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Terms, their meanings history and implications. (The Semantics thread)

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hellomoto Since: Sep, 2015
#101: Oct 23rd 2015 at 1:48:37 AM

Feminist? Women's Right Activist? Gender Equalist?

What is 'feminism' anyway? Is it 'combating gender inequality, just through the lens of a female'?

Xopher001 Since: Jul, 2012
#102: Oct 23rd 2015 at 4:38:31 PM

Dont Islamophobia and antisemitism sometimes overlap? Like, prejudice against Arabs is by definition anti-semitism

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#103: Oct 23rd 2015 at 4:47:09 PM

Anti-semite is specifically prejudice and bigotry against Jews. Granted, the people who are anti-semites are often also islamaphobes, but the two words have different groups as part of their definition.

And here is a simple definition of feminism: the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

I'm not even quite sure when women's equality movements picked up the name feminism; I've heard a couple of conflicting stories and what's called the First Wave of it had suffragist/suffragettes as the name because of the focus on gaining the right to vote. (Suffrage meaning right to vote.)

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#104: Oct 23rd 2015 at 4:47:51 PM

One refers to a religion, one an ethnolinguistic grouping, so probably. There's nothing mutually exclusive nor inclusive about the two terms (for example Islamophobia against Southeast Asians, who are not Semitic), but I guess hatred of Palestinian Christians might qualify too.

On a related note I wonder if you can call anti-Judaic beliefs against groups such as Kaifeng Jews or Beta Israel, or converts like Sammy Davis Jr., anti-Semitism if they're not of Semitic ethnicity.

Regarding feminism, I'd probably include all activism that purports to be for the advancement of women under it, since a lot of people don't see the kind of separate-but-equal philosophy advocated by eco- or difference feminists as actually equality, and separatist feminists exclude men from the equation altogether, but they're still technically feminists, if not necessarily good or helpful ones.

Likewise I'd count the small minority of actual female supremacists as feminists (albeit heavily fringe) since their goal is making life better for women, even if in practice their ideology tends to be hostile towards women who don't follow their narrow criteria, similar to how male supremacists and MR As tend to promote ideas harmful to men despite claiming to advocate for them.

edited 23rd Oct '15 5:05:51 PM by AlleyOop

Xopher001 Since: Jul, 2012
#105: Oct 23rd 2015 at 6:18:49 PM

But 'Semitic' refers to all the ethnic groups native to the Arabian Peninsula and Levant

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#106: Oct 23rd 2015 at 6:40:41 PM

I've never heard it to mean anyone but those who are Jewish, though. Actually I don't hear semite just about ever without the anti- added on, and pretty much that is only applied to bigotry against Jews as a group and not others.

wehrmacht belongs to the hurricane from the garden of everything Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
belongs to the hurricane
#107: Oct 23rd 2015 at 6:57:41 PM

And here is a simple definition of feminism: the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

Yep. it's pretty simple actually.

the thing is that the word has become poisoned over time, associated with extremism and misandry, as well as preachiness. that's why some people prefer to be called "egalitarians" or some other term with less of a stigma.

edited 23rd Oct '15 6:59:45 PM by wehrmacht

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#108: Oct 23rd 2015 at 7:21:02 PM

The association was pushed almost solely by those opposing feminism, mostly the likes of Limbaugh who coined the term feminazi. So yeah, not gonna be using the word egalitarian any time soon. Quite frankly, that term doesn't seem to be finding all that much purchase in the public consciousness anyway.

How words catch on and why some don't continues to elude me.

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#109: Oct 23rd 2015 at 8:52:33 PM

"Egalitarian" these days is like saying you're for "family values", "liberty", "social justice", or being a "progressive". None of these are bad things in and of themselves, and identifying as them doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad person, but they frequently act as a dog whistle (EDIT: bad choice of words) for particular strains of partisanry dressed up to sound nice and deflect criticism. The former being the most guilty of these at the moment.

The most common excuse these modern so-called egalitarians give for their antifeminism is that the femin- part of feminist implies support for the women at the expense of everyone else. It's the same crap racists use to smear Black Lives Matter, even though it's pretty obvious the group's nominal message is an implicit "Too", not "All Non-Black Lives Don't Matter". For a less defensible version of this argument, it's like saying that being a LGBT+ activist means you're for the oppression of heterosexuals.

edited 23rd Oct '15 10:28:07 PM by AlleyOop

wehrmacht belongs to the hurricane from the garden of everything Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
belongs to the hurricane
#110: Oct 23rd 2015 at 9:04:15 PM

i wasn't actually aware that limbaugh was the one who coined that term. give the amount of influence he has i'm not surprised it gained such popularity.

while the idea that being a feminist implies you don't care about the interests of anyone else but women needs to fought against, i also think people should be able to identify however they choose.

if you ask me, people get a bit too stuck on labels sometimes; they're good for broad things, but people like to use them to paint with very broad brushstrokes, assuming every single person who chooses to identify as a given thing has the exact same opinions which they can discredit out of hand.

people also have the habit of thinking labels are mutually exclusive when they aren't. i can choose to identify as an egalitarian AND a feminist; people calling me either wouldn't really bother me.

i think people have legitimate reasons to be wary of people calling themselves egalitarians but i don't think that either it or "feminist" should be dirty words.

this is unless of course they identify with an ideology that has its core tenets rooted in poisonous beliefs (like a nazi or a redpiller), in which case it is completely fair to judge them by that label. they know exactly what it is.

edited 23rd Oct '15 9:16:49 PM by wehrmacht

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#111: Oct 23rd 2015 at 9:15:41 PM

Keep in mind I think he's the one who made that up. If he's not, he certainly helped to popularize it.

[up][up]I feel like addressing whether or not all those words count as dogwhistles but that would probably be a derail for this particular thread.

[up]When people use them in a way that is mutually exclusive, that's what they come to popularly be in use if not technical definition. While frustrating, that is how language can often evolve. Also part of why words like "chuffed" can be two mutually exclusive things.

Of course, like I said earlier, egalitarian doesn't actually seem to be catching on, at least not with the people I usually discuss such issues with. Like, it doesn't even come up.

edited 23rd Oct '15 9:19:20 PM by AceofSpades

wehrmacht belongs to the hurricane from the garden of everything Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
belongs to the hurricane
#112: Oct 23rd 2015 at 9:19:15 PM

in one of his books he apparently credits a friend of his, tom hazlett, an economics professor, with coining the term.

given that he uses it in the context of insulting any woman for abortion as "allowing a modern holocaust", it's way too loaded a phrase by default.

If I ever met a legitimate extremist I would much prefer to just call them out on misandrist and/or misogynistic attitudes and leave the slurs out of it since you don't need them to prove a point.

edited 23rd Oct '15 9:22:39 PM by wehrmacht

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#113: Oct 23rd 2015 at 9:24:27 PM

[up][up]

Maybe dog whistle isn't the most appropriate phrase, something like purposefully loaded language or emotional appeal probably fits better? I don't know.

I personally (stress on personally) think the term feminist is a more objective term than egalitarian, since for me it connotates a focus on supporting women and that's it. No intrinsic value judgement within the definition. Necessarily associating it with misandry and extremism betrays a projected bias which says more about the beliefs of the observer than feminism itself since misandry is not a part of its definition. Some feminists definitely are misandrists (and being one does not disqualify you from being one yet), but many are not. All that's necessary and sufficient to be feminist is that focus on women. Which itself is a fairly objective quality both observer and subject can usually agree on, even if their opinions differ on whether the advocacy is good or not.

Whereas with the term egalitarian it's complicated by the fact that the term "equality" needs to be defined first, of which there are varying definitions on what that entails, and which tends to be a very charged term in the first place. If the observer and the subject have very different definitions of what equality is, then by the former's definition the latter cannot be for equality and therefore an egalitarian, although they may self-identify as such and are valid in doing so.

Hence the gray area misogynist egalitarians like to take advantage of, since their belief is that men are the oppressed underclass and women need to be knocked back a peg to achieve equality, which ironically is not dissimilar to the extreme social revenge side of the social justice community.

edited 23rd Oct '15 9:56:46 PM by AlleyOop

wehrmacht belongs to the hurricane from the garden of everything Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
belongs to the hurricane
#114: Oct 23rd 2015 at 9:27:00 PM

loaded language might fit the bill.

this has more or less been the entire subject of discussion for the last few posts.

i've quickly discovered that terms can and do become loaded quite easily. language evolves way too fast.

DrunkenNordmann from Exile Since: May, 2015
#115: Oct 23rd 2015 at 9:33:51 PM

@ Alley Oop A lot of this depends on regional context, though. An American's dogwhistle is a German's valid term. So "feminazi" became an actually useful informal term to describe female supremacists. It quickly brings across the point about said person's ideology. Compare that to ideologies like Stalinism being called "left-wing fascism". If you live in a society that has experienced totalitarianism twice already, it's helpful to quickly make out the people with the same leanings.

We learn from history that we do not learn from history
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#116: Oct 23rd 2015 at 9:50:14 PM

Loaded language is probably better, considering that dog whistle is used to refer to language that acts as a code towards certain groups of people. This is usually used in a political context. Then again, I mostly hang out in the US politics thread.

Certainly progressive typically isn't a dogwhistle, as it refers to a kind of broad, typically leftist political ideology. Social justice, is, well, social justice, and tends to be used snearingly by a lot of people who don't like it when anyone mentions inequalities in even the mildest tone. Negative or positive connotations depend on who's using it, as it is becoming a thing (a small thing right now) to be less timid about accepting such labels to refer to one's self. The right wing media did a lot to attach negative connotations to such ideologies, which is interesting from the perspective of analyzing how language changes but very frustrating from other angles.

[up] That they don't know how horribly sexist such a word started out actually kind of distresses me. Because holy shit, can't they just say extremists instead of borrowing words from America's far right?

edited 23rd Oct '15 9:52:09 PM by AceofSpades

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#117: Oct 23rd 2015 at 10:05:09 PM

[up] I guess. As I wrote that I was thinking of times I've encountered proponents accusing others of being anti-progress or pro-injustice for holding different opinions, which probably fits the bill of loaded language better.

[up][up] I have yet to see a feminist with ideas comparable to Nazism. Certainly there are lots of bad ones out there, but Nazism is a very specific ideology, as is Stalinism. And leftwing fascism is oxymoronic considering that fascism is by nature very nationalist whereas leftism is associated with internationalism. Even if the people these terms are being used on deserve the scorn, it's still a cheap tactic.

[down] That too.

edited 23rd Oct '15 10:13:56 PM by AlleyOop

wehrmacht belongs to the hurricane from the garden of everything Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
belongs to the hurricane
#118: Oct 23rd 2015 at 10:11:58 PM

it might have something to do with the fact that nazi is kind of a stock insult.

Godwin's Law and all that.

DrunkenNordmann from Exile Since: May, 2015
#119: Oct 23rd 2015 at 10:30:13 PM

[up] Or just the fact that we actually had some pro-gendercide groups over here. And what is the first thing that comes to mind when hearing about a group promoting mass murder, especially in Germany?

But as I said, it's an informal term. A shorthand to bring the point across to a friend, you could say. You wouldn't see German media call them feminazis, provided these lunatics ever managed to get nationwide attention. Instead they'd be "radical feminists" or just "feminists" - which works over here because, as I already explained in the Sexism thread, we have a bunch of different terms for the sane ones, like Women's rights or emancipation activists.

I have the feeling that these regional differences sometimes fall under the table when talking about terms, implications etc.

edited 23rd Oct '15 10:48:54 PM by DrunkenNordmann

We learn from history that we do not learn from history
Elfive (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#120: Oct 24th 2015 at 10:52:30 AM

There are people who have genuinely posted things like "kill all men" on twitter. If that doesn't warrant nazi comparisons, what does?

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#121: Oct 24th 2015 at 10:58:01 AM

If they truly meant that, they Didn't Think This Through. Then again, there is no shortage of dunces in the world.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#122: Oct 24th 2015 at 11:06:44 AM

RE the question about the term antisemitism, I had previously learned/had commented that it was invented by a guy who was one, but looking at The Other Wiki, it seems like that is a bit off.

Basically, in the 1800's, a German Jewish thinker, Moritz Steinschneider made up the term to describe/criticize the beliefs of this other writer, Ernest Renan (who believed that "Semitic races" were inferior to "Aryan" ones). I'm not really familiar with either guy, but it sounds like since both were involved with anthropology/philology, Steinschneider was using it in a more literal sense (it sounds like Renan didn't really like Jews, but he actually didn't think that Jews were a Semitic people anyway- he invented that Khazar theory).

Then, the term got a sort of Appropriated Appellation from a guy named Wilhelm Marr, who used it to refer to Jews specifically, as a way of characterizing his belief that Jews were perverting German culture.

It's because of Marr (especially because his ideas obviously prefigure Nazism) that the term is Jewish-specific.

Edit- Speaking of Nazis, I think the "kill all men" thing is a good illustration of Misandry (one of the few). Feminazi is pretty stupid given the combination of Godwin's Law and because it was coined by Rush Limbaugh.

edited 24th Oct '15 11:10:33 AM by Hodor2

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#123: Oct 24th 2015 at 11:09:45 AM

One day I'm gonna have to get to the bottom of that Kazaar thing.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Hodor2 Since: Jan, 2015
#124: Oct 24th 2015 at 11:11:47 AM

Yeah, I don't know either. There's actually been a couple of Jewish books using the idea- probably because the Khazars were pretty badass. It's sort of like how Scandinavians take pride in the Vikings. From the The Other Wiki, it sounds like the genetic evidence is inconclusive to negative.

edited 24th Oct '15 11:14:56 AM by Hodor2

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#125: Oct 24th 2015 at 11:22:20 AM

[up][up][up][up][up]

And people who say "Kill the rich", some of whom are sincere in their hatred, but you wouldn't really call them Commie-Nazis without seriously qualifying your statements unless you have the politics of Glenn Beck.

edited 24th Oct '15 11:23:21 AM by AlleyOop


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