For Pete's Frickin' Sake, Oliver Friggin' North has come out against sending more troops.

When they lost Ollie North they lost support even in the hard right.

Posted January 6, 2007 2:06 PM by James D. Macdonald

Okay then, now we're down to the people who'd support GWB even if they saw him eat two live babies on national TV.

While drinking the blood of puppies.

Mixed into a grape fizzy.

Posted January 6, 2007 2:17 PM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Two live snowflake babies.

Posted January 6, 2007 2:30 PM by Larry Brennan

Folks -- it gets even better:

To the best of my knowledge, none of the agencies of the Federal government have had their appropriation bills passed. This may include the Departement of Defense.

On Friday, my boss told me that HHS may be working under a continuing resolution for the rest of the year.

Now, if Defense is in the same boat -- what does this tell you about the state of things in DC?

Posted January 6, 2007 2:32 PM by Lori Coulson

Meanwhile, it looks like what the Decider has decided is that Surge and Stay the Course is the New Way Forward, and that we won't be able to stop him. I'm looking forward to the Decider's upcoming speech announcing this.

Posted January 6, 2007 2:36 PM by James D. Macdonald

Lori Coulson (#4) wrote:
...HHS may be working under a continuing resolution for the rest of the year.

The Dept of Energy is in the same boat. I got hammered by that--continuing resolution basically means you get funded at the same level as the previous year and can't do anything new; my division didn't even exist until last June, so our funding last year was about half of what we'd need to do everything DOE wants us to. The folks at the big synchrotron down the road were supposed to get a half-billion in new funding--they're sending out emails to all their users to lobby Congress for the money.

Posted January 6, 2007 2:53 PM by JBWoodford

I say nuke everything. Bag-dad, Moggie-dish-you, McCaw, all them.

Then Washington, Moscow, London, Paris, Ottawa, Mexico City, Berlin, Brussells. Then New York, LA, San Francisco, Sydney, Buenos Aires, and any other city with a population of more than 100,000.

Then just blow up a bunch of nukes in the atmosphere, and/or in some active volcanos. Use some H-bombs to start firestorms in the rainforests. Don't forget the seafloor too; a couple good Hellbomb blasts could release all the toxins that have been building up there over the centuries, and kill most of the plankton besides.

Oh, and torch oil wells everywhere, and nuke the surrounding countryside so it's too radioactive to go into; this will really improve the particulates in the atmosphere.

I think if we can just gather a coalition of the willing to do all that, we can end the threat of terrorism for good.

If you don't go along, You Must Hate Freedom.

Posted January 6, 2007 3:07 PM by Xopher

#2: What's really scary about the poll you linked to, Patrick, is that, according to it, 51% of Republicans apparently approve of how W is dealing with Iraq. Have they been paying any attention to the news?

Posted January 6, 2007 3:18 PM by JC

JC @ 8:
Yes, they have been paying attention to the news. Fox News.

Posted January 6, 2007 3:50 PM by Rebecca

Well, W. just replaced Generals Casey and Abizaid (both of whom had publicly expressed skepticism about a "surge") with a new General and Admiral who are more tractable. So much for, "He listens to the generals."

Posted January 6, 2007 3:50 PM by Janice E.

Rebecca #9- Quiz question: What name of an animal also means "emphatically not"?

Posted January 6, 2007 4:08 PM by Xopher

23% of Americans, but 51% of Republicans, approve of Bush's handling of the war. What that means is that only about a quarter of the public is willing to tell pollsters that they're Republicans. Bad news for the Repubs in 2008....

Meanwhile, McCain:

The winner [of the daily Worst Person in the World] is Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona, [who] told us today that he knew that the war in Iraq war was “probably going to be long and hard and tough,” and that he was “sorry” for anybody who voted it thinking it would be “some kind of an easy task.”

Sen. McCain on CNN on Sept. 24, 2002: “I believe that the success will be fairly easy.”

Sen. McCain on CNN on Sept. 29, 2002: “We’re not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies.”

Sen. McCain on this network [MSNBC] on Jan. 22, 2003: “We will win this conflict. We will win it easily.”

Posted January 6, 2007 4:17 PM by James D. Macdonald

Ollie North, for all his faults, attained high enough military rank that he was likely exposed to the problems of logistics.

Over on The Sideshow, Avedon has linked to The Ideological Animal, an article about the psychological differences between conservatives and liberals. Read it all: it's evidence that fear of death makes people react as conservatives, but that's an essentially emotional reaction. If you can get them to think, the effect ceases.

Logistics, and most military staff work, is about rational thinking.

Trouble is, without the moral and ethical foundations, it's as easy to plan trains to Auschwitz as supply trains to your army. Is Ollie North talking aboot what should be done, or what can be done?

Posted January 6, 2007 4:38 PM by Dave Bell

Janice @ 10

So much for, "He listens to the generals."

It reminds me of an exchange in A Man for All Seasons. Henry VIII arrives in Chelsea to "informally" visit Thomas More at home. His daughter wonders why:

Margaret: What's he really coming for?

Norfolk: To talk about the divorce. He wants an answer.

Margaret: But he's had his answer.

Norfolk: He wants another.

Posted January 6, 2007 5:23 PM by Claude Muncey

I like pointing out that more Americans favor banning private ownership of handguns and legalizing marijuana much more - three times more - than they support anything like the "surge". For that matter, by Fox News' survey data, twice as many Americans want gay marriage as want a surge in Iraq.

It's very difficult to overstate how out of touch the administration and punditocracy both are.

Posted January 6, 2007 5:27 PM by Bruce Baugh

Is it too much to hope that at least this promises to seriously fuck with McCain's presidential aspirations? An escalation isn't going to result in good war news two years from now; surely he isn't going to be able to distance himself from it.

Posted January 6, 2007 6:54 PM by Scraps

I wish the media would stop using the Bush language ("surge") and call his proposed escalation an escalation. "Surge" summons up images of something like a tsunami -- the wave comes, then it goes, and it's over. Which is in the "yeah, right, suuuuuuuuuuuuuuure, and let me buy that bridge you're selling, too, it sounds like a great deal" category, to my mind.

Posted January 6, 2007 8:49 PM by Naomi Kritzer

Please keep in mind that I don't support a "surge" or escalation at this time (we should have had more troops at the begining, not now, and only if we press that reset button).

But, the President, acting as CnC, should do what he thinks is appropriate for the situation (this is a military thing, not just on anything in the world, like he thinks he should be able to) regardless of the "popularity" of the decision. In this regard (to making the decision because of the best interests of the military situation) he is correct in ignoring "popular opinion." I just wish he would have listened to his Generals in the first place (Kashvilli, etc) and now instead of holding the golden ring of combat command up in the air and seeing which general/admiral jumped the highest.

Then, of course, becuase we disagree with the decision, we vote the bastard out, or at least make sure we don't have such a personality there next time.

Posted January 6, 2007 9:29 PM by Steve Buchheit

I forgot to add that the argument for the surge just sounds way to close to the German side of the Battle of the Bulge for me to be comfortable with it.

Posted January 6, 2007 9:34 PM by Steve Buchheit

But, the President, acting as CnC, should do what he thinks is appropriate for the situation.

Steve, I would feel more comfortable agreeing with this if I believed George Bush was capable of thinking about the complexities of Iraq, or of making decisions based on what's good for the country. I don't think he handles complexity at all well, and I think he is too invested in his own ego and what feels right to him, i.e. that famous gut-think, which as based on the track record is wrong a whole lot more than it's right. I hate saying this, by the way. No gloating here -- only fear for us, for the troops, and the Iraqis. I have two friends who are as we speak getting ready to deploy to Iraq.

I respect General Petraeus, but I do not think he is going to be able to fix this. Have other people seen the speculation that the troops which are going to be thrown into Iraq are going to be 1/3 Americans and 2/3 Kurdish peshmurga? That's going to go over well with both the Shiites and Sunnis.

Posted January 6, 2007 9:52 PM by Lizzy L

I have no talent for video editing stuff, but I keep imagining this "Rocky Horror Picture Show" version of Bush's invasion of Iraq. Anytime someone says "Bush", the audience shouts "Moron!". Anytime someone says "WMD", the audience says "not!". Anytime someone says "surge", the audience shouts "Escalation!"

"Condi" can get "slut!" I suppose while we're at it.

Posted January 7, 2007 12:45 AM by Greg London

Nice SEO in the last three links there, Mr. Nielsen Hayden. Bravo.

Posted January 7, 2007 1:36 AM by j h woodyatt

#12 James McDonald:

Er, am I missing something? If about half the people are Republicans, and about half the Republicans think Bush is doing a good job in Iraq, that'd be about 25%, right? So that looks pretty consistent with the number--half the people still self-reporting as Republicans.

I'd love to see the wording of the question, though. I don't know many people who think Iraq is going well....

Posted January 7, 2007 1:53 AM by albatross

Isn't there some pithier term to use to counter "surge?" Escalation is almost as bloodless. "Stick the rest of your d--k into the sausage grinder" is picturesque, but maybe not slogan material. Maybe "dig faster?"

The only model of Bush's decisionmaking process that makes sense to me is that he's trying to find some way to save his reputation from disaster. He's a young and healthy man, and he's honestly looking at 30+ years of life expectancy spent being remembered less fondly as a president than Jimmy Carter. If there's anything that's going to drive him to despair, drink, and bad decisions, I think that's the thing. So one more push, just in case somehow it all comes together and the Iraqis back down from their impending civil war, and form some kind of minimally stable government. (At this point, nobody is going to care if it's Saddam-level nasty, so long as the streets aren't red with blood.)

Posted January 7, 2007 2:02 AM by albatross

albatross #24: I think "mass murder" would be a good replacement term, but then I guess you'd have to get more specific. He's been responsible for so many...

Posted January 7, 2007 2:37 AM by ethan

In passing - Albatross at #23: half the people aren't Republicans. The percentage of American voters registered as "Republican" is closer to 30% than it is to 50%.

Going back to the post: one way of reading it is that yes, it's true that "the left" is against Iraq disaster - because most of the American public are "leftists".

It's only the recent distortions of American politics that have masked this fact.

Americans tend not to self-identify as "leftists", because the term has been demonized for at least the last 30 years. But sit them down and talk to Americans, and they're for equality of opportunity, for living wages, access to health care, respect for the environment, withdrawal from Iraq - - a majority of Americans are in favor of ALL of the items on the dreaded "leftist" agenda.

The fact that "leftism" has been widely accepted AS a term of abuse is a major factor to the problem with the pundits' lame analysis.

When policy is set by the Lunatic Right, it distorts the entire conversation about the political spectrum. I can recall when Barry Goldwater died, even HE was being scorned by the Reagan lunatics as being "Too Liberal".

So when the pundits say that "the left" is against the war - one way of looking at it is that they're actually conceding that, yes, 70% of the country is actually ON "the left". They just don't know that's what it's called.

Heck, a lot of American would punch you out if you called them a "leftist". But they're reachable, they're on our side.

Posted January 7, 2007 3:01 AM by Bob Oldendorf

Bob: Fair enough. In elections, about half the people vote Republican on average.

Other than Iraq, you're not describing policies in your list, you're describing outcomes. Who is against affordable health care or a living wage? It's like saying "the majority of Americans are for peace and prosperity, so they're Republicans, cause we're for those things, too." The question is what policies you expect to provide those things.

And there are plenty of popular conservative positions (laws against flag-burning) and unpopular liberal positions (affirmative action). You're cherry picking to come up with a hopeful message, I think.

Posted January 7, 2007 9:11 AM by albatross

#20 Lizzy L, I agree completely. Except I would add that his "gut-think" is actually that "lump in the suit" from the debates, formerly known as the remote control device Cheney keeps the control box to.

Posted January 7, 2007 1:37 PM by Steve Buchheit

Re #16: If McCain can finesse his position to stay slightly more aggressive than what actually gets committed to, he could try going "Well, we would have won if people had listened to what *I* said we should do," and present himself to the war-leaning crowd as the strong, maverick leader who unfortunately could't stop the appeasers from stabbing the country in the back. It's easy enough to say that what you supposedly recommended would have worked if you make sure your recommendation doesn't get tried.

If that's in fact his strategy, what you would expect to see is him shifting his position over time to keep ahead of the risk that that his is the course actually tried and seen to fail. Which, if the quotes I've seen upthread are accurate, may be what we're actually seeing, when we go back to check the record. (And that's part of why I urged folks to grab and archive all the "surge" presentations, to better notice and call out goalpost-moving.)

To be fair, cover-your-escape rhetoric like this isn't limited just to the right wing. If you see any sort of complex political or strategic guide saying "don't expect good results unless *all* that we recommend gets enacted", you're probably dealing with the same sort of take-the-credit-or-duck-the-blame calculus. (I've heard the ISG report has this sort of dodge in its recommendations, but I haven't read the whole thing of that one yet.) Any complex political, diplomatic, or military strategy will run into the need to replan or compromise as you go along, so a strategic recommendation without room for contingency plans is not all that helpful.

Posted January 7, 2007 1:51 PM by John Mark Ockerbloom

Albatross at #27: You're cherry picking to come up with a hopeful message, I think.

Well, sure. I have to, to keep going. But I do talk to people who say they hate liberals; and in the same breath will say that they don't understand (...to cherry pick another example) why there needs to be a cap on employee contributions to Social Security.

You talk it through, and it turns out that people have a whole slew of "liberal" positions, yet they call themselves "conservative".

(This is related to young women I meet in the work force - college-educated, independent wage-earners - who are hostile to the label "feminist". Apparently because the progress won by feminism ("equal pay for equal work", say) is like air to them.)

Posted January 7, 2007 1:56 PM by Bob Oldendorf

Albatross: Isn't there some pithier term to use to counter "surge?"

Flush.

Posted January 7, 2007 2:09 PM by Avram

29: I see your point, but if that's what McCain's trying, I think it's a miscalculation. I think very few of the people who are against escalation would be in favor if it were just a bigger escalation, or are going to think warmly about a man who is taking that position after two more years of military disaster.

Posted January 7, 2007 2:44 PM by Scraps

Yep, I think a lot of the dancing around the issue of Iraq we see right now, left and right, is all about *not* having some inconvenient 30 seconds of interview footage where they're plausibly to blame for the disaster. "Well, I think we should have done the invasion better, and now we should get some European allies to help out, and maybe we could talk to Iran, and...." Because almost any simple proposed policy that might be implemented might end in disaster.

You say "Let's get the troops out as fast as possible," that happens, and Iraq turns into a nightmarish multiethnic bloodbath that makes the Balkans look like Switzerland, and that sentence will be played back at you a thousand times before the next election.

Alternatively, you say "We need to make a real push, send everything we've got into Iraq, and regain control," and then the place goes up in flames, we lose another 5000 people and a bunch of equipment, and pull out in a humiliating way, with our former friends hanging onto the skids of the chopper as it flies away from the burning ruins of Baghdad. Your opponents for president will be playing that video in their campaign ads.

The safe answer is to say nothing in some way that makes you sound like you're just too smart and deep to make any testable recommendations. Extra points for profundities like "Well, we need to address the Palestine/Israel issue to get peace in Iraq" or "We need to get a big European force in there," since both of these are somewhat less likely than my winning the lottery next week.

Posted January 7, 2007 3:05 PM by albatross

On #32, the rhetoric isn't so much designed for people who were always against the war in principle; it's more designed for folks who have misgavings about how it's turned out and been fought. That includea a fair number of the people polled who "don't. like. this. war." Basically, it'd be an attempt to win both the right and the uneasy center.

And regarding escalation, I would be for it if I thought it had a decent chance of working (where "working" means "managing to allow us to extricate ourselves in a few years without either a bloodbath or a political climate in the Middle East serisouly worse than now".) And if it makes sense to have one, a bigger escalation that still within the Armed Forces' reach makes more sense than a short-term, smaller "surge" during which insurgents can just lie low till it's safe to come out again. (That might well be while the "surge" is still in progress, once its weaknesses have been probed.)

However, I'm still against an escalation simply because I have no confidence that it *would* work in practice (especially given the highly optimistic assumptions and lacunae I'm seeing in the "official" escalation proposals.) So it's no use sacrificing a lot more lives and money to be stuck in the same situation or worse 2 years from now.

(Unless, of course, you occupy political office now, and want to postpone the final reckoning to the next administration. That's what I'm afraid is all it'll be good for; to pass the hot potato if it happens, or to find an excuse for failure, and convenient scapegoats on the other side of the aisle, if it gets blocked.)

Posted January 7, 2007 4:13 PM by John Mark Ockerbloom

how many quagmires does it take to get to the hollow center of a chicken hawk?

I mean, seriously. How many times do we have to make the same damn mistake with "hearts and minds" wars before the nation figures out they don't work?

I'm gonna keep bombing you until you love me.

Didn't Gladriel say something like that? She at least had sense enough to give the ring back to Frodo.

Sometimes the stupidity just gets me so depressed.

Posted January 7, 2007 4:43 PM by Greg London

#35:

Do what I just did Greg.

Reinstall Civilization III after a year on the wagon.

Posted January 7, 2007 4:45 PM by Stefan Jones

Yeah, I'm not any kind of an expert on this stuff, but I just don't see how the kind of increase in forces we're talking about will solve anything long-term. I mean, it makes sense as an attempt to give the Iraqi government and people a little longer to try to resolve their irreconcilable differences and avoid civil war, but what indication do we have that a little more time will actually prevent that? We aren't going to show up with enough force to hold down the civil war. We could plausibly pick a side and make sure they won, but that wouldn't be politically acceptable, especially since the losers' wives and children are likely to end up in some of those lovely bulldozer-dug mass graves. We probably aren't going to pick a strongman and make sure he holds down the country in an effective way, since that also probably involves mass graves and torture chambers and nightmarish secret police.

What we appear likely to do is to show up in enough numbers to calm down Baghdad for awhile, without resolving any of the underlying issues. When we leave (we will, because very few people in the US care much about what kind of government Iraq has, while a lot of us care about our soldiers getting shot and our money being spent), the place just goes back to the civil war, apparently scheduled for Real Soon Now.

What a pity the President didn't have a wise, experienced Secretary of State to advise him--some ex-general who would have pointed out that holding down Iraq would be hard, that the people wouldn't really greet us with candy and flowers, some diplomat who would have told the President that once we invaded Iraq, we'd be held responsible for whatever happended to it. But then, he'd probably have just used up such a man's credibility by sending him to tell the UN some cock-and-bull story about metal tubes, centrifuges, etc.

Posted January 7, 2007 4:46 PM by albatross

Reinstall Civilization III after a year on the wagon.

Crap. I just played a game last night. And I'm thinking about playing another game tonight.

I can finish a game in about three or four hours.

That 'splains a lot, though...

Posted January 7, 2007 5:16 PM by Greg London

Hey, there's a double feature of Top Gun and Independence Day on the ABC Family Channel today. After watching Tom Cruise and Will Smith zap soulless bogies I just know I'll be prepped for the success of The Surge!!1!!1 I am so looking forward to a healthy increase in the broadcast of similar films as an effective propaganda tool to educate an intractable populace such as we have now.

Posted January 7, 2007 6:02 PM by Earl Cooley III

Leaving aside the soft drink, every time I hear the expression 'surge the troops' I get the image of soldiers, sailors, marines and air force folks being rushed out of a pipe.

Posted January 7, 2007 6:08 PM by Fragano Ledgister

"Who is against . . . a living wage?"

George Will. He wants the minimum wage to be $0.00.
(Granted, he presumably imagines that market forces will magically make everything alright, but . . .

Posted January 7, 2007 9:58 PM by Dan S.

"Okay then, now we're down to the people who'd support GWB even if they saw him eat two live babies on national TV."

'Sure, he bit the head off a live dove during the State of the Union address, but that only sends the message that we're strong! After all, *they* only understand strength . . .'

Posted January 7, 2007 10:01 PM by Dan S.

"Isn't there some pithier term to use to counter "surge?""

Spurt.

"Reinstall Civilization III after a year on the wagon."

Must . . . resist . . . must . . . be . . . strong . . .
(although in my case, we're talking Civ I. I'm a traditionalist . . .)

Posted January 7, 2007 10:05 PM by Dan S.

Civ3. Victory. Only blew a few hours of my time.

Bush is still president, eh?

hm, maybe one more game before I go to bed.

:(

Posted January 7, 2007 10:09 PM by Greg London

They're sending Serge to Iraq?

Posted January 7, 2007 11:19 PM by Larry Brennan

larry,

They're sending Serge to Iraq?

....i was waiting for that.

but maybe if we call it a serge instead of a surge, it will play on neocons' intense hatred of french people.

Posted January 7, 2007 11:59 PM by miriam beetle

(This is related to young women I meet in the work force - college-educated, independent wage-earners - who are hostile to the label "feminist". Apparently because the progress won by feminism ("equal pay for equal work", say) is like air to them.)

Actually, the reason I (college-educated, independent wage-earning 30-year-old woman) don't call myself a feminist is because the feminists have told me not to, pretty much in so many words.

I am not even remotely joking. Lists of required feminist qualities tend to exclude me quite neatly around the time they tell me that I'm not allowed to sleep with the people I'm interested in sleeping with--that if I "won't" be a lesbian, I have to be celibate, or I'm not a feminist. That's not the only qualification I'm missing, but it's one that shows up every time: not gay=not feminist.

Around the fourth or fifth time that I read one of these lists, I start thinking, huh, I guess they're right, I'm not a feminist.

It does make me wonder what I am, though.

Posted January 8, 2007 9:28 AM by Carrie S.

Miriam (#46) -- I'd been thinking that too. But Serge, I bet you're glad you pronounce your name a la Francais (sorry for lack of proper accent marks; it's too early in the a.m. for me to hunt them down). Surge/Serge? No similarity at all, no no, quite different!

Posted January 8, 2007 9:34 AM by Faren Miller

Larry and miriam @45-46... Yeah, I was waiting for that one too. (*) Did I ever tell you of the days of yore when security was so lax that a common programmer (that'd be me) had the authority to shut down a database? The users didn't get mad at me, but they did say they now needed a serge protector.

(*) As for the joke about the similarly-named fabric, Teresa came up with that one a couple of weeks ago

Posted January 8, 2007 9:35 AM by Serge

Faren... I can't put the squiggle under the 'C' of 'Francais' either, not on American keyboards anyway. The closest to my first name's correct pronunciation would be 'sehr' followed by a soft 'J'. I'm used to 'surge' though. My family name though daunts quite a few people, with my favorite pronunciation being 'maalox'.

Posted January 8, 2007 9:42 AM by Serge

President Bush's new plan to quell the violence in Iraq calls for adding at least 20,000 U.S. troops, sources said. Debate within the Bush administration has been whether to send in all troops as a "big bang" force, or phase them in from month to month, sources said.

Yes, the man is stupid. Yes, his advisers are insane.

It's going to be "phased in from month to month" because they don't have a spare 20,000 troops lying around. But the Decider wants a "big bang," and he's going to hold his breath and turn blue if he doesn't get it. That's the "debate" right now.

All that putting a trooper on every street corner in Baghdad would mean is that the Mehdi Army snipers wouldn't have to travel very far to find a target.

Meanwhile, in Iraq:

Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

So now we know what was being discussed in those secret energy-policy talks with the oil companies that Dick Cheney was having back in 2001.

Posted January 8, 2007 10:25 AM by James D. Macdonald

Jim @ 51

Holding his breath until he turns blue sounds almost like a reasonable strategy, if he would just do it. (Hi, NSA guys, just kidding!)

Having heard stories of people well into their 50s getting recall letters from the DoD, I think they're going to try to escalate.

Posted January 8, 2007 10:40 AM by P J Evans

#47:

It's not too descriptive to label anyone who thinks women ought to be allowed to vote, own property, and work in whatever field they like, feminists. So what people mean by that term tends to be something different. The most vocal and visible feminists typically seem to be saying stuff that I and most people I know really don't agree with. It would be kind of silly to identify myself with ideas I don't agree with, right?

This happens often with movements that achieve their goals. There's still a civil rights movement in the US in 2007, and it still has important stuff to address, but the issues it faces are almost unrecognizeably different from the issues of 1950. Many people who wholeheartedly supported the civil rights movement when it was mainly about getting rid of Jim Crow laws and sunset laws have little interest in fighting for affirmative action laws. The set of issues changed, and the label changed meaning.

I think this is really common. As an idea takes hold in a society, the advocates for that idea either fall away ("my work is done") or find other related issues ("now, we can fix the next set of problems").

The mix of people changes. The advocates tend to become more shrill, because while it's *easy* to see the evil of cops busting the heads of blacks for trying to vote, it's a lot harder to tell whether (say) the relative lack of black CEOs or physicists is the result of some kind of terrible evil or injustice. It's easy to see that women who aren't allowed to vote or practice law or medicine or own property aren't being treated properly. It's less clear that women who aren't allowed to be combat infantry are facing the same kind of mistreatment, and not clear at all (at least to me) that women who have to live in a world with sexualized pictures of women, or with gendered pronouns and widely assumed sex roles, are being mistreated.

Posted January 8, 2007 11:04 AM by albatross

Incidentally:

My partner just switched on Morning Edition as I was reading these comments. The first words I heard were "the word 'surge' is misleading". (The person speaking then proceeded to explain that 'surge' conjures up a wave of fresh troops, rather than people who've already been in Iraq for a year not getting to go home when they were supposed to.)

Posted January 8, 2007 11:16 AM by Lorax

Albatross @53, on defining feminists: Good points. In a way it's analagous to a theory I heard about the crazed insistance on safety in today's society: Everyone wants their kids to be safer than they were--how many times have you heard someone say words to the effect of "I'd never let my kids do the kind of things I used to do"? But as the world as a whole has gotten safer, the things left to protect against get more and more trivial.

Similarly, we've worked through big stuff like voting rights and (in theory) no exclusion from the workforce; self-identified feminists therefore have to focus on ever-more-trivial issues, till we're down to gendered pronouns. And the people willing to do that are a lot more committed and fanatical than, say, me.

It just steams me when I encounter one woman saying, "I like my career, it's fun and makes me oodles of money" and another, who talks loudly and frequently about how women should be able to make their own choices, responds, "But you're a sex worker, so you're EVIL!" Again, an actual example, and I'll provide a link on request.

Posted January 8, 2007 11:49 AM by Carrie S.

I'm a feminist. It seems to me that women are still being marginalized. Part of that is a broad and subtle attack on our language. Making people feel uncomfortable about calling themselves feminists is not helpful for feminism. cf. liberal

Posted January 8, 2007 11:49 AM by TomB

Carrie S #47: The link you connected to is, I'd say, lesbian separatist rather than feminist. I find the author's misandry appalling. But then, I'm a man, so what do I know?

Posted January 8, 2007 11:57 AM by Fragano Ledgister

Dan S. #43: "Isn't there some pithier term to use to counter "surge?""

Spurt.

Splat.

Including connotations of splatter and "throw it at the wall".

Posted January 8, 2007 12:03 PM by joann

I don't see how we can claim the goals of feminism have been accomplished. Sure, we have changed some laws so in theory women could have equal rights, and the part where they don't is just culture. I don't buy it. Maybe if the ERA had actually passed. Meanwhile, the backlash is in full swing. The activists against abortion rights are also against contraception. Their idea of traditional marriage is equally creepy: the anti-gay marriage activists have been quite open in saying they feel the real problem is divorce. I am hoping that they fail, but we can't count on them failing all by themselves. We shouldn't be complacent.

Posted January 8, 2007 12:10 PM by TomB

Carrie S #47: The link you connected to is, I'd say, lesbian separatist rather than feminist.

Well, if I accept the list for purposes of describing me as "not feminist", I have to accept the sites when they call themselves "feminist". And from the number of drivebys more moderate/useful sites get, the radfems do seem to be a recognized subset of feminism in general.

I find the author's misandry appalling.

To misquote one of my favorite movies, you are not the only one.

But then, I'm a man, so what do I know?

Fragano, never say that again, seriously*. One of the things about that variety of feminism that makes me the angriest is the automatic discounting of everything men say, just because they're men and therefore can't possibly understand. Because that attitude bears no resemblance whatsoever to the attitudes about women that are still distressingly common, right? I said, RIGHT?

*I realize you meant it as sarcasm.

Posted January 8, 2007 12:22 PM by Carrie S.

Making people feel uncomfortable about calling themselves feminists is not helpful for feminism.

Oh, I don't feel uncomfortable about it at all, and it's not anyone but the radical feminists who have led to my decision.

It's that there are these people who say that they are feminists, and that anyone who doesn't agree with them is not. I look at their positions and am completely unable to agree with them, hence I shrug and say, "OK, I'm not a feminist".

It bugs me only insofar as I am annoyed that a useful word has been co-opted by counterproductive extremists.

Posted January 8, 2007 12:26 PM by Carrie S.

Including connotations of splatter and "throw it at the wall".

That's just it. Iraq is a wall they've been banging their heads against; now they want to throw troops at it and see if they'll stick.

Splat.

Posted January 8, 2007 12:26 PM by Xopher

Carrie S, to paraphrase Mohammed (pbuh), if you say someone else isn't a feminist, ONE of you isn't.

Posted January 8, 2007 12:33 PM by Xopher

Xopher (#63): Logically, shouldn't that be that at least one of you isn't?

I hardly ever get asked if I'm a feminist (comes with being a female professor of engineering), but my response to any soi-disant feminist who tells me that there is only one correct way for me to lead my life would be to point her to the Karen Marcelo quote I have on the bulletin board outside my office:

I'm not a role model - I'm a bad influence.

Posted January 8, 2007 1:26 PM by debcha

Carrie S - Rather than abandoning "feminist" to extremist wackos and the right-wingnuts who love to bash them, isn't it better to reclaim the word?

Posted January 8, 2007 1:31 PM by Larry Brennan

Larry:

If you want to communicate, you have to deal with the language people around you are using. If the common definition of feminist in use is someone who believes that gender pronouns and etymology of words are major issues, or that sex roles are 100% cultural, or that there's something demeaning about a woman deciding to get married and stay at home with her kids, then people who don't hold those beliefs probably shouldn't self-identify as feminists. This is true in the same way that I don't self-identify as a liberal (in the older sense that's somewhat close to libertarian now)--it would just confuse people about what I do believe.

Posted January 8, 2007 1:47 PM by albatross

If the common definition of feminist in use is someone who believes that gender pronouns and etymology of words are major issues, or that sex roles are 100% cultural, or that there's something demeaning about a woman deciding to get married and stay at home with her kids

If this is the common definition, we're in trouble, because the wingnuts are taking over.

(I was lucky: I had someone tell me, before I got to high school, that I could be almost anything I wanted, and my mother would probably have shown up at school and read the riot act to anyone who had tried to tell me otherwise. She wasn't job-limited by gender either.)

Posted January 8, 2007 1:53 PM by P J Evans

albatross - By surrendering our words, we surrender our power. Liberal has become a hate-word. But I'm a liberal. So how do I communicate my values concisely? Only be reclaiming the word, or finding a new one (e.g. progressive).

I look to the LGBT community as a great example on how to leverage language. They've pretty much neutralized "queer" as a hate-word.

FWIW, I did a marketing project for an LGBT youth services group in SF, which started out kind of awkwardly. The people I was working with really encouraged me to listen to and embrace the language they chose to use. I can now use "queer" in marketing copy, but still have a hard time saying it unless I know the people I'm talking to and they know me. It's definitely not like the N-word anymore.

Posted January 8, 2007 2:00 PM by Larry Brennan

Only *by*. Sheesh. There's undoubtedly another typo in there too.

Posted January 8, 2007 2:01 PM by Larry Brennan

On #26 - Actually, yours seems not to be a completely fair metric.

70% of the American public: "...They're for equality of opportunity, for living wages, access to health care, respect for the environment, withdrawal from Iraq - - a majority of Americans are in favor of ALL of the items on the dreaded "leftist" agenda."

Of course, most of these are now embraced by MOST Republicans as well. (We are excepting the fringe, many of whom are in office.) Even that last, "withdrawal from Iraq," is being accepted by a larger and larger segment of people who consider themselves "rightists".

Equality, as well as environmentalism, to some degree, is a value embraced by a very significant majority of Americans, and if that means that they are all "leftists", why do the republicans consistently get more than that 30% of the vote that they seem to deserve according to your logic?

Since about 50% of voters vote for each party, we see more of a bell curve in the distribution of political views. Because of this, we should phrase it more fairly: at least 2/3 of all people in the country are mostly centrist in their political views.

Feel free to call those positions you detailed "leftist", but in that case it's not a distinction worth pursuing. These are no longer "leftist" agenda items, just like having free capital markets is no longer just a "rightist" ideal.

Posted January 8, 2007 2:19 PM by David Manheim

Carrie S.@47:
Hypocrites and exclusionaries come in all stripes. I know lesbians who--in public--snarl that there's no "right way" to be queer and nobody had better tell them how to live or not to live, but who in private shred closeted lesbians or bisexuals or cross-dressers. Rush Limbaugh and his ilk have their own definition for "feminist." I know plenty of self-identified Christians who inform me that anyone who believes in evolution, abortion, gay marriage, or a non-literal reading of the Bible isn't Christian.

Why should I surrender terms to these people, to define as they please? To do so is to give them the power to poison words. If I stop calling myself liberal, queer, feminist, or anything else because these people inform me I don't meet their standards for that label, I've given them the ability to define me. They don't get to do that.

Posted January 8, 2007 2:22 PM by Aconite

framing

Posted January 8, 2007 2:33 PM by Greg London

Tom B #59: It's because we've got rid of so much pain that what remains horrifies us so much (more or less quoting John Stuart Mill).

On the other hand, the people who want to regulate the lives of others, removing as much joy and pleasure as possible, in the interest of maintaining the historic structures of male dominance, racism, and so on, are, in part, trying to stop changes that frighten them -- because their identity is bound up with a status quo that is fast disappearing. We should understand them even as we condemn them for seeking to empower themselves at the expense of everyone else's liberty and dignity.

Posted January 8, 2007 2:34 PM by Fragano Ledgister

P J, debcha, Carrie S.,

On modern, college age women not wanting to be feminists:

Feminism can be used by some women use as a way to control other women. Independent young women who want to do whatever the hell they like with their lives are not keen on being told by other, older women that they aren't doing it right.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Whoa! It's not the just the patriarchy anymore! You don't seriously suppose people stayed home with the kids in the old days solely because of male power or disapproval, do you? If that was the case, could there have been any women doctors, inventors, engineers, or soldiers before 1950? Or any progress on voting or owning property?

Necessary, but not sufficient.

The "Mother drive-by" thread is great for examples of how crappily women treat each other in these stupid power struggles. The wingnuts are able to score points off of this negative view of feminism because it has just enough of an echo of reality for us.

To me, feminism isn't about the girls vs. the boys (that's the stupid wingnut caricature again), and it certainly isn't about adhering to someone else's damn manifesto. Feminism is about the contest between each women and everything and every one else in the world that tells her that she's not entitled to be herself, including, and maybe now especially other women. Particularly that pack of meddling aunts, grandmothers and peers who harp on what kind of career, kids, sex, and weight women should have. Damn them all.

Damn, this turned into a stupid rant. Sorry. Didn't mean to be rude. :(

Posted January 8, 2007 2:34 PM by Cari-all

Carrie S #60: I shall avoid doing so henceforth.

(I found the part about not having children as a keystone of feminism particularly appalling. I'll respect anyone's choice to have or not have children, but I was under the impression that feminism was about equality, respect and humanity, not extinguishing the human race. On the other hand, I have a good friend who tells me that contraception is bad for women because it divorces sex from procreation, and who had her tubes tied thirty-some years ago....)

Posted January 8, 2007 2:41 PM by Fragano Ledgister

Cari-all @ 74

Literally, the only woman I've ever gotten anything like that ('every woman must want to have children') from was, by her own words, a good advertisement for feminism, not that she'd ever have admitted it: ex-bartender, and several other tales of her life (and her husband's) that have no place here.

Posted January 8, 2007 2:45 PM by P J Evans

Cari-all #74: At bottom it's not about the power of men over women, women over men, parents over children, children over parents, or any category X over any category Y (or vice versa). It's about power, plain and simple.

Posted January 8, 2007 2:48 PM by Fragano Ledgister

This is probably a good time to also point out that lots of people express and explain their disagreement with other people's choices that they would, nevertheless, fight to defend if someone tried to take those choices from them.

I try to get across to young women of my acquaintance--those I know well enough to have this talk with--that planning your career with a ten-year time-out in the middle to raise the kids in mind while your partner takes it for granted that his career will be uninterrupted by the arrival of children creates a power imbalance that may never be rectified. This does not mean I wouldn't have strong words for anyone who tried to tell those young women how they "have to" plan their lives. It also doesn't mean I think those young women aren't feminists.

Why do I have those discussions with them? Not because I'm telling them they're wrong; because I talk to people I like, and like to toss ideas back and forth. I like having intelligent discussions on issues that matter to me.

Posted January 8, 2007 3:14 PM by Aconite

Carrie S. and everyone: I'm sure you've all seen these before, but they're worth bringing up. The good thing about a t-shirt (or a pin, or whatever) is that anyone can wear it.

The thing about sex workers being evil is horrifying to me. Listen to Bikini Kill ("I can sell my body if I wanna / God knows you already sold your mind"), go to The Sex Workers' Art Show, read Bust magazine, do some research into the third wave of feminism...awesome stuff out there. I'm proud to be a feminist.

Margaret Cho, whom I'm not otherwise a huge fan of, has one really great quote which has made me love her forever: "Feminism is not debatable. If you're not a feminist, you don't deserve to live."

Posted January 8, 2007 3:17 PM by ethan

One other thing: a great way to counter someone who brings up a negative reading of the word feminist is to say, "Oh, I'm sorry you think that. I'm a feminist." You can immediately see them pause, think, and redefine the word in their mind. They also start asking lots of questions. I think I had a hugely positive impact on a lot of the people at my last job by doing just that.

Of course, it only works if the person likes you.

Posted January 8, 2007 3:20 PM by ethan

Cari-all (#74): Independent young women who want to do whatever the hell they like with their lives are not keen on being told by other, older women that they aren't doing it right.

Agreed, although I wouldn't link it to age. I'm a little shocked at how difficult it is to get across the concept that it is okay to think for yourself. (Admittedly, it is a lot harder to get across the concept that the way you view the world and even frame the problem is likely to be highly gendered or otherwise shaped by your experience.)

Fragano wrote (#75): I found the part about not having children as a keystone of feminism particularly appalling.

I found it appalling for the hypocrisy it represented, actually, since - in contrast to the 'live your life to make other women's lives better' approach advocated by the author - this is a complete and utter abdication of such a huge area of power imbalance between the sexes (cf Aconite #78). It's tantamount in my mind to saying, 'Don't work for suffrage - just remove yourself from politics entirely.'As if somehow that will magically make the world better.

Feh.

Posted January 8, 2007 3:42 PM by debcha

Debcha #81: I am reminded of those black American activists of the 1960s who objected to the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts on the grounds that if the white man was willing to extend such rights to blacks they couldn't really be worth anything.

Posted January 8, 2007 4:07 PM by Fragano Ledgister

It sounds like what feminism is missing is a sufficient number of denominations. If somebody says, "You can't be a feminist because you have sex with men," you should be able to go and join the congregation of Feminists who Have Sex with Men. The arguments will still continue, but at least you'll have your own posse to back you up.

Posted January 8, 2007 4:18 PM by Laurence

Hi Laurence. I think the denominations are there. Any feminist movement that is willing to count me as a member is pretty inclusive. And yeah, my posse created the Tiptree Award. How cool is that?

Posted January 8, 2007 4:37 PM by TomB

Hi Tom -

The Tiptree Award is super cool. But does your denomination have a specific name? I have heard the story of the genesis of the Tiptree before, but I'm blanking on the details.

Posted January 8, 2007 4:52 PM by Laurence

Laurence@84:It sounds like what feminism is missing is a sufficient number of denominations.

Friend, I hope this comes across as politely as it's meant: If you think that's the case, you really need to learn more about feminism.

That's a lot like saying, "I think what's missing from Christianity is a sufficient number of denominations. If you don't believe in Papal infallibility, you should be able to go find a Don't-Believe-in-Papa-Infallibility denomination."

Posted January 8, 2007 5:05 PM by Aconite

Aconite @86

If you think that's the case, you really need to learn more about feminism.

Well, whether or not it was what Laurence meant, what I would like to see is more denomination names, so I can identify myself in one phrase and get the "you aren't a feminist if you still do men" gang off my back.

Let them argue whether I am truly a feminist the way people argue whether Jehova's Witnesses are really Christians. Just let them do it...elsewhere.

Until then, I take comfort in the fact that, because no one issued me with an official feminist card, they can't revoke it when I use pain relief during childbirth. ("I can't believe we fought so hard for maternal choice so you can just throw it all away." "Throw it all away? This is my choice.")

Posted January 8, 2007 5:18 PM by abi

This you're-not-this-if-you-do-that thing reminds me of one of my young male Hispanic co-workers when I lived around the Bay Area. One day he and I went to the nearby Max's Diner and had lunch. Later, one of my female co-workers told me how relieved about my sexual orientation my Hispanic co-worker was. What had happened? My usual behavior had left him unsure of where my interests are, until that lunch, when I mentionned liking Barbara Eden's outfit in I Dream of Jinnie.

Posted January 8, 2007 5:31 PM by Serge

Ursula Le Guin, in response to those who say "I am a feminist but...", said "Don't be a feminist butt." I definitely adhere to the precepts of the "Don't be a feminist butt" denomination. I'm also a member of the Secret Feminist Cabal that David Brin was so alarmed about. Please feel free to join. Of course, you do not have to be a space babe yourself, but you should be comfortable around highly empowered women with futuristic weapons. Just watch out for the Lady Poetesses from Hell.

Posted January 8, 2007 5:33 PM by TomB

Just watch out for the Lady Poetesses from Hell.

Why? Are they a freeform only group, who say I'm not a LPfH if I write in any form that existed before 1827?

Posted January 8, 2007 5:38 PM by abi

BRIAN: Are you the Judean People's Front?
REG: Fuck off!
BRIAN: What?
REG: Judean People's Front. We're the People's Front of Judea! Judean People's Front. Cawk.
FRANCIS: Wankers.
BRIAN: Can I... join your group?
REG: No. Piss off.
BRIAN: I didn't want to sell this stuff. It's only a job. I hate the Romans as much as anybody.
PEOPLE'S FRONT OF JUDEA: Shhhh. Shhhh. Shhh. Shh. Shhhh.
REG: Schtum.
JUDITH: Are you sure?
BRIAN: Oh, dead sure. I hate the Romans already.
REG: Listen. If you really wanted to join the P.F.J., you'd have to really hate the Romans.
BRIAN: I do!
REG: Oh, yeah? How much?
BRIAN: A lot!
REG: Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front.
P.F.J.: Yeah...
JUDITH: Splitters.
P.F.J.: Splitters...
FRANCIS: And the Judean Popular People's Front.
P.F.J.: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters...
LORETTA: And the People's Front of Judea.
P.F.J.: Yeah. Splitters. Splitters...
REG: What?
LORETTA: The People's Front of Judea. Splitters.
REG: We're the People's Front of Judea!
LORETTA: Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.
REG: People's Front! C-huh.
FRANCIS: Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?
REG: He's over there.
P.F.J.: Splitter!

Posted January 8, 2007 5:50 PM by Serge

I'm a feminist, and I definitely have sex with men, and so do all the men I have sex with. So there. And since I'm a feminist, I have a feminist butt. Nyahhhh.

Posted January 8, 2007 5:54 PM by Xopher

Aconite (#86): I have to throw my hat in with Abi. I think Laurence made an excellent analogy, and a described a good conceptual framework in which to reclaim the word 'feminism.' After all, everyone in each of the Christian denominations thinks that they are a Christian, even if people in the other denominations disagree. More importantly, everyone outside Christianity agrees that all the different denominations are Christian. That seems fairly useful to me.

Perhaps you could say a little more along the lines of 'learning about feminism' to make your objections clearer?

Posted January 8, 2007 5:56 PM by debcha

Feminism means you believe women should be equal to men. Everything else is wittering.

Posted January 8, 2007 7:09 PM by Marilee

Xopher, I'm sure that what you have is a tush.

Posted January 8, 2007 7:19 PM by TomB

Show me a tush, and I'll show you a butt!

Posted January 8, 2007 7:47 PM by Xopher

Carrie S: IMO, the people who originally referenced can call themselves anything they want, but the proper label for them is "fanatic". (Anyone remember the pocket game "Illuminatus!" Entities could be any one of several opposed pairs of alignments -- straight/weird, liberal/conservative, ... but the opposite of fanatic was fanatic.) If you can't send them to the same desert island as those half-twits who told Dave L that only head-banging white noise was rock, at least send them to Coventry.

Posted January 8, 2007 10:07 PM by CHip

Christianity is composed of four major divisions of Churches: Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Protestant. Each of these four divisions has important subdivisions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations

Catholicism
1.1 The Catholic Church: Churches in communion with the bishop of Rome
1.2 Churches claiming to be Catholic having broken communion with Rome
2 Eastern Orthodoxy
2.1 The Orthodox Church (aka, Eastern Orthodox Church)
2.1.1 Western-Rite Orthodox Churches
2.2 Other Eastern Orthodox Churches
3 Assyrian Church of the East
4 Oriental Orthodoxy
4.1 Oriental Orthodox Communion
5 Churches of the Reformation (often described as 'Protestant')
5.1 Protestants before Luther
5.2 Lutheranism
5.3 Anglicanism
5.3.1 Anglican Communion (in commmunion with the Church of England
5.3.1.1 Independent Anglican and Continuing Anglican Movement Churches
5.4 Reformed Churches
5.4.1 Presbyterianism
5.4.2 Reformed / Congregationalist Churches
5.5 Anabaptists
6 Methodists
7 Pietists and Holiness Churches
8 Baptists
8.1 Spiritual Baptists
9 Brethren
10 Apostolic Churches - Irvingites
11 Pentecostalism
11.1 Oneness Pentecostalism
12 Charismatics
12.1 Neo-Charismatic Churches
13 African Initiated Churches
14 United and uniting churches
15 Other Protestant Denominations
16 Society of Friends (Quakers)
17 Church of Christ, Scientist
18 Messianic Judaism
19 Restorationism
19.1 Latter-day Saints
19.2 Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement
19.3 Southcottites
19.4 Millerites and Comparable groups
19.4.1 Sabbath-Keeping Churches, Adventist
19.4.2 Sabbath-Keeping Churches, Non-Adventist in north Pennsylvania
19.4.3 Sunday Adventists
19.4.4 Sacred Name Groups
19.4.5 Other Adventists
19.5 Russellite Groups
19.5.1 Jehovah's Witnesses
19.5.2 Bible Student Groups
19.6 Anglo-Israelism
20 Nontrinitarian Christianity
20.1 Unitarianism and Universalism
21 Religious movements related to Christianity
21.1 Manichaeism
21.2 Swedenborgianism
21.2.1 Episcopal
21.2.2 Congregational
21.3 New Thought
21.4 Christian mystery movements
22 Ethnic or syncretic religions incorporating elements of Christianity
23 Christianism

Posted January 8, 2007 10:08 PM by Greg London

What about someone like me, who would indignantly reject the idea that I can be a feminist, on the grounds that I am actually, willy-nilly, a member of the oppressing class? I am a white heterosexual male, long happily married.

I can have no idea of what it is like to fear rape, to live in a society in which it is my body that may be used as a commodity, to speak a language that specifically excludes me, and to know, as a fundamental given, that most power and authority will be wielded by the opposite gender. I cannot therefore be a feminist, and it would be grossly presumptuous and insulting to claim to be one.

Posted January 8, 2007 10:32 PM by Dave Luckett

abi@87, debcha@93:
Feminism is about equality between (or among) the sexes. If some people want to say it's got to be defined more narrowly than that, they are quite welcome to go off and form their own names for themselves, which some have done ("lesbian separatists," for example).

I don't desire to define myself any more narrowly than "feminist," and I don't think it's necessary. The word covers a whole spectrum of belief, the way "catholic" used to. Within it, I find many people who believe much as I do, as well as many who believe differently.

debcha, those within certain Christian denominations consider themselves Christians, and those outside Christianity may consider all members of the various denominations Christians, but not all members of all denominations consider members of the other denominations Christians. Isn't that exactly the problem we're talking about with feminism: some feminists saying other feminists aren't feminists? So what would naming the denominations solve?

Posted January 8, 2007 10:52 PM by Aconite

Dave Luckett@99: Isn't that rather like saying I can't campaign for a cure for breast cancer because I haven't had it? Or, for that matter, that I can't object to the war in Iraq because I'm not Iraqi?

Posted January 8, 2007 10:56 PM by Aconite

Aconite #101: No, it isn't. I don't benefit from breast cancer, nor from the war in Iraq - somewhat to the contrary. I do benefit from the assumption that it will be people like me who fill most positions of power, prestige and authority. It would therefore be wrong of me to attempt to claim membership of the group whose opportunities are in this way restricted.

Posted January 8, 2007 11:10 PM by Dave Luckett

Dave Luckett: It seems to me that you're confusing "woman" with "feminist."

You are not a woman, and do not experience the world as a woman. To claim you do or can would be offensive.

But a feminist is someone who believes in equality of the sexes. I fail to see how that excludes you.

Posted January 8, 2007 11:14 PM by Aconite

I am a feminist, a Christian, and a liberal (actually, I tend to be a bit beyond liberal on environmental and social justice issues). I am married, a stay-at-home-mom made obsolete by time, a farmer. None of those things contradict each other.

Any woman who would restrict the ability of another woman to live her life as she choses is a very dubious sort of feminist.

Posted January 8, 2007 11:29 PM by JESR

JESR, amen. That is MY definition of feminism.

Posted January 9, 2007 12:47 AM by Paula Helm Murray

TomB 89: I'm a bit at a loss as to who you imagine you're addressing. Mostly you seem to be saying "I'm in on a bunch of cool in-jokes and you're not." Constructive message there. Definitely, Sticking It To The Man.

Posted January 9, 2007 12:50 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Seriously, the impression I had from Laurence's questions was that he was basically a good guy even if he really had no idea what the hell he was asking about. Feminism isn't a religion, certainly not an organized one. So I gave him an answer. The truth is that the feminist science fiction fans I like to hang out with are really fun people. We're not all dire, humorless dykes who can only talk about hopelessly depressing and foreboding subjects. Like me for example, I'm not a dyke, and I'm only depressing on alternate comments. And if it means I'm in possession of a bunch of in-jokes, well the big joke about the Secret Feminist Cabal is that they're anything but a secret. You can order books from them, and if you're lucky you might even score a temporary tattoo.

Posted January 9, 2007 2:22 AM by TomB

Aconite (#103): Yes. I remember talking to a very cool guy who disavowed being a feminist, using basically Dave's argument. He was being hyper-careful not to arrogate any standing he might not deserve. But we really could use a word for someone who supports women's rights, as distinct from women themselves. And funny thing, we already have a perfectly good word for exactly that. So why not use it?

I think it's very appropriate that we're having this discussion in this thread. A solid majority of the American people would call themselves feminist if only they understood that it is the right word for how they feel.

Posted January 9, 2007 2:37 AM by TomB

Dave Luckett #102: I do benefit from the assumption that it will be people like me who fill most positions of power, prestige and authority.

Really? I don't believe that. Look at the white males who are filling those positions of power.

Just because you don't know what it's like to fear rape doesn't mean you can't know what it's like to deal with the rape of a loved one, and it certainly doesn't mean that you can't try to change our rape culture. Just because your body isn't used as a commodity (which I would also argue with, but that's a different topic) doesn't mean that you can't see the effects of that commodification on others, and it certainly doesn't mean that you can't oppose it. And so forth.

It's nonsense to say that just because you can't know what the experience of female is like, you therefore can't be a feminist. Perhaps you can't have exactly the same insight into feminism as a woman could, but that's as far as it goes. A white male myself, I would never claim to fully understand what it's like to be anything else, just as I would expect that anyone who is not a white male would never claim to fully understand what it's like to be a white male. But to tell me that I can't be a feminist--that I'm being presumptuous by calling myself a feminist--is completely, utterly, dead wrong, not to mention insulting.

Once you become aware of your own privilege (which can be very difficult) you can do your best to ensure that that privilege is extended to others.

And yes, I understand that this post is a bunch of muddled, unorganized thoughts. Struck a nerve.

Posted January 9, 2007 3:55 AM by ethan

ethan #109: I have no wish to insult you, but I still think it presumptuous to call myself a feminist.

Intellectual understanding is a pale shadow of visceral committment to a cause. Feminism is not merely a political ideal, the approval of the liberal value of human equality. It is also an expression of grief and outrage, arising from the fury of the oppressed. As a movement, it cannot be separated from those roots, which are part and parcel of it. Therefore, to say that I am part of it is to claim, falsely, that I share them.

Posted January 9, 2007 6:56 AM by Dave Luckett

Dave Luckett@110: It is also an expression of grief and outrage, arising from the fury of the oppressed. As a movement, it cannot be separated from those roots, which are part and parcel of it.

Now, that I find offensive--that my personal beliefs on this matter come from being "broken," and being angry and sad about that, and there's no other option. It gives me very much the same feeling that hearing "You sleep with women because you've been abused by men" does. No. Women are not my fallback because men give me the creeps; I choose women because I like women. I'm not a feminist because there aren't other options open to grieving, furious, female me. I'm a feminist because in feminism I see something good and grand and desirable.

Posted January 9, 2007 8:40 AM by Aconite

"Feminism is not merely a political ideal, the approval of the liberal value of human equality. It is also an expression of grief and outrage, arising from the fury of the oppressed. As a movement, it cannot be separated from those roots, which are part and parcel of it. Therefore, to say that I am part of it is to claim, falsely, that I share them."

The civil rights movement was likewise both things: about "human equality," and "an expression of grief and outrage, arising from the fury of the oppressed." This didn't stop plenty of white Americans from supporting it and identifying with it. For one thing, it's entirely possible to be grieved and outraged on your fellow human beings' behalf.

I'm a feminist because justice demands it, and also because it seems to me wrong when one kind of human being arrogates unearned privilege to themselves and unjust power over others. I don't claim to have telepathic insight into the infinitesmal nuances of what it's like to be a woman. I don't need to. What I can see in the plain light of day is plenty.

Posted January 9, 2007 8:59 AM by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Aconite, tell me, what do you find offensive in the notion that you - and others - are grieved and enraged by oppression?

If you can find any form of words in which I implied or in any sense seemed to suggest that you or anyone else in the feminist movement was "broken", would you mind pointing it out, so that I may unsay it instantly? I must confess, I can find none.

You see something good and grand and desirable in feminism, and rightly. That is, you show not only an intellectual attachment and approval of its ideas, but an aesthetic, indeed a visceral identification with them.

For proof of this, I can only point to the fury of your response. Misinterpreting what I wrote as belittlement, you turned on me with genuine anger. It was not belittlement. It was an acknowledgement that you have been mistreated, that you have a right to be angry about it, and that I have not for it was not done to me. That anger, I say again, which is legitimate and honestly come by, is part and parcel of the feminist movement, which is why I can't claim to be a feminist.

Posted January 9, 2007 9:14 AM by Dave Luckett

Aconite, tell me, what do you find offensive in the notion that you - and others - are grieved and enraged by oppression?

I am not Aconite, but I can answer that--it's the idea that the only reason to be a feminist is because one is angry and grieved. That, basically, if women were so wired that we didn't mind being oppressed (even if the oppression were still unnecessary and bad), there'd be no reason for feminism. It makes feminism into a reaction rather than a goal in itself.

If you say you have to be a member of an oppressed group in order to truly support that group, you're doing a lot of things. One of them is claiming for yourself a staggering lack of empathy. No, you can't really, deeply, in the cockles of your heart know what it's like to