It's amazing to think that so many of today’s "feminist thinkers", such as Laurie Penny and Sally Hines, would tell nine-year-old me that my fear was my own fault, and all I had to do was not look. In fact, that if a man did expose himself, and I saw it, that this was somehow my fault.

submitted by Chipit from grahamlinehan.substack.com

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[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

You've got several different subsects of belief systems with both feminism and with MRAs. People start their own areas of movements when they believe in some of the core concepts but don't agree with other concepts or perhaps even the type of people attracted to the movements. The best example that I can use that's similar would be how Christianity broke off into a blue bazillion different religious movements based on interpretation. You have these movements and they start out as one thing, but evolve to contain a whole lot of other things and the original points end up blurred in translation. I don't want to blame feminism overall for something that ended up being bastardized along the way by those that were louder, or maybe had more influence or power.

I would like to think that there are a large number of MRAs that don't want this for children, their own or in general. Same for feminists. The reality is that we're all being shit on, both sexes, all of us. We're being kicked and distracted too much to know when to punch upwards instead of outwards and things are coated in so many layers of fine print that it's hard to discern where to point fingers.

[–]Trajan 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

I don't see it as being bastardised. The core ideology has been there since at least second wave. While you're right that there have been and remain many different sects of feminism, mainstream feminism as well as practically all of its prominent thought-leaders and organisations have pushed the ideas of social constructionism and the oppressed/oppressor dichotomy. There's a reason why all major inter sectionalist thought arises from feminists, even if not all feminists are inter sectionalists.

Even if not every feminist has culpability, they are part of the problem when denying the role of feminism in driving us to this point. The problem for them is that it's very difficult to hold onto core tenets of second wave feminism while still being able to criticise third wave/intersectionality.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

No one criticizes third wave/intersectionality because they don't want to be seen as a racist or whateverphobe. Women criticizing Islam during the Bush era went South real fast, and you'll probably notice there was a rapid change in attitude. Saving face is stupidly important within women's spaces, and feminism is largely performative in the Western world.

I don't think it's smart to dismiss the possibility of subversion of movements. Let's look deeper. When exactly did it change? (You addressed part of this with second wave). When did all of these things start hitting an apex? Who ultimately benefits from all of this? Who is profiting from all of this? How did many of these laws come to be that got us here? Were they openly voted for by all? Or were they just sort of stuffed within the fine print within a bill? I don't think any of this would have gotten as far as it has if there wasn't money to be made.

[–]Trajan 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

No one criticizes third wave/intersectionality because they don't want to be seen as a racist or whateverphobe. Women criticizing Islam during the Bush era went South real fast, and you'll probably notice there was a rapid change in attitude. Saving face is stupidly important within women's spaces, and feminism is largely performative in the Western world.

Agreed on the performative aspect. Feminism in the West is a mixture of applied post modernism and narcissism. Both encourage performative acts, the former to remain in good standing with the tribe and the latter because they want everything to be about them and their identity.

I don't think it's smart to dismiss the possibility of subversion of movements. Let's look deeper. When exactly did it change? (You addressed part of this with second wave). When did all of these things start hitting an apex? Who ultimately benefits from all of this? Who is profiting from all of this? How did many of these laws come to be that got us here? Were they openly voted for by all? Or were they just sort of stuffed within the fine print within a bill? I don't think any of this would have gotten as far as it has if there wasn't money to be made.

Sure. there's money to be made. There's also the ideological motivation. I'll assume good faith in the sense that most of these people actually believe what they say. It's a political cult, and they've been pushed in to this by academics, the media, and government convincing them that they are somehow oppressed. While there's some money to be made from bedroom feminists and similar types, such as through selling feminist books, cats, and dildos, I don't see that as a particularly lucrative market. The ideology is the thing being pushed. That many make a good living as priests of this cult is more a side benefit than the ultimate purpose. They actually believe this nonsense.