Sunday, June 29, 2008

Too good to pass up

Statistics are a feminist issue:

Prominent feminist blog #4 to jump on the horrible gun statistics round robin.
For those keeping score at home, that's Feministing, Feministe, Jezebel, and TAPPED. Excuse me while I break out in a fit of childish giggles.
Ok then, where were we?
For all that Feministe, in particular, is fond of labelling me "anti-feminist", I think the feminist movement is doing something important. Society treats men and women differently in ways that it shouldn't. I'm glad that there are people who focus their lives on changing that--even when I disagree with them; even when I think many of the battles they have chosen can't be won.
... giggle break time, again.
And we're back. Time for Megan's Very Serious Critique of modern feminism.
There are three things I really dislike about the feminist movement, all of them sadly reinforcing stereotypes about women.
Question; is this the funniest post Megan has ever written? I'm voting yes.
1) The way that thinking women should be equal is assumed to be necessarily equated with a left economic agenda, and disagreement is treated as a betrayal.
So wait, being completely at odds with a core aspect of feminism, namely a concern for the welfare of humanity that Megan wants to reduce to ideology, and receiving a negative response to that antagonism shows that women really are bitches? This truly is the funniest post of Megan's career.
2) The practice of labelling anyone who doesn't share their agenda as an "anti-feminist". Anyone who has gone to an all girls institution has probably noticed what I did at my girl's camp: every year, every single cabin broke down along the same lines. In the group of five or six, there was one girl who was picked on, one girl who was neutral--and the rest ganged up on the "out" girl. The need to shore up group solidarity by labelling someone as the enemy is probably the least attractive feature of feminine life in America, and it's pretty disappointing to see it so widely reproduced in a movement that's supposed to be liberating us from tired gender roles. I understand wanting to say that people who disagree with you shouldn't use a label you think is important. But I hate the term's implication that anyone who disagrees is an enemy.
There's almost a quasi-respectable opinion here, but Megan can't see it for the personal trauma. Women are very much not immune from the drawbacks of tribalism, and sometimes some feminists lose sight of this fact or don't recognize it. But that fairly minor nit to pick with individuals at specific moments has limited, if any, application to feminism as a whole.
Also, being against feminists kinda fits the label "anti-feminist".
3) The practice of handing around bad statistics like Grade Z Oaxaca Ditch Weed on the last night of Senior Week. It's bad enough in itself, but it also hideously supports stereotypes that women can't cope with real math. This is certainly not a practice limited to feminism--any political movement does a lot of it. But many of the worst statistics come out of women's study and feminist advocacy.
Alright, it's not funny anymore. I hate wimmin for being purty and expecting me to treat them like humans if I want to share in orgasm producing activities with them, and even I'm getting pissed off by Megan's passive aggressive assholery here.
the silly assertion that we know how many women are helped with guns vs. hurt by them, when the data needed to decide such a claim are unavailable, and the coding problems enough to make Jesus weep.
Megan, you began this by asserting women should get guns because it'd help them, which is what the fucking blogs you're calling catty popular girls ganging up on you are responding to.
Having written a follow-up posts [sic] on exactly why you can't infer from flat tabulations of shootings that guns hurt women more than they help, it's pretty discouraging to see four feminist sites link the original with exactly those sorts of ham-fisted statistics.
"A follow-up posts".
Megan's argument boils down to these silly girls don't understand math because they didn't read the follow up post where Megan admitted she has no evidence to back up her assertion by accusing her opponents of the same. She dismisses any studies they might bring up preemptively with "girls are bad at math", because these teams of trained experts didn't check with Megan McArdle before undertaking these studies, conclusively showing that girls are bad at math. Only Megan is aware of potential problems with studies like these, whereas the PhDs and such conducting them are incompetents.
No, it doesn't matter which study. If Megan doesn't agree with it, it's not statistically valid, because feminists who don't accept her authority on things she's unwilling to so much as argue honestly are clearly stuck up snobby bitches who are bad at math.

3 comments:

Susan of Texas said...

Dearest Megan, just because you call yourself a feminist doesn't mean you are one. Therefore when you speculate about guns being a feminist issue you're showing you don't know what you're talking about. Which makes the rest of us laugh, laugh, laugh.

Your friend, Susan.

Anonymous said...

Megan, the "feminist movement" is not a monolithic entity with a single school of thought. Feminists vary in opinions as much as any other movement. How would you like it if I lumped you in with the folks of ALF because the like totally care about animals and don't eat meat like you? Some feminists "sadly reinforce stereotypes about women," but that's not a case you can make against the entire movement.

But hey, continue to base your arguments on your memories of experiences at summer camp as a kid. That's so deep, man.

Anonymous said...

I'm so pissed I've just found this site. I've already told the atlantic to stop sending me issues, they seem to be interested in offending me with their hires.