Battling the feminist demon


Jaclyn Glenn has a new video. This one is about her contempt for feminism. I’ve managed to watch 29 seconds so far.

Glenn is the Latest Big Thing among the atheists – this shit is the Latest Big Thing.

It’s the New Left all over again. Oh, it turns out I’m a second class citizen? Oh. I thought I was a citizen like any other. Bye then.

Comments

  1. funknjunk says

    Huh… so THIS is one of the people “they” (GSC/Atheist “leadership”) want me to listen to and bookmark? wow. Myeah, there’s a reason I don’t make the conferences and atheism advocacy in general remotely a priority in my life. I don’t ever want to be connected to these kinds of nitwits in any way. Ugh, but she irritates me.

  2. Kevin Kehres says

    Apparently a medical student, or an ex-medical student, because in one profile she lists herself as “self-employed by YouTube” — whatever the hell that means.

    I’m not a fan of the “holler” style of videos. Can’t get past the fact that she apparently thinks she has to speak LOUDLY in order for us to hear her. She’s not alone, of course, but I can’t even begin to understand and/or deconstruct her arguments. Cuz all I hear is the SHOUTING!

    Use your “indoor voice”, Jaclyn.

    PZ did give her a shout-out for dismantling Ray Comfort last year. Of course, that might be counted as the equivalent of picking the wings off flies. Like Tf00t and that Christian kid he harassed for a couple of years.

  3. qwints says

    Could someone explain the New Left reference to me? I’ve heard the term but I don’t understand the comparison.

  4. says

    This is what happened with the New Left – it became clear to a lot of the women in it that they were second-class members and that the left was just as obliviously sexist as the rest of the culture. There was Division and Conflict. And the New Left pretty much faded away – for a lot of reasons, but who knows, if it hadn’t been casually oblviously sexist, maybe it would have been more robust.

  5. yazikus says

    I had a classmate once ask me in hushed tones, “You aren’t a feminist, are you??”, looking quite frightened, to which I responded, “Well, yeah, aren’t you?”. She went on to tell me that she didn’t hate men, etc. and I went on to explain feminism as best I could. The weird thing to me is that so many people think of it as a bad thing. I guess I spend enough time online reading feminist media that I take for granted that it is actually a fairly narrow sphere.

    As for this Jaclyn, I’m not a big video watcher, and she doesn’t have a wikipedia page, anyone care to tell me what her appeal is? What is her angle, or expertise?

  6. Crimson Clupeidae says

    yazikus: the anti-feminists have done a ‘good’ job making feminism into a dirty word that doesn’t really mean what they say it means. It’s much like the word ‘liberal’ has been turned into a political smear by the far right.

    And like liberal, I think we liberal feminists need to reclaim both, and be proud about it, and correct the honest misunderstandings when we can. The dishonest liars I don’t care to try to correct, except to call them out if there are spectators and not let their shit go unchallenged. (I recognize I have a lot of privilege in that regard, though, and don’t expect everyone to.)

  7. John Horstman says

    Re: yazikus #9, my mom was really active in feminist groups from the 60s through the 90s, so I grew up in a household where feminism was just standard (much like atheism, socialism, and anti-racism), and I, too, had a hard time understanding why anyone would view “feminist” as a slur in any sense. I later learned that it’s becasue – still – the most common (by a wide margin) representations of feminists in popular media are all this trope.

  8. Bogdan says

    We should play a drinking game where we watch a TTA or Jaclyn Glenn video and each time they make a straw man or talking point against feminism we take a shot. Actually, we shouldn’t. People would die in the first minute.

  9. yazikus says

    Crimson Clupeidae: I totally agree. One day at a time, I guess.

    John Horstman: That sounds like an awesome childhood! I do wish the media would stop with all of the straw-feminists. Does it seem like we are going backwards?

  10. Hj Hornbeck says

    I twigged at the mention of a transgender woman complaining about exclusion. There’s a chance that person was part of “Operation Lollipop,” a black propaganda campaign set up by 4Chan at at least endorsed by MRA groups. One of their tactics is to sock as transgender women and spread misinformation about feminism.

    I wonder…

  11. idahogie says

    So embarrassed that I ever subscribed to her channel. Did I miss some signs? I even spent a small amount of time battling the sexist commenters there (which I do wherever I see them).

  12. Blanche Quizno says

    @10 Crimson: the anti-feminists have done a ‘good’ job making feminism into a dirty word that doesn’t really mean what they say it means. It’s much like the word ‘liberal’ has been turned into a political smear by the far right.

    …and the word “atheist” and the word “abortion” and the word “pro-choice” etc. etc. etc.

    We need to stop allowing these lobotomized microminds to define our vocabulary for us. Use all these words in a positive sense. Be proud to identify yourself as an atheist, a feminist, pro-choice, liberal, and progressive! Time to stop the tyranny of the religious in deciding unilaterally which identifiers and groups will be condemned and maligned.

  13. yazikus says

    Okay, so I just got around to watching her videos. First observation? Has anyone watched the kid’s show Diego? Well, if not, Diego doesn’t ever speak, he yells. Every thing he and his band of animal rescuers say is done in yelling voice. Like Jaclyn here. Secondly, obviously Jaclyn isn’t spending much time with modern feminists, because intersectionality is a huge part of the conversation. As said by Flavia Dzodan, “My feminism will be intersectional, or it will be bullshit”. We are talking about custody rights, LGBTQ rights, trans* rights & circumcision. Those things are important to the feminist movement, how has she missed that? I’d send her to the required reading (for commenting) over at Shakesville for a quick overview. And I’m pretty sure she said patriarchy more times than I have heard it used by feminists in the last six months. Wrong circles maybe?

    I’m sure that her views are rewarded by people intent on maintaining the status quo, but sadly I think she is missing out. I enjoyed Cristina Rad’s rebuttal.

  14. says

    Maybe I should start making videos of myself ranting. Even if I didn’t make anything off of the commercials, it would motivate me to clean my bedroom once in a while.

  15. says

    Re: yazikus @ 22:

    I’m always concerned that I see only some narrow part of feminism, something sheltered around corners like this with the rational sorts. But to me it certainly appears Jaclyn is getting her idea of ‘modern feminism’ from those media tropes and from the anti-feminist ‘humanist’, if not outright MRA, crowd. She seems to mention their sort of talking points and obliviousness. I mean, I know there are TERFs and the like out there saying some horrible things, and some people that just aren’t very good at feminism or thinking, but I don’t know if they’re actually popular or just popular for the anti-feminists to hold up as examples. I mean, I did notice she didn’t give any specific examples of the conversations she referred to, or who she meant by ‘modern feminists’.

    It certainly appears that people have done a very good job of demonizing feminism. Seems unlikely a name change would actually help, though.

  16. says

    John Henry Beck/#24:

    … to me it certainly appears Jaclyn is getting her idea of ‘modern feminism’ from those media tropes and from the anti-feminist ‘humanist’, if not outright MRA, crowd. She seems to mention their sort of talking points and obliviousness.

    Yeah, got that impression myself.

    And about those anti-feminist ‘humanists’, yeah, I’ll borrow your scare quotes happily, if you don’t mind.

    It seems to me this is the nub of it. It’s saying nothing I expect most here can’t already see, but it’s not really consistent, being the former and claiming to the be latter. Humanist thought has generally made more than a few nods to egalitarianism. And it’s simply the reality that we don’t at all have that between the genders yet anywhere, unsurprisingly, after millenia when it was otherwise. The notion this is something you fix at the stroke of a pen in legislation, or that somehow you can do it even in a few decades, call it done against a host of social sciences clearly measuring ongoing and glaring inequities notwithstanding…

    But it’s explicit enough in what she’s saying, how she tries to hold up (her version of) humanism as a good thing, then helpfully piles on with the standard pop culture antifeminist smears. There’s a contingent that have successfully imported those smears into secularist, atheist, ‘skeptical’ movements and organizations, created this notion that somehow feminism is incompatible with humanism, because somehow working to correct (ancient, pervasive, widespread, and stubborn) inequities is inegalitarian, since, wow, that’s focusing only on the human rights (of the mere majority of our species, by the way) that are actually impinged by them…

    To say this is a shallow analysis is too kind. It’s not even analysis. It’s just double talk. Actively attempting to derail efforts at achieving a critical facet of egalitarianism… all in the name of egalitarianism.

  17. leni says

    There’s a contingent that have successfully imported those smears into secularist, atheist, ‘skeptical’ movements and organizations, created this notion that somehow feminism is incompatible with humanism, because somehow working to correct (ancient, pervasive, widespread, and stubborn) inequities is inegalitarian, since, wow, that’s focusing only on the human rights (of the mere majority of our species, by the way) that are actually impinged by them

    It’s because they have equated feminism with TERFs and Andrea Dworkin. They would be right if that were true.

    It’s not substantially different than saying atheism isn’t compatible with humanism because Stalin, which is stupid and ill-informed on its face. And sounds like something S.E. Cupp would say.

    ****

    I wish someone would make a point-by-point video response to this with low-lighting, calm words, and some chill music in the background. I’m thinking Morcheeba.

    I would, but I don’t own a webcam and never will. Also I ‘m very lazy and don’t want to watch her stupid video.

  18. mildlymagnificent says

    I do wish the media would stop with all of the straw-feminists. Does it seem like we are going backwards?

    Speaking as a veteran of International Women’s Year and the whole 70s movement, it seems that way to me a lot of the time. The two things that make my heart ache the most are reproductive rights and street/ workplace/ social harassment. I know that the statistics on violence against women show there’s been a reasonable, but not admirable, decrease over time but it feels as though we’re going backwards.

    I suspect most of that is that women now are speaking out about all the things we used to grit our teeth and keep quiet about, but it feels all out of shape considering how I felt 10 or 20 years ago about our achievements. But the attacks on reproductive and sexual rights are definitely stepping up compared to 20 years ago.

  19. says

    Wwwwwwhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

    I subscribed to her over a frickin’ year ago and thought she was awesome!

    And then now this.

    At this point, Tube has only three good youtubers that I know of: Cristina Rad, Some Grey Bloke, and Laci Green. I really hoped Jaclyn would be one of them. Clearly, she’s more along the lines of the Thunderf00t contingent.

    (On a totally unrelated note: could people stop mischaracterizing the VenomFangX fiasco? Thunerf00t did NOT harass him. Thunderf00t, among others, slowly uncovered a holy hell of a lot of law-breaking by this “kid”. Venom was rightfully caught stealing money he had promised to a children’s hospital. And Venom poked the hornet’s nest in the first place… he sought out the YouTube atheists, not the other way around. I watched that shit unfold. Thunderf00t is everything including a harasser, but not in this case.)

  20. says

    I don’t like her style at all.

    It’s lazy because she is dependent on simple black and white characterizations and portrayals that many will eat up because they want simple and black and white. She at least implicitly knows that she is mischaracterizing things because she preemptively defends herself by saying “I’m not saying X” or “I don’t mean Y” and proceeds to either offer her own definition of things that leave out lots of people, or go on and say X anyway.

    The visible manifestations of patriarchy at the highest levels of government, economic, and social power exist because of lots of little manifestations that support such a bias in society. She totally ignores this.

    “Modern Feminism” is not defined by a bunch of people that dislike what some feminists are saying and choose to characterize all modern feminists by their impressions of these people.

    Issues like circumcision are not being ignored, people including feminists are getting pissed off when butthurt individuals use issues like circumcision to shout down women complaining about issues directly relevant to themselves.

    It’s getting tiresome and would be boring if it were not so common.

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