A Crash Course in Feminism Mk. II (or, why everyone should be a feminist)

[Psychosplodge]

or we read the same things and drew different conclusions...
but the loud angry people on both sides make it unpleasant for everyone.

[Anthrax ion pusscabe]

Only problem I have with sjws is how they sorta misrepresent the people they stand up for, like I've seen many tumblr sjws call people ableist @$$holes for making any kind of remark about someone with a dissibility which is just labelling them for labelling someone else which is just dropping to the enemy's level, like I was called a ret@rd almost every day at school, it made me feel horrible, I would of at one point liked those people to know what it's like to be called names, but then I realised that if I called them names I'd just be dropping to their level and would be no better then them, then I decided I'd meet their prejudice with something other then my own prejudice of them, cold reason I would try to calmly explain to them why their position is wrong without becoming impassioned or angry no matter what they said, prejudice and name calling are never right no matter who is the target, in my experiences with tumblr sjws they become very passionate about what they are saying very quickly but often it makes it harder for someone in the middle ground to see their points, that's why cold reason and calm explanation is the best way to explain to someone how their prejudice or discrimitivness is wrong, using terms that aren't common outside your movement (I.e cis) only confuse those you are trying to convince and therefore don't work
And also in what world does dividing the human species into more ever increasingly small category's create anything other then a us vs them mentality, wouldn't the goal of ending discrimination be to have every person no matter what in the same category of human being

[eldargal]

or we read the same things and drew different conclusions...
but the loud angry people on both sides make it unpleasant for everyone.

What othe conclusion? That harassing a woman for sleeping with a game reviewer who never reviewed her game and then branched out to harass anyone who defended or or was jsut a feminist is somehow acceptable? Because that is gamergate. Everything else is just noise to try and confuse the situation.

[Gotthammer]

And also in what world does dividing the human species into more ever increasingly small category's create anything other then a us vs them mentality, wouldn't the goal of ending discrimination be to have every person no matter what in the same category of human being

Ideally yes but by treating everyone as "the same" it ignores the inherent differences people outside the mainstream experience (eg a black person's experience of racism in a predominantly white society) and by calling everyone the same all it does is reinforce the view as those in power as being right and what is seen as a deviation from that norm as an aberration. This is essentially what causes discrimination and harassment as by not being able to explain people's differences people don't understand them or only have the mainstream's view of it to go by which, as evidenced by the LGBT thread is seldom good.

[40kGamer]

cold reason and calm explanation is the best way to explain to someone how their prejudice or discrimitivness is wrong, using terms that aren't common outside your movement (I.e cis) only confuse those you are trying to convince and therefore don't work

Agree on the cold logic front.. emotions tend to color one's position, even when it is the superior position. Not saying it's easy to successfully keep emotions out of an argument as we all have hot buttons that send us over the deep end very quickly.

And also in what world does dividing the human species into more ever increasingly small category's create anything other then a us vs them mentality, wouldn't the goal of ending discrimination be to have every person no matter what in the same category of human being

As a card carrying member of the 'International Tin Foil Hat Club' I believe the true powers that run the world find their task easier to accomplish when everyone is fighting among themselves. Seriously - Small groups are easier to control, distract and/or misdirect. Unfortunately our natural prejudices and beliefs strongly influence how each of us views the world and makes the task of divide and conquer child's play.

[Psychosplodge]

What othe conclusion? That harassing a woman for sleeping with a game reviewer who never reviewed her game and then branched out to harass anyone who defended or or was jsut a feminist is somehow acceptable? Because that is gamergate. Everything else is just noise to try and confuse the situation.

Which is your opinion based on what you've read.
The suggestion was positive coverage rather than review.
The united front by a group of competing publications and the gamesjournospros list is clearly not a sign of inappropriate collusion?

[Anthrax ion pusscabe]

I guess I'm just used to having to explain how my autism mutation causes my brain to work differently to almost everyone, anyway with mutation and interbreeding and adaption to climate etc all races will merge into one in the next millennium anyway

- - - Updated - - -

It's just a byproduct of having a effective inter population connection system, the characteristics sets will all merge into a single set

[eldargal]

Except he didn't offer positive coverage either. We are supposed to believe she slept with some guy and he managed to convince all his colleagues and people at rival media outlets to give the game positive reviews it didn't deserve (according to people who hated the idea of a game about depression from the beginning). It's absurd, it's just people wanting to believe a conspiracy theory rather than facing the obvious truth that she was attacked because her ex was angry with her (despite the 'affair' happening when they were separated) and wanted to punish her.

It is insane. This happened because a) People hated Zoe Quinn's game before it was even out, they tried to trash its chances of being Greenlit on Steam and b) Her ex new this and saw it as a way if punishing her by ruining her reputation. He started this by claiming she slept with the guy for positive reviews, then when it turned out he didn't write a positive review it became about some kind of amorphous 'positive coverage'.


Oh and that tumblr also spreads the lie that th FBI rejected the threats against Anita Sarkeesian, they did not, [URL="http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58524406-78/sarkeesian-usu-law-email.html.csp"]they are investigating[/URL] and 'take the mvery seriously'. These. People. Lie.

[Gotthammer]

@Anthrax & 40kG - But still you have things like sexual orientation, neurotypicality (people understand what autism is in broad strokes at the very least), differences in socioeconomic standings, even regional dialects - casting everyone as the same ignores that aspect of life and how different experiences colour that.

I will admit bias on this topic as, to paraphrase 40kG above, I'm a card carrying member of several minority groups and I've found great solace and support in being able to self-label and in many ways it was the very existence of such groups that allowed me to better understand myself which before knowing of them caused me great personal problems due to being so far from the mainstream.

[40kGamer]

Ideally yes but by treating everyone as "the same" it ignores the inherent differences people outside the mainstream experience (eg a black person's experience of racism in a predominantly white society) and by calling everyone the same all it does is reinforce the view as those in power as being right and what is seen as a deviation from that norm as an aberration. This is essentially what causes discrimination and harassment as by not being able to explain people's differences people don't understand them or only have the mainstream's view of it to go by which, as evidenced by the LGBT thread is seldom good.

“The same” is the matter at hand. Fundamentally we are all the same. Race, sex, sexual orientation… none of these things should matter in the grand scheme of things. I don’t feel the need to use labels to describe the people in my life. I simply call someone “friend”, not “black friend”, “gay friend”, etc… I don’t view them differently and find them all to be equally amusing, annoying and supportive as fits their personality. Who they are has nothing to do with societal labels.

I 100% support universal equality. The problem is that the various groups vying for equality lack a unified purpose… for example there are “feminist racists”, hell there are even “gay guys who consider women second class citizens” and so on… one would think that being on the receiving end of discrimination the people in these groups would unequivocally support equality for all!

I've found great solace and support in being able to self-label and in many ways it was the very existence of such groups that allowed me to better understand myself which before knowing of them caused me great personal problems due to being so far from the mainstream.

This I completely understand. Choosing to self-label and finding others we identify with can greatly improve our quality of life. While I am a “white male” and can never truly understand the struggles of those fighting prejudice I still belong to a minority whose membership I would not wish on anyone. My mother was raped and murdered in her university apartment when I was a baby. ‘Lucky me’ I wasn’t there at the time. The man accused of the crime was:

1) convicted by a jury, sentenced to life, appealed, got a new trial
2) convicted by a jury, sentenced to life, appealed, got a new trial
3) witness was dead so he was given a plea deal and walked out of jail for time served

So 3 separate trials and a grand total of a little over 3 years in prison. Plead guilty to manslaughter and was never held accountable for the rape or the murder. I was adopted and raised by my maternal grandparents who transferred a lot of the pain and resentment from this ‘life event’ to me. Not surprisingly I have little faith in the legal system, take true pleasure in frontier justice and am very passionate about crimes against women. What is surprising is that I am still extremely optimistic and positive most of the time, traits I have been told were given to me by the mom I never got to know. Not like there's a lot of choice in the matter.