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These poor delusional women don't know they need feminism

I still point to the word itself. "Feminism" doesn't sound like fairness or equality. "Gender equality" does. "Egalitarianism" does. Language matters and I think this label is very poor marketing.
 
...and we all know that people with a real argument they understand tend to place their focus on complaining about the etymology of the terms involved.
 
Language matters. The political right has mastered this and the political left seems to be oblivious to it. There is a reason why you use "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" on "Terrorists" instead of torturing freedom fighters. The "Feminist" label seems to go out of its way to sabotage its own goals, if indeed those goals are fair and equal treatment to both genders, and not supremacy for females.
 
Jolly_Penguin said:
Language matters. The political right has mastered this and the political left seems to be oblivious to it. There is a reason why you use "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" on "Terrorists" instead of torturing freedom fighters. The "Feminist" label seems to go out of its way to sabotage its own goals, if indeed those goals are fair and equal treatment to both genders, and not supremacy for females.
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Weren't you complaining earlier that words mean whatever they happen to mean and people need to learn to recognize that?
 
Jolly_Penguin said:
Language matters. The political right has mastered this and the political left seems to be oblivious to it. There is a reason why you use "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" on "Terrorists" instead of torturing freedom fighters. The "Feminist" label seems to go out of its way to sabotage its own goals, if indeed those goals are fair and equal treatment to both genders, and not supremacy for females.
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Feminism is as defined in English. If a 'feminist' wants supremacy for women then she is not actually a feminist. Torture is defined but the interpretation of the act may differ from person to person according to viewpoint and bias. That does not actually alter what it is. . If someone uses the term enhanced interrogation techniques, then the content of what happened will need to be evaluated as to whether this was torture. As you implied some people have tried to redefine something to be something else, which is in fact a form of misrepresentation.
 
Jolly_Penguin said:
Language matters. The political right has mastered this and the political left seems to be oblivious to it. There is a reason why you use "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" on "Terrorists" instead of torturing freedom fighters. The "Feminist" label seems to go out of its way to sabotage its own goals, if indeed those goals are fair and equal treatment to both genders, and not supremacy for females.
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You know what else matters?

History.

Now I realize some who post here seem to think that history started about 6 days ago and before that is only The Void, but there is a long and detailed history that goes with the word, the movement, and the various facets of thought associated with the word feminism. And in the study of that word, that movement, and those facets of thought is all the justification for the words claim on equality for all that is needed for most people. Now if a person hate feminism, no name change will change that hate, so what haters want doesn't matter.

And to put it in terms those of you who took marketing 101 can understand.

Feminism the brand has a cache, an appeal, and a loyal and still growing customer base both here and in the international markets. To change the brand will confuse both loyal and perspective customers and in doing so lose more market share than it would gain.
 
The Paul said:
Weren't you complaining earlier that words mean whatever they happen to mean and people need to learn to recognize that?
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No. I said that words mean whatever the people speaking and hearing them think they mean. If the speaker and listener don't have the same meaning, confusion results. And when you pick a word that evokes a particular meaning (such as putting "feminine" to the exclusion of "masculine" right in the word meaning equality between feminine and masculine) you are going to have problems, no matter what you declare the word to mean and no matter what you demand others think when they hear it.

The oddity is that Feminists know this, when they call for gender neutral language, like demanding we say "People" instead of "Mankind", which seems to put emphasis on the male over the female. Yet they still call themselves Feminists and not Egalitarians or those for Gender Equality.
 
I've been surrounded by a lot of feminists, and have had a few conversations with them regarding the use of either feminism or humanism. If we're going strictly by language definition than humanism is a much better term to use for an equal rights movement.

The problem with using humanism instead of feminism is that people don't always do the logical thing. Feminist movements are a thing right now, and the group-think inherent in those type of movements see feminism as a perfect philosophy. I don't know what it would take to shift the discourse from feminism to humanism, but it would take something pretty big, so feminism it is. The other glaring problem is that women and men are two drastically distinct groups across every country and culture, so asking them to bond together and form a unified philosophy is like asking Christians and Muslims to do the same.
 
I'll tell you the real problem with humanism . . . it's humanism.
 
Emily Lake said:
rousseau said:
Tom Sawyer is our local person who's really good at irony. You'll learn to rep him often.
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That may be unfortunate; I really suck at picking up on irony. Unless it's spelled out in big flashing letters with signs at eye-level. And even then I may miss it. The only thing I'm worse at picking up on is sarcasm :(.
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Consider the user name, "Tom Sawyer" to be your big flashing sign from now on. It's a very reliable indicator.
 
Jolly_Penguin said:
The Paul said:
Weren't you complaining earlier that words mean whatever they happen to mean and people need to learn to recognize that?
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No. I said that words mean whatever the people speaking and hearing them think they mean. If the speaker and listener don't have the same meaning, confusion results. And when you pick a word that evokes a particular meaning (such as putting "feminine" to the exclusion of "masculine" right in the word meaning equality between feminine and masculine) you are going to have problems, no matter what you declare the word to mean and no matter what you demand others think when they hear it.

The oddity is that Feminists know this, when they call for gender neutral language, like demanding we say "People" instead of "Mankind", which seems to put emphasis on the male over the female. Yet they still call themselves Feminists and not Egalitarians or those for Gender Equality.
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Okay, so feminism means supporting equal rights, pay, etc for women. That is what people who use it mean when they say it. Your personal difficulty's in understanding that are immaterial. It also refers to the politcal/social movement that has those things as its goals. Your personal difficulty in grasping that is still your problem, because that's what the word means.

Because a bunch of people are resentful of the idea that women should have equal rights and pay and social standing to men they slander the movement and accuse it of holding a variety of beliefs that it does not really hold. Some people are stupid, and therefore believe this slander. They also believe the same slander about "liberals" and "leftists." If people actually used the words "equalists" and "egalitarians" they would believe it of them as well.

Words aren't magic spells.
 
The Paul said:
Okay, so feminism means supporting equal rights, pay, etc for women. That is what people who use it mean when they say it. Your personal difficulty's in understanding that are immaterial.
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Only it isn't immaterial, not if their goal is to bring social change and to win people over to their cause.
 
Jolly_Penguin said:
The Paul said:
Okay, so feminism means supporting equal rights, pay, etc for women. That is what people who use it mean when they say it. Your personal difficulty's in understanding that are immaterial.
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Only it isn't immaterial, not if their goal is to bring social change and to win people over to their cause.
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Only it is immaterial because someone who can't get behind a social justice movement because he hasn't defeated all the English speakers in the world at a game of semantics yet just isn't likely to be a lot of use anyway.
 
From Gloria Steinem

This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution. Sex and race, because they are easy, visible differences, have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups, and into the cheap labour on which this system still depends. We are talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen, or those earned. We are really talking about humanism.
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"Address to the Women of America" (10 July 1971)
 
Rhea said:
Emily Lake said:
That may be unfortunate; I really suck at picking up on irony. Unless it's spelled out in big flashing letters with signs at eye-level. And even then I may miss it. The only thing I'm worse at picking up on is sarcasm :(.
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Consider the user name, "Tom Sawyer" to be your big flashing sign from now on. It's a very reliable indicator.
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:lol:
 
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