Forum:Is RationalWiki under the control of Feminist activists?

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::Perhaps.  On the other hand, my understanding was that the main reason we can know that reparative therapy does not work is that it is attempting to change people's sexuality by conditioning and argument, but that sexuality is bred in the bone and not susceptible to change by those methods.  Much of feminist doctrine - "sexual objectification", the "male gaze", and so forth - strikes me as a hostile caricature of male sexuality.  But while the sexualities of gays and transgendered people can't be changed by conditioning or argument, I am apparently required to believe that it works on heterosexual men, and that the result of the campaign will be genuine social change rather than hypocrisy and petty tyranny.  And so here we are, talking about what jokes are allowed to be told. - [[User:Smerdis of Tlön|Smerdis of Tlön]] ([[User talk:Smerdis of Tlön|talk]]) 21:05, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 
::Perhaps.  On the other hand, my understanding was that the main reason we can know that reparative therapy does not work is that it is attempting to change people's sexuality by conditioning and argument, but that sexuality is bred in the bone and not susceptible to change by those methods.  Much of feminist doctrine - "sexual objectification", the "male gaze", and so forth - strikes me as a hostile caricature of male sexuality.  But while the sexualities of gays and transgendered people can't be changed by conditioning or argument, I am apparently required to believe that it works on heterosexual men, and that the result of the campaign will be genuine social change rather than hypocrisy and petty tyranny.  And so here we are, talking about what jokes are allowed to be told. - [[User:Smerdis of Tlön|Smerdis of Tlön]] ([[User talk:Smerdis of Tlön|talk]]) 21:05, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 
:::Then you're definitely missing the point. It's not that feminists want male sexuality to ''change'' -- that would be futile, as you say -- they want us to understand how women perceive it. Ultimately third-wave feminism is a "mile in their shoes" movement. We are being asked to see the world from their standpoint and moderate our behavior accordingly. The analogy with "reparative" therapy isn't really a workable one except on a very superficial level; it's the equivalent of asking gay men to wear condoms and be selective in their choice of partners, or asking a sociopath to develop a sense of other peoples' morality in lieu of the conscience they weren't born with. Judging the entirety of feminism by a caricature of an obsolete, extremist sector of the movement is totally wrong. [[User:EVDebs|EVDebs]] ([[User talk:EVDebs|talk]]) 21:36, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 
:::Then you're definitely missing the point. It's not that feminists want male sexuality to ''change'' -- that would be futile, as you say -- they want us to understand how women perceive it. Ultimately third-wave feminism is a "mile in their shoes" movement. We are being asked to see the world from their standpoint and moderate our behavior accordingly. The analogy with "reparative" therapy isn't really a workable one except on a very superficial level; it's the equivalent of asking gay men to wear condoms and be selective in their choice of partners, or asking a sociopath to develop a sense of other peoples' morality in lieu of the conscience they weren't born with. Judging the entirety of feminism by a caricature of an obsolete, extremist sector of the movement is totally wrong. [[User:EVDebs|EVDebs]] ([[User talk:EVDebs|talk]]) 21:36, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 +
::::For what it's worth, my moral compass was in fact formed in large measure from the movements that came out of the 1960s: civil rights, free speech, anti-draft, anti-war, sexual freedom, gay rights, and yes, women's rights.  This new version of feminism, whatever you call it, is a betrayal of all that.  It isn't liberating.  It encourages a prissy sense of entitlement. It encourages censorship, and that's ''always going too far.'' 
 +
::::I certainly would not pretend to tell gay people how they should have sex or choose their partners.  In my value system, that crosses a line nobody should cross.  I hope we'd all recognize that a movement that wanted to [[Essay:The Scandal of the Activist Mind#Disgusting moralization|moralize]] all this, to shame and blame gay men for unprotected sex, to name promiscuous gays and make their sexuality a matter of public comment, would rightly be seen as a hostile and bigoted act.  Well, it is.  And so's this brand of 'feminism'.
 +
::::Feminist demands that men keep their eyes downcast, not speak unless given leave, and suppress their taste in entertainments, all because their sexuality is predatory and violent -- this does not look like liberation to me.  What it looks like to me is an attempt to roll back the achievements we won in the fields of free speech and open sexuality.  I will defend those achievements. - [[User:Smerdis of Tlön|Smerdis of Tlön]] ([[User talk:Smerdis of Tlön|talk]]) 01:22, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
 
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I say to the title question: Sure it is. Why do you see this as a problem? --<sub>[[Special:Contributions/AutoFire|<font color= 'black' face= 'OCR A Extended'>trans</font>]]</sub>[[User:AutoFire|<font color= 'red' face= 'OCR A Extended'>Resident Transfan</font>]]<sup>[[User Talk:AutoFire|<font color= 'black' face= 'OCR A Extended'>form!</font>]]</sup> 05:58, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 
I say to the title question: Sure it is. Why do you see this as a problem? --<sub>[[Special:Contributions/AutoFire|<font color= 'black' face= 'OCR A Extended'>trans</font>]]</sub>[[User:AutoFire|<font color= 'red' face= 'OCR A Extended'>Resident Transfan</font>]]<sup>[[User Talk:AutoFire|<font color= 'black' face= 'OCR A Extended'>form!</font>]]</sup> 05:58, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 
:Because the implication that it's actually second-wave radfems rather than intersectionalists. The former would be a bad thing, because of the inherent transphobia and the sexuality discrimination that comes with those people. Those types make an excellent example for MRA-types or generic misogynists to throw around as the ''de facto'' class of "feminist" because, indeed, they are genuinely awful. But that isn't the case here and we should have the ability to thoroughly fight against that straw man. [[File:Scarlet A.png|24px|link=User:Armondikov]][[User_Talk:Armondikov|<font color=#CC0033><sup>''sshole''</sup></font>]] 14:52, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 
:Because the implication that it's actually second-wave radfems rather than intersectionalists. The former would be a bad thing, because of the inherent transphobia and the sexuality discrimination that comes with those people. Those types make an excellent example for MRA-types or generic misogynists to throw around as the ''de facto'' class of "feminist" because, indeed, they are genuinely awful. But that isn't the case here and we should have the ability to thoroughly fight against that straw man. [[File:Scarlet A.png|24px|link=User:Armondikov]][[User_Talk:Armondikov|<font color=#CC0033><sup>''sshole''</sup></font>]] 14:52, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Revision as of 01:22, 19 December 2013

Many of the wikis regarding feminism cast the men's rights movements in an openly deriding and dismissive way without addressing the fact that these movements discuss legitimate and important interests. I recently updated a wiki page here and it was instantly changed back to the awful and factually incorrect description that was there before without discussion.

I thought rationalwiki was supposed to be rational. Not in support of a different kind of fundamentalism. — Unsigned, by: Iridiumoxide / talk / contribs 16:06, 15 December 2013‎

RationalWiki is managed by a not-for-profit foundation and has an open editing policy but is not NPOV. Your "updating" consisted of replacing an existing article with an entirely different one with a different POV which was contrary to the site's missions & contained some very dubious claims. On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button: SigButt.png on the toolbar above the edit panel. (You can indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line.) Thank you. WẽãšẽĩõĩďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 19:07, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
I would like to say that RationalWiki is under the control of feminist activists. Ostensibly, our user base and the foundation believe in gender equality and other feminist principles.--"Shut up, Brx." 19:32, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
The Foundation takes no position on content direction. Acei9 20:51, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
The ratio of female to male editors at Rationalwiki is really low... there are actually very few female editors here, I can only think of 4 that are active: me, Godot, Kels, Proxima. There have never been many female editors here. I miss the other female editors who used to contribute: Toast, Mei, Dumpling... Refugeetalk page 19:59, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
I'm a trans woman and moderately active. So there's that. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 11:59, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
"I thought rationalwiki was supposed to be rational. Not in support of a different kind of fundamentalism." Drink!
I suggest you look up our articles on radical feminism. Osaka Sun (talk) 19:56, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
I do think that some of the loopier feminist doctrines are presented much too respectfully here; AFAIAC doctrines like patriarchy and rape culture are fairly elaborate examples of conspiracy theory and learned apophenia. The process of learning to believe in the Patriarchy is like the process of learning to see End Times prophecy in Middle Eastern headlines.
And, for whatever else it's worth, I'm old enough to remember when being in favor of the presumption of innocence was supposed to be the liberal thing to do. This is what frightens me. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 05:34, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Beautifully and elegantly mansplained, Smerdis. SophieWilderModerator 10:23, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
"The process of learning to believe in the Patriarchy is like the process of learning to see End Times prophecy in Middle Eastern headlines" You're a fucking moron. Osaka Sun (talk) 10:33, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Well, perhaps. Still, both require that you view the world through a filter of revealed truth that tells you what you ought to be noticing. One scans for "potential Antichrist" - "one world government" - "wars and rumors of wars" and so forth, the other for "defaults to male" - "privilege blindness" - "institutional sexism" &c. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:44, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
I wouldn't call privilege blindness some revealed truth, it's a form of observational selection bias. I'm not sure what your point about presumption of innocence is about - we still presume innocence in cases of rape (I assume this is what you're talking about). What the third-wave feminist perspective is that we shouldn't have "presumption of being a liar" with respect to the victim - or worse, "presumption of deserving it" (as if one was to report a burglary and for people to immediately say "well, you must have let the thieves in. Did you lock the shop? You should have locked it better. Clearly you shouldn't have had such tempting stuff in your shop."). Actually read into these concepts rather than just reading the titles and assuming you can figure them out from there. Scarlet A.pngbomination 18:47, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
It reminds me too much of "believe the victims", and I remember how well that turned out last time.
But it seems to me that most of these beliefs require both special training in identifying issues in otherwise innocuous things -- that's the link with end times belief -- and an evangelical drive to persuade others to relate to their world through the same anger-tinted lenses. These are grievances that must be nurtured, and an ideology designed to nurture them. Life's too short for such things. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 21:17, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
It's more like learning to see past our own biases. That's what the scientific method is about, isn't it? Coping with our own biases? This argument could just as easily run that "special training in identifying issues in otherwise innocuous things" is necessary to conduct experiments (otherwise the results are invalid) and so science isn't worth the trouble. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] 11:59, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Smerdis, that makes no sense. Do feel free to try again. Scarlet A.pngnarchist 14:47, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I thought it was a well known fact that RationalWiki is controlled by the CIA/KGB/Mossad/Freemasons/Illuminati/Knights Templar/Trilateral Commission/Reptoids/Grays and shills for the Government of Liechtenstein. Why should we make an exception for "Feminist activists"? That would be sexist.--CIA (talk) 12:52, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I, for one, long for the days when the only faction in need of sycophancy and obeisances were our aspie fascist overlords. Life was much simpler then. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 17:57, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Or when the place was a well-known manarchist brospace. Scarlet A.pngmoral 18:41, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Smerdis, if you really see patriarchy as a type of conspiracy theory, you really aren't understanding the concept. It's a group psychology issue, among other things -- we haven't found any societies yet that weren't patriarchal, and it requires a major amount of effort to change the course of whole societies. As fair as it may seem on paper, wiping the slate isn't enough to get rid of inequality. EVDebs (talk) 03:29, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
You are right. "Rape culture" is pure conspiracy theory, but "patriarchy" is either a conspiracy theory or an inevitable fact of human existence, depending on what you mean. As you note, "we haven't found any societies yet that weren't patriarchal"; mightily suggesting there ain't none, and that "patriarchy" in one sense is another human universal. A belief that there can be a human society that is not "patriarchal" in this sense is in one sense pseudoscientific, as is attributing the fact of patriarchy to some defect in human mores or cultures. The conspiracy theory comes in when people imagine that patriarchy is a product of culture alone and can be changed by politics or persuasion, in other words. I'm not even unsympathetic to attempts to diminish the effects of patriarchy, or rather, of male dominance-seeking and hierarchy-building behaviors: but we'd need to understand more clearly what we're up against. Movements that seek to resist that understanding are specifically unhelpful. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 04:28, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
  • sigh* Smerdis, last time I got into an argument with you, it went nowhere, so I'm not going to continue this conversation. Do try to find out what those terms actually mean or stop arguing against something you have no desire to understand. EVDebs (talk) 05:37, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Let me get this straight. You think rape culture is a conspiracy...and now having checked the talk page, I see you do. So you deny that normalization and excusing of rape and sexual assault does occur and is propagated in mass society? And if you do, are you American? Or a member of the anti-skepchick types? — Unsigned, by: Castaigne / talk / contribs
Got me; I'm an American. And, as I noted, that article is full of odd notions; it apparently considers the clinical detachment of emergency medical personnel preserving key legal evidence as a problem. (And it might be one, but not if your underlying argument is that rape is under-prosecuted.) The "normalization and excusing of rape and sexual assault" apparently includes gallows humor, and that goes much too far as well; any time an activist starts trying to tell you what jokes are forbidden, you're in trouble. "Rape culture" is an idea from Susan Brownmiller, who indeed put forth the argument that all men, by the mystic communion of masculinity, participate in rape and benefit from rape being present as a threat: and that's what I would indeed call a conspiracy theory. If we're here for debunking it ought to be in our sights. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:24, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
This is exactly why RW needs to have a discussion about narrowing the mission and moving away from politics except where it obviously intersects with religion, pseudo(hard)science and woo--things like teaching creationism, letting homeopaths pass themselves off as health care professionals, etc. I am a Marxist and a feminist; I could, though I don't, make a claim about capitalists or imperialist forces that comes off much in the same way as your reading of feminist analyses of the patriarchy; make it come off like an conspiracy theory that needs debunking, instead of a historical/social force that operates independently of any individual agency. At the end of the day,unlike with talking about homeopathy or evolution, there are no numbers, no falsifiable experiments, that we can use to back up a worldview. Political arguments are not solved in the laboratory, and the humanities and social sciences do not work the same way hard sciences do. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.Moderator 15:35, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
That's a good point. Nullahnung (talk) 10:00, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
I would offer the particular counter that should we exclude such "politics" from the mission, it invariably would allow certain things to fester and go unchallenged. It's become clear that since RW turned a bit more third-wave-feminist in recent years that we're actually a minority. If this was taken away, we'd be opening the doors to being controlled not by intersectionalist thinkers, but your privileged-majority types with a strong persecution complex. In that respect, I don't think we can limit the politics.
Secondly, evolution and homeopathy are solved problems. There's a "party line" of sorts that self-declared skeptics can tow. As a result the quantity of actual critical thinking in some atheists/skeptics/rationalists is relatively low - they check the authorities and repeat it verbatim without really checking. I know, I've done that too. When it comes to feminism and politics, there is no party line to follow, it's a fresh game to think about. The cutting edge of the skeptical "movement" (quote-marks because I know many aren't fond of that particular word) is in this region. I think we would be stupid to attempt to avoid it. Scarlet A.pngsshole 15:00, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
And I am an American as well, which makes me wonder how you don't see rape culture when I, as a white male, find it all around me. While Brownmiller first put forth the idea of rape culture, it has been expanded upon and refined since 1975. There is plenty of disagreement over what defines a rape culture and how a society would meet that criteria. Your reference to the "mystic communion of masculinity" and the verbiage afterwards indicates that your understanding of rape culture dates back to obsolete 2nd wave radfem writings. An effort to upgrade your understanding to modern day conceptuals would be recommended before you attempt debunking.
In reference to your assertion that gallows humor is to be forbidden, that is not held true across the board at all. While there factions that wish to eliminate gallows humor from the record, there are factions that do not. An argument could be made that it is appropriate to bar such humor and I think such a debate is warranted. Some jokes are not to be tolerated. Having grown up in the Deep South, I find n---- jokes to be verboten. My response to someone telling one is to follow it with a fist to the nose, then a left cross, and then telling them to get their Klan ass out of my sight. I do not consider forbidding those jokes in my presence - or in society in general - to be "trouble". I hope you would feel the same.
Or perhaps you wouldn't. For all I know, you could be terribly fond of blackface. But I wouldn't recommend engaging in that humor around me. --Castaigne (talk) 08:04, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
Guys... read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallows_humor
I feel like you are abusing the term. Nullahnung (talk) 10:00, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
You are of the opinion that humor involving rape or racism would not be gallows humor?...ah, no. I see what you are driving at. Very well. Black humor, then. --Castaigne (talk) 11:22, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Our nominal mission includes "explorations of authoritarianism and fundamentalism." Here we are discussing the suppression of jokes as if making an issue of such things isn't entirely out of bounds. That's a problem.

The doctrines of rape culture and sexual objectification are parts of an elaborate ideological argument in favor of censorship, because it's the universal assumption among those people that human male sexuality is dangerously predatory and needs to be shamed and tamed. There's a stiff dose of human exceptionalism and left-creationism inherent in the idea that human sexualities can be remade according to ideological agendas as well; the feminist agenda is reparative therapy for all men. It won't work, of course, but I suppose the self-inflicted misery we as a society will suffer in the course of learning so may be necessary for the lesson. It still strikes me as odd that we'd have such credulous articles about authoritarian doctrines. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:29, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

You really have no idea what you're talking about. You're just projecting your own prejudices onto feminists without understanding what they're actually saying, with what appears to be a disturbingly large amount of evo-psych determinism (i.e. "boys will be boys amirite?") as an attempt to argue that feminism is a waste of time. No one who matters is trying to cut your balls off, mkay? EVDebs (talk) 19:10, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps. On the other hand, my understanding was that the main reason we can know that reparative therapy does not work is that it is attempting to change people's sexuality by conditioning and argument, but that sexuality is bred in the bone and not susceptible to change by those methods. Much of feminist doctrine - "sexual objectification", the "male gaze", and so forth - strikes me as a hostile caricature of male sexuality. But while the sexualities of gays and transgendered people can't be changed by conditioning or argument, I am apparently required to believe that it works on heterosexual men, and that the result of the campaign will be genuine social change rather than hypocrisy and petty tyranny. And so here we are, talking about what jokes are allowed to be told. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 21:05, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
Then you're definitely missing the point. It's not that feminists want male sexuality to change -- that would be futile, as you say -- they want us to understand how women perceive it. Ultimately third-wave feminism is a "mile in their shoes" movement. We are being asked to see the world from their standpoint and moderate our behavior accordingly. The analogy with "reparative" therapy isn't really a workable one except on a very superficial level; it's the equivalent of asking gay men to wear condoms and be selective in their choice of partners, or asking a sociopath to develop a sense of other peoples' morality in lieu of the conscience they weren't born with. Judging the entirety of feminism by a caricature of an obsolete, extremist sector of the movement is totally wrong. EVDebs (talk) 21:36, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
For what it's worth, my moral compass was in fact formed in large measure from the movements that came out of the 1960s: civil rights, free speech, anti-draft, anti-war, sexual freedom, gay rights, and yes, women's rights. This new version of feminism, whatever you call it, is a betrayal of all that. It isn't liberating. It encourages a prissy sense of entitlement. It encourages censorship, and that's always going too far.
I certainly would not pretend to tell gay people how they should have sex or choose their partners. In my value system, that crosses a line nobody should cross. I hope we'd all recognize that a movement that wanted to moralize all this, to shame and blame gay men for unprotected sex, to name promiscuous gays and make their sexuality a matter of public comment, would rightly be seen as a hostile and bigoted act. Well, it is. And so's this brand of 'feminism'.
Feminist demands that men keep their eyes downcast, not speak unless given leave, and suppress their taste in entertainments, all because their sexuality is predatory and violent -- this does not look like liberation to me. What it looks like to me is an attempt to roll back the achievements we won in the fields of free speech and open sexuality. I will defend those achievements. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 01:22, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I say to the title question: Sure it is. Why do you see this as a problem? --transResident Transfanform! 05:58, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Because the implication that it's actually second-wave radfems rather than intersectionalists. The former would be a bad thing, because of the inherent transphobia and the sexuality discrimination that comes with those people. Those types make an excellent example for MRA-types or generic misogynists to throw around as the de facto class of "feminist" because, indeed, they are genuinely awful. But that isn't the case here and we should have the ability to thoroughly fight against that straw man. Scarlet A.pngsshole 14:52, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
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