Comments on: How About Lieutenant Feminist Third Class?

By: Julian Sanchez

Julian Sanchez — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:14:19 +0000

Liz-
Well, I certainly didn’t mean to *endorse* the view I alluded to as the uniquely correct feminist view. Just that some people appear to believe that it is. I suppose on reflection I’ll take back the first half of the previous comment: To the extent that “feminism” describes an important and positive tradition, I too would prefer that this kind of narrow definition not win out, at least insofar as it would spare us the trouble of coming up with another term to describe someone who’s in favor of gender equality but rejects this sort of simplistic reduction of sexual display to male power.

By: Julian Sanchez

Julian Sanchez — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 03:34:03 +0000

I didn’t meant to give the impression I would be “hurt” if some particular definition of “feminist” excluded me from the category. If my underlying views remain the same, why should the outcome of a semantic dispute concern me either way?

“Decoder ring” and “junior auxiliary whatever” are indeed meant to poke a bit of fun at the whiff of tribalism I caught emanating from some of those comments. It’s not exactly meant to be “kind,” but neither do I see that it bears especially on my “trajectory” toward gender equality. And “hairy-legged man-hater” is preceded by its identification as a crude stereotype; I’m not sure what’s supposed to be objectionable about that.

By: elyzabethe

elyzabethe — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 20:03:21 +0000

“… but certainly if you harbor any reactionary doubts about whether strip clubs are intrinsically and necessarily an unconscionable form of exploitation, you may turn in your decoder ring.”

I was going to say that I don’t think that’s exactly true or fair. And there are tons of self-avowed feminists who would disagree with that statement, commenters at one feminist blog nonwithstanding.

Of course, then I realize that I’m operarting under that precarious position where I’m defining a proper viewpoint on things as the way that me and some other people I like see it, a Brink-Lindseyian “no-no-no, everyone really IS such-and-such they just don’t know it” inclination like Kevin mentions above …

But I still think the strip club statement isn’t true or fair. I hope not, at least. I’d like to keep my decoder ring.

By: Janus Daniels

Janus Daniels — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:01:36 +0000

“… fear that displaying any kind of fluid or protean sexuality may feed social conservatives’ belief that anyone can just “choose” to be hetero…”

1) They are not social conservatives; they are homophobes. They dignify their bigotry by calling themselves social conservatives. We (and real conservatives) shouldn’t.

2) To fear that some of us might have a choice of our gender lends credence to bigotry. It implies that we have some fearsome reason to not choose minority gender.

3) The idea that choosing our gender has moral significance requires that our gender has moral significance. It doesn’t. I now choose to reverse my sexual polarity (or race, religion, language, whatever). Alakazam! How does that have any moral signigicance? It has no moral signigicance, and we shoul act like that. If you can choose your gender, congratulations & enjoy it.

4) Extreme doctrinaire positions do more damage to proponents than to opponents; feminism is only one example.

By: tigrejones

tigrejones — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:11:14 +0000

Oh good sir! Please do not assume that commenters on a blog represent the “majority” of a movement of any kind-they mostly represent the majority of people commenting on that topic. William is perfectly right that every movement has about as many opinions on who is “in” as there are people in the movement.

Also, you are clearly hurt by the implication that you would not be a feminist, which is a good thing, but your use of terms “decoder ring” “junior auxillary whatever” and “hairy-legged man hater” are a bit, unkind? reactionary? defensive? In any case, not really setting you on the trajectory (as aftercorbu puts it) to gender-equality.

And William, haven’t we learned anything from Kramer vs. Kramer? I suppose I can only speak for myself, but I advocate (as a feminist) equal parenting time if both parents are equally good parents. The tradition of moms taking custody would only encourage men to not be involved with their kids and moms to not get jobs. But I’m sure a mom in a divorce will sacrifice ideals of equality if it means getting to spend more time with her kid(s)…I bet most people would sacrifice a lot of ideals for that.

By: William Newman

William Newman — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 17:24:30 +0000

“Aren’t you opposed to rigid gender roles and double-standards?” Mm, if you took that literally enough that it called for opposition to conventional female prerogatives in child custody disputes, I wonder what proportion of feminists you would find.

By: Tony

Tony — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 14:22:39 +0000

A good example of the problems of the feminist movement is when the word patriarchy appears. When I read that, I reflexively begin to discredit what I’m reading or hearing. It’s clear that we’ve moved beyond equality and into a blanket search for all the ways men oppress women. And all men are in some way complicit in the perpetuation of the oppression.

I always figured it’s better to tell someone how to achieve something better than why they’re so horrible. Count me into your sentiments on feminism.

By: Kevin B. O'Reilly

Kevin B. O'Reilly — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 04:11:13 +0000

Feminism is not unique in possessing these contradictory impulses. Some libertarians go around claiming that anywhere from 15% to a majority of voters share their views or are “instinctively libertarian” or something like that. Meanwhile, others want to toss Randy Barnett out of the libertarian camp because he favored the Iraq war. I mean, you want broad acceptance of your viewpoint but at the same time you want it be *your viewpoint* — not something so watered down that it is meaningless.