Hacker News Reader

Comment by kunai | Hacker News Reader

I am male, but I'm a strong feminist. I refuse to use GoDaddy for hosting because of their degrading and objectifying advertising campaign. But there's a problem stemming from two different views on feminism.

It seems like there are two distinct sides, and no neutral ground, for women's rights, and how one goes about fighting for them.

On one hand, you have sexually repressed apes perpetually abusing women and nobody bats an eye.

And on the other hand, you have clinically insane extremists who freak out over jokes about Github.

It's sad that we can't fight for what matters, which is women's rights. It's either go completely mad about it or do nothing at all.

View on HN

I am male and not a feminist, because I disagree with their man-hating propaganda ("A women needs a man like a bicycle needs a fish"). But I am all for equivalence and my wife is my equal as well as my partner (well ... if I admit it, she's my better half in almost every way). I think I'll go hug her - bye.

>I disagree with their man-hating propaganda ("A women needs a man like a bicycle needs a fish")

How in the world is that man-hating? Would it be woman-hating to say "A man needs a woman like a bicycle needs a fish"?

"I am male and not a feminist,... But I am all for equivalence"

That's feminism. You're a feminist.

> "I am male and not a feminist,... But I am all for equivalence"

Actually thats Egalitarianism, not necessarily Feminism.

I'm using the common dictionary definitions I find, which granted is by no means a guarantee of what the word "means".

dictionary.com gives me "the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men", which to my mind suggests that if someone is "all for equivalence" then equivalence for women is a subset of that, so includes feminism.

So yes, I stand corrected. Being "all for equivalence" includes feminism, but is more than feminism; the OP is a feminist, and more.

Except I didn't actually state that I was only for the equality of men and women ... There are a lot more inequalities that can be overcome (starting with stereotypes and prejudices).

"Except I didn't actually state that I was only for the equality of men and women"

You stated you were not for equality of men and women ("I am not a feminist") but then you immediately changed your mind and said "I am all for equivalence".

You are, as I said, a feminist and more. A feminist because you are for equivalence of men and women, and more because you are for equivalence of others as well.

Words have different meaning to different people. The Feminism label carries a political context that Egalitarianism label does not and not every Egalitarian is automatically a feminist as you claim.

"not every Egalitarian is automatically a feminist as you claim."

Using the definition I gave (which is quite literally the dictionary definition), they are. I acknowledge that many people (in the US) seem to use the word "feminist" to mean "filthy godless pinko commie liberal baby-killing anti-American" (where "liberal" has already been redefined) or some other such politically charged interpretation. That's a fantastic trick pulled by the anti-women (amongst other things) crowd who do wonders with redefining language on a daily basis.

It's...not though. You can do whatever you want. No one else forces your actions, and your dichotomy is a false one.

That said, if someone says that a joke about github (or anything else) is making them uncomfortable, it's probably worth at least listening to them. Especially if they have lived a life sufficiently different from yours that their subjective experiences are likely to be somewhat distant from yours, and especially especially if they are of a demographic people judge harshly (as determined by IATs: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selectatest.html

Disagreement is a pretty low standard for extremism.

So, publicly shaming and getting two individuals fired for talking about forking a Git repo isn't extremism?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-barreled_question

I do think rape and death threats are, at least, extremist behavior.

Who said it wasn't?

I just think it's not healthy to only look at one side of the equation.

The gents at the conference did not rape anyone, threaten rape or make death threats.

And she didn't fire them. She just posted a picture and a description of what they were doing to make her uncomfortable.

Nothing terrible happened at PyCon. The three people directly involved are all fine people.

I don't think its right to call them two sides, when "sexually repressed apes perpetually abusing women" are million times more than "clinically insane extremists"

What? The point is that people are freaking out on normal and moderate people doing nothing while there are still extremely serious and obvious cases actually worth freaking out about.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com