Interesting. You and I drifted closer together on some things in light of recent events, but further apart on others. I guess Trump 2.0 made me more "woke," by some definitions. Watching Chris Rufo say "okay, here's how I'm going to lie about race," then lie about race, then centrists rush to say "wow, this guy is really concerned about plagiarism," sort of radicalized me. So did other things.
At a certain point, I've just had enough of trying to make common cause with people who want nothing other than hate and tantrums. They're going to call me woke anyway, so I'm woke. Whatever. Their bottom line is that this country is bad and Russia is good.
And I think that's good! Honestly, we need all kinds of people doing all kinds of things with all kinds of other people. You can do a lot of good only talking to people who don't have any problematic views on race.
A political party in a two-party system in a systemically racist country cannot win elections without talking to people who have some problematic views on race. All I'm asking is for people who participate in electoral politics to either recognize this fact or go do something else.
Very true. I've moved away from electoral politics for that reason. And I'll add that my outward-facing views are different from my inward facing views.
As an example, take NTers (please). I think it's fantastic that they exist. I do everything I can to encourage them. I was at one of their events last night (albeit because the speaker is my mentor and I love him). At the same time, I think their views are highly unexamined, and they are using opposition to Trump as an excuse not to interrogate how we got here. Still, they can talk to people I can't.
I have also been radicalized into anti-anti-wokeness. Prior to the election, I would try to stear people away from obsessions with vocabulary and requests that seem too obtrusive and picking your battles wisely.
I also think that there was a pretty gross left tendency to avoid criticism by attributing their views to a disabled queer person of color, standing just out of frame, yelling 'defund the police' too, and I think a lot of the woke third wayers doing the exact same thing with poor white rural men. We'd all do better to use more "I" statements.
I don't think getting into arguments about terms is a great way to use ones time, so I am not trying to convince you to change as much as being pedantic, but I think feminism as a term still works because the underlying problem is that things associated with femininity are considered bad and thus when good things are feminine coded we will hurt men/they will hurt themselves to avoid those things, so raising the status of those things or ending the femininity stigma would help men.
Additionally, I think the battle isn't so much about who is getting hurt most, but rather who has agency, status, freedom and power. Sexism always sells itself as a way of keeping women from harm and the flip side of being considered more powerful and being more free is a much wider distance between the bottom and the top as you have both more room to fuck up and fucking up is considered more your own fault. Recognizing that men can be vulnerable and victims and need a hand up is the flip side of recognizing women as being competent and doing work of value and able to make our own choices. Getting men to buy into the project would help both genders.
It's true that things associated with femininity are considered bad. I'm not sure raising the status of those things or ending the femininity stigma is possible if gender continues to exist. Because while we can change which individual characteristics are associated with femininity and masculinity, we cannot change the fundamental idea behind and entire point of gender as a concept. Which is that feminine = bad and masculine = good. Men should be in charge. Man is the default for humanity. It's a hierarchical system, and no no matter how a culture defines "man," he's at the top.
Interesting. You and I drifted closer together on some things in light of recent events, but further apart on others. I guess Trump 2.0 made me more "woke," by some definitions. Watching Chris Rufo say "okay, here's how I'm going to lie about race," then lie about race, then centrists rush to say "wow, this guy is really concerned about plagiarism," sort of radicalized me. So did other things.
At a certain point, I've just had enough of trying to make common cause with people who want nothing other than hate and tantrums. They're going to call me woke anyway, so I'm woke. Whatever. Their bottom line is that this country is bad and Russia is good.
And I think that's good! Honestly, we need all kinds of people doing all kinds of things with all kinds of other people. You can do a lot of good only talking to people who don't have any problematic views on race.
A political party in a two-party system in a systemically racist country cannot win elections without talking to people who have some problematic views on race. All I'm asking is for people who participate in electoral politics to either recognize this fact or go do something else.
Very true. I've moved away from electoral politics for that reason. And I'll add that my outward-facing views are different from my inward facing views.
As an example, take NTers (please). I think it's fantastic that they exist. I do everything I can to encourage them. I was at one of their events last night (albeit because the speaker is my mentor and I love him). At the same time, I think their views are highly unexamined, and they are using opposition to Trump as an excuse not to interrogate how we got here. Still, they can talk to people I can't.
I have also been radicalized into anti-anti-wokeness. Prior to the election, I would try to stear people away from obsessions with vocabulary and requests that seem too obtrusive and picking your battles wisely.
I also think that there was a pretty gross left tendency to avoid criticism by attributing their views to a disabled queer person of color, standing just out of frame, yelling 'defund the police' too, and I think a lot of the woke third wayers doing the exact same thing with poor white rural men. We'd all do better to use more "I" statements.
I don't think getting into arguments about terms is a great way to use ones time, so I am not trying to convince you to change as much as being pedantic, but I think feminism as a term still works because the underlying problem is that things associated with femininity are considered bad and thus when good things are feminine coded we will hurt men/they will hurt themselves to avoid those things, so raising the status of those things or ending the femininity stigma would help men.
Additionally, I think the battle isn't so much about who is getting hurt most, but rather who has agency, status, freedom and power. Sexism always sells itself as a way of keeping women from harm and the flip side of being considered more powerful and being more free is a much wider distance between the bottom and the top as you have both more room to fuck up and fucking up is considered more your own fault. Recognizing that men can be vulnerable and victims and need a hand up is the flip side of recognizing women as being competent and doing work of value and able to make our own choices. Getting men to buy into the project would help both genders.
Let's pedant tho.
It's true that things associated with femininity are considered bad. I'm not sure raising the status of those things or ending the femininity stigma is possible if gender continues to exist. Because while we can change which individual characteristics are associated with femininity and masculinity, we cannot change the fundamental idea behind and entire point of gender as a concept. Which is that feminine = bad and masculine = good. Men should be in charge. Man is the default for humanity. It's a hierarchical system, and no no matter how a culture defines "man," he's at the top.
I think there is a bit of a chicken and egg thing. Raising the status of femininity ends gender, ending gender raises the status of femininity.
Yes I think that's true
The egg came first.
In 2025, feminists are irrelevant. Thank God for that.