"The Toxoplasma Of Rage", an excellent essay[0] by Scott Alexander, points out that sadly there are only two choices for activists today - behave nicely, gather universal agreement to their cause and then get completely ignored, or draw attention to their cause by being so hated by everyone, that half of the audience starts working against the cause just in spite.
I know what you're saying but it isn't true. Let's look at 2 examples, the LGBT community and Feminism.
LGBT celebrates its differences. It welcomes everyone. It is open minded and tolerant.
Feminism bullies, ridicules, excludes, creates us/them divides and is continually hypocritical.
You could not have 2 more different different approaches. You don't need to be a bully. You don't need to threaten or ridicule or divide.
A few (repeated examples) to highlight my point. Matt Taylor bullied by large numbers of feminists for wearing a shirt designed by a woman, showing women wearing bikinis. Do women wear bikinis? Yes. Yet, he was mercilessly attacked by at least 10,000 radicals.
Domestic violence. It's repeatedly reported as a man thing (note: someone close to me was stabbed by his wife while she was high on drugs - but it wasn't domestic violence.. As the media says, that's only a man thing). Also note the absence of mental abuse that goes almost ignored.
Code.org who didn't bother to put a link to encourage boys, but explicitly put one to encourage girls on their main page. This was no accident - they have a quota to meet, apparently at any cost. Mind you, this could equally be attributed to political correctness.
I greatly respect how the LGBT community has embraced most people to support their cause without alienating anyone or demanding ridiculous quotas. I am totally gay friendly. Yet, I strongly oppose feminism. I believe in equality, but not equality for one gender or skin colour or sexual orientation.
I respect movements that embrace differences rather than reject them. Bullying is not required.
Now you're elevating a vocal subset of "feminists" to represent the entire group. There are plenty of old-school feminists, from when feminism was about equal rights. They just don't create as much internet drama as the other kind, so you hear about them less.
Its hard to disregard that subset here in Sweden when there a government that self-identify itself as feminist.
Several years ago there was a initiative to create equality in education. Any student that was a minority in their class received a minor bonus as an incentive. The initiative was however deemed a failure when it was realized that the majority of student fulfilling the requirement was men and not women. Afterward it was sent to the courts which promptly declared the initiative as discriminative against students who weren't minorities. Now only a short time ago a new initiative was suggested by a government study, with the primary difference from the old one being that it will now only apply in studies where men are the majority.
So excuse me for having a hard time finding those old-school feminists that talks about equal rights. The only time I saw one was in a opinion piece a year ago where equal rights was described as the "old" feminism movement, and I saw a lot of hatred directed at her rather than support in the comments.
> So excuse me for having a hard time finding those old-school feminists that talks about equal rights. The only time I saw one was in a opinion piece a year ago where equal rights was described as the "old" feminism movement, and I saw a lot of hatred directed at her rather than support in the comments.
That was my point: the people most active in online discussions do not necessarily represent a majority view. They are simply the most vocal. Talk to people around you - family, friends and coworkers. Does a significant proportion of them share these beliefs?
The people most likely to comment on matters like this in online discussions are people with extreme opinions on them.
I cannot comment on the swedish initiative as I'm not familiar with it.
The issue is that different races and even different value systems are ... different. In more than skin color.
The implication of that is that in any given pursuit, true equality will not create proportional representation. (And common sense tells you that fixing that with incentives is impossibly complex and therefore will never be achieved)
Ironic, too, because the worst part of $hypothetical_feminist_subgroup is that if you disagree with the policy prescription de jure (say, spending $3 trillion annually on pre-K education) then they will hit you back with an accusation that you are a terrible misogynist who doesn't acknowledge the fundamental dignity of women as human beings. Don't aid and abet this rhetorical crime.
The extremist/radical subset aren't just overly "vocal" though. Their behavior causes real world negative consequences for a lot of people (women and men). That's pretty hard to just shrug off. Like it or not, they appear to be the face of the modern feminist movement. Radical islam has the same issue. Is radicalism the minority? Or course. But when the media (social or mainstream) continues to shove the radical message in people's face over and over... well you know.
Reducing feminism to extremists who co-opt the term feminism is the same as holding up "Islamist" terror groups as a representation of all Muslims. Initiatives to bring up a group that has is underrepresented have to be explicit about welcoming people outside the current reigning majority, that's not discrimination, it's an attempt for equality.
Actually, in addition to the sibling comments notes about plenty of non-bullying feminists that just perhaps aren't as visible, there are plenty (and highly visible) LGBT activists who will be just as bullying as you claim feminists, distinct from LGBT activists, are. The same is true of.pretty much any movement that has a political, or more generally "how people should act", aspect.
You're actually sort-of proving the point of the essay. Just like Scott contrasts well-known and hated PETA to decent but almost completely invisible Vegan Outreach, you're contrasting toxic Social Justice Warriors to friendly neighborhood LGBT people who just want to feel safe and accepted by society as equals. The second group is not the one known from the media, or the one directing the public discourse.
Noting a difference does not imply intolerance. You can be inclusive and still call a spade a spade; the issue is whether you respect others regardless of their race, gender, sexual preferences, religion, et cetera, and offer them the same opportunities. Talking about the way things are with respect is not an issue, and should not be an issue.
I have a gay friend activist that claims that there are no bisexual people and that gay republicans are in perpetual state of self hatred. LGBT has ita hardline factions too.
I have a gay friend activist who held such beliefs when we were both in college. At the time, groups of gay men were going around and yelling at bisexuals and calling them "fence sitters." I even received a bit of attention like this. Angry young 20-somethings, projecting half-baked ideas onto you and yelling at you about extremely significant and intimate details of your inner emotional life -- always So Very Helpful!
Both womens rights and LGBT right sit at a strange point in history. The bad behaviour has largely become socially unacceptable, but a lot of the people who committed crimes are still extant in society. We have collectively decided to forgive and forget without any kind of process. Why should we expect the anger to just disapear?
I understand that crimes have been committed against the LGBT community (including prosecution of Turing). But crimes based on women's right ? Do we base them on the same scale ?
This kind of argument kind of baffles me. Surely you're aware that women have suffered violence as a result of their lack of rights, aren't you? For large parts of history, domestic violence against women has been ignored or joked about, or in some places explicitly made legal. Until relatively recently, spousal rape wasn't even considered a crime.
I guess there's this notion that, pre-feminism, women had fewer rights but were otherwise left alone and unharmed, in peaceful domestic spaces. But that's really the wrong way of looking at it. Prisoners in solitary confinement are left and alone and not physically harmed, but no one would say they aren't suffering. The way women have historically been denied access to the public sphere and convinced of their inferiority is itself a kind of imprisonment, and it's a massive crime.
I am not sure why we need to assign a badness rating to this kind of thing. And people should not need to equivocate based on some sliding scale of injustice. Anger does have a role to play in changing society. It just gets tricky when people base their whole world view and identify on a single issue. Feminist views are interesting and elucidating but need to be read with a critical eye. Of course a lot of the victims will have no choice in how profound these issues are to them so it is best to be forgiving.
Brendan Eich was forced to resign as CEO of Mozilla by the LGBT movement because he supported this: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."
>LGBT celebrates its differences. It welcomes everyone. It is open minded and tolerant.
While I find them more tolerant on average, this is not true of the entire group and they do not welcome everyone.
>Domestic violence. It's repeatedly reported as a man thing
Haven't recently studies found that lesbian couples are the most violent and among heterosexual couples the violence is far more equal than public perception?
Calling people out on their bullshit isn't bullying.
When the effect is merely to pressure, and not to convince, then in that particular context, people who may have been legitimately oppressed have (temporarily) become the oppressors.
The difference between calling people out on their bullshit versus bullying is this: In "calling people out" -- people are shown their self-contradiction in such a way that they are given a chance to better live up to their moral system. It becomes bullying when people are only vilified, placed in an irredeemable category, then effectively punished in some way.
> When the effect is merely to pressure, and not to convince, then in that particular context, people who may have been legitimately oppressed have (temporarily) become the oppressors.
Putting pressure on someone to behave themselves isn't oppression. You can't possibly have gone through life without seeing actual oppression.
> It becomes bullying when people are only vilified, placed in an irredeemable category, then effectively punished in some way.
Nobody is irredeemable; but some people don't want redemption. When people refuse to behave themselves, they get shunned. This is a normal human defense mechanism.
You can't possibly have gone through life without seeing actual oppression.
I have, in actuality, been the subject of ethnic/racially based harassment, to the point where the police got involved. (The perpetrators were caught, but I was pressured by the police to not file charges.)
I grew up in a part of the country where the family had to drive 45 miles to visit with friends who were also asian, but not the exact same ethnic group. Yes, I know a little about actual oppression. Yes, there were other weird group hazings I experienced in my youth.
When people refuse to behave themselves, they get shunned. This is a normal human defense mechanism.
The default human reaction is to label the different as the wrong and the other. The normal human defense mechanism, when not properly cultivated and educated, is precisely the psychological foundation of oppression. I know this first hand.
Do you know why the Freedom of Speech is enshrined in the US Constitution? It's precisely because normal human defense mechanisms result in the outright oppression of those with different points of view. And it's precisely this sort of lack of self-awareness and self-examination that allows normal people to take on the role of oppressor.
Being excluded from a group is a pretty severe penalty, emotionally. Our instincts associate group membership with survival. Membership in groups can have significant impacts on the quality and status of contacts.
If wearing a t-shirt once can make others feel uncomfortable and not included, and this situation is wrong, then it is also wrong to permanently or too severely sanction the t-shirt wearer. Such a situation should be discussed calmly and resolved.
Actually, what you call "calling people out" is literally indistinguishable from bullying. You justify bullying another person with "bullshit" qualifiers from a imaginary moral high-ground while in reality being no better than the bullies you grew up with middle school.
> Yet, I strongly oppose feminism. I believe in equality, but not equality for one gender or skin color or sexual orientation.
That means you're a feminist. I'm sorry you're not able to get your definitions straight.
I disagree with that definition. I think that view means the parent poster is an educated, rational person. Are you sorry for me as well?
>The topic is about violence. Feminists aren't violent; in fact they're a reaction against gender-based violence.
This is board with many nerds. It is fair to say that we have all been bullied to some degree. Bullying may not be violent to the degree that it physically hits people over the head, but it is far more violent than anything feminism complains about.
And Doctor Matt Taylor was bullied for what clothing he choose to wear. By feminists.
> Bullying may not be violent to the degree that it physically hits people over the head, but it is far more violent than anything feminism complains about.
Anything? Like rape, beatings, and murder? You have some listening to do, friend. In fact, your comment is a perfect illustration of the fact that misogynistic men are bitter because of their experience of being shunned or ignored by women -- essentially the non-act of not getting loved -- while women are afraid of getting abused, raped or murdered by men; acts that happen in communities all over the world.
Not all men; but the minority that do are poisoning the well. If a woman didn't risk slander, abuse and rape she would be free to be flirtatious and gay, but if she's experienced that, she will put up her guard, and rightly so. Responding to that with more bitterness and slander, well that's just rushing down the spiral.
People want to have fun with each other. But if one has interactions with 100 others every week, and even one of them threatens you, then you will be threatened every week. Racism and sexism exist and is carried out by a minority, but that doesn't mean that you won't meet it constantly throughout your life. If you don't have that experience, then you are privileged. But since you haven't seen the other side of the coin, you will think that those who do are hysterical and exaggerating.
One of the most stereotypical cases of bullying is to be openly mocked and made fun of in front of your peers for a perceived difference. There's no violence involved in that.
Have a look at what constitutes bullying [0]
Violence is but a subset of it.
Unless we were to water down the definition of violence to include any manner of ridicule. At which, you're diluting the definition of violence under the guise of staying steadfast on the definition of bullying necessarily including violence.
There has been an extraordinary semantic creep of the term "violence" under feminism. Everything they don't like is classified as violence, from one's mere gaze, to so-called "cyberviolence", to one's body posture, tone of voice, lack of social deference, or any other perceived arrogation of status.
That is incorrect. Dictionary definition: "Persistent acts intended to make life unpleasant for another person."
So if I followed you around HN for the rest of the week responding to all postings/comments with insults and browbeating, that would be completely non-violent but still bullying.
I mean if we're going to use that definition, then the shirt itself was harassment.
Or is it just if I'm oblivious to the harassment I cause & don't care to find out, then it's somehow morally superior to someone repeatedly and strenuously asking me to stop?
>>I mean if we're going to use that definition, then the shirt itself was harassment.
I'll just assume you meant "bullying" instead of "harassment" since that was the immediate topic.
From my brief research it seems Matt Taylor wore the shirt because he liked it, not with an intention to harass women, so it fails the intent clause of the definition. And it appears he only wore it once, so it would also fail the persistence clause. Thus it wouldn't be bullying by that definition.
I suspect that wearing that shirt would qualify as harassment under some definitions, such as US workplace law. And I personally think it's in terrible taste in most contexts.
How is wearing a tacky bowling shirt "persistent acts intended to make life unpleasant for another person"? Can you, at the very least, point to that person?
Isn't that an apples to oranges comparison? The LGBT community isn't a sociopolitical belief-based community, it's a community defined by its members' inborn state. You can't bully someone in and out of being what they are.
Feminism, on the other hand, is a sociopolitical movement, based on a particular understanding of history and what the future should look like. Sociopolitical movements (for example, the various anti-LGBT movements out there), can bully because they are trying to change society's beliefs.
Sociopolitical movements (for example, the various anti-LGBT movements out there), can bully because they are trying to change society's beliefs.
But it's not bullying that changes a society's beliefs. It's commerce, coexistence, and exposure which does this. If anything, bullying can produce the opposite of the intended effect. Pseudo-activism can be recognized by the primacy of outrage in its actions. Pseudo-activism actually thrives on the generation of outrage among the "enemies." This in turn generates more outrage on "their" side in a (literally) vicious cycle. When observing activists, ask yourself -- What has primacy: a moral message, or the generation of outrage? Hateivism lives through outrage, and it optimizes the maintenance and generation of more outrage.
[0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/