Feminism's Oppression Obsession Hurts Women
What women need is a broad progressive agenda, not identity politics
Poor Patricia Arquette. No doubt she thought that by sticking up for wage equality for women during her Oscars acceptance speech, she'd become a real-life heroine of the feminist movement. She'd be showered with accolades, hosannas, and you-go-girl whoops.
Instead she's encountering ridicule and contempt that feminists typically reserve for white, male, Fox newscasters.
Why? Because, without realizing it, she's upset the oppression scorecard on which feminists' game of identity politics depends. But instead of pillorying Arquette for not knowing how to play, may be it's time for feminists to rethink the game.
This is not to say that Arquette's remarks weren't weird. They were. First, during her acceptance speech, she suggested that women deserve wage equality with men because they give "birth to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation." But where does this ova theory of value leave non-procreating women who fail to secure Uncle Sam's future revenue stream?
Then, backstage, she went into full Joan-of-Arc mode, demanding that "gay people, and the people of color" join her fight to end wage discrimination against women "once and for all." This is a very odd statement coming from a lady so rich that she actually chooses to forego wages. One can debate whether Hollywood's pay scale discriminates against female actors, but that's pretty irrelevant when it comes to Arquette. She has joked that she got paid less for Boyhood, a brilliant indie movie 12 years in the making that won her the Oscar, than she paid her dog walker. Why did she do it? Because it was a satisfying role that she could amply subsidize with lucrative gigs on TV shows such as CSI and Medium. In other words, she willingly traded monetary income for psychic income, a "luxury"—her word not mine—that the vast majority of men in the world—white, Asian, black, Latino, native American—can't afford, forget about women. If anything, instead of complaining, she should be marveling at a system that gives her such options.
But of course, feminists are not criticizing her for under-appreciating what she's got, because that would be tantamount to endorsing patriarchy. They are instead accusing her of "structural erasure," "intersectionality failure," and other feminist sins that are all fancy ways of saying she spoke out of turn.
In the feminist critical theory dogma, there is a hierarchy of oppression that Arquette apparently failed to respect when she asked "gay people and people of color" to support her fight for gender wage equality, given that the oppression they face is greater than hers. Also as per the dogma, she failed to appreciate that curing wage discrimination against (white) women like her would do little to cure it against, say, Latinas or black women, since it is compounded in their case by their racial membership. So suggesting that they drop their struggles and join hers bespeaks a tinny self-absorption, they accused.
Feminists may be right about that. But what they fail to understand is that if Arquette has fallen prey to what might be called the narcissism of oppression, it's their fault—or at least the fault of the identity politics that feminism has encouraged.
Identity politics instructs people to define their politics not by reference to general moral principles of justice and rights, but some shared experience of oppression. It divides people into myriad oppressed groups, each jockeying for power to secure its own interests against others—not put in place neutral rules that work for everyone (because such rules, in their thinking, only serve to entrench "existing power relations" and "structural marginalization").
The problem with identity politics is two-fold: One, given that everyone is oppressed in one respect or another, any group can invent a plausible narrative of oppression. Even white men increasingly see themselves as oppressed given that affirmative action policies favor other groups over them in admissions and hiring. In the game of identity politics, every group thinks only of the oppression it confronts rather than the opportunities it enjoys in order to move up the oppression scorecard. A balanced account of one's life and identity has become a ticket to marginalization, which is why it doesn't even occur to someone like Arquette that, all in all, she has it pretty good. Feminists can lecture Arquette and her ilk to "check their privilege" all they want, but it's unlikely that they'll convince them to take a backseat to other groups.
But the bigger problem with identity politics is not that it lets privileged people claim oppression, but that it prevents oppressed people from actually getting redress. That's because often the latter's main problems stem not from targeted discrimination but the unintended consequences of social policy.
For example, feminists like to point out that Latinas earn 54 cents for every dollar a white man earns (and white women 78 cents). But one huge contributing factor no doubt is this nation's immigration policy. Harsh deportation rules have produced a disproportionate number of Latino families headed by desperate single moms whose limited employment prospects force them to accept any job they can get. Black women likewise make 64 cents. However, that too is less due to discrimination by white employers and more due to the fact that, thanks to harsh drug sentencing laws, incarceration rates for black men are six times higher than the national average. One in every six black men is in jail. This means that many black moms, just like their Latina sisters, don't have the luxury of fully building their work skills and weighing their job options. Equal-pay mandates won't help either group's situation nearly as much as fixing America's broken immigration system or ending the drug war (or at least abandoning minimum sentencing laws that force judges to hand disproportionately long jail terms for minor drug offenses).
Identity politics and its oppression obsession prevents the emergence of a broader progressive reform agenda—even though that'll do much more to advance the cause of equality than directly chasing down every real or imagined experience of discrimination.
Arquette's feminist critics should focus less on her gauche Oscar comments and more on the lopsided framework that produced them.
This column originally appeared in The Week. You can find the rest of Ms. Dalmia's Week archive here.
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This says it all:
Identity politics instructs people to define their politics not by reference to general moral principles of justice and rights, but some shared experience of oppression. It divides people into myriad oppressed groups, each jockeying for power to secure its own interests against others?not put in place neutral rules that work for everyone (because such rules, in their thinking, only serve to entrench “existing power relations” and “structural marginalization”).
It should be required reading for everyone everywhere.
Cool, more sports teams.
I’m in, so long as we can stage a grievance team draft a la Chappelle Show.
And in this league the name Redskins is a feature not a bug!
Fuck yeah.
However the name “Fighting Whities” would not be allowed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Whites
Not because the whities would be offended, but because all the other teams would be triggered by the “Fighting” word.
you should have trigger warned me about the potential use of the terms “fighting” and “word.”
Man up Spence…
your sexism hurts my feelings.
50 Shades of Comments!
You know you like it when I hurt you…
Plus, any groups formed on the basis of being white is automatically racist. White people are not allowed a racial identity.
Identity politics instructs people to define their politics not by reference to general moral principles of justice and rights, but some shared experience of oppression. It divides people into myriad oppressed groups, each jockeying for power to secure its own interests against others
This does say it all. It is a shame that Shikha opposes identity politics EXCEPT for immigrants. I wonder if any of the effects she describes here might also be applied to other “hyphenated Americans”?
I have understood Shikha’s immigrant writings to stem from general moral principles, and not identity politics.
I am too lazy to find the link but she recently wrote an article about how wonderful identity politics is when it references immigration status.
How can “Feminist-American” be bad and “Italian-American” be good? I am sure that the vast majority of “feminist” writers believe they are also writing from general moral principles.
Joshua, you misspelled moron.
I don’t find that I’m triggered at all.
Although, if I were shorter, “jockeying” for power might cause me to snap.
“put in place neutral rules that work for everyone”
If only we had a neutral ruler…
Hahahaha! I have a more thorough observation:
Identity politics, as practiced today, is a product of supply side economics: There has to be someone who actually CARES about other groups being oppressed or for a SINGLE scapegoat to exist to provide entitlements for the oppressed groups.
Without a scapegoat, the victim scenario doesn’t work since there’s nobody to blame and get privileges from. It’s like cursing the rain.
Another necessary requirement is that someone actually care about the oppressed which in this case, is the oppressor. In truly oppressive regimes in 3rd world nations (where Libertarians like to get their workers and future voters from :-), various victim groups can cry till the cows come home and nothing is going to happen. Because NOBODY (in power) cares.
Only in a white male chivalrous European founded Patriarchy could privileged women prattle on about how oppressed they are and be so oblivious about it.
a way to destroy feminism in its current form would be to pit them against each other. have the non-white feminists against the the white feminists.
Way to just completely dismiss the genderfuck feminists, shitlord.
Hey now, shitlord is a term reserved for fat oppressors. People who oppress women have to get their own term, like “men” or “prettier women”.
how about we just ignore it and leave them in their echo chamber?
“intersectionality failure” and “structural erasure.”
Sorry, I have no idea what either of those terms mean in this context.
Don’t worry. They mean nothing.
I had exactly the same thought. It’s like the individual words have meanings, but when paired together they make no sense.
Maybe we can get someone to femsplain them to us.
I don’t think they can. I mean, I think THEY think they have meanings… but I think their explanations will fall amazingly flat when compared to the actual words they use.
However, I can’t tell them this or else I’m mansplaining about how words have definitions… right?
Exactly, you’re so embroiled in your male oriented paradigm of words having “meanings” that you can’t even empathize with the truer culture.
And basically the important thing is not what is said, but who is saying it.
not how they feel about it?
Not even.
DICK-tionary?!?!!111
Fucking patriarchal bastard.
But you’re sure to have an opinion on the politics of feminism, aren’t you?
“Let the strong wind of fish farming blow across the country!”
A classical composition gambles with lives, happiness, and even destiny itself!
Also: Insignificance is omni-present, much like candy.
http://nonsense.x2d.org/
From the nonsense generator:
“Abstraction is running away”
Score!
Yeah. Why? How are the two related?
I have a strong opinion on the fact that their ideology is so incoherent they have to purposefully obfuscate what they mean in a desperate attempt to sound intelligent.
That’s one possibility.
It’s not so much incoherent as vacuous.
No the ideas are very much in contradiction with each other. When you simultaneously propose infantilization and empowerment you can’t mask it with vacuousness. Without incoherence they would be mentally crippled by the cognitive dissonance.
It’s just that you’re unfamilar with the terms because they come from academic lingo and have been adopted by particular interest groups. Since you’re (I’m assuming) part of neither groups you’re unfamilar with the meaning so it’s no different then you being confused by me writing System.out.println(“Hello World!”); unless you’re educated on programming.
It’s the main job of these groups to create jargon for concepts that only exist in their minds. Science!
Without jargon, how can you have tenured professorships in gender studies?
Eh. Doesn’t even rate a 0.3 on the Judith Butler Feminist Incoherence Scale
Truth
Intersectionality is a “critical” theory in SJW studies whereby you must not simply examine an issue by just race or gender or whatever, but by how issues regarding the underprivileged compound when they intersect.
For example, a white woman has more privilege than a lesbian woman of color because the lesbian woman of color has the intersecting disadvantage of being a woman, a lesbian, and a person of color.
I wish I were making this shit up, but that’s genuinely what they believe in, a pseudoscientific formula for evaluating privilege.
but what if the lesbian woman of color was born into a wealthy family, or was really smart, and the white woman is dumb as rocks or lives in a trailer park?
A truly intersectional examination would take all of those things into account.
it’s impossible to take all these things into account.
Not at all. You just need to identify each one, and assign some subjective value to them. Add them up and compare.
I would love to see feminists write some kind of rule book with a mathematical formula for every conceivable characteristic. And then fight with each other about what the values ought to be.
Some disadvantages are more disadvantageous than others. Assigning values to them is patriarchal though.
SJW is what you get when you cross anti-depressants with self-esteem.
Don’t forget the Marxism!
Instead of “self-esteem” you should have put a blue ribbon for being obese.
Prize hogs deserve ribbons. So do SJW’s for ruining culture.
Oh, don’t be silly. You know that women are no good at math 🙂
So, uhh…
People are individuals and you should never judge them by what groups they are a part of?
That’s heretical!
i’ve been excommunicated before! (not really, but i would be).
Yeah, in certain contexts, being part of more “oppressed groups” gives you extra privilege. The most obvious examples being in academic settings where the black lesbian with a club-foot can say pretty much anything she wants and a white man will be scrutinized for anything the least bit controversial he says.
In a lot of contexts these days, privilege works exactly opposite to how these people imagine.
Economic and social class is part of the dynamic, depends on how economically privileged you are.
Why is that absurd? Does being a woman erase the disadvantages that come with being a lesbian? Why wouldn’t they compound?
Holy shit, ‘Tony’ actually believes this crap.
Why not? It is just like govt spending has a magical multiplier effect.
The reason that there are so few disabled minority women lesbians is because the oppression multiplier ratchets up hatred for them to such an extent that it causes the cis-shitlords to go insane and run them over on sight.
I mean, you might be able to resist running down a disabled minority. Or a lesbian. But a disabled, minority, lesbian woman? Unpossible!
Tony believes that between the gay thing and the microdick thing, he’ll end up sitting pretty in the new contra-privilege power structure.
“Holy shit, ‘Tony’ actually believes this crap.”
I would be shocked if he didn’t.
See Spencer right above you for an explanation.
Explain how a black lesbian professor of gender studies and queer theory at Oberlin University is less privileged than the white woman working cashier at WalMart in some backwater Alabama town.
In fact the “best” of these folks strenuously avoid rankings; that would be “playing Oppression Olympics,” and the point isn’t to say who has it worse or better, but to describe all the ways in which each has it bad. Then come to an understanding based on restorative justice and kumbayas.
but isn’t there a race to the top that would make someone want the highest score on the oppression metric board?
I mean, we could use this as a basis for minimum income as distributed by the government- so that the ones most oppressed earn as much as the most privileged…
I will concede that theoretically this can be applied with more nuance than I generalized, but ultimately SJW theories will run into the same issues presented by the economic calculation problem: lack of knowledge and the inability to respond to individual preferences and attributes.
And considering how fluid language is with these people and incentive to distort and twist language to suit their agenda, it becomes even more problematic to base any sort of solutions on such theories.
What do you mean, “these people?”
?_?
She’s not. And Patricia Arquette is not less privileged than a hetero male WalMart cashier. It’s about patterns in society, not individual cases.
It’s about patterns in society, not individual cases.
Just like racism. Now I get it.
holy shit, recognizing things like police officers are more likely to shoot black people and a good portion of the country is still perfectly willing to kill gay people is totally the same as racism _
Re: Tony,
Do you know who else sees patterns everywhere?
Agile Cyborg?
Everyone?
It’s about patterns in society, not individual cases.
Thanks for the insight Tony Clifton. It’s a darn good thing the constitution secures individual rights and ignores “patterns”.
Cool, so you’re for guilt by association, group punishment, group rewards and protected classes of people. What a horrid world this would be if all the stupid people in the world were stupid to the same degree as you.
No, I’m for not ignoring structural disadvantages in society like the nearly 100% white male libertarian movement is.
Hahahaha! Indeed, whenever a leftist tries to justify a socialist policy by claiming that most “developed” nations have it, it’s because “developed” is code for “Europe”. (Funny story, leftists were prattling on about the racism of voter ID and I observed that Germany has voter ID and they claimed the ID’s are free. I looked it up and as usual, they were lying. You NEED an ID to vote in Germany and it costs something like 50 Euros.)
Indeed, the vast majority of people on this planet that truly believe in, say, equality between the sexes are white men. Most feminists define “equality” as victim entitlements, sexism where it suits them, and man bashing. The remainder of women are patriarchal entitlement seekers. Only a tiny minority of straight women want actual gender equality and most of them are either lesbians or feminist apologists (someday feminism won’t be man bashing but until then, just keep it going.)
“Say what you will about white males, it remains nonetheless that societies dominated by them are the wealthiest, most tolerant and most just societies in human history.” – Yeah! Nazi Germany and Apartheid were, like, totally misunderstood. White Power!
Gee, I wonder why the group of people most likely to treat individuals AS individuals might see through your structural disadvantages bullshit.
Oh, and way to other the women and people of color that are libertarian and don’t let your petty labels box them in.
Must be nice to sit atop your throne and declare you know what’s right for everyone and no one else needs any agency.
Don’t sell Tony short, nobody is as stupid as he is.
Said like the true collectivist you are.
“It’s about patterns in society, not individual cases.”
This is a blatant lie. It’s about a pattern in society when feminists want it to be and about individual cases when feminists want it to be.
I am vastly less ‘economically privileged’ than many feminists who are constantly telling me INDIVIDUALLY that I’m privileged. If this isn’t about individual cases, then please explain to me how internet feminists can claim I’m personally privileged relative to them when all they know is my race and gender.
Like most feminist arguments, the words change meaning the instant it suits a feminist to unilaterally declare a shift in definition.
I would put it like this: you are privileged relative to a woman or person of color, all else being equal.
really? It must be amazing to be able to assert things as fact that are impossible to prove.
Hey look, an unfalsifiable hypothesis. Tony wants us to base policy off his religion, great.
Cool. Then I guess you would agree a mother and a father are better than two dads or two moms, all else being equal.
No, two dads would be better because they have more privilege. I think that’s how it works.
Tony you are a stupid childlike creature without the ability to think for yourself..
Women control 100% of the pussy in the world and that gives them control of 90% of the money.
Privileged to do what? Privilege isn’t just a thing all by itself, it means that you get a special dispensation to do something.
I think privilege is completely the wrong way to look at it. White males aren’t privileged, they are (relatively) unfettered. The problem is not that some people get special privilege. The problem is that as a result of a history of people being shitty to each other in many different ways, and to some extend because of ongoing bigotry and oppression, some people are at a structural disadvantage in society. But that is completely different from saying that some people are privileged. You don’t need to knock the so called “privileged” people down a peg. That would be bad for everyone. What we need is for people in traditionally oppressed groups to assert all of their rights and have them respected. And I think that enormous progress has been made on that front over the past century and continues to be made. People griping about privilege are working counter to that process, it seems to me, and make things worse.
For what it’s worth, I agree with this sentiment.
Well said indeed, Zeb.
Exactly. Because, socio-economic status doesn’t count. Because, if it did, 99% of SJWs’ claims of victimhood would be laughed at on their face. The entire SJW line is about rich kids finding something to bully people over and establish their relative status.
I have yet to meet a person who considers him/herself a Progressive or a proponent of “social justice”, whatever the fuck that is, or who actually refers to “privilege” in this context, who does not have a college education and/or who makes less than $65,000 annually. I think the “privilege” thing has really taken off with middle and upper class leftists, especially of the Caucasian persuasion, who need to feel oppressed to justify their own relative welfare in the eyes of other socialists or Progressives or whatever the fuck they’re calling themselves these days. It makes them feel “authentic” and lets them talk shit about their own socio-economic peers without seeming hypocritical.
I call this the “George Soros” paradigm: Collaborate and kiss butt and sell out your fellow people for personal profit.
In a way, it’s ruthless capitalism at its best (which is why pure libertarianism rarely works: Because someone ALWAYS sells it out.)
I do know a lot of working class leftists in New Jersey. They’re like the guys from Clerks: Losers who like to think of themselves as smart. They’re dying off.
2012 was a unique changing point in American and Aztec history: At least in the states, anyway: It was the first time in decades that college age white males voted as a majority Republican (and grow more conservative/anti-Democrat) afterwards. The continuous white male bashing around them discourages them from becoming leftists. This also means that about a (shrinking) minority of white males on campus are either amoral scumbags or emotionally or intellectually retarded. Most grow out of it.
Does being a man erase the disadvantages that come with being a lesbian?
well, one can’t be a lesbian without being a woman…
Are we sure about that nowadays?
A lesbian trapped in a man’s body?
Can you be a lesbian without being a woman?
I sure as shit hope that intersection isn’t a 4-way stop because you know that you will be fucked if you have to wait for a bunch of women and lesbians to figure out who has the right of way. Amirite?
shouldn’t they use a roundabout- being more European and everything.
#squirrelbrain
That took a lot of words, but you still knocked it outta the park.
Of course, the most telling aspect of the whole line of bullshit is the fact that it consciously omits socio-economic status, what might actually be considered actual privilege, in its calculations. So, by the SJW perspective, Jim-Bob from Appalachia is privileged relative to Sasha and Malia Obama.
I hate to defend these people but they are in fact supposed to be class-conscious.
Whether they’re supposed to be or not, that’s not the practice. I’ve had SJWs answer the example I cited above in the affirmative. On a few different occasions.
The ones I know definitely talk about class and would agree the Obamas are privileged.
Being a member of a protected class confers privilege. I can’t think of anything that confers more privilege than having special treatment before the law.
Well obviously you hang with a much nicer class of SJW’s than Bill does.
The Obama daughters are only 1/4 privileged.
I’m pretty sure being the President’s immediate family puts you right on top of the privilege heap no matter what else you have going on.
I would agree. But, that doesn’t seem to factor into the SJW equation.
I am a white male from Appalachia and am definitely more privileged than the Obama girls. For starters, I grew up hunting and wade fishing in relatively pristine streams. I lived in the country with miles of forest, surrounded by wildlife. Knew all of our neighbors, had a huge yard, etc. They grew up in a concrete zoo with noise and traffic 24/7, doing the stupid etiquette BS, learning no valuable skills to actually do for themselves, etc. Not to mention that they have completely worthless pieces of shit for parents.
I wish I were making this shit up, but that’s genuinely what they believe in, a pseudoscientific formula for evaluating privilege.
Why don’t they just call it what it is: Eugenics.
If Tony admitted he was a eugenicist, then he wouldn’t be able to cudgel libertarians and conservatives with the racism card bat.
Eugenics? How so?
Evaluating and rating people based upon their gender, race, disability, or orientation.
The only part missing is the abortion… oh wait
I’m confused, how is it not reasonable that somebody who is part of multiple disadvantaged groups has more disadvantages then a person who is part of only one of those groups?
Femsplanation (and it hurts my soul that I know what they are): intersectionality failure is failing to realize where your personal combination of oppressed groups falls on the great victim totem pole. For instance a white woman is less oppressed than a black woman cause black trumps woman, however a black man is less oppressed than a black woman, because woman trumps man and so on. It gets really complicated when you throw in religion, sexual preference, economic and educational status and so on.
“totem pole”
Innocent metaphor or deliberate prod? Either way I approve.
means “she acted like there aren’t any black or gay women in feminism”.
“structural erasure” means you are not taking a person’s skin color into account. You know the sort of thing that only evil fucks like Martin Luther King Jr. could endorse.
Kinky!
I read and post links to Amanda Marcotte for fun, and even I could care less about this shit.
One would hope that this sounds the death knell of the feminist movement for this generation. One would hope.
Doubtful. Too much money to be made off Identity politricks for the foreseeable future.
drug warriors?
Hitler?
Jews:Hitler :: Drugs:?
A)Cops
B)Politicians
C)Department of Justice
D) all of the above
E)Charlie Sheen
what? I guess charlie sheen bakes drugs?
Lyndon Johnson?
Tony and his fellow Democrats?
“And whose fault is that?”
A mixture of bad drug policy and African Americans actually committing way more crimes.
So it’s two things – society and inner city culture.
It is hilarious when progs use high rates of incarceration as prima facie evidence of racism. In France, something like 60% of all prisoners are Muslims so progressives have determined this means the French must be wrongfully imprisoning them, rather than the far more likely possibility that Muslims in France actually tend to commit more crimes.
Agreed. I’m not sure about how much shitty policy versus other elements contributed to this problem. I wouldn’t be surprised if something like 90% of it were due to cities intentionally fucking over blacks as much as possible during the Jim Crow era and beyond.
Despite this, the black community really needs to deal with this culture that glorifies crime. And the rest of us need to deal with correcting the structural problems which contribute to such a culture.
feminists like to point out that Latinas earn 54 cents for every dollar a white man earns (and white women 78 cents)
Given that the parenthesized statement is a well-refuted canard, I wouldn’t be surprised if the preceding statement were as well. To the extent that it is true, it probably less reflects outright pay discrimination or inequities of the immigration system as it does the disproportionate under-education and lack of advanced job skills of Hispanic immigrants. The number of even low-income white American men changing shitty baby diapers for wealthy white women in the suburbs, for example, compared to Hispanic women would make comparison of compensation for comparable work at least somewhat complicated.
Well, Latinas have a teenage birthrate about 2.5 times higher than Caucasian women. I wonder if there’s anything more than correlation here.
That whole “78 cents” thing makes no sense to me. If I am an employer, and I could get the same work from someone, but only pay them 78% of their value, why the hell would I not hire all women? Or all Latinas? Why would I ever hire a white man if I wanted to make a profit?
Of course, evil corporations are totally motivated by ill-gained profits, but only as long as it fits the narrative.
They are willing to forgo some extra profit in order to maintain the Patriarchy. It’s just another cost of doing business.
Just like when Chuck Schumer claimed that Republican kulak wreckers were intentionally sabotaging their own businesses to make Obama look bad.
Although I think the statistic is largely bullshit, what you describe does happen because women are far less likely to negotiate for a higher salary. But that isn’t a point in the feminist’s favor, it’s another point against. If they really cared about advancing other women they’d encourage them to be more assertive where it counts, like asking for the pay they want.
Men are assertive; women are bitches.
Speaking of bitches…
Men are assertive; women are bitches.
No, no, ‘Tony’, men are leaders and women are bossy little cunts.
Ban Bossy!
It’s true that women are scared of being seen as bitchy, but that fear shouldn’t apply to negotiation where the potential employee should view the potential employer as an equal. A company that loses out on a potentially great employee because they had the gall to negotiate is no better off than the employee who didn’t get the job. The bottom line doesn’t care about your gender.
Prejudice both overt and subtle is but one reason among a thousand why the market is not perfectly efficient.
Re: Tony,
You look so sweet when you dwell on things you barely understand, like economics.
Prejudice is everywhere. But at least in the private sector you don’t usually have to wait a minimum of four to eight years for the prejudiced assholes to get what’s coming to them.
No you just have to wait however long it takes for government to rectify the problem.
Re: Tony,
Because government critters are perfect people devoid of prejudices.
You heard it here first, folks!
The same government that created Jim Crow laws. Yeah, sure.
No, a different one in fact.
Oh, you mean the one that enforced slavery.
It’s just a gerbil on a wheel in your head, isn’t it?
It’s just a gerbil on a wheel in your head, isn’t it?
Which is a completely different place than where Tony keeps his gerbil.
You keep saying government is the solution to problems, and I keep pointing out that those problems were at one time enforced by government. If you only had a brain…
Government guide us. Government teach us. Government protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.
Da tovarishch?
I’ve always been more of a “Landru, Guide us!” kinda guy.
“No you just have to wait however long it takes for government to rectify the problem.”
How can the government eliminate subtle, unconscious racism, you fucking dipshit?
I hate you so much. I begin a conversation trying to be civil, but then you say something so stupid I cannot let it stand without invective.
Your entire argument is that there is subtle sexism that exists in people’s minds. Outside of somehow genetically engineering mind-readers and sending those who fail telepathic exams to re-education camp, there is quite literally no way for the Federal Government to eliminate unconscious sexism.
You think government is run by wizards.
A good start would be acknowledging that it exists at all. Of course, the entire conservative movement is based on the hypothesis that it’s actually white heterosexual Christian males who are the most oppressed. (They’re definitely not suffering from any kind of bias or myopia.)
Government can do some things, like mandate equal pay, up to and including affirmative action, to address or eliminate the outcomes of existing prejudices, with the hope that eventually the prejudices will disappear as formerly disadvantaged groups demonstrate their potential.
In Tony’s fever dream world, the telepaths could just explode your brain for having unclean thoughts.
‘Progressive Scanners:The Motion Picture’.
And you’re doing a bang-up job of it, Tony.
Ha, ha! You actually believe the government – the single entity filled with the biggest amount of assholes who couldn’t care less about you – would rectify it?
Jesus Tony. Just fucking wow.
No one said the market is perfectly efficient. Idiot.
Please, it’s Tony. He doesn’t understand what efficient means.
Shh. Tony still thinks the market is something that can be controlled, never understanding that it’s just the name we give to normal human interactions.
can i quote you on that?
Men are assholes, women are strong.
Wow, it’s almost like open ended shitty proverbs aren’t an actual argument.
+1
Yes, your point being… ?
Any hypothesis about disadvantage owing itself to “natural order” or whatever (including “the blacks are by nature dumber and lazier”) presents a significant problem to libertarians. Since we can’t overcome the disparity through social justice activism or any other means, you are stuck with advocating for keeping the disadvantaged groups in their place. (Where the line is drawn between letting “nature” take its course and actively helping “nature” along tends to be difficult to figure out for oppressors who believe in such things.) So do we have a welfare state set up to help these naturally disadvantaged groups, or do we let disparities persist, celebrate the unfairness, and be thankful we were born white men?
Everyone’s a little bit racist and anyone claiming to be completely free of racism is probably more racist than most. But I’m happy to keep the topic on women and your hypothesis that they are disadvantaged naturally and there’s nothing we can do about it.
Re: Tony,
“Man is born with sin so he must repent!”
Same shit, different pile.
“Man is born with sin so he must repent!”
Same shit, different pile.
Why, it’s almost like people like Tony subconsciously just attempt to secularize and accept Judeo-Christian ethical arguments awhile decrying Christianity without a hint of self awareness. Who could have seen that coming?
Everyone’s a little bit racist and anyone claiming to be completely free of racism is probably more racist than most.
Translation: I have racist tendencies and can’t possibly imagine another person not having them because I fundamentally lack empathy.
Please Tony, continue to assert that you magically know how other people think. Because that doesn’t expose a profound arrogance at all.
What’s it like being devoid of so much humanity that you think everyone else lacks the agency to do what they see fit for their own lives?
Shorter Tony: Blacks and women are inherently inferior, and in need of a helping white, male hand from government. Anyone who questions this is both racist and sexist.
Blacks and women are disadvantaged, not inherently inferior.
If you are disadvantaged because of the biological characteristics you were born with, then you’re not going to be participating in a free market, are you?
Re Tony,
One thing explains the other. Otherwise there would be no point in having affirmative action programs.
If you think that these are needed because of structural prejudice, be reminded that in Malaysia, people of Chinese ascendancy (a small minority) are VERY disadvantaged in terms of political rights yet they hold 80% of the wealth.
Either the Chinese happen to be extraordinary people, or aliens from outer space, or this disadvantage you speak of is nothing more than a clever excuse to promote those programs.
The idiot still doesn’t understand the implication of the word free in Free Market.
The idiot still doesn’t understand the implication of the word free in Free Market.
Let’s give credit where credit is due. The people playing the role of Tony don’t understand the meaning of “market” either.
Do you realize how much Jews have accomplished around the world? Real discrimination, small populations, often easily identifiable, etc. Are they inherently more intelligent? And, if that is the reason…is it possible another group is inherently less intelligent? Or, do they work hard and have a history of helping each other, and encouraging education? And, if that is the case, then that is the solution for the other groups too, perhaps.
And, if that is the case, then that is the solution for the other groups too, perhaps.
No. The solution is always to tear someone down. Equality is the lowest common denominator.
If you are disadvantaged because of the biological characteristics you were born with, then you’re not going to be participating in a free market, are you?
Yes, it’s still a free market. You’re talking about it being fair (an emotional concept), not free (a logical concept). You can’t have both. To make it fair then it must no longer be free. Or just.
Put a 90lb weakling on a football field and it’s still football. To make it fair you must take away freedom and justice for the other players.
We silly libertarians still subscribe to the idea of freedom and justice for all, while you want to destroy them both in the name of emotions like fairness and envy.
Women are not disadvantaged in the 21st century United States. Blacks, yes, to a certain degree. Women, not even a fucking chance. If anything, women have an advantage in modern society. Examples:
– Men are 50 times likelier to receive the death penalty.
– Men are subject to the draft, women are not.
– Men are expected to pay for dates, etc.
That’s just what I came up with in 2 seconds as I run out of the office early. I’m sure there are much better examples others can add.
Yeah, that was pretty crazy even for Tony.
I’ve read it several times and I keep coming up back to Tony advocating for a welfare state because blacks are too lazy to work.
Wait a minute here! I thought Mexicans were the lazy ones! That’s why blacks and Mexicans don’t marry! They’re afraid their kids will be tool lazy to steal!
What about when blacks marry native americans? Those fuckers are tough. Of course they grow up fighting because they are a boy named Sioux.
Re: Tony,
Actually, it doesn’t. Not for those of us who are individualists. Collectivists – like you – on the other hand, revel on such hypothesis like happy pigs in the muck: “We know (wink, wink!) that you’re inferior, so you need our help!”
Yes, Tony. That’s why we favor a Minimum Wage and Licensing laws.
Idiot.
Just support equal opportunity and individual liberty (the supposition that anyone one can do anything) and forget about the cultural marxist belief that all groups must have equal representation in all facets of society, which is un-American.
Half the women I know are good looking, at least to some extent. The good looking women seek powerful men. A lot of their energy goes into marrying well. When they do, these women, often the most resourceful, drop out of the work force, or work part time. That is the only reason for the pay disparity. It isn’t about bonding, or sexism, or employers not hiring women.
Good looking women too often have a liveliness about them. They are most alive, and often more intelligent than dull looking women. Men are attracted to that and want to have babies with bright lively women. The best and brightest tend to not achieve what they could if they were male.
But fat stupid women are disadvantaged, so you owe them your sperm in the name of “fairness”.
To be fair, my penis has only one eye, and it’s blind.
Well that’s why Jesus invented the gloryhole.
I spent a year working on a contract in the marketing department of a Fortune 100 company. The department was filled with young ladies who were between graduating college and having their first kid.
They were there to a) meet a high earner and b) prove to other women that they were a career gal and not a patsy of the Patriarchy. Of course as soon as they had their first kid, they dropped out of the work force and stayed at home with their kid.
The turnover in the department was pretty incredible.
“Half the women I know are good looking, at least to some extent.”
50% of all things are above the median.
Exactly. The entire country could literally erase nearly 25% of the cost of wages by firing all the men and hiring the cheaper sex.
Not only that, but then the men can go on welfare and we will get a Welfare Multiplier Effect!!!
I have always used this as my thought experiment for people who espouse the 78 cents notion. I’ve never heard a satisfactory response (because one isn’t possible).
Well, I don’t even! Why should it possibly matter that white men are more likely to major in things like engineering or computer science, rather than Wymyns Studies or Critical Theory?! Should they be rewarded for their troglodyte choice of academic interest, rather than pursuing Enlightenment?! I don’t feel like that should be the case!
So, just stop it with your cis-mansplaining!
To the extent that white American men may take a job changing shitty baby diapers, they probably do make more than their female counterparts.
This, of course, could have nothing to do with supply and demand.
I learned yesterday that feminists are a little bitter about the gay marriage movement. It legitimizes the very concept of marriage that 2nd wave feminists have decried as oppressive for 50 years.
It’s fun to watch a 2nd wave feminist law professor squirm in front of a gay student when I explain to her how her feminism is pitted against his gay marriage.
I hold both opinions and it’s not terribly difficult. Marriage is a pointless relic of patriarchy; and it should be available to gay people equally.
So using your logic that oppression can be compounded, does that mean two gay guys getting married blow the top off the Patriarchy-meter?
Re: Tony,
I gather that as a schizophrenic, your delusions always make sense in your mind.
Gay patriarchs?
The Gaytriarchy is keeping me down!
Marriage is a pointless relic of patriarchy
The way our conversation went was even cuter. It started with the fact that the French have banned public use of burquah (and the other face covering one… niquab?), in part because they think it oppresses women, even if the women wear it voluntarily. Polygamy is banned (according to this prof) because it oppresses women. She also mentioned the undercurrent that marriage in general oppresses women, whether or not they do it voluntarily. I just connected the dots for her. If marriage is oppressive in a non-power neutral environment, then we should ban it for the gays even if they want it, because gays are oppressed people like women and deserve government protection from oppression whether or not they can see the oppression for themselves.
trshmnster the terrible: LOL.
people like you
Homophobe!!!!!2!!!!1!!
Not only passing on accumulated capital, it is also a good way to determine who gets to use the labor of kids.
In agrarian societies, lots of kids meant lots of help on the farm. Marriage helped clear up who those kids belong to. Sure you might be slipping it to Farmer Brown’s wife on the sly, but he gets to use the resulting kids to plant his crops.
Marriage has historically been about property rights. Romantic love has nothing to do with it until very recently.
“Patriarchy”
Remember, Tony calls us paranoid whackjobs, when he might as well be whining about the Illuminati.
dou?ble?think
?d?b?l?THiNGk/Submit
noun
the acceptance of or mental capacity to accept contrary opinions or beliefs at the same time, especially as a result of political indoctrination.
Apparently gays hate women anyway, so not much love lost there to begin with.
A lot of straight people don’t see that for many gay men, women just aren’t “there” most of the time. It’s not a love/hate thing, it just is. She should not be expecting them to fight women’s or lesbians’ battles either, cuz it’s not going to happen.
They are instead accusing her of “structural erasure,” “intersectionality failure,” and other feminist sins that are all fancy ways of saying she spoke out of turn.
She’s not compliant with the latest standard gibberish! Burn the witch!
Seriously, the only reasonable way to respond to SJWs when they go down the jargon hole is just to dismiss them out of hand.
-jcr
Which is much easier than attempting to understand the jargon.
If they wanted to be understood, they wouldn’t be inventing the jargon. The purpose of the jargon is to conceal the idiocy of their ideas.
-jcr
That’s one possibility.
Do either of the terms convey any meaning that a simpler, plain English term doesn’t convey? Then it’s jargon that only serves the purpose JCR identified.
I don’t see what’s so difficult about understanding these terms. All fields of thought have their jargon.
Except oppression mongering isn’t a field of thought.
How does it make you feeeeeeeeeeel!!!!
You didn’t answer my question, Tony. Is there any meaning in the terms that can’t be conveyed more simply using simple English? There’s a difference between jargon and terms of art. The latter is used when a plain English reference would waste a lot of words. The former is used to obscure. I would think someone who claims to be an editor would know that.
You didn’t answer my question, Tony. Is there any meaning in the terms that can’t be conveyed more simply using simple English?
A heightened level of jargon-ese is typical of most pseudo-intellectual endeavors. You have to fluff the language of an endeavor or area of ‘study’ when it’s largely meaningless at its core.
If this weren’t true, the Sokal Hoax never would have worked so spectacularly.
Intersectionality
Structural inequality
Still doesn’t answer my question, Tony.
Just because you found a link doesn’t mean you understand the concepts.
Jargon is used to confuse.
We read some feminist junk in University. It was dense and difficult. So, I re-wrote it for everyone. Once the jargon was removed it was shallow and foolish.
Jargon is used to keep people off balance. It isn’t used to describe complex situations. Simple English works best for pretty much every situation. Unless you don’t actually want people to really hear you. Then, you use jargon.
Which would explain why government relies heavily on jargon.
Which is much easier than attempting to understand the jargon completely made-up newspeak intended to give a patina of legitimacy to a load of bullshit and nonsense.
FTFY
“Tony” is really phoning it in today. If I was his handler, I wouldn’t pay him for this thread.
Yeah, he hasn’t called for anyone to be sent to the gulag or shot in the head yet.
I don’t think Media Matters runs that efficiently. It’s 25 cents per post, regardless.
Re: “One in every six black men is in jail”. Not true. Read your own reference that that text links to. It says, “One in six black men had been incarcerated as of 2001” at some time in their life.
Shorter Tony: “The government should employ alchemists and medicine men to mix special potions that make unconscious sexist thoughts go away.
“Now I’m going to click my heels together three times and say ‘government is magic, government is magic, government is magic’ until all my problems are resolved by the stalwart ubermensch and philosopher kings who run for federal office.”
I love it when feminists rip each other apart over meaningless drivel. Keep it up.
Anytime anyone on the left goes after anyone else on the left, it is a win for everyone else. The enemy of my enemy…etc.
I do get schadenfreude when Marxists run into their own internal contradictions.
They resolve it easily enough with doublethink.
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You know, MaryJane, if you were a man you’d be making $74.36 every 15 minutes!
I started with my online business I earn $58 every 15 minutes. It sounds unbelievable but you wont forgive yourself if you don’t check it out.
For information check this site. ????? http://www.jobsfish.com
Poor Female-American Patricia Arquette.
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Clueless celebrities tend to be clueless.
Didn’t read the comments to see if anybody else pointed this out; but did the editors intend this pun with the subhead:
“What women need is a broad progressive agenda…”?
Does Planned Parenthood offer gift certificates for abortions?
I mean…a REAL woman isn’t really a woman, until she has at least 3 or 4 abortions under her belt.
The wage gap is bullshit. Same job, same experience it’s only 3-4%. The idiots that believe gender theory and ignore evolutionary biology should be treated with as much disdain as flat earthers.
I was recently lectured by some upper middle class housewives (who enjoy the freedom their wage earning husbands give them) about the “gender” pay gap. The lack of self awareness is stunning.
Were they hot? Or at least decent enough for admission into the rolodex
Back in the early days of the Internet, on USENET, nearly ALL the long time feminists were housewives of professors or had internet access another way and spare time to prattle on about how oppressed they were because they didn’t win a Nobel prize for shoe shopping.
Of course their lack of awareness is amazing because feminism is merely a paradoxical extension of the Patriarchy rather than a repudiation of it: Bill Clinton and other sugar daddies need to give career women special privileges in order for the women to be “equal”. It’s like Sir Galahad rescuing a damsel in disdress from a dragon that’s not treating her as an equal. Equals don’t need rescuing.
My last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My sisters friend has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can’t believe how easy it was once I tried it out. This is what I do,
http://www.wixjob.com
What’s the easiest cure for deported latinos and incarcerated negroes? Don’t sneak into the USA illegally and don’t do drugs!
I’ve made $64,000 so far this year working online and I’m a full time student. I’m using an online business opportunity I heard about and I’ve made such great money. It’s really user friendly and I’m just so happy that I found out about it. Heres what I’ve been doing,
http://www.work-mill.com
Oh I love that “”Reality” Check.org” website. What a font of unintentional originality. I have no idea what they’re talking about, but it certainly requires a high level of education to generate such blath – er, I mean, uh – critical analysis and penetrating (OOPS!) insights. Unfortunately, even with such a high standard of ideological purity, there is the occasional racist regression: “Kumbaya feminism demands that Black women take a backseat…”
The author’s condemnation of identity politics is simplistic. Sometimes, oppression really does exist. Was Jim Crow wrong? Did Jim Crow oppress Americans with African ancestry? Is affirmative action, a racist policy, similar to Jim Crow?
The left’s identity politics is wrong not in that it breaks down electorates into different groups (which is often quite natural and even a natural function of government, otherwise why have nations, corporations, and other institutions?) but rather they make up grievances either out of nothing or even project their own privileges onto others.
In other words, Arquette was figuratively telling the world at the Oscar’s ceremony: The world doesn’t have a bread shortage because they can always eat cake.
The core of leftist identity politics is not to create multiple different groups but rather target one: white males, and then form a coalition around that even as they claim to be heroes. It’s like Hollywood make-believe.
No, taking lgbtq people and people of color for granted while erasing the women of those groups from feminism isn’t just speaking out of turn, it’s wrong.
If modern feminism is oversensitive about it, it because third wave feminism is a reaction to second wave feminism whose attitudes about PoC and LGBTQ community can be summarized respectively as “who gives a fuck?” and “how can we make life worse for you?”.