posted
Depends, what was it in Really, though, I probably have the ability to track this professor down and see if I can find some evidence.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I was able to find out who the professors were, though I don't know how advisable it is to get into that on a public forum and possibly damage my relative's candidacy. That the label of feminism is applied to other minority struggles was affirmed, and in this vein my relative asked "why isn't it called humanism?" to which the professor replied "because that would imply we are all equal. Who is to say when we are equal?"
In sum, the majority's definition of equality is rejected. That, my friends, is what I have a problem with.
So is equality a matter of opportunity to reach the majority definition of success, or to establish a unique definition of success, or to call for the disestablishment of the majority definition of success? I had generally been aware of the first two concepts, but the third just seems insane to me.
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posted
I talked this over with a bunch of friends in various related fields (demography, social work, sociology, and psychology - with some of them focusing on women and minority issues). None of them had ever heard feminism used anyway like how you are describing.
posted
I asked a Canadian sociologist, and American philosopher, and an American lawyer (specializing in women's issues), and they were also at a loss to give this any credence as a common viewpoint. First any had heard of it.
I wonder is your relative's professor is strikingly misrepresentative of the field, and that maybe you and she should be getting the information on feminism that you actually use [as opposed to just get through in a classroom setting, distasteful as that is] from elsewhere.
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Edited to add: I reread that, and I think it could come across as snippy or dismissive of you, pooka, and that would be totally off what I meant. I'm trying not to say, "Sounds like the professor is an idiot, if that's what's being taught as feminism."
posted
I think I understood what you mean by just getting through in the classroom. Something that came up yesterday is that they now are saying that just by being born white and male, my relative is unavoidably racist and sexist. As if by that standard everyone isn't racist and sexist.
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posted
There is a school of literary analysis called feminist criticism that prioritizes the perspective/voice of marginalized groups. Could that be what the professor is refering to?
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What becomes clear, looking around wikipedia, is that feminism doesn't have a single definition as it applies to it's own field, let alone social studies generally. Maybe this is one of those cases like geneticists or educators who try to invoke linguistic theory in their research.
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posted
Well this is very interesting. I've always considered myself a feminist, or rather someone who believes that feminism (where that refers to a pursuit of equality or equity for the sexes) is the right idea, and would always self identify as a feminist, but it seems that people have lots and lots of different ideas about what it means when you say "I'm a feminist.
A lot of people I've talked about this to recently have said that when they hear feminist they think "Crazy man hating radical with ridiculous ideas" rather than anything else. I find this simplistic to the point of being insulting. I think the only thing you can be sure of when you hear "feminist" is that they believe in at least equality for women.
What I wasn't expecting is what I've encountered when reading some feminist blogs is that there is a large amount of lay-feminist opinion that actually wouldn't consider me a feminist at all unless I agree to uncritically accept a set of beliefs/theories, that I'm incapable of judging for myself due to the inherent condition of my place in society and experiences as a man. Not that I'm inherently unlikely to have come up with these theories myself, but that I cannot accurately judge myself, even once I have had it explained to me, and if I disagree for any reason, it's my 'lacking worldview' and male privilege that is really at fault, and I am automatically wrong. Now seeing as I hold some vaguely outre views on why words have a meaning, essentially in short, that there is no 'actual' or 'right' meaning for a word, it's entirely relative and etc, I disagree with some of their opinions. But I'm not allowed. Not because my reasons for disagreeing are lacking , or in fact for anything to do with my opinion, except that it's mine, and through my blindnesses and privilege I'm incapable of assessing the situation. Personally I think that's just so much bullshit. And because I won't immediately abandon all my preconcieved ideas about all sorts of things without any critical evaluation, and in fact try to critically evaluate everything I'm told, to the best of my ability and understanding, I'm not only labelled a non-feminist, but an evil!eleventyone!?! anti-feminist troll out only to cause trouble.
So to summarise what has become a rambling and quite pointless post.
Feminism means lots of different things to lots of different people, and the only people who are wrong are the ones who insist that their belief on what a feminist is, is the only possible one. Mostly feminists are awesome, but some really radical ones exist. (insert : 'which is awesome' or 'which is really shite' as preferred) I will however continue to consider myself feminist, and people who draw the wrong conclusion from that statement are people with ill-judgement and poor understanding of the range of views that that label covers.
quote:What is really interesting is that the whole idea of making someone humble themselves to converse with you sounds... kind of... Christian. It is similarly somewhat mystical why someone would want to be elevated to the status of oppressors, then call it the high ground
Perhaps I should start a new thread to respond to a tangential point, but I must point out that humbling OTHERS is the exact opposite of what Christianity is about; it is about humbling oneself. Forcing other people into humility is a way of exalting your own self.
quote:Feminism means lots of different things to lots of different people, and the only people who are wrong are the ones who insist that their belief on what a feminist is, is the only possible one.
which is one reason why I'd never call myself a feminist even though I probably believe many of the same things as you. It is a term that has been stretched to the breaking point and is therefore useless. If one is 'anti-feminism' it is assumed that they wish women to have zero choices, but to call oneself a feminist is to associate yourself with figures central to the movement who make claims such as "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" and "All hetersexual intercouse is rape." (etc.)
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quote:Forcing other people into humility is a way of exalting your own self.
It depends. Someone has to suggest humility to most people, and I don't really know of a Christian church that operates without some kind of hierarchy or authority structure, even if it is servant leadership in principle.
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posted
Any Congregationalist church has no real theological hierarchy (well, except the obvious one of Christ being the Head of the Church). The congregation makes the rules, the ministers work for the congregation, not the other way around. There are administrative structures to support clergy benefits and pensions and the like, but they don't hold any religious authority. Or as the saying goes with regards to the "national church" of the UCC (where most congregational churches live today), it speaks "to" the fellow congregations in the UCC not "for" them.
posted
I was under the impression that most protestant ministers work for their congregations. Does the UCC ministry require any kind of religious education?
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posted
The UCC requires a Master of Divinity degree.
United Methodist clergy are not employed by the congregation they serve. We're centrally appointed. Most other Protestant clergy are called by the congregation and can be dismissed by the congregation.
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posted
I was reading some stuff about victim mentality over the weekend and it kind of coalesced into a sense of what I wanted to say about this.
Outrage feels like a mighty tool for defining identity, but in the end I don't think it has the power to build community. So as long as feminism (and other minorities, whatever name they do it under) are dependent on outrage to motivate, they will be limited in what they accomplish. I feel this is evident in how the feminist movement fractures into incompatible constituencies.
But it does occur to me that Obama's Audacity of Hope might deal with a positive minority movement.
Um, yeah:
quote:At the same time, he calls on people of color to give up the mantle of victimhood and persecution that, he believes, limits their ability to reach their full potential.
posted
I actually think that majority groups will never reach their full moral potential until they stop being blithe about the power they wield.
If you had to measure the hearts and heads of the 24 year old single, abandoned moms, ankle deep in kids, cleaning jobs, and foodstamps, shaking their fist at the Man, versus the George Bushs and Dick Cheneys and Donald Rumsfelds, thick with privilege and economic concerns, I'll wager the former group has a more attractive moral center and more insightful judgment-- tempered with due humility-- about the pitfalls of the human condition and this American life.
posted
I've known too many 24-year-old single moms, ankle-deep in kids and cleaning jobs and foodstamps, to confuse desperation with an understanding of the human condition.
Being poor and hardworking does not in and of itself make you virtuous, believe me.
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posted
That's easy to believe. I don't mind, so much, designating the impoverished class as unsuccessful, I think the profound mistake comes from assuming that the Donald Trumphs and George Bushes of the world are somehow wise or fit to be emulated.
posted
huh. learning a lot of new things about feminism from this thread, but the only thing I had known about the movement, from a Sociology class last year, hasn't been mentioned yet, that I saw.
We were told that Feminism is a movement that simply states that "Gender does not/should not dictate destiny." That the end goal of feminism has nothing to do with equality of he sexes, that's something you take as a given along the way - but that the end result should be that a person's role in life, in a world changed by feminism, should not be limited by their sexual identity, be it the one their born with or one they somehow assume.
The goal of Feminism, then, might not be to make the sexes equal, but to make their differences less relevant, yes? Equality of the sexes sounds like a small stepping stone when the end result is the elimination of roles dependent on gender.
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quote:Being poor and hardworking does not in and of itself make you virtuous, believe me.
True. People always have a choice about how to respond to their conditions. But I think Irami has a very good point about what I would call the spiritual hazard of wealth and power, or even relative comfortableness.
But that's where I could say I don't care for that definition of success and withdraw from ambition.
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posted
Why are strict sex roles even nessasary? That sort of thing angers me, it's what frustrates me about the right so much, this sense that this is how things are, these are the rules when really to me it should be less about ridgidity and strict standards and more about being whole. That's what feminism SHOULD be about, but it has ben co-opted by things that annoy me or the media's incorrect form of it. It isn't enough. We should take it to a different level.
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If we just erase the boundaries, then who can claim to be treated unfairly? Also, I'm not sure what part of this thread you're objecting to, or if this is just ranting on the right in general.
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posted
It could be general ranting, but the left annoys me as well. I'm annoyed in general because I am so tired of the same thing all the time. Perhaps if there were no boundaries, there wouldn't be an institutional need to treat people unfairly. Why should anyone be mistreated on the basis of something as arbitrary as gender? If a woman wants to juggle a career and a family, why not? If a woman wants to stay home with her kids because she feels that is right for her or her family, why bother her...? Why can't people simply be allowed to live the way they want to, within reason without groups of people, (hardcore feminists, the right) griping about their personal decisions and trying to undermine them? I swear this attitude does more to undo families and people... *general angry ranting*
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Really, though, I probably have the ability to track this professor down and see if I can find some evidence.
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