Additions to Useful Notes on Feminism

Greetings Tropers,

I wanted to expand the Feminism page, and I thought I'd subject my material to scrutiny, as any good writer should. Also it's a lot harder for me to spot errors in wiki formatting in Word.

Without further ado:

New Heading: Feminists in Academia

Feminism gets a bit of an odd treatment in academia, in the sense that in one case it may be a dedicated subject (usually called “gender studies,” or “women's studies”), while in the other case it isn't treated as a subject per se, but rather a set of attitudes derived from experimentation. In this, feminism shares a few similarities with psychology, in that it can be approached in a “soft” way and a “hard” way (a sort of real-life application of Mohs Scale Of Science Fiction Hardness). “Softer” methodologies tend to operate on a more personal level and are more accessible to people who don't have degrees (and in same cases doctorates) in biology, sociology, anthropology or scientific psychology, where as “harder” methodologies provide testable hypotheses and are generally more persuasive to those equipped with academic know-how. ^note  Though this doesn't mean all academics will call themselves feminists, it just means if you argue on a point-by-point basis using the “hard” methodology, that they'll probably either agree with each point individually or, at the very least, find something to question about the study supporting the point, rather than rejecting the movement wholesale. There's also the possibility that, as with any topic, someone is just so determined to rationalize their opposition to something they'll never consider arguments in its favour. The exact division between a “soft” approach and a “hard” one will generally depend on how much actual data is used to inform the opinion, and how much distance there is between the data and the conclusion. Think the river in Heart Of Darkness is a phallic symbol and the journey into the jungle is a rape fantasy reflective of the needs of patriarchy? Soft. Think the Mars and Venus Gender Contrast Index is full of shit because rigorous experiments show comparable performance in all cognitive applications? Hard. Things can get blurry—and this is where feminists will debate each other— if someone tries to take a conclusion too far from the data, i.e. There are fewer women in office so voters must be sexist ^note  the degree to which something is experimentally demonstrable is generally the main criticism of “hard” methodologists on “soft” ones—even if they intuitively agree that sexist notions of men and women are the cause of women being voted for less often, as well as running for office less often, it still needs to be demonstrated experimentally before it can be effectively argued.

Feminism is often accused by people outside of academia of “spinning a narrative.” It's worth pointing out that most scientific fields attempt to spin narratives when trying to explain a collection of doctorate-level theses in terms the laymen can understand. To the uninitiated, a principle like Stereotype Threat^note  basically a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in which telling a person they will suck at something—wait for it—makes them suck at it may seem like painting women as helpless victims of society, when in reality it's an experimentally reproducible phenomenon that seems to support patterns observable in broader society (this is what the “patriarchy is more subtle than people give it credit for” bit means). Much in the same way that evolution explains fossils, something like stereotype threat explains a lot of disparity between genders, and understanding it will inform the sorts of social policies that feminists tend to like.

Not that spinning a narrative isn't a valid critique on its own. Feminist authors like Andrea Dworkin often read like the angry tracts present in The Communist Manifesto, which really do generalize for the sake of scapegoating and dramatic effect. When an entire work takes this tactic, it can be a lot of work to disentangle, since each individual assertion is assumed by the author rather than experimentally demonstrated, meaning someone wanting to refute such arguments has to experiment, or find an experiment, for every single point. Compare with scientific nonfiction—usually, a given nonfiction work will have a handful of points, and the majority of the body is spent proving the validity of those points—whereas “soft” rhetoric spends more time making the points than they do proving them. This “soft” rhetoric still works, usually because an individual's anecdotal experiences will match the assumptions made by the author, and because it demands a lot less fact checking.

Feminist scholars sometimes forget that they've studied a field (sometimes multiple fields), in which many words are used to mean one thing, but mean something else to laymen. This is generally what produces some confusion around debating about feminism—a feminist might use patriarchy to describe the consequences of stereotype threat, while their opponent assumes patriarchy is a society where all men succeed and all women fail. This lop-sided negotiation is generally why the internet can't seem to talk about feminism without imploding. Even The Other Wiki 's edit history on feminism displays a long and drawn out Edit War that makes The Battle of Somme look like a peachy vacation. Why feminism doesn't get the same respect as, say, astrophysics, when it comes to a person's confidence in partaking in related discussions, is likely due to extensive straw-manning, though certain breeds of Trolls enjoy spewing ignorant codswallop about any topic and watching the flame war commence.

Academic feminism is sometimes blasted for being too focused on WASP women. A lot of feminist scholars read those criticisms and basically said “Yeah. Legit criticism.” Thus the focus of study began to shift: Instead of focusing strictly on the oppression based on sex, scholars began observing the ways that various forms of oppression interact. The feminism useful to a WASP isn't always going to be applicable to a black woman living paycheque to paycheque, and the feminism useful to a black woman living paycheque to paycheque isn't always going to be applicable to a black woman who has a decent job working for her government who happens to be Transgender. This school of thought is relatively fresh, and possibly even more impenetrable to laymen, since it requires extensive understanding of classist, racist, and even religious oppression. Good luck getting a plumber to understand a term like transmisogyny. ^note the notion that attractive/passing transwomen are “traps” is an example.

New addition to the “myths” section

Feminists require heterosexual, cisgendered Caucasion men to apologize for being who they are.

While it's true that the Vocal Minority of feminists treat any man this way, the rest do not.

A good metaphor is that Bob and Alice are having a race. Bob's a slower runner, but starts 30 feet ahead of Alice. If Bob wins the race, do we actually know if Bob is a faster runner? He could be faster, sure, and it's possible that he is—but unless he was really, really slow, he'll still beat Alice.

As the West grows increasingly tolerant of diversity, this phenomenon is expected to shrink. But it's still worth pointing out that an overwhelming majority of people in most sectors of influence (public office, CE Os, whathaveyou) are old, straight, wealthy, white men. They may not have generally succeeded strictly because they were white et al., since people usually don't get promoted for being shit at their job, but it's certainly not holding them back. And that's generally what feminists refer to as “privilege”—that someone's gender/race/sex/religious view isn't seen as a liability.

edited 7th Aug '14 5:07:57 PM by CharacterInWhite

Doesn't seem to be an improvement over what we have.

Well, other than the history section, I noticed the article was mainly populated by what I dubbed the "soft" methodology. The goal was to demonstrate that feminism can be reached through the scientific lense as well, hence the emphasis on "hard" methodology. Sort of the equivalent of expanding on how people arrive to Atheism. The notes page for Atheism acknowledges Hollywood Atheist, the equivalent of which is found in the softer "Context: Patriarchy" section, but UN/Atheist takes time to explain that not all (indeed, most) Atheists are not Atheists for that reason.

Basically, I imagined myself being in high school again and stumbling across that article. I found myself asking "why?" too damn often. The article never answers the question "why," it only gives "what." It reads like all the basic assumptions made by modern feminists are fact, rather than explaining why they're considered valid. It's not as useful, in my opinion, if I consider it from the perspective of someone completely ignorant in the topic. We're storytellers! Knowing why someone believes something is arguably more important than what it is they believe.

I need to sleep now, but I can pull more specific comparisons to the Atheist article, as well as quote the lengthy tracts in the current feminism article that make assumptions without supporting them.

I'd suggest some focus and some humor. The whole soft/hard thing has to be explained and it is not what we are here to understand. In your draft, the whole paragraph could be dropped. It is a little like feminism is just here to explain how the hard/soft thing might apply to a given topic.

You lead with a discussion of something going on in academia. Fuck academia. What is actually, really happening? Academia can speak for itself elsewhere. What does a storyteller need to know about where Joe Sixpack is on the topic?

What is important about feminism when telling a story involving feminism? That is our focus. What contrasts are useful? Which similarities? How can we make learning about these things light and entertaining?

The world already has Wikipedia for the didactic approach. In order for our Useful Notes to have value they have to be about something else: storytelling.

edited 7th Aug '14 11:32:01 PM by FastEddie

Gonna say no to the first paragraph. It's far off our interests. Undecided on the second.

I don't think the myth bit answers the question it asks. The question is about guilt, while the answer is about the definition of privilege, including a bad metaphor that also misses its mark.

Above that there are a few snark comments that shouldn't be there, and the comparison to TV shows with "most scientific fields" is ridiculous.

Concerning the "fuck academia" stance, I am a little perplexed. You can't throw a stick on a post-secondary campus without hitting someone who has an opinion on feminism (positive or negative). It's a huge component of university culture, as entire interest groups define themselves in support of or in opposition to. And the massive populations of universities also lend to the idea that any given interest group will more likely than not have someone with a strong opinion on the topic, even if they don't know anything about it, which is what leads to the responses typical of social media, tropes of which we document. Some campuses, probably most by now, will have an unofficially feminist Sorority, which is naturally a powderkeg for antifeminists—a rather reliable source of drama. Though that likely just tells me what angle I should take with the rewrite.

I will clarify the myth.

I can only shrug at getting "not enough snark" followed by "too much snark."

Sharpen the sticks, I'll be back.

Humour and snark aren't the same thing. In particular, painting a plumber (traditionally male job) as dumb is particularly unsuited in a text about feminism.

The "fuck academia" stance: When you talk about what is happening in academia, people tune out. Including academics, usually. Another way to say it is "Don't be dry."

Unless the story is about life on a campus, what happens on campuses is of little interest, really. It is easy to forget that if one happens to be spending a lot of time on a campus.

edited to add: Got curious. According to numbers here: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372, about 7% of the US were population in college in 2013. A significant readership, but not as significant as 93% of the population.

edited 10th Aug '14 12:28:12 PM by FastEddie

Thread stalled out and was generally against the proposed additions; locking. Thanks for bringing the suggestions up here.

edited 14th Sep '14 4:35:51 AM by Telcontar