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>It's only provably false because you're making a semantic argument against it, sticking on the strict definition of "every" rather than interpreting it as hear

>It's only provably false because you're making a semantic argument against it, sticking on the strict definition of "every" rather than interpreting it as heard by others. Yes, forgive me for making a 'semantic' argument. That is, an argument that is concerned with the meanings of words people use. How petty of me. Unfortunately many people who say things like "every other group is a men's group" believe and mean exactly that. That is how they justify seriously arguing that men forming men's interests groups is inherently oppressive. >Right. That's a problem, too. It's just not a feminist problem. Right. Which is exactly what I'm saying. It's not a feminist problem, so why don't certain strands of feminists want men's groups to worry about those problems? What are these men supposed to do? Tough it out and hope for the best? Why don't they deserve advocacy just as underprivileged females do? >Surely not EVERY feminist! That statement is provably false and anyone caught saying it should be instantly discredited. Nice catch :) >if you don't take a polarizing stance, it's incredibly hard to provide compromises when it comes down to actually deciding policy I don't disagree with much that you've said. I don't have a problem with feminists or any other interest group taking a polarizing stance. I have a problem with those who do so but then completely deny the other pole on the dialectic legitimacy. If you're going to polarize the issue, admit that there are two sides, and allow both to exist. Fight it out on the merit of the arguments. "Every other group is a men's group" so men's groups should be prohibited from existing? Nah. If you want to take the binary stance, fight for your issues and let The Other Side fight for theirs. Otherwise admit that you just want totalitarian control, and tell The Other Side sorry, you're screwed, enjoy fighting us every step of the way. The MPAA pretends it is fighting for consumer's rights, and we all get pissed off because that's obviously a lie and the MPAA's only interest is furthering industry goals. Yet when this strand of male-exclusionary feminists that I'm speaking of pretends to fight for men's rights as well as women's, while obviously not doing so, we're all like "yeah, that's cool". It's bizarre.

saraid216 13y ago
(Preface: I ended up scrapping my reply and approaching it differently due to "the sense" I'll talk about down below. The coherence of the comment will probably suffer as a result.) I'm getting the sense that you were introduced to specific schools of thought in college and mistook them to be a lot more pervasive than they actually are. Maybe I can ask you a question in different terms: of your professors, how many of them would you say were male-exclusionary feminists? I'm looking for a ballpark percentage and expecting it to be high. Because here's the thing: I've never heard of these male-exclusionary feminists. I don't claim to be a feminist (though other people would probably apply the label to me fairly; I don't care), nor am I particularly well-studied in the area (because at the end of the day, I don't actually care about women's rights). So maybe it's just my scholarship that's lacking. But you're talking about this group as if they were a major and extremely significant subset of feminists. I would like to believe that I'm not so completely ignorant as to have missed these people over the last few years of absorbing feminism, but it's entirely possible. I wouldn't be surprised if they existed, and I would be even less surprised to discover they've found a home in a "feminist-oriented humanities department" because that's exactly the kind of thing that universities do: provide homes for extreme views that don't cross the line into actual crazy. So basically, can you show me, at all, that the argument you're arguing against isn't made of straw? I'd be willing to more directly respond to your post, too, but this seems more important.
- obstacle1 13y ago
  >of your professors, how many of them would you say were male-exclusionary feminists? Not one. Most were totally reasonable people, interested in furthering a gender-egalitarian version of feminism that seemed eminently fair. When I say I critically engaged with the issues, I don't mean I was out to destroy feminist arguments and advocate for the abolition of feminism. I agree with much of what (many) feminisms fight for. But there is always room to introduce nuance, and I found that most faculty really appreciated that kind of critical engagement. However. The student politics at my school -- and at many other campuses in my country -- were shockingly totalitarian. To give you an idea, the majority of student associations across the country are unionized, and are all locals of a national student federation. Every single student in each university pays mandatory fees (read: union dues) to these locals as part of tuition. The national union was infamous for stifling even discussion of men's issues on campuses. See [1] for an example: "This spring, the Canadian Federation of Students passed a motion encouraging all student unions to reject men’s rights groups, because they promote “hateful views toward women” and justify physical and sexual assault." One student's union under the CFS umbrella became relatively well-known for cancelling a charity fundraising campaign for cystic fibrosis, Shinerama, because cystic fibrosis "disproportionally affects white males" [1.5]. We've got freedom of speech enshrined in our Charter up here, yet our campuses constantly rate abysmally in free speech indexes largely because of the student unions I'm talking about [2]. Groups that all students, including men, are forced to pay money to under the theory that these groups represent all students. Feminist groups repeatedly [3][4] tried to block public lectures on men's issues from happening. In one case, even pulling a fire alarm in an attempt to force an end to the discussion. There is an extremely famous video of an anti-men's-rights protestor screaming at her 'debate partners' to "shut the fuck up" while she explains that feminism fights for men's rights, too, so men don't need men's rights groups [5]. This happened at a few other universities other than UoT, too. So that is the environment in which I came up, and certainly it colored my views. Hence when I hear people saying that extremist lines like "every other group is a men's group" are emblematic of feminism in general, I find it disconcerting, and feel a need to argue against. [1] - http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/08/01/angry-young-men/ http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/08/01/angry-young-men/ [1.5] - http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/carleton-student-group-votes-to-end-shinerama-campaign-1.345898 http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/carleton-student-group-votes-to-end... [2] - http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/campus-freedom-index-gives-free-speech-failing-grade-203443074.html http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/campus-freedom-inde... [3] - http://thevarsity.ca/2012/11/17/arrest-assaults-overshadow-mens-issues-lecture/ http://thevarsity.ca/2012/11/17/arrest-assaults-overshadow-m... [4] - http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/we-went-to-a-mens-rights-lecture-in-toronto http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/we-went-to-a-mens-rights-lect... [5] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvYyGTmcP80 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvYyGTmcP80

saraid216 13y ago

(Preface: I ended up scrapping my reply and approaching it differently due to "the sense" I'll talk about down below. The coherence of the comment will probably suffer as a result.) I'm getting the sense that you were introduced to specific schools of thought in college and mistook them to be a lot more pervasive than they actually are. Maybe I can ask you a question in different terms: of your professors, how many of them would you say were male-exclusionary feminists? I'm looking for a ballpark percentage and expecting it to be high. Because here's the thing: I've never heard of these male-exclusionary feminists. I don't claim to be a feminist (though other people would probably apply the label to me fairly; I don't care), nor am I particularly well-studied in the area (because at the end of the day, I don't actually care about women's rights). So maybe it's just my scholarship that's lacking. But you're talking about this group as if they were a major and extremely significant subset of feminists. I would like to believe that I'm not so completely ignorant as to have missed these people over the last few years of absorbing feminism, but it's entirely possible. I wouldn't be surprised if they existed, and I would be even less surprised to discover they've found a home in a "feminist-oriented humanities department" because that's exactly the kind of thing that universities do: provide homes for extreme views that don't cross the line into actual crazy. So basically, can you show me, at all, that the argument you're arguing against isn't made of straw? I'd be willing to more directly respond to your post, too, but this seems more important.

obstacle1 13y ago
>of your professors, how many of them would you say were male-exclusionary feminists? Not one. Most were totally reasonable people, interested in furthering a gender-egalitarian version of feminism that seemed eminently fair. When I say I critically engaged with the issues, I don't mean I was out to destroy feminist arguments and advocate for the abolition of feminism. I agree with much of what (many) feminisms fight for. But there is always room to introduce nuance, and I found that most faculty really appreciated that kind of critical engagement. However. The student politics at my school -- and at many other campuses in my country -- were shockingly totalitarian. To give you an idea, the majority of student associations across the country are unionized, and are all locals of a national student federation. Every single student in each university pays mandatory fees (read: union dues) to these locals as part of tuition. The national union was infamous for stifling even discussion of men's issues on campuses. See [1] for an example: "This spring, the Canadian Federation of Students passed a motion encouraging all student unions to reject men’s rights groups, because they promote “hateful views toward women” and justify physical and sexual assault." One student's union under the CFS umbrella became relatively well-known for cancelling a charity fundraising campaign for cystic fibrosis, Shinerama, because cystic fibrosis "disproportionally affects white males" [1.5]. We've got freedom of speech enshrined in our Charter up here, yet our campuses constantly rate abysmally in free speech indexes largely because of the student unions I'm talking about [2]. Groups that all students, including men, are forced to pay money to under the theory that these groups represent all students. Feminist groups repeatedly [3][4] tried to block public lectures on men's issues from happening. In one case, even pulling a fire alarm in an attempt to force an end to the discussion. There is an extremely famous video of an anti-men's-rights protestor screaming at her 'debate partners' to "shut the fuck up" while she explains that feminism fights for men's rights, too, so men don't need men's rights groups [5]. This happened at a few other universities other than UoT, too. So that is the environment in which I came up, and certainly it colored my views. Hence when I hear people saying that extremist lines like "every other group is a men's group" are emblematic of feminism in general, I find it disconcerting, and feel a need to argue against. [1] - http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/08/01/angry-young-men/ http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/08/01/angry-young-men/ [1.5] - http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/carleton-student-group-votes-to-end-shinerama-campaign-1.345898 http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/carleton-student-group-votes-to-end... [2] - http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/campus-freedom-index-gives-free-speech-failing-grade-203443074.html http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/campus-freedom-inde... [3] - http://thevarsity.ca/2012/11/17/arrest-assaults-overshadow-mens-issues-lecture/ http://thevarsity.ca/2012/11/17/arrest-assaults-overshadow-m... [4] - http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/we-went-to-a-mens-rights-lecture-in-toronto http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/we-went-to-a-mens-rights-lect... [5] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvYyGTmcP80 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvYyGTmcP80