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Post by devilschaplain2 on Mar 7, 2009 22:51:16 GMT -5
I believe the cuntbag you were referring to was Anita Bryant.
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Post by skyfire on Mar 7, 2009 23:24:01 GMT -5
Reading this sent my blood pressure through the roof. I cannot believe that any woman today could have a negative opinion of feminism. Then again, some on the right have made a career out of redefining "feminist" as "lesbian man-hater." Sadly, the feminism movement itself redefined itself so hatefully first. Late in the 1970s, you had some downright militant feminist groups show up. These groups, such as the Society To Cut Up Men (whose founder went on to shoot Andy Warhol), went above and beyond gender equality, instead going straight for gender dominance. For these groups, there was no "women have the right to choose;" rather, it was "women have the right to choose, but they'd better chose to beat men at their own game or else they're traitors." I kid you not when I say that something as innocent as a man opening a door for a woman was enough to have said man deemed "sexist" and get himself slapped and spelling the word "women" as anything other than "wom yn" was regarded as pandering to the patriarchy. Some radicals, like Andrea Dworkin, went so far as to effectively class all heterosexual sex as "rape" and thus swear off (heterosexual) sex entirely Although small compared to the overall feminist movements, such groups were vocal enough to where in time many women began to be legitimately ashamed of these groups and, by extension, "feminism" in general. Even some mainline feminists began to be embarrassed by these groups, believing that these radicals were damaging the overall movement. As a result, even to this day a many women refuse to be labeled as a "feminist" despite holding what were once mainline feminist views (gender equality, no discrimination, etc.) for fear that they'll be lumped in with the radicals. For some quick reading: Wiki: militant feminism covers the bulk of what you need to know and provides additional links TV Tropes: Straw Feminist covers how such types are depicted in the media.
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Post by Paradox on Mar 7, 2009 23:49:45 GMT -5
While the feminist movement has harbored radicals, and probably still has a few of them, the prominence of these radicals has been greatly overstated by the media. I don't think that characters like Andrea Dworkin were ever prominent in the mainstream feminist movement. Nonetheless, you are right in that many women nowdays do not self-identify as feminists for fear of being perceived as having a radical agenda (although they may in fact support most if not all of the positions advocated by mainstream feminism.)
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Post by skyfire on Mar 8, 2009 0:38:01 GMT -5
While the feminist movement has harbored radicals, and probably still has a few of them, the prominence of these radicals has been greatly overstated by the media. They still exist, but don't have quite the spotlight anymore. IE, a few years ago a female friend of mine was talking with some girls from school and admitted that her goals for the future included motherhood. The two then began to chew her out on the basis that having kids meant she would be throwing her life away and that she was stupid for doing so. I spent the rest of the evening having to help talk her down because they sent her away crying. Vocal minority vs. silent majority. They were to feminism what Phelps and Chick are to Christianity. From what I've seen, not many people are looking to reclaim what the term originally meant. This is actually sad in a way, as if people would do so then things might be different nowadays.
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Post by devilschaplain2 on Mar 8, 2009 0:58:51 GMT -5
Skyfire: "Late in the 1970s, you had some downright militant feminist groups show up. These groups, such as the Society To Cut Up Men (whose founder went on to shoot Andy Warhol), went above and beyond gender equality, instead going straight for gender dominance." The "Society to Cut Up Men" was actually a book written by a mentally deranged misandristic woman named Valerie Solanas. How the fuck does that reflect upon the feminist movement? Somebody buy this kid a clue...
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Post by antichrist on Mar 8, 2009 1:06:13 GMT -5
Well having siblings that are 20 years older than me, gives me a little insight into this.
My brothers believed that they could change the world. They would march for anything. They marched for the right to wear jeans to school (and actually won). Today I feel completely overwhelmed. There's just too much. What the hell is the use of changing all my lightbulbs to CFC's, which I don't believe are any better for the environment in the long run. I want to buy a diesel hybrid, but they're not allowed in Canada. My 07 Versa gets less millage than my 72 510 did. I didn't buy a hybrid because of the cost and I do a lot of highway driving which means the Versa gets the same mileage. And as erictheblue mentioned, you recycle a couple of bottles and watch the major corps do whatever the hell they want. Here they crack down on emissions from personal vehicles, but if you have one that blows blue all you have to do is create a corporation and register it as a corporate vehicle. Now you can burn as badly as you want.
Also life seems so much more complicated. Bigger is better is the name of the game. We invent high-efficiency furnaces, we build monster houses. You're nobody if you don't drive a hummer. Consumption is patriotic.
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Post by mnstrm on Mar 8, 2009 1:57:14 GMT -5
You mean they were objects of ridicule to the few that knew anything about them or paid any attention to them? Seriously Skyfire, you know, well really nothing about the feminist movement of the 70's. Any movement or group will attract its share of wingnuts or radicals. (FLDS Mormons, anyone?) Most people are intelligent enough to recognize that and understand that the radical elements don't represent the group itself.
And your friend? Sounds like she really needed to grow a tougher skin if that's all it took to put her in a state she needed you to "talk her down from".
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Post by ironbite on Mar 8, 2009 2:05:34 GMT -5
Skyfire: "Late in the 1970s, you had some downright militant feminist groups show up. These groups, such as the Society To Cut Up Men (whose founder went on to shoot Andy Warhol), went above and beyond gender equality, instead going straight for gender dominance." The "Society to Cut Up Men" was actually a book written by a mentally deranged misandristic woman named Valerie Solanas. How the fuck does that reflect upon the feminist movement? Somebody buy this kid a clue... Not enough money in the world.
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Post by skyfire on Mar 8, 2009 8:45:07 GMT -5
The "Society to Cut Up Men" was actually a book written by a mentally deranged misandristic woman named Valerie Solanas. How the fuck does that reflect upon the feminist movement? People bought into it. That's how.
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Post by JonathanE on Mar 8, 2009 9:44:02 GMT -5
The "Society to Cut Up Men" was actually a book written by a mentally deranged misandristic woman named Valerie Solanas. How the fuck does that reflect upon the feminist movement? People bought into it. That's how. Skyfire, I believe that you have no standing whatever, informationally speaking, to hold an educated opinion on the feminist movement. The "radicals" represent a very tiny minority of feminists. When women earn equal pay for work of equal value, are able to control their own reproductive systems, are able to be judged by their intellect and experience, not on the presence of a uterus, the feminist movement will have acheived its goals. Repression foments radicalism. There have been enough concessions that the radicalism represents a tiny minority of women. The goals are still not attained. You should actually do some research into the movement, its goals and aspirations and its limited sucesses. Until then, your misogynism inhibits your outlook on it, and makes your viewpoint not just ill-informed, but rather irrelevant. In less-soft terms, if you don't know what you're talking about, shut the fuck up.
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Post by dantesvirgil on Mar 8, 2009 9:50:34 GMT -5
I do wonder what impact the globalizing nature of the internet has had on personal protest, as Somnium has pointed out. On the one hand, you get access to the bigger picture and how your government may have contributed to problems--certainly not something that will be pointed out at great lengths in your own national media. But on the other hand, the internet gives you a false sense of doing something. How many online petitions are there out there so that people can express their righteous indignation and then move on? I think things like that make people feel as though they've really "done" something, when really, they probably haven't.
As to the feminist movement, many of the core feminist ideas have already taken root in our society. The majority of people actually approve of abortion as a choice in most cases, it's when you get into late term abortions that people get squeamish. People don't like the idea of pay discrimination or bias in hiring. Those all came out of the feminist and civil rights movements. A lot of fem ideas are fairly mainstream. So I don't buy at all that most people think the fem movement is about militant feminism. I think most people put that adjective in front of it for a reason--they know the distinction. The bigger problem is that younger women tend to feel that everything is equal now, and while some advances have definitely been made, many are still under assault.
That said, there ARE cults of personality in feminism, there is no doubt about it. There ARE feminists who think you had to have voted for Hilary Clinton or you weren't a good feminist. BUT, those women do not represent all of feminism. And when those kinds of personal bias are put to the side in favor of the "larger picture", they hardly matter. And that's what tends to happen in a feminist meeting. There is the greater project that we all work toward. Our personal bias is a matter of discussion, sometimes heated--but we pull together on the more important stuff. It's like any movement, really.
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Post by schizophonic on Mar 8, 2009 11:17:43 GMT -5
Reading this sent my blood pressure through the roof. I cannot believe that any woman today could have a negative opinion of feminism. Then again, some on the right have made a career out of redefining "feminist" as "lesbian man-hater." Sadly, the feminism movement itself redefined itself so hatefully first. Late in the 1970s, you had some downright militant feminist groups show up. These groups, such as the Society To Cut Up Men (whose founder went on to shoot Andy Warhol), went above and beyond gender equality, instead going straight for gender dominance. For these groups, there was no "women have the right to choose;" rather, it was "women have the right to choose, but they'd better chose to beat men at their own game or else they're traitors." I kid you not when I say that something as innocent as a man opening a door for a woman was enough to have said man deemed "sexist" and get himself slapped and spelling the word "women" as anything other than "wom yn" was regarded as pandering to the patriarchy. Some radicals, like Andrea Dworkin, went so far as to effectively class all heterosexual sex as "rape" and thus swear off (heterosexual) sex entirely Although small compared to the overall feminist movements, such groups were vocal enough to where in time many women began to be legitimately ashamed of these groups and, by extension, "feminism" in general. Even some mainline feminists began to be embarrassed by these groups, believing that these radicals were damaging the overall movement. As a result, even to this day a many women refuse to be labeled as a "feminist" despite holding what were once mainline feminist views (gender equality, no discrimination, etc.) for fear that they'll be lumped in with the radicals. For some quick reading: Wiki: militant feminism covers the bulk of what you need to know and provides additional links TV Tropes: Straw Feminist covers how such types are depicted in the media. Wow. So you're okay with defining groups based on their most extremist beliefs? Sky, I'm pretty sure that's a precedent you want to be setting. Especially not here.
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Post by booley on Mar 8, 2009 11:34:19 GMT -5
...... No, actually, Skyfire was wrong in everything he said. No he's wrong about the reasons. In short he's wrong because while he could cite factors that contributed to the decline in activism from the 60s and 70s, he didn't really understand why they were factors or how other things also played a role. The protest period started in about 1961 with Northern students heading south to work with the civil rights movement in the south. Here, after a short time, many of the students were radicalized by the violence of the authourities. Then JFK happened, the Warren Commission, Johnson's escalation in Vietnam and the expansion of the draft. The antiwar movement started on the heels of the civil rights protests, and had a radicalized element built in, due to their experiences in the South. Except we were talking about why the activism began to wane, not why it started. Plus you are corroborating my point that society has changed. The 60s was a product of the events in society that proceeded it. Hence my point.. you can't have society change and then expect things to stay the same. Drugs and the use thereof; the vast majority of young people experimented with marijuana, and a much smaller minority tried LSD, mescaline, peyote and other hallucinogens. A very tiny minority of "protesters" did any injectable drugs, ie heroin or used cocain. Some entertainers did, but in general, the youth movement's drug of choice, by overwhelming majority, was the herb. You seem to have missed my point. Yes the majority did not go beyond marijuana. But as with activism, we are talking about not the majority but a select minority. Among that group, many did not stop with weed. Some went beyond it. And often these were the same people who were either an important part of or inspiring the sub culture. When your hero or best friend has an overdose, the effects go well beyond that one person. By 1973, the war in Vietnam was winding down, Nixon was chased from office, the draft was also winding down, and protesters also wound down. The reasons for many of the protestors activism were eliminated. The real "protest movement" had ended by 1973. again proving my main point.. society had changed. However, as shown in the OP, clearly protesting had not stopped by 1973. The gay rights movement came along quite late in this period, becoming noticeable by 1972. The "women's lib", later simply the women's movement, began in 1968, reached its peak just before the defeat of the ERA. Not quite. Gay rights technically began in the 1920s. But as we think of it today was already well underway in the 60s. In fact it owed alot to the black civil rights movement. (see Bayard Rustin). The modern gay rights movement is generally agreed by historians to have begun after the stonewall riots. The GLF was founded in 1969 while the Advocate began publication in 1967. The gay rights movement , like modern feminism , was shaped in large part by the sexual revolution of the 60s. As for Women's Lib, it certainly did not begin in 1968. It began with the suffragettes. Even the movement for total female equality predates Vietnam by at least 30 years. The fight against inequality as you are describing became a primary force in feminism in the 60s (and lasted to the mid 80s). You seem to be confusing a movement existing with when it first began to attract large scale media attention. These are not the same thing. Not that I am sure why we even arguing this anyway. Nothing you said refutes what I have said. Aids was an 80's phenomenon, and actually revitalized the Gay rights movement. Not quite. It became POLITICAL in the 80s. But AIDS began in the 70s. Recall what I said earlier... I wouldn't say that AIDS revitalized the gay rights movement but you are correct by implying it gave new energy to it. But it also caused untold havoc and set back gay rights immensly. These are not contradictory. As the disease progressed, lots of gay people began to become more politically active. But at the same time the experienced gay activists were literally dying off. AIDS provided a new focus for the movement but also took energy away from other issues. In short, it was as if the army had millions of people enlisting to fight in a new war.. but at the same time the generals are being killed off en masse with a previous war still being fought. The murder of John Lennon ocurred long after the protest movement was over and being subject to revisionist history. The societal rebellion, as you refer to it, was never that. Most of the youth were radicalized initially by the JFK assassination, and Johnson's escalation of the war. We saw that our institutions could not be trusted. Yes and No. That was part of it. But the country was already changing anyway and the seeds for that can be traced back to the 50s and even to WW2. And the expansion did play a part in growing opposition to the war but more because of the draft which was seen as making the poor bear the cost of a war the rich had started. I think I see the problem here. You are trying to force history into a series of discreet and isolated incidents. But history doesnt' work that way. It's a culmination of trends and events. If the expansion of the vietnam war had occurred in the 40s or without a draft it would have been very different. Nor was the vietnam war the ONLY factor that was changing American society. And Rebellion is a perfectly good way to describe it. The people involved in the revolutions certainly described themselves that way. They wanted to change the existing order. How is that not rebellion? (remember, rebellion here is a morally neutral term. It merely denotes resisting the status quo) Look, I'm not trying to glamorize the 60's, Nor am I. But it was a very important part of our history and to understand how society has changed, we must understand how the 60s led to that change. ...but the idea that we, collectively, could change the world, was true. Attitudes did soften, racism did decrease, the war was unpopularized and was ended. Evidence for this can be seen in our current president, and with our short toleration for unjust war, ie Iraq. None of which I disgree with. Nor doe sit contradict the idea that "drugs and Free love" had at least some negative consequences. I think you possibly missed my point. For example, I said Sky fire was right "ina way". That qualifier is important. I think you confused me agreeing with some of what Sky fire wrote with agreeing what Sky fire's argument. We have been heading toward our current state since 1980. Even Clinton's administration was not able to completely reverse the negative trend following the Reagan/BushI years. BushII made it worse, and here we are, fucked again. Well I did say the 80s didn't help. And one can make an argument that Clinton's administration actually helped the trend from Reagan/Bush, at least in part. Quite a few of the policies that Shrub used against dissenters were first employed by Clinton. And no I am not making an argument that Clinton was as bad as Shrub or Reagan. But he was no progressive either. But just an important, the society changed as well. IF it hadn't, Reagan would never have gone beyond acting. I agree with you about complacency. Hell, we all got old and had kids of our own. The reality of earning a living sets in at some point. My point is that the protest era, 1961 to 1973, was complex, but important in changing the general direction and softening the attitudes prevalent before those times. Yes and I agree with that point. But part of my point is that the events between 61 and 73 didnt' just happen nor are they only factor in what is going on today. As for complacency, ironically part of the reason for this is because the protesters back then were largely successful. Earning a living is important. It's hard to take time to do activism when you also need to work to support yourself. But that by itself doesnt' stop it. Peopel still needed to eat and pay rent in the 60s and 70s. Gay people fighting AIDS had even more monetary burdens. Which would explain why events like Vietnam and AIDS and Prop 8 cause more activism. It shows people that earning a living isn't enough. The "free love" movement, ie, the sexual revolution, was a 1970's phenomenon, an extension of the wider rebellion of the 60's, a time when we all moved toward personal growth and experimentation. "Free love" is a footnote to the protest movement, an adjunct to it. " First "free love" historically began as early as the 20s. Even earlier if we go outside the US. And again, you seem to be atomizing history into discreet bits. The Sexual revolution was in full force in the 70s but it had influence on the larger societal changes that stemmed from the 60s. Both Women's Lib and Gay rights owe much of their start from it. The movement was about ending the war, mostly. Once that battle was won, the raison-d'etre of the movement was gone. That is why the protest movement ended, because the war and the draft ended. We won, we ended the war, influenced the country enough to get rid of Nixon, and overt racism became unacceptable. Again you are ignoring history to make it into a group of unrelated facts. The civil rights movement, for instance did not come about because Vietnam. IF there had been no Vietnam, MLK probably would have stilled marched. Does that mean Black civil rights and the anti-war movement didn't influence each other? OR course not, they influenced each other greatly. But so did the other movements of that time. In fact, you seem to be confusing the anti-vietnam war movement as the ONLY one with protesters. Look back at the OP that started this thread, the one I was replying too. The protest it talks about was against the "save Our Children" campaign by Anita Bryant, an event that happened 2 years AFTER vietnam ended. Clearly Vietnam was NOT the only factor. Indeed, by then it wouldn't have been a factor at all. But people clearly were still protesting stuff.
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Post by booley on Mar 8, 2009 11:46:19 GMT -5
The "Society to Cut Up Men" was actually a book written by a mentally deranged misandristic woman named Valerie Solanas. How the fuck does that reflect upon the feminist movement? People bought into it. That's how. So since some people buy into the idea that the moon landing was faked, that makes it a significant force? I mean, who bought into it? How many? What do you mean by "bought into it"? Were there other attacks by different people? Your statement is so open to interpretation and ambivelent as to be almost meaningless.
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Post by ironbite on Mar 8, 2009 11:55:13 GMT -5
People bought into it. That's how. So since some people buy into the idea that the moon landing was faked, that makes it a significant force? I mean, who bought into it? How many? What do you mean by "bought into it"? Were there other attacks by different people? Your statement is so open to interpretation and ambivelent as to be almost meaningless. Fixed it for you. Ironbite-or...YOU'VE BEEN KANE KNIGHTED!
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