There are all kinds Feminist movements and ideologies - Wikipedia of feminism. Forgive the wiki link, it’s just the easiest way to show a bunch of the schools of thought I can think of.
1 Like
I don’t think anyone’s argued that all men are entitled pigs but I’d suspect some people are starting to draw some conclusions about you in particular on the basis of your straw men and ad hominem arguments.
If you can’t characterize the arguments of others fairly then don’t expect your own arguments to be taken seriously.
5 Likes
I agree, but “oppression” in a social justice context is often used as a technical term with a very specific meaning somewhat divorced from the colloquial meaning.
I’m not sure if “the worst of the bunch” is an accurate description of the people who work within this framework. It is my understanding (from talking to a NY university grad student in a related field) that if you do women’s studies at a university level, you will learn this “privilege” / “oppression” calculus. I am happy to stand corrected since the following is based on my impression rather than hard evidence, but from my vantage point it seems like the statement “a man cannot be oppressed on account of being a man” is a truism of contemporary academic feminism.
This is why I’m slightly annoyed by Scalzi’s post. He’s writing not only from a perceived moral high ground but also from a perceived position of “superior understanding” (since he’s not one of those people losing his rationality when he hears the term “privilege”). I don’t think he actually knows what he’s talking about and what precisely he is defending. His motivation for the post is admirable, but his willingness to discount any criticism as “geek hysteria” is not very constructive.
1 Like
You know, in considering my response to your post, I had a few ideas for different approaches. I thought I might run each one by you, just for shits and giggles.
-
“No, YOU’RE a bullshit argument”.
Heh heh heh. -
I could try to explain the same shit that’s been debated ad nauseum in this thread over the course of the 126 posts above, just because you’ve arrived late and picked me as your mark for some reason. Nah, stuff that.
-
I could just ask two simple questions.
Firstly, do you agree or disagree with the proposition as stated:
“The kind of abuse that these men were getting would be as bad as if it was a male boss doing the same to female employees.”
Secondly, Why?
I’m all fucking ears.
Something about your tone just to brought to my mind the image of Dane Cook manically pantomiming ears sprouting all over his body and I laughed.
(I should note that about the only thing that I find funny about DC is his mannerisms.)
1 Like
Am I right to assume that you yourself would disagree with the proposition?
You are. For the reasons stated above and then elaborated upon significantly below.
It would be as bad if it was a male boss doing it to females or a male boss doing it to males, a transgender boss doing it to women,… whatever. Inappropriate behaviour is inappropriate whomever the players happen to be. Not being subjected to sexist (reducing a group of people to a gender characteristic wether it be “penis” or “sugartits”) and derogatory language in a professional environment is a right. A right applies to everyone regardless of social position, gender, race or creed. If you suggest that having one’s rights violated is somehow less bad for those you consider privileged (also sexist as you don’t consider the individual but make this assessment solely based on gender) you are pleading for what amounts to a classist justice.
I agree women are subjected to this kind of nonsense more than men, that’s a societal problem. However the fact that this larger problem exists has no bearing on the seriousness of one particular incident to one particular person. Each of these cases should be treated equally if we want a truly fair society.
2 Likes
I guess this is where we veer off into serious ethics… rather than try and launch into this discussion (for which I am frankly unqualified), I would like to point out that you can probably make a convincing argument on either side, and add as a snarky comment that if the situation is completely clear cut for you, then you probably haven’t thought about it enough.
Your argument is close in spirit to the idea that “two wrongs make a right”, i.e., what you are saying is that “two wrongs make a lesser wrong”. I think I would agree with you when you analyze the situation from a social point of view (e.g., in order to inform social policy), but I would disagree when viewing a situation from an individual point of view (e.g., when determining how much we should disapprove of the woman’s action).
Would you also feel the same if the offense wasn’t harassment, but something more serious, for example, domestic abuse or rape?
1 Like
My main problem with Scalzi’s metaphor is that it’s such a gross simplification of the real world. In some contexts, being a woman is practically impossible, as there is so much going against you. In others, there isn’t a huge amount of difference between the opportunities you have. The main difference here is the way people treat women and not the fact that they are women, so it’s almost useless as a comment apart from saying that, in general, women, homosexuals and minorities have it harder than if they were SWM in the same place.
So that’s “Straight White Male” for you in The Real World (and also, in the real world): The lowest difficulty setting there is. All things being equal, and even when they are not, if the computer — or life — assigns you the “Straight White Male” difficulty setting, then brother, you’ve caught a break.
He’s artificially separated those factors as crucially defining how easy your life will be. In reality, they may be huge factors, or they may be dwarfed by the other ‘stats’, most of which he hasn’t mentioned. Compare living in Germany to living in Ukraine. All things being equal, I’d rather be in Germany. In fact, I’d rather be on difficult mode in Germany than on easy mode in Ukraine. Gender, race and sexuality are factors, but often no more so than family upbringing, culture, political stability of your country, access to services, wealth, class, education, accent, etc. These are often interconnected, but I seriously think the language of privilege confuses the issues less than this metaphor and is less likely to have a negative response.
3 Likes
If I’m completely honest I can concede that my statement “The men can go out into the world and be all nicely privileged again, women can’t” is a little careless.
More concisely, I mean that this type of behaviour must be considered with reference to broader gender issues.
And on that basis I completely disagree with your argument.
Comments of a sexual nature by men directed at women in a work environment need to be considered differently, because of the sexual harassment, violence and other issues that affect women generally and dis-empower them. It is only fair to see it in this context. This notion of a level playing field is a conceit, and it really is bullshit.
1 Like
I’m on record here in other comments above, pretty clearly, and I really don’t want to go over it all again.
However, just to re-iterate, I don’t think any of these issues are cut and dry. And I certainly wouldn’t make jokes about violence against men.
But we are talking about men being referred to as “Penis” by their female boss, an insult that references their privilege.
What do you think that a similar insult directed by a man in power to a female subordinate would imply? Can you really divorce gender politics from these interactions?
2 Likes
I read through your other comments in this thread and I didn’t find an answer to my question. Did you refer to your comments in another thread?
Would you agree or disagree with the proposition that “A man raping a woman is as bad as a woman raping a man.” and why?
Can you really divorce gender politics from rape? Many - specifically those in favor of patriarchy theory (I’m not sure what to call it really, so maybe this is the wrong term) - will assert fervently that you cannot: “Rape culture” is a direct result of the patriarchy.
Let me explain where I stand: I feel the same way about both rape and harassment in this situation. With regards to social questions, there is reason to treat them differently (men raping and harassing women is a bigger problem then the other way around, so more resources should be directed at reducing it), with regards to individual harm and culpability, they are equivalent. A female rapist is just as deranged as a male rapist. A male rape victim suffers as much as a female rape victim. Do you see this differently?
1 Like
6 Likes
I answered it above. I think rape is just as bad in either case, but if 90% of rape victims are female, you can’t really argue that gender is distinct from the problem. And I think checking harassment directed at female employees is part of directing “more resources” at “reducing it”, that is by decreasing the objectification of women.
Ok, I think we’re basically in agreement then. But why would you say that for rape, both directions are equally bad, but for harassment one direction is worse than the other?
To make it abundantly clear. You disagree with the proposition:
“The kind of abuse that these men were getting would be as bad as if it was a male boss doing the same to female employees.”
But you agree with the proposition:
“A man raping a woman is as bad as a woman raping a man.”
What do you feel is the difference between the two cases that makes you come to different conclusions? In neither case gender is distinct from the problem. In both cases, men perpetrating against women is more common than women perpetrating against men.
1 Like
Yes, and while I tend to disagree with some aspects of the “privilege / oppression” framework, the people who use it do have a more subtle understanding of the issue than Scalzi. This is summarized, broadly speaking, by the term “intersectionality”.
In Scalzi’s metaphor, “intersectionality” would mean that difficulty is not a single slider but a number of sliders. You don’t just have “man / woman” but also “white / black”. I agree with this, but where I differ from “intersectionality theory” is that I think some sliders don’t have an “easy” side and a “hard” side, but what is easy and hard may well depend on context. E.g., given some life starting conditions, your expected difficulty as a man can be harder than your expected difficulty as a woman. I think this happens, although it is rarer than the opposite.
1 Like
I’m pretty sure robulus agrees with both propositions, when considering the individuals involved and the injustices they suffer (or deliver) in the specific instance. But he disagrees that these propositions are true in cultural context and relative to broader gender experiences. That’s my read on robulus’ comments anyway.
The comment that sparked actual debate in this comment thread was “…this story is going to give all those ‘Men’s Rights’ guys something to whine about for months to come.” This comment is about the kooky groups who try to turn individual injustices against men into the same kind of widespread, systemic inequality that women face. The comment does not belittle or deny the specific injustice in the individual instance that this article reports on.
And that in a nutshell is where most people like robulus and those who are arguing with him here (including myself) stand on the issue. There is no difference between any individual acts of abuse, in terms of what the individuals involved suffer or do. The personal “badness” is the same. But culturally and systemically speaking, they’re worlds apart. One is a relatively stand alone event (a woman abusing a man). The other is part of a longer running, embedded and more frequently encountered trend (men abusing women). This is not meaningless to the whole picture, and so it’s a pain in the ass when kooky “men’s rights” groups try to paint it that way. Make sense?
2 Likes
Going back to the original point… I’m just going to assume she was called a cunt once too often and decided to show all the guys what it felt like. Or something like that.
(I don’t know whether she should be sued, though. Committed, possibly. But you know what they say, if you want to work in publishing, you should be committed.)
It plays out in the real world, too, wherein, statistically, more women suffer the abuses of men than vice versa. That is as real and every day as any individual (whatever the gender) suffering their own personal injustices. Systematic oppression is not theoretical.
We are all equal under the law, and no one is arguing that we shouldn’t be. As I mentioned above, the comment that got all of this going was someone saying that “Men’s Rights” groups would use this to advance their non-existent cause, because white men - as individuals - can suffer anything and everything just like any other individual, but there is no “Men’s Rights” movement because “movements” are for when whole groups are oppressed or abused systematically and/or culturally. So it would be bullshit for “Men’s Rights” groups to use this example for their bullshit cause, but they probably will anyway, which is what was being pointed out and criticized. The men who had to suffer the slings and arrows of their lady boss are not being criticized or dismissed. They have every right to sue and not suffer the abuse that they have suffered, just like anyone else.
1 Like
