Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - Why Do People Hate #Feminism？ #6 - Everything is Sexist

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Sept. 24, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

16:19

Why Do People Hate #Feminism？ #6 - Everything is Sexist

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	I was appointed as Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women six months ago.
	And the more I've spoken about feminism, the more I have realized that fighting for women's rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating.
	But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word.
	Why has the word become such an uncomfortable one?
	Hello and welcome to the sixth installment of Why Do People Hate Feminism, a series where I try to explain to feminists exactly why everybody hates them because they don't seem to have any idea.
	And in doing so, try to explain some of the tenets of feminism for normal people to understand.
	In this episode, we will be dealing with sexism and how everything can be declared sexist and therefore problematic to the feminist mind.
	But don't take my word for it.
	Let's take the word of a world-renowned, insanely popular feminist.
	Because, like, when you start learning about systems, everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic, and you have to point it all out.
	Desperate, forget about Paris, we're impressed every day, what you say, it's a white supremacist, everything is sexist, everything is sexist, patriarchy, sexist.
	Okay, this last one isn't feminists declaring feminism to be sexist.
	This is merely the public declaring feminism to be sexist.
	But everything else on this list was an open and brazen declaration by a feminist that whatever the subject is, is sexist.
	Because as Anita says, there is nothing that isn't sexist.
	So let's try to understand what we're dealing with when a feminist declares something to be sexist.
	So the first place to start would obviously be the dictionary.
	The dictionary being a completely legitimate source of feminist definitions.
	I mean, hell, Gloria Steinem herself defines feminism using the dictionary.
	What is the definition of feminism?
	Oh, Grace, I don't want to be disappointing, but it's the dictionary.
	I mean, actually, if you just go, you see that it's the belief in the full social, economic, political equality of males and females.
	So with that mandate, Merriam-Webster defines sexism as prejudice or discrimination based on sex.
	Behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex.
	So this is a really broad definition.
	Prejudice or discrimination based on sex.
	I discriminate based on sex all the time.
	Heterosexuality is discrimination based on sex, as is homosexuality.
	In fact, it seems that this is a definition so broad as to be almost useless.
	So I decided to consult Social Justice Wiki in order to corroborate this definition.
	And it turns out that this is a perfectly adequate definition of sexism.
	Sexism is an umbrella term for discrimination based on gender at multiple levels of analysis, e.g. both individual acts and systems.
	Okay, well that kind of makes it look like everything is actually sexist.
	Without having any understanding of systems, it seems that anything that has the potential to differentiate between male and female is sexist.
	But the thing is, as a man, I might not even be able to really understand what sexism is, despite the fact that sexism isn't actually a gendered term, at least not according to the dictionary.
	So as a word, as a concept, sexism did not exist before the 1960s, when it was made up by women of the American New Left, who appropriated the terminology of black power and applied it to the women's liberation movement.
	Men may not know this history, but most instinctively understand that sexism is a feminist preserve, policed by Puritans.
	They therefore uneasily leave it to their women to lay down the law on the subject.
	Is that sexist?
	If you say so, darling.
	This is of course a deeply sexist sentiment, one that discriminates exclusively between men and women.
	There's simply no other way of looking at it.
	The article ends with, if any man could draw up a comprehensive, infallible guide to navigating this treacherous territory, we would certainly erect a statue to his everlasting memory.
	Well, I can help you.
	As we've already discussed, it's everything.
	Anything that could potentially discriminate between male and female is sexist.
	If this post on Gorka Property Kinja is anything to judge by, and given the popularity of this post, I'm going to guess that it is.
	To say that not everything is racist, sexist, or homophobic is a phrase that should never come out of your mouth except to criticize it.
	This is also the opinion of writers at Feminist Frequency Partner Bitch Media, who just state outright, no, everything you do is sexist.
	If I had to guess, I would say it's probably something to do with misogyny.
	I think Franklape misogyny is the air that we breathe.
	Jesus, did you hear that matronly tone?
	And look at this judgy expression.
	Let's hear it again because I think she's serious.
	I think frank late misogyny is the air that we breathe.
	You might think that's quite a radical point of view to have, but it's actually quite mainstream for this brand of feminism.
	And it's not hard to find celebrities espousing this as a position, like Taylor Swift.
	Misogyny is ingrained from birth.
	She thinks that women's achievements are recognised differently from men's.
	A man writing about his feelings from a vulnerable place is brave, a woman writing about her feelings from a vulnerable place is over-sharing or whining.
	And misogyny is ingrained in people from the time they are born.
	So to me, feminism is probably the most important movement that you can embrace, because it's basically just another word for equality.
	I suppose she'd know better than me, I haven't had any wins at Billboard.
	I haven't been on Maxim magazine or glamour magazine covers, and I haven't had any viral YouTube videos.
	Basically, even though I'm a strong independent fish that doesn't need a bicycle, I'm not making patriarchy work for me.
	So it's not enough to feel personally empowered or be personally successful within the oppressive framework of the current system.
	Even if an individual woman can make patriarchy work for her, it's still a losing game for the rest of the women on the planet.
	There are of course women warning against seeing sexism everywhere, at least they're warning against pointing it out.
	Not because there's a chance that everything might not be sexist, but because the definition of sexism goes both ways, and men may well start getting wise to using it for their own advantage.
	However, the author does make some good points.
	Women are seeing sexism everywhere.
	The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote of a blick, which in his native German translates as a way of seeing.
	And I thought sexism basically boiled down to a few bad apples with misguided personal beliefs born out of ignorance or overt hatred.
	So it wasn't until I was in my early to mid-20s that I began to realize my impression of feminism had been completely wrong.
	With the help of some amazing mentors and by reading a lot of feminist writing, especially the words of women of colour and queer women from around the world, I learned to see through a sociological lens.
	And it's this sociological lens that they're talking about when they say he described it like a pair of goggles, through which everyone of us interprets the events of our lives.
	Consequently, our beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies.
	It follows that if I believe, as a woman, I am constantly being belittled and judged by men, I will find ways to confirm this belief.
	She gives us a really solid example of this confirmation bias in action.
	In the example of The Telegraph's Louisa Peacock, who was turned away from a swanky cocktail lounge restaurant because the doorman deemed her inappropriately dressed.
	As a consequence, she complained of her sexist treatment to the management, and the doorman was fired.
	Louisa says the doorman looked her up and down in a way that made her feel, although she wasn't dressed sexily enough.
	This is a perfect example of a blick in action.
	There are myriad interpretations of a look, and only the looker can confirm if they're accurate.
	If one extracts all the conjecture and simply reads the reported dialogue, it appears that the entire exchange lasted no more than a minute.
	The doorman says Louisa is not dressed smartly.
	She maintains she is.
	He refuses to budge.
	She turns on her not high heels, having labelled this as a sexist incident.
	Some further communication could have confirmed whether indeed this was about gender, whether it was snobbery, or missing a memo about what constitutes a smart dress code.
	If it transpires that all of Louisa's assumptions are correct, then I will be suitably outraged.
	It's obviously unacceptable for entry to an establishment to be granted or refused according to how much the doorman wants to have sex with potential clientele.
	But I don't have enough information to make an informed judgment.
	She goes on to say, if I were a man reading the account, I can imagine thinking, hang on, I'm expected to care about feminism because women are being denied access to bars based on their footwear.
	How many times have I heard no trainers in my life?
	I'd probably conclude that there were more important issues, to which some feminist factions would counter, but it's symptomatic of the underlying misogyny pervading our society.
	Their collective blick.
	To which the response would be, not all men, and so the whacking great chasm of misunderstanding between the sexes would spiral ad infinitum.
	This very sane and rational critique about feminists declaring everything to be sexist is lost on the majority of feminists.
	However, there is a minority of feminists that are waking up to the issue.
	Such as this article, feminists need to stop sounding false alarms about sexism.
	This is referring to when Mark Zuckerberg said, I'd feel like I was not doing my job if I spent any of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous about my life, referring to the fact that he wears grey t-shirts all the time.
	Despite the fact that he wasn't talking about women in any way with that statement, some idiots still managed to interpret this as a sexist statement.
	But don't make the mistake of thinking that what these people are doing isn't in any way feminist.
	It absolutely is.
	Now, feminism is not a monolith, nor should it be.
	Just as feminism showed us that there are many kinds of women and men in society, there must also be many kinds of feminism.
	This multiplicity is essential to progress, for the contours of feminism are defined by the battles between various factions.
	Feminists have to not just hold society accountable, but hold each other accountable, to keep mainstream feminism from losing its edge.
	But there is also the risk of feminist overreach, which is exactly what we're seeing here.
	Now I found this article through a website called Sociology Job Market Rumours, where they were discussing it, and agreeing with some of the more important points made within it.
	The minute feminism becomes hypercritical and humorless, it becomes too easy for the mainstream to dismiss our more valid complaints, which this poster thought was a great point.
	They are well aware that even if they genuinely think that everything in the world is sexist, declaring it to be so is just going to make people in the mainstream roll their eyes and declare a case of first world problems.
	I think the issue here can really be exemplified by this exchange from later on in the thread, where the first poster says that they agree with the original post.
	It was insinuated that the poster was transphobic, because they did a double take on someone who could be trans or gender non-conforming when in the bathroom.
	I said that I sometimes do a double take, not because I'm transphobic, but I was just surprised.
	All of the time that this happened, I leave them alone.
	I do a quick two seconds look almost reflexively just to make sure that it is not me that entered the wrong bathroom.
	I was accused of being transphobic.
	I clarified that I do not really care who is using the bathroom as long as I am not using the wrong one.
	But she insisted that the very fact that I took a two second glance at that person makes me a bigot.
	I give up.
	I neither refuse, confront, nor feel uncomfortable with sharing bathrooms with gender non-conforming people.
	Despite that, I'm transphobic.
	I'm at a loss for words.
	To which someone directly replied, don't you know that transphobia, like sexism and racism, is unconscious?
	It doesn't matter what you consciously think or feel.
	And I really think that this hits on an important point.
	Declaring everything to be sexist is not giving anything the benefit of the doubt.
	It's assuming the motivation of everything, and even when the motivation is from a feminist who simply wants to make sure that she is in the right bathroom, this is declared to be sexist.
	Even though there may well be no sexist motivation, and to simply Kafka trap this, well, you were just unconsciously sexist.
	You can't help but be sexist, apparently.
	So it's not only not right, but it's not even wrong.
	It can't be shown that there is a point at any time that one is not sexist.
	It is essentially unscientific.
	But it's also just assuming the worst about everything.
	It's unrealistic.
	Essentially, what feminism needs to determine whether something is actually sexist is an aphorism like Hanlon's razor.
	Never attributes to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
	In the case of feminism, it would probably go something like Never attribute to sexism that which can adequately be explained by thoughtlessness.
	But let's go through the checklist.
	It's all missing with me.
	Everything is sexist when you break the dead.
	Doesn't matter how osperant the men of our marriage We're oppressed every day, what you're saying is a white suit.
	Everything is sexist, everything's a gender, conspiracy.
	Everything is sexist, it's a patriarchy.
	Everything is sexist, everything's a part of the patriarchy.

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