Spinoff: "Real women..."

[dasein]

You must be mixing me up with someone else I never made any such claim. Feel free to back up your assertion.

 

They compartmentalize everyone who disagrees with them into one group so their mindless insults, "impotent rage" for example (lawlz) apply to more people. Don't hold your breath too long waiting for any "backing up" of any assertions in these parts.

 

Just so you understand her "argument" though, if there was ever any one day, at any time in history, anywhere in the world, when any man had any right that a woman didn't have, it justifies affirmative action for women, discrimination against men, and the demonization of men as a gender until the end of time.

 

That's feminism.

Edited November 17, 2011 by dasein

[thatone]

No, feminism started in the 60s, soon after the publishing of "The Feminine Mystique." There were female campaigners for various social reforms before then, scattered throughout the preceding 100 years, but not unified in any way into any kind of movement, not even tangentially. The Communists/cultural Marxists needed some air of legitimacy to cover their actual purpose, Cold War cultural espionage, so fabricated a "first wave" of feminism by plucking up individuals and their isolated causes out of history and patching together something that had no true historical existence.

 

Feminism = Communism to start, and now Feminism = Big Business. You don't think the irony in that is at least a little bit funny? Communist >>> Capitalist in only a few decades? I sure do, and especially how funny it is that so many feminists don't even know the actual history of their movement.

 

EDIT: This just in, and the book was written by a SOCIALIST!

 

http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/friedan-per-horowitz.html

 

 

a) awful lot of wasted text just to defend joe mccarthy, which is always a futile endeavor.

 

b) no one who writes for newsmax has an ounce of credibility.

 

there is no global plot. there never was. the cold war was an excuse to prolong WW2 military spending. a conservative warned us about it, we didn't believe him, hence our national debt.

 

but either way the fact that people still throw out "SOVIET PLOT" when there are no more soviets is quite funny.

[NXS]

The current UN committee's goals and tenets, as I see it, are completely different from the marxist doctrine that dasein posted about. Neither do they engage in 'braiding armpit hair' and 'burning bras' as soserious likes to sardonically claim.Thanks for reinforcing my point.

 

I did no such thing, here's some of the recommendations from the committee:

 

Recommends that States Parties make more use of temporary special measures such as positive action, preferential treatment or quota systems to advance women's integration into education, the economy, politics and employment.

__________________________

a) Encourage and support research and experimental studies to measure and value the unremunerated domestic activities of women; for example, by conducting time-use surveys as part of their national household survey programmes and by collecting statistics disaggregated by gender on time spent on activities both in the household and on the labour market;

(b) Take steps, in accordance with the provisions of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women, to quantify and include the unremunerated domestic activities of women in the gross national product;

__________________________

 

6. The Convention in article 1 defines discrimination against women. The definition of discrimination includes gender-based violence, that is, violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately. It includes acts that inflict physical, mental or sexual harm or suffering, threats of such acts, coercion and other deprivations of liberty.

__________________________

 

23. Family violence is one of the most insidious forms of violence against women. It is prevalent in all societies. Within family relationships women of all ages are subjected to violence of all kinds, including battering, rape, other forms of sexual assault, mental and other forms of violence, which are perpetuated by traditional attitudes. Lack of economic independence forces many women to stay in violent relationships. The abrogation of their family responsibilities by men can be a form of violence, and coercion. These forms of violence put women's health at risk and impair their ability to participate in family life and public life on a basis of equality.

__________________________

 

(b) States parties should ensure that laws against family violence and abuse, rape, sexual assault and other gender-based violence give adequate protection to all women, and respect their integrity and dignity. Appropriate protective and support services should be provided for victims. Gender-sensitive training of judicial and law enforcement officers and other public officials is essential for the effective implementation of the Convention;

 

u) States parties should report on all forms of gender-based violence, and such reports should include all available data on the incidence of each form of violence and on the effects of such violence on the women who are victims;

 

 

They may not be burning their bras anymore but that doesn't mean radical feminism has gone away, it hasn't, it has now become mainstreamed. Instead of burning bras they are now churning out endless factoids, issuing dictats to national governments, proposing misandric legislation and influencing the media to get their agenda, all backed up by the threat of state violence.

 

 

I'll reply to the other points tomorrow.

[dasein]

a) awful lot of wasted text just to defend joe mccarthy, which is always a futile endeavor.

 

McCarthyism lasted all of a year, the most overhyped wad of nada in American "scandals," there's no need to defend McCarthy at all, because the whole thing was much ado about nothing. But to hear the left tell it, that year of McCarthy was the equivalent of a genocidal purge. Eh, maybe some Hollywood types got their feelings hurt. Amounted to a convenient scapegoat for the left, remains that to this day, nothing more.

 

b) no one who writes for newsmax has an ounce of credibility.

 

Fail.

 

The article was cited in reference to a book written by a socialist, the facts within which have not been contested in any way by anyone anywhere that I'm aware of... amazing when talking about a book that exposes a feminist icon.

 

there is no global plot. there never was. the cold war was an excuse to prolong WW2 military spending. a conservative warned us about it, we didn't believe him, hence our national debt.

 

Oh that's where the national debt came from? lawlz. So cultural marxists set out to destabilize the American social structure, brazenly TOLD us as much, succeeded, and we have the divorce rate, incarceration rate, single parent household rate, decline in marriage rate today to prove they succeeded, their actual students were and are still at the forefront of academia in positions of leadership, yet it is somehow all made up?

 

Tell me then, what drastic social paradigm shift caused the destabilization? I suppose it was utter coincidence that feminists said "we will undermine the American family" over and over and over in the 60s, and the American family is in fact undermined today?

 

If you want to say it was the sexual revolution what did the deed, it's the same folks at the helm:

 

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

 

but either way the fact that people still throw out "SOVIET PLOT" when there are no more soviets is quite funny.

 

As stated, and made abundantly clear, feminism transformed into the "women's rights industry," big business, after the end of the Cold War. But I suppose cultural espionage doesn't exist, currencies and markets aren't destabilized the world over, scandals aren't created via entrapment, people dont' buy and sell sensitive information. Marxists have never used propaganda for espionage purposes, perish the thought.

 

Personally, I find naivete quite funny

 

Incidentally, just how did they fake the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis?

 

.

Edited November 17, 2011 by dasein

[Els]

I did no such thing, here's some of the recommendations from the committee:

 

 

 

 

They may not be burning their bras anymore but that doesn't mean radical feminism has gone away, it hasn't, it has now become mainstreamed. Instead of burning bras they are now churning out endless factoids, issuing dictats to national governments, proposing misandric legislation and influencing the media to get their agenda, all backed up by the threat of state violence.

 

 

I'll reply to the other points tomorrow.

 

Which of their points exactly is misandrist? Is wishing to tackle domestic violence misandrist? And here I was thinking that feminism TORE down families, instead of wishing to support harmonious ones. Gender-based violence? Really, that's a WRONG issue to bring up? Giving protection to rape, assault and abuse victims? Taking action against men who abuse women isn't misandrist, it's called being social and welfare minded. If the 'men activists' here listed wishing to protect men and boys from abuse as one of their goals, I would find it worthy and honorable, as opposed to, oh, I don't know, removing college grants from women?

 

It seems you and dasein have some talking to do with each other, because the points you listed are most definitely not Communist, and I'm interested in seeing how any of them tear down a family or destabilize nations.

Edited November 17, 2011 by Elswyth

[Mme. Chaucer]

Originally Posted by dasein

No, feminism started in the 60s, soon after the publishing of "The Feminine Mystique." There were female campaigners for various social reforms before then, scattered throughout the preceding 100 years, but not unified in any way into any kind of movement, not even tangentially. The Communists/cultural Marxists needed some air of legitimacy to cover their actual purpose, Cold War cultural espionage, so fabricated a "first wave" of feminism by plucking up individuals and their isolated causes out of history and patching together something that had no true historical existence.

 

The world is flat, too!

 

dasein - why do you persist in stating as "incontestable, incontrovertible facts" things which are … nonsense? And easily researched by anyone who can read, or who knows how to Google?

 

Are you really vain enough to believe that just because you proclaim something is true, that makes it so? Or that anyone who cares about truth is going to just take your word for it?

 

Feminism is understood to have started in the late 18th century, though the label did not emerge until 1872.

 

Virginia Woolf, beloved (by me and many others) wrote "A Room of One's Own" in 1929, and this has been identified as "feminist literature" since at least 1942. She died in 1941. She was part of a unified movement.

 

That is just one example. Here is another one.

 

My own grandmother was feminist; an active suffragette in California who participated in securing the vote for women in that state in 1911. Suffragettes all over the US and the UK were, in fact, a unified movement.

 

Just because I'm proud, I'll mention that my grandmother also graduated from UC Berkeley, which was an unusual accomplishment for a woman in those days, especially for someone from her background.

 

Anyway, you proclaiming that feminism did not start until the 1960's is ridiculous.

 

Google is YOUR friend too, dasein. Maybe you shouldn't be swallowing all that rousing propaganda from the MRM or PUA fora, or wherever you are gleaning it from.

[Els]

Anyway, you proclaiming that feminism did not start until the 1960's is ridiculous.

 

The man appears to be solely talking about one particular breed of feminism, and appears to be under the delusion that all feminists are the same, or is bitter enough to not care that they aren't. I'm going with the latter, since despite his claims of logical and analytical superiority, he happily agrees with anyone who chimes in 'on his side' here, despite the fact that the actual content of their posts contradicts his. All of them present 'worrying' facts, men discriminated against, families torn down, when in actual fact none of them can tie those tangible negative effects in with the current women's rights policies, which NXS has so kindly provided for me.

 

I think I should make it a personal principle not to bother with any thread in which even Woggle calls extremist.

[Mme. Chaucer]

Well, it's a good thing that no more than a handful of people are buying this drek.

 

I encourage anyone who is interested in feminism, or men's rights, or any subject at all to learn about it from a variety of sources. Don't take the word of a nameless, faceless person on an Internet forum. Including me.

[soserious1]

Sorry but I feel that men are owed retribution, affirmative action for the terrible injustice done to them by a male only draft. I'm not talking about remote ancestors here. I'm talking about still living war vets who's lives have been destroyed, about the sons and daughters of the men who were shipped to Vietnam and never came back.

 

How comfortable and easy it is for women to deny the need for affirmative action to right the horrific injustice done to these young men and their families, after all NONE of the women here ever faced even the slightest risk of being shipped to a foreign country to be blown into a million little pieces.How easily that is dismissed, brushed away like it doesn't matter.. I'm sorry but I think it does.

 

I abhor war, abhor the draft .. but the draft did happen & it was unfair,it discriminated against men & favored women. This discrimination isn't about who pays for a damn date, it was discrimination that resulted in the loss of countless male lives & left untold numbers of war survivors impaired both mentally and physically.

 

How do we just sweep that under the rug? I can't

[Red Pill]

Let me applause dasein, NXS, soserious1, and myself for trying to discredit the mockery that feminism has made people, especially women.

 

Look, this whole thing is not entirely your fault, ladies. That's because in all of your lives, feminism has lied to you. When all you've been hearing is how 2 plus 2 equals 5, you can't seem to comprehend how 2 plus 2 is actually four.

 

Remember, the mother of all arguments against feminism is coming in a day or two. Stay tuned for that.

 

Mme. Chaucer said something about keeping my posts brief because people are not paying attention to it. For one thing, people are paying attention to it, although I can understand what you mean by keeping my messages brief. Believe me, wondering if people would read everything I say in one post has crossed my mind. It's just that what I say is something that I feel has to get across. I can understand why anyone would not want to take the time in reading everything I post, especially when that person wants to help other people with their relationship problems and concerns on this forum. My apologies if the length of my posts is bothersome to you, but I feel that what I have to say has to get across.

 

----

 

Now let me talk about how things will NEVER be equal between the sexes. There are many things I want to say about this, but I'll keep it as short and sweet as possible.

 

 

I can't stand it when people say and really think that equality between the two sexes can easily be achieved.

 

I don't think so.

 

Try saying that to young black men living in ghettos and also see how "equal" are their "opportunities" when compared to those living in rich neighborhoods and who have been educated in the most expensive of schools.

 

Try saying that to fat women who wish to become more desirable to men.

 

Try saying that to the boys whose education is being biased in favor of girls and who can often barely read.

 

Yea, sure. Equality of opportunity is soooooooo easy to attain!

 

Having spent billions upon billions of dollars in order to achieve it, and having wasted zillions of hours in discussions concerning the matter, and having had about forty years of being engulfed in huge swathes of propaganda devoted to it, "equality of opportunity" has not really quite been achieved, has it?

 

As such, the notion that it is "easy to attain" is laughable.

 

Indeed, getting a man on the moon, figuring out the human genome, building the most complex of supercomputers, constructing the most amazing of technologies, and even, perhaps, the artificial generation of life itself, seem to be a whooooooooooooole lot easier.

 

LOL!

 

Well. How is this so?

 

Why is "equality" so hard to achieve?

 

Well. I have already given you the answer yesterday. And the answer is very simple. It is not possible to achieve "equality" between things that are, fundamentally, not equal!

 

And the hopeless quest for this impossible goal is being generated largely by extremely vindictive groups of women whose careers depend on forever stirring up hatred towards men.

 

Indeed, most feminists and women's groups want there to be a permanent gender war. Without such a war, they would evaporate into thin air, because there would be no reason for them to exist. Most feminists and women's groups need to maintain an inter-gender war in order to generate their support and their funding, and also to maintain their positions of power as well as their jobs. And the more power, resources and jobs that they wish to cling on to, the greater must be the inter-gender war that they need to stimulate.

 

Indeed, anything that undermines -- or makes more insecure -- the special nature of close heterosexual relationships is something that feminists will always support and encourage.

 

Whether it is supporting same-sex marriage (to undermine traditional marriage) getting women out to work, paying women welfare to encourage relationship break-ups, forever urging women to feel abused in some way and to prosecute their partners, unjustly high alimony payouts, demonising or mocking men, encouraging lesbianism, the aim is the same. Make it as difficult as possible for men and women to have secure relationships. Disempower men within those relationships as much as possible, and ensure that when relationships break up then the men lose out the most.

 

In conclusion; feminism is not about equality. It is about stirring up hatred towards men; no matter what the true situation is.

 

And because "equality" can never be achieved, this stirring up of hatred towards men seems set to go on and on and on; unless, that is, feminists are utterly discredited and exposed for who they really are.

 

And if you take the time to look very closely at what underpins, energizes and unites feminists, you will find that there is only one emotion lying at the core of their beliefs -- a very strong desire to stir up hatred towards men.

 

Indeed, you do not even need to read the various outpourings of the feminists in order to figure out what their views will be on any given matter.

 

Just ask yourself this simple question: "What would my views be if I hated men and if I wanted to stir up this hatred in others?" And your answer to this question will almost certainly be consistent with what most feminists are actually saying.

[Wolf18]

I don't think you people can grasp the concept of cultural Marxism. Nobody's saying this is a "Soviet plot".

 

By the 1980's , the USSR was a wholesome beaver cleaver place in regards to morality. The contrast between the simplicity and innocence in East Germany compared to the drugs, promiscuity, delinquency, homosexuality, pornography, etc in West Germany should be enough to make that point. As someone who has a relative who lived in Socialist East Germany when the wall fell, I can tell you most citizens in East Germany were appalled about what was on the other side even to this day.

 

Cultural Marxism is essentially a rebellion against all natural impulses and replacing them with abstraction. Jackson Pollak and other "artists" who were tripping balls on acid given to them by the CIA (read the declassified documents) were probably left-wing/liberal/Marxist yet they were used in the cultural war against the USSR who actually abhorred modern art. While women had equality in Russia, it was political equality, not this sick Betty Friedan feminine mystique type of stuff.

 

It is possible to use Marxism and concepts derived from them like feminism to benefit big business. Both ideologies have similar roots and if you look at the underlying philosophies of both the USSR and America (human beings are animals that live for nothing but consumption; we are just walking stomachs born for work and nothing else) you will find that it's not so crazy to say Marxists concepts can benefit corporate capitalism greatly.

[thatone]

McCarthyism lasted all of a year, the most overhyped wad of nada in American "scandals," there's no need to defend McCarthy at all, because the whole thing was much ado about nothing. But to hear the left tell it, that year of McCarthy was the equivalent of a genocidal purge. Eh, maybe some Hollywood types got their feelings hurt. Amounted to a convenient scapegoat for the left, remains that to this day, nothing more.

 

 

 

Fail.

 

The article was cited in reference to a book written by a socialist, the facts within which have not been contested in any way by anyone anywhere that I'm aware of... amazing when talking about a book that exposes a feminist icon.

 

 

 

Oh that's where the national debt came from? lawlz. So cultural marxists set out to destabilize the American social structure, brazenly TOLD us as much, succeeded, and we have the divorce rate, incarceration rate, single parent household rate, decline in marriage rate today to prove they succeeded, their actual students were and are still at the forefront of academia in positions of leadership, yet it is somehow all made up?

 

Tell me then, what drastic social paradigm shift caused the destabilization? I suppose it was utter coincidence that feminists said "we will undermine the American family" over and over and over in the 60s, and the American family is in fact undermined today?

 

If you want to say it was the sexual revolution what did the deed, it's the same folks at the helm:

 

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

 

 

 

As stated, and made abundantly clear, feminism transformed into the "women's rights industry," big business, after the end of the Cold War. But I suppose cultural espionage doesn't exist, currencies and markets aren't destabilized the world over, scandals aren't created via entrapment, people dont' buy and sell sensitive information. Marxists have never used propaganda for espionage purposes, perish the thought.

 

Personally, I find naivete quite funny

 

Incidentally, just how did they fake the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis?

 

.

 

 

mccarthism lasted a year because ed murrow made a fool of him. had everyone ignored it, it would've gotten worse. it's technically illegal to hire mercenaries, but our government now does it. it's technically illegal to have torture camps, but we have them. it's technically illegal to do a lot of things that the government does anyway. but what stops them isn't conspiracy theories and protests, what stops them is TV news.

 

there is no sinister plot that can do better than we've done to ourselves. the decline of the 50s culture that conservatives idolize has nothing to do with communist plots, and everything to do with the fact that the economy that era had no longer exists. a guy who dropped out of school in the 8th grade, like my grandfather, can't go to work in the engineering department at the local plant and make enough money to support a wife and two kids. it's impossible. that's why the 50s are gone, it has nothing to do with politics.

 

no, cultural espionage doesn't exist. BS term thrown back and forth between political opponents, one to claim victory and the other to claim defeat, depending on the weather. you can't affect someone with an idea that they simply don't care about. and the vast majority of people simply don't care about the idealism of the past.

 

you're straw manning me with the bay of pigs/missle crisis bit. i didn't say they were hoaxes, i said the cold war was bullsh*t. and it was. the effect of the cold war on the average person's life in the west was little or nothing, other than the vast amount of tax revenue wasted on military hardware. so what if the soviets actually conquered china? china was flat broke at the time. so what if the north koreans had actually unified with south korea? we would've had to make our own radios? would've been a boon for the 8th grade dropouts mentioned above.

 

if the american mafia and CIA hadn't been plotting against cubans via the cuban government there wouldn't have been a revolution. if the american government hadn't pouted about the revolution and refused to deal with them afterward, they wouldn't have thrown their hats in with the soviets. just like if the CIA and BP hadn't overthrown the democratic government in iran in favor of the shah, iran wouldn't be an enemy today.

 

the difference in you and i is you think one side is right and the other side is wrong. i think they're all wrong. in a roundabout way i apply your conservative principles better than you do . you conservatives like to preach about how government can do no right, yet you keep voting and expecting the outcome of elections to make a difference. i'm a realist, i know that the US government rarely does good, and usually does bad.

 

try practicing what you preach, the water is fine, come on in.

[Els]

Sorry but I feel that men are owed retribution, affirmative action for the terrible injustice done to them by a male only draft. I'm not talking about remote ancestors here. I'm talking about still living war vets who's lives have been destroyed, about the sons and daughters of the men who were shipped to Vietnam and never came back.

 

How comfortable and easy it is for women to deny the need for affirmative action to right the horrific injustice done to these young men and their families, after all NONE of the women here ever faced even the slightest risk of being shipped to a foreign country to be blown into a million little pieces.How easily that is dismissed, brushed away like it doesn't matter.. I'm sorry but I think it does.

 

I abhor war, abhor the draft .. but the draft did happen & it was unfair,it discriminated against men & favored women. This discrimination isn't about who pays for a damn date, it was discrimination that resulted in the loss of countless male lives & left untold numbers of war survivors impaired both mentally and physically.

 

How do we just sweep that under the rug? I can't

 

Oh, so now we're being serious about that suggestion again, instead of it just being an 'overly-simplistic example to prove a point'? Lady (or man), you need to make your mind up, because you've waffled 4 times over one statement.

 

So, going back to your suggestion; seeing as you are defending it now, you must be serious about it, yes? You truly feel that the best way to honor the dead and prevent such from occurring again, is to enforce compulsory draft for women and not men. I'm sorry, but that has to be the daftest solution I've ever seen. It brings not a jot of benefit to the people whose lives have been destroyed by war, to simply levy it on the opposite sex as revenge. The solution to solve rape issues is not to give women a way to rape men, you know.

 

Now, I'm going to sit back and eat popcorn and probably watch you deny your suggestion again and claim that it was tongue in cheek, that you didn't really mean that, yadda yadda...

[Taramere]

Well you may be right about his approach but that doesn't mean he doesn't have sound legal grounds. From what I gather there's more to it than is on that site, including some of the interactions with the lecturers and facilities.

 

Anyway it should be an interesting case alright.

 

If it's a personal thing between him and a lecturer, as you think - and if that personal thing involved him being personally discriminated against, then definitely that could be very different. Though if that really is the case, then his energetic attention-seeking and media ranting isn't likely to promote a picture of him being a reasonable, easy to get along with guy who was heinously victimised by man-haters.

 

On the face of it, and based on what he's publicly presenting, his emphasis seems to be on the curriculum itself...so that's the only thing people can really speak to when discussing it.

 

Here's a link to the LSE prospectus for one of its gender studies courses

 

http://www2.lse.ac.uk/study/graduate/taughtProgrammes2012/MScGender.aspx

 

Fairly clearly laid out what the course contains and what the reading material is. Unless he didn't read the prospectus before enrolling on the course, he must have known pretty well what it would entail.

 

To me, academia is an environment where people are expected and encouraged to employ critical thinking in discussing and sometimes challenging the theories they're being taught. If he feels that the theories commonly taught on gender studies courses are biased in favour of women, then that academic environment is precisely the place in which to challenge those theories and to challenge the concept of Gender Studies itself. Using intellect and debating skills - not the institution's disciplinary and grievance procedures, public histrionics and the legal process.

 

This is a gripe I have about universities generally...in that they're taking in all-comers. To the point, apparently, where if people don't like what they're being taught they'll take an institution to court and devote time to preparing for that, rather than put together a thoroughly researched and objectively toned assignment in order to portray a different perspective.

 

Any expectation he has that the court will see itself as having the authority and expertise required to comment on whether the course content was biased would be unrealistic. You'd have to be a genuine, credible and proven expert in a huge range of gender theories, peer reviewed studies and applicable history to make that call. Courts rely on independent experts to help them decide on such matters. I wonder who he's going to draft in for that. My hunch is that he genuinely believes his own opinion will be sufficient. It would tie in with the grandiose way he's courting media attention.

 

That he's trying to raise the profile of this case as much as he can and very confidently courting all this media coverage doesn't lend much support to the notion that he's suffered a harm worth £50k. I'm looking forward to seeing where this one goes. Definitely a future thread topic.

Edited November 17, 2011 by Taramere

[dasein]

mccarthism lasted a year because ed murrow made a fool of him.

 

Is that because the movie said so? So what though, a year is stil just a year, where were the casualties of McCarthy? list them. They don't exist. Once more, scapegoat for the left, particularly the Hollywood left. Congressional committee chairs do all sorts of underhanded, crappy things, business as usual.

 

had everyone ignored it, it would've gotten worse.

 

Woulda shoulda, has nothing to do with the real overreaction to this day to what amounted to a nonevent. You know what? the overreaction pretty much proves Soviet espionage involvement in this country.

 

but what stops them isn't conspiracy theories and protests, what stops them is TV news.

 

No idea what your point is but thank god for cable and the internet or else we would still be subject to a thoroughly coopted three network oligopoly. I remember as a kid watching a rerun of a 60 minutes anti hunting episode called "The Guns of Autumn," and knowing instantly, via that and other experiences, that the news outlets in this country, all of them at the time, were thoroughly coopted by political and corporate interests. Don't even get me started on newspapers. Again, thank GOD for the internet. Without the internet, the Lewinsky scandal would have never broken for example. Network news may actually have become more unbiased over the last ten years, I wouldn't know because I don't watch it, nor does anyone I know anymore. Yeah, it was that bad. People bitch and moan about Fox News, but if CNN weren't set up to be such an organ of the democratic party, Fox news would never have come into existence (don't bother going there, I don't watch that either). There are lots of people out there who hate being lied to, manipulated and massaged night after night, and those people aren't all wackjobs and the religious right.

 

the economy that era had no longer exists. a guy who dropped out of school in the 8th grade, like my grandfather, can't go to work in the engineering department at the local plant and make enough money to support a wife and two kids. it's impossible. that's why the 50s are gone, it has nothing to do with politics.

 

What exactly would that have to do with the divorce rate, the incarceration rate, the decline in marriage, the rise of one parent households? Nothing.

 

no, cultural espionage doesn't exist.

 

To adopt your level of analysis, yes it does.

 

you're straw manning me with the bay of pigs/missle crisis bit.

 

You claim that the Cold War was BS (whatever that means). Yet we hadn't experienced 60 years of no nuclear attacks then, and when an aggressive foreign power destabilized Cuba and began putting nukes in there, man, that's about as f-ing real as it gets. Our intelligence revealed similar going on all over the world. I suppose President Thatone would have responded to nukes in Cuba as "hey no worries everybody, it's all just a bunch of BS!" No one knew whether the Russians would use those nukes or not. What we did know was that the Soviets were operating under an ideology that, as it plainly stated, required a WORLD revolution, and we had just experienced the exact same thing from the Germans... and look what happened when we passed that off as "just a bunch of Euro BS" for years.

 

As far as espionage goes, the Soviets realized they could not outproduce the U.S., so they decided to outspy us and outpropagandize us. That was their wheelhouse, destabilization and sowing dissent.

 

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

 

if the american mafia and CIA hadn't been plotting against cubans via the cuban government there wouldn't have been a revolution.

 

OK Oliver Stone, but arguendo, if that HAD been the case, how would anyone have known it WASN'T the Russians, what difference would it have made in our reaction? None. Also arguendo, did they move nukes in or was that just a hoax too?

 

i apply your conservative principles better than you do . you conservatives like to preach about how government can do no right,

 

1. I'm not a conservative. 2. Conservatives certainly don't preach about government doing no right, they preach about smaller government, and then enact large government for their pet issues. 3. I do believe government is a necessary evil, that's libertarian, not conservative.

[dasein]

dasein - why do you persist

 

I've posted a theory of the origin of feminism that plausibly contains everything in your post. That's right, everything in your post can be stipulated to as factual and true, yet doesn't contradict what I've posted in any way. OTOH, you haven't contradicted anything I've posted about the origins of feminism other than "you think the earth is flat." Wow, what a truly compelling argument...

 

Waves or strands of feminism, even descriptors like "radical," "militant," "lesbian," commonly used to delineate feminism(s) are convenient distractions from what feminism is. Feminism isn't a thousands of year old religious belief like Islam or Christianity with the necessary real history of dissent among its followers to form true sects and subsects. Nor is feminism a thousand year old academic discipline with all the various subfields and studies.

 

Feminism, like other social sciences, PRETENDS a history of subdisciplines and dissenting submovements, creates tomes full of meaningless jargon, because doing so presents a false air of legitimacy and feeds the vanities of those who make up all the jargon. One side benefit to the true mainstream feminists is it just happens to fool you as well.

 

Because it has become such a large profitable industry, another factor with the supposed "strands" is that everyone wants to cement their spot on the gravy train, and one way to do this is by rehashing the stale old hash in different ways. Spouting yet more and more psychobabbly jargon and acronyms into academic discourse already choked to death with it. It's all just a bunch of hot air when it isn't out and out lies.

 

Academics are notorious for this, and one way of estimating the legitimacy of any "new" discipline is how many BS "strands" and "subisms," how much gobbledygook JARGON a discipline tosses out on a regular basis. Feminism fails this test

 

Feminism started in the 60s, plucked up isolated historical figures and movements, and wove them into a false quilt of a first wave of feminism. This was done to conceal the marxist origins and goals from the hoi polloi. In the academic journals and books, though, they brazenly told us exactly what they were up to (NXS cites just a few examples of this), destabilize American society via destruction of marriage, the family unit, and the influence of man in the family. They accomplished this goal over several decades.

 

The leaders of feminism are STILL unrepentantly marxist and don't even bother to hide that fact any more because the "women's rights industry," has cemented its existence outside the academic world as profitable big business and there is no more red scare.

 

And FWIW, both my grandmothers had college degrees obtained sometime in the 30s. Neither of my grandfathers were as educated. A college degree was not something women ever had to fight for, and simply wasn't that rare. Women who wanted to work and go to college in the prefeminist world had no problem doing so. Ironically most of the founders of feminism had PhDs. Was there mild discrimination against women in certain types of work? Yes, but it evaporated in a historical instant.

[dasein]

The man appears to be solely talking about one particular breed of feminism, and appears to be under the delusion that all feminists are the same,

 

Feminism is the same, and I explain all the subsects of it in my prior post. Feminism, like other recent illegitimate social sciences based on victimization and polarization, creates all manner of faux subsects out of the vanity of the hot air blowing academicians and the desire to obfuscate its true aims. When a feminist suggests, "let's just change the standard of proof in rape cases to a preponderance of the evidence because no women ever lie about being raped," one minute, she can blithely tiptoe back out of the extremist camp and into "safe" noble "equality for women" first wave feminist camp for purposes of putting on a public face. It's just another societal example of women maintaining their supposed privilege to be inconsistent and still be taken seriously.

 

Sorry, doesn't work any more.

 

All of them present 'worrying' facts, men discriminated against, families torn down, when in actual fact none of them can tie those tangible negative effects in with the current women's rights policies, which NXS has so kindly provided for me.

 

You couldn't possibly be so cosmically naive and unaware of the nature of politics as to think that policy statements made to the U.N. would contain anything other than generalized, innocuous language as opposed to specific legislative mandates. So the only conclusion is that you are creating just another field of strawmen.

 

But OK, we can still derive discriminatory intent: the very first passage of those guidelines contains an exhortation towards even more affirmative action for women in an environment where such is patently discriminatory towards men. Men were disproportionately unemployed in the recession, more women in college by a sizable amount, no wage gap, no glass ceiing, yet when will the calls by feminists for affirmative action end? We all know the answer, NEVER. New bogus statistics will be created out of thin air (700,000 kids starving in my state), old bad statistical analysis will resurface, falsifying the existence of inequities in the workplace, it will never end.

 

To soserious' post, ironic that returning, mentally and emotionally scarred, if not physically disabled veterans will be discriminated against in women's favor, because men have some illusory advantage in the workplace. Supreme irony.

 

I could address each individually, they all stink, but will suffice with ANY legislation or policy that isolates the experience of one gender from the other, "Family violence is one of the most insidious forms of violence against women," for example, is wrong. Women commit a significant amount of domestic abuse, women commit a significant amount of domestic abuse against children. Yet the issue is couched divisively as one that only affects the female gender.

 

In fact, laws that identify one class of person by race, gender, etc., are patently unconstitutional on their face, yet since ERA and before, the feminists, in their perpetual screeching for 40 years for gender based laws that violate the 14th amendment, have clearly demonstrated that they don't give one sh-t about the rule of law, true gender equality or anything resembling peaceful gender relations. Thoughtful citizens possessing any degree of ethical character don't seek out special treatment under the law, especially if those laws damage the rule of law concept. Feminists simply don't care about such things only taketaketake. It's as if the rule of law and legislature is a table full of discounted dresses on black friday for them to shriek, fight and tear over.

 

For ignorant, street-level feminists, who generally have a less than sixth grade grasp of civics, politics and history, they don't even see the problems with gender specific laws. That's partially the fault of a pathetic federal education/indoctrination system populated with feminist morons who would just as soon do away with the Constitution entirely; lord knows they aren't going to be teaching it.

 

It's also their own fault. Suggest that VAWA is unconstitutional, and they get a "who? what? where?" deer in the headlights look. Most of them don't even know what VAWA is, the rest only read far enough to get to the peabrained "protect women = good" level of analysis characteristic of run of the mill feminists. Take the level of discourse to an even higher level and ask them why they think gender specific legislation is allowed under the 14th amendment and they short circuit for a minute and then try to rationalize back to peabrain land... "protect women = good." They don't even know what the 14th amendment is, let alone even the 19th. If they do know the 19th, it's the only one they know.

[Taramere]

Feminism started in the 60s, plucked up isolated historical figures and movements, and wove them into a false quilt of a first wave of feminism. This was done to conceal the marxist origins and goals from the hoi polloi. In the academic journals and books, though, they brazenly told us exactly what they were up to (NXS cites just a few examples of this), destabilize American society via destruction of marriage, the family unit, and the influence of man in the family. They accomplished this goal over several decades.

 

If they can't be classed as "feminist", having been written before the 1960s in which genre would you place the following books?

 

De l'égalité des deux sexes (Poullaine de la Barre - 1673, French)

 

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (Wollenscraft, 1792, British)

 

The Second Sex (de Beauvoir, 1949, French)

 

Marxism? de Beauvoir yes, but can't really say that about the first two books. Given that the focus in all three relates to issues faced by women throughout history, and relations/the distribution of of power between the genders, why wouldn't these books be classed as feminist books?

 

As far as organised movements go, are you aware of the massive campaign that took place in Victorian Britain, with regard to the introduction of contagious diseases legislation? Of the focus, of that campaign, on women's rights and the application of double standards?

Edited November 17, 2011 by Taramere

[dasein]

I don't deny the existence of individual historical people, a portion of whose thoughts, could be deemed "feminist" in the least. Nor do I deny that there were in fact social movements of every type imagineable pre feminism. I certainly don't deny that there were historical social movements focused on women's rights.

 

Inexpensive printing technology and industrial revolution inspired all manner of new types of social activism, and such activism was expressed and dispersed in books, pamphlets on topics of every description.

 

I don't even deny that what you list could be retroactively gathered together under the term "feminism" for purposes of historical research and analysis. If you or anyone else want to go back and claim "I'm -that- original Mary Shelley type," fine. It leaves you nothing other than a platitude lifted from the rule of law, but fine. That is not what feminism IS though, what it WAS, or what it continues to be.

 

What I maintain, though, is that rather than influence from any supposed historical proto feminists, the actual doctrine and its original goals are entirely marxist/leninist in origin, deriving from noncontroversial, run of the mill social destabilization and control methods of which we have recent historic examples in Mao and Pol Pot for instance, manufactured as a propaganda technique, and then falsely attributed as some accretive "women's rights movement" that grew up and snowballed over prior decades and centuries. Vastly simplified, those techniques can be summarised as "sow dissent in the family structure, make women unhappy, remove men, place the state in the place of men." Pol Pot could have written it, he was just more pragmatic in achieving it, being unbound by the rule of law.

 

"The Feminine Mystique" was a propaganda piece written by a career propagandist to further the marxist academic and social goals similar to those of the Frankfurt School socialists among others, and to the extent those academics and others had been enlisted in the very real Soviet cultural espionage machine present in this country at the time, to further Soviet espionage and general ideological warfare.

 

A large, vociferous group of people in the U.S. were outspoken communists then, lots of them were academics. In a post Cold War era, we tend to forget this. While there is a "spy v spy" element in it to a limited degree, lots of those folks were in fact Soviet agents, it's mostly about aboveboard, open air political discourse. Lots of people didn't like U.S. involvement in Viet Nam for example, which opened the door for many socialist/communist initiatives here, the Youth Movements being one example. The Youth Movements were portrayed to the American people in terms of youthful rebellion, love and resistance to oppression, while the socialist/communist political content of those movements was swept under the rug by a compliant media. That this is a part of U.S. history is not some radical reinterpretation of history.

 

Feminism came to be in the 1960s, inspired almost totally by marxist/leninism, not Mary Shelley. Now Mary may have inspired the commies to "stitch together" and reanimate an air of legitimacy out of historical pieces, but the academic discourse then was all about "Red" v "Red White and Blue" and not at all about "women's rights." Prior activism was used to enlist initiates into the victimization roles marxism (and any other polarizing victimization theory such as Nazism) needs to succeed. It was also used to create a safe haven from being called radical or extremist. What could be more innocuous than coopting the rule of law into a gender statement "equal rights for women." Quite a reasonable, pragmatic subterfuge actually, I give them credit.

Edited November 17, 2011 by dasein

[NXS]

Which of their points exactly is misandrist? Is wishing to tackle domestic violence misandrist? And here I was thinking that feminism TORE down families, instead of wishing to support harmonious ones. Gender-based violence? Really, that's a WRONG issue to bring up? Giving protection to rape, assault and abuse victims? Taking action against men who abuse women isn't misandrist, it's called being social and welfare minded. If the 'men activists' here listed wishing to protect men and boys from abuse as one of their goals, I would find it worthy and honorable, as opposed to, oh, I don't know, removing college grants from women?

 

It seems you and dasein have some talking to do with each other, because the points you listed are most definitely not Communist, and I'm interested in seeing how any of them tear down a family or destabilize nations.

 

The overall message is highly misandric, for a start it defines gender-based violence purely in terms of women being victims. This goes against any credible research done on domestic violence:

 

1. Gender-based violence is a form of discrimination that seriously inhibits women's ability to enjoy rights and freedoms on a basis of equality with men.

 

 

The definition of discrimination includes gender-based violence, that is, violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately.

 

 

23. Family violence is one of the most insidious forms of violence against women. It is prevalent in all societies.

 

 

(b) States parties should ensure that laws against family violence and abuse, rape, sexual assault and other gender-based violence give adequate protection to all women, and respect their integrity and dignity.

 

 

1. The legislation in force to protect women against the incidence of all kinds of violence in everyday life (including sexual violence, abuses in the family, sexual harassment at the work place etc.);

 

 

17. Equality in employment can be seriously impaired when women are subjected to gender-specific violence

 

 

(t) States parties should take all legal and other measures that are necessary to provide effective protection of women against gender-based violence, including, inter alia:

 

Female perpetrators of domestic violence simply do not exist according to this feminist committee. How is that any different than so-called radical feminists?

 

They don't seem to have any problem collecting biased data for their skewed reports:

 

a) Encourage and support research and experimental studies to measure and value the unremunerated domestic activities of women; for example, by conducting time-use surveys as part of their national household survey programmes

 

 

u) States parties should report on all forms of gender-based violence, and such reports should include all available data on the incidence of each form of violence and on the effects of such violence on the women who are victims;

 

 

(e) States parties in their reports should identify the nature and extent of attitudes, customs and practices that perpetuate violence against women and the kinds of violence that result. They should report on the measures that they have undertaken to overcome violence and the effect of those measures;

 

 

(j) States parties should include in their reports information on sexual harassment, and on measures to protect women from sexual harassment and other forms of violence of coercion in the workplace;

 

4. Statistical data on the incidence of violence of all kinds against women and on women who are the victims of violence.

 

 

quantify and include the unremunerated domestic activities of women in the gross national product;

 

Great, so we can all look forward to the next round of "reports" on how women are always victims of domestic violence, women are always oppressed, women always earn less, women always do all the domestic work ....... on and on it goes, the endless victim industry.

 

Men are barely exist at all in the recommendations unless they are portrayed in a negative light:

 

The abrogation of their family responsibilities by men can be a form of violence, and coercion.

 

Traditional attitudes by which women are regarded as subordinate to men

 

many fathers fail to share the responsibility of care, protection and maintenance of their children.

 

Many men influence or control the votes of women by persuasion or direct action,

Or to perpetuate the lie that men always have more rights:

 

to ensure to women on equal terms with men

So once again men don't exist unless it's to show what evil abusers we are.

 

 

 

There's nothing in any way balanced about these recommendations and they once again stereotype marriage as a place of consistant abuse for poor women victims.

 

 

 

Furthermore there's nothing in any of this for men, men's rights simply do not exist. Discrimination against men doesn't exist, male victims of domestic violence or sexual assault do not exist. It just reinforces the same gender stereotypes we've been hearing about for the past 40 to 50 years.

 

 

 

How is any of this different from "radical feminism"?

Edited November 17, 2011 by NXS

[Taramere]

Furthermore there's nothing in any of this for men, men's rights simply do not exist. Discrimination against men doesn't exist, male victims of domestic violence or sexual assault do not exist. It just reinforces the same gender stereotypes we've been hearing about for the past 40 to 50 years.

 

 

 

How is any of this different from "radical feminism"?

 

I think there are certainly men who get a raw deal....and when they do get that raw deal, there isn't always a lot of support in place.

 

The issue of violence and sexual abuse: I think that there needs to be increased emphasis on specialist training with regard to helping men who make disclosures. To have a strong appreciation of the additional obstacles they may have (in comparison to women) in disclosing these issues and asking for help. Some of those obstacles being connected to traditional notions of men being "strong and silent".

 

At the moment there is a big discrepancy in the number of women using such services and the number of men who use them. So perhaps an increase in outreach workers specifically for men. Which sounds sexist, but it would deal with the assumption some men might have that these outreach workers won't know how to deal with male victims (or might even be hostile).

 

The problem just now is that any men's rights movement there is seems to be focused primarily on attacking the allocation of resources to women...rather than being more proactive and saying "here is what we need." Which is disappointing, because to deal in generalisations for a moment...one of the positive generalisations about men is that they tend to get things done. Find solutions to problems.

 

The Men's Rights Movement seems overly concerned with being adversarial (which is very reminiscent of radical feminism) and "breaking the matriarchy" rather than getting into that position of taking positive action for men without constantly having half a mind focused on "let's get the bitches, and teach them a few lessons in return for feminism." As long as the people in it promote that negative, aggressive element to it, it's likely to be seen as a hate movement.

 

My guess is that it's a movement which attracts quite a lot of men who don't have a strong educational background, and a few who do - those few ruling the roost, telling others what's what and enjoying a kind of genius/guru status. I can imagine radical feminism being much the same way. The few at the centre of these activist movements tend to talk a lot about freeing yourself from a particular group's control....but what they really mean is "let us control you instead."

 

 

So how do men start empowering themselves with regard to some of the disadvantages they're encountering in society, without building a gender war of it? ....without falling into that trap of submitting to the control of guru types who might be more interested in attaining a sense of power for themselves, than in what's in the genuine interest of other men?

 

Is that what men want? To empower themselves? Or is the desire to disempower women? A lot of the stuff I'm reading on this MRM stuff seems to be more concerned with the latter....which is why I ask.

[dasein]

I want to amend a prior post, because I do support very limited affirmative action laws for blacks and any others who suffered real systematic discrimination over many years in this country. So I do admit to very limited exceptions to the rule of law principle that laws that benefit a specific class of people are always bad.

[dasein]

The issue of violence and sexual abuse: I think that there needs to be increased emphasis on specialist training with regard to helping men who make disclosures. To have a strong appreciation of the additional obstacles they may have (in comparison to women) in disclosing these issues and asking for help. Some of those obstacles being connected to traditional notions of men being "strong and silent".

 

In other words, domestic abuse is men's fault for not speaking out enough. Do you know what happens to a man in the U.S. who calls the police after getting popped in the head by his wife or GF? In most cases, he goes to jail. It has less than nothing to do with some tendency in men to be masculine and strong and silent, and everything to do with men being well aware of discrimination. And no, no more "specialist training" is required. The social work industry in this country is enough of a discriminatory sewer as it is without putting more power and decisionmaking capacity into those incompetent, mostly female, and utterly biased hands.

 

How about simply removing all gender specific content from legislation of all types, abolishing any bureaucratic or quasi bureaucratic advisory committees that focus on the experience of only one gender, denying public funding to schools or universities who insist on maintaining divisive victim based nonfields of nonstudy based on gender, denying public funding to any nonprofit, charity, foundation, or public service organization that contains any gender specific content in its charter or publicity materials? In this country that would be the mere starting point towards even beginning to move back to plumb. Sound good? That's just a wee bit of the administrative stuff out of the way, but somehow I imagine those simple, common sense, equality driven things will be rationalized as "problematic" for women.

 

At the moment there is a big discrepancy in the number of women using such services and the number of men who use them. So perhaps an increase in outreach workers specifically for men. Which sounds sexist, but it would deal with the assumption some men might have that these outreach workers won't know how to deal with male victims (or might even be hostile).

 

That's like telling a lung cancer patient to smoke more cigarettes and when he dies, the cancer will die with him, so he will be cured. No more coopted bureaucracies to come in and begin the discrimination machine afresh. You really don't have any idea how this stuff pans out in real life in the U.S. do you? None at all. No U.S. man today with half a brain would EVER willingly involve the "women's issues" industry in his life, because once he does, it's over.

 

The problem just now is that any men's rights movement there is seems to be focused primarily on attacking the allocation of resources to women...rather than being more proactive and saying "here is what we need."

 

That's because most of the types of men who are beginning to wake up and speak, unlike feminists, understand innately that two wrongs don't make a right, and understand that just because we have had to look at the swinish fat asses of feminists grunting at the trough for decades that doesn't justify getting our asses in there and grunting right along beside them.

 

The Men's Rights Movement seems overly concerned with being adversarial (which is very reminiscent of radical feminism)

 

Whatever. You and elswyth apparently don't understand that when a dog has been beaten for years, the dog's turning and snapping on the master, chewing a leg off even, is not "just the same thing" as what the master did. Feminism has obtained, through false pretense, historical distortions and lies, untold political and social advantages for women over men in a very short period, while simultaneously demonizing men and creating a penal, domestic, judicial and media environment that spews out victimization, divisiveness, polarization, demonization at every opportunity. The MRA, or however you conveniently compartmentalize "the truth," has no such objective in mind, merely a halt to being beaten like a dog

 

We just want to turn the filth spewing smokestack OFF, not make our own smokestack.

 

My guess is that it's a movement which attracts quite a lot of men

 

Not even a good try. LOL "attracts." What "attracts" mostly average men to speak out is having walked around in a minefield for 30 years and finally waking up and saying "WTF??"

 

As far as more educated puppetmasters in control of a mass of plebes, sorry, we are just plain guys, we simply look smarter when our words appear next to feminists'.

 

So how do men start empowering themselves with regard to some of the disadvantages they're encountering in society, without building a gender war of it?

 

Dismantle the gender war, which means dismantle feminism. We are getting around to it, give us 10-20 years, we have a busy schedule full of pressing matters. Lots of "man logic," "man science," "man statistics," "man math," "man history" incoming, or should I simply say lots of logic, science, statistics, math and history incoming? You all apparently don't do so well with our tools.

Edited November 17, 2011 by dasein

[Els]

The overall message is highly misandric, for a start it defines gender-based violence purely in terms of women being victims. This goes against any credible research done on domestic violence:

 

Female perpetrators of domestic violence simply do not exist according to this feminist committee. How is that any different than so-called radical feminists?

 

They don't seem to have any problem collecting biased data for their skewed reports:

 

Great, so we can all look forward to the next round of "reports" on how women are always victims of domestic violence, women are always oppressed, women always earn less, women always do all the domestic work ....... on and on it goes, the endless victim industry.

 

Men are barely exist at all in the recommendations unless they are portrayed in a negative light:

 

Or to perpetuate the lie that men always have more rights:

 

 

So once again men don't exist unless it's to show what evil abusers we are.

 

 

 

There's nothing in any way balanced about these recommendations and they once again stereotype marriage as a place of consistant abuse for poor women victims.

 

 

 

Furthermore there's nothing in any of this for men, men's rights simply do not exist. Discrimination against men doesn't exist, male victims of domestic violence or sexual assault do not exist. It just reinforces the same gender stereotypes we've been hearing about for the past 40 to 50 years.

 

 

 

How is any of this different from "radical feminism"?

 

 

....They're only mentioning females getting abused because it's their JOB to help women!

 

Seriously, can you really be this dense? If the WCF states that its motto is to prevent the suffering of children all over the world, are they being ageist or generationist towards parents? Are they saying that adult victims of abuse and violence don't exist??

 

If you truly cared about male abuse and violence victims, you would try and get support for them instead of simply seeking singlemindedly to tear down feminism. Even if you somehow manage to disband the UN women's rights committee, do you think that will solve abuse and violence against men?

[NXS]

If it's a personal thing between him and a lecturer, as you think - and if that personal thing involved him being personally discriminated against, then definitely that could be very different. Though if that really is the case, then his energetic attention-seeking and media ranting isn't likely to promote a picture of him being a reasonable, easy to get along with guy who was heinously victimised by man-haters.

 

I'm not sure if it's just a lecturer or several of them, I listened to him in an interview and he mentioned something about this but didn't want to go into much detail for obvious reasons. That's where I gathered there was more to the case.

 

Here's a link to the LSE prospectus for one of its gender studies courses

 

http://www2.lse.ac.uk/study/graduate/taughtProgrammes2012/MScGender.aspx

 

Fairly clearly laid out what the course contains and what the reading material is. Unless he didn't read the prospectus before enrolling on the course, he must have known pretty well what it would entail.

 

He attended in 2009 so this may have been updated since, however the prospectus does repeatedly mention "gender studies" and it would not be unreasonable to expect a critical analysis of both sexes. That was not his experience.

 

To me, academia is an environment where people are expected and encouraged to employ critical thinking in discussing and sometimes challenging the theories they're being taught. If he feels that the theories commonly taught on gender studies courses are biased in favour of women, then that academic environment is precisely the place in which to challenge those theories and to challenge the concept of Gender Studies itself. Using intellect and debating skills - not the institution's disciplinary and grievance procedures, public histrionics and the legal process.

 

While I agree with you it depends on how his challenges were received, again it may relate to his interactions with the lecturers. I'm just making assumptions here but it will probably come out in the case.

 

Any expectation he has that the court will see itself as having the authority and expertise required to comment on whether the course content was biased would be unrealistic. You'd have to be a genuine, credible and proven expert in a huge range of gender theories, peer reviewed studies and applicable history to make that call. Courts rely on independent experts to help them decide on such matters. I wonder who he's going to draft in for that. My hunch is that he genuinely believes his own opinion will be sufficient. It would tie in with the grandiose way he's courting media attention.

 

I don't see anything grandiose in his approach, he's trying to get funds for the case, that means getting out and talking to the media. It may backfire on him but if he doesn't have the money then it's not going to come to him sitting at home.

 

That he's trying to raise the profile of this case as much as he can and very confidently courting all this media coverage doesn't lend much support to the notion that he's suffered a harm worth £50k.

 

I don't see how they're related.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing where this one goes. Definitely a future thread topic.

 

Indeed, a future debate.