Stephen Morgan wrote:In my role as a member of the proletariat I don't come across a lot of feminists, I'll tell you that. feminism is a fundamentally middle-class movement.
if we can replace the word "middle class" with "first/second world" i might consider this statement reasonable. Otherwise it is unseasoned hyperbole.
There isn't much a middle class left around here. perhaps you haven't noticed.
The overwhelming majority of self identifying feminists i'm aware of, primarily through university, are ladies [and men] who live at, below or really damned close to the poverty line. Perhaps you should leave your bubble occassionally and meet people in the world. Frankly, for that matter, i know more than a couple former third world feminists, while admittedly most of the third world is too busy trying to survive to have time for branding themselves.
Astonishing as it may seem, my relations with women are quite satisfactory. Not ones that work in the jobcentre, of course, but women I know in my everyday life (the jobcentre need only be attended every fortnight).
oh no, not astonishing. i don't doubt it whatsoever, and indeed i'd venture that this is probably one of the largest blocks preventing you from considering that your opinions/"data" might be inherently flawed.
someone: (my doubt is running out of benefits)
Try faith in stead.
i have faith that god will forgive the abovementioned women for their tolerance which has enabled your behavior.
JackRiddler: Hey, Morgan: Was Margaret Fucking Thatcher your mom? Cos' I think that might just be bad enough to explain your issues.
A greater insult it would be hard to imagine.
agreed. that is worse even than anything i've said to you.
erosoplier: The question is, should we be gearing up to fight [i]males, or should we be gearing up to fight [/i]patriarchy? How many women live beside and directly benefit from those "derivatives traders who created the trillions-bubble that the taxpayers are now shovelling endless trillions into a bottomless pit to "cover""? And the millions of males scratching out an existence for themselves and their families in third world nations - are they somehow in on all this Wall Street chicanery?
If "patriarchy" means "capitalism", then I believe it exists and is worth fighting, however it would then be nonsensical to call it patriarchy rather than capitalism. If patriarchy is a male system persecuting females, it doesn't exist. If it's a system of the rich persecuting the poor, it's capitalism, not patriarchy. Might seem like nit-picking, semantics and the aforementioned presecriptivism, but the language we use influences our thoughts. If we call it capitalism, the enemy is capitalists, the controllers of money. If we call it patriarchy, the enemy is patriarchs, fathers, who are not in reality the enemy.
and if we call it "feminism" the enemy is women who want a fair shake.
also, your definitions of these terms above is sub par.
patriarchy refers to an abstract set of institutions which promote male-centric values and aggression also the marketing of women as objects for sale. Which means it interacts with, and is often allied to, capitalism, but is distinct and seperate insomuch as it exists at all, being an abstract term.
wintler: Sales is sometimes whitecollar and is physically cushy, but it corrupts the soul.
Being rich, or abusive, or any number of other things, corrupt your soul. That doesn't mean you aren't the privleged one.
"an equal distribution of money would not change its status as the root of all evil"
[paraphrased]
c2w: Working in a white-collar low- or middle-management job of the kind we're using as examples is really not so very cushy.
It's not a question of absolute cushyness, but what is more or less cushy than what else.
it isn't a question of either.
when they're on the phone if they're not exhibiting enough signs of stress and misery to make it clear at a glance that they're not spending two minutes on -- [i]gasp -- a personal call. [/i]
Of course if you're digging a ditch all day there aren't likely to be many available phone lines.
again i suggest you get out more. today, my neighbor had her cable company changed, and thee utility workers came to remove the old pole and replace it with a new one. they required access to my yard to do so, is how i know. i watched them, cuz i'm paranoid. in between and during chain sawing and pole climbing, the big burly guy in the hard hat chattering incessantly on his cellular.
also, people talking on the phone is irrelevant.
m also not in the mood to hear about how men are victimized by the false rape claims of women, even in passing
You never are, and I'm never in the mood to hear that you're still ignoring the conclusive evidence that this is a common thing. I was, in this case, merely hoping we could agree that when it happens it's bad. And, ideally, not because it makes it harder for real victims to come forward, but for the simple reason that a man may be wrongfully imprisoned for a long time.
couldn't it "ideally" be for both reasons?
i am aware of both issues, non-reports of rapes and false claims, both of which i've personally seen, btw. i do not consider these problems as being in some sort of hierarchy wherein one should receive greater public attention than another, except perhaps in terms of sheer numbers. in which terms you'd lose, i'm sure you must know.
OP ED: if my choices are seemingly a) starve now or b) starve later after helping others starve now; then frankly, i think i want another option.
That's rather my point, dear. I would like to see the nationalisation of the natural monopolies and so forth as much as anyone, but it can only happen through a mass movement. Feminist is one of the leading, probably the leading, obstacles to the formation of such a movement. For as long as normal women see themselves firstly as disadvantaged relative to men, rather than to the rich (or even specifically to rich women if that's easiest for them to relate too, I don't say), then no unified movement in opposition to oppression can be formed.
oh nonsense. get out more. again.
feminism as i encounter it, in the ghetto and at the university is one of the best hopes for formation of a mass movement. there are lots of women, after all, and they're underrepresented among the powerful.
your framing of it as an either/or question: feminism or the revolution is horsepucky. how old are you?
why is it okay to eat people because they're rich?
what about their rich kids? can we eat them too?
No, but we can assign them housing on a sink estate after their worldly goods have been confiscated for the greater good. Apart from you opposition to class warfare (by the poor) I largely agree. Oh, and I don't consider my words "ultra misogyny", but that's neither here nor there.
see: equal distribution, above.
i'm opposed to warfare based on vaguely defined subcategorizations of humanity, regardless of what one calls them. Always.
c2w: Does anyone doubt that if "they" = Jews, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, blacks, illegal immigrants, alien abductees, RA survivors, members of the GLBT community, Alex Jones fans, or -- in short -- pretty much any class of people on earth besides women (with the possible exception of Democrats), I'd be looking at 14 pages of flame instead of at a half-dozen dispassionate, okay-bored-now posts?
But those are birth groups, or in the case of abductees immigrants and RA survivors, victims. They haven't chosen to be what they are. Feminists have, if only after thorough brain washing. As I've made quite clear women aren't my targets, only those who put themselves in the same classification as those other mostly male groups, occupation soldiers, bailiffs and so forth. I really don't like bailiffs.
women are a birth group.
no one would tolerate you if you only insulted the "bad jews", would they?
Feminists are an ideology.
well sometimes you slip and say "women" instead of "feminists".
but as to the point c2w brought up {again} if we were to replace an instance of your word "feminist" with, say, "zionist" we'd have orz and AD here giving you fifteen pages worth of scorched underpants...
Also I'm not sure you've been paying attention, I haven't noticed an unwarranted degree of support for my positionings.
wow, really?
i wonder why. must be the evil feminists have brainwashed us all.
Also, for the record, I am not merely evil, verminous scum.
I decline to make value judgements about fellow forum members, pal.
no. you did already. that was the point.
me, apparently: Of course they don't constitute the ruling class of society, they are merely evil, verminous, scum....although their power is not their own but that of their masters.
Yes, the first part of that was aimed specifically at the people in the immediately preceding sentence, ie the people who work in jobcentres who would be my first targets if I became a spree killer. I probably won't though. Gun control, you know. Killing people with a bicycle pump is just too slow, the police turn up and your potential victims flee rather than being killed quickly in a burst of lead.
move to usa. but be careful, our women might return fire.
The last bit, of course, applies to all groups intermediate between the powerful elites and the potentially revolutionary masses.
talk about a broad brush.