One of the postmodernist delusions is the concept of intersectionality, namely the ways in which “oppressive institutions” (racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, classism, etc.) are interconnected and can not be examined separately. It is more critical theory nonsense and, just like the latter, it enjoys a lot of popularity, since it eases victimhood in several orders of magnitude, it only takes someone having any ‘oppressor’ or ‘privileged’ trait to dismiss anything they say (the most popular one is mansplaining: to say that something is wrong, or has no validity, just because it is asserted by a man).
The notion that ideas should be judged not by the idea itself, but the race, gender, religion and sexual orientation of the person who is sharing said idea is absurd. So if you are a Black transgender woman, then anything you say is supposedly far greater than anything a white man says.
Intersectionality is essentially reverse sexism and racism, in which the more minority groups you are in, the better your ideas are, This is abhorrent and wrong. Ideas should be judged by the idea itself, not the person stating the idea. Anyone who dares to oppose and defend a system of discrimination, i urge you to present your arguments in a rational fashion
P.S this one is on a phone, so i could not write that much, please forgive my brief opening statement
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@JuicyMelonTech, no problem in regards to your opening statement.
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So for one, it isn't innately feminist, you can look at how race and class connect for instance without focusing on gender.
Also it doesn't say that you can't examine separate issues by themselves, but that doesn't mean examining issues in isolation gives you the full picture.
The rest is just the usual "feminazi" mindless whining.
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While I can agree that @JuicyMelonTech hasn't necessarily provided proof or substantial evidence that Feminism is characterized by this ideology...I doubt you'd find many people here that would disagree. 3rd wave Feminism has a bad reputation for being characterized by angry, man-hating feminazis and there's no secret Man-archy out there that's filling everyone's head with that idea. Feminists are doing a great job all by themselves of making the movement look like an angry mob of fat lesbians who are out to crush Men.
Consider the following polls and explanations. You'll see a distinct pattern that a majority of Americans aren't willing to either agree with Feminism or accept the Label but for some reason still agree that Men and Women should have equality in all aspects. Feminism is the advocacy of Women's Rights on the basis of equality of the sexes and while polls show that a vast majority of the U.S. agrees in the idea of Women's Rights and equality of the sexes...they don't agree with Feminism. Might I offer that this is because Feminism has transformed over the years from a passionate movement for Women's Rights into an ugly, nasty hateful movement characterized by mean Women who shriek and scream at people that simply disagree with them?
http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/04/09/82-percent-of-americans-dont-consider-themselves-feminists-poll-shows/
http://www.gallup.com/poll/6715/feminism-whats-name.aspx
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/25/poll-most-americans-think-feminism-is-too-extreme/
https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/02/23/less-than-third-women-feminists/
I only know a few people who are proud feminists...and they're all insufferable Women with extreme ideas about how Men are the root of all evil, Men are on the warpath to force women into domestic slavery, and Women can't rise up to greatness in our society because Men are oppressing them. IF Feminism truly is a good thing, then it's a shame that the Feminists who appear in the Media are screwing it up for the good ones...who coincidentally I've never met.
If you don't look at any of the polls, look at this.
"There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".
"Oh, you don't like my sarcasm? Well I don't much appreciate your stupid".
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Wonderfully said!
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I can't believe I'm having to type this out, but the definition of what something is isn't what someone decides to put in the title of an online forum post. It is based on actual reality.
There doesn't really seem to really be a valid argument here. The only point you're making is that feminism doesn't have widespread popular support which is an entirely separate line of discussion and an argumentum ad populum. If the only thing that can be pointed out about feminism is that people don't like it, but no actual criticisms can be made of the ideology, belief, practices, etc of feminism itself then that sounds pretty good to me and makes me proud to be a feminist.
I could do a point by point response to the video, but really it just makes the same kind of illogical arguments. Oh no, a video of one feminist saying angry unfair stuff! Obviously we should assume that this one example which was so extreme and non-normal as to be newsworthy is representative of the norm! A dozen people saying they don't like feminism - again, ad populum.
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"There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".
"Oh, you don't like my sarcasm? Well I don't much appreciate your stupid".
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if you read the definition of intersectionality (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality) You will find a frankly hideous ideology. You are supposed to defend the ideology of feminist intersectionality itself, not simply point out small fallacies in others work. I presume you are relying on this because you cannot defend intersectionality as an ideology. I urge you to complete an argument without resorting to an argument from fallacy
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You used the phrase "actual reality".
This whole debate is based on conceptual unreality.
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Take my fiction preferences, for example. I love science fiction, and I love dystopian fiction. Now take a story combining these two into one; say, a story about the AI turning the whole galaxy into a giant streamlined evolution experiment. That would be Mass Effect series, for example. This is more than just the sum of the two preferences; this is something special in itself, a very peculiar type of fictions that catches my attention very strongly and makes me ask multiple moral and existential questions - something that sci-fi on its own, or dystopia on its own, do not.
Now, with regards to the matter of discrimination, intersectionality is simply the recognition of the fact that sometimes multiple factors stack together in a way that makes the individual into a distinctively separate group, different from each of the individual groups, that experiences a special treatment.
For example, white people discriminate against black people, and women discriminate against men. Combine these two: black man. Have you ever heard this kind of sentiment: "Black men are thugs"? This is not something said about just men, or about just black people (or when it is, the implied sub-group usually is black men) - this is the sentiment specific to this particular group combination, and eradicating this sentiment might require further study of the role this particular group takes in the modern society.
It is not absurd by any stretch imagination. Whether it has relevance, and whether it is reasonable to focus on it, is another matter - I am inclined to say "no" to both, because I think that the key to "solving" discrimination is not to consider individual groups and "repair" their reputation, but, instead, consider humanity as a whole and stop separating people into groups, so there are no groups to discriminate against.
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Intersectionality was a critique of feminism because first and second wave feminism claimed to fight for women's rights, but they only fight for white middle class women's rights. Those were the women with the power to affect change and if it wasn't a common problem shared among them, they wouldn't fight for it. This left women of color, queer and lesbian women, poor women, and even white middle class social outsiders, without a voice in the movement at all. That's a lot of women to not care about when you claim to fight for women.
In the second wave queer, lesbian, and women of color began to write and make contributions to feminism, however they found a lot of resistance by the waning first wave institution.
So intersectionality was proposed to tell the white middle class women that if they really want to fight for all women they need to all work together, including people from various backgrounds and giving them a chance to speak on the issues they deal with as a woman. For instance affordable access to birth control was picked up as a third wave issue because choices of poor women began to be included in the conversation. First wave feminists fought for birth control to be legal because they recognized how important that was in having control as a woman. To them the cost didn't matter, they could afford it, once poor choices were included they realized how narrow the focus of feminism has been.
The idea of intersectionality is that you can't understand or claim to know everything about a person based around one or two aspects of them. Someone's personality, needs, difficulties, aren't just shaped by being a black man, but by then being a black man, who is middle class, a mechanic, goes hunting, straight, father of two girls. Are all of those factors relevant in every case? No. But if I tell you to imagine a black man, you get one image, if I tell you to imagine a father of two, you get a different image, combine the two and you get an entirely different image with features that weren't present in either image alone.
It's good to have these intersections represented because you will get two vastly differemt answers to "what's the biggest obstacle you face with your disability?" If you ask a disabled person who makes 200k a year and one who makes 35k a year. This is applicable in the real world because if you are seeking to really accommodate people with disabilities you can't claim to be all knowing of what they need, and it's not enough to get one or two disabled people to weigh in on an issue and claim that represents the needs of all disabled people. You can have the most impact on accommodating disabled people if you ask as many as you can what their challenges are, because being disabled and poor comes with a different set of problems than being disabled and Rich.
That is the idea of intersectionality, and I ascribe to that. However intersectionality has not been adopted fully across feminism, and many of those who claim to practice it, in reality do not. At the women's March in DC a group of women were not allowed to speak because they are pro-life, that is not intersectionality. There are feminists that claim all sex work is exploitation and refuse to listen to the women who enjoy and choose that work, that's not intersectionality. However you do have many feminists working everyday to really include everyone even in small ways, yes even white men too.
This is why I won't call myself a feminist, the group is to vast and poorly defined. I've met feminists that I really agree with, or can get along with, and I've met feminists that are all around terrible people. It's the same for me with Republicans, I've met some I absolutely despise, and I've met mass that I can agree with on most points and really get along with and work with. The idea of intersectionality is a valid concept that I find to be useful even in day to day interactions, but feminism does a poor job of actually practicing it. The goal isn't get rid of white men, it's just include other voices too, losing the white male voice all together is as big of a tragedy as not including the black trans voice. You shouldn't be forced to practice this but I find it useful in my work and in critical thinking, so I will practice it within what's feasible in a given situation.
Sorry for that wall of text
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