Feminism and the silencing of women

[Magnus McGinty]

I don’t understand how you got from that screenshot to where you ended up

I wasn't commenting on a screenshot?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Stepping up to defend women’s rights is not the same thing as telling another bloke to back off and leave your female friend alone.

I'd like to think I do both. But it can be confusing.

 

[trashpony]

I wasn't commenting on a screenshot?

Oh So it was just a random comment.

What’s confusing about it?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Oh So it was just a random comment.

What’s confusing about it?

There's been lots of comments recently about how men need to 'step up' more. I was pointing out that historically that sentiment didn't appear to be desired or welcomed.

 

[killer b]

It could be explained rather than people simply getting abusive.

the thing is, it's hard to believe after all the explaining people do to you that your questions are actually genuine. You complain about our entrenched positions, while asking the same questions yourself over and over again and never listening to any replies. It's boring, and fair enough if posters sometimes can't be fucked with it.

 

[Red Cat]

I'm trying to understand the theory, which appears to have changed. It could be explained rather than people simply getting abusive.

You've just contradicted yourself: 'entrenched positions' to 'the theory has changed'.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Actually, fair enough. Not interested. Carry on.

 

[Cloo]

I'd like to think I do both. But it can be confusing.

I think it's the difference between going:

'Don't disagree with Susan, she is a lady and it's rude!' (that's patronising and rather disempowering)

and

'Mate, it's a good idea - would you react like that if I suggested it?' (that is using your privilege positively and making the other guy think about why he could be reacting like that to a perfectly sensible suggestion)

The same way feminism now is not (if ever has been) about 'You can't hold a door open/give a seat up for a woman you patronising bastard!' - TBH I think that concept was mostly a misogynistic point of 'humour' that those crazy hatchet-faced feminists 'just didn't like men being polite'.

 

[killer b]

Not interested.

I know.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I know.

I'm not interested in the grief. You do know.

 

[trashpony]

Humouring you, it’s the difference between ’how dare you speak to Susan like that!’ and ‘Enough with the sexist bullshit‘.

if you can’t see the difference, I don’t think you want to.

 

[story]

I'm not interested in the grief. You do know.

Then maybe it’s time to take a step back and have a bit of a think about what’s said in threads like this. Keep reading while resisting the urge to come in with “Yeah but, what about, that doesn’t make sense” etc.

Cos actually, you’re doing the exact thing that that Twitter thread is saying men do,

 

[Cloo]

Whilst I don't think it was necessarily Magnus' intention, but his response does exemplify one of the common ways feminism is stamped down: 'Gosh, what do these women want? First they want one thing, then they want another, women are so inconsistent and I can't possibly keep track of how I'm supposed to behave'

When it all boils down to - don't treat women as another species. Treat us they way you get to take for granted as a man - listened to, assumed to have competence where we claim it, assumed to have balanced judgement etc. But these things are often twisted round to be presented as unrealistic, inconsistent, 'demanding special treatment' etc. Again, not actually accusing Magnus of those things, but it led into the point.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Humouring you, it’s the difference between ’how dare you speak to Susan like that!’ and ‘Enough with the sexist bullshit‘.

Well that's a better answer than simply going for my throat. My position is anti-misogyny rather than white knight, I think, but it's sometimes difficult when I also so often fall into the camp of enemy for not quite wording something the way it's liked.

 

[Edie]

I’ll be honest, it’s not very feminist of me (and I’m not fully feminist anyway) but I love having a man to protect me. I don’t gaf about being white knighted, bring it on.

 

[story]

Well that's a better answer than simply going for my throat. My position is anti-misogyny rather than white knight, I think, but it's sometimes difficult when I also so often fall into the camp of enemy for not quite wording something the way it's liked.

Hopefully, people /men will behave in a way that makes sense because it’s right, not because they’ve learned some script or because they’ve been conditioned or coerced into doing it.

Being unclear and ”not quite wording it the way it’s liked“ suggests that someone is hoping to play to the crowd rather than actually making changes to the way they think and feel.

 

[Red Cat]

I think you don't like what you see as middle-class feminism, or perhaps it's just middle-class women, but you can't say it outright, so we get all this snidey from the side shit, and this game of being trapped into making a mistake that you'll get 'grief' for.

Just say it, and have a discussion about it, if there is anyone who wants to discuss it. Or why bother raising it at all.

 

[campanula]

I don't know why you do this, Magnus McGinty. Invariably, you take an adversarial position on these feminist threads, then, after an increasingly irritated exchange, you retreat, all wounded and hurt, as though you have somehow been misunderstood. I would say that all of your interactions follow much the same trajectory. Initially, you take the position of ingenue, all wide-eyed questioning, and even presenting as being actually interested in the responses. Personally, I am never convinced that you engage in these threads in good faith but are looking for gotchas and evidence of backsliding...especially when you imagine some disconnect between feminisms and a narrowly class based materialist argument, which deteriorates into a familiar hierarchy of privilege and oppression.

Ah, whilst I was dithering, I see Red Cat has simply stated what appears to be your personal beef with simple clarity.

 

[friendofdorothy]

I don't know why you do this, Magnus McGinty. Invariably, you take an adversarial position on these feminist threads, then, after an increasingly irritated exchange, you retreat, all wounded and hurt, as though you have somehow been misunderstood. I would say that all of your interactions follow much the same trajectory. Initially, you take the position of ingenue, all wide-eyed questioning, and even presenting as being actually interested in the responses. Personally, I am never convinced that you engage in these threads in good faith but are looking for gotchas and evidence of backsliding...especially when you imagine some disconnect between feminisms and a narrowly class based materialist argument, which deteriorates into a familiar hierarchy of privilege and oppression.

Ah, whilst I was dithering, I see Red Cat has simply stated what appears to be your personal beef with simple clarity.

Succintly put.

 

[friendofdorothy]

I'd back my friends male or female equally. I think most people do this? None think I'm as 'thick as pigshit' I don't think. But then the real world isn't like here with its entrenched positions.

The online world can be more agressive and adversarial and U75 is full of entrenched positions. I dont think that is what is going on here.
In the real world when a thick-as-pig-shit-man tries to interupt or take over your conversation say in a pub - you can ignore him, which doesn't tend to work. Or as Red Cat has done here, just tell him to fuck off, but then do tend to act all upset / rejected / angry / go on alot in real life too.

The acumulative effect of dealing with this over and over - is wearing - and it does have an affect on womens mental health - meaning its easier to stay silent, not reply or not argue. It's a way of silencing women. I wish more men would think about this (quietly and to themselves, please.)

I rarely engage with the political threads here on U75 because of exactly what the tweet that Cloo posted said -

watch if the first response to everything a woman tells you is to refute, say no or something negative

Can't we have a conversation about the Silencing of Women without a man trying to make the conversation about himself? and with out any sense of self awareness or irony at the amount of space they are taking up. Magnus McGinty please do us all a favour and shut the fuck up.

 

[friendofdorothy]

I actually came to this thread to write about an interesting talk I've just heard online by Norena Shopland 'women unfrocked' - she began with an interesting fact about anti women bias on Wikipedia

 

[friendofdorothy]

Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[friendofdorothy]

I have been thinking about history and how women are too often not mentioned and their words not recorded. History is just full of silent, nameless women.

eg Sappho - greatest female poet of antiquity - so few of her words still exist as vast marjority of her her work was destroyed or lost.

I've loved hearing 'Natalie Haynes stands up for the classics' podcast (its available on BBC sounds) as she always includes stories of ancient women even though there is so little evidence of them. She included Sappho in series 3. And I think Natalie Haynes is really funny.

 

[Pickman's model]

I have been thinking about history and how women are too often not mentioned and their words not recorded. History is just full of silent, nameless women.

eg Sappho - greatest female poet of antiquity - so few of her words still exist as vast marjority of her her work was destroyed or lost.

I've loved hearing 'Natalie Haynes stands up for the classics' podcast (its available on BBC sounds) as she always includes stories of ancient women even though there is so little evidence of them. She included Sappho in series 3. And I think Natalie Haynes is really funny.

I'm a great fan of hypatia Hypatia - Wikipedia

E2a I don't know if you've read the darkening age The Darkening Age - Wikipedia, I think it's a really good book and blames christians for much of the loss of classical texts like sappho. Well worth a read

 

[friendofdorothy]

I'm a great fan of hypatia Hypatia - Wikipedia

I recall reading a Womens Press book about her years ago. Murdered by Christians.

thanks for the link

 

[friendofdorothy]

I'm a great fan of hypatia Hypatia - Wikipedia

E2a I don't know if you've read the darkening age The Darkening Age - Wikipedia, I think it's a really good book and blames christians for much of the loss of classical texts like sappho. Well worth a read

haven't read that especially but beleive that christians were fundamentally anti knowledge. As well as anti sex of course. Amazing how few women are named in the Bible.

edit to add - christianity viewed women as fundamentally sinful, condemned to suffer the agony of childbirth in punishment for Eve's original 'sin' - which was of course to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. No wonder they loved destroying books.

 

[friendofdorothy]

I thought it worth quoting this here too She knitted in red when men talked and green when women talked. the colour of the knitting says it all.

Women may not be entirely silenced (at least in western culture) but men do keep trying their best to out talk /overtalk us

NAMNAW of course

just a gentle reminder of something that was posted at the begining of this thread about men being heard a lot more than women

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I don't know why you do this, Magnus McGinty. Invariably, you take an adversarial position on these feminist threads, then, after an increasingly irritated exchange, you retreat, all wounded and hurt, as though you have somehow been misunderstood. I would say that all of your interactions follow much the same trajectory. Initially, you take the position of ingenue, all wide-eyed questioning, and even presenting as being actually interested in the responses. Personally, I am never convinced that you engage in these threads in good faith but are looking for gotchas and evidence of backsliding...especially when you imagine some disconnect between feminisms and a narrowly class based materialist argument, which deteriorates into a familiar hierarchy of privilege and oppression.

Ah, whilst I was dithering, I see Red Cat has simply stated what appears to be your personal beef with simple clarity.

There was an earlier comment about men should 'stand up' so I was saying that when I'd expressed previously about such occasions, I was shouted down. So asked why?
I'm not too interested in continuing posting on this thread but I must say I don't see an awful lot of engagement from males, and wonder why that is when the request is that we should be more involved?

 

[Winot]

There was an earlier comment about men should 'stand up' so I was saying that when I'd expressed previously about such occasions, I was shouted down. So asked why?
I'm not too interested in continuing posting on this thread but I must say I don't see an awful lot of engagement from males, and wonder why that is when the request is that we should be more involved?

Christ don’t you ever shut up?

 

[Santino]

There was an earlier comment about men should 'stand up' so I was saying that when I'd expressed previously about such occasions, I was shouted down. So asked why?
I'm not too interested in continuing posting on this thread but I must say I don't see an awful lot of engagement from males, and wonder why that is when the request is that we should be more involved?

You've almost got them pinned down. Another couple of forensic arguments and we can safely dismiss the thread.