Tyler
Tyler
One of my favorite examples of an equality movement out of control is Dr. Leonard Jeffries, a controversial professor in New York whose infamous declarations include that blacks cannot be racist, that white people are an undesirable genetic mutation, and that the space shuttle
Challenger disaster ought to be hailed because it "stopped white people from spreading their filth across the Universe."
Somewhere in there his university fired him for such comments, but he took them to court, got his job back, and won a half-million dollar settlement.
A simple question, though: Do the actions of Dr. Jeffries mean that civil rights workers are hypocrites?
Here's what I'm looking at, for starters:
•_feel free to abuse me all you feminists but i think you are all hipocrits (
Asguard,
topic post)
• Feminists, like labor unions, outlived its usefulness (
Joeman, 8.09.02, 7.58 PDT)
• Equal Oppurtunity is as good a movement as this society has seen. Women have come miles from just decades ago. (
Tyler, 8.09.02, 15.54 PDT)
Just for starters.
There is a transfer taking place whereby frustration at the specific is broadened to include the general. And it seems familiar.
I think of Christians, such as
Ekimklaw who
seem to recognize a condition of being either Christian or else being atheist; I think of the atheists who recognize only the most basic and familiar strains of Judeo-Christianity who insist in arguments that God must be according to this or that image so that it can be disproved this or that way. It seems quite the same to me as presuming that a single organization such as NOW means that
all feminists are hypocrites (see
topic post). It seems quite the same as allowing one's opinion of Dr Leonard Jeffries to stain the whole of ethnic-equality issues.
The point is, both genders are stereotyped in media.
And when the effect of such stereotypes on each gender is similarly interpreted, we'll be in a better place.
But in the meantime, women have come miles in the last few decades, so should we tell them to let it go and be thankful? Having come miles, is the journey over?
I don't know or think that women are less intelligent than men. However, at my age there is faaaaaaaaaaaar less women interested in politics, philosophy, history and cultural sciences. I can't speak for older ages.
Fair enough. Runs counter to my own University experience, but such is the nature of experience.
I don't focus on them. We're in a debate so I brought up my stance on the issue.
But any comparative sense of how far women have come or how bad men think they have it has no impact whatsoever on the core issue: the equality of human beings. It's a shame that feminism should be addressed from the condemning standpoint. Take a look at the topic post: the sum effect is an anti-feminist declaration: feminists are
all hypocrites.
Every powerful feminist organization is disturbingly business-minded.
What separates an feminist organization in this case from any powerful lobby or PAC?
Such is the sad result of a culture almost wholly focused on currency and what it buys.
I don't feel I can make a difference in this situation
But you can. If you hold your line honestly, if you hold it restricted to the conditions to which you actually object and not to political-arena accretions, you can make a difference just by being alive. If you're sitting with a friend who is telling you about the latest CNN or whatnot on feminism, it's fair enough to say that you reject this or that because NOW said it and you have issues to NOW, but it would be presumptuous to disqualify the point merely because of NOW. There's a difference between NOW and the whole of feminism. It's nonproductive to mythicize one organization as representative of a movement. Demonize the movement, not the broader category it falls under. It's kind of like that stupid notion whereby atheists familiar with Western Judeo-Christianity extend their wrath from Christianity to theism in general, and about as poorly-educated.
I would like to quote a few lines from author Tammy Bruce's book The New Though Police;
Well and fine, but such books are always an embarrassment in the end.
"Clearly, today's feminist leaders are more concerned with pursuing a socialist agenda than with helping women achieve equality." (page 124)
It could simply be that the author fails to realize that women don't get full equality until
everyone gets full equality, men included. And at that point, many ideas sound thoroughly socialist. As long as money is so important a measure of one's worth in life, economy will be a vital part of civil rights.
There is little to no hope.
Hope of what? Equality for women?
Eventually even a crusader such as Bruce was forced out of any power. Her book revealing truths such as these has had no noticable affect on NOW's reputation or authority
Well, if the GOP hadn't reacted so poorly to
Blinded by the Right, they might not have created the sense of darkness that hangs over such books. Now that one's out blasting the left-wing, the right wing isn't even paying that much attention because this form of exposition has been previously deemed worthless. Strange, isn't it? But after describing a leftist-convert who told dirty secrets about the right as embittered and seeking revenge, what could the condemning right think of Ms Bruce's book?
Doing nothing is the least efficient. Fighting it may inspire someone
And those are the only two options?
Think of it like a war if you have to.
Can you negotiate an end to the conflict with PFC Jones? How about Sergeant Smith?
Or what happens if you go around and undermine the support structure of the perceived enemy?
Consider:
• When an atheist and a Christian argue, the issues examined become fixed, less dynamic. As a result, a battle standard calls the legions to arms, so to speak. You can continue and argue the "did-not-did-too" of Creationism, taking part in a massive battle of attrition, or, knowing that the Creationist standpoint is based on this or that bad interpretation, you can go after the higher structure and undermine the deficiency that brings about the Creationist superstition. One need not slay God, for instance, if it can be shown to the theist that the principle one advocates fits according to the described God. Don't just argue heaven and hell, but point out how useless, unsupported, and dysfunctional such myths are; show how the Devil doesn't fit, remind how God willed man's fall and the necessity of redemption, explain how the Creation-myth developed out of biblical and other traditions. Don't just try to knock off the blue-faced debater in front of you but shoot after the vital argument; don't let the simplest, cheapest minds of a movement set the tone and terms of the debate.
•_Likewise with feminism. Don't stand there knocking off this or that feminist in lieu of addressing the whole of feminism. If NOW advocates bad policy, take up the policies and show their failure. Simply blasting NOW and extending that disapproval to any broader sense of feminism is both inappropriate and ineffective.
All fighting inspires is a new generation of fighters with even less reason to do combat.
thanx,
Tiassa