Blum puts it, "I do have sympathy for anyone caught in the leading edge of a media storm. But if we are ever to effect change, sometimes we need the winds to howl, to blow us out of our comfort zones."
She's implying social change only happens when forced by some group of activists and therefore activism isn't responsible for the collateral damage it causes. Many things cause social change so I think the role of "howling winds" may be overstated. In addition, one must make the argument that this particular form of activism is genuine and deserves solidarity.
> I believe the actual accusation was that he was contributing to maintaining the gender gap, not that he was responsible for it.
He may not have been blamed for it (the gender gap predates him by centuries) but the responsibility was placed on his shoulders.
> Actually, intersectional feminists talk about this quite a bit.
They try and I commend them for that.
> I don't mind as being seen as condescending here, but that's not my point. My point is that I have limited time, and I don't think spending it rehashing stale arguments with dedicated antifeminists is a good way to work towards the goals I have. If somebody actually wants to learn something, I'm glad to help them out. And if I end up with questions, I'll surely ask them. But absent that, I have better things to do.
I'm open to being persuaded and I don't think you can accuse me of deflecting or not taking what you say seriously. In fact I would love to be persuaded, the social punishments for disliking feminism are steep.
> I want that replaced with an anti-sexist cultural hegemony, because that shifts us in the direction of a more even distribution of power.
No it doesn't, that's only true if being male is a meaningful predictor of power, but it isn't. You can see this in poor white males: class outweighs sex and race combined. Feminism isn't interested in addressing or critiquing the real institutions of power, they want the power for themselves. It could even make the power distribution worse because those in power will have the outward appearance of equality.
I'm not sure what your political background is but ideologically your anti-sexist cultural hegemony bears striking similarities to the dictatorship of the proletariat(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletaria...) which was rejected by the socialist libertarians of the time and would later become the platform of Lenin and Stalin. Anybody adopting this type of thinking should be aware of the horrors it has brought in the past.
> Also false. I'm not much of a fellow traveler in that I have a number of deep philosophical disagreements, but our goals are aligned for the next few decades or so.
The reason I say their worldview has become your own is because sometimes it seems like you're reading their script. I don't actually know you.
> She's implying social change only happens when forced by some group of activists and therefore activism isn't responsible for the collateral damage it causes.
If you can give examples of quick, major social change that don't happen when somebody pushes pretty hard, I would be interested to see them.
Also, I wouldn't say that they aren't responsible for collateral damage. But as long as the collateral damage is lower than the damage caused by the continuance of the problem, I don't think they'll mourn much. In particular, I am not willing to prioritize the hurt feelings of old white guys who a) have benefited from sexism, and b) who are (unconsciously) sustaining a sexist situation over the harm they are doing (and the large amount of hurt feelings caused by it).
> He may not have been blamed for it (the gender gap predates him by centuries) but the responsibility was placed on his shoulders.
Sure. Is that fair? No. Is it more unfair than it being placed on the women forced to deal with it? Definitely not.
> No it doesn't, that's only true if being male is a meaningful predictor of power, but it isn't.
There are also class differences, but that doesn't mean that sexism didn't or doesn't exist. For millennia women were effectively property of males. We are moving away from it, but we are far from done yet. Power is still disproportionately in the hands of men.
> Feminism isn't interested in addressing or critiquing the real institutions of power, they want the power for themselves.
Depends on the feminist, really. But my general heuristic is that moving in a direction where more people have access to power is good, so even if we only shift the power from n well-off white guys to n*2 well-off white people, I'll call it a provisional win. And any shift in the power structures makes easier to make further changes. E.g., gay marriage is proceeding more quickly and easily than interracial marriage, and trans rights quicker still.
> anti-sexist cultural hegemony bears striking similarities to the dictatorship of the proletariat
It also bears striking similarities to America in the age of de Tocqueville; we had a native opposition to concentrations of power that we have gradually lost. I'm not going to sweat this one too hard.
> I'm open to being persuaded and I don't think you can accuse me of deflecting or not taking what you say seriously. In fact I would love to be persuaded, the social punishments for disliking feminism are steep.
Feel free to drop me a line, then; I'm glad to discuss this.
She's implying social change only happens when forced by some group of activists and therefore activism isn't responsible for the collateral damage it causes. Many things cause social change so I think the role of "howling winds" may be overstated. In addition, one must make the argument that this particular form of activism is genuine and deserves solidarity.
> I believe the actual accusation was that he was contributing to maintaining the gender gap, not that he was responsible for it.
He may not have been blamed for it (the gender gap predates him by centuries) but the responsibility was placed on his shoulders.
> Actually, intersectional feminists talk about this quite a bit.
They try and I commend them for that.
> I don't mind as being seen as condescending here, but that's not my point. My point is that I have limited time, and I don't think spending it rehashing stale arguments with dedicated antifeminists is a good way to work towards the goals I have. If somebody actually wants to learn something, I'm glad to help them out. And if I end up with questions, I'll surely ask them. But absent that, I have better things to do.
I'm open to being persuaded and I don't think you can accuse me of deflecting or not taking what you say seriously. In fact I would love to be persuaded, the social punishments for disliking feminism are steep.
> I want that replaced with an anti-sexist cultural hegemony, because that shifts us in the direction of a more even distribution of power.
No it doesn't, that's only true if being male is a meaningful predictor of power, but it isn't. You can see this in poor white males: class outweighs sex and race combined. Feminism isn't interested in addressing or critiquing the real institutions of power, they want the power for themselves. It could even make the power distribution worse because those in power will have the outward appearance of equality.
I'm not sure what your political background is but ideologically your anti-sexist cultural hegemony bears striking similarities to the dictatorship of the proletariat(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletaria...) which was rejected by the socialist libertarians of the time and would later become the platform of Lenin and Stalin. Anybody adopting this type of thinking should be aware of the horrors it has brought in the past.
> Also false. I'm not much of a fellow traveler in that I have a number of deep philosophical disagreements, but our goals are aligned for the next few decades or so.
The reason I say their worldview has become your own is because sometimes it seems like you're reading their script. I don't actually know you.