From: bouche2@server.uwindsor.ca (BOUCHER DAVID            )
Newsgroups: soc.women,soc.men,alt.feminism
Subject: Re: I confess!... *HE'S* guilty!!!!
Date: 12 Jan 1993 20:14:15 GMT
Followup-To: soc.women
Organization: University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada

In article <1993Jan8.164453.25377@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>bouche2@server.uwindsor.ca (BOUCHER DAVID            ) writes:

>|>| "Feminism" is not a set of logical postulates that can be debated, analyzed,
>|>| and resolved.  It's a religion, pure and simple.   ...
>
>| The term "feminist" is so vague as to be almost useless.  Whenever
>| anyone tries to define a "feminist" position "X" for the sake of argument,
>| there is always someone who pops up and objects that "not all" feminists
>| agree with "X", and so it's not fair to label "X" as a "feminist position". 

gf: 
>So feminism is too vague to attribute any specific beliefs
>to; nevertheless, its specific beliefs are wrong.  Well,
>let's do one thing at a time.
>
> [...]  feminism is not a
>single uniform system of belief in the manner of a religious
>cult.  It can best be described by St. Augustine's term "a
>community of affections."  

When you leave out the ad hominums it almost sounds like you are agreeing
with me.  I would like to note two things:

1. I never said that the tenets of feminism are "wrong", or even bad.  Not
believing in "feminism" does not make me "anti-feminist" any more than
not believing in Buddhism would make me "anti-Buddhist".  What I actually 
said is that the tenets are "unfalsifiable"; that is, that they are not
amenable to evidence of any kind.

2. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are not "single uniform systems of belief"
either.  The lack of singular-uniformity does not disqualify a system of belief
from being considered a religion.     
     
>                           There are three related interests
>in feminism: (1) equality for women, in other words, good
>old classical liberalism applied to gender; 

Ah, but what constitutes DE FACTO "equality"?  Is it "equality" to require
that every firefighter must be able to climb a 50-foot ladder in 60 seconds
and carry a 150-lb man to safety, REGARDLESS OF GENDER?  Or does "equality"
require that a different standard be applied to female firefighters in order
to ensure proportional representation?

I think it was Victor Hugo who wrote "The law in its wisdom and commitment to
equality prohibits the rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges or
stealing a crust of bread."  The point which he was making is that the law
is unfair when it treats people "equally" without regard to their individual 
circumstances.  

Should the law treat everyone the same, regardless of gender?  Or should the
law recognize that the two sexes are different, and accordingly treat the
sexes differently?   Which of these is a "feminist" viewpoint? 

> (2) benefit for
>women as a specific group, e.g. abortion rights; 

Hmmm... you know, Phyllis Schlafly believes that a society that reflects
*her* values would provide the greatest "benefit for women as a group"; I
don't suppose many people would consider her a feminist though.  Some 
people think that it is a benefit to women to have laws that don't allow
companies to send women out to work in coal mines and other dirty, dangerous
places.  Some people think that it is a benefit to women not to send them
out on battlefields to get shot alongside their brothers.  But those are
not "feminist" positions.

I think it would be more correct to say that "feminism" entails a belief that 
CERTAIN THINGS (e.g. abortion rights) are to the benefit of women and 
society as a whole.  The question then is whether or not each of those specific
things is ACTUALLY beneficial.  

>(3)  revaluation of the feminine in our culture.  Not every
>feminist is interested in all of these general interests,
>and not every feminist has the same theory about them.

ok...

You forgot this one:

(4) Men are solely responsible for everything that is bad, but they could
easily make everything all right if they wanted to, because men have all
the power.

>The idea that biology creates an inherent, significant
>difference between the sexes has generally been a minority
>position among feminists.  It has been far more popular with
>earlier theories of female inferiority.  Where you get the
>idea that it is some kind of general feminist belief is
>beyond me; 

You've got it backwards.  SOMEBODY ELSE implicitly defined "feminism" as
a belief that there are NO "inherent, significant differences between the
sexes", and said that anyone who is not a feminist is a fool.  I replied that
as there obviously are "differences" between the sexes, and there is no way
of knowing whether or not those differences are "inherent", any belief
that there are "no inherent differences" (i.e. "feminism") is essentially
an article of faith, in effect a religious belief.

>If there were no Dworkin, anti-feminists would have to
>invent one; and often, reading these newsgroups, I think
>they have.  I hope to go into the cult of anti-feminism
>sometime, which seems far more coherent than feminism.  To
>wit: certain alleged feminists, almost invariably Dworkin,
>MacKinnon, sometimes Chesler or Brownmiller, are carefully
>scanned for remarks which can be taken out of context and
>waved about whenever any question related to feminism 
>arises.  The entire remaining body of feminist literature
>and activity is ignored, because it _doesn't_matter_.  The
>point is to attack feminism, not to know what it is.

"Alleged" feminists???  Upon what basis should anyone consider them
not to be "real" feminists?  Dworkin et al. are not atypical among
feminist theoreticians; their writings are simply the most extreme
expression of a general dislike of men that permeates the bulk of 
feminist writing.  I never heard a feminist say anything against
Dworkin, MaKinnon, Chesler, or Brownmiller other than that perhaps
they may go a little too far.

To paraphrase you, one might say "If there were no Inquisition, then
anti-christians would have to invent one"... but of course if there
were no Inquisitions, witch trials, etc, there probably wouldn't be
so many anti-christians either. 

>db:
>| Believe it or not, the quintessence of all wisdom does not lie in playing
>| the Uncle-Tom/Sensitive-Male-Protector for a bunch of women of whom a 
>| sizable portion would like to make you a second-class citizen.
>| ...
>| PS. WHY is it that the worst male-bashers on the net are always men????

gf:
>Does this last question refer to me?  I invite you to scan
>the Net -- what is now present, or any archives you can use
>-- and find a single sentence in which I have bashed males
>as such. 

If the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it.  The implied premise of my question
(that the worst male-bashers on the net are men) still stands.  

And how would you characterize your reaction in jumping on me with a lot
of ranting about "ignorance" when you couldn't even comprehend the argument
I was making other than that it seemed to imply something vaguely negative
about your precious feminism?

It is not "ignorance" to disagree with you, and it is not some kind of 
intellectual trickery (as you imply in another post) to say things that
you personally do not understand.

- db


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