Feminism: internet vs. reality

[Syn_O_Myn]

Yes, I've seen MANY videos hating on Anita Sarkeesian for getting more money than she asked for. I've seen several more grossly misrepresenting Rebecca Watson. Yes I saw a lot of dishonesty in the videos made about them. Don't tell me coffee = rape. I was at that conference, and I rode that elevator. So I know better. There was nothing wrong with what Watson did there, and others have severely distorted that story, making it into something it never was.

People were not simply hating on Anita because he got more money than what she requested, that would have been fine, but she got more money that she asked for, and the videos she promised her donators she would produce have taken two years longer to create than scheduled, and only half of the promised videos have came out. What Rebecca Watson did was over react. Some guy asks her if she wants to go get some coffee at his room, and she declined. Any other person would not have made a video about this incredible (in the literal sense of that word) event, they would have let it blow over.

Easiest answer: (Last Week Tonight video)

So I assume that you mean to say the wage gap is 77 cents on the dollar. You raised me Oliver, I raise you Maddox

I've seen some of his videos, and I can only shake my head. I don't even want to talk about them; they're so disappointing. Reactions from the feminist community has only been laughter at his expense. Every time he posted a new one, I'd watch it and be embarrassed for him. I don't even subscribe to him anymore. I told you, I have never ever heard a good argument against feminism, but I've heard some really amazingly bad ones

Address the arguments he presents, specifically about Anita. It isn't too much watch time, maybe 17 minutes or so.
Youtube]WuRSaLZidWI[/Youtube]


The feminist community hasn't just laughed at him as you suggest, but they have monitored or shut down their comment sections and hid their ratings. Personal attacks may have been present in those comments, but neither you nor Anita has addressed Phil's criticism of the videos. Instead, you say that it is just wrong or hate mongering. Saying such things will not convince me that Phil's arguments were wrong, videos like Ashely Paramour's will. And that one has convinced me that Phil was wrong in his rape video.

Maybe you can. I can too, but it's because it takes a lot to scare me. A lot of other people can't be sure if someone is bluffing. If I threaten to kill you or harm someone in your family, how should you respond to that? Because I'll tell you, I had this conversation with Thunder. He said no one should take rape threats seriously, because it's just like when you tell someone, "I'm gonna kill you"; everyone knows you're just saying that. I told him that I don't say things like that, because I don't say things I don't mean. If I ever say I'm going to kill you, you'd better take that as a genuine threat, because it means that I seriously literally intend to forcibly terminate your life. If someone posts things like that about me or my family, my family demands that I take that seriously.

Well Aron, I personally think your idea of speech is misguided. People, in general, say things that they do not mean to say, especially in reaction to other things. Generally, someone willing to kill you won't give you the heads up. It isn't the ones who comment that you have to be scared of, its the ones who don't. Furthermore, I take freedom of speech very seriously, and I believe that anybody should have the right to say anything no matter how offensive, and we all have the right to either ignore them or criticize them. I would be willing to support someone's right to freedom of speech even if they threatened me, because freedom of speech is that important. If I felt threatened, I would changed my house, attempt to change my place of occupation, and find out if these threats are serious. But the second someone raises their knife at me, or points a gun, I expect that person to be detained for the action they have committed, even if its too late for me. I highly recommend Christopher Hitchens talk on Free Speech.

We met Lzzy Hale back in May and my wife asked her if she was a feminist. Lzzy said no, because she thought that that word meant 'misandrist'. How sad is that? Because she would be an excellent representative of what feminism really is. That's what would happen to lessons on Susan B Anthony if we pretend that feminsim means what its critics want it to mean rather than what it really does mean.

Aron, the reason people believe feminism means the same has misandrist is because of the what the fringe does, and how loud and well funded the fringe, and, based on your words on Anita, seemingly the actual feminists as well. The points they make poison the word and suggest that everything is sexist or has sexist roots and must be uprooted, and replaced. Not everything is sexist, and when people point that out, like TF00t has, it isn't called criticism, but harassment.

But you haven't even given me reason to believe that the word really has been 'poisoned', and you dodged my question above, highlighted in yellow. Like I told you before, if you have an issue concerning gender equality, even if it is an issue of men's rights, you can bring it to feminists to advocate on your behalf, because that's what they do, and they're the only movement to have ever advocated for gender equality. So what is the issue?

Well, I hope I have given you reason enough now to believe it is poisoned, but if not, lets look at another few examples. This is why I don't accept the label of feminism. Historically it has done good, even in recent times, but when you are willing to lie to make a problem seem worse than what it actually is, you poison the word. And yes, their is still a pay gap, and it needs to be fixed. But lying about the pay gap, or lying about the amount of rape on campuses only puts people like me off from the word and the movement. I have not ignored your question, I proposed a somewhat uncatchy alternative to the word feminism, equalism, or equalist, and you refuted egalitarianism. I realize egalitarian is a word poisoned by its relevance in the communist movement, but "equalist" or another movement would not be poisoned by the extremists, at least not immediately.

I often say that feminism can only be corrected from within. We've seen countless demonstrations showing how critics of feminism completely fail either to actually advocate men's rights or correct any of the issues which arise within the feminist movement. So the only way to fix this isn't to make up some other movement no one really cares about, and which won't actually do anything, but to constantly right the movement from within, so that it can be more successful where it is most needed. Because the middle east isn't going to respond to 'equalists'. That's one of those situations which especially need real feminist activists.

I speak only of the modern first world when I speak of "equalists" I realize the middle east needs feminism, but it needs the first two waves of feminism experienced in the US and other countries. We shouldn't abandon the word feminism in places like the middle east, but we ought to do it in the west, because it is a poisoned term.

It always come down to this, the antifeminist claims to fit the one-and-only and still applicable definition of feminism, but simply objects to the name, as if that means anything, as if changing the name would make it alright, which we've already seen isn't true. For example, I am not a feminist activist myself. All I did was admit that that definition applies, which it does, and because of that, I have since had to invest more time arguing against anti-feminists than I have creationists, (tonight being no exception). Why? What fucking difference does it make, whether you accept that label or not? Why do you care if I do?

I have no doubt but that Christopher Hitchens was a feminist, because he eloquently expressed feminist ideals, but he never made the mistake of identifying by that label, because THEN you'd see where most of this "poison" is really coming from.

Aron, one point that I wanted to stress is that definitions aren't always the best way to describe things. The definition of feminism is not specific enough. It fails to take into account what feminists have been doing. Its fine as a basic concept (the definition you assert) but in discussions like these it must be more specific. Some modern feminists have poisoned the word by lying through their teeth, sometimes for money.

In regards to Hitchens, the reality of the situation is actually quite comically contrary to what you suggest that it is. and depict Hitchens as a man who endorses gender roles, something quite thoroughly denounced by modern feminists. Had he lived but a few more years, we cannot say which side he would be on. But in light of these two videos, do you really think he would support this third wave?

Sorry this post took a while. I have been procrastinating. Hope to talk to you again soon.

 

[Inferno]

There are a number of points I want to address.

First, DraganGlas: I found the article I was referring to. NYTimes, I remembered correctly.
Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science?

Second, to those claiming it's still a woman's choice what her career should look like:
If there were any evidence that it really is a woman's choice (a willing choice) I'd have no problem with that. Except it's not. The reason behind my quote from my blog post is this: Women not going into certain jobs is due to institutional failure. Failure of schools, failure of the community, etc.

Third, Syn_O_Myn:
If anyone would ever dare threaten me, you'd better believe I'd take every precaution necessary. The whole "the quiet ones are the ones to look out for" is supreme bullshit.
I have only been threatened once: A drug dealer threatened to stab me if I ratted him out. I had no intention of doing so, nevertheless I took his threat seriously. Had he come close to me, I probably would have knocked him out.
If someone were to threaten my family, I would make damn sure my family was safe and the person threatening them was... incapacitated.
If someone would fucking DARE threaten my sister with rape, be it in jest or serious, I would break every bone in that person's body. I'm not usually a violent person, but that is something you simply do not say, ever.

Fourth, on Christopher Hitchens:
I do not for one second believe he was a feminist. He may have supported some feminist agendas, but all in all he was a sexist pig. That doesn't deterr at all from his achievements and otherwise eloquently argued positions.

Fifth, regarding "radical feminism":
There are two points to be made. First of all, "radical feminism" is the fringe, as Syn_O_Myn correctly points out. Yet (s)he doesn't take the argument to its logical conclusion: Therefore feminism isn't bad, the very small minority of radical feminists are bad.

Second, the pendulum always swings hard to the other side before it falls back to the middle. Think of literally every social position there ever was. First there was one position, then a very strong counter-position. Then slowly the sides began to get closer and meet in the centre. That takes ages but it does happen.
Case in point, child raising. First parents would viciously beat their kids. Then there was no beating to the point where even authority was questioned. Now the pendulum swings back, people are told to give their kids limits. At some point we'll hit gold.
Is that a problem? Well yes, I don't agree in any way with what I would call "misandrist feminists". However, such is human nature. It will balance itself out again, but it will take time. Until then it is (well, would be) necessary and educational for men to experience the shadow-side of life. Don't be so damn blue-eyed.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

I honestly do not get this "poisoned well" argument. I became an atheist around 2000, when I was still in middle school. At the time, I did not call myself an atheist because of this "poisoned well" argument. It was not until mid-high school that I realized what the term actually meant and even if there were "asshole" atheists, I was still an atheist.

The point I am making is what would Syn_O_Myn, and others using the "poisoned well" argument, say during the 1950s and 1960s when the Soviet Union were proudly declaring themselves an atheist nation and all there leaders were atheists? Would they be arguing that atheism was good when Robert Ingersoll was alive, but the word is now tainted and we all need a new label for ourselves?

When I first started calling myself an atheist, the word left a bad taste in my mouth from the crap atheists that tainted the word before me. However, I never once thought I needed a new term, what was needed was the taking of the term back. Can Syn_O_Myn, or anyone else, explain why abandoning the term feminism is a good thing when other words have been taken back from far worse tainting? I mean, the "crap college" feminists today do not seem to hold a candle to the Soviet Union or North Korea and what they did/do while calling themselves atheists.

 

[Syn_O_Myn]

If anyone would ever dare threaten me, you'd better believe I'd take every precaution necessary. The whole "the quiet ones are the ones to look out for" is supreme bullshit.
I have only been threatened once: A drug dealer threatened to stab me if I ratted him out. I had no intention of doing so, nevertheless I took his threat seriously. Had he come close to me, I probably would have knocked him out.
If someone were to threaten my family, I would make damn sure my family was safe and the person threatening them was... incapacitated.
If someone would fucking DARE threaten my sister with rape, be it in jest or serious, I would break every bone in that person's body. I'm not usually a violent person, but that is something you simply do not say, ever.

That is a difference in perception, I suppose. I very firmly believe free speech is the most important rights we have. It should never be cut down due to someone feeling scared. It is actions of people that ought to have consequences, not that which they claim they will do or wish upon another.

I do not for one second believe he was a feminist. He may have supported some feminist agendas, but all in all he was a sexist pig. That doesn't deterr at all from his achievements and otherwise eloquently argued positions.

Good, because he wasn't. We can accept that he was a smart man who quite thoroughly hacked away at religion without also accepting his demand to continue the Middle Eastern wars or his support of gender roles.

he doesn't take the argument to its logical conclusion: Therefore feminism isn't bad, the very small minority of radical feminists are bad.

Even if the minority is small, it is the most vocal and well funded minority that I have yet to see in any movement. The arguments they make are fallacious and any criticism is called harassment, which they use to continue moving their crap down to those who want to listen. I have demonstrated that the fringe has poisoned the mainstream by pointing out that people like Anita are liars who just want to be victims for cash and that mainstream feminists have consistently lied about the data to over-hype the problems. Women do face problems and these problems ought to be addressed quickly, but someone willing to lie about the problem to make it sound worse only shows how dishonest people are willing to be for their cause, regardless of if its feminism or a religion.

However, such is human nature. It will balance itself out again, but it will take time. Until then it is (well, would be) necessary and educational for men to experience the shadow-side of life

I must raise a skeptical eyebrow when you use the word "experience". I think you mean to say recognize and attempt to correct, but if that is not the case then I must say that wishing the ills upon another which one faces is cruel. However, I will assume that you are not evil, a fair assumption if I do say so myself.

The point I am making is what would Syn_O_Myn, and others using the "poisoned well" argument, say during the 1950s and 1960s when the Soviet Union were proudly declaring themselves an atheist nation and all there leaders were atheists? Would they be arguing that atheism was good when Robert Ingersoll was alive, but the word is now tainted and we all need a new label for ourselves?

In the '50s and '60s, it would be safer to call one's self a free thinker or something to that idea, that way the "commie atheist facist" non-argument could not be asserted upon your arguments and allow them to be dismissed by non thinkers. Once the word was no longer tainted by the communist actions, atheist could be returned to and reclaimed. Yes, free thinkers and atheists are more or less the same thing, but when people thought atheism was communist and totalitarian, free thinker was not poisoned with such connotations. But because atheism was stuck with rather than a switch, non-atheists CONTINUE to claim that atheism is communist and the such. Move away from the term, allow for the movement to make no progress and become irrelevant in the media. Once the fringe has died off from irrelevance or boredom, take back the word. Idealist, perhaps, but is it not at least worth a shot.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Second, to those claiming it's still a woman's choice what her career should look like:
If there were any evidence that it really is a woman's choice (a willing choice) I'd have no problem with that. Except it's not. The reason behind my quote from my blog post is this: Women not going into certain jobs is due to institutional failure. Failure of schools, failure of the community,

Well, I would say the second claim, the one that you accept, demands more evidence than the first.

 

[AronRa]

People were not simply hating on Anita because he got more money than what she requested, that would have been fine, but she got more money that she asked for, and the videos she promised her donators she would produce have taken two years longer to create than scheduled, and only half of the promised videos have came out.

As I said, I'm not the feminist activist that my wife is. So I asked her what the story is on this, and this was her reply:

Why is he so invested in what Anita's timetable is? She said she would make Videos and she is. The people that supported her are her target audience. She doesn't make Videos for anti-fems. Her audience enjoys and supports her Videos which is what she set out to do. She certainly hasn't done anything to be called a liar or fraud. He hasn't met the burden of proof for such a serious allegation. No one has.

What Rebecca Watson did was over react. Some guy asks her if she wants to go get some coffee at his room, and she declined. Any other person would not have made a video about this incredible (in the literal sense of that word) event, they would have let it blow over.

This one I can speak to directly, because I was there. Rebecca explained in the video that she chatting all night with a group of people in the bar, actually at one of the tables. The conversation, and her presentation concerned the way that men awkwardly come on to women, particularly at conferences, The man in question heard all of that, and went into creeper mode anyway. What is not in the video was that he remained outside the group, and waited until she left before following her. That's creepy already, and with obvious innuendo, which she explained perfectly reasonably. Still smiling, she said, "Guys, don't do that. Don't invite me back to your hotel room -right after I finish talking about how much that creeps me out and makes me feel uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner."

The context is important here. We're talking about someone with a poorly veiled attempt at seduction, and exhibiting mildly predatory behavior, with no situational awareness. Rebecca wasn't the one who 'overreacted' either. What she did was perfectly reasonable, and even expected under the circumstances. The overreaction began with Dawkins' infamous "Dear Muslima" attack, and the rest of the anti-feminist onslaught since then. For example, TJ, the Amazing Atheist (and many others) interpreted this to mean that he can't hit on women anymore because "coffee = rape". THAT's an overreaction! The responses to that video were all overreaction, but there was nothing wrong with anything Rebecca did to that point.

Easiest answer: (Last Week Tonight video)

So I assume that you mean to say the wage gap is 77 cents on the dollar. You raised me Oliver, I raise you Maddox

Yes, I've already seen that video. It was being shared in the feminist blogosphere as yet another example of embarrassingly stupid the antifeminist arguments always are. There are still far worse ones, but if you had any idea what you're talking about, you should see a trend developing just from your own citations. This one ignores how the disparity occurs, on the population level. So few people can distinguish systemic trends from individual examples. In corporate America, there is not a set wage for each new employee above entry level. Beyond that it is all based on an estimate of worth based on interpretation of experience or perceived expertise. So everyone's wages vary, and taken together, the averages favor men over women, because, regardless of atypical exceptions, employers evidently tend to value women less than men when all the figures are taken together. Like the other critics already cited in John Oliver's video, yours too attempts to minimize the gap down to a lower percentage, and then argue that it's less significant, while simultaneously admitting that it still exists, and admitting what that likely means. Yet he also ignores his own statistics to imply that employers are aware that they're doing this, or that they're doing it on purpose. Again this report was grossly misrepresented by your sources, and your sources were already questionable before this conversation began.

I've seen some of his videos, and I can only shake my head. I don't even want to talk about them; they're so disappointing.

Address the arguments he presents, specifically about Anita. It isn't too much watch time, maybe 17 minutes or so.

You don't pay attention, do you? What did I just say?

So in the first game, you're playing a 'white knight', saving helpless young girls from a sex trafficking ring, and Thunder tries to justify the objectification of women there by the fact that it is a sex trafficking ring. Well of course. Right. Except that the very reason that the game includes a sex trafficking ring in the first place is so they can objectify women. What if it had been a drug ring or a dog-fighting ring? Then we'd lose all that precious titillation, the objectification of women which sells the game.

The same goes for why the next game takes place in a strip club. Why is that? The same reason, obviously. Now Thunder says that the game doesn't really permit players to kill the dancers, but Sarkeesian showed that the game actually does allow this, and that it even provides a trunk to place the bodies in! How does anyone not understand any of this? Why do I have to explain it? Why didn't you figure this much out before you showed it to me?

I should mention that my 16 year-old step-daughter, and my 13 year-old step-son both became feminists on their own years ago, without any knowledge of my position, BECAUSE of the oversexualization of females in video games. My daughter says she tends to play male characters if armor is involved, because otherwise the options are too skimpy and revealing, and she often plays with a male name because of the level of harassment she gets as a girl. My step-son says his problem is simply being disgusted on her behalf. They play these games together, online, and he sees what she has to put up with. These are just a couple of instances where real life doesn't match the presentation you're trying to sell me.

The feminist community hasn't just laughed at him as you suggest, but they have monitored or shut down their comment sections and hid their ratings.

Which as the video explained, had nothing to do with Thunder, but with the unbridled hate of the antifeminists. It is a hate group, as I said, and my personal experience has certainly borne that out. The video I posted last night was about debating creationists, but there are a lot of hateful comments there trying to call me out for being feminist. It's relentless.

Personal attacks may have been present in those comments, but neither you nor Anita has addressed Phil's criticism of the videos.

Neither did you, which is sad. Don't forget that Phil also accused Anita Sarkeesian of faking her own death threats, and of conspiring to shut down his twitter account. He made both accusations without any evidence whatsoever,

Instead, you say that it is just wrong or hate mongering. Saying such things will not convince me that Phil's arguments were wrong, videos like Ashely Paramour's will. And that one has convinced me that Phil was wrong in his rape video.

I choose to be more discreet. I do not broadcast my disagreements to the world, because that also humiliates the person I am trying to reach, and I do respect a lot of the people I disagree with. So while Ashley and a few other others tried to reach Thunder that way, I consider it more appropriate to speak directly to him, and we did not record those arguments. Although Thunder and I disagree vehemently and I have good reason, I will not make this personal conflict a matter of public spectacle. I've already said all I'm going to say about Tfoot.

I don't say things like that, because I don't say things I don't mean. If I ever say I'm going to kill you, you'd better take that as a genuine threat, because it means that I seriously literally intend to forcibly terminate your life. If someone posts things like that about me or my family, my family demands that I take that seriously.

Well Aron, I personally think your idea of speech is misguided.

Because I don't talk shit? You think I'm misguided because I don't say things I don't mean? Wow. I also don't like to exaggerate. Is that another personal flaw of mine? One of us is definitely misguided, that's for sure.

People, in general, say things that they do not mean to say, especially in reaction to other things. Generally, someone willing to kill you won't give you the heads up. It isn't the ones who comment that you have to be scared of, its the ones who don't. Furthermore, I take freedom of speech very seriously, and I believe that anybody should have the right to say anything no matter how offensive, and we all have the right to either ignore them or criticize them. I would be willing to support someone's right to freedom of speech even if they threatened me, because freedom of speech is that important. If I felt threatened, I would changed my house, attempt to change my place of occupation, and find out if these threats are serious.

No you wouldn't. Those things take weeks or months and are terribly inconvenient. So you would not realistically do that just because you felt threatened. You might call the police however, and they would at least log a report of the threats you've received.

Obviously I care a great deal about free speech too, but at the same time, regardless what you or Hitchens feel about this, some forms of speech like slander, perjury, fraud, and even hoaxes are crimes with consequences.

a) Criminal Violation. - (1) In general. - Whoever engages in any conduct with intent to convey false or misleading information under circumstances where such information may reasonably be believed and where such information indicates that an activity has taken, is taking, or will take place that would constitute a violation of chapter 2, 10, 11B, 39, 40, 44, 111, or 113B of this title, section 236 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2284), or section 46502, the second sentence of section 46504, section 46505(b)(3) or (c), section 46506 if homicide or attempted homicide is involved, or section 60123(b) of title 49, shall - (A) be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both; (B) if serious bodily injury results, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both; and (C) if death results, be fined under this title or imprisoned for any number of years up to life, or both.
-FindLaw

We met Lzzy Hale back in May and my wife asked her if she was a feminist. Lzzy said no, because she thought that that word meant 'misandrist'. How sad is that? Because she would be an excellent representative of what feminism really is. That's what would happen to lessons on Susan B Anthony if we pretend that feminsim means what its critics want it to mean rather than what it really does mean.

Aron, the reason people believe feminism means the same has misandrist is because of the what the fringe does, and how loud and well funded the fringe, and, based on your words on Anita, seemingly the actual feminists as well. The points they make poison the word and suggest that everything is sexist or has sexist roots and must be uprooted, and replaced. Not everything is sexist, and when people point that out, like TF00t has, it isn't called criticism, but harassment.

I am of the opposite opinion, especially since Lzzy Hale is the only person I've ever met in real life who thought that's what feminism means. There seems to be quite a concerted effort, lead by Thunder and others to attempt to relabel feminism from the outside. Once again I remind you that the only time I ever hear that the one-and-only definition anyone can find no longer applies is when I'm talking to antifeminists like yourself.

Not everything is sexist, nor did anyone say that it is, but the antifems have done their best to dismiss, ignore, minimize, or refute a few things that definitely are sexist, rather than admit any justification for the feminism movement.

But you haven't even given me reason to believe that the word really has been 'poisoned', and you dodged my question above, highlighted in yellow. Like I told you before, if you have an issue concerning gender equality, even if it is an issue of men's rights, you can bring it to feminists to advocate on your behalf, because that's what they do, and they're the only movement to have ever advocated for gender equality. So what is the issue?

Well, I hope I have given you reason enough now to believe it is poisoned,

Have you yet figured out why it is not? And why have you still dodged that earlier question?

lets look at another few examples. This is why I don't accept the label of feminism.

This is disturbing. At first, I thought to thank you for proving my point that feminism can only be corrected from within. The trouble is, I watched this video until the end, and her final comments were suspicious. So I looked up a few of her other videos. In all of them, she systematically denies any actual issues of feminism at all. Worse than that, she not only minimizes several, but grossly distorts the rest. I couldn't find any of her videos promoting feminism, and I'll bet you can't either, because she's not the 'factual feminist'; she's an antifeminist apologist! How disappointing. Log this with our growing list of lies against feminists rather than from them.

Historically it has done good, even in recent times, but when you are willing to lie to make a problem seem worse than what it actually is, you poison the word. And yes, their is still a pay gap, and it needs to be fixed. But lying about the pay gap, or lying about the amount of rape on campuses only puts people like me off from the word and the movement.

What about when they're not lying about these things? What about when the antifeminists are lying instead? Like trying to deny that any pay gap exists at all? Accusing people of faking their own death threats? Or overreacting to a reasonable comment and then projecting your fault onto her by pretending that she was the one overreacting? How about when someone completely misrepresents the other position? When someone denies that patriarchy ever existed, or accuses every wave of feminism of being a religious ideology promoted by sex-negative man-hating bull-dykes? What about when every lie, that we can actually prove to be a lie, is coming from your side of the fence? From the people insisting that the one-and-only movement dedicated to gender equality should be called something else, and they’ll do whatever they must to poison that word and achieve that goal?

I have not ignored your question, I proposed a somewhat uncatchy alternative to the word feminism, equalism, or equalist, and you refuted egalitarianism. I realize egalitarian is a word poisoned by its relevance in the communist movement, but "equalist" or another movement would not be poisoned by the extremists, at least not immediately.

Once again, I repeat, as we have already shown, there was only ever one movement dedicated to gender equality. While the critics of that movement pretend that changing the name would fix everything, we know that it won’t; because the antifeminist doesn’t just object to the label but also seeks to minimize, discredit, dismiss, or otherwise refute or ignore every issue of import to that movement.

I often say that feminism can only be corrected from within. We've seen countless demonstrations showing how critics of feminism completely fail either to actually advocate men's rights or correct any of the issues which arise within the feminist movement. So the only way to fix this isn't to make up some other movement no one really cares about, and which won't actually do anything, but to constantly right the movement from within, so that it can be more successful where it is most needed. Because the middle east isn't going to respond to 'equalists'. That's one of those situations which especially need real feminist activists.

I speak only of the modern first world when I speak of "equalists" I realize the middle east needs feminism, but it needs the first two waves of feminism experienced in the US and other countries. We shouldn't abandon the word feminism in places like the middle east, but we ought to do it in the west, because it is a poisoned term.

Well, I think we should stop trying to poison it, but you obviously have a different opinion.

It always come down to this, the antifeminist claims to fit the one-and-only and still applicable definition of feminism, but simply objects to the name, as if that means anything, as if changing the name would make it alright, which we've already seen isn't true. For example, I am not a feminist activist myself. All I did was admit that that definition applies, which it does, and because of that, I have since had to invest more time arguing against anti-feminists than I have creationists, (tonight being no exception). Why? What fucking difference does it make, whether you accept that label or not? Why do you care if I do?

I have no doubt but that Christopher Hitchens was a feminist, because he eloquently expressed feminist ideals, but he never made the mistake of identifying by that label, because THEN you'd see where most of this "poison" is really coming from.

Aron, one point that I wanted to stress is that definitions aren't always the best way to describe things. The definition of feminism is not specific enough. It fails to take into account what feminists have been doing. Its fine as a basic concept (the definition you assert) but in discussions like these it must be more specific. Some modern feminists have poisoned the word by lying through their teeth, sometimes for money.

Maybe that is true, to some limited degree, although it still has not been demonstrated. It is true that critics of the movement have lied about it quite a lot, and do so continuously. The definition of the word is also quite specific enough, and nowhere near as vague as every other word ever offered in its stead; egalitarian, humanist, equalist.

In regards to Hitchens, the reality of the situation is actually quite comically contrary to what you suggest that it is. and depict Hitchens as a man who endorses gender roles, something quite thoroughly denounced by modern feminists. Had he lived but a few more years, we cannot say which side he would be on. But in light of these two videos, do you really think he would support this third wave?

I don't divide feminism into waves; the waves are determined by the different types of historical adversity as pitted against the same continuous idea. But I am shocked to see this about Hitchens. I've heard him advocate women's education and reproductive rights in the 3rd world, and maybe I still expect Englishmen to be more progressive than my disappointing personal experience has repeatedly been.

But since you still haven't answered my questions, what do you expect me to believe you would do if some other movement was invented for the same purpose, but with a different name? Because that still means that video game representations of strip clubs and whore houses objectify women, and that society, on the population level needs to adjust how they judge women in many different situations. to my experience, the antifems won't do that no matter what name you give to any movement charged with achieving gender equality. What difference does it make to you whether I advocate for women having economic, political, and even social quality to men? Why does it matter to you that I'm still using the word correctly? I mean, bear in mind that almost everyone I know and nearly everyone I meet is a feminist, and I know some prominent ones. Yet you're trying to convince me that the people I know aren't who I know them to be, and that the word doesn't mean what it does. You show me videos you think would support you, but which only prove my point. You even think my sincerity is misguided?! I don't know what to make of you, but someone in your situation should realize by now that you can't convince me of things we both already know aren't really true.

 

[Inferno]

That is a difference in perception, I suppose. I very firmly believe free speech is the most important rights we have. It should never be cut down due to someone feeling scared. It is actions of people that ought to have consequences, not that which they claim they will do or wish upon another.

To a degree, yes.
On the other hand threats of rape, death and physical harm should never be tolerated, no matter the context. In that context I wouldn't hesitate to shut the other side down.

Even if the minority is small, it is the most vocal and well funded minority that I have yet to see in any movement. The arguments they make are fallacious and any criticism is called harassment, which they use to continue moving their crap down to those who want to listen. I have demonstrated that the fringe has poisoned the mainstream by pointing out that people like Anita are liars who just want to be victims for cash and that mainstream feminists have consistently lied about the data to over-hype the problems. Women do face problems and these problems ought to be addressed quickly, but someone willing to lie about the problem to make it sound worse only shows how dishonest people are willing to be for their cause, regardless of if its feminism or a religion.

Well-funded? Are you being funny or something?
As to you having demonstrated anything: Ha, don't make me laugh.

I must raise a skeptical eyebrow when you use the word "experience". I think you mean to say recognize and attempt to correct, but if that is not the case then I must say that wishing the ills upon another which one faces is cruel. However, I will assume that you are not evil, a fair assumption if I do say so myself.

I usually mean what I say.
I'm not saying I like this particular side of human nature, but sadly it seems to be true: The vast majority of humans won't raise a finger if
a) they've not experienced it (the problem) themselves or
b) they have some close emotional connection with it.

I am not in favour of "men getting their share". I'm a man and I'm not a masochist. However, many men won't stop feeling (and acting) superior until they themselves have experienced being inferior.
If you can think or a different way that is also in accordance with human nature (good luck trying reason here) I'd be all ears.

Well, I would say the second claim, the one that you accept, demands more evidence than the first.

Didn't you see the video Aron posted? (John Oliver - Wage Gap)
That alone is solid evidence.

How about the Times-Article I posted?

I think you're mistaking "institutionalized repression" with "wanted institutionalized repression" or malice or something to that extent. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying our culture is so hard-wired to be a certain way, we have trouble stepping out of it.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Didn't you see the video Aron posted? (John Oliver - Wage Gap)
That alone is solid evidence.

The claim you made was specifically about education letting women down. the video Aron posted doesn't even get close to that topic.

How about the Times-Article I posted?

The only point the article you posted has any merit, is when it comes to women only high-school. Which is a rarity today, and certainly can not explain why today's class rooms associated with STEM degrees are mostly deserted from women, while at the same social and humanities degrees are mostly filled by women.

I think you're mistaking "institutionalized repression" with "wanted institutionalized repression" or malice or something to that extent. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying our culture is so hard-wired to be a certain way, we have trouble stepping out of it.

Intentional would perhaps be a better word here. And no, I'm not even making the distinction between both when it comes to education.
I remember the experience of getting an education, and I assume that in the united states is pretty much the same thing, it is a western model of education. General education starts out even all the way up to high school, they have the same classes I did, the same teachers I had, the evaluation is standardized. When education starts to specialize, something that you do out of your own choice, the entry levels are based on score alone everywhere, there is no specific regulations that can make any distinction based on sex, yet women are almost all gone. There is a clear rift, men go to hard science, women go to humanities, and it is the same everywhere in every school. Why? You can't blame it on women only schools performing more poorly then men only schools, there aren't any anymore. Were they not prepared? Are you claiming that women don't attend the same schools as men until they get to choose where they want to go? Is it a coincidence that women who were willing to go into STEM fields went all to the poor schools and as a consequence they weren't nurtured enough to actually go into STEM? Were they selected against? Were they pressured not to go into STEM?
Other than free choice, what is it exactly that makes women not going into stem? You can't blame it on anything else. You can't blame discrimination to explain the numbers. If you wan't to blame it on discrimination, bring me something concrete, something I can understand.
I can understand "women only schools", I can understand personal biases where a carbon copy of a resume gets different appreciation if the name on the front page gets changed from a woman's name to a man's name.
I can't understand "institutionalized repression", what is it exactly? How exactly is this institution repressing women? And specially when it applies to education, of all things, precisely where it is least possible for this discrimination to take place.

And certainly it can't be "institutionalized", because to be "institutionalized" it must be consecrated in the regulations, the regulations must explicitly single out women. If you can not find that, then it is not institutionalized. Call it personal, call it whatever, not "institutionalized".

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

A interesting, recent study shows that the claims about bias against girls/women aren't as clear-cut as they appear to be:

When times are tough, parents favor daughters over sons

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Why is he so invested in what Anita's timetable is? She said she would make Videos and she is. The people that supported her are her target audience. She doesn't make Videos for anti-fems. Her audience enjoys and supports her Videos which is what she set out to do. She certainly hasn't done anything to be called a liar or fraud. He hasn't met the burden of proof for such a serious allegation. No one has.

Bull fucking shit!
She asked for 6000$ to do 5 videos. First of all, a kick-starter project for 6000$ to make fucking YouTube videos. And she got, get this, 26.5 times that amount. This was back in 2012, we are in 2015, and only 3 of those videos have been made, the last one was a year ago, and you can bet your ass you ain't going to see another one. The production value is probably closer to 6$, she didn't buy any material, she doesn't make her own content, she rips off other people's videos.
Had this been a company and not some dumb ass kick-starter project, she would already have been sued and convicted for fraud.
What possible excuse could she have for this? You are concerned how people give feminism a bad name, and you defend her?
It's a fraud and you know it! And you should be ashamed of yourself!
Shame on you!

This one ignores how the disparity occurs, on the population level. So few people can distinguish systemic trends from individual examples. In corporate America, there is not a set wage for each new employee above entry level. Beyond that it is all based on an estimate of worth based on interpretation of experience or perceived expertise.

Bullshit! I work for one of the biggest American corporations, its gross revenue surpasses the internal gross product of most countries in the world. And there is a clear salary tabulation that goes all the way up to the CEO. And this is a trend that has been adopted from other companies who work under the same business model. I have no idea what the hell are you talking about!

Like the other critics already cited in John Oliver's video, yours too attempts to minimize the gap down to a lower percentage, and then argue that it's less significant

[sarcasm]Yes, because you would expect the random behavior of a population to go perfectly down the middle.[/sarcasm]

The same goes for why the next game takes place in a strip club. Why is that? The same reason, obviously. Now Thunder says that the game doesn't really permit players to kill the dancers, but Sarkeesian showed that the game actually does allow this, and that it even provides a trunk to place the bodies in! How does anyone not understand any of this? Why do I have to explain it? Why didn't you figure this much out before you showed it to me?

Because I have played the damn game! That is why I call bullshit! Did you played the game?

My daughter says she tends to play male characters if armor is involved, because otherwise the options are too skimpy and revealing, and she often plays with a male name because of the level of harassment she gets as a girl. My step-son says his problem is simply being disgusted on her behalf. They play these games together, online, and he sees what she has to put up with. These are just a couple of instances where real life doesn't match the presentation you're trying to sell me.

Online interactions, that I can totally understand. I agree with you on this. But Anita doesn't make that point! And that is the point.
Do you know why she doesn't make this point?

There seems to be quite a concerted effort, lead by Thunder and others to attempt to relabel feminism from the outside. Once again I remind you that the only time I ever hear that the one-and-only definition anyone can find no longer applies is when I'm talking to antifeminists like yourself.

Not everything is sexist, nor did anyone say that it is, but the antifems have done their best to dismiss, ignore, minimize, or refute a few things that definitely are sexist, rather than admit any justification for the feminism movement.

I have seen you criticize many times creationists from the outside, yet I didn't hear any objections then. Of course people who are contrary to you don't hold the same position to you, it is their belief that your position is nonsense why would they hold it?
But definitions aside, whatever name you want to call it, whatever everybody else that runs on the same label does, you can still either agree or disagree on specific points.

So I looked up a few of her other videos. In all of them, she systematically denies any actual issues of feminism at all. Worse than that, she not only minimizes several, but grossly distorts the rest. I couldn't find any of her videos promoting feminism, and I'll bet you can't either,

Why should you? The focus is clear on criticizing feminism, and the pun in "factual feminist" is to imply that today's "feminists" mostly aren't.
But that is not the point. The point here is, is she wrong, if so how is she wrong? You can criticize her all you like, but if you can't address this last 2 things, you have no point.

How about when someone completely misrepresents the other position?

Like you just did?

What about when every lie, that we can actually prove to be a lie, is coming from your side of the fence?

Really? So feminist have never lied? Only people with contrary opinions lie?

While the critics of that movement pretend that changing the name would fix everything, we know that it won’t;

I agree it won't. But for different reasons. People will just port over their persecution complex.
You are naive to think that the problem of "anti-feminist", which includes women, is that they are not for women's equality, or that they don't understand your position. The problem is that people calling themselves "feminists", waving the "feminist" flag, make the most ridiculous claims and like to toot their victim trumpet while pointing at their vaginas as if this should automatically entitle them to special privileges. People don't want this new "feminsm" they want real equality, without the bullshit.
"Feminists" don't point to the wage gap because they want equality, they point to it because they have a skewed view of the world which entitles them to get more money without more work. If they wanted to deal with it, they would not only point to the issue, they would point to concrete root causes, they would have provided concrete solution to address those issues and rally to put those solutions into practice. They wouldn't just rally with signs pointing to poorly drawn issues expecting shit to change out of magic.

Because that still means that video game representations of strip clubs and whore houses objectify women

But that would mean there would be a problem with that.
Let's revert the roles, and let's imagine the same game, but where the sex of the characters are reversed, men are whores and women are gang members and heroes. What is the problem with this game?

and that society, on the population level needs to adjust how they judge women in many different situations

To this I agree. But this is not the same issue as you have with video games, and try to pretend that they are one and the same thing is disingenuous.
And this is another thing that I have to call you out, if you haven't got it already, you try to defend the bad things by trying to conflate it to some other noble cause that has nothing to do with it, and then arguing "Oh you are against this bad thing, how dare you be against this good thing?". Stop that!

What difference does it make to you whether I advocate for women having economic, political, and even social quality to men?

But they are not against that! That is not what they are objecting to! Do you see in what sense you are misrepresenting your detractors?

Why does it matter to you that I'm still using the word correctly?

It's a word. Fine you can have your word. Now is the wage gap still down to women's free choice? Is it still bullshit that there is discrimination when it comes to education and women? Did Anita take a whole bunch of money under the pretenses of doing something which she has failed to do and nor does she have any intentions to do it?

 

[AronRa]

There seems to be quite a concerted effort, lead by Thunder and others to attempt to relabel feminism from the outside. Once again I remind you that the only time I ever hear that the one-and-only definition anyone can find no longer applies is when I'm talking to antifeminists like yourself.

Not everything is sexist, nor did anyone say that it is, but the antifems have done their best to dismiss, ignore, minimize, or refute a few things that definitely are sexist, rather than admit any justification for the feminism movement.

I have seen you criticize many times creationists from the outside, yet I didn't hear any objections then. Of course people who are contrary to you don't hold the same position to you, it is their belief that your position is nonsense why would they hold it?

You're not paying attention. Earlier I explained that that feminism can only be corrected from within, because we've seen countless demonstrations showing how critics of feminism completely fail either to actually advocate men's rights or correct any of the issues which arise within the feminist movement.

I did not misrepresent the antifeminists, but I did point out where they have misrepresented feminism. The 'Factual Feminist' is one such example, dishonest both in misrepresenting herself as a feminist, but also in the systematic apologetics determined to excuse, minimize, or otherwise eliminate every issue any sincere feminist (or egalitarian equalist) ever posed. Some of these were given without reason, and ridiculed by hyperbole rather than actually being addressed properly. Of course this is not to say that no feminist ever lied. I'm only pointing out that the allegations made here are unsubstantiated, and ironic in that they are supported by deliberate misrepresentation and lies. It is possible to have a different opinion and express or defend that reasonably and honestly, but that's not what has been typically happening.

At issue here is the fact that I identified as a feminist specifically because I recognize and accept that the one-and-only and still applicable definition is one who advocates that women should have economic, political, and even social equality to men. I have been under attack for this simple observation ever since. Detractors insist that I discard that label on the allegation that it has been poisoned from within, when in fact it is primarily poisoned from without, by a smear campaign wrought by hate groups, and I have seen that to be ongoing my whole life.

I don't have to believe in a gender gap, but I have seen one reported, and every time someone tries to dismiss or discredit it, they still admit that it exists, and what that likely implies. I worked at a corporate multinational for 14 years. As you've had similar experience, then I think you know as well as I do how reviews are personalized the way I already described. Feminists like myself, and practically everyone else I know, point to this, not for the weird and false reasons you imagined, but as an indication that society at the population level should adjust how they judge women in many different situations. When I said that, I was talking about the evaluations that lead to the wage gap. You made the mistake of thinking I was referring to video games, and you made the mistake of thinking I was equating the two. This would be a lot easier if you addressed what I actually said instead of what you thought I meant.

I don't have time (or interest) in playing video games. You say this one doesn't permit players to kill hookers and put them into a crate, even though the demonstration already showed otherwise. This was also the same point as my step-daughter made to me, and you somehow didn't even think that point had been made. If we reverse the roles, it would be the same problem, but the reason this doesn't happen is because men are visually-stimulated far more than women, and that leads to systemic objectification in visual media. Importantly, in these specific examples, that objectification is degrading and dehumanizing.

You think Anita Sarkeesian is guilty of fraud, and you insist that I know that, even after I said that I don't know anything about her, and had to ask someone else. Yet you think I should be ashamed of myself for defending her, even though I didn't. Nor do I have to, but since you're inclined to impugn me, then, according to one Legal Dictionary, fraud is "the intentional use of deceit, a trick or some dishonest means to deprive another of his/her/its money, property or a legal right". According to Cornell, "Fraud is deliberately deceiving someone else with the intent of causing damage". As far as I can tell, neither applies here, but should have been easy enough to prove otherwise. Somehow you know that there will never be another video, and you think the burden of proof has already been met. I don't think it has. If this was fraud, I'd think there should at least be an indictment, rather than seeing her listed as one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people.

and that society, on the population level needs to adjust how they judge women in many different situations

To this I agree. But this is not the same issue as you have with video games, and try to pretend that they are one and the same thing is disingenuous.
And this is another thing that I have to call you out, if you haven't got it already, you try to defend the bad things by trying to conflate it to some other noble cause that has nothing to do with it, and then arguing "Oh you are against this bad thing, how dare you be against this good thing?". Stop that!

I can't stop doing what I haven't started doing. I'm not defending anything really, certainly not any 'bad' things. Nor am I conflating anything the way you are, and I'm not the one misrepresenting either.

Once again, I repeat, nearly everyone I know, male and female, are proud feminists who want real equality, and who do not ever point at their vaginas and demand more money for less work. We want real equality. If you did too, then you wouldn't be trying to systematically excuse or refuse every issue of import to that cause, and you wouldn't be misrepresenting me or feminism the way you are now. In the situations we're talking about, legislation is not the answer; it's only a matter of social awareness, and that's what you're objecting to.

 

[Syn_O_Myn]

Why is he so invested in what Anita's timetable is? She said she would make Videos and she is. The people that supported her are her target audience. She doesn't make Videos for anti-fems. Her audience enjoys and supports her Videos which is what she set out to do. She certainly hasn't done anything to be called a liar or fraud. He hasn't met the burden of proof for such a serious allegation. No one has.

Anita was given more money that she requested, she made half the videos she promised she would, she did so in more than twice the time she said would be required to make the videos, and the videos she did make didn't actually demonstrate that which she set out to demonstrate. Not only that, but when people point out that her arguments are crap, she shuts down her youtube comments section. When people on the internet are being meanies, she cancels talks just to show how oppressed she is. The people of the internet are often assholes with no fear of retribution. This medium allows people to be assholes and make threats they probably wouldn't dare threaten in real life, and even if they would, most of them wouldn't follow through. For someone who has been on the internet for as long as you have been, I am astonished that you are seemingly completely oblivious to this.

The context is important here. We're talking about someone with a poorly veiled attempt at seduction, and exhibiting mildly predatory behavior, with no situational awareness. Rebecca wasn't the one who 'overreacted' either. What she did was perfectly reasonable, and even expected under the circumstances.

Fine, I will grant you entirely that what Watson did was reasonable given the circumstances.

Yes, I've already seen that video. It was being shared in the feminist blogosphere as yet another example of embarrassingly stupid the antifeminist arguments always are. There are still far worse ones, but if you had any idea what you're talking about, you should see a trend developing just from your own citations. This one ignores how the disparity occurs, on the population level. So few people can distinguish systemic trends from individual examples. In corporate America, there is not a set wage for each new employee above entry level. Beyond that it is all based on an estimate of worth based on interpretation of experience or perceived expertise. So everyone's wages vary, and taken together, the averages favor men over women, because, regardless of atypical exceptions, employers evidently tend to value women less than men when all the figures are taken together. Like the other critics already cited in John Oliver's video, yours too attempts to minimize the gap down to a lower percentage, and then argue that it's less significant, while simultaneously admitting that it still exists, and admitting what that likely means. Yet he also ignores his own statistics to imply that employers are aware that they're doing this, or that they're doing it on purpose. Again this report was grossly misrepresented by your sources, and your sources were already questionable before this conversation began.

Aron, the reason you don't add em all up and compare is because that isn't a fair assessment and fails to take into account relevant factors which determine salaries. When these things are taken into account, the wage gap shrinks. Yes, its important to shrink it to zero, but lying and making the problem sound worse than it actually is makes people like me role eyes at feminists in general. If people would stop repeating the myth of 77 cents on the dollar, maybe people would be willing to be feminists. But saying the problem is worse than what it really is makes look stupid, and continuing to say that the problem is worse than what it is makes you look like a liar.

You don't pay attention, do you? What did I just say?

What it sounded like you were saying is, "I don't want to actually address his arguments." But you have shown yourself to be more honorable than that. Thank you.

So in the first game, you're playing a 'white knight', saving helpless young girls from a sex trafficking ring, and Thunder tries to justify the objectification of women there by the fact that it is a sex trafficking ring. Well of course. Right. Except that the very reason that the game includes a sex trafficking ring in the first place is so they can objectify women. What if it had been a drug ring or a dog-fighting ring? Then we'd lose all that precious titillation, the objectification of women which sells the game.

Yes Aron, I bet those evil developers were just thinking to themselves "How can we objectify women today" as they were making that game. In that mission, you are given the task of stopping sex trafficking. Its one mission in a game, and if someone bought that game just because you naked women, they coulda just watched some porn. You aren't playing a white knight saving women in any other mission of that game. One minute mission has boobs in it, and tables are flipped.

The same goes for why the next game takes place in a strip club. Why is that? The same reason, obviously. Now Thunder says that the game doesn't really permit players to kill the dancers, but Sarkeesian showed that the game actually does allow this, and that it even provides a trunk to place the bodies in! How does anyone not understand any of this? Why do I have to explain it? Why didn't you figure this much out before you showed it to me?

Yeah, the developers of Hitman were also scheming to objectify and oppress women too. Its not like they are in it for money, or to make a game people will buy, they just hate women. That is one mission of that game, and in that mission, you are supposed to avoid being detected and get passed the dancers without being noticed. Not only that, but you are penalized for attacking the dancers. The devs obviously did not want for you to go kill women, they want you to stay on the mission and kill your target. You are actively discouraged from killing, or even being noticed by those women. If you are noticed, you might have to kill them and lose points for doing so or fail the mission, and there are boxes everywhere to put bodies in. Because if you fuck up, you can still complete the mission. They aren't suggesting you should kill the women any more than they suggest you should kill any of the other non-targets in the game.

I should mention that my 16 year-old step-daughter, and my 13 year-old step-son both became feminists on their own years ago, without any knowledge of my position, BECAUSE of the oversexualization of females in video games. My daughter says she tends to play male characters if armor is involved, because otherwise the options are too skimpy and revealing, and she often plays with a male name because of the level of harassment she gets as a girl. My step-son says his problem is simply being disgusted on her behalf. They play these games together, online, and he sees what she has to put up with. These are just a couple of instances where real life doesn't match the presentation you're trying to sell me.

So what? I prefer to play female characters because I personally don't like seeing muscular men walking around shirtless. These are preferences Aron, nobody forces your children or you or anybody else for that matter to play sexualized women. You have options in most games, and if a game doesn't give you the option, either don't play it or suck it up. If I want to play a game with a muscular dude as the main protagonist, I will suck it up. I don't use voice communications because I have a high pitched voice and I don't want to annoy people. I am a dude, and I get the same kind of hate mail as Anita, minus the rape, but nobody has yet to actually fucking attack me in person. These are my experiences, and those are your childrens' experiences.

Which as the video explained, had nothing to do with Thunder, but with the unbridled hate of the antifeminists. It is a hate group, as I said, and my personal experience has certainly borne that out. The video I posted last night was about debating creationists, but there are a lot of hateful comments there trying to call me out for being feminist. It's relentless.

And as I have said on MULTIPLE occasions now, the harassment is internet harassment. Ignore it if you so please. People on the internet will say nasty ass shit, and we call those people trolls. Feeding the trolls is a common phrase that describes the problem. Submitting to the troll and acknowledging their presence and their threats only gives them more drive to make those threats, all of which are empty threats. Ignore them.

Don't forget that Phil also accused Anita Sarkeesian of faking her own death threats, and of conspiring to shut down his twitter account. He made both accusations without any evidence whatsoever,

What videos did he make those claims in. I found the twitter video, in which he said that twitter had suspended his account for seemingly no reason. He showed his tweets leading up to his suspension and none of them would be called harassment. He was blaming twitter, not Anita, at least not in that video. Apologies if I was looking at the wrong video.

I choose to be more discreet. I do not broadcast my disagreements to the world, because that also humiliates the person I am trying to reach, and I do respect a lot of the people I disagree with. So while Ashley and a few other others tried to reach Thunder that way, I consider it more appropriate to speak directly to him, and we did not record those arguments. Although Thunder and I disagree vehemently and I have good reason, I will not make this personal conflict a matter of public spectacle. I've already said all I'm going to say about Tfoot.

Fine, but personally, that sounds like you don't actually have rebuttal for the videos. Maybe you do, and i am wrong, but I cannot know either way. If that is all you have to say about TF00t, fine.

Because I don't talk shit? You think I'm misguided because I don't say things I don't mean? Wow. I also don't like to exaggerate. Is that another personal flaw of mine? One of us is definitely misguided, that's for sure.

Its fine if you want to just say things that you mean, but that means that you must be interpreted literally when you say things like "if you are not a feminist, you are a sexist" which seems like a false dichotomy if I have ever heard one. But more on that in a bit. It is just an opinion of mine that non-literal speech can be useful in different contexts.

No you wouldn't. Those things take weeks or months and are terribly inconvenient. So you would not realistically do that just because you felt threatened. You might call the police however, and they would at least log a report of the threats you've received.

Obviously I care a great deal about free speech too, but at the same time, regardless what you or Hitchens feel about this, some forms of speech like slander, perjury, fraud, and even hoaxes are crimes with consequences.

If I genuinely felt threatened, I would be willing to do so, because minor inconvenience is better than death. I would log a report with the police, but I would not want someone to be imprisoned or fined for something they didn't really mean. Nor would I want them silenced. They have every right to speak just as I have every right to ignore them or take action. However, I do agree that those laws are good, and thus I revise my opinion, slightly.

Once again I remind you that the only time I ever hear that the one-and-only definition anyone can find no longer applies is when I'm talking to antifeminists like yourself.

Not everything is sexist, nor did anyone say that it is, but the antifems have done their best to dismiss, ignore, minimize, or refute a few things that definitely are sexist, rather than admit any justification for the feminism movement.

Once again I must assert that definitions can change and words can mean more than what their definitions would imply. Feminism has held true to its definition, but has also changed quite a bit. It now suggests things are sexist despite the justification for these accusations can be faulty and it also asserts certain things as fact when in reality they are not. Lying about statistics to make a problem seem worse than it is puts me off, which is why I don't identify as a feminist, even if that definition does apply. The word is more than its definition, and that shows by the actions taken and the claims made by feminists.

Have you yet figured out why it is not? And why have you still dodged that earlier question?

Aron, stop being an asshole. I did address that question, and you have ignored it every time. If you didn't see me address it, here it is once again, word for word, from my last post.

I have not ignored your question, I proposed a somewhat uncatchy alternative to the word feminism, equalism, or equalist, and you refuted egalitarianism. I realize egalitarian is a word poisoned by its relevance in the communist movement, but "equalist" or another movement would not be poisoned by the extremists, at least not immediately.

This is disturbing. At first, I thought to thank you for proving my point that feminism can only be corrected from within. The trouble is, I watched this video until the end, and her final comments were suspicious. So I looked up a few of her other videos. In all of them, she systematically denies any actual issues of feminism at all. Worse than that, she not only minimizes several, but grossly distorts the rest. I couldn't find any of her videos promoting feminism, and I'll bet you can't either, because she's not the 'factual feminist'; she's an antifeminist apologist! How disappointing. Log this with our growing list of lies against feminists rather than from them.

No Aron, she doesn't deny that problems exists, she brings reality to the table and compares some claims of feminists to reality, and when reality shows otherwise, you simply call her a liar. You don't demonstrate that she is lying about the statistics, but she does show that when relevant points are accounted for many feminist claims are incorrect. It would be fine if you just revised the statistics, but no, you have to say 1/4 women are raped on campus, or that the gap of wage is 77 cents on the dollar. Demonstrate she is a liar. Don't just call her one.

Like trying to deny that any pay gap exists at all?

Many times have I pointed out during this discussion that the gap does exist, but its not as bad as you and other feminists assert. I have said that it is a problem that must be addressed, but lying about how bad it is just makes you look like an ass.

Accusing people of faking their own death threats? Or overreacting to a reasonable comment and then projecting your fault onto her by pretending that she was the one overreacting? How about when someone completely misrepresents the other position?

None of these things have I done, except for the middle one, which I have retracted.

When someone denies that patriarchy ever existed, or accuses every wave of feminism of being a religious ideology promoted by sex-negative man-hating bull-dykes?

I haven't said either of those things, but I have called Anita an idiot for preposing something which is not evidently true and then refusing to retract that statement when proven wrong.

What about when every lie, that we can actually prove to be a lie, is coming from your side of the fence?

Well, I the stats often provided by feminists have been demonstrated to be wrong, and despite that, they are repeated and denied to be wrong by people like you. That is lying, and lying for feminism. Furthermore, I recognize that many antifeminists are liars and do lie, but that is irrelevant to this discussion. You and I are talking about feminism, not antifeminists, but we can discuss them if you so please.

From the people insisting that the one-and-only movement dedicated to gender equality should be called something else, and they’ll do whatever they must to poison that word and achieve that goal?

Or perhaps that the poison comes from within, as I believe I have demonstrated by pointing out that the statistics you present are incorrect and then you refusing to accept that because it would be minimizing the problem, despite the fact that I still recognize it as still a problem. I do not know how I am poisoning that word, as I am not a feminist and do not represent feminists nor feminism as a whole.

Once again, I repeat, as we have already shown, there was only ever one movement dedicated to gender equality. While the critics of that movement pretend that changing the name would fix everything, we know that it won’t; because the antifeminist doesn’t just object to the label but also seeks to minimize, discredit, dismiss, or otherwise refute or ignore every issue of import to that movement.

Aron, I do NOT object to the label of feminism because I believe that women should just shut up. I have said this MULTIPLE times. Furthermore, minimizing the problem is possible whilst still recognizing that a problem still exists and must be addressed. One does not have to be a feminist to object to and fight against something, and to claim so is just stupid. Abandoning the word wouldn't fix everything, but it would temporarily fix somethings, like the fringe poisoning the whole, and seemingly the whole being poisoned.

Well, I think we should stop trying to poison it, but you obviously have a different opinion.

Fixing it would only be possible if people would accept reality and revise their statistics to meet reality. Evidently, you and many other feminists are unwilling to do that, and that is why I feel a name change is necessary.

Maybe that is true, to some limited degree, although it still has not been demonstrated. It is true that critics of the movement have lied about it quite a lot, and do so continuously. The definition of the word is also quite specific enough, and nowhere near as vague as every other word ever offered in its stead; egalitarian, humanist, equalist.

The point is that feminism has come to mean more than its definition suggests it means because of the actions and ideas asserted by feminists. A blank slate, such as equalists, would not be poisoned by previous actions, nor would it have implications from earlier time periods.

But since you still haven't answered my questions, what do you expect me to believe you would do if some other movement was invented for the same purpose, but with a different name? Because that still means that video game representations of strip clubs and whore houses objectify women, and that society, on the population level needs to adjust how they judge women in many different situations. to my experience, the antifems won't do that no matter what name you give to any movement charged with achieving gender equality. What difference does it make to you whether I advocate for women having economic, political, and even social quality to men? Why does it matter to you that I'm still using the word correctly? I mean, bear in mind that almost everyone I know and nearly everyone I meet is a feminist, and I know some prominent ones. Yet you're trying to convince me that the people I know aren't who I know them to be, and that the word doesn't mean what it does. You show me videos you think would support you, but which only prove my point. You even think my sincerity is misguided?! I don't know what to make of you, but someone in your situation should realize by now that you can't convince me of things we both already know aren't really true.

Objectification depends on perspective Aron. Strip clubs "objectify" women, but women aren't forced to work at strip clubs nor are they striping for free. Strip clubs also exist in the other direction, and I see nothing wrong with men or women dressing in sexually appealing clothes in exchange for money. I also think prostitution should be legal, so long as prostitutes engage in safe sex. I have nothing against porn either, because women who go into the porn industry made the choice to do so and are paid well to do their job. However, non strippers or non porn actresses can do as they please and go into fields they decide to. We should encourage all children to go into politics or the sciences, sure, but if those children just don't have a desire to go into those fields, don't call it a sexist conspiracy to keep women out. The shirt gate debacle is what I am referring to of course. In regards to your last sentence, I must raise a skeptical eyebrow. If you are implying that I am trying to deceive you, then I must say I am not. On the contrary, I have presented counter statistics to your statistics which are more accurate because they take into account relevant facts. You dismiss this as disgusting, which you are free to do, but I see that as dishonest. That's all for now I guess. Talk to you soon.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Nor do I have to, but since you're inclined to impugn me, then, according to one Legal Dictionary, fraud is "the intentional use of deceit, a trick or some dishonest means to deprive another of his/her/its money, property or a legal right".

Did she or did she not lie about making the project to receive money from other people?

 

[AronRa]

Its fine if you want to just say things that you mean, but that means that you must be interpreted literally when you say things like "if you are not a feminist, you are a sexist" which seems like a false dichotomy if I have ever heard one.

That's why the very next thing I said immediately after that is that it's not a dichotomy. No one gives me credit for that -even when they admit to having watched that video for another five seconds. But the point remains, as I said in that speech; a feminist is one advocates equal rights and treatment for women. We all know that's what the definition is. So if one objects to double standards being imposed against women, simply on the basis of gender, that would make one feminist by definition.

Likewise, if we look at it in the negative, then a non-feminist is one who does not advocate gender equality, which means they'll accept gender inequality, and that is exactly what 'sexist' means. What part of my observation is incorrect?

ˈfeməˌnizəm/ = the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.
ˈsekˌsizəm/ = prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

To put it more simply,
Equality for women = feminism;
women's inequality = sexism.

That seems inarguable, and in fact no one has ever been able to argue against that, but they still try, and I still catch a whole lotta shit for observing this fact, one which remains true despite all objection.

The issue seems to be that no one admits to being sexist, the way they sometimes do about being racist. You want to say you support women's rights being equal to men, but you object that that makes you feminist. You also seek to minimize, refute or otherwise excuse every issue you perceive as connected to feminism, without realizing what that means too.

I'm not sure if there is any goal to this discussion, other than to try and take up my time. You argued that you won't use the feminist label, and you want to know why I do. Obviously that doesn't have anything to do with Anita Sarkeesian. Whatever she did or might do wouldn't have any impact on me. She doesn't change the definition of feminism, and as we've already seen, she is not the source of the 'poison' either. You accuse me of being oblivious to the obvious, but that's how you appear to me too. If we're talking about why either of us will or won't apply the feminism label, then you should talk about something relevant.

The definition of feminism has not changed in the least. I'm sure statistics are misreported even by our president due to inaccurate calculations, but feminism neither makes nor reports these figures. Very often it is not even feminiSTS who do that. Using myself as an example, I repeating what I heard, from what I should expect to be a reasonably reliable source. You also said that I am "evidently" unwilling to revise reported statistics once corrected. You said without any evidence and despite evidence to the contrary. I don't care what the percentage of the wage gap is; it's important to note that every source admits there is one and what that indicates. That's what's important. Yes, it should be reported accurately, but I didn't have anything to do with its calculation, and I never said that the problem is worse than it is. So how am I a liar?

You complained that the definition of feminism is too broad, and you wanted to propose a different word that was even broader. I had already explained that the definition of feminism is actually quite precise; that issues of social inequality can be divided into racism, sexism, and religious discrimination. I explained that feminism is the only movement that ever addressed sexism. I asked what other word applies? Rather than admit that there isn't one, you wanted to make one up, and called me an asshole for pointing out that you never answered my question.

Yes, video games depicting whore houses and strip clubs objectify women, just like real whore houses and strip clubs do. Feminism is, as I said, simply an awareness of these things, and should be accurate of course. That means you shouldn't launch into hyperbole, pretending that sexist objectification is 'evil' or even consciously deliberate. Dehumanizing women wasn't the goal of the game, but that is what it does. The issue seems to be whether we can be aware of that, and admit that's what it is.

Changing the name from 'feminism' to 'equalist' will have no more effect than changing it from 'women's lib' to 'feminism' did. It's still necessarily the same movement with the same concerns. You either acknowledge those concerns and seek to correct them, or you dismiss or ignore them and justify that by whatever excuse you can come up with.

But since you still haven't answered my questions, what do you expect me to believe you would do if some other movement was invented for the same purpose, but with a different name? Because that still means that video game representations of strip clubs and whore houses objectify women, and that society, on the population level needs to adjust how they judge women in many different situations. to my experience, the antifems won't do that no matter what name you give to any movement charged with achieving gender equality.

Objectification depends on perspective Aron. Strip clubs "objectify" women, but women aren't forced to work at strip clubs nor are they striping for free. Strip clubs also exist in the other direction, and I see nothing wrong with men or women dressing in sexually appealing clothes in exchange for money. I also think prostitution should be legal, so long as prostitutes engage in safe sex. I have nothing against porn either, because women who go into the porn industry made the choice to do so and are paid well to do their job. However, non strippers or non porn actresses can do as they please and go into fields they decide to.

I agree completely, but that didn't answer my question.

We should encourage all children to go into politics or the sciences, sure, but if those children just don't have a desire to go into those fields, don't call it a sexist conspiracy to keep women out. The shirt gate debacle is what I am referring to of course.

You still off-track. If by "shirt gate" you mean the scientist who held the press conference with the girly shirt, that was another lack of situational awareness, not a conspiracy to keep women out of anything.

What difference does it make to you whether I advocate for women having economic, political, and even social quality to men? Why does it matter to you that I'm still using the word correctly? I mean, bear in mind that almost everyone I know and nearly everyone I meet is a feminist, and I know some prominent ones. Yet you're trying to convince me that the people I know aren't who I know them to be, and that the word doesn't mean what it does. You show me videos you think would support you, but which only prove my point. You even think my sincerity is misguided?! I don't know what to make of you, but someone in your situation should realize by now that you can't convince me of things we both already know aren't really true.

In regards to your last sentence, I must raise a skeptical eyebrow. If you are implying that I am trying to deceive you, then I must say I am not. On the contrary, I have presented counter statistics to your statistics which are more accurate because they take into account relevant facts. You dismiss this as disgusting, which you are free to do, but I see that as dishonest.

I didn't dismiss anything; nor did I take anything as 'disgusting', but you seem to be arguing what you think I think and not what I actually say.

You also keep assuming that I must be dishonest. At the same time, you keep insisting that feminists (including myself and practically everyone I know) aren't what I know us to be, and you say this without any justification, and the statistics you cite do not support that case.

The 'Factual Feminist' (for example) did actually deny everything she could deny, and everything else she tried to minimize, excuse, or misrepresent. She's a fraud, because there is no point when she actually endorses any of the issues of feminism as both real and significant. So she is misrepresenting herself as a feminist. She's not; she's an apologist with quite the opposite mission.

I pointed out a long list of typical lies from antifeminists, and you have wisely denied them. Good. My position on feminism doesn't depend on anything any particular person does. I don't have any dogma I have to buy into, and nothing I have to believe or endorse that I don't feel to be substantive or significant. My concern is primarily whether we apply double-standards on the basis of gender. A lot of antifeminists assume that I'm somehow unaware that we are a sexually dimorphic species, as if there are no differences, but what I'm really talking about are how we impose restrictions on the basis of gender that aren't imposed by our biology. What I get from anti-feminists in response is a systematic denial of any injustices imposed against women, and equivocation trying to make it all about men,

My first encounter with this was 6 years ago. I mentioned how Jurassic Park was right when they said that all vertebrates are inherently female, that females are the staple of the species, as demonstrated by parthenogenic reproduction, and that it takes the introduction of hormones at the right developmental stage to make one male. I said that this is one of the things monotheistic religions got backwards, because they think everything is based on men and that women are made from men. This is a demonstrable fact, yet I was harshly criticized for having said it. The hostile reaction to my perfectly accurate comment was my first introduction to overt sexism within atheism. At the time, I thought we were all too progressive for that. I've been severely disappointed since.

 

[AronRa]

Did she or did she not lie about making the project to receive money from other people?

I have no idea, but I would have to expect that if she doesn't expect to continue her supported work, and had lied to her donors, then they would be the ones to know that better than me, and they would have levied charges as opposed to continued support. In any case, how is that any of my business, or in any way relevant to my position with regard to feminism?

 

[Syn_O_Myn]

Likewise, if we look at it in the negative, then a non-feminist is one who does not advocate gender equality, which means they'll accept gender inequality, and that is exactly what 'sexist' means. What part of my observation is incorrect?

ˈfeməˌnizəm/ = the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.
ˈsekˌsizəm/ = prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

To put it more simply,
Equality for women = feminism;
women's inequality = sexism.

That a person can recognize gender inequality but decide that more pressing issues are needing our attention. For example, I have always recognized there is discrimination against women and against multiple races, but specifically black people in the US, but I have never gone to any rallies to fight it. I wouldn't call that being sexist or racist, but not taking interest in a problem. Only recently have I looked into this stuff, and when I did, I found that the feminist community was not presenting facts as they are and using crap statistics. I still wouldn't call this being sexist, nor being feminist, because I do recognize sexism, but I also criticize people willing to lie about how bad it is.

The issue seems to be that no one admits to being sexist, the way they sometimes do about being racist. You want to say you support women's rights being equal to men, but you object that that makes you feminist. You also seek to minimize, refute or otherwise excuse every issue you perceive as connected to feminism, without realizing what that means too.

Pointing out that statistics in common usage are wrong isn't minimizing a problem, its asserting reality is different than what you claim it is. You have not demonstrated that the stats feminists commonly assert are accurate, and when people present or do studies that conclude that those stats are inaccurate, you say that the presenter is antifeminist, as you did with Christina Hoff.

I'm not sure if there is any goal to this discussion, other than to try and take up my time. You argued that you won't use the feminist label, and you want to know why I do. Obviously that doesn't have anything to do with Anita Sarkeesian. Whatever she did or might do wouldn't have any impact on me. She doesn't change the definition of feminism, and as we've already seen, she is not the source of the 'poison' either. You accuse me of being oblivious to the obvious, but that's how you appear to me too. If we're talking about why either of us will or won't apply the feminism label, then you should talk about something relevant.

I initiated this discussion with hopes of hearing good points from the side I do not interact with regularly. As the discussion went on, I tried to demonstrate that the word feminism is poisoned by people like Anita. Anita did not do that which she promised she would despite being given more money than she requested and granted more time than she claimed she needed. If a creationist said they would produce 5 videos in a year if given a few thousand dollars, and then they took two years to make 3 videos with 25 times the amount of money they asked for, and those videos were riddled with misrepresentations of science (or video games in Anita's case), would you not say that that person poisons Christianity? For some reason, I highly doubt you would take his side.

The definition of feminism has not changed in the least. I'm sure statistics are misreported even by our president due to inaccurate calculations, but feminism neither makes nor reports these figures. Very often it is not even feminiSTS who do that. Using myself as an example, I repeating what I heard, from what I should expect to be a reasonably reliable source. You also said that I am "evidently" unwilling to revise reported statistics once corrected. You said without any evidence and despite evidence to the contrary. I don't care what the percentage of the wage gap is; it's important to note that every source admits there is one and what that indicates. That's what's important. Yes, it should be reported accurately, but I didn't have anything to do with its calculation, and I never said that the problem is worse than it is. So how am I a liar?

Perhaps not the definition, but both the representation of feminism and the perception of feminism has changed quite a bit. I said you are unwilling to revise the statistics you assert because you have yet to concede that the statistics you asserted were inaccurate. The US Department of Labor found that when accounting for all relevant variables (such as hours worked and occupation, but there are many other account for variables), the gap shrinks to between 5 and 8 cents. Yes, this is still a problem, and yes it must be addressed, but when known-to-be inaccurate stats are presented in the real stat's place, and someone calls that out, it is called minimizing the problem, when the reality is that presenting incorrect stats despite knowing that they are wrong isn't just lying, but maximizing the problem. This is what pisses me off, people who refuse to concede they were wrong and call the people proposing they were wrong liars. I have presented my evidence and evidence to suggest that the 77 cents on the dollar is incorrect.

You complained that the definition of feminism is too broad, and you wanted to propose a different word that was even broader. I had already explained that the definition of feminism is actually quite precise; that issues of social inequality can be divided into racism, sexism, and religious discrimination. I explained that feminism is the only movement that ever addressed sexism. I asked what other word applies? Rather than admit that there isn't one, you wanted to make one up, and called me an asshole for pointing out that you never answered my question.

The problem with the definition of feminism is that it is too broad for this specific scenario. The movement has been poisoned by liars (I am neither saying nor implying that you are one of them), and that is the problem. The definition could be broad, which is fine, so long as the movement isn't populated by people willing to lie. If that was the case, I would not be here, and people probably wouldn't have such discussions. But it is because that there is a problem with the movement that I suggest that we move to a new word, one that, yes, is broad, but also has yet to be poisoned by people willing to lie to make a point. I want to fight actual sexism and racism, not the hyperbolic sexism and racism presented commonly in the social justice movement. Currently, there is no movement that does fight against sexism, but I did answer the question by preposing that we make a new movement, even if its just temporary, because the old movement has been taken over by lies.

Yes, video games depicting whore houses and strip clubs objectify women, just like real whore houses and strip clubs do. Feminism is, as I said, simply an awareness of these things, and should be accurate of course. That means you shouldn't launch into hyperbole, pretending that sexist objectification is 'evil' or even consciously deliberate. Dehumanizing women wasn't the goal of the game, but that is what it does. The issue seems to be whether we can be aware of that, and admit that's what it is.

Except that objectification depends on perspective, something which you agreed with me on, so I won't say any more on that. But what you fail to recognize, or at least mention, is that all NPCs (non playable characters) in these games are objects to be acted upon. A guard being killed because you have to kill him is no more dehumanizing than a woman in skimpy clothing. Also, when heroes of games, such as Lara Croft of Tomb Raider, are given large breasts or generally sexually suggested clothing, it is called over sexualization, but when the devs hear that and change it by giving Lara Croft smaller breasts, short hair, and less suggestive clothing, people say it is taking away her femininity, and just telling the player that women cannot be heroes unless they take on typically male characteristics. It a lose lose situation for the devs, because they cannot satisfy everyone.

what do you expect me to believe you would do if some other movement was invented for the same purpose, but with a different name?

I cannot answer that question correctly Aron, because it would require that I have knowledge of what you would think I would do if some other movement was invented. I expect that you would believe that I would present accurate statistics and demonstrate that a problem exists in the realm of wages and then attempt to advocate for the fixing of that problem. But I don't know that that is the case, after all, that question can only be accurately answered by you.

You're still off-track. If by "shirt gate" you mean the scientist who held the press conference with the girly shirt, that was another lack of situational awareness, not a conspiracy to keep women out of anything.

The only people who gave a shit about his shirt were feminists, because they believed that the shirt was objectifying women. The shirt he wore was entirely irrelevant to the accomplishments he made, but people annoyed him because of it. It's just a shirt, it should not have been a problem.

I didn't dismiss anything; nor did I take anything as 'disgusting', but you seem to be arguing what you think I think and not what I actually say.

Apologies, you are correct. I intended to say that you dismissed the statistics I presented (in the form of the Christina Hoff Sommers video) as disturbing, not disgusting. You did not say why the video was disturbing, but I can only guess that is was because the statistics were "minimizing" problems, when in reality they were accurately describing problems.

You also keep assuming that I must be dishonest. At the same time, you keep insisting that feminists (including myself and practically everyone I know) aren't what I know us to be, and you say this without any justification, and the statistics you cite do not support that case.

Except that the statistics I presented are more accurate than those previously presented, but you called those statistics disturbing, without any reason why, other than they are "minimizing" the problem. But that isn't the case, those statistics weren't minimizing the problem, they were accurately describing the problem, and trying to fight the problem must begin by recognizing what the problem is. People who refuse to recognize that the problem isn't as bad as they claimed it was are people who I would call dishonest, because despite being shown to be wrong, they stick to what they believe is correct and dismiss anything else as minimizing, dismissing, or ignoring the problem at hand, which is the exact opposite of what I am trying to do.

The 'Factual Feminist' (for example) did actually deny everything she could deny, and everything else she tried to minimize, excuse, or misrepresent. She's a fraud, because there is no point when she actually endorses any of the issues of feminism as both real and significant. So she is misrepresenting herself as a feminist. She's not; she's an apologist with quite the opposite mission.

Demonstrate that she was minimizing, excusing, or misrepresenting issues presented and demonstrate that she is a fraud, because, as far as I can tell, you have yet to do so.

I pointed out a long list of typical lies from antifeminists, and you have wisely denied them. Good.

I denied that I have done the things presented in that list, not that anyone else has or hasn't done those things. Many antifeminists have done those things, but I am not one of them.

My position on feminism doesn't depend on anything any particular person does. I don't have any dogma I have to buy into, and nothing I have to believe or endorse that I don't feel to be substantive or significant. My concern is primarily whether we apply double-standards on the basis of gender. A lot of antifeminists assume that I'm somehow unaware that we are a sexually dimorphic species, as if there are no differences, but what I'm really talking about are how we impose restrictions on the basis of gender that aren't imposed by our biology. What I get from anti-feminists in response is a systematic denial of any injustices imposed against women, and equivocation trying to make it all about men

I do hope you are not speaking of my in that last sentence. Not only have I recognized and concede the problems women face in regards to the wage gap, but I also suggest that we fight the actual problem, not the problem preposed by crap stats. That is why I do not identify with feminism, because while the problems exist, some feminists make them out to be worse than they actually are, and when someone points that out, it is called minimizing the problem. If feminist who do deny the statistics actually start accepting the statistics, and start fighting the actual wage gap, then I would very swiftly be willing to identify myself as a feminist. But I refuse to be a part of a movement which has people, even at its core, who lie.

My first encounter with this was 6 years ago. I mentioned how Jurassic Park was right when they said that all vertebrates are inherently female, that females are the staple of the species, as demonstrated by parthenogenic reproduction, and that it takes the introduction of hormones at the right developmental stage to make one male. I said that this is one of the things monotheistic religions got backwards, because they think everything is based on men and that women are made from men. This is a demonstrable fact, yet I was harshly criticized for having said it. The hostile reaction to my perfectly accurate comment was my first introduction to overt sexism within atheism. At the time, I thought we were all too progressive for that. I've been severely disappointed since.

People who disagree with that are very stupid. I side with you on that issue, but only because it is biologically demonstrable. I am stuck on things that have yet to be demonstrated.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

AronRa has said it does not matter what the actual numbers are (77 cents vs. 95 cents), the problem is the gap itself. Thus, both Syn_O_Myn and AronRa agree the wage gap is real and a problem that needs to be addressed. What I would like to know is how Syn_O_Myn proposes to close that gap and if that proposal is fundamentally different from how the "crap" feminists propose to close it.

Right now this just looks like two climate scientists arguing over whether the sea level will rise 50 cm or 2 meters in the next 10 years. Both already agree rising sea levels are the problem and unless they are proposing fundamentally different ways to stop the sea rise, what exactly is the point in arguing?

 

[tuxbox]

I have not done enough research to answer those questions and I'm pretty sure I would not find any unbiased answers on Google. That said, the gap is there for whatever reason.

If you don't know the source of the problem, concretely what do you want to do?

I'm not big on Big Government, but in this case I think we should pass laws that would prevent Big Corporations for unfair wages due to sex. That said, employment experience should dictate wages as well, regardless of sex. However, it seems that when put side by side, women seem to get the short end of the stick. I am not sure if it is pure sexism or just stupid people who do not realize that they are being sexist?

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

I'm not big on Big Government, but in this case I think we should pass laws that would prevent Big Corporations for unfair wages due to sex.

Well workforce discrimination based on sex is already illegal.

That said, employment experience should dictate wages as well, regardless of sex.

So you want to force companies to tabulate salaries without margin for negotiation, and that they should publish the rules of employee classification?

 

[tuxbox]

Well workforce discrimination based on sex is already illegal.

It is illegal for a corporation to hire based on sex, but it is not illegal to pay them less based on sex. That said, I do believe the former is ignored in some cases and hard to prove in a court of law.

So you want to force companies to tabulate salaries without margin for negotiation,

That is not what I meant. What is meant is this, if a person is hired at any given position, their starting salaries should be based on experience. It would not be fair for a person with zero experience to get paid the exact salary of person with 10 years of experience. Now as far as negotiations are concerned, well that should be for unions, if available, to do.

and that they should publish the rules of employee classification?

The rules for salaries should be based on national averages for any given position. You can find that on the internet.