Feminism - where are the threads?

[scifisam]

It’s not my intention to make anybody feel bad, my apologies. I made the mistake of specifically addressing Edie because she was the one I was engaging with. That wasn’t helpful on a public board, though — maybe I should have gone to PM. Edie has a very high degree of academic training in a complex discipline that would similarly not be easy for me to just pick up and read. That was the experience I wanted to draw on as an analogy.

So Edie is smart enough but the rest of us are thick, gotcha

 

[kabbes]

So Edie is smart enough but the rest of us are thick, gotcha

Now you’ve got it!

 

[scifisam]

Now you’ve got it!

I know you're trying to be funny, but calling women stupid on a thread about feminism isn't actually that amusing.

 

[kabbes]

I can’t win here, can I?

At no point did I call anybody stupid, explicitly or implicitly.

 

[Edie]

So Edie is smart enough but the rest of us are thick, gotcha

I’m one of the few that really struggled with that paper My head doesn’t work like that. It’s not that I just don’t have the knowledge about Phallic woman or whatever (which I don’t, none of those references mean anything to me). It’s the actual sentence structure, the argument itself. Science just isn’t like that, it’s much much more straightforward, which is why I can get it.

In general tho, no matter what you are talking about, if you can’t explain it in plain English you’re doing it wrong. Look at Feynman for gods sake, he never struggled. kabbes doesn’t either tbf, his description of culture and those ideas was bang on.

 

[chilango]

Lacan's "My Teaching" is quite readable/accessible (IME as a non psychoanalyst type) but doesn't really get into his ideas very much.

 

[Edie]

I can’t win here, can I?

At no point did I call anybody stupid, explicitly or implicitly.

You definitely haven’t ftr.

 

[tufty79]

I started reading the paper and gave up after my brain started making sputtering noises

 

[kabbes]

I do agree that too much of this stuff is written in quite a pretentious language. I have been specifically trained and examined in writing complexity in plain English, though (as part of my profession, not my studies) — it didn’t come naturally!

ETA: I missed the all-important last line, which was “... and I’m still not that great at it a lot of the time”

 

[Pickman's model]

I’m one of the few that really struggled with that paper My head doesn’t work like that. It’s not that I just don’t have the knowledge about Phallic woman or whatever (which I don’t, none of those references mean anything to me). It’s the actual sentence structure, the argument itself. Science just isn’t like that, it’s much much more straightforward, which is why I can get it.

In general tho, no matter what you are talking about, if you can’t explain it in plain English you’re doing it wrong. Look at Feynman for gods sake, he never struggled. kabbes doesn’t either tbf, his description of culture and those ideas was bang on.

it's a deliberate choice to obscure what they mean, to sprinkle jargon like they do. to keep understanding among the privileged.

 

[weepiper]

I haven't read the paper because I have a full time job, three kids and a disabled partner, and I do 90% of the housework. The free time I have comes in small chunks and I can't really get into something long I would need to concentrate hard on and digest carefully. This isn't meant as a dig at kabbes at all, btw, please don't take it as such, more just musing about the irony of middle aged womanhood.

 

[scifisam]

I can’t win here, can I?

At no point did I call anybody stupid, explicitly or implicitly.

You just did! I said "and the rest of us are thick" and you agreed. Like I said, I know you were joking, but it's not the thread for that kind of joke.

The reason I brought it up is that you said you should have shared that paper only with Edie because she would be able to understand it, in your opinion. The implication of that is that the rest of us wouldn't be able to.

 

[Edie]

it's a deliberate choice to obscure what they mean, to sprinkle jargon like they do. to keep understanding among the privileged.

I’m not as cynical as that. Jargon can be really useful for using short cuts to say something. Like using epigenetics instead of typing out ‘mechanisms that control the expression of genes that are heritable and usually in non-coding regions of DNA’ etc. But you should always be able to put the idea or arugument over simply. This is a big problem with Freudian stuff I find, it’s deliberately impenetrable. I dunno who this Lacan is but sounds similar (and that diagram of tufty79 ).

 

[Edie]

I haven't read the paper because I have a full time job, three kids and a disabled partner, and I do 90% of the housework. The free time I have comes in small chunks and I can't really get into something long I would need to concentrate hard on and digest carefully. This isn't meant as a dig at kabbes at all, btw, please don't take it as such, more just musing about the irony of middle aged womanhood.

Honestly I think YouTube really comes into its own here. It’s astonishing what you can learn on it.

 

[scifisam]

You definitely haven’t ftr.

Except in that last post there mate.

 

[kabbes]

The reason I brought it up is that you said you should have shared that paper only with Edie because she would be able to understand it,

That’s not remotely what I said.

 

[Edie]

I do agree that too much of this stuff is written in quite a pretentious language. I have been specifically trained and examined in writing complexity in plain English, though (as part of my profession, not my studies) — it didn’t come naturally!

ETA: I missed the all-important last line, which was “... and I’m still not that great at it a lot of the time”

It’s hard to do well eh. Feynman was an absolute genius

 

[scifisam]

I do agree that too much of this stuff is written in quite a pretentious language. I have been specifically trained and examined in writing complexity in plain English, though (as part of my profession, not my studies) — it didn’t come naturally!

ETA: I missed the all-important last line, which was “... and I’m still not that great at it a lot of the time”

To be honest, if it's aimed at an audience of other sociologists, then the jargon is fine. But it means it's not really a suitable resource for a general audience.

 

[kabbes]

And this:

You just did! I said "and the rest of us are thick" and you agreed. Like I said, I know you were joking, but it's not the thread for that kind of joke.

I naively assumed you were joking, because it was such a misrepresentation of my position. So I played along with the joke. My mistake, clearly.

 

[Clair De Lune]

This is a big problem with Freudian stuff I find, it’s deliberately impenetrable.

Teehee
Sorry...srs thread

 

[Pickman's model]

I’m not as cynical as that. Jargon can be really useful for using short cuts to say something. Like using epigenetics instead of typing out ‘mechanisms that control the expression of genes that are heritable and usually in non-coding regions of DNA’ etc. But you should always be able to put the idea or arugument over simply. This is a big problem with Freudian stuff I find, it’s deliberately impenetrable. I dunno who this Lacan is but sounds similar (and that diagram of tufty79 ).

in this case it's doing a good job of hiding its meaning from most of us here, even people who have postgraduate degrees.

i find lacan more impenetrable than freud

 

[tufty79]

Teehee
Sorry...srs thread

You just had to slip it in there, didn't you?

 

[scifisam]

That’s not remotely what I said.

You said you should have taken it to PM because Edie has a very high level of academic training. So yes, it is.

 

[kabbes]

You said you should have taken it to PM because Edie has a very high level of academic training. So yes, it is.

That’s also not what I said at all.

 

[Edie]

Teehee
Sorry...srs thread

That made me literally laugh out loud. Thank you.

 

[scifisam]

That’s also not what I said at all.

It literally is though. I quoted your actual words.

Never mind. I can't be arsed here any more - I'll leave you to it.

 

[kabbes]

It literally is though. I quoted your actual words.

Never mind. I can't be arsed here any more - I'll leave you to it.

You did not quote my words. You paraphrased me. You actually reorganised my sentences to portray an entirely different narrative.

 

[tufty79]

I'm going to go back to the Eton mans video earlier, and MRA stuff, and "balance" it with a piece by a WRA/radical feminist (with usual transphobia content warning) which I found way more accessible in terms of language - I am happy to delete anything like this if the source is problematic. I think it touches on some overlapping ideas...

Towards a New Understanding of Caring - The Radical Notion

theradicalnotion.org

 

[scifisam]

You did not quote my words. You paraphrased me. You actually reorganised my sentences to portray an entirely different narrative.

But I didn't. I cut out the bits before and after, but didn't change your words or reorganise your sentences:

It’s not my intention to make anybody feel bad, my apologies. I made the mistake of specifically addressing Edie because she was the one I was engaging with. That wasn’t helpful on a public board, though — maybe I should have gone to PM. Edie has a very high degree of academic training in a complex discipline that would similarly not be easy for me to just pick up and read. That was the experience I wanted to draw on as an analogy.

I mean, sure, you didn't mean to make people feel a bit dim, I'm sure that's true. These things can happen by accident as well as on purpose. But please don't accuse me of lying by rephrasing your words when I used your exact words.

However, I get the feeling that I'm very much not welcome here, so I'll put it on ignore.

 

[Red Cat]

I’m not as cynical as that. Jargon can be really useful for using short cuts to say something. Like using epigenetics instead of typing out ‘mechanisms that control the expression of genes that are heritable and usually in non-coding regions of DNA’ etc. But you should always be able to put the idea or arugument over simply. This is a big problem with Freudian stuff I find, it’s deliberately impenetrable. I dunno who this Lacan is but sounds similar (and that diagram of tufty79 ).

What Freudian stuff are you referring to?