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Feminist Critics – Engendering Discussion…

Body-Shaming Rears Its Ugly Head At The Majority Report

From what I’ve seen, Rep. Katie Porter (D, California) is one of the best people in Congress. 1I’m basing this on limited information: namely, the way she skewered ultra-rich corporate executives when they testified before Congress. It’s entirely possible that she is unaware of or … Continue reading She is also, well, somewhat portly, as can be seen in the photos accompanying a profile of her in Elle magazine.

Imagine that she went to some college to give a talk, and in the Q&A afterwards a student asked if it would be OK for some to get together to create a GoFundMe account to pay for Rep. Porter to enroll in a weight reduction program. Taken aback at the idiocy of the question, Rep. Porter simply responds, “I don’t think that’s necessary. My boyfriend likes me just the way I am.” She then moves on to the next question.

Now imagine there’s a podcast called The Hilarity Report. The hosts at this hypothetical podcast — Samantha, Emmitt, and a host they just refer to by his last name, Gomiki — don’t like Rep. Porter. Maybe they’re Marxist types who think of her as ‘reformist trash,’ or maybe they’re Crowder types who hate all liberals and lefties. For whatever reason, they’ve taken to mocking her. Someone calls in to their show about the Rep. Porter incident, and the hosts can scarcely conceal their amusement at the attempt to embarrass her about her weight. Emmitt and Gomiki in particular respond with gales of laughter at the idea of Rep. Porter mentioning her boyfriend. SO funny!!!

I think that most progressives — especially those who identify as feminists — would find this pretty distasteful. I would. Some would even condemn it as misogynist. I suspect Emma Vigelund of The Majority Report (TMR) and Nomiki Konst of The Nomiki Show (and occasional guest at TMR) would agree.

Keep that in mind as you watch the video embedded in this tweet: 2You may have to click on one of the links to watch the clip, depending on your browser settings.

The real life situation of TMR hosts mocking journalist Michael Tracey 3FWIW, I’m very dubious about the way Michael and others are opposing COVID vaccination and lockdown mandates. The question of whether I’m ‘pro Michael’ is completely … Continue reading is actually a bit worse than my hypothetical involving Rep. Porter. According to a subsequent tweet by Michael, his mention of his girlfriend was in a different context than the ‘hair transplant’ trolling. Of course, the whole reason Emma and Nomiki found it hilarious that Michael mentioned his girlfriend in the first place is because it suggested that Michael was insecure about his masculinity, which is a major offense against the sexist patriarchal standards that men are forced to abide by.

Unless I’m wrong about how Emma, Nomiki, and Sam would react to someone body-shaming Rep. Porter, this snippet appears to epitomize what I think of as ‘patriarchal feminism’: the hypocritical stance adopted by too many feminist pundits who passionately oppose sexism against women but who are only too eager to tolerate or even promote comparable sexism towards men.

Emma, Nomiki, and Sam are intelligent and talented hosts at The Majority Report. They really have no excuse for engaging in this sort of hypocrisy.

 

References
⇡1 I’m basing this on limited information: namely, the way she skewered ultra-rich corporate executives when they testified before Congress. It’s entirely possible that she is unaware of or indifferent to instances where society and government are biased against men.
⇡2 You may have to click on one of the links to watch the clip, depending on your browser settings.
⇡3 FWIW, I’m very dubious about the way Michael and others are opposing COVID vaccination and lockdown mandates. The question of whether I’m ‘pro Michael’ is completely irrelevant to the point of my post, of course.

Laci Green Goes 5 For 7 On Cancel Culture

It was pleasantly surprising to see Laci Green re-activate her YouTube career these past couple of years after stepping away for a time. The enormously popular feminist sex educator seemed to be suffering burnout after becoming mired in controversies, particularly after becoming involved with the not-SJW-approved Chris Ray Gun.

She’s now recovered her zest for YouTube-ing and has been cranking out videos every couple of weeks. She no longer focuses exclusively on sex, but takes on topics from the broader cultural zeitgeist.

Dissecting The Downsides To Cancel Culture

I generally find her well-intentioned thoughtfulness to be worthwhile, though I also think she still suffers from the occasional ‘mainstream feminist blindspot’ (though many fewer of those than your typical mainstream feminist pundit like Jill Filipovic or Joanna Schroeder).

One of her most recent vlogs looking at the dark side to cancel culture is a great illustration of this. She outlines five important negative dynamics to how cancel culture plays out today, including two that should be particularly important to progressives and those on the left: it targets the powerless much more often than the powerful, and it is inherently pro-surveillance and anti-worker. All of her points are really strong, and the whole thing should be required viewing for lefty activists.

However, I do think she leaves out two very important (and inter-related) downsides to cancel culture.

Electoral Kneecapping

One is that accusation alone is deemed sufficient to get the cancellation process going. Critics who point out the dubious or self-serving nature of accusations are often ignored. There seems to be no norm of skeptically waiting for a complete picture of what may have happened — or for giving the accused the benefit of the doubt in cases where it’s impossible to know what really occurred — before whipping others up into a politically potent frenzy.

Which brings me to the second missing point in Laci’s presentation: elites have begun using cancel culture’s ‘conviction without evidence’ as a powerful tool to kneecap progressives. Scott Stringer lost his bid to become mayor of NYC, and Alex Morse lost his Congressional primary contest against a well-connected corporatist incumbent, due at least in part to sexual harassment accusations surfacing in the weeks prior to voting. (The flimsy nature of the Morse accusations were particularly disturbing.)

Even without these two important points, though, Laci makes presents a powerful case against cancel culture’s ‘rush to judgment.’ I hope her video gets broad exposure.

Same As It Ever Was

Way back when, in the Age of Blogging (1995-2015), there was a ruckus about Anne Coulter in the progressive blogosphere. She had said something appalling (as usual), and there was a flurry of condemnation from liberal and left bloggers. Some of the mockery focused on her Adam’s apple and her supposedly being a transgender woman.

Feminist Melissa McEwen of the blog Shakespeare’s Sister pointed out (correctly) that this was wrong. Though Anne richly deserved the contempt being heaped on her, using transgenderism as an insult could only be interpreted as saying that being a transgender man or woman was itself worthy of contempt … an appalling thing for progressives to say.

Unfortunately, many leading feminists seemed not to have gotten the memo. It was not at all uncommon for them to target men they deemed misogynists with insults all based on the contempt society directs towards men who do not embody patriarchal stereotypes: i.e., having a small penis, living in their “mother’s basement,” not having sex with women.

Sadly, I’m not sure the needle has moved all that much in today’s discourse:

Jill appears to be referring to José Cardoso Sobrinho and a notorious case from 2009 in Brazil. Her contempt for then-Archbishop Sobrinho is understandable; what he did was horrendous.

However, the vehicle she uses to smear Sobrinho is itself ageist and sexist, calling him “elderly” 1At the time of the excommunication, Sobrinho was a couple of years younger than Biden is today. and (of course, the ultimate “insult”) “virgin.”

So in addition to being a misogynist, Sobrinho was old and not sexually active … what a contemptible scumbag! /s

Sadly, this kind of patriarchal feminism is nothing new for Jill, nor is she a unique purveyor of it. Let’s hope there’s more recognition of the hypocrisy of this kind of discourse in the next decade than there’s been in the last one.

• • •

*panting*

Whew! A whole blog post! With inserts and everything! Guess I’ve contributed my share of blogging for the next five years.

On a more serious note, please note that comment approval will likely be sporadic here for a while at FC should we actually reactivate to something more than a flash-in-the-pan re-emergence.

 

References
⇡1 At the time of the excommunication, Sobrinho was a couple of years younger than Biden is today.

And we’re back

Feminist Critics is up and running. I don’t know how much activity there’s going to be, but I’m here. I’ve also been in touch with ballgame so he’s likely to be around as well.

Feel free to use this as an open thread. For the time-being at least, guest comments will be automoderated, please bear with us if we don’t get around to approving them as fast as maybe you’d like.

Gender Pundit Argues Feminism Is Only Cure For Misandry; Proves The Opposite

Former The Good Men Project Executive Editor Joanna Schroeder recently issued a “lesson in ‘misandry,’ in 11 tweets.” 1Actually 14 tweets. In the past we’ve found her work while at TGMP to be something of a mixed bag, but it’s been a while since we checked in with her at FC 2Well TBH it’s been a while since we’ve done anything here at FC. — she’s left TGMP and moved on to YourTango — so let’s see how she’s evolved:

She acknowledges that misandry is real … that’s a great first step that has often eluded many top tier feminists. She follows that with “But stay with me here” … as if she just said something ridiculous. That’s actually good, too. She’s not preaching to the converted, she’s aiming this lesson at those who are skeptical. This is good.

Um, OK. It’s a helluva a lot more than just “myths about men,” but maybe she’s just winding up.

Continue reading “Gender Pundit Argues Feminism Is Only Cure For Misandry; Proves The Opposite”

 

References
⇡1 Actually 14 tweets.
⇡2 Well TBH it’s been a while since we’ve done anything here at FC.

Do 27% of Europeans say rape may be acceptable in some circumstances?

The Washington Post says they do, referencing a recently published EU survey 1This and several related documents can be found here.. Alex Griswold doesn’t agree:

…much about the story doesn’t pass the smell test. I can buy widespread misogyny in Romania, but 40% of liberal Belgians and Luxembourgers are secret rape supporters?

The survey instrument was delivered to subjects in their native language. Griswold doesn’t analyse foreign language version of the question, and I certainly don’t have the linguistic competence to do so. Nevertheless, I agree with him that the relatively high number for Belgium is suspect, given the high rating that country gets in the gynocentric Gender Equality Index 2Somewhat confusingly a number close to zero in the index as a whole or any of its constituent parts indicates a more gender-equal society by the index’s lights. A number close to one indicates … Continue reading. It’s notable that only 15% of Dutch people gave an affirmative answer to this question, despite that country having a very similar GEI rating. It seems reasonable to conjecture that issues with foreign-language versions of the question similar to those discussed below, may have affected the result 3According to Wiki, 55% of Belgians speak Dutch as their first language and 36% speak French. 30% of people in France answered affirmatively suggesting that such issues may not be the entire … Continue reading.

Griswold sees some problems with the English-language version of the question:

First and most importantly, the question wording was downright atrocious:

“Some people believe that having sexual intercourse without consent may be justified in certain situations. Do you think this applies to the following circumstances?”

The “this” in the second sentence is very, very vague. Respondents might have thought that they were being asked to identify the circumstances in which “some people” say non-consensual sex is justified, not the circumstances in which they believe it’s justified.

I agree. The question could reasonably be interpreted as asking “do some people believe that the following circumstance are ones in which non-consensual sex may be justified.” Arguably this is a more natural interpretation than “do you think non-consensual sex may be justified in these circumstance.”

This ambiguity is undoubtedly the worst problem with the question and on its own invalidates the result, at least as far as English speakers are concerned. But there are other issues:

(Also, I suspect that priming the question by saying that “some people” believe that non-consensual sex is okay might induce respondents to agree with statements they ordinarily would not.)

Or at least, may have primed some respondents to agree with statement that they wouldn’t have without the priming. It’s worth pointing out that this was the only question in the survey given a “some people believe” framing.

Griswold continues:

…some of conditions listed […] are so broad or confusing, that they cover circumstances where legally and ethically, it isn’t difficult to think of cases where the initiator’s actions would be “justified” despite the lack of explicit consent.

  • “Not clearly saying no or physically fighting back”
  • “If the assailant does not realize what they are doing”
  • “Being drunk or using drugs” (This was the most popular response)

The first one is baffling. There are cases of non-consensual sex where the victim’s passivity does not absolve the perpetrator: the rape of an unconscious woman, for example. But 99.9% of the time, sex where one’s partner is “not clearly saying no or physically fighting back” actually is consensual.

Of course, consensual sex where ones partner doesn’t say no or physically fight back is excluded by the question. But I agree that that the non-consensual aspect of the hypothetical was insufficiently emphasised in the question, and may not have been salient in the minds of the respondents. As Griswold puts it:

It isn’t difficult to see how participants could be confused and think they were being asked whether or not sex where the other person isn’t actively saying “no” is rape. Most of the time, it isn’t.

The question would have been better if they had added something like “Remember we are only talking about non-consensual sex.”

There’s another problem here that Griswold doesn’t mention: Nowhere is the word “consent” defined. As endless arguments both on this blog and elsewhere in the gendersphere have shown, different people attach different meanings to the word. A similar problem applies to the word “justified”. Does it mean “morally acceptable”? “Excusable”? Or even “legal”? If we don’t know how respondents interpret these words, we don’t know exactly what propositions they are assenting to.

Griswold goes on:

The last bullet point is the thorniest. Again I would peg it as too vague. For one thing, it doesn’t even say who is supposed to be intoxicated in the hypothetical. WaPo states definitively in its lede that the respondents where talking about when the victim is drunk, but the actual question wording doesn’t say. […] I’d imagine nearly all sexually active Europeans (and Americans) have had sex where one or both participants were intoxicated, but would chafe at the notion that they raped their partner.

Or that they were raped by their partner.

 

References
⇡1 This and several related documents can be found here.
⇡2 Somewhat confusingly a number close to zero in the index as a whole or any of its constituent parts indicates a more gender-equal society by the index’s lights. A number close to one indicates a more unequal society. See the technical note.
⇡3 According to Wiki, 55% of Belgians speak Dutch as their first language and 36% speak French. 30% of people in France answered affirmatively suggesting that such issues may not be the entire explanation.

Abandoned baby found dead in a carrier bag. Police are concerned … for the mother’s welfare.

A naked newborn baby was found dead in a carrier bag which had been left outside a vicarage in near freezing conditions. It is not clear whether the infant had been alive when it was abandoned.

So what we have here is a case of suspicious death. In another case it was established that the child had died from neglect after birth. Even when the baby survives, it’s a clear case of reckless endangerment. Yet in every case, the immediate police response is the same – to express concern for the welfare of the mother. I cannot think of any other type of crime – still less one as serious as those under discussion – that routinely elicits such a compassionate response.

I want to be clear that I am not arguing for a more punitive, less compassionate approach. The perpetrators of these crimes are presume to be – and every often are – desperate and vulnerable young women. My point is that many male criminals are also young, desperate, and vulnerable, yet we never see this compassionate response to them.

noelplum99 Weighs In On The Wage “Gap”

Earlier this year I was pointed towards YouTuber noelplum99 by a fellow redditor, and I’ve been following him ever since. I really like his straightforward, analytical breakdown of some of the myths and confabulations that contaminate too much of social justice discourse, and that he approaches his topics in a fairly progressive way that avoids the strident vilification you find in too many of the videos by ‘anti-SJWs’.

This is apparently his first direct take on “the wage gap” (though he has referred to it in other videos), and it’s worth watching.