Free Radicals

[rbstewart7263]

rolls eyes" I dont care what the official definition is. When I think of a feminist that I like its someone who doesnt havent to peg everything as sexist to justify her paranoid mentality. Like say when they tried to peg the last of us,bioshock infinite, borderlands 2(also racist btw lol) tomb raider, etc etc I could go on.

One thats not radical is one that shows reason typically labeled as a sex positive feminist would be where I align. The actual definition just sounds like basic feminism to me and the radical at the beginning just sounds like someone trying to shake off its previous negative connotations.

For the record if you have to preface.(ie: radical is not that radical) and just about everyone associated with this philosophy does that its probably safe to go ahead and take out the radical in the name. Itd be like calling me hair on head rbstewart when Im in fact bald?! lol

You guys should go ahead and tackle the arguement that says that it makes more sense to align yourself with the label of humanitarian. Im curious to see how you go after that one.

Also if you dont give the opposing argument respect.That thing you do when you give the opposing argument stuff like strawman tshirts or make them out to be smug hipsters(irony) while the other person is essentially the quintesential "just a reasonable human being". Than your using shame as a form of coercion and the opposing side no longer has any respect for you and ergo; no ear for what you have to say. If you guys want to actually reach people with your ideas on this strip(for all I know you dont really care which in case strawman away) your gonna have to do better than that. Both in your counter argument and in respect/view of the opposite opinion.

 

[tangoprime]

There's nothing inherently transphobic about radical feminism.

However, yes, in practice, very many of them do happen to be exceedingly transphobic. I must admit that I was swayed by their rhetoric about that for awhile before reading a wider range of feminist stuff.

So... radical feminism isn't transphobic, but very many of them [proponents of] are exceedingly transphobic?
0_o

So there are radical radical feminists within the radical feminist community, or moderate radical feminists, or?
The statement sounds to me like "MS13 isn't an inherently racist organization, but in practice, most of its members are extremely racist."

 

[Machine Man 1992]

I don't really see how anyone could be offended by this comic...

I mean it is just a male writer using a strawman argument to make a spurious issue out of said strawman's semantic error of mixing up 2 definitions rooted in the same issue, and wheeling out a reference to a dated colloquial term that will register a humour response out of the demographic of readers, with a punchline so disconnected from the set-up as to make you wonder why he picked that paticular issue at all. Except of course, knowing hot button topics generate views...

Neeeeooooooo way anyone will get upset about this comic, no sir.

Sarcasm Level: Gregory House.

 

[rbstewart7263]

heres some quotes from the wiki article you linked describing radical feminism.

views on transexual people.

"Radical feminism has been accused of being transphobic, for example in 1979 Janice Raymond's book The Transsexual Empire described transsexuality as a "patriarchal myth".[39] Many radical feminists today still believe that transsexuality is oppressive to women, and genital reassignment surgery is a violation of human rights. Sheila Jeffreys for instance, describes 'transgender' surgeries as 'mutilation."

So now we either agree that this is a view that applies to that philosophy, or; we now have to contest the very page you were citing as proof that, "its not as radical as you think". This is considered a pretty extreme view by alot of people. I suppose you could also argue that there right about this if that were your view but that would be career suicide among other things.(like transphobic)

Echols and Willis have both written that radical feminism was, ultimately, dismissive of lesbian sexuality. On the one hand, if the central struggle was to take place within personal heterosexual relationships, as envisioned by the Redstockings, lesbians were marginalized. On the other, political lesbianism granted lesbians a vanguard role, but only if they would play down erotic desire.

These are criticisms mind you so yeah. but take note that the focus was on lesbianism. no males were ever given consideration even male homosexuals who were and are very oppressed to this day.

Ill say this though radical feminism(I really hate that term lol) was important in making womens equality a widespread idea through its use of CR groups.

 

[Erttheking]

Oh Christ it just hit me. I know why people are fighting in all these gender debates. We're arguing over how things are worded and misunderstandings on what certain words mean. Wow. I can't believe we did that.

 

[Miroluck]

Oh Christ it just hit me. I know why people are fighting in all these gender debates. We're arguing over how things are worded and misunderstandings on what certain words mean.

Well, if people wouldn't do that, what would they argue about?

"-Women deserve equal pay.
-Okay.
-You agree with that?
-Yeah. I mean, I'm not hitler, so of course I do.
-Oh, okay then.
"

 

[RJ Dalton]

My problem has actually taken me a lot of research to define. And it ended with me finding out that I don't really have a problem with feminism. What I have is a problem with a handful of obnoxious women on the internet who have done almost no research into the subject and have no idea what feminism is really about, how it works or what it's history is, but who are nonetheless are happy to use it as an excuse to be really nasty to other people and justify their personal power fantasy of being able to hurt anyone who says something that might possibly be construed to be an insult.

They do exist, but I've found that they're somewhat less prevalent than some media pundits would have you believe. They just happen to have the loudest voice on the internet. Idiots always seem to have the loudest voice on the internet.

 

[Piecewise]

Radical
a : very different from the usual or traditional : extreme
b : favoring extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions
c : associated with political views, practices, and policies of extreme change
d : advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs


Political radicalism

The term political radicalism denotes political principles focused on altering social structures through revolutionary means and changing value systems in fundamental ways


Extremist
a person who holds extreme or fanatical political or religious views, esp. one who resorts to or advocates extreme action.




SO yeah, no. They're pretty much interchangeable unless you've decided to randomly change their meaning to be something completely different from what it is in standard English. Which I fully expect you have, just to be petty little assholes about this.

How do english? [http://www.hurr-durr.com/]

 

[hazabaza1]

So is The Escapist just going "hey guys we need more traffic, make stuff that's guaranteed to create arguments" to their content creators now?

Who else is doing this? I mean, the closest I can come in the shows I watch on here is Jim Sterling, and he's always been a bit of an iconoclast.

Then again, most of the rest of the shows I watch involve LRR, and they're too Canadian to offend anyone.

Unless you hate Canadia. In which case, they're sorry.

Like you said, Jim. Then there's Yahtzee with the whole pre-op transsexual thing, now changed into a censorship thing 'cos he changed the joke. Recently there was the best boobs gallery of the day, and I could've sworn Bob did a thing about the rape stuff in Kick-Ass 2 but I can't find it any more so maybe I imagined it. And then there's the Target advertising kerfuffle going on in Off-Topic.

 

[Static Jak]

Ugh, another video game/feminist debate. I feel like, ever since the whole Anita Sarkeesian blow up, we've got to a point that we're looking at the issue of women and video games in any form under a microscope. Any little thing is going to be talked about, misquoted and argued back and forward until a load of people make blogs about it and videos about it and yeah, comics about it and so on. Every few weeks it's popping up in video game communities (and sci-fi I've noticed).


It's just about hitting breaking point at this stage. The only way I see it going is the topic will just be white noise to most people because it's so damn frequent that it'll be impossible to feel anything about it when we're being hammered with the topic.

All that'll be left would be the "extremists" (radicals, crazies, whatever) on both sides of the fence who wouldn't dare have a rational discussion and would rather just yell at each other than talk. It's nearly like arguing religion at times or even politics.

Look, change will gradually happen. There's more women now than ever playing video games. No, they're not the main market but over time, that number will grow and publishers will take notice. Money speaks after all, always has done. But right now, it's a market that makes games for younger male adults and teens because that's were the money is at.

On top of that, female developers is growing and again. over time, that'll grow and there'll be women in positions of power to make changes.

I'm not saying this shouldn't be brought up or talked about, but we can't try and force big changes any faster and at the current rate we're hammering this topic, it's just building up more venom for the more extreme sides to duke it out. And everyone else will just get fed up even seeing the issue pop up.

 

[Piecewise]

Ugh, another video game/feminist debate. I feel like, ever since the whole Anita Sarkeesian blow up, we've got to a point that we're looking at the issue of women and video games in any form under a microscope. Any little thing is going to be talked about, misquoted and argued back and forward until a load of people make blogs about it and videos about it and yeah, comics about it and so on. Every few weeks it's popping up in video game communities (and sci-fi I've noticed).


It's just about hitting breaking point at this stage. The only way I see it going is the topic will just be white noise to most people because it's so damn frequent that it'll be impossible to feel anything about it when we're being hammered with the topic.

All that'll be left would be the "extremists" (radicals, crazies, whatever) on both sides of the fence who wouldn't dare have a rational discussion and would rather just yell at each other than talk. It's nearly like arguing religion at times or even politics.

Look, change will gradually happen. There's more women now than ever playing video games. No, they're not the main market but over time, that number will grow and publishers will take notice. Money speaks after all, always has done. But right now, it's a market that makes games for younger male adults and teens because that's were the money is at.

On top of that, female developers is growing and again. over time, that'll grow and there'll be women in positions of power to make changes.

I'm not saying this shouldn't be brought up or talked about, but we can't try and force big changes any faster and at the current rate we're hammering this topic, it's just building up more venom for the more extreme sides to duke it out. And everyone else will just get fed up even seeing the issue pop up.

The funny thing is now it's coming to light that Anita is the giant hack so many people said she was. Her game play footage was stolen from lets players, her arguments are usually nothing but obvious reaching and stretching to force things to fit her preconceived notions, and her funding appears to have gone to herself and nothing else, since her videos haven't increased in quality a single bit.

 

[the clockmaker]

Okay, without going into the actual beliefs of any of the parties involved,

Radical Feminism (as used by the comic) is a term used essentially solely within feminism circles.
Radical Feminism,(as used by society as a whole) is used much more widely.

Both of these terms can coexist 90% of the time, but when someone from outside of your grouping uses a term in a different way than within your grouping, they are not wrong, they use a word differently. The correct response is
'Sorry mate, but what do you mean by that'...'okay, well in my grouping we use it in this way, but now that we have established what we both think it means, we can move on' the incorrect response is 'No! You're an idiot who doesn't follow the rules me and my friends made up and never told you! You can never understand what we are talking about!'

This is not a feminism thing, this is a... I suppose dialect would be the best word to use for it, or maybe jargon. The same thing happens when military and civilians speak to each other, communists and capitalists, Collingwood fans and people who actually know who their parents are...

When a group spends time in insular discussion, its usage of language alters to better fit the requirements of the group. That is how language works. It is not a bad thing, but must be acknowledged in order to allow that group to effectively interact with other groups.

Looking at this comic, Erin knew exactly what the other person was trying to say, wilfully misinterpreted it to make herself seem more intelligent and claimed victory. Essentially, were I to make a comic demonstrating the concept I just described above, Erin would be the one wearing the straw man t-shirt.

Again, what either party believes is irrelevant. Using language effectively is essential for a discussion to take place

 

[saintdane05]

Of course, I prefer the Bodacious Feminists.

 

[Nurb]

Radical feminists:
A minority of middle-to-upper-class privileged white ladies being hyper-sensitive and trying to find sexism where there is none while pretending to speak for all women. Such as the vocal minority that has judged the gaming industry and all gamers to be a den of only men made of sexism and hate towards women due to a vocal minority of trolls and true assholes... and pulling the fire alarm at a college to stop a speaker they didn't like.

Just one recent example (aside from those videos with no research put into them), one group claimed the protrayal of the female protagonist in the Last Of Us was sexist for not being "strong and independent" enough.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/126648-Naughty-Dog-Responds-to-The-Last-of-Us-Sexism-Claims

Besides, all those non-white feminists are getting pretty sick of their nonsense.

Can we please stop having these forced gender debates on a video game site? The finger waggling at an entire sub-culture is getting a little old?

 

[Yuuki]

Can we please stop having these forced gender debates on a video game site?

It's only been ~1 year after the debates popped up, we're still in the active phase and should see a decline of such debates in the following 1 year. Fret not, the bandwagon will pass

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Radical feminists:
A minority of middle-to-upper-class privileged white ladies being hyper-sensitive and trying to find sexism where there is none while pretending to speak for all women. Such as the vocal minority that has judged the gaming industry and all gamers to be a den of only men made of sexism and hate towards women due to a vocal minority of trolls and true assholes... and pulling the fire alarm at a college to stop a speaker they didn't like.

Just one recent example (aside from those videos with no research put into them), one group claimed the protrayal of the female protagonist in the Last Of Us was sexist for not being "strong and independent" enough.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/126648-Naughty-Dog-Responds-to-The-Last-of-Us-Sexism-Claims

Besides, all those non-white feminists are getting pretty sick of their nonsense.

Can we please stop having these forced gender debates on a video game site? The finger waggling at an entire sub-culture is getting a little old?

There's a term for the definition you gave that doesn't conflict with the Radical Feminism movement, which is what the comic was talking about. That term is Tumblr Feminist, and the internet (but especially Tumblr) is full of them. I'm kind of surprised nobody has mentioned Tumblr yet, because the place is to internet faux outrage what Reddit is to image macros. And also to image macros what reddit is to image macros, along with 4chan.

 

[Something Amyss]

Like you said, Jim. Then there's Yahtzee with the whole pre-op transsexual thing, now changed into a censorship thing 'cos he changed the joke. Recently there was the best boobs gallery of the day, and I could've sworn Bob did a thing about the rape stuff in Kick-Ass 2 but I can't find it any more so maybe I imagined it. And then there's the Target advertising kerfuffle going on in Off-Topic.

But Jim has always done this, Yahtzee has always done this, and Bob has done this for as long as I've followed him (although I do so sparsely), so...It comes down to the fact that they did one boob gallery like two weeks ago?

 

[Headsprouter]

Haw haw, "Strawman Inc."

But seriously, Erin identifies as a Feminist, now, too? God...so politically correct...so...uptight...the more I read these comics the more I start to feel she's that person who overhears an inappropriate, slightly offensive or dirty joke and bores people by droning on in a matter-of-fact voice as to why that's not actually true. Even though IT'S A JOKE.

Kind of like my dad...

Even so, I've studied Radical Feminism and, yeah, it's not what most people think it is. Liberals are like "Huh, things could be better, but, it's okay." and Radicals are like "Let's get shit DONE!", they're far off from the crazy biotches that want to send men to the moon or build a wall between us.

 

[hazabaza1]

Like you said, Jim. Then there's Yahtzee with the whole pre-op transsexual thing, now changed into a censorship thing 'cos he changed the joke. Recently there was the best boobs gallery of the day, and I could've sworn Bob did a thing about the rape stuff in Kick-Ass 2 but I can't find it any more so maybe I imagined it. And then there's the Target advertising kerfuffle going on in Off-Topic.

But Jim has always done this, Yahtzee has always done this, and Bob has done this for as long as I've followed him (although I do so sparsely), so...It comes down to the fact that they did one boob gallery like two weeks ago?

I dunno, it seems recently it's been a lot worse.
Maybe there's just been an increasing influx of special snowflakes and enraged silly people.

 

[Thaluikhain]

So... radical feminism isn't transphobic, but very many of them [proponents of] are exceedingly transphobic?
0_o

So there are radical radical feminists within the radical feminist community, or moderate radical feminists, or?

More or less, yeah. I couldn't say how many of them are, but more than most branches of feminism, it seems.