The name "Feminist Karate Union" sounds like something out of a 70s exploitation or kung-fu flick, but it's actually a martial arts studio in Seattle. I'm not kidding; go check out the site: http://www.feministkarateunion.org.
Anyway, Seattle Weekly just named Joanne Factor, one of the Union's instructors, as "Best Feminist Butt-Kicker" of 2007:
A shodan black belt who works part-time in administrative support at the University of Washington, Factor has a degree in kicking man-butt. Strategic Living, a company she founded in 2003, teaches women how to recognize when they're being groomed by predators. Failing that, she also teaches how to inflict crippling groin blows.
I can't even tell which parts of that article are parody and which are serious. And now that I think about it, that's been the case with feminism in general for at least a decade.
Lingster, when you say that you don't know which parts of the article are a parody, is it because you feel threatened by the liberate power of a woman who can defend herself?
Also, when you say that the parody element is what feminism has been for at least a decade, I'd be genuinely interested to hear more. Why do you feel this way? Does the decade or more part mean that you include the whole third wave, which gave women control of their bodies back?
Lingster
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Feminism
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Super Administrator
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2007-08-07 14:21:45
A lot of feminists are not so much pro-woman as anti-man. Joanne Factor's distributed web presence seems to contain a pervasive suspicion regarding the sexual motives and social intentions of men.
There's a rape scare element in a lot of feminist organizations and initiatives. They produce phony numbers regarding rape - i.e. the "one in four women is the victim of rape or attempted rape" myth.
I think that kind of gender-divisiveness is socially destructive and meant to be.
cpbell0033944
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Socially destructive
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Registered
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2007-08-07 15:33:22
I agree that the one in four statistic is inaccurate, although my understanding was that it was spread by those who took the original flawed study and assumed it was accurate.
I must admit to being a bit concerned by your 'man-hating' theory - for example, one classic piece of feminist writing that's taken to be anti-male is the late Andrea Dworkin's supposed assertion that all heterosexual intercourse is rape. In fact, she never actually said this; the reason for the myth is not known, but could be because her writing style was somewhat wordy and difficult to get to grips with. I can provide you, or anyone reading this who may be interested with links to articles that refute this idea. I have read quite a few feminist bloggers who bang their heads against their desks trying to dispel the idea that they are man-haters; I'm not saying that there aren't a few extremist nutters around that do hate all men, but most say that they hate the patriarchy, which is a social model that says that men rule women and that women should be meek, mild and should not try to disupt this status quo - which (correct me if I'm wrong) is one of the things that most of us here love about muscular women.
Lingster
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Accident vs. Intent
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Super Administrator
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2007-08-07 15:38:49
cpbell0033944
wrote:
I agree that the one in four statistic is inaccurate, although my understanding was that it was spread by those who took the original flawed study and assumed it was accurate.
When I see survey data misrepresented for 25 years - which is the age of the "study" in question - I'm disinclined to believe it's accidental.
The numbers have been discredited numerous times during those 25 years, and yet they keep showing up. That suggests the myth is not an accident but is actually propaganda, intended to convince women of the malicious intent of men. Which is socially destructive, and probably deliberately so.
cpbell0033944
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Accident or intent?
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Registered
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2007-08-07 15:51:47
Lingster - I'm a biologist. I am convinced that organisms evolved, rather than appearing on one of five days a few thousand years ago, just after God said "Let there be light". Now, I'm not critcising anyone who believes in a literal Biblical interpretation, nor even ardent creationists, however, Darwin had On the Origin of Species... published in 1859, yet the Intelligent Design brigade are still trying to present what is, IMO a small amount of doubt as to the precise working of evolution in certain areas as a huge flaw in the entire theory that renders it little more than a fairytale. I repeat, the first powerful evidence for natural selection appeared 148 years ago, yet it is still being denied, so your 25 years of the "1 in 4" statistic is, by comparison, the mere blinking of an eye. I therefore suggest that, given that the current unfasionable status of natural selection has been caused by disparate campaigns over almost 1 1/2 centuries, it is surely possible that the one in four statistic could have spread unintentionally for a mere 25. It is, IMO perfectly possible for mistaken ideas to take hold and become popular - just read Richard Dawkins (before he went mad) on the spread of memes, especially those relating to the song "Auld Lang Syne".
I'm interested as to why you believe that feminists wish to destroy the fabric of society by painting all males as evil monsters. Not all feminists are homosexual, (probably no more than all FBBs are) so that can't be the reason.
Lingster
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Hm
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Super Administrator
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2007-08-07 16:12:17
OK, first off: you think creationists don't have an agenda? Also, you fail to distinguish between I.D., Old-Earth Creationism and New-Earth Creationism. Many if not most I.D. people fully embrace natural selection, they just have difficulty believing in a purely materialist origin for life or the cosmos. I.D., then, is less faith-based and more skeptical than Darwinism.
Second: I think every society contains malcontents who wish to bring it down. When feminist radicals say they want to "end patriarchy", you hear that they want to end injustice or discrimination. But that is not what they said and at least some of the time is not what they mean. Many subscribe to authoritarian political philosophies and desire to tear down the whole of society to replace it with their tyrant utopia of choice.
cpbell0033944
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Misunderstanding
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Registered
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2007-08-07 17:11:00
I think we're at cross-purposes here, Lingster. I didn't explain my views very well before, so I'm sorry. :oops:
You seemed to be saying that, because the "1 in 4" statistic had lasted for c.25 years, it had to have been constantly reinforced by feminists who knew damn well that it was incorrect. What I did was to view that as being like saying that, in order to keep patient X alive for 1 year, a huge medical staff had to work 24 hours a day. My use of the word creationists (by which I mean creationists of all shades and ID propents) was to show that disparate (sp?) groups (those that you mention) have been able to not only keep the creationist patient alive for much longer than patient X, but with sporadic attention rather than the round-the-clock care that patient X benefitted from. My point, therefore, is that patient X might well not have needed the round-the-clock care of feminists knowlingly repeating an incorrect statistic if we consider that Mr/Ms Creationism has survived, nay thrived for vastly longer with less regular attention.
I will agree with you about anarchists, and, as with all pressure groups (animal rights etc.) I am sure that there are anarchists in the feminist movement. However, you say that I understand "ending patriarchy" to mean ending the culture of women being under the control of men, but that, in your opinion, feminists as a group usually use this expression to mean something far more dangerous and anarchistic (does the word "anarchistic" exist? If not, I'm going to claim that it should) than that. What do you take the expression to mean, then?
Lingster
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No
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Super Administrator
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2007-08-07 18:41:46
The "1 in 4" number is the result of a single 1982 survey with very, very questionable conclusions and methodology - see here.
I think you (and many others) assume "ending patriarchy" means "ending unfair treatment by gender", but what it means in the scholarly literature is ending the current male-dominated social and political order. Thus many of those who use the term "ending patriarchy" (or related terms) are calling for revolution in the Marxist sense of that term.
Thus: their propaganda is intended to undermine societal confidence and institutions to expedite that revolution. And further thus: I don't like them very much.
Lingster
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And Also
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Super Administrator
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2007-08-07 18:55:38
The Feminist Karate Union and similar organizations are based on three false propaganda points:
1) Men generally abuse and prey upon women
2) Women are delicate flowers who need places free from men to thrive
3) For a woman, learning to be a complete, grown-up person is a political act of personal liberation
cpbell0033944
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Statistics & Propaganda
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Registered
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2007-08-08 10:10:18
I knew that the "1 in 4" stuff was based on one badly-performed piece of research, but thanks for the link, as I didn't know the exact details. I can't understand why you entitled your penultimate comment "NO" though, as I never claimed that the 1 in 4 statistic was accurate - I questioned your conviction that it was deliberately spread by Marxist anarchist types who knew it to be inaccurate, rather than having been possibly spread by people who assumed that the statistic was accurate and thus did so in good faith.
Then we come to the propaganda issue. Even assuming that the assumption of the article above that the true sexual assault figure is closer to 1 in 8, I would still suggest that more women are sexually preyed-upon by men than vice versa, thus point 1 of your comment is, I feel generally true (this of course must not be confused with "men are all evil rapists" propaganda). Delicate flowers? Well, we know here that this does not need to be the case; however, as most women do not know about the huge benefits of physical strength, no. 2 is, I suspect still a factor, as the presence of some of the more "show us your tits, girl" type guys can be very intimidating for women who lack the confidence that physical strength brings (see the forum thread I started on self-defence and, in particular, the replies of stmercy2020 who has experience in teaching women to be more physically confident for confirmation). Now, as for point 3, I agree that "grown-up" isn't in it (I personally know several young women who are, in my opinion, much more grown-up than most men of a similar age), however, if by "complete", you mean confident, self-assertive and unafraid, then I think that, given the history of western society where, in the 19th century, women were expected to obey their husbands in the same way as children, it is a political act of liberation for the woman involved.
Also, please don't patronise me by effe...
Lingster
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Patronizing
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Super Administrator
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2007-08-08 14:29:54
Well, you grew up in a country where the primary information outlet is a socialist propaganda mouthpiece, so I can never be too sure about what you need to have explained to you.
Regardless, the personal is not political. It is not a political act for anyone in a free society to become a complete person. Other people already struggled and died - generations ago - to make that commonplace.
cpbell0033944
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Re: Patronizing
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Registered
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2007-08-08 14:54:25
BBC hatred rearing its ugly head again I see (tongue firmly in cheek, honest). :lol:
In all seriousness, I try to take a balanced view of things. I cannot see how acheiving equality (if it's a free society for women, and the personal ceased to be the political ages ago, then how do you explain the gender pay gap (assuming that it's not just another Marxist myth)? Y'know, our friendly (I hope) arguments about politics have taught me a lot about the US, but I really do wonder just whether you, like most Americans, really know what a real looney left-winger is like. If in doubt, read the speeches of Tony Benn or Michael Foot. I'm convinced that, if the US really had a true leftie in a position of power, it would:
a.) Warn anybody off the idea of following a left-wing agenda
b.) Teach Americans that Barack Obama isn't a left-winger.
How's about, after you reply to this, we let the subject drop? I don't think we're any closer to persuading each other to our own point of view. :roll:
Lingster
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Lefties
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Super Administrator
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2007-08-08 16:11:14
True leftism hasn't really been socially acceptable in the U.S. since not long after World War I, so people who hold those views and wish to advance them have done so under cover of night. Tragically, they've managed to shift the culture dramatically in their direction without ever having been obliged to announce their intentions. However, their success has been far less here than in Europe and Britain, which is why the U.S. still enjoys better GDP growth, a strong military, relatively healthy demographics numbers, etc.
A society that adopts socialism is preparing to die.
cpbell0033944
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GDP
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Registered
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2007-08-08 17:30:33
We've had a left-of-centre government for a decade now, and our GDP isn't bad - we've also had good econonmic stability for a long while, so I'd dispute the idea that left of centre administrations are disatrous - perhaps the history of such Governments in the US is worse than ours.
