I'm still trying to picture a pomo slacker wearing a baseball hat....I'll get back to you after I process that one. 
You had fun with these! One thought, just to push the point further. You might have called the "male hegmony" class something that clarifies the male as victim, not oppressor. Otherwise your presumptions are showing!
(Unless I missed the point.)
You might have called the "male hegmony" class something that clarifies the male as victim, not oppressor. Otherwise your presumptions are showing!
Good one. I will change it now to threatened European Male Hegemony.
I can easily imagine a case like case one taught by someone like Rush Limbaugh that would make the women in the class (and they need not be feminists) make the women very uncomfortable, depending on how in-your-face and politically one sided it is. That is why people that know you are not thinking that is what you did, and people who don't can read it differently. "...context is everything."
I wanted the students to think about Searles’ claim that X counts as Y in C, using his example of money.
heh. Yeah, that will rile them up.
Well, I wrote that response, and in the middle of it, I realized what was wrong with it. But i needed it as a foil.
Case one is deficient, but in an interesting way. In the original, you were not really attacking them men, it seems like, as Rush would attack feminists, or analytic philosophers would attack pomos. You were asking about men using pain and violence on themselves and each other. they are, in that case, the victims of their own gender roles. In the case of the feminazi attack, they attack the men as oppressors, Rush would attack the feminists as oppressors, and the analytic philosophers were acting as oppressors, too. That seems importantly different. If in a gender studies class you point to ways women abuse women, and then you ask "why do you do that, do you think?" it is a good question. If you have slackers not engaged, then it makes sense to push. And then it gets weird to have someone else protect them from thinking about that question, because they are being defended not against an attack, but against understanding how they attack themselves. And that is interesting.
"Good one. I will change it now to threatened European Male Hegemony."
Well, I guess there is a subset of sexist male culture that truly believes it is hegemonic and has a right to that hegemony (and that feminists are threatening that right), but it seems to me that the feminazi perspective is more that males are victims of these shrill, inexplicably angry women (inexplicable unless you count the notion that they can't get laid) who have plenty of power (to seduce, berate, act passive aggressively, emasculate, etc.) and instead choose to act like victims and blame men for everything. I don't know how to wrap that up into a title (unless call it "Feminazi Nation" or something like that).
I'm very grounded in reality.
That's why I spend so much time in (on?) the blogosphere.
If you have slackers not engaged, then it makes sense to push. And then it gets weird to have someone else protect them from thinking about that question, because they are being defended not against an attack, but against understanding how they attack themselves. And that is interesting.
Exactly the source of why I was perplexed. But, I didn't spell it out. Seems to me that the men might want to think about this since it sucks for them.
1) No, not really. Feminism isn't a very good female equivalent of "being a man"--that's one of the basic asymmetries that sexism creates. There' not much downside to a man being manly--it gets you the respect of other men and also gets (some) women to sleep with you, and you can be very open about it. Whereas feminism is trickier--it helps you get your own mind in order, but being open about it often has negative social repercussions. Of course, go too far away from it and you turn into a doormat, etc.
2) I think teaching basically the same topics from an oh-noes-the-feminazis perspective does work pretty well as a parallel.
3) That totally depends on the teacher. At my college, the Gender and Sexuality Studies program is run by a gay man, and if anything the difficulty is with treating heterosexuality (especially female heterosexuality) fairly.
4) Can you give examples of the questions you were asking male students? It seems like a lot of the discussion on the last two posts has been about whether you were out of line or not, based on students' reactions, but what did *you* actually do?
5) Nah. You're supposed to challenge people intellectually, right?
6) The one that sticks out for me is that the idea of enforcing drivel-postmodernism through physical violence is absolutely ridiculous, whereas some flavors of being-a-man-and-not-a-fag are enforced through violence. It would be surprising for the issue of contemporary epistemology to be as emotionally charged for students as the issue of masculinity-defining behavior is. Also, you speak in much nastier terms about the pomo slackers.
7) It's not pleasant to be on the receiving end of, but it has some educational value. Also, bear in mind that there are people watching this encounter without really participating in it, some of whom probably have mixed or confused feelings on the subject. Seeing one position being utterly taken apart will make them more skeptical of accepting it or things like it. So, if you're attacking a viewpoint you actually don't have much respect for, go for it.
the Gender and Sexuality Studies program is run by a gay man, and if anything the difficulty is with treating heterosexuality (especially female heterosexuality) fairly
That's because he treats it fairyly.
But on postmodernists, they basically come in two flavors: baroque and minimalist. I would put Rorty in the latter bin, for example.
Uh, men being men can get you killed or maimed quickly. I would call that a downside.
Also, you speak in much nastier terms about the pomo slackers.
Well, she should.
Seems to me that the men might want to think about this since it sucks for them.
It predominantly sucks for all the non-alpha males. Wait, that would be almost all of them...damn. Really though I had somethin' there for a second.
Uh, men being men can get you killed or[inclusive usage]maimed quickly.
Just helpin' a Dutchman out.
A few weeks ago I was watching local news, and there was a segment showing a block-long line of 13-16 year-old girls waiting to get in to a local Galleria — at 5:30 in the morning — in the rain — to get a ticket to a pre-release event with Robert Pattinson, a star of the upcoming vampire love movie twilight. (At the time, I had no idea about any of this stuff.) His comment on these events:
"there were some girls who had scratched ... the side of their necks so [they were] freshly bleeding when they came up to get a signature. "They were like, 'We did this for you.' I didn't know what to say. 'Um, thanks guys?'"
I thought: Could this be the future of feminism?
No, its the future of masochism.
in which context is everything? And, we all come full circle....
Context may not be everything, but it is everywhere.
No, its the future of masochism.
It's always possible that they are sadists too. They could have been scratching each other.
And context isn't everywhere. It's not in the Bible for instance. -_-,
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