I do believe that some countries are skewing the results, but the ratios across the board are worrying.
Though this could be due to the phrasing of questions. “Do you define yourself as a feminist?” Is a question that by its very nature is going to skew towards a negative result. I personally hold very strong feminist values and promote them openly, but would still struggle to agree that I ‘define’ myself as feminist.
Feminist is such a loaded term too, after decades of vilification by right wing media. My mother would happily say “oh yes, of course I support equal rights for women, but I don’t think I’d call myself a feminist.” (Now, whether what she believes is equal rights is actually equal rights is a different question.)
if you read feminist literature, a lot of it vilifies itself and is little more than hating on men and trying to control women by dictating to them how to behave to be a ‘good feminist’.
there are also many feminist movements that just hate men, or hate trans women, or hate pregnancy, etc.
feminism isn’t a monolith and ‘equal rights’ means very different things to different branches of feminism, which often hold contradictory definitions of what womanhood is and what women’s liberation is.
Could you specify one feminist text that you’d say is a good example of this hating on men and controlling women? This description doesn’t match what I’ve read but I’m interested to see if there’s a side of feminist thinking I’m not familiar with.
Hmm have you actually read anything by her? Her conclusions are unpleasant but her reasoning is rock fucking solid. I highly recommend watching This clip of a panel interview she takes part in to get a sense of her argumentation style. She feels completely honest and to me she seems disturbed and upset by the trends she has seen. And you can watch another male writer mean mug her the entire time, it’s honestly kind of hilarious how visibly pissed off he is. If you watch the entire interview you get to hear their exchanges too, fun to watch if you’ve got some time to kill. I thought she came across very well in an extremely hostile room, even if I think she’s ultimately missing some human element in her analysis.
Anyway, not the example I was hoping for, I think she’s a popular punching bag that is actually far more nuanced and interesting than people give her credit for, often because they haven’t actually interacted with any of her work.
Yes. I studied in in college. There is more to an argument than solid reasoning. Some of us are interested in the consequences of the conclusions and what they entail or imply. All sorts of rock solid arguments can be made that lead to horrible and awful conclusions in politics or sociology. The Nazi regime had solid solid reasoning too dude. Their conclusions were also ‘unpleasant’. But I’m not sure you’d be eager to endorse them for their reasoning?
Her takes aren’t that interesting or nuance when you think them through. And a lot of her followers are TERFs and such. Again, not exactly who you’d want to endorse either, I’d hope.
Add Judith Butler and others. Rad feminism and extreme queer theory often leads to conclusions of violence, hate, and superiority complexes. And frankly, a lot of the people who follow these views… take on a far more crazy version of it than the original author even intends. I think Butler is actually better than her followers, but they lean into the problematic issues of her work and tend to answer those problems with calls to violence and hate rather than… thought. Butler also never really provides a positive apparatus, she just seeks gender as this trap we must condemn even though we can’t escape it, which sounds deep I guess but pragmatically it’s nonsense.
The problem with non-violent, more moderate takes on gender and feminism stuff is that it doesn’t inspire people. People like being angry and condemning others. They don’t like takes that force them to realize they too, are at fault and that for ever ‘liberation’ they undergo, they also lose something.
I can’t blame Nietzsche for what the Nazis did with his philosophical writings any more than I can blame Dworkin for TERFs. All I can ask of a philosopher is solid reasoning about interesting concepts. I won’t concede that the Nazis had solid reasoning though, their ideology was all over the place, self-contradictory, and self-serving.
Dworkin took a set of observations to their natural reasonable conclusions. I think her biggest philosophical “crime” is not recognizing that her conclusions don’t feel true for most women. For example: Yes, the way women are raised in our society makes consent a complicated topic. Yes, generally, sex without consent is rape. But the conclusion that sex in our society is rape doesn’t feel true. For me, that indicates something is missing. She’s got a problem caused by the language and our definitions of consent or of rape (maybe baggage about rape having an intent, a perpetrator and victim). I don’t think that makes her a hater of men, a bad actor, a bad philosopher, or someone not worth reading. There is a kernel of truth there worth examining even if the language makes the discussion more difficult than it needs to be. Forcing people to engage with her ideas because the conclusions are so shocking is a strength in my opinion. Just like Nietzsche saying “god is dead” got everyone freaking out in the 1800s.
I have so many problems with poll questions. A question that expects a yes/no answer is never going to produce useful results, because the correct answer is “it’s more complicated than that”.
feminist has no clear definition anymore. it’s an empty term with little agreement on what it stands for.
feminist in the 70s, and first wave stuff, was clearly defined. feminism in 2020s could be really anything. They are feminists who think 1950s gender roles are ‘liberation’. And lots of conservative women think they are feminists now when they argue that a woman’s role is to be a homemaker and mother and having a career is wrong/bad.
Here is the article from Kings College with a link to the full results:
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/almost-a-third-of-gen-z-men-agree-a-wife-should-obey-her-husband
I do believe that some countries are skewing the results, but the ratios across the board are worrying.
Though this could be due to the phrasing of questions. “Do you define yourself as a feminist?” Is a question that by its very nature is going to skew towards a negative result. I personally hold very strong feminist values and promote them openly, but would still struggle to agree that I ‘define’ myself as feminist.
Feminist is such a loaded term too, after decades of vilification by right wing media. My mother would happily say “oh yes, of course I support equal rights for women, but I don’t think I’d call myself a feminist.” (Now, whether what she believes is equal rights is actually equal rights is a different question.)
if you read feminist literature, a lot of it vilifies itself and is little more than hating on men and trying to control women by dictating to them how to behave to be a ‘good feminist’.
there are also many feminist movements that just hate men, or hate trans women, or hate pregnancy, etc.
feminism isn’t a monolith and ‘equal rights’ means very different things to different branches of feminism, which often hold contradictory definitions of what womanhood is and what women’s liberation is.
Could you specify one feminist text that you’d say is a good example of this hating on men and controlling women? This description doesn’t match what I’ve read but I’m interested to see if there’s a side of feminist thinking I’m not familiar with.
Andrea Dworkin
Hmm have you actually read anything by her? Her conclusions are unpleasant but her reasoning is rock fucking solid. I highly recommend watching This clip of a panel interview she takes part in to get a sense of her argumentation style. She feels completely honest and to me she seems disturbed and upset by the trends she has seen. And you can watch another male writer mean mug her the entire time, it’s honestly kind of hilarious how visibly pissed off he is. If you watch the entire interview you get to hear their exchanges too, fun to watch if you’ve got some time to kill. I thought she came across very well in an extremely hostile room, even if I think she’s ultimately missing some human element in her analysis.
Anyway, not the example I was hoping for, I think she’s a popular punching bag that is actually far more nuanced and interesting than people give her credit for, often because they haven’t actually interacted with any of her work.
Yes. I studied in in college. There is more to an argument than solid reasoning. Some of us are interested in the consequences of the conclusions and what they entail or imply. All sorts of rock solid arguments can be made that lead to horrible and awful conclusions in politics or sociology. The Nazi regime had solid solid reasoning too dude. Their conclusions were also ‘unpleasant’. But I’m not sure you’d be eager to endorse them for their reasoning?
Her takes aren’t that interesting or nuance when you think them through. And a lot of her followers are TERFs and such. Again, not exactly who you’d want to endorse either, I’d hope.
Add Judith Butler and others. Rad feminism and extreme queer theory often leads to conclusions of violence, hate, and superiority complexes. And frankly, a lot of the people who follow these views… take on a far more crazy version of it than the original author even intends. I think Butler is actually better than her followers, but they lean into the problematic issues of her work and tend to answer those problems with calls to violence and hate rather than… thought. Butler also never really provides a positive apparatus, she just seeks gender as this trap we must condemn even though we can’t escape it, which sounds deep I guess but pragmatically it’s nonsense.
The problem with non-violent, more moderate takes on gender and feminism stuff is that it doesn’t inspire people. People like being angry and condemning others. They don’t like takes that force them to realize they too, are at fault and that for ever ‘liberation’ they undergo, they also lose something.
I can’t blame Nietzsche for what the Nazis did with his philosophical writings any more than I can blame Dworkin for TERFs. All I can ask of a philosopher is solid reasoning about interesting concepts. I won’t concede that the Nazis had solid reasoning though, their ideology was all over the place, self-contradictory, and self-serving.
Dworkin took a set of observations to their natural reasonable conclusions. I think her biggest philosophical “crime” is not recognizing that her conclusions don’t feel true for most women. For example: Yes, the way women are raised in our society makes consent a complicated topic. Yes, generally, sex without consent is rape. But the conclusion that sex in our society is rape doesn’t feel true. For me, that indicates something is missing. She’s got a problem caused by the language and our definitions of consent or of rape (maybe baggage about rape having an intent, a perpetrator and victim). I don’t think that makes her a hater of men, a bad actor, a bad philosopher, or someone not worth reading. There is a kernel of truth there worth examining even if the language makes the discussion more difficult than it needs to be. Forcing people to engage with her ideas because the conclusions are so shocking is a strength in my opinion. Just like Nietzsche saying “god is dead” got everyone freaking out in the 1800s.
I have so many problems with poll questions. A question that expects a yes/no answer is never going to produce useful results, because the correct answer is “it’s more complicated than that”.
feminist has no clear definition anymore. it’s an empty term with little agreement on what it stands for.
feminist in the 70s, and first wave stuff, was clearly defined. feminism in 2020s could be really anything. They are feminists who think 1950s gender roles are ‘liberation’. And lots of conservative women think they are feminists now when they argue that a woman’s role is to be a homemaker and mother and having a career is wrong/bad.