I was going to title this post ‘What feminism taught me’, but it doesn’t seem that feminists are much into teaching so much as they are into decreeing. Case-in-point, I had a Facebook discussion with someone who went to town defending the feminism mantra ‘Shut up and listen!’ My objection, first was that that isn’t how adults have a conversation. Shutting down the speech of one side in order to validate the speech of the other side is just asinine. But to make things worse, this was all in response to a white guy calling bullshit on the mantra. And why does it matter that he was white? It shouldn’t, but in the feminist world, being a white guy who disagrees with any aspect of third-wave feminism is ‘privileged’* and ignorant. Indeed, what feminism told me this weekend was that adults should treat each other like children, especially if one of those adults is white and male; a view becomes all the less worthwhile based upon the sex of the person saying it. (You’ll never believe it, but when I called out this blatant definition-of-the-very-concept-of-sexism sexism, there was little agreement to be had.)
I’m going to have more on this soon, complete with specific references. I just wanted to throw this out here now because I found it so incredibly irritating that a person would devote time to fighting against the degradation of views on the basis of sex when it comes to women yet engaged in that very same type of degradation when the speaker was male.
*The word ‘privilege’, of course, has become a code to indicate an outsider.
Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: Feminism |
For the Sake of Science 
“Shut up and accept my argument” is a sadly common tactic in many debates, but feminism is one of the few areas where it seems to be accepted and even expected to succeed.
Of course, that can only happen if men are tricked and shamed into accepting this as legitimate discourse.
Hi I am a radical feminist if you want to know more about it you might try the blog Rage Against the Manchine as long as you are respectful the author is pretty open to questions and male commenters and she has a great anti porn series. I wouldn’t say that objecting to white men is just a third wave thing though. It does bug me that some men think they know feminism better than women when it is our movement and some men just give off that vibe and it is frustrating for feminists to explain the same basic ideas of feminism over and over when they are freely available on the web or being intent on tearing down their arguments before you even know what they are. The privilege does exist whether you realize it or not and reverse sexism like reverse racism is not a thing. Females are a globally oppressed class. As a science based blog I would think you are familiar with the evidence of rape as a weapon of war and the psychological effects of demeaning media and pornography on women. I found your blog because lately I am really sick of some feminists touting pseudo science like telling me alt medicine will help with my chronic fatigue lol. I am offended to basically be told I am ‘falling for’ patriarchy if I support evidence based science. This does not mean all the feminism is invalid to me but it is shocking how many are supporting pseudo science when women are being actively discouraged from a young age from rewarding careers in science. That is a sexism issue there. Alt med preys on the most vulnerable of society particularly people with chronic illness like me. Thanks for being pro science as I believe pseudo science hurts women there is a site called the Skeptical OB and Hurt by Homebirth which are particularly good examples of this. Here is a particularly fear mongering article by a popular liberal feminist site which is the kind of crap I am talking about: http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/02/health-impact-of-toxic-chemicals-in-communities-of-color/
Okay, but do you know what else is a weapon of war? Killing. And who gets killed in huge numbers in war, only to be told that the ‘real victims are the widows left behind’? Three guesses.
Radical feminism needs to clean up its act and adopt some more evidence-based methodology if it wants to be taken seriously by skeptics. Just shouting ‘patriarchy and privilege’ won’t do it in the science-based community.
What one feminist is telling you: stop selling out women to prove your manhood.