4 ms·

Speaking of non-sequiturs, I'm still waiting for someone to establish this link between 'emotional news prevailing in the west' and 'feminism'

philwelch 16y ago
Had feminism not prevailed in the West, the West would be a male-dominated society, and things like the news would be controlled exclusively by men. Additionally, men would have continued to abide by traditional gender roles (which would have not been questioned or undergone change[1]), and the traditional male gender role is less overtly emotional. Hence, the news would be less overtly emotional. That's a perfectly reasonable and straightforward argument which raises eyebrows only because it hints at the idea that feminism had some negative effects. The comparison to Al-Jazeera might not be sound, however--masculine emotional reserve is a characteristic of Anglo-Saxon/Germanic/Northern European culture, not necessarily Arabic culture. [1] Feminism, as a natural consequence of advancing the position of women in society, questions gender roles by necessity. This is what makes the reference to Thatcher so inept--Thatcher advanced in a male-dominated profession by following a masculine gender role; Thatcher's Britain was willing to accept a woman PM, but only so long as she governed like a man. This is a far cry from what feminists would like to see.
- Alex3917 16y ago
  I don't know much about feminism as an intellectual movement, but there are definitely a lot casual feminists who consider Silicon Valley style entrepreneurship to be discriminatory because it requires reading non-fiction books in order to be successful. The basic argument, if I undertand it correctly, is that women should be able to achieve success in any given field by doing things that women are stereotypically interested in. So, for example, they would consider Silicon Valley to be patriarchal because there isn't any role for women who only read People and US Weekly. I know someone will accuse me of being sexist, but this was actually the consensus from the Women and Entrepreneurship class I took in college, albeit it wasn't phrased in exactly this way.
  - jhamburger 16y ago
    When the subject is feminism, is it correct to say "straw man" or "straw person"?
    - Alex3917 16y ago
      A straw man is a type of logical fallacy. I'm not making any argument; rather, I'm merely reporting a (possibly flawed) observation, so I don't really see how logical fallacies are relevant.
      - ericd 16y ago
        A lot of people on HN really, really like claiming "strawman" on others. I've almost never heard it used outside of HN.
        nitrogen 16y ago
        One tends to hear mention of logical fallacies in any intellectually-focused forum, not only HN. HN happens to be intellectually-focused, so the straw man and other fallacies will see frequent mention here. However, this is unrelated to the grandparent comment, which was (perhaps facetiously) primarily discussing feminism and political correctness, not logical fallacies.
- jhamburger 16y ago
  Allow me a counter-point: In a male-dominated society, the news is still controlled not by men or women but by money, in the form of advertising revenue. In a male-dominated society women are stay at home housewives, with time to flip through the channels and shop for household goods, making them a very important consumer demographic and a prime target for advertisers. Therefore, television news would be 'emotional' and targeted to women. I don't see how my argument is any less baseless conjecture than yours.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    That's a decent argument, but my point isn't that feminism did lead to emotional news reporting, it's that the idea is something reasonable people might believe. Plus, your counterargument is still pretty flawed--under traditional gender roles, most news is of no interest to women, and wouldn't be targeted to them, which is why news was traditionally aired during evenings, and nights when men were home, while soap operas and talk shows were aired during the day when housewives were home alone. (Come to think of it, your local network affiliate schedule still looks a lot like that.)

philwelch 16y ago

Had feminism not prevailed in the West, the West would be a male-dominated society, and things like the news would be controlled exclusively by men. Additionally, men would have continued to abide by traditional gender roles (which would have not been questioned or undergone change[1]), and the traditional male gender role is less overtly emotional. Hence, the news would be less overtly emotional. That's a perfectly reasonable and straightforward argument which raises eyebrows only because it hints at the idea that feminism had some negative effects. The comparison to Al-Jazeera might not be sound, however--masculine emotional reserve is a characteristic of Anglo-Saxon/Germanic/Northern European culture, not necessarily Arabic culture. [1] Feminism, as a natural consequence of advancing the position of women in society, questions gender roles by necessity. This is what makes the reference to Thatcher so inept--Thatcher advanced in a male-dominated profession by following a masculine gender role; Thatcher's Britain was willing to accept a woman PM, but only so long as she governed like a man. This is a far cry from what feminists would like to see.

Alex3917 16y ago
I don't know much about feminism as an intellectual movement, but there are definitely a lot casual feminists who consider Silicon Valley style entrepreneurship to be discriminatory because it requires reading non-fiction books in order to be successful. The basic argument, if I undertand it correctly, is that women should be able to achieve success in any given field by doing things that women are stereotypically interested in. So, for example, they would consider Silicon Valley to be patriarchal because there isn't any role for women who only read People and US Weekly. I know someone will accuse me of being sexist, but this was actually the consensus from the Women and Entrepreneurship class I took in college, albeit it wasn't phrased in exactly this way.
- jhamburger 16y ago
  When the subject is feminism, is it correct to say "straw man" or "straw person"?
  - Alex3917 16y ago
    A straw man is a type of logical fallacy. I'm not making any argument; rather, I'm merely reporting a (possibly flawed) observation, so I don't really see how logical fallacies are relevant.
    - ericd 16y ago
      A lot of people on HN really, really like claiming "strawman" on others. I've almost never heard it used outside of HN.
      - nitrogen 16y ago
        One tends to hear mention of logical fallacies in any intellectually-focused forum, not only HN. HN happens to be intellectually-focused, so the straw man and other fallacies will see frequent mention here. However, this is unrelated to the grandparent comment, which was (perhaps facetiously) primarily discussing feminism and political correctness, not logical fallacies.
jhamburger 16y ago
Allow me a counter-point: In a male-dominated society, the news is still controlled not by men or women but by money, in the form of advertising revenue. In a male-dominated society women are stay at home housewives, with time to flip through the channels and shop for household goods, making them a very important consumer demographic and a prime target for advertisers. Therefore, television news would be 'emotional' and targeted to women. I don't see how my argument is any less baseless conjecture than yours.
- philwelch 16y ago
  That's a decent argument, but my point isn't that feminism did lead to emotional news reporting, it's that the idea is something reasonable people might believe. Plus, your counterargument is still pretty flawed--under traditional gender roles, most news is of no interest to women, and wouldn't be targeted to them, which is why news was traditionally aired during evenings, and nights when men were home, while soap operas and talk shows were aired during the day when housewives were home alone. (Come to think of it, your local network affiliate schedule still looks a lot like that.)