Post by creature386 on Jan 15, 2018 2:45:24 GMT 5
I've summed up my views on this issue in detail in another forum:
I’ve recently begun watching a few of these skeptic channels on YouTube and hence became interested in the whole feminsim/SJW topic. We already have a similar topic on WoA (theworldofanimals.proboards.com/thread/846/feminism-thread ), so I hope at least some of you are interested (some of these topics got discussed enthusiastically on Carnivora as well). And if you aren’t, let’s wait until Vodmeister and malikc6 join, they will make this thread grow quickly.
For the purpose of this thread, feminism is defined as any ideology which seeks to end male privilege by female empowerment.
„SJW“ is short for Social Justice Warrior and is a derogatory term for people who hold progressive viewpoints. In practice, it refers to everyone left of Sargon of Akkad on the political spectrum. However, I define it as a pejorative for adherents of intersectional feminism. Intersectional feminism is a collectivist and dualistic ideology which tries to divide the world into oppressors and oppressed and then tries to achieve equality. In practice, this looks like this:
Oppressor: Men
Oppressed: Women
Oppressor: White people
Oppressed: People of Color (PoC)
Oppressor: Heterosexuals
Oppressed: Homosexuals
Oppressor: Cis-people
Oppressed: Trans-people
Oppressor: Able-bodied people
Oppressed: Disabled people
Oppressor: Christians
Oppressed: Muslims
Oppressor: Slim people
Oppressed: Fat people
Oppressor: Rich people
Oppressed: Poor people
The list goes on.
Here are all the points where SJWs/feminists are right:
Gender Pay Gap: The gender pay gap is a term used by economists to refer to the fact that women earn less on average than men. Skeptics argue that it has nothing to do with discrimination, as it doesn’t account for free job choices or the number of hours worked. While this is true, wage discrimination can still be shown by controlled studies which show that women earn less even if all else is being equal. The studies are found under the third point.
Moreover, the evidence shows that jobs have been devalued once they became „feminine“:
academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/91/4/1183/223577
Sexual Objectification: Women are reduced to their appearance to a far greater extent than men. Popular culture is a good example. As TV Tropes put it, „how many female equivalents of Woody Allen, Mike Myers, Jack Black, Edward James Olmos, Joe Pesci or Danny De Vito can you think of“?
Racial minorities and women still suffer from discrimination in the West: While I don’t think anyone really denies that racism and sexism still exist in the West, at least those YouTube Skeptics try to downplay it whenever it is brought up, unless it is either against men/whites or it is Muslim misogyny. For rigorous studies on the subject, read this blog by Scott Alexander:
slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/20/social-justice-for-the-highly-demanding-of-rigor/
One the wage gap in particular, you have this:www.oecd.org/els/emp/40937574.pdf
Non-binary gender: (clickable text) We have people whose karyotypes or genitals are either ambiguous or not matching each other. While you can argue that they are just aberrations who can be assigned to a gender, some intersex people disagree (for example). Here is a list of cultures who have recognized this. Further, as trans people show, we need to distinguish between biological sex and gender identity. Given these facts, it is far from hard to believe that there are people whose hormonal balance is anything but clear-cut and to whom forcing to assign them to a gender could cause problems to their psychological health (see here and here). Honestly, I rarely see arguments against their existence, mostly just ridicule ("I sexually identify as an apache helicopter").
…and here’s where they’re wrong:
Patriarchy: A patriarchy is defined as a society where men enjoy power and privilege. In short, a society where you’d rather like to be a man than a woman. Opposing this sort of society is central to feminism.
Let’s see: Men get more time in jail for the same crime, have a higher risk of being the victim of violence, tend to lose all the time in family courts and are forced in many countries to become soldiers. These points are fairly uncontroversial. Feminists argue that these are actually just discrimination against women harming men. However, this makes the concept of a patriarchy unfalsifiable and hence useless.
A common argument is that men are more prevalent in positions of power than women and men naturally treat other men better than women. This is from the link to slatestarcodex:Feminists are aware of this and have invented the concept of internalised patriarchy to argue that women have internalised misogyny from men and hence men are really to blame. However, this just makes the hypothesis more complex and harder to falsify, meaning Occam's razor strikes again.
Rape Culture: A rape culture is a society which encourages rape in public attitudes and popular culture. I see no evidence to suggest that rape is more tolerated than any other sort of crime („victim blaming“ also occurs with theft, e.g. „Why didn’t you lock your house?“). In fact, the opposite can be said:
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil
I’ll let Scott do the rest:
slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/19/i-do-not-understand-rape-culture/
Prejudice + Power: According to Anita Sarkeesian, you cannot be racist against white people or sexist against men because sexism/racism are based on systems of oppression. This is misguided. Racism and sexism are ideologies, oppression is merely their manifestation. It is rather dangerous to define them that way because that men/whites cannot be victims of sexism/racism assumes that current power structures are static.
Plus, it is collectivist. How does it help a poor white man that people who have the same gender or race as him on average do well?
Cultural Appropriation: Cultural appropriation is basically taking something from another culture that is lower on the "social pecking order" than yours with no real understanding or appreciation. Due to the "Social pecking order", only white people can be guilty of cultural appropriation which is why it is not racist if Japanese people celebrate Christmas without having any understanding of its origins (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_traditions#Japan ).
As I demonstrated in the last three points, the idea of a power hierarchy is nonsense. Plus, it absurdly stretches the term "racism".
Multiculturalism: One of their dumbest ideas. Basically, post-modernism applied to cultures and morality. Morality is culturally contingent, hence you cannot criticise people from cultures other than your own, as this would imply that your culture is better than theirs which multiculturalism rejects. This is stupid for two reasons:
1. If morality is culturally contingent, where do you get a universal „Thou shall not criticise other cultures“ law from?
2. Is the Western culture in the 21. Century superior to the one in the 19. Century? If no, the social justice stuff is pointless. If yes, multiculturalism is wrong.
And while this is not exactly an extra argument, that way of thinking is basically a relative of ethnocentrism and incompatible with the universality of human rights for the same reasons.
They also claim that sexism in Islamic countries is no worse than in the West which the Global Gender Gap Report soundly refutes (though the anti-Muslim bigotry by many antifeminists is still inexcusable).
Since is a social construct: Postmodernism undermines science. Supposedly. Here's King Crocoduck's take on this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4zgDXZaH6I&list=PL969utfM58zhc8Xzo2byAjZkWlTQWUTYc
On the fence:
Microaggressions: Basically, I think they are bad, especially if they come in aggregation. They can feel like bullying. However, I again disagree with the implied power hierarchies, since they can happen in all directions.
Conclusion: I am neither a feminist nor an anti-feminist.
For the purpose of this thread, feminism is defined as any ideology which seeks to end male privilege by female empowerment.
„SJW“ is short for Social Justice Warrior and is a derogatory term for people who hold progressive viewpoints. In practice, it refers to everyone left of Sargon of Akkad on the political spectrum. However, I define it as a pejorative for adherents of intersectional feminism. Intersectional feminism is a collectivist and dualistic ideology which tries to divide the world into oppressors and oppressed and then tries to achieve equality. In practice, this looks like this:
Oppressor: Men
Oppressed: Women
Oppressor: White people
Oppressed: People of Color (PoC)
Oppressor: Heterosexuals
Oppressed: Homosexuals
Oppressor: Cis-people
Oppressed: Trans-people
Oppressor: Able-bodied people
Oppressed: Disabled people
Oppressor: Christians
Oppressed: Muslims
Oppressor: Slim people
Oppressed: Fat people
Oppressor: Rich people
Oppressed: Poor people
The list goes on.
Here are all the points where SJWs/feminists are right:
Gender Pay Gap: The gender pay gap is a term used by economists to refer to the fact that women earn less on average than men. Skeptics argue that it has nothing to do with discrimination, as it doesn’t account for free job choices or the number of hours worked. While this is true, wage discrimination can still be shown by controlled studies which show that women earn less even if all else is being equal. The studies are found under the third point.
Moreover, the evidence shows that jobs have been devalued once they became „feminine“:
academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/91/4/1183/223577
Sexual Objectification: Women are reduced to their appearance to a far greater extent than men. Popular culture is a good example. As TV Tropes put it, „how many female equivalents of Woody Allen, Mike Myers, Jack Black, Edward James Olmos, Joe Pesci or Danny De Vito can you think of“?
Racial minorities and women still suffer from discrimination in the West: While I don’t think anyone really denies that racism and sexism still exist in the West, at least those YouTube Skeptics try to downplay it whenever it is brought up, unless it is either against men/whites or it is Muslim misogyny. For rigorous studies on the subject, read this blog by Scott Alexander:
slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/20/social-justice-for-the-highly-demanding-of-rigor/
One the wage gap in particular, you have this:
Evidence presented in this edition of the Employment Outlook suggests that about 8% of the variation in gender employment gaps and 30% of the variation in gender wage gaps across OECD countries can be explained by discriminatory practices in the labour market. At the same time, workers from ethnic minorities have to search 40% to 50% longer than individuals having the same characteristics but belonging to majority groups before they receive a job offer, which renders them much more vulnerable to the risk of long-term unemployment. And, if employed, the average wages of native-born ethnic minorities in a number of countries are more than 10% less than those of their majority-group counterparts.
Non-binary gender: (clickable text) We have people whose karyotypes or genitals are either ambiguous or not matching each other. While you can argue that they are just aberrations who can be assigned to a gender, some intersex people disagree (for example). Here is a list of cultures who have recognized this. Further, as trans people show, we need to distinguish between biological sex and gender identity. Given these facts, it is far from hard to believe that there are people whose hormonal balance is anything but clear-cut and to whom forcing to assign them to a gender could cause problems to their psychological health (see here and here). Honestly, I rarely see arguments against their existence, mostly just ridicule ("I sexually identify as an apache helicopter").
…and here’s where they’re wrong:
Patriarchy: A patriarchy is defined as a society where men enjoy power and privilege. In short, a society where you’d rather like to be a man than a woman. Opposing this sort of society is central to feminism.
Let’s see: Men get more time in jail for the same crime, have a higher risk of being the victim of violence, tend to lose all the time in family courts and are forced in many countries to become soldiers. These points are fairly uncontroversial. Feminists argue that these are actually just discrimination against women harming men. However, this makes the concept of a patriarchy unfalsifiable and hence useless.
A common argument is that men are more prevalent in positions of power than women and men naturally treat other men better than women. This is from the link to slatestarcodex:
A famous study a few months ago found that faculty offered a female grad student a 12% lower salary than an identical male grad student (again interestingly, female faculty were more biased against female grad students than male faculty were).
Rape Culture: A rape culture is a society which encourages rape in public attitudes and popular culture. I see no evidence to suggest that rape is more tolerated than any other sort of crime („victim blaming“ also occurs with theft, e.g. „Why didn’t you lock your house?“). In fact, the opposite can be said:
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil
I’ll let Scott do the rest:
slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/19/i-do-not-understand-rape-culture/
Prejudice + Power: According to Anita Sarkeesian, you cannot be racist against white people or sexist against men because sexism/racism are based on systems of oppression. This is misguided. Racism and sexism are ideologies, oppression is merely their manifestation. It is rather dangerous to define them that way because that men/whites cannot be victims of sexism/racism assumes that current power structures are static.
Plus, it is collectivist. How does it help a poor white man that people who have the same gender or race as him on average do well?
Cultural Appropriation: Cultural appropriation is basically taking something from another culture that is lower on the "social pecking order" than yours with no real understanding or appreciation. Due to the "Social pecking order", only white people can be guilty of cultural appropriation which is why it is not racist if Japanese people celebrate Christmas without having any understanding of its origins (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_traditions#Japan ).
As I demonstrated in the last three points, the idea of a power hierarchy is nonsense. Plus, it absurdly stretches the term "racism".
Multiculturalism: One of their dumbest ideas. Basically, post-modernism applied to cultures and morality. Morality is culturally contingent, hence you cannot criticise people from cultures other than your own, as this would imply that your culture is better than theirs which multiculturalism rejects. This is stupid for two reasons:
1. If morality is culturally contingent, where do you get a universal „Thou shall not criticise other cultures“ law from?
2. Is the Western culture in the 21. Century superior to the one in the 19. Century? If no, the social justice stuff is pointless. If yes, multiculturalism is wrong.
And while this is not exactly an extra argument, that way of thinking is basically a relative of ethnocentrism and incompatible with the universality of human rights for the same reasons.
They also claim that sexism in Islamic countries is no worse than in the West which the Global Gender Gap Report soundly refutes (though the anti-Muslim bigotry by many antifeminists is still inexcusable).
Since is a social construct: Postmodernism undermines science. Supposedly. Here's King Crocoduck's take on this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4zgDXZaH6I&list=PL969utfM58zhc8Xzo2byAjZkWlTQWUTYc
On the fence:
Microaggressions: Basically, I think they are bad, especially if they come in aggregation. They can feel like bullying. However, I again disagree with the implied power hierarchies, since they can happen in all directions.
Conclusion: I am neither a feminist nor an anti-feminist.
