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Hard-up local rag the Evening News’s latest cost cutting exercise; they can’t even afford a stock photo of the local jail, instead: Let’s illustrate a story about womens’ prisons with a screengrab from an almost-forgotten 80s soap opera(*). Never mind that Cornton Vale is famous for its sky-high suicide rate 11 women in the 5 years around... read more
Are libertarian men doing stupid, creepy and arrogant things that are scaring women away from our cause? Are we so wrapped up in our own egos and in rightist libertarian orthodoxy that our message is not relevant to the daily lives of women? I address these questions and other topics in the first episode of the new Arm your Mind for Liberty podcast and video blog.
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The post Are we Scaring Women away from Libertarianism? appeared first on Arm your Mind for Liberty.
In a new study put out by the National Partnership for Women and Families, an analysis of the most recent census statistics available has found that Seattle has one of the highest disparities in pay between sexes. On average, women working full time in the Seattle metro area make $44,535 annually, while their male counterparts [...]
Every power of nature, every faculty of life, every affection of the soul, every category of the intelligence, needs an organ, in order to manifest itself and act. The sentiment of Justice can be no exception to that law. But Justice, which rules all the other faculties and surpasses liberty itself, not being able to have its organ in the individual, would remain for man a notion without efficacy, and society would be impossible, if nature had not provided the juridical organism by making each individual half of a higher being, whose androgynous duality becomes an organ of Justice.And then he goes on to talk about why this is the case, why the two individuals in the "androgynous duality" must be different, and what the consequences of all of this are. But we know that Proudhon was constructing this potentially important element of mutualist theory with deeply flawed materials. So what, if not the married couple, is the "organ of justice"? Is it perhaps still the case that justice, perhaps the central keyword of mutualism, doesn't not manifest itself (as Jenny d'Hericourt suggested in her response to Proudhon) in the individual, but that the extra-individual "organ" has some other, perhaps more general form?
There are certain words that are applied to women specifically in order to manipulate them into compliance: “Slut”, “Bitch”, “Ugly/Fat” and of course, “Crazy”. These words encapsulate what society defines as the worst possible things a woman can be. Slut-shaming is used to coerce women into restricting their own sexuality into a pre-approved vision of feminine modesty and restraint. “Bitch” is used against women who might be seen as being too aggressive or assertive… acting, in other words, like a man might. “Ugly” or “Fat” are used – frequently interchangeably - to remind them that their core worth is based on a specific definition of beauty, and to deviate from it is to devalue not only oneself but to render her accomplishments or concerns as invalid.
Read the whole thing to get a good idea why throwing around the word “Crazy” against women is a sign of internalized sexism. “Hysterical” is the same btw.
Oh and since we’re on the subject, I want to address the hordes of misogynists that descended upon Anita Sarkeesian in an attempt to silence and cower her. You’re a waste of oxygen and I hope a lightning surge burns out your VGA and console.
Insightful? Funny? Informative? Convincing? Helpful?
In response to this comment, SRSister Kelderwick replied:
Not sure if “subjugate” is actual transcribed word or a totally clueless yet perfect mis-remembered “objectify”. (Despite shitthatneverhappened.txt)
But okay really dudes. Thought experiment thing time yeah? You are at the gym, running, and your workout clothes are somewhat showy and fairly form-fitting. In the mirror you notice Jane Random Runner inspecting you – awesome, says you. Okay sure, whatever. What if JRR is still staring at you ten minutes later – are you still fine? That’s not intrusive at all? Now pretend her expression isn’t neutral – she’s obviously interested. Doesn’t say a word, just stares at you or takes long glances. The whole time. You are still not affected at all by this? She keeps watching you.
Sure. Now, it isn’t just JRR anymore. Now she has 10 peers all using machines behind you. Some of them don’t look, one of them stares like JRR, some of them take the odd glance. One of them wrinkles her nose in disapproval because she doesn’t find you attractive, or so she whispers to her friend beside her. Thinks she’s being quiet, probably, but maybe not? Wait, was that a camera her friend just slipped away? Hmmm. Oh well.
But now it’s not just JRR and her peers, it’s your female co-workers. Most of them are decent enough folks and don’t bother you. But Gwen does. She leans in too close when you talk, she watches you a bit too long when you wear shorts. Whenever you go to office parties Gwen always corners you and tries to make conversation. She doesn’t take well to rejection. But she’s nice enough most of them time, right? And she’s never, you know, said anything – she is married, after all. Definitely hasn’t done anything either. Well okay there was that one time she put her hand… It doesn’t matter, she was a bit upset that day (home stuff and all that). Besides, you talked to Stephanie and she figures you just over-analyzed the whole thing.
Okay. But now it’s not just JRR and her peers and your female co-workers and Stephanie. Now it’s women on the street. Some of them whistle at you. Some are rather more lewd. Usually you’re too tired or too determined and just ignore them. But if you flip them off and reject them, sometimes they get mad.
They get real mad.
And their friends get mad too.
Now listen, you bunch of shitlord smugfucks who’ve never experienced fucking anything like this, who have no comprehension of the experiences of women who are subjected to this very predominantly male behaviour, get a fuckin’ clue: they are people out there. They have to fuckin’ live a whole life in this context. You, you who felt so stung about getting called out, or vicariously felt so, or were so morally stoked by the thought of such happening that you made it up to circlejerk with your like-minded shitlord friends like a bunch of fucking leeches writhing in a pool of liquid fucking manure, fuck off. Your little sting, that was nothing – one hair pulled out from the arse of an elephant. There is no thing, no habit from women or overbearing cultural narrative and tropes, there is no thing that gives you any fucking perspective on this.
P.S. You, shitlord, do not think this means that gender-flipping situations will be a good tool for analyzing every situation. It is not.
This is actually a very common complaint from men and a prime example of how male privilege works. For us that we have never experienced anything like this in our day-to-day lives, it’s impossible to intuitively comprehend why staring/leering/creeping at random women is not flattering to them. The thought process above is exactly what is meant when one asks us to “Check our Privilege”.
/inb4biotruths
Insightful? Funny? Informative? Convincing? Helpful?
speaking of 'the war on women": even after santorum has taken a relentless pummeling on 'women's issues' (=contraception and abortion, at least at the moment), cnn exit polling in illinois shows santorum with 33% of the men, 38% of the women. that is, more republican women than men voted for santorum. your classic more or less second-wave feminism, now fully annexed by the democratic party, understandably wants to portray women as more or less monolithic (um, that's why there was a third wave): they all have the same interests: pro-choice etc. i'll just say: actual women don't necessarily see it that way.
now's the time to whip out false consciousness. awww, don't. been a long day.
This is something that always leaves me scratching my head, I continuously see videos of various games where women are beated up, upvoted and promoted in gaming fora such as reddit’s gaming subreddit. Those videos usually contain nothing more than a short sequence of a video game character beating up women, such as this, and this or this, and yet, the reddit and youtube communities seem to think this is hilarious, as seen by the amount of “likes” and upvotes.
Not only that, but if you see the related videos in Youtube, you’ll find a large collection of videos simply about that. Beating up random women in video games.And this is not only in Deus Ex, oh no. A cursory search will easily turn up videos of beating digital females in Grand Theft Auto, Saint’s Row and the like. It’s like a special kind of humour for misogynists.
For some strange reason, it’s also primarily directed against prostitutes as well, which raises all sorts of secondary questions beside the love of female abuse.
What do you think about this phenomenon?
Insightful? Funny? Informative? Convincing? Helpful?