Yup “Equalists” are just the same as all lives matter folks completely missing the point and trying to poison the well.
“So you are a (rule) bender! You traitor, I devoted my life to you!”
(attacks the blood bender since that’s a great idea)
It’s like saying “I want everyone to be equal” and saying both men and women should be given a 10% pay raise to account for the gender pay gap.
Sure, you raised women’s wages to cover the gap… but now the gap remains because you also increased men’s by the same amount.
That’s false. If you want to make everyone equal, you close the pay gap.
To me, egalitarianism is making sure neither group is treated unfarly, so they should both receive the same pay for the same work, but also the same punishment for the same crime, etc.
All lives matter~
Once upon a time I objected to the Black Lives Matter moniker. I didn’t disagree with the message that black people need to be counted more than they were. I have always thought that I counted black people as equals to everyone, so I just subconsciously completed the sentence by adding the word “more” in my head. Thinking to myself “oh, they have a terrible branding issue because everyone who reads the phrase Black Lives Matter will automatically just think they mean Black Lives Matter More”. But ultimately that wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t the phrase that was the issue.
What was the real problem was the inherent racism that had be ingrained into my consciousness by untold years of media and politics that continually make black people out to be lazy selfish useless people who only want a handout. (See Ronald Reagan’s speech about the “welfare queen”. Hint, he wasn’t talking about a white woman.)
In the end the problem I had with the phrase “Black Lives Matter” wasn’t their fault for picking a bad phrase. It was, in fact, me and my own preconceived notions of what a black person is and should be. All based on how society has portrayed them my entire life.
So now I very loudly say “BLACK LIVES MATTER”. And more people need to embrace this instead of trying to logic it out of existence with the pointless platitude “well ackchually all lives matter” like some snivelling little child with an inferiority complex. Because yes all lives should matter but in our fucked up society black lives usually don’t.
I mean, the phrase wasn’t good either, hence why you also ended up thinking that.
Black Lives Also Matter would have been much better, as it alludes that there is enough prejudice that society must be reminded, and the acronym is BLAM, which could be used as onomatopoeia invoking gun shots, which directly ties to the causes original protests against the police. It also sounds more of a plea for help than it does an aggressive simple statement - which considering the movement aimed to be peaceful, is the kind of sound you’d want.
The truth is these kinds of things heavily rely on optics, and BLM was a very bad choice of slogan. People forget even the whole Rosa Parks thing was carefully orchestrated for a reason - you need good causes, good figures, and good slogans for rallying support.
BLM is so bad I wonder if the push to use it was some kind of counter psy-op to then push things like All Lives Matter to help discredit it, because I swear I heard the BLAM acronym being used as well in the beginning. I would imagine such authorities would have learned well how to discredit such movements ever since the days and success of the Civil Rights era.
I like Black Lives Matter because on its face it is a “no duh” statement (for most…)
To me, it is pointing out the absurd disconnect between what (almost) everybody believes without question and the actual state of society and policing in particular. There’s something stronger to “we matter” vs “we matter too”, but I’m struggling to put it into words. For some reason, I feel like BLAM or something similar loses some impact.
But that’s just in my head; as far as the success of a movement, you’re probably right. Also, if it was BLAM from the start, maybe I wouldn’t dislike it.
The reason why “we matter” is stronger than “we matter too” is because it doesn’t reference the other and thus is a purely one-sided thing, which can totally be read as “we matter more”.
I’m not sure though if that’s a good thing, depending on what’s the goal.
Any minority movement always has to keep in mind that it’s the majority that decides. Suffragettes did not take voting rights by force. They got voting rights because they managed to find enough allies in the male population that they were given voting rights.
Black slaves didn’t end slavery themselves. They managed to find enough allies that would be willing to fight and die in a civil war to give them their freedom.
And a group consisting of roughly 12% of a country’s population will not take the country by force and change laws by themselves.
“Black lives matter” is an incredibly polarizing statement that causes opposition (as evidenced e.g. by “Blue lives matter”, which totally has the implied “more” attached). It’s comparatively easy to say “No, the life of a black suspect does not matter more than the life of a police officer”, if you already lean in that direction. It’s a good slogan if you want to polarize and divide.
“Black lives matter too” is a statement that’s really hard to disagree with, because of course black lives matter too, unless you are a hard-core white supremacist.
So if the goal is to get the majority on your side and actually cause change, I think “Black lives matter too” would have been the better slogan.
Agree.
But “Black Lives Matter Too” abbreviates to BLMT which kinda sound like a sandwich 😅
BLAM conveys the same meaning but the acronym does double duty.
“Black lives also matter” works just as well, that’s right, no contest there.
And you are right, BLAM sounds way better than both BLM and BLMT.
He had a point but he kinda fucked it up in the third panel.
Tbh I think the term is kind of unfortunate exactly because of this confusion and rebuttal. We would spend less time discussing this if it was actually called egalitarianism or whatever, I feel. People use the “fem” in feminism to make the movement seem unequal. I think the term is just kind of unnecessarily confusing and egalitarianism would be less ambiguous.
But I don’t really care that much, the ideas behind are obviously more important than the word we use - but words are also important.
Sure, but its exactly because words are important that its called feminism. When you’re talking about “egalitarianism” the goal is so vague that everyone can be on it. That’s why you have names like “feminism”, because that movement is focused on how we live in a patriarchal society and how women have been historically treated unjustly under it. Or “black lives matter”, which, although I’m sure would also agree that “all lives matter”, are focused on why historically, black lives specifically haven’t as much. Same thing for trans rights.
When you combine that all into one, all the nuance of the different groups gets lost and the average becomes “yeah but human rights are so much better than 50 years ago” to shut down discussion.
Every. Single. Time.
Y’all really don’t get why subdividing makes movements weaker.
Here, I’ll give you an easy way to see the flaw I your argument. Apply it to this flag:
According to your logic, this flag shouldn’t be used, because it’s more vague than just the lesbian or trans flag for example.
Yet, the reason this flag is used is because unity is more powerful than division. All those groups are more powerful in fighting for their rights together than they are separate.
And that’s the flaw behind modern feminism - the issues feminism was created to tackle have been greatly delt with. While some certainly do still exist, they are now also caused by things other than a patriarchy, such as oligarchy. And thus tackling the issues that affect women too in modern times needs the involvement of other groups as well, such as unions and even anarchists, to effectively combat.
In such, movements and groups like these would more be much more effective in modern society reforming under an umbrella one such as egalitarianism, much like the LGBTQ+ ones have.
Multiple causes together are more powerful than a single ones divided. Continuing this insistence is literally missing the forest for the trees.
I dont see how they were arguing for subdivisions. There are in fact many problems to solve, and we should unite to solve them. But if we are talking about a specific problem, we should use specific language. This shouldnt prevent us from seeing that there are common roots to all these problems.
Because they are arguing against the “egalitarian” label rather than supporting both it and feminism.
Today’s specific problems tend to be rooted in a more broader affecting cause. The Waltons and Sacklers for example are not all men, but women too. The issue that affects women the most today are no longer about simply just the patriarchy but instead of the wealthy versus the rest.
After all, the right wing usually doesn’t have issues with abortion itself - only with abortion of minorities and the poor. Of the others, not of themselves.
Its the “LGBTQ+ movement” not the “everyone movement” because it’s calling out how queer people have been historically marginalized and persecuted and not everyone. Cisgender, heterosexual people are the norm, that’s why this subcommunity exists. It just so happens that there are a lot of subgroups within this small community that share very similar idealogies and so it becomes (more or less) one bigger movement.
Moreover, the flag you sent came to be to specifically to call out all the different groups in the umbrella movement, to not let them get drowned out by the vagueness of the combined movement.
All these groups are fighting for different but not necessarily opposing things. Fighting simply for a “better life for all”, while noble, is really naive. You need to get specific about the things you want to tackle.
It’s not like these groups fight alone, you can be a feminist, anti-fascist, queer person of color and support multiple things you believe in.
Fighting simply for a “better life for all”, while noble, is really naive. You need to get specific about the things you want to tackle.
Egalitarianism isn’t just “better life for all” without a plan, just like Feminism isn’t “Equality for Women” without a plan.
Uniting under the banner of Egalitarianism as a group, rather than stating you’re not that but are instead a feminist, would be like saying “I’m not in the LGBTQ+ movement, I’m a Trans Rights activist”.
Everytime people like you insist (even if coming from a place with good intentions) we shouldn’t consider ourselves egalitarian, you weaken all groups that would benefit from standing united under it. There’s a reason right wing propaganda networks constantly argue against the term “Egalitarian” and try to keep groups like Feminists isolated from others - because it would hurt them if it actually gained in popularity.
There are indeed many people who would not qualify as egalitarian. Libertarians, Republicans, Musk - all of them hate it, because “equality for all” is in fact not as broad as you would hope, unfortunately.
Wish I had more than one upvote to give. Movements and groups name themselves after their targeted focus, yet you never see someone going up to the teacher’s union rep and saying “but shouldn’t you also care about the other jobs?”
Say what you will about PETA (I’m sure I could say a lot), but you never see someone criticising them for their “narrow minded focus solely on the welfare of animals, without regard for the ethical treatment of humans, plants and fungi”
You’ll never catch someone criticising a homeless shelter for not doing enough to shine light on the prevalence of gun violence.
So why does anyone treat these bad-faith criticisms as anything more or less than attempts to silence the already-marginalised groups for which these movements are advocating?
yet you never see someone going up to the teacher’s union rep and saying “but shouldn’t you also care about the other jobs?”
For ducks sakes that’s literally how unions are SUPPOSED TO WORK. No wonder the US worker’s rights are so weak if that’s what you think, and based off your comment you’re on the side of the workers!
Here in Finland when one union goes on strike for a cause other unions join in! Airline union going on strike? Guess what, so I’d the railway, buses, logistics, grocery workers, and so on, with more joining in if it’s for a really good reason, even teacher unions.
You have just perfectly stated my point: a teacher’s union rep CLEARLY cares about other workers, but that’s not the POINT of a Teacher’s Union. I’m saying that you don’t see anyone complaining that there’s a union to protect those specific labourers, because such a complaint would be patently ridiculous. It is similarly ridiculous to assume that a Feminist opposes the rights of non-women just because their movement is focused on women. That is my point.
And my point is that it’s self defeating to call yourself a feminist if you’re egalitarian unless there’s a reason for it. Otherwise, just call yourself egalitarian to show you’re about equality to the general population, therefore you can recruit others to the cause more easily.
My wife doesn’t call herself a “teacher’s unionist” if asked, she just calls herself a unionist, because the rights of all workers supercedes those of only teachers. Unless talking specifically to other teachers, parent students, etc, she champions the rights of unions themselves, and supports and encourages people to join a union, and union.
The issue with many feminist groups is that they insist on being feminists first and foremost rather than egalitarians. This is what has lead in part to the existence of TERFs - by hyper focusing on women’s rights instead of just agreeing “yeah, and I’m also an egalitarian”, you open the door to exclusionary groups. Because while egalitarianism is open to all who are inclusive, feminism is not by definition of focus.
It’s not the only group afflicted by this, and it’s part of the reason why the right wing has managed to gain so much power over the years - because while they all might be different flavors of hate and contempt, they are at least united globally behind hate and contempt.
Meanwhile we have those who rally behind compassion and equality arguing we shouldn’t all be considered compassionate and pro equality because there’s “specializations” and that uniting under one banner weakens the cause somehow 🙄
How to get the point across a bit better while also pointing out the guy actually doesn’t care.
These types of guys are split between contrarians, guys that take any criticism of “men” as a personal attack against them, and misogynists who just don’t want equality. In any case, it’s why we can’t have nice things in our society.
I am on the feminist side, firmly. But at the same time I think it’s extremely necessary to update terminology.
The feminist side is really good at reckognizing the power of words and demanding that actually accurate wording is used… when they are on the receiving end of bad wording.
At the same time that side seems to be totally oblivious to bad wording when it affects their opponents.
Take for example “toxic masculinity”. Literally taken, that word means that masculinity is toxic. But that’s not at all what the concept is about. It’s about a misguided understanding of masculinity which is problematic. Why not just use “machismo”, or maybe “toxic machismo”? Suddenly the word is not an attack against all men, but against a subset defined by specific behavior. Done.
Or “mansplaining”. Woman can and do exhibit that behavior too. Just try being a young father and bring your toddler to a circle of older women. The correct word would be “overexplaining”, and suddenly it clearly describes the problem without unnecessarily tieing it to a gender.
Fighting rhethoric like that is great if you want to get into a fight and make sure that you alienate the other, but it’s utterly useless to further your cause.
Woah, careful with all that common sense and level minded thinking you might hurt somebody’s brain. Seriously though I agree with every word
Neat way to categorize those who don’t walk in lockstep with you as the enemy. I seek equality but refuse to be associated with a movement that sees me as a threat for my gender. Is your anger real or is it caused by cognitive dissonance trying hold egalitarian ideals in an inherently unegalitarian framework.
Neat way to categorize those who don’t walk in lockstep with you as the enemy
I’m guessing you’re the “guys that take any criticism of men as a personal attack against them”. Especially using the word “enemy”.
Is your anger real
Where’s my anger? Cut and paste it for me. Or are you assuming I’m some kind of “angry feminist” trope?
The rest of you’re comment is all hat and no cattle. You appear to literally be the kind of guy depicted in the Comic.
Women have equality and a generally preferable status in Western society. I sure as hell wish I was a woman. My sexual assault would’ve been taken seriously, police would be less suspicious and hostile toward me, better education opportunities, better financial support.
Focusing on their issues is comparable to an egalitarian focusing on issues that affect white people. I’m sure everyone here would question that, right?
Yeah yeah #alllivesmatter, we get it.
Empathy gap in action. You just dismissed a SA survivor because they don’t agree with you and are male. Think on this for a bit.
The empathy gap was the OP assuming women don’t have the same issues, and more
Not at all. I just think women have fewer issues, or less severe ones in Western societies. Could be a “grass is greener” situation, but that’s just my opinion. I can think of very few reasons to not prefer being a woman.
This reeks of red pill incel rhetoric, honestly.
The president of the United States was involved with sex trafficker. I promise you, sexual assault against women is not being taken seriously either.
This is what I don’t get about the manosphere movement.
Young guys watch these influencers being abrasive macho dorks, talking exactly like this. They somehow combine that “dorky, petty semantic minutia” argument style with being aggressively condescending and being a macho jerk, all at once. I’m a pretty isolated guy, yet it’s amazing how grating it is to me.
And men watching these influencers conclude that… other people will appreciate that?
Things are already equal. Toxic masculinity comes from toxic femininity. Toxic femininity comes from toxic masculinity. It’s been like that forever, but we raised the living standard enough so now we can argue about this with our excess spare time.
Also, it is another way of divide and conquer to make sure that we keep fighting each other and not the billionaire class who needs to be defeated if you want to have a world in 20 years from now.
The quantum head fuck Is that men and women have always been equal in a weird way and at the same time equality can never be achieved because giving birth was given to one of the two sexes and not the other.
When it comes to class warfare, equality can be achieved.
Because while intelligence and skill and talent may not be equally distributed, the right to live is.
The problems with deciding things are “equal-ish” have already been well addressed, so I just want to point out - just because the billionaire class might use a topic as a wedge issue against us doesn’t excuse us from working to fix it.
They might be setting fire to houses as a distraction, but the houses are still on fire. The people inside can’t wait for us to find and deal with whoever hired the arsonists.
they also watch those “pickup artists” how to “science behind tricking women into dating you”, they picked alot of thier terminology to, which is the alpha/beta crap, shit tests,etc. so they are probably also dissecting womans behaviour, “if they dont like me they automatically a bitch or a slut that is looking for someone more attractive”
Feminism isn’t just about women.
Toxic masculinity isn’t caused just by men.
Black Lives Matter isn’t just about black lives.
“Believe women” isn’t about blindly believing what women say. “Christian charity” is the least charitable thing in the world.
“Defund the police” and “abolish the police” aren’t about eliminating police forces and letting crime run rampant.
AI is anything but intelligent.
“Global Warming” sounds tame for what’s actually happening: “climate disruption” and “climate catastrophe”. A bunch of countries with “communist” or “democratic” in their names are anything but.Words are stupid. Slogans are lazy. People lie.
Which is why I like the lyrics of ‘Enjoy the Silence’ so much.
Every single line item in your comment became ammunition for foreign agents to get into our culture over the last 20 years and just escalate the FUCK out of both sides of each idea there.
It was directly from the KGB handbook written over 50 years ago, that if you infiltrate a nation’s culture and just amplify the most radical takes of both sides of every issue, it will create so much chaos and completely destabilize a culture so that people tune out and stop trusting each other or any news story they read. This has the effect of making the population just default to whatever state media they see and stop caring about social issues entirely. It’s been shocking seeing how effectively it’s played out in the US.
I watched it happen, I was on the frontlines, managing a few social sites and moderating a huge subreddit about relationships. It was a creeping infection at first, but eventually it was like Helm’s Deep, but instead of orcs outside, it was astroturfers, crybullies, sea lions, and the entire goddamn ZOO of bad-actors and subversive chuds. For every horrible, shit-mouthed incel ranting about how women need to be put in cages, there was also some delusional, insane “feminist” screaming about how all men are rapists and men should never be left alone with children.
I gave up the fight, reddit banned me for being an involved human, but it continues to this day, getting worse by the day.
I watched it happen because I saw it happening and read the (too few) news reports that pointed out that it was indeed happening.
But it’s like climate change. It seems to go in one ear and out the other for the vast majority of the population.
The fact that our species has a glaring weakness in identifying abstract threats, while at the same time we’re developing tools capable of performing the most abstract possible attacks on our free-will and agency, makes me feel a tad uncomfy about the near term future.
Well as long as you’ve correctly identified the KGB and Russia Russia Russia, your job is done.
You don’t have to be Russia to use KGB handbooks anymore
I hate the Kremlin so much. I hope the whole russia will crumble and disappear.
Genocide isn’t the answer either
What are you even talking about?
The KREMLIN and Russia as a country should be no more. Who talked about a genocide?
while the techniques were pioneered and written down by the KGB, I’m not even saying the blame lay on Russia alone. There are a lot of forces adopting this tactic, both foreign and domestic.
Wait 'til you learn about Twitter.
