GirlWritesWhat

Has anyone watched her responses to Danielle Paradis? they are long, but very much worth it.

Yes, and the response to Russ Lindquist that just went up as well. Good stuff.

I watched the first response to Danielle Paradis but I'm playing catch-up for the videos after that. I'll try and watch them tomorrow.

I've already read the transcript to this on her blog but I highly recommend GWW's address to the NY Libertarian Party. It's fascinating stuff.

Yes, it is an interesting read. Thanks to Teraus for pointing me to this thread.

Linking Feminism to Marxism is certainly a skillful move to build the desired associations for this audience, and Valdas Anelauskas is obscure enough, that hardly anyone will look him up. According to wikipedia he describes himself as a white separatist. Further interesting texts by him might include Zionism and Russia which describes itself as "A real eye-opening series exposing the Communist-Zionist facets of globalism and the "new world order."

There is indeed a marxist stream of feminism, among many others, so she is technically correct that overlaps exist. It is further true that some first wavers like for example Clara Zetkin were socialists, and that later feminists like Simone de Beauvoir used occasionally marxist techniques. Members of the women's suffrage movement, who as far as I know were closer to John Stuart Mills than Karl Marx might have objected to being 'redheaded stepdaughters of marxism' though, and the second wavers were ,as far as I can tell,mostly unconcerned with the means of production, with the possible exception of them being predominantly in the hands of men.

Farrel's glass cellar argument might stand, at least regarding risk of injury and physical stress. I don't have numbers for low-paying jobs like cashiers, cleaning personel, nursery or sex workers at hand. I will have to look into this some time.

The gender symmetry of domestic violence seems, depending on how you read the statistics and define symmetry correct. It seems based on Murray Strauss, and similar studies with the same methodology, which has a few problems. An opposing read to this would be this (yes, it's feminist) . My conclusion: It stays murky, but it cannot be denied that battered husbands are a significant problem.

Regarding the economical changes: She must read other feminists than me. At least I am not aware of feminists seriously declaring penicillines, insulin or the periodic table to be attempts to hold women back. Although there is this Dawkins Video, which makes fun of a feminist philosopher. I found the examples hilarious. I am never sure whether the authors of such ideas are trolling or simply ran out of ideas for something to publish. However it isn't exactly part of the political discourse.

The differentation between slavery and oppression of women is apt, but at least according to wikipedia Oppression is defined slightly different.

I will have to read through the rest later. It is funny. :)

edited 13th May '13 4:18:50 AM by blauregen

I believe this was her most complete video.

I don't really visit this part of the forums much, but I recognised this as one of the youtubers I found a while back. I've actually made many of the same arguments myself (like in the anime sexism thread, and other forums), so I find her rather agreeable.

Props to people who root for both teams.

Remind me, did she ever step back on recommending the writings of Valdas Anelauskas? Citing an anti-Semitic white separatist conspiracy theorist for her claims doesn't speak highly of how well she vets her sources.

I can't find where she recommended him. And isn't that using an Ad Hominem against Valdas Anelauskas (who I'm not familiar with) as a reason to dismiss GWW's videos without actually taking her arguments into account?

Sounds closer to Hitler Ate Sugar.

It's still important to check your sources beyond the face of the argument, though, as even if what they're saying sounds agreeable at face value, you never know if there are potential hidden biases in play.

She cited him in this blog post on the connections between feminism and Marxism. Unfortunately, Anelauskas is... well, as I described him above (he describes himself as a 'racialist and white separatist'), and also believes Marxism and, by extension, Communism, to be a Jewish conspiracy. Oh, and he's also involved in most of the fashionable conspiracy theories, like 9/11 truthism. The odds on him giving a sane or sensible critique of feminism, one of the other traditional bugbears of the far-Right, are slim.

Well at least she only cited the speech that connected feminism and Marxism, nothing more, and the logic behind it is sound. She certainly seemed to be trying to distance herself from anything else he said by starting the following sentence with "I will simply note ..."

Here's the full quote:

That's not a distancing, but a summary. She recommends Anelauskas's work as 'fascinating' if you want 'a detailed history of the marriage of feminism and Marxism'. It's hard to read that as anything other than citing him as a primary source on the subject.

I should note that in addition to his obvious prejudices, Anelauskas is himself known for very shoddy research - as an example, he used the work of the notorious fraud and conspiracy crank Ward Churchill as his primary resource on Native American issues in his book 'America As It Is'.

So, how many of her sources are well-researched?

I know, I read it. She describes his lecture as fascinating, says she sees the same connection between feminism and Marxism that he does and then leaves it at that. Hardly a glowing recommendation of his work or his political beliefs. The lecture is the only thing she praises.

edited 26th Jun '13 5:13:21 AM by Guest1001

That is something I'd very much like to check. If a lunatic like Anelauskas gets through, I'd want to know it was an isolated incident rather than part of a pattern of her picking sources who agree with her preconceptions regardless of their integrity.

And she's still endorsing a lecture by a guy known for his terrible research and obvious biases, and tacitly uses it as the backbone for the rest of her post. She cites no other sources other than a passing, mostly-unrelated reference to Warren Farrell, and much of what she describes, such as how 'the intellectual backlash against feminism that began within the marxist community around the turn of the 20th century, with E Belfort Bax and Robert Briffault, was quashed through intimidation, censorship and skilful use of emotionally charged propaganda' is a very particularly Anelauskian sort of conspiracy-theorism.

That's bad enough.

edited 26th Jun '13 5:23:53 AM by Iaculus

She once expressed agreement to specific ideas (regarding domestic violence) of a writer who was well-known among the MRM for writing highly offensive material. She admitted that the guy had a pretty bad reputation, but valued some of his ideas regardless of that reputation or his typical ideas.

So, as far as I understand, she is mostly impartial about showcasing arguments she perceives as logical, regardless of their source. Of course, not all of her arguments come from lunatics, but it seems pretty clear to me that she is perfectly willing to listen to anyone; because, even if your views of reality are mostly distorted, that doesn't mean you are entirely incapable of formulating logical arguments every once in a while.

Of course, that impartiality may negatively affect how people perceive her intentions. I've heard and read a lot of her material and she seems a very intellectually honest person to me, so I try to take that into account when I analyze these controversial situations involving her.

edited 26th Jun '13 10:00:19 PM by Teraus

Still, you can't exactly cite biased and poorly-researched sources (at least, not without acknowledging them as such) and expect to be taken seriously.

Bingo. GWW didn't post a caveat or distance herself from the guy's other work, she just said 'hey, this guy is interesting, check him out' and then used his (kind of crazy conspiracy-theorist) arguments to inform the rest of her post. That's incredibly sloppy.

I guess she just thinks it's too obvious that she is not a white separatist/fascist/whatever.

Ignoring for a moment the source of that information, is her logic actually flawed in any moment? People that care about logic will probably take her seriously even if she mentions a logical thing Hitler said at some moment. Just because you disagree with the main convictions of someone, it doesn't mean you must disagree with absolutely everything they say.

I know it could have been a blunder, too. Maybe she didn't know about the guy but was searching for arguments that linked feminism to marxism, so she found one that seemed logical to her and mentioned it without caring about anything but the arguments themselves (doesn't seem too likely, though).

edited 28th Jun '13 4:43:12 PM by Teraus

The problem isn't that she's a fascist. It's that she's using a severely unreliable primary source. Again, Anelauskas is a white separatist who is a big fan of David Irving, of 9/11 conspiracy theories, and of a Zionist-Communist New World Order (well, the idea of one, anyway - he doesn't exactly seem to be welcoming in our Marxist-Jewish overlords with open arms). All of this raises severe doubts about his ability for research or critical thought, and whenever someone starts poking into his writings, those doubts get confirmed. The odds on him having something accurate and useful to say about the sinister influence of feminism on Marxism (and vice versa) are remote, and if he is right, there's almost certainly more reliable sources backing him up who she really should have cited instead.

edited 29th Jun '13 12:45:54 AM by Iaculus

It doesn't matter whether or not the logic is sound. You need to have reliable sources to back you up if you want to be taken seriously from the point of view of academia; likewise, if something is not academically sound, it is not likely to be taken into account in terms of real-world decision-making on the part of those who need to make the decisions that affect the masses, save for if there is a massive lapse in judgement or failure to check anything over, which is not exactly a common thing. Sure, the arguments need to be sound. But, in order to back these arguments up, there need to be a) either strong sources or an acknowledgement of how lacking/biased one's sources may be, and b) cold hard facts or strong scientific evidence from a source as impartial as possible.

I find most of her sources to be reliable, and her arguments and observations are sound. This discussion mostly sounds like "Oh noes! She missed a spot! Heathen!" to me. Roughly on that level. I think she's also linked to "fascinating" writings by feminists she most likely doesn't agree with, but doesn't explicitly state.

This.

I think that's backwards, actually, or at least not necessarily required; in GWW's case, she's putting forward her own theories and, in this case, it just so happens that someone else put those theories forward first and she agrees. If anything, you're saying she hasn't got a leg to stand on because she praised a speech by someone disagreeable, while you should be basing your opinion on her actual arguments. Her actual argument has nothing to do with Anelauskas' other political beliefs so attacking her over those is just a great big Ad Hominem.