Cassie Jaye on Laci Green & Media Backlash

CabbageCat

Sporky said:

CabbageCat said:

I don't get it either. Your point - that sensible feminists are having their credibility damaged by mad feminists - seemed quite logical to me.

If one believes that feminism is made up of mad feminism and sensible feminism then one can dismiss either via the no-true-Scotsman-fallacy gambit to suit one's needs, thus depicting feminism whichever way is advantageous to one's argument.

The debate-club-rules counter is to either use the no-true-Scotsman-fallacy gambit in the opposite direction, or to point out that engaging said gambit is essentially a straw-man fallacy.

Or we could have a discussion in which we all stand to improve our understanding of each others' positions (all of which are likely to have some merit), but no-one wins points.

I guess "feminism" is a particularly tricky one because it represents both women's rights and gender equality which are logically two different subjects, albeit with an overlap. I guess it would be easier to circumvent the no-true-scotsman issue by (perhaps unfairly) referring to "mad feminists" as "women's rights activists" and "sensible feminists" as "gender equality activists". Blanket terms with extremely fuzzy definitions just result in people arguing with their own imaginations (AKA...your straw-man).

digitalscream

mellowsun said:

digitalscream said:

mellowsun said:

Here, women's services for domestic violence and refuges have been cut drastically, and women are far more likely to suffer at the hands of a male partner than the other way round.

Think, for a second, about how you know that, then consider that - if the reality is 60/40 female/male in terms of victims, what would have to happen for you to find that out.

As far as I recall, the only set of stats where the premise wasn't specifically skewed towards women being victims was from the NHS. From memory, the NHS' own statistics showed that - in terms of domestic violence victims requiring hospital visits - the male was the aggressor in 29% of cases, the female was the aggressor in 24% of cases (I think - if that's wrong, the numbers are very similar), and the violence was mutual in 47% of cases. I don't have time right now, but I'll find the sources for that later if I can get an hour to myself.

Granted, this is only the cases where a hospital visit was required; however, two things leap out. First, it's definitely not the case - within this subset of the whole - that "women are far more likely to suffer at the hands of a male partner than the other way round". Second, I've not heard any logical or reasonable argument which suggests that the other part of the whole - the victims who don't visit the hospital - would have a wildly different gender breakdown.

If anything, I'd be surprised if there wouldn't be a bump for male victims there - I've been a victim of domestic violence where the police were called, and they actively prevented me from getting treatment for a knife wound in my leg, while they concentrated on the bruises that I'd left on the woman's arm in trying to defend myself.

tbh I thought about this some more and edited the post to change suffer to die as the mortality stats bear this out at least.

You were treated terribly by the police there, I'm sorry to hear about the situation and appreciate now why this is a serious topic for you, please accept my apologies on the earlier remark.

I guess we just need peace between the sexes and no hotheads on either side!

No need for an apology - I didn't bring it up to make anyone feel guilty; rather, I did so as more of a cards-on-the-table admission of motivation. The wounds from that particular incident have long since healed, but it's left me with a strong feeling that perhaps the accepted narrative might not be the whole story...hence my interest in this particular topic.

However, I've tried to just give a starting point for looking at an alternate viewpoint. Whether anyone looks further is an exercise for the reader

Sporky said:

CabbageCat said:

I don't get it either. Your point - that sensible feminists are having their credibility damaged by mad feminists - seemed quite logical to me.

If one believes that feminism is made up of mad feminism and sensible feminism then one can dismiss either via the no-true-Scotsman-fallacy gambit to suit one's needs, thus depicting feminism whichever way is advantageous to one's argument.

The debate-club-rules counter is to either use the no-true-Scotsman-fallacy gambit in the opposite direction, or to point out that engaging said gambit is essentially a straw-man fallacy.

Or we could have a discussion in which we all stand to improve our understanding of each others' positions (all of which are likely to have some merit), but no-one wins points.

For my part, I see "feminism" as both the idiots as well as the more reasonable ones, just as I see advocates for men's rights as a whole. For me, the comparison comes down to numbers, loudness and effectiveness. 

Numbers - looking pretty much anywhere for gender-based rights, there are a lot more extreme feminists on display than extreme MRAs (as a totally non-scientific, experience-based finger-in-the-air measure).

Loudness - the general approach from the "bad" MRAs when encountering a reasonable feminist is to get into an argument (not good), while the general approach from the "bad" feminists encountering a reasonable MRA (who outnumber the MRAs by orders of magnitude, as far as I can tell) is to shout them down, use ad-hominems and call them sexist. Again, this is experience more than anything, but it's definitely been shown recently on this very forum.

Effectiveness - I'll leave this one up to you, but consider what's happened in this thread already. @mellowsun is, at this point, what I'd call a "reasonable feminist" (apologies if that's a misrepresentation). Yet his initial reaction, based on conditioned accepted wisdom, was to consider proponents of the alternate viewpoint "sad keyboard warriors".

SIDE NOTE: For my part, my initial reaction to that was "great, a mad feminist". At this point, I'd hope we can agree that we were both a bit wrong there...

For the record, I'd suggest that "reasonable feminists" and "reasonable MRAs" are close enough to be almost equivalent, and certainly capable of realising that there's a truth in the middle.

guitarfishbay

digitalscream said:

For the record, I'd suggest that "reasonable feminists" and "reasonable MRAs" are close enough to be almost equivalent, and certainly capable of realising that there's a truth in the middle.

Like, an equal point?

Like equality?



---

I almost feel like in developed nations (because gender issues vary wildly by nation) need a new term and type of interest group which isn't single gender focused in ideology.  Equalitist sounds like a maths nerd so maybe I'm not the person to brand it...

I can absolutely see a need for a different approach in some countries however.

digitalscream

guitarfishbay said:

digitalscream said:

For the record, I'd suggest that "reasonable feminists" and "reasonable MRAs" are close enough to be almost equivalent, and certainly capable of realising that there's a truth in the middle.

Like, an equal point?

Like equality?



---

I almost feel like in developed nations (because gender issues vary wildly by nation) need a new term and type of interest group which isn't single gender focused in ideology.  Equalitist sounds like a maths nerd so maybe I'm not the person to brand it...

I can absolutely see a need for a different approach in some countries however.

Hehe...actually, I was thinking more along the lines of them still being different, but close enough that there's a reasonable prospect of closing the gap and making the whole better than either of its parts...via the application of some actual constructive discussion.

For example, at some point in the "equality" discussion, both sides have to recognise the stark differences between the genders, and realise that absolute equality is a blatant impossibility. Get past that, and I suspect the overall discussion would become a lot more constructive. Until that day, it'll remain tribal.

Boromedic

Have finally watched The Red Pill, and will be watching Brainwash next as recommended by @Drew_TNBD, then we can compare notes on those and Merchants Of Doubt.....

Thought this was a great documentary, although she never really offered much in response to those she interviewed on both sides, it was more a log of her experience and how she felt. Although a lot of the facts and sources she uncovered make stark reading for some people, the Boko Haram stuff was the biggest eye opener for me.

On personal experience in my job, I would say it backs the facts up that say there are victims of DV on both sides exactly in the proportions mentioned, and of course some of the violence directed towards men goes unreported anyway. I can certainly back up the male suicide rate figures based on my own experiences too, I've been to suicides of both sexes but the men outnumber the women by around 3-1. The biggest take home for me was the narrative that has already been written above, people aren't prepared to question their world view, and as a result just shout those down they don't agree with which is a recipe for disaster.

Not sure if this has been posted before but a friend stuck this on damn FB the other day and I thought it was a nice basic way of explaining why some folk react the way they do:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

mellowsun

I also watched The Red Pill the other night. I think the summary is:

'OMG, it's not a binary, black and white issue! Men are getting screwed too. I never knew this before!'

As @Boromedic said, it was the way news is reported was the biggest thing. 

But the thing is, don't blame feminists for this. In the main, men make up the majority of power in the media, and law. It's men in power that decide that male deaths don't matter.

The movements of the 60s were right: in the West, it's a class problem, a capitalist problem, not a gender problem.

At the same time, terrorist and militia groups are mostly men. Men are doing the terrorising and killing other men and women. In the West, we only care when women and girls get killed, raped or abducted. 

What struck me that the men who she interviewed in the Red Pill were very in touch with their feminine side - calm, eloquent, emotionally literate.

Drew_TNBD

mellowsun said:

I also watched The Red Pill the other night. I think the summary is:

'OMG, it's not a binary, black and white issue! Men are getting screwed too. I never knew this before!'

As @Boromedic said, it was the way news is reported was the biggest thing. 

But the thing is, don't blame feminists for this. In the main, men make up the majority of power in the media, and law. It's men in power that decide that male deaths don't matter.

The movements of the 60s were right: in the West, it's a class problem, a capitalist problem, not a gender problem.

At the same time, terrorist and militia groups are mostly men. Men are doing the terrorising and killing other men and women. In the West, we only care when women and girls get killed, raped or abducted. 

What struck me that the men who she interviewed in the Red Pill were very in touch with their feminine side - calm, eloquent, emotionally literate.

You're almost red pilled. Keep going...

eSully

I've seen you post about it before Drew, I've been meaning to watch it, just checked and it's included with Amazon Prime video for anyone with Prime.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XGKZGH9

Drew_TNBD

This film has been fought against vehemently by online keyboard warrior brigades, feminists, SJW's, antifa, and extreme left-wing groups on university campuses across America, the UK, and even Australia.

Rightly so.

Because when people watch it, low and behold their opinions change, and they start to use their empathic skills to see things from another perspective.

Other resources that are really worth exploring:

Erin Pizzey's book "This Way To The Revolution" - Erin Pizzey formed the first DV shelters in Chiswick in the 1970's before they were taken over. She is on record as saying most of the women she dealt with were just as violent as their partners, and that most of the DV she came across was reciprocal. This tally's up with my observations of my own parents growing up too.

Warren Farrell's book "The Myth Of Male Power" - Does a good job of deconstructing the societal stereotypes and generalisations we have about men.

Christina Hoff Sommers' book "The War Against Boys" - Approaches some of these topics from the education perspective and the negative impacts on very young children, boys in particular.

Helen Smith's book "Men On Strike" - Goes through some of the responses of men in our society when they're confronted with an increasingly loaded deck when it comes to work, fatherhood, and marriage. Ever wondered why some men withdraw, don't share their feelings, and don't contribute in those areas very much? This is the book to read.