LABELS - The Thread!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Wow. This was a spectacularly shitty way to prove a point. Bad, bad example. Sorry Roger. D:

But anyway, women spend their entire lives trying to stay safe (go find Pixie's comment string in OH NOEZ on the subject, since I have effectively proven myself to be neurotic). We're socialized to deal with Schrodinger's rapist (we have no idea who is and who is not, but we have to prevent him from doing it anyway).
That's not something men have to live with. You can empathize, but you don't actually live with a perpetual, low-level fear of rape.

You might or might not have thought of this by this point, since I'm obviously just catching up on this thread, but you're implying that perpetual fear of rape is somehow different than perpetual fear of any number of other horrifying things. You don't have to be a woman and have had the specific fear of rape to understand EXACTLY how it feels to be constantly fearful.

But are there things -- and I'm not being facetious, I'm generally unsure -- that men generally have to fear that women generally don't have to fear? And I am speaking in general, all-other-things-being-equal terms.

Men can absolutely understand how it feels to be constantly fearful, I'm not arguing that point at all. I'm just wondering whether or not women in a particular socio-economic group are constantly fearful of everything men are in that same socio-economic group, with the added fear of the possibility of being raped.

Okay, women are now up by 1 point.

Score stands at:

Men:  89,000,000 fears.
Women:  89,000,001 fears.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Thus the difference between selecting descriptors for yourself and being labeled in a category with others.
"I describe myself as ..."
vs.
"He is a ... "
or
"You are a ... and therefore..."

I feel like it's an issue of semantics. Are you gonna say, "I describe myself as a man/heterosexual/whatever" or "I'm a man/heterosexual/whatever"? Because I'm saying the latter (in situations where's it's relevant because broadcasting "I'm x" ALL THE TIME, ON EVERY CHANNEL is a uniform), but each of these words still doesn't describe all of me. They're not supposed to.

Oy, I should have worded that differently, it led to the wrong focus...

It wasn't "describe" vs "is/are" that was so important. It was the I/Myself vs He/You. If you want to call yourself a other-gendered, xenite, phibblethrop, that's up to you. If instead you say "You are an other-gendered, xenite, phibblethrop and therefore..." you have confused the map with the territory.


On a General Semantic tack the is vs describe as is important, but I wasn't trying to go there 

[Signora Pæsior]

Wow. This was a spectacularly shitty way to prove a point. Bad, bad example. Sorry Roger. D:

But anyway, women spend their entire lives trying to stay safe (go find Pixie's comment string in OH NOEZ on the subject, since I have effectively proven myself to be neurotic). We're socialized to deal with Schrodinger's rapist (we have no idea who is and who is not, but we have to prevent him from doing it anyway).
That's not something men have to live with. You can empathize, but you don't actually live with a perpetual, low-level fear of rape.

You might or might not have thought of this by this point, since I'm obviously just catching up on this thread, but you're implying that perpetual fear of rape is somehow different than perpetual fear of any number of other horrifying things. You don't have to be a woman and have had the specific fear of rape to understand EXACTLY how it feels to be constantly fearful.

But are there things -- and I'm not being facetious, I'm generally unsure -- that men generally have to fear that women generally don't have to fear? And I am speaking in general, all-other-things-being-equal terms.

Men can absolutely understand how it feels to be constantly fearful, I'm not arguing that point at all. I'm just wondering whether or not women in a particular socio-economic group are constantly fearful of everything men are in that same socio-economic group, with the added fear of the possibility of being raped.

Okay, women are now up by 1 point.

Score stands at:

Men:  89,000,000 fears.
Women:  89,000,001 fears.

Wasn't really the point of my post, but okay. I was just trying to figure out where ECM was coming from.

But anyway, I do that that a perpetual fear of rape is different to a perpetual fear of other things. But so is a perpetual fear of violent (non-sexual) assault. Or a perpetual fear of earthquakes. A perpetual and genuine fear of any one thing is going to be different to a perpetual and genuine fear of any other thing. Anyone can understand what it feels like to be constantly fearful, but not everyone can understand what it's like to be fearful of that specific thing.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Wow. This was a spectacularly shitty way to prove a point. Bad, bad example. Sorry Roger. D:

But anyway, women spend their entire lives trying to stay safe (go find Pixie's comment string in OH NOEZ on the subject, since I have effectively proven myself to be neurotic). We're socialized to deal with Schrodinger's rapist (we have no idea who is and who is not, but we have to prevent him from doing it anyway).
That's not something men have to live with. You can empathize, but you don't actually live with a perpetual, low-level fear of rape.

You might or might not have thought of this by this point, since I'm obviously just catching up on this thread, but you're implying that perpetual fear of rape is somehow different than perpetual fear of any number of other horrifying things. You don't have to be a woman and have had the specific fear of rape to understand EXACTLY how it feels to be constantly fearful.

But are there things -- and I'm not being facetious, I'm generally unsure -- that men generally have to fear that women generally don't have to fear? And I am speaking in general, all-other-things-being-equal terms.

Men can absolutely understand how it feels to be constantly fearful, I'm not arguing that point at all. I'm just wondering whether or not women in a particular socio-economic group are constantly fearful of everything men are in that same socio-economic group, with the added fear of the possibility of being raped.

Okay, women are now up by 1 point.

Score stands at:

Men:  89,000,000 fears.
Women:  89,000,001 fears.

Wasn't really the point of my post, but okay. I was just trying to figure out where ECM was coming from.

But anyway, I do that that a perpetual fear of rape is different to a perpetual fear of other things. But so is a perpetual fear of violent (non-sexual) assault. Or a perpetual fear of earthquakes. A perpetual and genuine fear of any one thing is going to be different to a perpetual and genuine fear of any other thing. Anyone can understand what it feels like to be constantly fearful, but not everyone can understand what it's like to be fearful of that specific thing.

Okay.

But I have to ask, is feminism mostly about rape, somewhat about rape, or only a little bit about rape?

[Signora Pæsior]

Wow. This was a spectacularly shitty way to prove a point. Bad, bad example. Sorry Roger. D:

But anyway, women spend their entire lives trying to stay safe (go find Pixie's comment string in OH NOEZ on the subject, since I have effectively proven myself to be neurotic). We're socialized to deal with Schrodinger's rapist (we have no idea who is and who is not, but we have to prevent him from doing it anyway).
That's not something men have to live with. You can empathize, but you don't actually live with a perpetual, low-level fear of rape.

You might or might not have thought of this by this point, since I'm obviously just catching up on this thread, but you're implying that perpetual fear of rape is somehow different than perpetual fear of any number of other horrifying things. You don't have to be a woman and have had the specific fear of rape to understand EXACTLY how it feels to be constantly fearful.

But are there things -- and I'm not being facetious, I'm generally unsure -- that men generally have to fear that women generally don't have to fear? And I am speaking in general, all-other-things-being-equal terms.

Men can absolutely understand how it feels to be constantly fearful, I'm not arguing that point at all. I'm just wondering whether or not women in a particular socio-economic group are constantly fearful of everything men are in that same socio-economic group, with the added fear of the possibility of being raped.

Okay, women are now up by 1 point.

Score stands at:

Men:  89,000,000 fears.
Women:  89,000,001 fears.

Wasn't really the point of my post, but okay. I was just trying to figure out where ECM was coming from.

But anyway, I do that that a perpetual fear of rape is different to a perpetual fear of other things. But so is a perpetual fear of violent (non-sexual) assault. Or a perpetual fear of earthquakes. A perpetual and genuine fear of any one thing is going to be different to a perpetual and genuine fear of any other thing. Anyone can understand what it feels like to be constantly fearful, but not everyone can understand what it's like to be fearful of that specific thing.

Okay.

But I have to ask, is feminism mostly about rape, somewhat about rape, or only a little bit about rape?

Depends on who you ask.

To me, it's somewhat about rape in the sense that rape culture plays a huge part in the day-to-day lives of women. But I'm also a SlutWalk organiser, so it's going to play a bigger part in my interactions with feminism than in other peoples'.

Ask five feminists and you'll get five different answers, though

[AFK]

Wow. This was a spectacularly shitty way to prove a point. Bad, bad example. Sorry Roger. D:

But anyway, women spend their entire lives trying to stay safe (go find Pixie's comment string in OH NOEZ on the subject, since I have effectively proven myself to be neurotic). We're socialized to deal with Schrodinger's rapist (we have no idea who is and who is not, but we have to prevent him from doing it anyway).
That's not something men have to live with. You can empathize, but you don't actually live with a perpetual, low-level fear of rape.

You might or might not have thought of this by this point, since I'm obviously just catching up on this thread, but you're implying that perpetual fear of rape is somehow different than perpetual fear of any number of other horrifying things. You don't have to be a woman and have had the specific fear of rape to understand EXACTLY how it feels to be constantly fearful.

But are there things -- and I'm not being facetious, I'm generally unsure -- that men generally have to fear that women generally don't have to fear? And I am speaking in general, all-other-things-being-equal terms.

Men can absolutely understand how it feels to be constantly fearful, I'm not arguing that point at all. I'm just wondering whether or not women in a particular socio-economic group are constantly fearful of everything men are in that same socio-economic group, with the added fear of the possibility of being raped.

Okay, women are now up by 1 point.

Score stands at:

Men:  89,000,000 fears.
Women:  89,000,001 fears.

Wasn't really the point of my post, but okay. I was just trying to figure out where ECM was coming from.

But anyway, I do that that a perpetual fear of rape is different to a perpetual fear of other things. But so is a perpetual fear of violent (non-sexual) assault. Or a perpetual fear of earthquakes. A perpetual and genuine fear of any one thing is going to be different to a perpetual and genuine fear of any other thing. Anyone can understand what it feels like to be constantly fearful, but not everyone can understand what it's like to be fearful of that specific thing.

And so what is the fucking point?  I'm going to wager that you never experienced the constant fear of being tortured and killed that my MALE, Somali friend had when he was in Somalia.  Have you experienced that?


Ok, so are you now going to assert that one fear is "worse" than the other?  Sure, my Somali friend might not have had the experience of fearing rape but you havent't had his fear of being on the business end of horrific war crimes.


So then where are we?


That's why this is all pointless.  It really feels like scorekeeping.

[Signora Pæsior]

Wow. This was a spectacularly shitty way to prove a point. Bad, bad example. Sorry Roger. D:

But anyway, women spend their entire lives trying to stay safe (go find Pixie's comment string in OH NOEZ on the subject, since I have effectively proven myself to be neurotic). We're socialized to deal with Schrodinger's rapist (we have no idea who is and who is not, but we have to prevent him from doing it anyway).
That's not something men have to live with. You can empathize, but you don't actually live with a perpetual, low-level fear of rape.

You might or might not have thought of this by this point, since I'm obviously just catching up on this thread, but you're implying that perpetual fear of rape is somehow different than perpetual fear of any number of other horrifying things. You don't have to be a woman and have had the specific fear of rape to understand EXACTLY how it feels to be constantly fearful.

But are there things -- and I'm not being facetious, I'm generally unsure -- that men generally have to fear that women generally don't have to fear? And I am speaking in general, all-other-things-being-equal terms.

Men can absolutely understand how it feels to be constantly fearful, I'm not arguing that point at all. I'm just wondering whether or not women in a particular socio-economic group are constantly fearful of everything men are in that same socio-economic group, with the added fear of the possibility of being raped.

Okay, women are now up by 1 point.

Score stands at:

Men:  89,000,000 fears.
Women:  89,000,001 fears.

Wasn't really the point of my post, but okay. I was just trying to figure out where ECM was coming from.

But anyway, I do that that a perpetual fear of rape is different to a perpetual fear of other things. But so is a perpetual fear of violent (non-sexual) assault. Or a perpetual fear of earthquakes. A perpetual and genuine fear of any one thing is going to be different to a perpetual and genuine fear of any other thing. Anyone can understand what it feels like to be constantly fearful, but not everyone can understand what it's like to be fearful of that specific thing.

And so what is the fucking point?  I'm going to wager that you never experienced the constant fear of being tortured and killed that my MALE, Somali friend had when he was in Somalia.  Have you experienced that?


Ok, so are you now going to assert that one fear is "worse" than the other?  Sure, my Somali friend might not have had the experience of fearing rape but you havent't had his fear of being on the business end of horrific war crimes.


So then where are we?


That's why this is all pointless.  It really feels like scorekeeping.

I didn't say it was worse. I said it was different.

[AFK]

Wow. This was a spectacularly shitty way to prove a point. Bad, bad example. Sorry Roger. D:

But anyway, women spend their entire lives trying to stay safe (go find Pixie's comment string in OH NOEZ on the subject, since I have effectively proven myself to be neurotic). We're socialized to deal with Schrodinger's rapist (we have no idea who is and who is not, but we have to prevent him from doing it anyway).
That's not something men have to live with. You can empathize, but you don't actually live with a perpetual, low-level fear of rape.

You might or might not have thought of this by this point, since I'm obviously just catching up on this thread, but you're implying that perpetual fear of rape is somehow different than perpetual fear of any number of other horrifying things. You don't have to be a woman and have had the specific fear of rape to understand EXACTLY how it feels to be constantly fearful.

But are there things -- and I'm not being facetious, I'm generally unsure -- that men generally have to fear that women generally don't have to fear? And I am speaking in general, all-other-things-being-equal terms.

Men can absolutely understand how it feels to be constantly fearful, I'm not arguing that point at all. I'm just wondering whether or not women in a particular socio-economic group are constantly fearful of everything men are in that same socio-economic group, with the added fear of the possibility of being raped.

Okay, women are now up by 1 point.

Score stands at:

Men:  89,000,000 fears.
Women:  89,000,001 fears.

Wasn't really the point of my post, but okay. I was just trying to figure out where ECM was coming from.

But anyway, I do that that a perpetual fear of rape is different to a perpetual fear of other things. But so is a perpetual fear of violent (non-sexual) assault. Or a perpetual fear of earthquakes. A perpetual and genuine fear of any one thing is going to be different to a perpetual and genuine fear of any other thing. Anyone can understand what it feels like to be constantly fearful, but not everyone can understand what it's like to be fearful of that specific thing.

And so what is the fucking point?  I'm going to wager that you never experienced the constant fear of being tortured and killed that my MALE, Somali friend had when he was in Somalia.  Have you experienced that?


Ok, so are you now going to assert that one fear is "worse" than the other?  Sure, my Somali friend might not have had the experience of fearing rape but you havent't had his fear of being on the business end of horrific war crimes.


So then where are we?


That's why this is all pointless.  It really feels like scorekeeping.

I didn't say it was worse. I said it was different.

So?

[East Coast Hustle]

Wow. This was a spectacularly shitty way to prove a point. Bad, bad example. Sorry Roger. D:

But anyway, women spend their entire lives trying to stay safe (go find Pixie's comment string in OH NOEZ on the subject, since I have effectively proven myself to be neurotic). We're socialized to deal with Schrodinger's rapist (we have no idea who is and who is not, but we have to prevent him from doing it anyway).
That's not something men have to live with. You can empathize, but you don't actually live with a perpetual, low-level fear of rape.

You might or might not have thought of this by this point, since I'm obviously just catching up on this thread, but you're implying that perpetual fear of rape is somehow different than perpetual fear of any number of other horrifying things. You don't have to be a woman and have had the specific fear of rape to understand EXACTLY how it feels to be constantly fearful.

But are there things -- and I'm not being facetious, I'm generally unsure -- that men generally have to fear that women generally don't have to fear? And I am speaking in general, all-other-things-being-equal terms.

Men can absolutely understand how it feels to be constantly fearful, I'm not arguing that point at all. I'm just wondering whether or not women in a particular socio-economic group are constantly fearful of everything men are in that same socio-economic group, with the added fear of the possibility of being raped.

Your post seems to be utterly meaningless in the context of being able to understand someone else's fear, which IS what we were talking about.

[East Coast Hustle]

And I don't understand the need some people have to differentiate "this specific fear" vs. "that specific fear".

I mean, so fucking what? Fear is fucking fear, and anyone who can't understand THAT is probably a pompous and overwrought jackass that needs to pull their head out of a textbook and try sticking it up some REAL GODDAMNED LIFE once in a while.

Because the world is already fucking full of assholes who love to take a strong and meaningful stand for The Right Values just so they've got something to nit-pick and intellectually masturbate over with other basement-dwellers, y'know? Who the fuck needs more of that?

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Wow. This was a spectacularly shitty way to prove a point. Bad, bad example. Sorry Roger. D:

But anyway, women spend their entire lives trying to stay safe (go find Pixie's comment string in OH NOEZ on the subject, since I have effectively proven myself to be neurotic). We're socialized to deal with Schrodinger's rapist (we have no idea who is and who is not, but we have to prevent him from doing it anyway).
That's not something men have to live with. You can empathize, but you don't actually live with a perpetual, low-level fear of rape.

You might or might not have thought of this by this point, since I'm obviously just catching up on this thread, but you're implying that perpetual fear of rape is somehow different than perpetual fear of any number of other horrifying things. You don't have to be a woman and have had the specific fear of rape to understand EXACTLY how it feels to be constantly fearful.

But are there things -- and I'm not being facetious, I'm generally unsure -- that men generally have to fear that women generally don't have to fear? And I am speaking in general, all-other-things-being-equal terms.

Men can absolutely understand how it feels to be constantly fearful, I'm not arguing that point at all. I'm just wondering whether or not women in a particular socio-economic group are constantly fearful of everything men are in that same socio-economic group, with the added fear of the possibility of being raped.

You're using labels to frame the question, which is kind of a dishonest maneuver in a debate where the use of labels themselves is the theme. Women, as a specific subset of the population, encounter a lot of things that add to their anxiety and are unique to their gender. So do men. So do LGBTBBQ people. So do children. So do the elderly, immigrants, Blacks, Hispanics, and on and on and on. Every single person can claim to be a member of at least one group who is persecuted, oppressed, or generally less save than other groups on a specific criteria. It could be rape, or mugging, or gang violence, or a genetic predisposition for cancer, or any number of other things. There is not a living person who is not in some kind of danger solely because of who they are. And with relatively few exceptions there is not a single living person who is not in some way privileged over somebody else.

As for "socio-economic group" that's just another label. Most people, regardless of race, gender, or social status, experience the same emotions as other people*. It isn't in the causes of those emotions where we find unity, but in the experience of those emotions. I can't say I identify with you on the basis of a fear of rape; but I know fear, I know danger, and I can identify with you on that level. Claiming to be special because of what gives rise to what is ultimately a shared experience with other humans is maybe a little arrogant.

Everyone has something to feel picked on about, and of course we should do everything we can to fix that for everyone. As for rape, what can I do? I don't laugh at bullshit sexist jokes, and when I see one on the street I don't make eye contact because I'd hate for her to think I'm a rapist. Beyond that, what?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I didn't say it was worse. I said it was different.

It's beginning to sound like a cause.

Feminism/eglatarianism isn't a cause, it's a behavior.  When it becomes a cause, it becomes the "ism" instead of the beneficial thing it started out to be.  It becomes a uniform that you put on, button up REAL tight around your throat, and then stomp around in, demanding that your ism gets all the due recognition it deserves.

But here's the problem:  In addition to losing the actual value of the behavior, you also induce emotional fatigue in those around you.  It's not that people want to stop caring, it's that they become weary of hearing the same thing being bellowed over and over again, and they CAN'T keep caring.

After 911, there was about a 2 year period in which ~ 80% of the population was scared into a national nervous breakdown.  People were fucking TERRIFIED right out of their rational minds.  By 2004, however, they were losing the capability of remaining scared, and by the Detroit attempt in 2009, everyone was laughing at the idiot terrorist that burned his junk off.

So now we're having "privilege" and "rape" repeatedly being brought up to the exclusion of any other facet of the whole feminism/eglatarianism conversation.  It's been addressed to death, brought back to life, clubbed back into it's grave, dug up, and hauled through the village streets.  These two facets of the conversation have become the ENTIRE conversation, and there's nothing more to be said about it...And they've taken the REST of the ideas with them.

In fact, it's turned "addressed from privilege" from a valid concern to what is being perceived as a means of shutting down disagreement, even if that was never the intent.

So at this point I have to ask if there's anything more to talk about, because if it's going to continue to be about privilege and rape, I'd like to leave the conversations/threads while I still have any capacity for outrage on these subjects at all.

[Cain]

I want to know the feminist position on magick.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I want to know the feminist position on magick.

This is exactly what I was talking about, of course.   

[Cain]

And to truly square the circle, we then need an authoritative right-libertarian pagan take on the Pussy Riot trial.