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The puritanical regression of modern "feminism" is laughably contradictory with the roots of women's sexual liberation. Brianna Wu, Anita Sarkeesian, and the l

The puritanical regression of modern "feminism" is laughably contradictory with the roots of women's sexual liberation. Brianna Wu, Anita Sarkeesian, and the like, have weponized victimhood into lucrative careers. They embody everything wrong with the direction into which modern feminism is morphing - this article, what transpired at google recently, gamergate, all symptomatic of narcissistic, sociopathic women using perceived, and in some cases invented, oppression and harassment, in order to accumulate power and wealth. For some reason, the tech industry seems to be particularly accommodating for this toxic culture, and the spread of unnecessary guilt. These divisive politics are infesting every facet of our first world culture. We should not give these people attention. They damage the movement that they claim to champion by behaving so irrationally, so viciously, so selfishly. Dont believe me? Look up Anita's past as a literal con artist.

rhcom2 9y ago
I've seen all those criticisms applied to every feminist, maybe even every activist. This is just one long ad hominem attack on people whose views you don't like.
- allthenews 9y ago
  Perhaps what you are perceiving is backlash against a growing culture. These "activists" behave fairly consistently, after all. I'm not interested in making personal attacks. I'm only highlighting two of the more prominent scammers that hide behind this facade of tolerance and inclusiveness, a behavior which I find particularly abhorrent, especially when combined with life ruinous doxxing and trial by twitter, which these women specifically and hypocritically complain about. There are two sides to every story, after all. It isn't fair to simply dismiss any inconvenient argument as an ad hominem. Perhaps you should make an open minded attempt to understand why there are millions of successful, rational, adjusted people who feel as I do, but only in secret. Ask yourself, why is it taboo to critically analyze anything associated with these women or modern feminism?
  - rhcom2 9y ago
    I'm not dismissing your argument because of inconvenience, I am because there isn't any actual criticism outside of name calling and opaque references to alleged misdoings. Name calling like "symptomatic of narcissistic, sociopathic women", claiming they invented harassment for personal gain and calling one a "literal con artist" (a person who isn't involved or mentioned at all in this article btw) without explanation are all personal attacks. And then you actually complain of "divisive politics"? Maybe consider taking some of your own advice, and ask yourself why people might react negatively to the things you write.
    - allthenews 9y ago
      What you are interpreting as personal attacks are only included to serve as context. You only believe that I am slandering these people because you have not been exposed the other side. Unfortunately, the only evidence one could assemble would typically consist of twitter screencaps, discord discussions, and some degree of testimony. I have none assembled, and am not interested in searching reddit, for example, which you could easily do yourself; But I encourage you to look into it, because this is my highest rated comment on HN, suggesting that there is a distinct population on this forum who share these views, but perhaps are unwilling to express them publicly because of what has become a taboo.
      - rhcom2 9y ago
        Call it whatever you want, calling someone "narcissistic" and "sociopathic" is a personal attack. Dropping allegations of being a con artist without any explanation or reference is just an attack, not intelligent or interesting criticism. And this is about person you just randomly brought into the conversation, obviously with an axe to grind. If you can't believe I hold my opinions honestly, not based on ignorance or because I haven't "looked into it", then you are in an echo chamber of the worst kind.
  - geofft 9y ago
    And one of these people isn't even mentioned in the story. You're bringing up Anita Sarkeesian into a discussion where she's not involved because you think your ad hominems are more likely to succeed on her and you have no argument on the merits. > Perhaps you should make an open minded attempt to understand why there are millions of successful, rational, adjusted people who feel as I do, but only in secret. Because bigotry is rational. If you can keep out 50% of the competition, why wouldn't you? Millions of successful, rational, adjusted (relative to their culture) people were huge fans of slavery in the US. The free population of the Confederacy had plenty to lose and little to gain - at least within the timespan of slaveholders' lives, the necessary economic changes weren't going to happen immediately - from slavery becoming illegal. Obviously they were willing to give their lives to prevent that. The fact that certain immoral things are rational, popular, socially accepted, or even inspiring of self-sacrifice isn't really surprising to me. (And supporting casual and pervasive sexism is much, much milder than supporting slavery, so it's even less surprising to see it having lots of support.)
dragonwriter 9y ago
> The puritanical regression of modern "feminism" is laughably contradictory with the roots of women's sexual liberation. Feminism has always had a strong puritanical segment, since before it was even called feminism, back into the suffragist roots. It ties into the divide between secular/egalitarian/rights-oriented and Christian/moralizing/outcome-oriented feminism (and, earlier, suffragism), and also the (related and overlapping, but distinct) divide between bourgeois and proletarian feminism. But I don't think modern feminism is particularly more puritanical than earlier forms, nor any more contrary to "the roots of women's sexual liberation" (the stream within feminism that is contrary to that still exists, of course, but it doesn't seem to be any more dominant within feminism that at any point in the past; if anything, its weaker.)
- noobermin 9y ago
  I'm not an expert on the history of the feminist movement, but I do think the more sex-negative forms of feminism are more prominent today. A NYT op-ed advocating for the banning of pornography was just published a few days ago. It seems like to me, the sex wars were never won, they just were forgotten, with sex-negative feminists today latching on to #metoo and trying to use it to share their perspective, and it feels like they are more visible for the most part.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    Are you sure Ross Douthat is coming at that question with particularly feminist motives? (I think his stance may be more related to conservatism and religion)
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > I'm not an expert on the history of the feminist movement, but I do think the more sex-negative forms of feminism are more prominent today. A NYT op-ed advocating for the banning of pornography was just published a few days ago. Ross Douthat is a politically right-wing anti-feminist; his anti-pornography attitude is unsurprising (and not new [0]; what's new is his attempt to tie it to #MeToo) but has nothing to do with the "sex-negative forms of feminism". [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/10/is-pornography-adultery/306989/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/10/is-porn...

rhcom2 9y ago

I've seen all those criticisms applied to every feminist, maybe even every activist. This is just one long ad hominem attack on people whose views you don't like.

allthenews 9y ago
Perhaps what you are perceiving is backlash against a growing culture. These "activists" behave fairly consistently, after all. I'm not interested in making personal attacks. I'm only highlighting two of the more prominent scammers that hide behind this facade of tolerance and inclusiveness, a behavior which I find particularly abhorrent, especially when combined with life ruinous doxxing and trial by twitter, which these women specifically and hypocritically complain about. There are two sides to every story, after all. It isn't fair to simply dismiss any inconvenient argument as an ad hominem. Perhaps you should make an open minded attempt to understand why there are millions of successful, rational, adjusted people who feel as I do, but only in secret. Ask yourself, why is it taboo to critically analyze anything associated with these women or modern feminism?
- rhcom2 9y ago
  I'm not dismissing your argument because of inconvenience, I am because there isn't any actual criticism outside of name calling and opaque references to alleged misdoings. Name calling like "symptomatic of narcissistic, sociopathic women", claiming they invented harassment for personal gain and calling one a "literal con artist" (a person who isn't involved or mentioned at all in this article btw) without explanation are all personal attacks. And then you actually complain of "divisive politics"? Maybe consider taking some of your own advice, and ask yourself why people might react negatively to the things you write.
  - allthenews 9y ago
    What you are interpreting as personal attacks are only included to serve as context. You only believe that I am slandering these people because you have not been exposed the other side. Unfortunately, the only evidence one could assemble would typically consist of twitter screencaps, discord discussions, and some degree of testimony. I have none assembled, and am not interested in searching reddit, for example, which you could easily do yourself; But I encourage you to look into it, because this is my highest rated comment on HN, suggesting that there is a distinct population on this forum who share these views, but perhaps are unwilling to express them publicly because of what has become a taboo.
    - rhcom2 9y ago
      Call it whatever you want, calling someone "narcissistic" and "sociopathic" is a personal attack. Dropping allegations of being a con artist without any explanation or reference is just an attack, not intelligent or interesting criticism. And this is about person you just randomly brought into the conversation, obviously with an axe to grind. If you can't believe I hold my opinions honestly, not based on ignorance or because I haven't "looked into it", then you are in an echo chamber of the worst kind.
- geofft 9y ago
  And one of these people isn't even mentioned in the story. You're bringing up Anita Sarkeesian into a discussion where she's not involved because you think your ad hominems are more likely to succeed on her and you have no argument on the merits. > Perhaps you should make an open minded attempt to understand why there are millions of successful, rational, adjusted people who feel as I do, but only in secret. Because bigotry is rational. If you can keep out 50% of the competition, why wouldn't you? Millions of successful, rational, adjusted (relative to their culture) people were huge fans of slavery in the US. The free population of the Confederacy had plenty to lose and little to gain - at least within the timespan of slaveholders' lives, the necessary economic changes weren't going to happen immediately - from slavery becoming illegal. Obviously they were willing to give their lives to prevent that. The fact that certain immoral things are rational, popular, socially accepted, or even inspiring of self-sacrifice isn't really surprising to me. (And supporting casual and pervasive sexism is much, much milder than supporting slavery, so it's even less surprising to see it having lots of support.)

dragonwriter 9y ago

> The puritanical regression of modern "feminism" is laughably contradictory with the roots of women's sexual liberation. Feminism has always had a strong puritanical segment, since before it was even called feminism, back into the suffragist roots. It ties into the divide between secular/egalitarian/rights-oriented and Christian/moralizing/outcome-oriented feminism (and, earlier, suffragism), and also the (related and overlapping, but distinct) divide between bourgeois and proletarian feminism. But I don't think modern feminism is particularly more puritanical than earlier forms, nor any more contrary to "the roots of women's sexual liberation" (the stream within feminism that is contrary to that still exists, of course, but it doesn't seem to be any more dominant within feminism that at any point in the past; if anything, its weaker.)

noobermin 9y ago
I'm not an expert on the history of the feminist movement, but I do think the more sex-negative forms of feminism are more prominent today. A NYT op-ed advocating for the banning of pornography was just published a few days ago. It seems like to me, the sex wars were never won, they just were forgotten, with sex-negative feminists today latching on to #metoo and trying to use it to share their perspective, and it feels like they are more visible for the most part.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Are you sure Ross Douthat is coming at that question with particularly feminist motives? (I think his stance may be more related to conservatism and religion)
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > I'm not an expert on the history of the feminist movement, but I do think the more sex-negative forms of feminism are more prominent today. A NYT op-ed advocating for the banning of pornography was just published a few days ago. Ross Douthat is a politically right-wing anti-feminist; his anti-pornography attitude is unsurprising (and not new [0]; what's new is his attempt to tie it to #MeToo) but has nothing to do with the "sex-negative forms of feminism". [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/10/is-pornography-adultery/306989/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/10/is-porn...