feminism and sexism

I think the solution is to focus on violence and hostility against people. Or, more generally, indecent and terrible behavior against people.

If we are going to solve these problems, we need to look at the whole picture. If the problem is with our society, then we need to consider all of society.

I think the solution is to focus on violence and hostility against people. Or, more generally, indecent and terrible behavior against people.

If we are going to solve these problems, we need to look at the whole picture. If the problem is with our society, then we need to consider all of society.

agreed. but i would have to go a lot futher than that - THE problem is all of society, at least our current life destroying, divisive, alienating, cut throat type of society. sexism/violence towards women/violence towards anyone is one tip of a giant iceburg, it seems the whole thing is set up to make everyone losers, and then blame them for it. its quite a pickle!!!

Because i think when you keep expanding to a bigger and bigger picture, this problem, is intertwined with a deep widespread systemic illness...the deeper and deeper you try to go into it find the roots of it, the more bottomless and all encompassing it becomes.

one of my x bfs used to talk about similar type issues a lot, and he used to say that it is time for men to have some kind of parelell male empowerment movement. obviously, women cannot do this for them, but i am sure they can attempt to be supportive of such. i would say that, like feminism, for it to be effective - it cannot and should not be at the expense of women's rights (or more sensitive feelers). just as any TRUE empowerment, not at other's expense, seeks the empowerment of others.


people get so stuck to the (supposed ) zero sum game of the distorted interrelations, are entrained with models of domination and exploitation.and then you see this everywhere, peoples relationship to land, commodification of nature, of lifeforms and other people, commodification of women, commodification of each other.

it is hard to break out of those boxes and reprogram your mind, as matu was saying in her excellent post.... yes totally society hands out this software, free, the path of least resistance is to follow along with all this hateful programming, all the illusions and exploitation.

i could write out what i think the solutions are, but they are probably a bit woo sounding to this group. here's my hint though - we are all one ! woman's rights are men's rights, are human rights, are animal rights. everything that exists, has a right to exists for its own chosen purposes, outside of whatever use or desires another being may have.

Here is a man that was raped and is trying to get support:




An interesting bit for statutory rape:

I've just spent far too long going endlessly through this thread attempting to get my head around it all and see if from everyone's point of view so I could sort out the mess, remove anything that seemed to be causing too much grief, and restore the thread to public view in the hope that something productive will finally come of it.

I failed completely in my attempt to get my head around it and see it from everyone's point of view - there really seems to be an awful lot of highly blinkered viewpoints here, or at least ones that start throwing accusations around when the people that hold them fail to get the response they wanted.

I've deleted a whole load of stuff, for so many different reasons that I doubt I could even remember them all if I tried.

Can I remind everyone that this is a forum for discussion, not debate. It is not appropriate to try to force your own viewpoint on other members, or to put words in their mouths or claim that they believe a certain thing just so you can bash them. Neither is it appropriate to claim moral superiority because of your gender or personal history of abuse. For the sake of healthy, productive discussion it is generally best to assume that what is written by another member is *not* an attempt to be nasty - if it seems like that, then maybe the best solution is to attempt to find a better alternative interpretation and assume that is the one intended.

I'm going to re-open this thread now. Please remember that this is the cider press, apple cores will be issued freely, I will ban members from the cider press if I think they are shit-stirring as I really don't want to waste my entire daily spoon allocation on this again, and that the idea of the discussions here is to come up with positive, practical solutions.

Can we all aim at that? I hope so!

The following essay is critical of a tendency in discussions about gender that seems pervasive in many regions of the interwebs that don't have a "be nice" rule/culture. As such, I am posting it here not as a response to any particular thing said in this thread, (which I found remarkably civil in comparison to many,) but rather to present an alternative way of looking at gender issues and discussions thereof more generally.

Below I quote the essay in its entirety, replete with the full beauty of the english language, and admittedly championing a position that many might find incomprehensible/extreme/bizarre, but that I find entertaining and insightful. In particular, the suggestion of moving to "chuck human biology" or the notion that "we're all becoming cyborgs" might seem paradoxical on a permaculture forum, but arguably such ideas are increasingly relevant to thinking about the ethics of future care.

The Floating Metal Sphere Trump Card

William Gillis wrote:
The Floating Metal Sphere Trump Card

Radicals! Are you sick of being spontaneously overcome by blistering rage and horrified vertigo on a daily basis? Do you find yourself foolishly opening comment threads on gender issues thinking yourself desensitized to the mind-warping misogyny that invariably pops into existence like a quantum foam of entitlement underpinning the internet? Are you sick of wasting precious minutes standing slackjawed in front of some new twisting complex of deep psychological issues couched as grandiose social analysis? Do you find yourself humbled into quiet bitter despair while pondering just how long it would take to fight their misrepresentation of reality?

Are you sick, in short, of time-burglaring gender-essentialists?

Then Anarcho-Transhumanism might be right for you!

In all seriousness folks I’m actually kind of amazed at how much time gets wasted in the radical feminist milieu on citation wars with people spouting gender-essentialism. I mean, I’ve fallen for it too. But one of the nicest things about being a transhumanist is the ease by which I can chuck that shit out the door while also utterly confounding and further raising the hackles of my interlocuter.

I know there’s a number of rhetorical trenches we’re instinctively wedded to and what I’m about to propose may sound treasonous, but bear with me because I think you’ll come to appreciate just how delicious this is:

Who the fuck cares?

Imagine the situation. Bro-dude #1,459,005,410 has constructed some meticulous and elaborate set of bullshit anecdotes, his own evolutionary psychology fanfic and dozens of “social science” references. All to prove some ridiculously totalizing and conceptually hazy statement about women or men that they cling to as their own personal patriarchy-justification-wand.

They’re expecting you to get bogged down in a fruitless quagmire contending all the things in order to avoid what is ultimately a really laughable appeal to the naturalistic fallacy. “Look, babe, this is just how the world works.” But whether or not something’s genetic or inherent to our bodies or “built-in” really shouldn’t matter. And giving that assumption fuel by fighting it on its own terms is actually kind of reckless.

Transhumanists obviously don’t have to put up with that shit. In fact we can slide directly into terms of “abolishing gender” from the get-go to directly negate MRA-era contortions around “equality” without even having to slog through a lengthy education process about distinctions between gender and sex. When they confuse the two we can be all, “yeah, that too.” (And then feast on their googely-eyes of horror.)

In short it’s well past time to reverse the feeling of vertigo. Basic notions of common humanity and equality are mainstream and they know it. Reactionary patriarchy-defenders have gone on the defensive with a whiney legalistic search for loop-holes and equivocations. Rejecting the entire notion of human nature or compromise with biology drops the ground out from underneath them.

Fuck you, I’m a robot. I’m a whatever. They’re whatevers. You don’t get a say in it and there’s no reason whatsoever for you to assume. I’m a mind with agency and that should obviously include agency in my self-construction. Even if your ridiculous totally unsupported claims about the best form of relations between two specific ‘types’ of people, those types of people don’t exist anymore and it’s insanely unethical to try and impose such assumptions. This is the future. We’re all becoming cyborgs and queers and entirely new ways and forms of existing. We’re self-altering, self-determining. There is no “women” just as there is no “men”. What there are are douchebags and fucked up social systems doing very real damage that happens to be based on the assumption that such genders exist or should exist. Patriarchy is the enemy and I don’t give a shit what it takes to bring the fucker down.

If gender actually conflicts with ethics, then we should chuck gender. If human biology actually conflicts with ethics, then we should move to chuck human biology. Those folks who argue that some bit of shitty social behavior is built in should be treated like someone admitting an unethical addiction, not someone on the verge of scoring an actual ethical point. You don’t have to be a douche! There are ways out! Here, there are tools becoming available to help! You can transcend your failing!

If our demands are currently less than fully actualizable then that’s all the more reason to demand them, to pressure society into developing and accepting the tools to realize them.

Of course our demands are entirely actualizable right now. There isn’t any ethically relevant substance to distinctions between sexes. Well besides the fact that one can have a factory inside it to make more people. People are statistically all over the place and growing more diverse as knowledge and technology empower them to make changes to their minds and bodies. But who knows maybe there’s some utterly marginal way the bro-dude’s thing really reflects a minor statistical bent in some fashion between the sexes or whatever. (Or maybe things are bent in a direction that would make the bro-dude horrified.) There’s every reason to stay harshly skeptical of “scientific” evidence for such, but there’s no reason to be terrified of eventually accepting proof of such. My feminism is stronger than that.

So the next time someone starts rattling on about their crackpot gender essentialist theory may I recommend countering with an Even if that were remotely plausible, why would it matter in the slightest to the basic ethics of how minds should treat one another? Fuck you, I’m a floating metal sphere. And then just pummel them with future-shock and uncompromising radicalism until they’re in a fetal position.

My friends have come to swear by it.