This is it! The place! For what you want! How you want! Good linking! Self linking! Crap that’s been moved from other threads where it was off-topic! It’s all here! I’m so excited!
My vacation continues, by the way. It keeps on snowing and looking very pretty, but it isn’t sticking. But the fire is warm and I feel terribly relaxed. Unsurprisingly, there will be fewer links than usual in this link farm.
(Via Womanist Musings:)
- White people policing young white men who dress “too” “black”
- Damn, I miss Hilzoy. Read her response to the argument that it’s a good idea for the US to invade other countries to “liberate” the residents. “Saying that the problem is that we lack the wisdom and virtue to do this is like saying that the problem with the USSR in the 30s was that Stalin was not sufficiently wise and virtuous to really make totalitarianism work for the people of Russia.”
- Gender Presentation, Disability and Intersections
- A bit of perspective: July 1863 rioting in New York City.
- What’s wrong with saying that Donny Osmund is Blacker Than Michael Steele. (Click through to Global Comment to read the whole thing.)
- The increasing meaninglessness of the term “Anti-Israel”
- Why Huckabee can’t win the Republican primary — and why whoever beats him can’t win the general.
- On the subject of “useful” advice given to disabled people
- Reappropriate examines anti-Asian bias in college admissions: Part 1, Part 2. While you’re there, check out the spiffy new superhero-themed blog header.
- Is getting rid of lead paint empirically the most successful anti-crime policy of all time? (And see here, as well.)
- Fat people are underrepresented as governors. I liked the word “Flintstonian.”
- Schrodinger’s Rapist. “When you approach me in public, you are Schrödinger’s Rapist. You may or may not be a man who would commit rape.”
Ooo! Me, me, me! Today, 32 years ago, the Apartheid government banned 18 organisations and 3 newspapers. It feels strange to call a woman a ‘woman’ and not a girl. And I don’t like it when your lifestyle choices affect my budget.
Joy-Mari Cloete
I like the “woman” one. I’ve often seen newspapers make this mistake – a boy becomes a man the moment he turns 18, but a woman is still occasionally referred to as a girl through her early twenties.
@Silenced is Foo: absolutely. It’s funny that we rarely notice that, unless someone points it out to us.
The last few years, I’ve been making a very conscious effort to call women “women,” and it still takes work. You’re absolutely right that we need a female equivalent of “guys” and that “gals” is not it. Because truth be told, I rarely call men “men,” but neither do I call them “boys.”
but a woman is still occasionally referred to as a girl through her early twenties.
Heh. I’m 41 and still get called a girl sometimes. If I complain about it I’m told it’s a compliment. To my youthfulness and all (yeah, right…as they used to say back when I really was a girl.) I’ve taken to referring to the person calling me a girl as a fetus. Especially if they’re younger than me.
@Dianne – well, it’s one thing when it’s done IRL, but a whole other thing when a journalistic publication makes the mistake.
The U.S. Attourney General uses his speech at the Anti-Defamation League to discuss hate crimes against Muslims.
@Silenced is Foo: Too true. Newspapers need to update their style guides. These guides need to urge writers, editors and sub-editors to use sensitive language.
when a journalistic publication makes the mistake.
Might be interesting to see how often journalists referred to Clinton as a girl during the last presidential primary versus how often they referred to Obama or Edwards as a boy.
No newspaper style guide calls for someone over 18 to be called a girl. That it happens occasionally reflects the fact that it’s so normalized it doesn’t always jump out at the writer or the editor.
Re: #1, I like her point about white culture being defined in the negative (now someone explain that to Glenn Beck), but I’m sort of with the commenters who think that sagging pants are just a bad fashion choice. Morehouse, an elite historically-black men’s college, recently attracted attention for its establishment of a dress code that bars inappropriate attire. The media’s focus is on the prohibition of “cross-dressing,” but a friend who is an alum thinks that the intent was to regulate “the 2000 students that wear baggy jeans and other ‘hip hop’ attire. When I went to Morehouse, we had to wear a suit twice a week. This is coming back home to ‘dear ole Morehouse.'”
Re #5, I thought this stereotype — “In many inner city areas, there is a belief that speaking grammatically or getting good grades is acting White.” — had been debunked?
Re #9, I am doubtful that she is correct in saying that college admissions and student demographics have not changed since 1997. Hopwood, Prop. 209 and Gratz have all limited public universities’ ability to use affirmative action, and the Latino population that was of college age in the last decade has increased significantly.
Re #10, I had the same reaction as the commenters to the post who said, “Didn’t we just hear this about abortion legalization?” Personally, I think the availability of jobs for young people has the most significant effect on their crime commission rates, which is another reason to be anxious about the very high current unemployment figures for 18-25 year old men who are not in school. Lead abatement should be done because lead poisoning robs our society of the potential of those children affected, not because those kids are doomed to a life of thuggery.
@7, the discussion of hate crimes against Muslims was a few paragraphs in a fairly lengthy speech.
Popped in to say thanks for the link love and blogwhore a bit.
Poor Rush Limbaugh is a Victim of Reverse Racism: No the right are drawing ridiculous cartoons depicting Limbaugh as a victim of racism.
Indigenous People Demand Respect: Looking at the protests surrounding the celebration of Columbus day.
Cartoon Wrongs: The depiction of rape as comedy and why this is damaging.
Need A Halloween Costume, Dress Up As Octomom: Once again the ridiculing of Nadya Suleman, yet we claim to respect women’s choices.
@Chingona: You’re right and yes, such usage has become normalised. It says a lot about our society, eh? I should’ve said that media organisations should make a bigger effort at preventing biased language. I still see too many gendered pronouns in news articles.
How’s “ladies” as a replacement? The problem that I can see is excessive formality or an antiquated air, definitely not a “guys” equivalent.
Via Paul Krugman’s blog:
The Very Separate World of Conservative Republicans
A must-read.
Chingona – what’s wrong with “gals”? Other than it’s kind of Midwestern and folksy. :) I habitually use “gals” to refer to groups of women in parallel with refering to groups of men as “guys.” I *am* trying to be more mindful about using “guys” as a collective noun, thanks to an essay in Bitch Magazine – I find I default to “folks” or “y’all.
#1 was interesting. I think most older white people would be afraid to confront a young man of color about his dress because they’d assume the man might become violent.
However I thought the author’s final comment kind of threw me by making the claim that the condescension and hate was less pronounced toward white subcultural dress, including goth. Having worked as a family therapist for many years, I’ve seen epic loads of spite, condescenscion, and pathologizing language directed at adolesents who dress goth… by PROFESSIONALS. The way they’re treated by parents and teachers is worse. I’ve personally seen physical violence directed against adolescents and adults dressed in a goth/industrial style, men and women alike – objects thrown from cars, provocative/aggressive body language, invading personal space, body-checking, messing with personal possessions, and outright assault. Stuff that goes way beyond the criticism, lecturing, and racist comments the author was identifying.
A commenter mentions that back in the day, walking down the street dressed like a punk could effectively amount to taking your life in your hands.
My belief is that punk/goth/industrial looks, even when they don’t involve men wearing makeup, violate gender norms for men because there is so much attention to details of dress like hair, accessories, etc. which are supposed to be things only women (and gay men) attend to. It’s not uncommon to hear the word “fag” leveled at these guys. I think the women get attacked and assaulted for daring to violate conventional norms of attractiveness.
#8 – Feministe addressed the issue of advice-giving a while back. I’ve forwarded that on to people a lot more than I’m happy about.
#11 – beware the comments. Shapely Prose didn’t think much of the methodology behind the post, either.
I’ve seen a lot of dislike of goths in sf fandom. Whatever is going on, it isn’t about men taking too much interest in what they wear– other sorts of costuming are welcome.
I’m guessing it’s about fear of depression, but since the people who don’t like goths talk as though their reaction is a natural and inevitable repulsion, this is only a guess.
I was ready to dump all over that “Schrödinger’s Rapist” post, but after reading through it I have to confess it makes a lot of sense.
White kids dressing black; we’ve had issues with kids in the Scout Troop wearing their pants sagging 1/2 way down their ass. I’ve corrected them, as have the other leaders, but I never looked at it from an issue of “dressing black”. It was more of an issue of “looking stupid as hell”. It’s also an issue of not being able to be active; Scouts run, climb, etc., etc. And then there’s the whole concept of “uniform” as in “all the same”.
I think it just looks stupid and is non-functional to the point of being a safety issue.
One of my felllow leaders told me that the style was adopted by male homosexuals in prision advertising that they were looking for a sexual partner. Seems kind of odd that such a thing would end up becoming a fashion statement, so I have a hard time crediting this. Can anyone shed some light on that?
Because that weather balloon family wasn’t pathetic enough, it turns out they’re also homophobes!
RonF,
Snopes says that’s an urban legend, although their statement of the origin is that it did arise in prison, but because prison-issue clothes often don’t fit correctly, and inmates aren’t allowed to have belts lest they use them as a weapon or a suicide tool.
Ladies occupies an oddly oxymoronic position – depending on the context, it’s either overly-formal or a kind of loud dated New Yorkese (think Jerry Lewis or Danny DeVito
@15,
Thanks, that was very interesting. I realized that most of the Republicans I know who still identify as Republicans — i.e. who voted McCain/Palin last year and who aren’t currently calling themselves “libertarian” — do have beliefs that put them into the conservative Republican description, even though they might have characteristics that don’t fit the type (e.g. they are college or grad school educated; non-white; non-religious).
They see any kind of health care reform as a victory for Obama that they therefore should fight against; they are quick to use words like “socialist” and to claim that Obama wants the government to control all aspects of life; they are strangely concerned about the various policy “czars” (which isn’t even a real name for a position; it’s just the popular Washington term for political appointees who work across more than one department or agency); they are hyper defensive about being called racist, and consider having the word “racist” applied to their speech to constitute silencing of that speech.
Thankfully, however, most of even the conservative Republican women I know do not adulate Glenn Beck.
Re #8, I think the overall point is correct, but I’m not sure it analogizes well to “Heterosexuals tell LGBQTAIs how to achieve full civil rights.” Inasmuch as those rights often are obtained through democratic means (through legislation prohibiting discrimination, or by defeating referenda that would deny marriage rights), and the majority of people in any state are heterosexuals, it might be useful for heteros to say, “The other breeders might find you less threatening and be more inclined to support your equality if you do X.” It’s nasty to have your civil rights depend on such appeals, but given the existence of popular referenda and the limits on judges’ willingness to overturn legislation, I do think it’s necessary for any minority’s civil rights movement to secure lots of allies among the majority.
As the post says, someone who has a disability almost certainly knows more about what she needs to address than a person without that disability does. But that may not be true if the action involves appealing to and gaining the support of a group to which one does not belong and that may seem mystifying. (Heck, I find heteros who don’t support equal rights somewhat mystifying myself.)
I see that less like getting advice from someone setting himself up as Dr. Know-It-All, and more like running a marketing focus group. Instead of assuming that what is logical and obvious to you will be logical and obvious to everyone, you have to look at how people who are different from yourself might see it. Most obviously, someone whose own rights are at stake will inherently have a different perspective than someone with the privilege of looking at it from the outside, and especially someone who is worried about how other privileges (to be able to hire and fire at will; to not have to give benefits to same-sex couples; to be able to classify the world into a male-female binary) will be affected.
Regarding various comments above on usage at newspapers and other media outlets: I’ve become convinced that editors have gone the way of dinosaurs. Misspellings, grammatical errors, transpositions, inappropriate terminology, etc., etc. I don’t think it’s an issue of style guides. All the style guides in the world won’t do any good if no one is actually enforcing them.
I don’t remember having seen this posted here when it came out at the beginning of the month: the DOJ’s first statistics on crime against PWD.
Further regarding conservative Republicans’ feeling of being “mocked.”
Matching up my personal characteristics vs. #15 puts me in the “independent” group, not “conservative Republican”. Of course I don’t quite fit the classification of the groups he interviewed, having not only gone to college but having an advanced degree.
I do think that Pres. Obama and the Congressional leaders are taking the country in a direction that is a) undesirable and b) at variance with the intent of the Constitution. However, I don’t think that he and Rahm are sitting around in the Oval Office dreaming up how to make the U.S. a Socialist country. Nor do I oppose various efforts such as changing health care, etc. on the basis that he has to be defeated – I do so on the basis that I don’t favor the changes he wants to make.
OTOH, I do think that some of Obama’s supporters DO want to make radical changes in this country. But that’s not his fault; at least, not as long as he doesn’t appoint them to office.
Re #6, I found that AmCon article surprisingly good — much better than I expected. But I’ll note that it is conducting a conversation entirely intramural to the (a) American (b) right (The American Conservative versus The American Spectator).
This matters a) because contrary to some surprisingly persistent refrains I’ve heard, most Jews still lean quite strongly left, so I’m confused why the rightwing framing ought to define the contours of our discourse (in other words, where does a right-wing magazine like AmSpec get the authority to render a term like “anti-Israel” meaningless, given that they don’t really represent the folks for whom that term is most meaningful?), and b) worldwide, there is a significant, powerful, and influential contingent of persons/organizations who are not “almost guaranteed to believe that Israel has a right to defend itself, a right to exist and … a right to constitute itself as an officially Jewish state” (Mr. Larison recital of the general litmus test of what constitutes “pro-Israel” — a standard I agree with and agree that most major American voices meet). See, for example, the guy who issued the COSATU statement on the Goldstone Report (y’all may remember him). So I do think it is over-stated to say that “anti-Israel” is meaningless tout court — it may be somewhat moribund in America, but there’s more to the world than America and worldwide there is plenty of meaning to “anti-Israel”.
Still, good link.
I’ve seen “guys” as an informal plural for both men and women.
As for the Asok Banker interview, is there anything offensive about comparing exclusionary publishers to the KKK?
I use “you” in both the singular and the plural. Occasionally I will say “you-plural” to clarify that I mean multiple people in the second person, rather than “you guys” or “you people,” both of which I think of as sort of rude – and I associate “y’all” with my uneducated, hateful, fundie Southern relatives and would absolutely never use the term. When discussing individuals in the third person plural, I tend to use “individuals,” “humans,” or “people.” When discussing not-humans (aliens, organizations, animals) in the third person plural, I often use “beings” or “entities.” I know “humans” and “you-plural” are sort of odd verbal constructions, but I tend to like such strange and technically correct usages.
I use ‘folks’.
—Myca
Myca, using people is wrong.
I wrote my “short” essay for a Yale Law application (I knew I wasn’t going to get in, so f*** it) about what the word “y’all” means to me, which aren’t the same “uneducated, hateful, fundie” connotations that Quill invokes. The blog post from which the essay was edited:
But for an example of language that I do associate with uneducated hateful fundies… wow.
(And they probably think they’re being complimentary to Jews!)
I thought the second person plural was “you people”.
Wait, no.
Does this guy’s argument make sense to anyone? He claims “most of the NATIONAL DEBT and BUDGET DEFICIT is being FRAUDULENTLY HIDDEN by the OBAMA ADMINISTRATION,” and says,
Now, to me this argument completely ignores one of the most fundamental principles of being a shareholder: you have no liability beyond what you’ve already paid for the stock you own. Limited liability is an extremely important part of corporate law, and is relevant to accounting. If you have limited liability, you don’t owe more than what you’ve already put in (this is true for partnerships, LLCs, corporations, etc.).
If I own shares of GM, I’m not liable for GM’s debts beyond what I’ve paid for those shares. Obviously, if I and the other shareholder elect a crappy board of directors that in turn hires bad management and they all run the company into the ground together, and the corporation goes bankrupt (either in liquidation or reorganization) my stock will be worthless and whatever I paid for it will be money down the drain. But I’m not obligated to pay more money to cover debts. The people who loaned GM money (including by selling stuff to GM without getting paid upfront) took the risk that GM wouldn’t be able to cover its debts. As debtors, they’re in line to get some compensation in the bankruptcy, while I as a shareholder get nothing. But I don’t owe them anything in my role as a shareholder, even if I own 50%+ of GM’s stock, so long as it is organized as a corporation.
This guy’s treatment of the government as something other than a limited liability shareholder might make sense if the government were putting all of these companies’ assets on the government’s balance sheet, but so far as I know, it’s not. The government is treating these corporations as independent entities of which the government has some degree of limited liability ownership, and in some cases has enough ownership for the government to have significant control of the election of directors and thus the major decisions of the corporation (as is standard for any other large shareholder, whether a government, pension fund, hedge fund or Carl Icahn). But the government has not eliminated or even disturbed the fundamental aspect of stock ownership in a corporation, which is that the shareholder has limited liability, and specifically is not liable for debts.
about “ladies” – I’d totally gotten “lady” out of my vocabulary and typically address a crowd ad “y’all” or “you guys” which are both pretty gender neutral around here.
And then I had a kid. Who asks lots and lots of questions about people (he’s 4.) It turns out, a lot of women feel that it’s hostile when you say “that woman” and are just fine with “that lady”. As in “you give your quarters to that lady, honey.” or “That lady in the green sweater can give you the bathroom key.”
I don’t get why people think it’s hostile, but they definitely do. But I *hate* “lady”. Really hate it.
Rosa,
I don’t know why, but I do feel odd about referring to someone who is in some way serving me as “woman” rather than “lady.” It doesn’t feel like I’m being hostile, exactly, more like I’m not being as respectful as I could be, and I’m more conscious of coming across as disrespectful if I’m speaking to someone who is in a service position with regard to me. It’s a carry over from childhood, I guess: lunch lady, cleaning lady, lady behind the counter at the dry-cleaners. Someone who is my superior in a hierarchy, I don’t feel that way about: “my boss is a woman”; “I need to talk to this woman on the condo board.” There’s also an element of age; as I get older, there are more women I feel comfortable with calling “women” rather than “lady.” If I’m referring to someone my age or younger, I use “woman” or occasionally “girl” (“Let’s ask that girl for directions”), whereas if it’s someone significantly older, I’m probably going to say “lady” (“Maybe the blue-haired lady know where to go”).
PG,
I feel the same way – “ladies” are generally older and more important than “women,” and so I prefer to use the former term to show respect. I usually call people “woman” when I am mocking/messing with them, or when I’m genuinely irritated.
“Re #9, I am doubtful that she is correct in saying that college admissions and student demographics have not changed since 1997. Hopwood, Prop. 209 and Gratz have all limited public universities’ ability to use affirmative action, and the Latino population that was of college age in the last decade has increased significantly.”
The reference to the stats from 1997 are in regards to nationwide college admissions trends: Espenshade looked at “elite schools” around the country, some of which are, without a doubt, in areas where affirmative action practices were unaffected by Gratz.
Either way, what I’m trying to establish with that comment is the relevance of the 1997 data. Affirmative action has not been nationally outlawed since 1997, and looking at demographic data from California, I saw no significant increase in the incoming Latino population to the California university system between 1993 and 2008 (see Part II, second graph). That’s not to say that the college-age Latino population hasn’t increased, I’m saying it hasn’t altered the trends illuminated by Espenshade’s data significantly — at least not in California which has a pretty large Latino population.
In any event, my question to you is this: if you think there have been changes since 1997, what do you think has happened to the Asian American acceptance rate into college since than that would alter the points I’m making in the post?
Espenshade looked at “elite schools” around the country, some of which are, without a doubt, in areas where affirmative action practices were unaffected by Gratz.
Gratz was a U.S. Supreme Court case. It affected the whole country (as opposed to Hopwood, which was a 5th Cir. case and thus affected only Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi). No public university in the country can use the point system that the University of Michigan was using to administer affirmative action in its undergraduate admissions program. (The “holistic” and “critical mass” approach used by the UMich law school did pass constitutional — and by constitutional I mean O’Connor’s — muster, even though I’d consider it much closer to the prohibited “quota” system that’s been illegal since Bakke.
Gratz applies to all public universities, and several of the elite schools in the study were public universities. It also is a kind of guideline for private schools, which are not constrained by the 14th Amendment but which have to fear being sued under anti-discrimination law (some Asian students have already filed complaints with the government). A private school that adheres to the same standards the Supreme Court has marked out for public schools may have a kind of safe harbor against claims that it has violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
I think there have been some demographic changes since 1997 in the Asian/Asian-American student-age population. First, the number of children born in the U.S. of Asian immigrants who were able immigrate more freely after the racial quotas were dismantled in the late 1960s has increased the number of U.S. citizen Asian American youth. Second, the tremendous growth in Asian economies in the 1990s — particularly in China and India — has greatly increased the number of Asian parents who could afford to educate their children abroad in the last decade.
I’m totally convinced that y’all is the way to go. Y’all should feel free to follow suit (at least on Alas).
Here’s a great link one of my friends posted on Facebook – 10 Black women you should know
I tend to use y’all myself, though that is probably a factor of privilege: my other features (language, appearance, profession) make y’all seem inclusive while pretty much mitigating any worry that I’ll be seen as a Southern hick. When I’m in doubt about the appropriately-non-unpleasant interpretation of “y’all,” I revert to “folks.”
Or you could put English back in line with the other European languages and revive your archaic second person singular “thee” and restore “you” to its original function of second person plural/first person formal.
@Mandolin, apologies for missing the request to post on the open thread.
For those who haven’t been reading the thread about Balloon Boy’s family, this is in relation to the discussion there.
I do have to add, that any use of the word “misandry” applied to a woman is invoking the spectre of reverse discrimination. And it’s invalid for exactly the reason I stated: x-ism requires prejudice PLUS power. You want to say that patriarchy itself is ultimately misandrist? I think there might be a pretty good argument there. But an individual woman? Sorry, no.
Crys T,
Why can’t an individual woman’s statement be misandrist? It’s certainly possible for an individual person of color to say something racist if it plays into the overall white supremacist power structure. (E.g., an African American who likes to distinguish between “black people and n***as” in order to emphasize that he aligns himself with that power structure.) A comment that implicitly excuses men from responsibility because they’re just so overwhelmed by their testosterone plays into modern patriarchal thinking’s fondness for pop evo-psych stupidity, and therefore is sexist and misandrist.
For the links: NYT op-ed that illustrates how most scientists’ refusal to recognize and respect a condition experienced by thousands of people, simply because the doctors couldn’t figure out what was causing it, led to the CDC’s failure to support research. If only they had discovered the virus years ago, they actually could have been able to distinguish the “malingerers” from those suffering from the disease.
OK, I think we’re just using different definitions. At least if I understand you, you’re saying that misandry = oppression of men. So I think I hear where you’re coming from.
I could have used a different word. I do stand by asking her not to suggest behaviors are intrinsic to sex (which the testosterone poisoning does, really, since it erases things like environmental and cultural factors, at least IMO) as this reflects prejudice, even if it falls short of prejudice + power.
Mostly, I was just annoyed that you jumped straight to “oh, Mandolin must be being a hypocrite so that she can use her big bad mod powers to be unfairly nasty to powerles female commenters,” or at least, that’s how your comment felt. Maybe you meant something else.
Crys T’s structuring also makes no sense w/r/t communication.
All of those words like misandry, misanthropy, sexism, etc were mostly used to describe either a point of view or an effect. Some words have evolved in usage so that they now imply, a “power” requirement ; “racism” is an excellent example.
However, those words which cannot as a matter of practice involve power dynamics are not useless. They are still accurate descriptors.
Misandry is something which is functionally opposite to the power structure. Because we live in a patriarchal society as a whole, misandrists can’t have the requisite power and enforcement options as do, say, whites w/r/t racism, or men w/r/t patriarchy.
So to argue that misandry must only be used when it includes a power element is to argue that it shouldn’t be used at all. That seems to be tossing the baby out with the bathwater: it’s a useful term, and we should continue to use it as a descriptive tool.
Time marches on. The leaves that are green turn to brown. And the authors of serials die. What to do — conclude the serial, or designate successors to carry on?
This age-old dilemma arises in France as the beloved cartoon Asterix turns 50.
Question about the inclusion of power when talking about -isms.
I take it that this is about institutional power (power on the large scale) right? The reason I ask is because I’m having a bit of trouble with simply checking a person’s characteristics (race, religion, gender etc….) and declaring from that and that alone that said person does not have power and therefore what they did is not -ist. It seems like the scale of the situation itself (the -ist action in question that is) is not being taken into account.
x-ism requires prejudice PLUS power
Maybe, but prejudice exists independent of power and I do think misandry-hatred of men- exists and I think it’s throughly valid to use it.
Women aren’t perfect and there are bound to be some that come to despise and
hate men.
It’s wrong because it undermines the fight against sexism-against women, suggesting that reversal is needed rather than an end to hatred of all. And because it provides a shield for a lot of women who uphold oppression against other women to justify themselves, i.e. men need women to take up certain roles because they are basically, helpless, stupid, immoral etc
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Misandry, by necessity, would need to be prejudice without power. Which is also how I tend to use misogyny (as opposed to sexism) — to mark out egregiously woman-hating prejudice, where I’m concentrating on the prejudice instead of the power analysis.
But Chrys seems to be reading it as the flip side of institutional sexism, and I think there’s enough slop between what people intend by the words that this is a fair definition.
I’d say we need to define terms more closely to chop the distinctions between some of these terms. Maybe academia already has, and I’m just behind.
I thought this one isn’t going to go over very well but I wrote about the rise and fall of a police officer in my city who was arrested last week for a series of armed robberies committed during a week-long period while off-duty.
This is more like a boast, but I am so proud of a friend who helped to get a ruling from New York’s First Department (level of court between trial court and state’s highest court) that people who seek to change their names because they are transgender cannot be forced to jump through more hoops than people who want to change their names for other reasons.
Press release from Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund
Post on the New York Times City Room blog
Shout-out from Feministing
Nazis came and went and hundreds showed up.Lots of police.Some confrontations.Arrests. Rally at the park.
This photo and this one are taken from the demonstration. I was standing right next to it when the clash took place.
Self-link for something I wrote for a blog carnival on the CCA:
Look Closer.
And the whole carnival is here.
Also, a really good post by abagond and something I wrote in response.
TRIGGER WARNING. This news sucks.
Also, this poem is great.
And this video.
@radfem – ew. Just …ew. What are those people thinking?
Firstly, apologies: I find it hard to function on Internet time these days. I’m shocked to see how much time has elapsed since I started this discussion. I understand if no one else who took part still has an interest, but since you did bother to reply, I’ll address what you had to say:
OK, for a start, your example was of a Black person making specifically anti-Black slurs. That’s comparable to a woman calling other women sluts, not to a woman making a comment about men. If a POC makes an overtly anti-white comment, I think, for the most part, we understand the anger and frustration experienced by those in oppressed groups. Even if we don’t actively condone it, we at least get where it’s coming from.
Bull. As has been pointed out by feminists over and over and over, it is in fact people who buy into patriarchy that come up with the most anti-male attitudes. Feminism/feminists do NOT believe, aside from a few fringe loonies, that men are slaves by their hormones. That’s patriarchy’s idea, and patriarchy has the power. The same can be said for every anti-male stereotype I can think of. The patriarchy may choose to interpret those stereotypes as legitimate reasons that men should rule, while feminism defines them as false and, moreover, negative traits to have, but it is the source of the stereotypes. So “misandry” is in no way opposed to the patriarchy and is NOT something originating from a minoritised group. Stop trying to push the “oh, how teh menzez suffer…all cos of teh bad feminists” line, Sailorman. It bored me years ago: if you’re suffering so damn much, start acknowledging who’s hurting you.
And, like I said above, we usually understand when someone from a minority/minoritised group has anger and says something that may objectively be bullshit. Nowadays, though, it seems we don’t extend that understanding to women vis a vis men. That’s what’s getting up my nose. All of a sudden, teh menzez an dere delikit fee-fees has gotz to be pertected. Always always always.
But we do it all the time! I don’t have the time right now to slog through years of posts, but I know on more than one occasion the subject of a person from Minoritised Group A says something disparaging about Dominant Group B has come up. Someone from Group B has a tizzy, and then there is a long and involved discussion of power differentials and the ability to enforce ones prejudices.
Because, of course, no woman could ever have understandable reasons for hating men.
And if I’d said that, you’d have point. But I didn’t, so you don’t.
No, she isn’t. She is wondering why other minoritised people who get fed up after years of abuse and have angry outbursts are understood while women who get similarly angry are being slapped down and their statements labelled with an MRA-approved term. Because language has connotations beyond literal meaning. “Misandry,” whatever its origins, is nowadays a word used almost exclusively by MRA types. I never see it used by anyone else, in fact. I possibly read it once in a book that was written a long time ago. As it is a word with such limited usage, saying the word “misandry” connotes (intentionally or not) a validation of MRA principles. To see the word used non-ironically in an ostensibly feminist, or at least feminist-friendly, forum is jarring, to say the least.
It seems to be that there’s a growing trend here of not recognising men as a dominant social group. They ARE, people. Just because PHMT is no excuse for behaving as if men were indeed an oppressed, minoritised group any more than the fact that RHWPT is a reason for coddling whites, or that AHAPT is a reason for coddling the (societally-defined) able-bodied, or that HHHT is a reason for coddling hets and defending their fee-fees every time a minoritised person gets angry. You’ve got privilege, remember? That outweighs the nastiness of having to hear the occasional unfair comment.
Crys, I’m really not okay with you erasing the entire history of my commenting on Alas in favor of your interpretation of one word of one comment. I’m also really not okay with your implication that I’m not a feminist. (I assume you are not implying that I’m male, but it sort of came across that way, too.)
I think I’m probably done talking to you on this subject, since if you’re willing to treat my feminist status as removable based on your whim, I don’t see the point.
Oh puhLEEZ, do we really have to go over the whole “performing one anti-feminist action does not an anti-feminist make” argument again? Or does pretending no one in the history of feminism has had that discussion, and that I’m just a big old meanie who’s come here only to fuck with you*, just make it easier to dismiss everything I’ve said?
*cos big ol’ meanies NEVER really have points to make–they just like to spread the meanness for no reason
No, she isn’t. She is wondering why other minoritised people who get fed up after years of abuse and have angry outbursts are understood while women who get similarly angry are being slapped down and their statements labelled with an MRA-approved term.
There’s a difference between an angry outburst and actually preaching active hatred, supporting active hatred, or intentionally denying the suffering of others.
You’ve got privilege, remember? That outweighs the nastiness of having to hear the occasional unfair comment.
Well at least you didn’t claim that privilege negates the existence of those (not always occasional) comments.
CrysT, what on earth does your response have to do with my post?
Originally you said “any use of the word “misandry” applied to a woman is invoking the spectre of reverse discrimination. And it’s invalid for exactly the reason I stated: x-ism requires prejudice PLUS power. You want to say that patriarchy itself is ultimately misandrist? I think there might be a pretty good argument there. But an individual woman? Sorry, no.”
Like I said, you either you need to come up with another word to describe “hatred of men” or you need to revise your definition. Because while most women don’t hate men, some fraction of women obviously do. If you don’t want to refer to them as misandrist, what else would you call them? Why take a useful word out of the vocabulary?