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vijayjohn wrote:How did this go back to being about 'ranting' again?
Um...because that's what she actually...did?
Varislintu wrote:I don't have a problem with Lauren ranting against cis men. If that is what's actually being talked about in this thread, then I have no bone to pick. Of course she has a right to do that.
I have a problem with the sentence "I hate men" being thrown out in an apparent not-hyperbolish, not-silly-dramatic way. More like in a deeply-held-disgust kind of way. And then doubling down on it when criticised. That sentence has nothing to do with feminism or oppression or fighting for a cause anymore. Of course people's emotions can't be controlled by others, but I think it's part of normal social behaviour not to tell people you hate their kind, when they haven't asked you to open up about it.
Varislintu wrote:I mean, what were you trying to tell me by saying that when I say 'I mean X not Y', I am actually saying 'I mean Y'?
I still feel very strongly that there has to be room within the "minority" grouping to be called out on excessively hurtful language, when that language expresses sentiments that are not part of valid critique but just broad-brush insults of an entire kind (like gender, religion, race or nationality etc), expressed not between two pairs of ears but "publically".
I hope Lauren notices and appreciates how much she is respected here, in that many people stood up and defended her right to make an above-mentioned "broad-brush insult to an entire kind".
To the extent that me calling it out generated a "In Varislintu's defense..." post! By a cis man! I have to raise my hat to some of you cis men.
What I mean is, the idea that 'men saying they hate women is not as oppressive as women saying they hate men' is absolutely true in our historical and cultural context.
Topsy turvily (in my view), the "wrong" in this case seems to have been me ally-failing by pointing out this obvious truth that we all agree with, out loud.
However, in fact in hind-sight I don't think this has anything to do with patriarchy or feminism, but me and Lauren clashing over meanness. Long-timers here might know that that is the one thing she and I have clashed over repeatedly, and I don't think there's anything to do about that. I can't stand meanness, she likes that style.
vijayjohn wrote:Varislintu wrote:I mean, what were you trying to tell me by saying that when I say 'I mean X not Y', I am actually saying 'I mean Y'?
I'm sorry, but I think I'm missing something here. When did I tell you anything about what you meant? You said "I mean X not Y," and IIRC I was trying to say Y was what Lauren actually was talking about in the first place.
vijayjohn wrote:I dunno, I mean, you have every right to feel that way, but I see it differently. Maybe that's because I keep remembering how my grandfather apparently hated all British people until the day he died. (OK, granted, I don't recall him ever saying this publically, but still). When my dad told me that, at first I thought he was nuts to think that way - and if you were Indian, you might have felt the same way. But now that I'm reading his diary, I can kind of see why he might have felt that way. Not all British people were absolutely horrible to him; he himself says some were actually very nice to him. Yet even they encouraged him to go risk his life in a fucking war for the sake of an empire that was all too eager to keep him and his people oppressed. Almost half a century later, he felt nothing had changed in the British people's racist attitudes since that war.
Was that an extreme sentiment on his part? Sure. Do I agree with him? No. But can I blame him for the way he felt? No. Maybe if he had met British people at that time who were against the war, he might not have insisted on that characterization of an entire country. But he never got that opportunity.
vijayjohn wrote:Thanks, because that's awfully nice of you, but that's just the thing, right? You don't have to because we shouldn't be discriminating against women anyway. Besides, the cis man you speak of used to be way more misogynistic than he is now.
vijayjohn wrote:Wait, don't you mean the other way around, i.e. that it's true in our historical and cultural context that men saying they hate women (misogyny) is more oppressive than women saying they hate men (misandry?)?
vijayjohn wrote:Topsy turvily (in my view), the "wrong" in this case seems to have been me ally-failing by pointing out this obvious truth that we all agree with, out loud.
Taken out of context, I'm not sure there would be anything wrong with this at all. But this came after Vlürch wrote one of his long anti-feminist rants and then dEhiN started out expressing agreement with it, so in that context, it kind of comes across as taking sides with that POV, even though of course that's not what you meant to do.
vijayjohn wrote:You're probably right. I also don't like it at all when people are just mean, especially because it's so easy to go from there to actually discriminating against exactly the same people you say you're trying not to discriminate against. Remember how I was talking with Johanna about how Indians might not see asexuality in the same way as Westerners, and then Lauren tried to call me (and others) out for supposedly not listening to the asexual person? And then after Johanna confirmed that she didn't feel that way about the discussion, I pointed out how what Lauren did amounted to a white person telling a brown person to shut up?
vijayjohn wrote:That being said, I don't get the impression that Lauren is just trying to be mean while complaining about misogyny (although maybe that's just me). I think she feels genuinely angry and doesn't feel compelled to be nice about it, either. I agree she isn't compelled to feel nice about it, although I also feel that if I was as angry about racism as she is about misogyny, I think that would actually affect my own health pretty badly. Especially my mental health.
Varislintu wrote:Well, when asking me "Do you really think ranting is that bad?" (Y) right smack in the context of me and Lauren talking about the rightness of X, I really don't know how you can see that as not referring to what I mean.
But ignoring that, it seems there's an answer here: the point you were making by ignoring the difference I made between X and Y, was that there is in your opinion no qualitative difference between X and Y, and therefore if I accept Y (ranting) I must logically accept X (insulting kinds while ranting) as well.
Oh dear, I just had a fun couple of minutes rewriting part of this debate as if your grandfather was alive and had posted here "I fucking hate Brits!", but I think it was veering towards the mean, and I shouldn't put even satirised words in his mouth. So never mind all that. Erase, erase. In short, I think if he was happily chatting with Brits here one second and saying he fucking hates them the next, it wouldn't be completely, totally horrible to ask him if he probably means he hates the racist, colonial Brits, and not all of them.
Because to be honest, I don't usually read Vlürch's posts nowadays.
Yes. This article reminded me about that exchange recently as well:
http://skepchick.org/2015/11/neurodiver ... epchick%29
france-eesti wrote:I'm very sad to read that Sometimes I don't understand the world we live in, where people are supposed to be civilized and everything...
razlem wrote:And of course every scientific study I show him on the issue "isn't real science, they just want to push their own agenda" -.-
Varislintu wrote:It's always everyone else having an agenda except the relevant privileged group, isn't it? It probably looks like that to a privileged class because they can continue pushing their agenda without being aware of it, while unprivileged groups have to first become aware of their under-privilege and then push really hard to even make a tiny ripple int he mainstream.
Varislintu wrote:unprivileged groups have to first become aware of their under-privilege
linguoboy wrote:Oh, and speaking of heterosexism, this happened.
Varislintu wrote:linguoboy wrote:Oh, and speaking of heterosexism, this happened.
That's... stunningly ill-willed. And it sounds like this bigoted bully doesn't realise it's ill-willed because he directed it at homosexuals, whom he probably considers fair game.
linguoboy wrote:It's particularly galling for many because (and this was news to me), the Daily Beast claims to "include standing up to bullies and bigots, and specifically being a proudly, steadfastly supportive voice for LGBT people all over the world" as part of their "core mission"--they even include a rainbow flag in the banner for their homepage!--and yet they still had a huge enough blind spot to commission and publish a piece like this.
linguoboy wrote:This is another example why I will never completely trust straight allies to defend queer rights. There have to be some LGBTQ people in the room with the power and opportunity to say, "Yeah no, this is wrong" to keep this sort of thing from happening.
Varislintu wrote:But of course, what that article writer did would not have required much in the way of simple human decency/empathy to avoid (from him or the people in charge around him).
харийн хүн wrote:A group of teen boys beat me and spit on me because I spoke Guti on the phone with my mother. my shoulder dislocated, kicked on the junk and a tooth fell off, and got bruises and bleeding nose. Nothing broke but they said dislocated shoulder arm should not be used much for two weeks to a month, and its fingers hurt from being stepped over. The police said they can't be of great help because I don't know any of them or see them very clearly. This has been my first true discrimination, don't know what they thought I was but they didn't care that I told them I have lived in Mongolia for years notwithstanding that the first insult they yelled was for me to speak Mongolian... One of the boys was white and probably Russian, therefore meaning they weren't Mongolian purists. It does not matter anyways as it near certainly is never going to happen again. If it will, I will fight back...
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