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The folks over at No, Seriously, What About The Menz are trying to find a way to have their comments be less dominated by what they call “Moby Dickery,” although I think “Ahabists” might be a better name.
I’ve watched this video a whole bunch of times now:
Oh man, that octopus video is spooky as hell. How many octopuses are in the room with you RIGHT NOW? Can you be certain?
“Moby Dickery” may be less accurate, but it’s more fun to say than “Ahabist.” And it sounds like your saying someone is being a big dick, which in the case of concern trolling is often true, and is much more cathartic.
Yeah. Which is why I prefer Ahabist. As someone over at NSWATM points out, “Dicks are good!”
—Myca
Yeah, but Ahab means “love,” and those folks aren’t very loving.
It’s amazing (and by “amazing” I mean “totally not amazing”) how fast comments on a post saying “stop derailing into bashing feminism” derailed into bashing feminism.
Via Pam Spalding on Google+:
NOM should be named a hate group.
Why am I not surprised at where “No Seriously, What About Teh Menz” (NSWATM) is going/has ended up? I visited a few times, and each time, I decided it wasn’t worth my time.
As far as I could tell, the blog was dedicated to the idea that a kinder, gentler feminism (one that never, ever gave Teh Menz a “dope slap”) would be warmly received by the hordes of men that were hostile to the traditional feminism.
The problem is that the core truth of feminism is that women (as a class) are oppressed and men (as a class) receive certain (relative) benefits from the arrangement — this is the point of the phrase “male privilege” (a phrase that at least one founder of that blog wanted to eliminate.) In order to even hear this, men have to give up one piece of privilege: the privilege of being unaware of their own privilege.
And, no matter how you receive this message, or even if you work it out for yourself, it’s going to feel like a dope slap. (This is also true of white privilege — I can still recall one such dope slap I got a few years ago. Educational, but it’s still painful.) And if you’re serious about dealing with your privilege, the dope slaps never stop coming. People can moan all they want about how “patriarchy hurts men, too”, but the fact is, men _do_ have something to lose if patriarchy is dismantled, and the fact that some men think it wasn’t worth what it cost doesn’t change that.
So it’s no surprise to me that the commentariat over at NSWATM mainly consists of men (and a few female sidekicks) who are more interested in defending their state of denial (and thus male privilege) than actually hearing anything the bloggers have to say.
Noah @1: And did you know that the average person will unwittingly swallow EIGHT octupi during their lifetimes?!
AMM @7: To be fair, as I understood it, the purpose of NSWATM was to provide a space to talk about the ways that patriarchy hurts men too, where it would be a separate space rather than doing the “I will now barge into a discussion about sexism and insist we all talk about my penis” thing.
The problem is that any discussion of how patriarchy hurts men is going to inevitably attract the Ahabists who want to talk about how it’s really men who are the victims and man aren’t feminists a bunch of bitches? And so you have to either strictly moderate the comments, or the assholes are going to drive out people (feminist-identified or otherwise) who want to have a meaningful discussion about how, say, we can help boys who are queer-shamed for being decent human beings.
There’s also the problem every group blog has, which is that you don’t always get a unified moderation policy or agreement between the mods that action should be taken, especially when the moderators are active participants in the discussion. (I learned very quickly that at least one of the moderators was a fuckmuppet and that it was best to skip over any thread sie started, even if it was an interesting topic.) So a lot of the bad actors learned very quickly that short of calling for all women to be shot, they weren’t going to get anything other than a ‘hey! cut it out!’ from the mods.
But I do believe that NSWATM was, and for most if not all of the moderators is, meant to be a positive project. I put it in the ‘this is why we can’t have nice things’ category.
Incidentally, Mythago, did you notice that the DoctorMindbeam isn’t part of the blog any longer? There was a brief announcement that he had gone on to other things, and all his posts disappeared from the archive.
I’m with the rest of you – I’ve tried to like NSWATM, but the comment threads are just an ongoing bottleneck of douchekayaks, each with its own Ahabist at the paddle, and people make stupid and appallingly inaccurate accusations, with no one ever calling them out on it.
Not that I blame anyone for not wanting to call them out: when you engage with a troll, you both end up in the mud under the bridge. But it means the comment threads are seriously hostile to anyone who doesn’t call themselves a “humanist”, because those feminist bitches amirite broz?
I feel bad for the earnest people who started the blog, as they did so with good faith goal that would have been lovely. But as noted above, this is one of those “why we can’t have nice things” moments. :/
Mythago @8: To be fair, as I understood it, the purpose of NSWATM was to provide a space to talk about the ways that patriarchy hurts men too,…
It seems to have included other topics, too. The last post I looked at was a repost of “Schroedinger’s rapist,” which was a good article, but I would not say was about how “patriarchy hurts men.” (PHM)
Even those that were arguably on that topic seemed to avoid dealing with how the aspects of patriarchy that harm men actually arise from patriarchy’s sexism and misogyny. This is probably why I got the impression of “kinder gentler feminism.” Evidently, so did the privilege-denying dudes who flocked there.
The thing is, PHM articles evidently aren’t off-topic in most of the usual feminist spaces, because I see them.
I don’t see any hope for NSWATM until they bite the bullet and recognize that an understanding and acceptance of basic feminist insights is pretty much a prerequisite for understanding PHM. And start seriously modding the comments that don’t have that clue.
AMM @11: Sure. But it’s often difficult to have discussions about ‘teh menz’ in a feminist space while walking that line between serious discussion and ‘let’s pay attention to the important issues now, ladies’. So I fully support creating a separate place that is feminist-friendly but not actually feminist-identified to discuss those issues, and to welcome in people who may not identify as feminists but who are concerned about those things.
This has happened on Alas, too… we tried (as people may remember) to have discussion spaces here specifically set aside for, e.g., male survivors, where feminist male survivors and non-feminist male survivors could talk about the issues unique to being a male survivor of childhood sexual trauma in our culture. The conversations ended up being unable to move out of a “feminism sucks” loop–even though the commenting pool was limited to male survivors and the conversation threads were not about feminist analysis. I believe the conclusion was that the conversation couldn’t happen in this space because it’s feminist-identified.
These conversations die for a common reason.
Group A wants to talk about the benefits of _____ generally; they might be willing to actually concede some situations are unfair, but they won’t go there because they’re afraid it’ll weaken their position. And they’re too stubborn/fanatical to concede the problems of ___ until after they’ve gotten agreement on the benefits.
Group B wants to talk about the situations they think are unfair as a result of ___; they might agree that sometimes ___ produces good results, but they won’t go there because they’re afraid it’ll weaken their position. And they’re too stubborn/fanatical to concede the benefits of ___ until after they’ve gotten agreements on the problems.
Interestingly enough, most folks who read this probably put themself in Group A (“they’re on the right side!”) but try putting “current societal structure” in and voila, feminists are in Group B.
And it’s not at all limited to feminism. It’s almost a universal framework for bloguments (my newly invented word, unless someone else beat me to it)
try it on for other things….
RACE
cultural appropriation, in which the “why is this example problematic?” people run up against the “looking at specifics is denying the existence of CA” people;
AA, as above
POVERTY
Welfare, in which the “don’t pick on poor people” folks run up against the “but poor people make human mistakes too” folks (see the other thread for an example of this)
and so on.
I am mildly amused that (as usual in these discussions) the stated problem is that the other side is failing to acknowledge the core truth of the issue. Because we’re Right and they’re Wrong and why are they even wasting our time discussing it, right? Of course, They’re having the same discussions.
There isn’t much wondering on either side about why They feel the exact same way. Or about whether, given that there are a lot of pretty smart people who disagree with Us, we might be, in some cases, less than 100% Right.
Even on each respective board, surrounded by people who are reasonably known and trusted, the long knives break out as soon as people start challenging the neighborhood dogma. Given that people can’t even talk among themselves, how can one ever reasonably expect different board members to converse?
gin-and-whiskey: uh, no, the problem is that rather than discussing the actual issue, there are people determined to hijack the discussion to their particular fixation. Yes, I get how tempting it is for you to play the Golden Mean, but the issue here is not feminists vs non-feminists; it’s about how a space that is supposed to be used for a particular discussion is being appropriated. NSWATM is not a feminist blog. It’s not an MRA blog either. It’s supposed to be a place where those interested in discussing how sexism hurts men can talk regardless of their other political leanings.
That’s interesting. Wonder why his posts disappeared. While I agree with a lot of what several of the other NSWATM contributors write, I tended to find doctormindbeam’s writing to constitute “Moby Dickery.”
Anyway, I support spaces for men to talk about issues that affect men in unique ways, but when feminism is bashed from so much of the mainstream, it’s hard to support spaces that allow (and even sometimes engage in) feminist-bashing. Some of the commentors at NSWATM seem far more interested in demolishing feminism than they do with Addressing The Plight Of Men.
Mythago,
What’s happening there is that fight I described above, but it’s simply being couched in a terms of “this is a derail!”
If the mods take an initial approach that Feminism Is Menz’ Friend then they are functionally skipping over all the actual issues that a lot of folks there want to raise, which question that underlying assumption. Lots of folks think that “We are going to talk about making the world a better place for men, because that’s what we’re actually here for,” INCLUDES anti-feminism.
Calling disagreements a “derail” is common, but not really accurate. At least not if the goal is to find out what people consider to be part of “we are going to talk about making the world a better place for men.”
A lot of it depends on the framing of the post.
A better example:
We are going to talk about making the world a better place for Group A!!
That is to say:
We are going to talk about making the world a better place for Group A!!
We’ll talk about it so long as we stick to a worldview that holds Group B (the other group) to be more severely disadvantaged in general than we are. And, that is, so long as we don’t espouse practices that selectively disadvantage Group B, even though most people are either in Group A or Group B, but not both. And so long as we don’t selectively blame Group B for Group A’s problems. And while we’re at it, we need to be careful not to suggest that Group B’s own dogma (which doesn’t bear as many restrictions) is itself problematic.
Sure, you can call all sorts of things a “derail” But that’s not because things are actually derails. It’s because you’d have presumed that which your opponents want to argue about, thus attempting to foreclose the discussion.
(For what it’s worth, you can put feminists on either Group A or group B here, or that’s my intent. I certainly don’t want to suggest feminism is worse than any other movement.)
And I’m not saying this because I think there’s some brilliant Golden Mean of moderacy out there. I’m saying this because I think that the underlying approach is wrong. The goal shouldn’t be to restrict the discussion topic. That never works: either you talk to people on your own side (wasting time) or spend all your time moderating the borders (wasting your time.)
Instead, the goal should be to find some point of limited commonality, with the very limited intent of getting past the you-first, tragedy of the commons, problem. If you can’t get past that then you can’t really have a functional discussion at all.
But that’s nearly impossible on the internet, because it requires mutual trust. And who trusts anyone, when we’re all essentially anonymous?
Middle-of-the-roadism is an ideology too, G&W; like all ideologies (including mine) it can encourage poor thinking. In particular — as your post very literally demonstrates — ideological thinking encourages people to just fill in the _________s into prefabricated views, rather than truthfully observing a situation.
The bloggers at NSWATM have criticized feminism in past posts, and they linked to and praised “Feminist Critics,” Daran and Ballgame’s blog, in the post I linked to. You claim that they’re “not willing to go there” when it comes to criticism of feminism, but that claim is based in your ideology, not on observation of facts. They ARE demonstrability willing to go there.
Sometimes the truth lies in the middle of the road. But not always.
Interestingly, it seems possible that being anonymous may not be the problem.
OTOH, I’m pretty sure there’s also research out there showing that when it comes to in-person interactions, people wearing masks do act ruder than people without masks. But it might be that wearing a mask in real life isn’t actually a good analogy to the kind of being anonymous we experience online.
(I know this is a bit of a tangent from the discussion we’ve been having, but this is an open thread, after all.)
Oh, Ampersand. You and your monomania, turning every discussion into what it’s like to wear masks.
One: “I say we should beat puppies!”
Two: “I say we should kill puppies!”
Three: “The golden mean indicates that I should advocate severe beatings that stop short of killing! Yay!”
One: “Now that we’ve reached a fair compromise, we should move onto the next issue on the table. It is my sincerely held belief that Two and all people who look like Two are grubbing all the wealth and power and thus we should kill them all.”
Two: “We would rather not be killed.”
Three: “Genocide really does seem rather extreme. How would you feel about severe social sanctions creating a second class citizenry instead?”
(I’m technically not Godwinning because I was writing about a different genocide there, but hey, it turns out these things often have similar structural components. Who knew?)
gin-and-whiskey @19: There are probably female supremacists who think that the world would be a better place for men if they happily accepted the collar of female ownership, but I’m kinda not thinking they would be a welcomed presence at NSWATM. Nor should there be. Don’t you agree?
The problem is not that there are anti-feminists who have a different point of view (although, as you know, there is a difference between ‘not a feminist’ and ‘anti-feminist’). The problem is that certain posters want every topic to be about how feminists are evil and men are always the ‘real’ victims.
Somehow, I think if the problem were radfems turning every discussion into ‘bad things only happen to men because they listen to MRAs’ we wouldn’t have to nitpick about who is or isn’t an Ahabist.
Since the discussion itself isn’t working (as usual) and since the reason that it broke is an all-too-familiar pattern (at least to me) then I think it’s something worth looking into, beyond the individual issues involved.
So whem Amp says
“In particular — as your post very literally demonstrates — ideological thinking encourages people to just fill in the _________s into prefabricated views, rather than truthfully observing a situation”
that’s not it at all. I don’t think that people should fill in a situation into prefabricated views. But they do. So I think that an understanding of the similar processes that result when they do so (especially since they don’t mean to!) is highly relevant in finding a solution.
So as i look at the various threads: In this case, I think that the issue arises from one of up-front defining. yeah, I know, I raise that a lot. that’s because it happens a lot.
The site is putatively trying to discuss “issues that would benefit men.” But it’s not actually putting “benefit men” as the goal of all discussions. Rather, it’s trying to discuss issues which would benefit men in an extremely limited framework, in which they don’t go too far towards attacking certain political perspectives, and in which they don’t go too far towards causing harm to certain groups.
As it happens, one group that the site appears unwilling to harm just so happens to be women, which is, of course, the largest and most powerful “not men” group around by a huge margin. And one political perspective that the site has chosen to protect (at least a bit) just so happens to be feminism–which, absent outright misogyny, is the perspective most likely to (a) selectively target men as being responsible for a problem, (b) selectively target men as being obligated to pay out a greater-than-average social contribution to fixing it, and/or (c) selectively target men as being obligated to accept fewer social benefits, en route to fixing it.*
Nothing wrong with that… if it’s clear. So in my view the problem isn’t just (as Amp put it)
Rather, the first and most major problem is that the blog concept is insufficiently developed. What does “benefit men” mean if you’re trying to be feminist, or to avoid being antifeminist? How can you talk about selectively benefiting men and not be antifeminist, if feminist principles suggest that you must selectively benefit women, on average?
After all, treating men and women equally is logically antithetical to feminism*, just as treating whites and POC equally is antithetical to AA, and just as treating rich and poor equally is antithetical to social justice. In fact, there was a fascinating appeals court case recently, in which a Michigan law that basically said “the state may not treat people differently on the basis of race” was held to violate the equal protection clause. Same idea here, and no that is not a mistype.
The rest of the problem is that the blog concept is not accurately conveyed to the posters. If they’re actually trying not to be antifeminist, then that blog concept is a lot closer to Amptoons or Feministing than it is to Feminist Critics.
Those are both great blogs, and much more interesting than FC in my view. There’s nothing wrong with setting limits on a blog, like you do here. That works out pretty well. But it works BECAUSE you and the other mods have made it pretty clear what you’re willing to discuss here, and what you’re not willing to discuss here. That blog hasn’t taken those steps: the authors need to do so.
The third problem–that there are posters talking about stuff which the authors think is irrelevant–stems from the first two problems. once you have decided what the blog’s about, and once you have set those limits out in a reasonably intelligent fashion, moderation is a lot easier.
And the pattern that I see is that people are focusing on the third problem, and ignoring the first two problems. But all that focus will likely be for naught unless they deal with the other ones.
*The second two are logically implied, FWIW, by the simultaneous claim of inequality and a goal of equality. You logically cannot turn inequality into equality if you treat everyone equally. You either need to actively take from the rich/privileged, or selectively give to the poor/unprivileged. And although there are many divergent versions of feminism, they all share the two tenets of “women are disadvantaged relative to men” and “that should be fixed.”
I’m seeing so far at least 3 rather different impressions of the purpose of NSWATM:
#7 (AMM): the idea that a kinder, gentler feminism … would be warmly received by the hordes of men that were hostile to the traditional feminism.
#8 (Mythago): to provide a space to talk about the ways that patriarchy hurts men too,
#24 (gin-and-whiskey): The site is putatively trying to discuss “issues that would benefit men.”
Those are rather different goals, if you think about it.
In particular, if your goal is to discuss “issues that would benefit men”, you’re going to have a hard time arguing that MRA arguments don’t belong. After all, “benefit men” is not inconsistent with “screw women over” — in fact, a lot of guys would consider that the first requires the second.
Even “patriarchy hurts men” is not inconsistent with sexism and misogyny — one can imagine rearrangements of patriarchy that eliminate certain kinds of harm to men and yet leave women in as bad or worse a position as we have now.
One thing that all three versions of the NSWATM goals share: they implicitly or explicitly extend a welcome mat to privilege-deniers and MRAs, sexists and misogynists. Thus, the Moby-Dickery is entirely to be expected.
AMM @25 – I’m not sure I get your final point; I can see how the third formulation of NSWATM’s goals (“things that benefit men”) could be viewed as friendly to MRAs and privilege-deniers, but I can’t see how that works for the other two; it seems to me that not matter how kind or gentle a feminism is, in order to be any type of feminism it must be based on an acknowledgement of the existence of male privilege, and any discussion on how the patriarchy hurts men requires acknowledgement of the existence of a patriarchy.
This being an open thread:
The what about the menz blog notes that “Sexual equality is not a zero-sum game (i.e., you don’t have to decrease one group’s rights in order to increase another’s)”
I’m curious: Do y’all agree with this? Do you think, as I do, that it makes no sense? Or is the assumed workaround to improve society so much that we can selectively allow benefits to accrue to certain groups, without actually “taking” anything from the remaining people?
g&w … What are the rights you think men lose when women gain more rights? I’m hard pressed to think of any.
Yes.
No.
I think the idea that gender conformity is a zero-sum game in which one person’s gains are another’s losses is obviously wrong.
Think of our current system of enforced gender conformity and gender prejudice like a massive, socially enforced game of Russian Roulette that we’re all playing all the time. We can bicker about who pulls the trigger how many times, and who, statistically, hits on bullets the most, but what feminists really want to do is stop playing the fucking game.
Alternately, think of the difference between mercantilism and capitalism. Read The Family Trade series by Charlie Stross. Understand that we all do better when we all do better. Understand that having an enforced underclass is part of why it was worse to live in feudal England than modern day England … even if you were lucky enough to be nobility.
Finally … if it’s really a zero-sum game, that means that somehow, it would have been better for ‘men’ if there had been no Marie Curie, no Jane Goodall, no Rosa Parks, no Ada Lovelace, no Emily Dickinson, no Dorothy Parker, and no Meryl Streep. And that’s nonsense. We need more smart, talented, committed, creative people, not fewer.
This isn’t about, “improve society so much that we can selectively allow benefits to accrue to certain groups,” it’s about allowing broad access to human rights and broad access to civil liberties, and broad access to freedom to as many people as possible is how we improve society in the first place.
—Myca
G&W conflates “rights” and “benefits” in his comment; the two may overlap, but they are not the same thing. I don’t think sexual equality is a zero-sum game when it comes to rights–especially since rights exist independently of whether or not people are permitted to experience them–but I think it is true that as you move towards equality, you by definition decrease the benefits that accrue to the group whose interest inequality serves.
I’m not, FWIW, suggesting that my point is inherently a reason for men to be antifeminist. I’m still in support of changes (though admittedly I’m a bit grumpy about it at times) even though I am a member of the losing group.
But I would like to stick to that one issue first.
Do people claim that you can
1) start with inequality;
2) treat everyone equally; and
3) end up with equality?
If so, can you explain the logical process by which it would work?
[mildly edited to desnark]
Let’s say i concede those two topics for the moment: can you address the issue of rights/benefits?
Those aren’t what i’m talking about. And they’re not necessarily zero sum games.
Do you mean that an equal society is superior to an unequal one? Sure! But that isn’t my point. The issue is how you GET to an equal society, starting from an unequal one.
Seriously? Yes, that’s nonsense. But that is not what I said.
I agree that those are good things.
How, precisely, do you plan to get there? And in the various improvements to human rights and liberties: will you focus on providing an equal amount of improvement to all members of society, irrespective of their situation? Or will you focus on selectively improving the lot of those who LACK those rights and liberties?
Presumably you’d do #2; most folks would. Which is all well and good, but which isn’t the same thing as treating everyone equally.
You’re right! (no pun intended) though I didn’t intend to.
Well… I agree that theoretically rights aren’t zero sum. But generally when people are advocating for or against rights in the political movement context, they are functionally advocating for or against the benefits which accrue to people who possess the rights, and/or the costs to people who would be limited by other people’s rights.
As a technical matter rights are a very specific thing. In the practical context I’m discussing, they’re functionally darn similar to benefits.
but let’s stick to using “benefits” for now.
Well, I really meant benefits, as RJN has kindly pointed out :D
But just for fun, I’ll try to think of one.
Hmm. It’s mostly the things that accrue to those rights. For example, if you decide that women should have the right to equal representation in all types of employment, and you therefore selectively promote the hiring of women/discriminate against men (basically the same thing in this context), then you are making it RELATIVELY harder for men to get a job in certain fields than it was, before you got involved.
“But wait,” you may say, “Men shouldn’t have the right to better employment opportunities! They’re no more deserving of those jobs than women are! Men can’t gripe about losing something they were never entitled to in the first place!”
And that’s entirely true.
But what is also true is that you can’t fix the problem without taking something away from men, or selectively giving something to women. (Which, from a “is this equal?” standpoint, are both the same. Not equal.) It’s a relative analysis, not an objective one.
Mythago’s summary of what NSWATM is here for is the most accurate. Patriarchy hurts everyone; it is a negative-sum game. NSWATM primarily focuses on the way patriarchy harms men, the same way most major feminist blogs primarily focus on the way patriarchy harms women.
Doctor Mindbeam has left the blog; he took down his posts, which I find sad, but it was his decision.
G&W, benefiting one group does not necessarily mean harming another group. For instance, fighting the stereotype that men are horny beasts always up for sex benefits men (male rape survivors are no longer told they don’t exist) and women (women are no longer told that if they arouse men they can expect to be raped). Encouraging men to seek mental health help benefits men (they get treated when they’re depressed) and women (being around a depressed man who can’t seek help is hardly pleasant– and having a partner or friend commit suicide is itself traumatizing). Keeping little boys from being bullied for being feminine benefits men (they don’t have to pretend to be something they’re not to avoid being bullied, they’re less likely to be bullying victims) and women (“feminine is bad” is a major source of misogyny). Et cetera.
Gin-and-whisky – While I agree that correcting inequality requires unequal treatment, I don’t share your evaluation of this situation.
To me, it seems that your view focuses on short-term benefits rather than long-term ones. True, in order to exist in a more equal society, it would be necessary to allow the underprivileged groups to advance faster that the privileged ones. But I don’t view this as a sacrifice; it’s an investment. I believe that an equal society has benefits for everyone involved (to name one, once equality has been achieved, a true meritocracy can be established). The priviliged may have to pay more for it, but, being part of society, they will ultimately gain, not lose. Now, of course, this works on a group basis – if I am passed over for a job because it’s felt they already have enough white men, then sure, I may have been disadvantaged, and I doubt I’ll live long enough to reap the benefits of societal change – when I’m talking long term, I’m talking generations. But that’s a seperate issue, that’s true of any ideology that favours social values over individual ones – what’s good for a group is not necessarily good for each member of the group.
Now, of course, this works on a group basis – if I am passed over for a job because it’s felt they already have enough white men, then sure, I may have been disadvantaged, and I doubt I’ll live long enough to reap the benefits of societal change – when I’m talking long term, I’m talking generations.
I would argue that men are already seeing benefits from women’s participation in the workforce, namely that when a man loses his job, it is much less disastrous for him and his family than it would otherwise be.
I feel like I can be sympathetic to what men lost with the decline of the breadwinner/king of the castle type model. When my husband was in grad school and spent a lot of time at home with our son and I was the primary financial support for the household, my life was certainly easier on the days he stayed home. I could leave for work, work as long as I needed to, without worrying about any household duties. I knew everything was taken care of. That was great. And I felt fairly entitled in terms of spending money/making financial decisions. I consulted him, but ultimately, I felt like I was in charge. But the flip side is that when one person is responsible for the financial welfare of the family, it puts a lot of pressure on that one person.
This might be easier to first discuss w/r/t privilege (of any type, and in any combination.)
Privilege is inherently a zero sum game, insofar as it’s purely relative. You can cure any disparity two ways: by raising up the underprivileged group, and/or by pulling down the overprivileged group.
Once the privileges are equal for whatever measure you’re using, then there isn’t any more relative privilege.
But in this context, it should–I hope–be obvious that you can’t treat people the same, and still expect that there will be any change in their relative privilege.
Can we get agreement on that, at least, before we move on to feminism?
ozymandias @34:
I assume you’re the Ozymandias who is one of the originators of NSWATM, so you would know what its goals are better than the rest of us.
However, I stand by my original criticism (comment #7): there are certain realities — facts about our society — which happen to also be the facts that feminism is built on. “Patriarchy,” in particular, is a name for the reality that society is set up to benefit men (as a class) at the expense of women (as a class), where of course, these benefits need not be seen as “benefits” by everyone in the beneficiary class.
If you deny this reality, then any discussion about “patriarchy” is going to devolve into nonsense, sort of like discussing mathematics while denying or questioning that 1+1 is 2. And, no, I’m not going to try to “explain” it — if you don’t already get it, I’m not going to try to roll that stone up your cliff.
Unfortunately, NSWATM seems to want to talk about how “patriarchy hurts men [too]” without requiring anyone to face up to this fundamental fact. Since the alternative to facing up to it is denial, NSWATM is basically extending a welcome mat to sexism- and misogyny-deniers and, ultimately, MRAs. I don’t see how this is going to change until the blogmasters change their conception of their blog.
I agree that in many cases, it’s not going to be possible to treat people the same and expect a change in the relative privilege. However, this is not always the case. For example, in a society where one group is literate and another illiterate, you can address this specific aspect of privilege by treating the two groups equally, and teaching children that belong to both grounds to read. Similarly, in a society where heterosexual marriage is legal but homosexual marriage is illegal, you can solve this particular inequity by treating both groups equally.
Certainly, there are cases of privilege that cannot be fixed by such measures – cases where one group controls a limited resource, or where there’s a self-perpetuating power imbalance. But even in those cases, there are often ancilliary benefits to the old power structures being broken that benefit the previously privileged group *as a group*, even if they don’t benefit every individual member.
gin-and-whiskey @27: you are also conflating “gains and losses” with “zero-sum game”.
A zero-sum game is one in which any benefit to one player is offset exactly with a corresponding loss to another player. We are dividing up a pie between us, and every piece of pie you get is a piece of pie I don’t get.
This is not synonymous with ‘gains/losses’. You get another piece of pie, but we agree that this means we will bake a much larger pie, so while I am getting fewer pieces I end up with more pie overall. Or, I realize that all the extra pie is doing a real number on both my energy level and my ability to fit into my pants, so I’m actually happier and healthier letting you have a fair share. Or, I realize that hogging all the pie makes me a selfish and unfair person, and I don’t want to be that, so I’m happier making sure we both get a fair share of the pie.
But to use that example, this actually doesn’t work the way that you’d think. Groups with high literacy rates read more anyway, because their parents and social setting both encourage literacy. If your goal is to get them equal, you need to even out that imbalance.
I suppose that in theory you could just get such kickass reading instruction that it wouldn’t matter whether your parents were illiterate. But in practice that isn’t how it works.
Sure. And by doing so, you remove whatever benefits may accrue to het couples (if any) from having marriage restricted. You also take specific legal action which is designed to benefit only one group.
But those are secondary.
let’s go to two of the core tenets of most (all?) feminisms, which I mentioned above:
1) women as a class are disadvantaged compared to men as a class; and
2) that needs to change.
But add to that the unique lens of most (all?) feminisms, which is
3) when evaluating change, do your best to avoid increasing harm to women, and do your best to prioritize womens’ needs.
This makes sense: it’s not communism, it’s FEMinism.
And sure: it may be that there are secondary/ancillary effects of feminism which end up benefitig men. those certainly aren’t the goal, though–and frankly, they’re rarely explored enough to make them serious contenders as a balancing act for the other stuff.
Yes; that’s how privilege works. For any individual privilege (or for any combination combined) you could theoretically line up every human in order of his/her privilege. Then you can swap orders, or move people around. But you can’t change someone’s relative position without affecting others.
Here’s what I’m noticing:
I am making a particular point based on a particular logical assertion.
Everyone with the exception of RJN seems to be doing their damndest to engage anywhere but there.
So, I’ll ask again:
Please explain to me how you can get Underprivileged Group (poor, POC, women, disabled, you name it) to a place of equality with Privileged Group, without selective and differential action.
You seem to be implying that you can do that–at least, you’re disagreeing with my assertino that it doesn’t work. But you aren’t actually explaining how. Please do.
The bizzare thing here is that in context you seem to be suggesting (am I reading you wrong?) that these examples don’t result in your ending up with less pie. But they do.
gin-and-whiskey @41: Yes, you are reading me wrong. How on earth do you get “fewer pieces but a bigger pie” translating into “less pie”? The whole point of that example is that I have traded off more pieces of a smaller pie for fewer pieces of a bigger pie, and ended up with equal or greater pie than in the first case. The only reason to fuss about that scenario is if my only real goal is making sure that I get more pie than you.
As for the other examples, the point of those is that ‘quantity of pie’ may not be the only metric for whether or not I am benefiting. I lose some in the pie area but gain more in other areas. It is not a zero-sum game unless we pretend that the only relevant consideration of whether I ‘win’ is the absolute quantity of pie that I eat.
So to translate this into real-world terms, the zero-sum argument assumes that if I give up a particular privilege or unfair benefit, that I get nothing in return, and that it doesn’t matter if giving up privilege X results in me getting ten times the quantity of benefit Y.
G&W, I think I’m doing my damndest to engage with your assertion, though perhaps my damndest isn’t good enough.
So let me say this – under your apparent definitions of what counts as “selective and differential action”, I agree that it is impossible to get an underprivileged group to a place of equality with a privileged group without such action. But that’s because it seems to me that you seem to classify any action that leads to a differential result as a differential action. And since, as we both agree, equalizing and inequality is a differential result for the two groups involved, your definition makes it logically impossible for any other path to take place.
I don’t question your logic. I question your definition; I think whether or not an action should be defined as “selective and differential” depends on the nature of the action, not on the nature of the outcome. If I make peanut butter brownies and offer them to two of my friends, I have treated them equally. If it turns out that unbeknownst to me, one of them had a peanut allergy, the results would be quite unequal. But my actions would not be.
So, essentially, I accept that you’re right, given the way you posit the question. What I fail to see is how positing the question in that particular way gives us any useful insight.
Comics Alliance has a review of the new Ultimate Spiderman (the one that exists outside the “main” continuity) …you know, the Spiderman that is now a mixed-race kid named Miles Morales. Apparently, Bendis is doing a great job writing touching, human moments (which is what a great Spiderman story is about, anyways.) Their review is here.
I read Ultimate Spiderman #1, and I agree with the review — it’s pretty good, but it’s also too short to be satisfying.
OTOH, I think there’s an artistic advantage to the slow pace. Most origin stories in comics are really rushed — they want to fit in where the powers come from, what motivates the character, and their first outing in the costume all in one issue. This is taking it a lot slower — in issue one, we do see where he gets his powers from, but that’s all. Other than the front cover drawing, we never see him in costume. I think when the entire six-part storyline is done, it’ll be better for not being rushed.
Also, there was no fight scene anywhere in this issue, which seems to me like an amazing break from formula. Is that even legal in a superhero comic?
No, that’s the opposite. You can absolutely get unequal results from an equal action.
You can get unequal results in three general ways:
1) Start with equal groups and treat them differently; (see above)
2) start with unequal groups and treat them exactly the same; and
3) start with unequal groups and treat them differently without balancing their differences.**
Now, before you protest: There’s a bit of a semantic argument going on in some of the replies to me, in that some people like to say “we’re treating the groups exactly the same; it just so happens that it balances everything out.” To use an economic example, it would be like saying “we’re treating all citizens the same by guaranteeing food and shelter, so we’re not acting in a way that disadvantages the rich.” But such an argument misses the fact that you’re doing more for one group than another, which isn’t strict equality. “Applying the same rules to everyone” isn’t equal treatment if the rules are different inside.
Equality requires BOTH that the rules are applied identically, and that they treat people identically.
Right!
Well, do YOU think of feminism as inherently advocating for a loff of benefits by men, in favor of giving more benefits to women? Or do you only (like many folks, i think) normally consider it to include the second half?
Changnig your view would be a useful insight, I think.
I think that girl at the Christian school got a raw deal. If sexual orientation was an issue for them it should have been made clear up front. Apparently it wasn’t. I think it was wrong for them to force her out. Given the various opinions among Christian denominations regarding human sexuality and the expression thereof, it’s not something that I’d consider obvious.
Gin-and-whisky – I think where the differences lie between use are the following:
A – You are focusing on immediate effects. Take my “teach everyone to read” example from earlier. You point out, rightly, that it will not solve an inequality among the first generation it is applied to. But I never said anything about it working right away. I’m saying that, if applied consistently over generations, the gap will eventually close. A slow solution is still a solution.
B – You are treating all cases of privilege as if they are based on limited resources. I don’t think we disagree about what happens when a limited resource is involved. But there are plenty of cases of privilege that involve different kinds of inequality. Have a lot at Ampersand’s Male privilege checklist; a lot of the items on it are attitude-based, not resource based, and there the logic becomes far less clear. Take #43 – “If I am heterosexual, it’s incredibly unlikely that I’ll ever be beaten up by a spouse or lover” – what is the limited resouce in this case? I would argue that the primary way to address this inequality is through education – make it clear to everyone that violence is not acceptable within a relationship. Now, this could be done unequally (take all the boys and teach them not to be violent, take all the girls and teach them self defence), but I would argue that doing so is a double-edged sword, since it addresses things on the surface level but it also gives the unspoken message of “boys, it’s natural for you to want to beat up your partners, and you need to supress that urge”. A better solution, in my opinion, would be equal education (teach everyone not to be violent, teach everyone self defence). Do you think, in this case, that this is unequal treatment? Or that it cannot at the very least decrease the gender gap on this issue?
Well, you asked to leave feminism out of it and only debate the general point. I think you are definitely right about some aspects of feminism – the ones, as I said above, that are resource based. I’m arguing against your logic applying to *all* cases of inequality, not to specific ones.
It certainly would. When I say that I’m not clear on how your argument contains useful insight, it is because I’m not clear on which of my views it’s supposed to be helping me change, or how.
The immediate effects are more real.
First of all, they’re the effects that will happen to the people who you’re discussing the issue with.
Second, because they’re immediate they don’t suffer from the issues arising from trying to predict the future. Which, of course, we’re damn bad at. You can tell someone that they should take one for the team so that their descendants will have a better life. But in most cases that’s just a hope, not a reality.
Complete open thread non sequitur:
I wasnt to start a threaded discussion board online for my school, so that parents can easily work out things like “what was the homework?” to “can anyone drive my kid to soccer?”
Free is good. Simple is good. i’m not an expert at this stuff.
It has to support multiple groups (separate by grade, and by class within a grade.)
Any suggestions for a hosting site?
thx
@Amp – I heard there was a lot of grousing at the 3.99 price tag for a 20-page comic (which I think is justified, especially if you have a limited comics budget,) but I agree – an origin story should have those small, human moments. Without it, you get the deluge of 90’s anti-heroes that were all big guns and angst.
Since we’re talking about comics, have you picked up any of the new 52 from DC? Me, I couldn’t be less interested with what I’ve seen. They outdid themselves by making Amanda “The Wall” Waller a petite, big-breasted woman – you know, to show diversity – and now Barbara is Batgirl again and walking without anything being said other than after she was shot a “miracle” happened.
Suicide Squad #1 was just purely mediocre all the way through, and redesigning Waller sucks.
I thought Batgirl was okay. I think it was a terrible creative decision to “cure” the character at all — but the story itself was competently written and drawn, without being super-memorable. I assume that we’ll hear more about the source of the so-called miracle in coming issues.
I did read two of the “52” that I’d honestly recommend, though. Batwoman #1 is completely worth reading; the story might be good (still too early to tell), and the artwork is stunning. And Animal Man #1 was very good, too — attractive (and not generic) drawing and good writing.
G&W, I’m sorry, but I don’t know anything about that either.
gin-and-whiskey @51: Dreamhost is fantastic for all things webhosting, and allows free installation of things like phpBB and WordPress.