Heh heh. Seen on Facebook:
Avery Thompson Yeah. There’s no such thing as a “feminazi.” It’s a term coined by Rush Limbaugh to demonize feminists. So far, the only consistent (and I use that term lightly) definition I’ve seen of “feminazi” is “a feminist that I don’t like.”
Mark P Constable Ok, so what word should I use to describe an overly dominant woman that thinks anything with a penis should be placed under heel, to the point where they butcher their spelling of any word that has the letters “man,” or “men,” and think bras and tampons are on par with shackles?
Ed Brayton You should call them “unicorns,” since they also don’t exist except as a caricature in your mind. It’s not actual feminists you’re fighting against, it’s that scary feminist in your head.
Noice!
Eh, Brayton’s a bit wrong on that one. There is a small branch of second-wave which is highly essentialist, openly embracing a sexual binary and discriminating on that basis. It explains why many trans-women are uncomfortable with feminism, and a few openly attack it or rebrand it.
Feminists that embrace “womyn” as a term are a rare, dying breed. I’ve never met one, and I haven’t studied any in my Women’s Studies classes. I just don’t want to wallpaper over history, by declaring the feminist movement to be perfect.
Feminists are people, too.
Plenty of the feminists HJ Hornbeck mentions are on Twitter … They are usually to be found dead naming, misgendering, doxing and otherwise harassing trans women. Usually known as TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) they are pretty close to the fantasy. Their hatred of trans women seems to come from their view they are men. Their hatred of these “men” seems to be amplified far beyond what they’d usually express to cis men. Although they do express views that men cannot be raped, men are inherently violent, PIV is rape etc etc….
Must admit it was a surprise to me as I’d only hung out at FTB/Skepchick then a bit at Shakesville. So learning some of what the pitters/MRAs/etc say is actually true was a shock. Although of course to them any feminist takes on the sins of these extremists regardless of them criticising them. Was a time ElevatorGATE and the pitters were criticising FTB/Skepchick for not having a go at #radfem2013 etc. Not dealing with their “own”, of course there actually was a lof of criticism so these days they are hanging out with the TERFs in order to demean trans activists instead.
I suggested in the threads about gender segregation on UK campuses the close parallel between ‘feminazi’ tropes and attacks on ‘colonialist’ feminists forcing ‘western’ notions of equality on ‘women of colour’ so this is by no means exclusive to the traditional Right.
Mark P Constable Ok, so what word should I use to describe an overly dominant woman that thinks anything with a penis should be placed under heel, to the point where they butcher their spelling of any word that has the letters “man,” or “men,” and think bras and tampons are on par with shackles?
Replace ‘bras and tampons’ with ‘niqabs and hijabs’ and you’ll see what I mean: same argument, ostensibly different side.
Ed Brayton You should call them “unicorns,” since they also don’t exist except as a caricature in your mind. It’s not actual feminists you’re fighting against, it’s that scary feminist in your head.
Those same ‘scary feminists’ would have been denounced as #whitefeminists a week or so ago: an imaginary foe seeking to impose non-impositions on women and apparently oppressing men by merely challenging patriarchal privilege.
I think there is a very strong case against many second wavers that they are transphobic – but that’s not the case Constable is making. I hardly think transexuals are upper most in his concerns.
Also there does seem to be a correlation between transphobic feminists and post-colonial feminists who see both gender and culture in essentialist terms despite doing so in post-modern jargon that would undermine their arguments if they followed them through to the conclusion.
I see modern anti-feminists the same way that I see people arguing against the separation of church and state: they are just regurgitating arguments that have already been argued, considered, and rejected. They just can’t move on.
You look at the separation issue, and it’s just the Federalist Papers reworded. Every generation has some number of people that can’t let old dogs lie. The TERFs, MRA, and Anti/Post-Feminists are just the same arguments that were brought up 30-80 years ago in modern verbiage.
Pick any topic that was publicly debated and *decided by consensus*, and I bet you’ll find someone still taking up the losing side, using the same arguments like time was frozen. But to give those people credence is a mistake.
hjhornbeck – what? Ed denied the existence of “an overly dominant woman that thinks anything with a penis should be placed under heel, to the point where they butcher their spelling of any word that has the letters “man,” or “men,” and think bras and tampons are on par with shackles.” What’s that got to do with what you said?
Also what’s it got to do with declaring the feminist movement perfect?
Somebody babbling sub-Limbaughesqe drivel about women stamping on penises is not giving an informed political analysis of essentialist feminism. That guy on Facebook wasn’t saying anything intelligent or thoughtful.
It depends if she’s your boss, commanding officer, professor, etc.
Do as the oppressed usually do, step sideways, duck, complain, fight back, move, get one of those hard things men wear to play football in…
… Oh. Well if that’s all it is, you could just find it pretentious as all hell and take no further notice. It isn’t even all that original you know, they did it in the 18th as well.
Your business is it?
Goodneſs me! Wé ſhall not brook þeſe linguiſtic inſults! The purity of Engliſh ſpellyng ſhall not be ſullied!
SHUT DOWN THE TWITTERS, EVERYONE!
Mumble….godesdamned kyds þeſe dæġs with þeir ſpellyng…mumble…Chaucer…mumble
Re: “womyn”
That spelling came about because they wanted a word that didn’t define adult female humans in relation to men (“woman” [“wife [of] man”]). It wasn’t about hatred of men; it was about wanting a word that wasn’t androcentric.
Didn’t catch on, though.
I thought the term for the people Mark described was “Straw Feminists”.
Citation:
http://harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=341
@11: That doesn’t solve the problem, though. If anything, it calls attention to it. (I’m also skeptical about the etymology, but I might be wrong in my skepticism, and anyway if people think that’s where it comes from, that’s not irrelevant).
Maybe “wyf”?
Every group has its extremists, because nobody’s perfect. Someone always skips to the conclusion without understanding how other people got there, wandering further and further away from reality. The system is biased in favor of men? Men must have done that, and men alone, so we should separate from them. It’s utter bullshit, but you can see how someone without a firm grasp on theory or evidence could confidently stroll down the wrong path.
So Brayton’s “unicorns” do exist, at least in part. Feminism deals with these people the same way atheists deal with Jim Jones; they argue these people don’t understand the fundamentals, and that their actions prove this. Their views are so far from the mainstream that they say nothing about what the typical atheist or feminist believes.
And that’s why Brayton was only “a bit wrong.” These unicorns may exist, but you’ve probably never met one nor ever will, and the only thing they share with the feminists you will meet is the name.
None of that demonstrates that the creature described exists. I’m well aware of Valerie Solanas, but did she step on penises? That guy talked stupid frothing hyperbole and Ed wasn’t wrong to label it as such.