« Yes, He Accused Them, But Did It Happen? | Main | Does Aid Work? » Are You A Feminist09 Aug 2007 09:14 am I am, it seems:
Of course a quiz is just a quiz and doesn't account for the possibility that I'm also a huge hypocrite. Unfeminist quizzes from the same source: Do You Scare Off Men? and Why Don't You Have a Boyfriend? Comments (63)
Um, only 87%? That's pretty sexist! I got 95% yesterday when Volokh linked to the quiz (I missed the same question as Eugene Volokh did). I think Matthew should disclose which questions he got "wrong". 
Agree with Al. Matt, which questions did you not put as "strongly agree?"
Geez. I got 98%--the only question I merely agreed with was the one about dating because it didn't seem as important as the others. Maybe I'm using the word strongly too lightly?
A woman wearing glasses and wearing red boxing gloves? That supposed to represent feminism?
I scored 100%, but only b/c I answered then all with "Strongly agree" just to see what would happen! I noticed they have a "How Boyish or Girlish Are You" quiz and a "Are you a fake girl?" quiz as well.
Sure the questions are heavily biased - still I don't understand how anyone could NOT answer "strongly agree" to any of them.
Yeah--c'mon, Matt: 'fess up.
Well, take #1: "Women should be economically and socially independent. They shouldn't rely on men to take care of them." You answer "strongly agree." I think, "people ought to be able to make their own arrangements, whatever form those take." So I hover between "agree" and "not sure." Likewise, #4. I think, "whatever works for you is fine," so I don't see why women should have to take an equal role in dating. They can if they want to, and if the datees they like are OK with that. That's one way you might not "strongly agree" with all of them.
As it's worded, I don't see how one can answer "strongly agree" to both 1 and 7.
The problem is that a few of the questions are phrased as "women should do X" (e.g. take an equal role in dating, not rely on a man for support) when really, it's not up to me what any particular woman should do, so how can I agree or disagree? "Not be forced to do X" is not the same as "Not do X".
I hate being yanked down-market.
Question #7 needed caveats. As in "... from being a stay at home mom to a Fortune 500 CEO, not including paths in life that no one of either sex should have the right to choose, such as professional bank robber or hired assassin."
I'm 94% feminist and my pizza personality is "Cheese." I don't really understand what the real difference is between "strongly agree" and "agree" on most of them, though 1 and 4 seem to be asking to what extent must two individuals must structure their a mutual private relationship according to broader social principles, which I would leave up to them.
I'm so feminist I scored 110%
I am, it seems, more of a feminist than Matt. This is unsurprising.
I got a 98% score, but only by being willing to overlook the ways in which the questions lacked important nuance. Question 1, for instance: "Women should be economically and socially independent. They shouldn't rely on men to take care of them." There's nothing wrong with having, for instance, a household with one primary breadwinner -- the problem is that society creates an expectation that the decision of who will be the breadwinner should be made on the basis of sex. So I strongly agree with what the questioner _meant_ but not with what the question actually _said_. I had trouble with Question 5, too. "Women should accept their bodies as they are. Women should not have to conform to wacky beauty ideals." The problem that relates to feminism is not the existence of "wacky beauty ideals" per se, but that those ideals are disproportionately applied to women. I actually don't think avoiding the existence of "wacky beauty ideals" is possible, but if we're going to have them then men should be expected to conform to comparably wacky ideals. This is the question that I only "agreed" with, because I suspected the questioner thought that "wacky beauty ideals" were bad in general in addition to thinking women were disproportinately affected by them. I'm not entirely convinced that societal pressure to look good is a serious problem, as long as it's equitable. And I agree with Ryan that the "shoulds" posed a bit of a problem as well. So yes, I am indeed claiming to be even more enlightenedly feminist than the author of the quiz. But that's my right as a Man, isn't it :)
The problem is that a few of the questions are phrased as "women should do X" (e.g. take an equal role in dating, not rely on a man for support) when really, it's not up to me what any particular woman should do The problem is that such a position perpetuates the patriarchy. The pro-feminist position is that people (of both sexes) must take affirmative steps (such as the ones described in these questions) to break the patriarchy.
Sorry, forgot to add: [/Linda Hirshman]
Galen: I think you are mistaken (not about the "more feminist" part; well, that too, but I'm not responding to that). Those of us who were working in academe in the 80s and 90s remember that the dominant strain of feminist thought at the time indeed did maintain that women ought not to depend on men for their upkeep -- we (ahem) did not believe that women ought to be able to freely choose their arrangements, but that they must develop independent means. Likewise, the dating question -- not a free choice of methods, but a moral mandate to take equal part. It was, IIRC, "post-feminism" that began to agitate against such strictures, and those women were reviled by the hairy-legged braless denizens of the Women's Studies departments (also, I hasten to add, some of my best friends). So, the quiz, to my mind, references "classic" feminism as the 100% ideal, not the more libertarian post-fem most of us like better these days.
We can't expect nuance in an online quiz. Here's another one: You would support a woman for president (if you agreed with her politics). I would have phrased it, You wouldn't vote against a Presidential candidate solely because she is a woman. I may find a specific man to be a stronger candidate, even if I agree with the woman's politics.
Feminism isn't really about equality. Or to put it more accurately, it's not entirely about equality. Those tests basically just measure basic human fairness. Feminism is an ideology, and requires a certain number of beliefs be followed. You have to believe in collective guilt, it's inherent to the argument. You have to be willing to deny and sociological or biological study that doesn't conform to your ideological beliefs. Just believing that men and women are mostly the same, and that they share a basic human nature and should be be treated as equals before the law and society in general isn't really enough to make someone a feminist nowdays. You have to believe that men could stop rape if they wanted to. You have to believe that breasts perform no sexual function at all in basic human society, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. You have to believe that women are not, in the end, responsible for their actions. None of these really go to the heart of a fair and just society, but they are intrinsic feminist arguments and beliefs.
There's no contradiction between 1 and 7. The right to do decide to be a stay-at-home mom is just an extension of basic human rights and autonomy. It doesn't mean you can't also think women should try not to be dependent on men.
LMAO, if you're not willing to criticize women who date men for money, how can you argue that men should criticize the way other men treat women? It goes both ways. Letting people make their own choices is not the same thing as not commenting on how scummy those choices make them. If you don't want to make women treat men like human beings and not wallets, you can't really belong to a movement that's about making men treat women like human beings and not pieces of meat.
Without engaging the rest of soullite's, uhm, perspective on what feminism is all about, what the hell is this: "You have to believe that men could stop rape if they wanted to." supposed to mean? I'm genuinely curious here; does soullite mean "men could stop rape" in the sense that men, as a group, could exert sufficient social pressure to end all rape, or does he mean "men could stop rape" in the sense that men could, you know, stop raping, or some other sense that I'm supposed to find risible?
Which by the way might mean that a stay at home mom should have skills that would make her readily employable if necessary and, a la "classic feminism," that women should be specifically paid for housework.
BP, there is no corresponding right for men to stay home and do nothing. You can;t expect men not to resent you if they have to work and you don't. If I refuse to work as a man, I'm viewed as worthless and lazy. No women will date me, and people will have absolutely no respect for me. So tell me, how is it an argument FOR equality to say that women shouldn't have to suffer those same pressures?
BP, No. women who stay at home are usually wealthy. No giving free money to people who already have too damn much of it. If you were arguing for a guaranteed minimum wage, I'd be all for it. But you're acting like this is 1962, when it's not.
No one stays at home and does nothing, they stay at home and do housework. And, in a society that wasn't patriarchal at all (I'm sure you hate that word but bear with me), men who chose to stay home actually wouldn't be viewed as worthless and lazy.
Quarte Rican, if you can't engage my entire statement, why should I respond to yours? I will, because I'm not a scumbag who's afraid to debate people or who sidesteps difficult questions like some people are. It's a common feminist complaint that as a collective, men could end rape tomorrow if they wanted to. It's simply absurd, because people aren't capable of that level of collectivity. Nobody argues that humanity could end murder tomorrow. Or Thievery, or drug use (okay, some idiots do argue this one). It's an argument that inherently carried collective guilt.
Women who stay home are usually middle class. That doesn't mean that it isn't socially desirable for them to be financially independent.
BP, why? do you assume that women are naturally better people than men? Don't you think this stigma is to prevent "free riders"? No, you can't really guarantee that. All you're REALLY arguing for is a transfer payment from the state towards wealthy women. I don't think you understand that. I'm all for paying EVERYONE a basic living wage, but not to some people and not to others. We ALL keep our houses up, regardless of whether we have kids or not. I don't get paid for the work I do work on my lawn. I don't get paid for putting up a sheet of dry-wall when there's a hole or for patching the roof. That's all HARD work.
"It's a common feminist complaint that as a collective, men could end rape tomorrow if they wanted to." Well, that is tautologically true. As you point out men do not act as a collective, but I have never heard any feminist claim that they do. The argument is more along the lines that most men could work against a collective culture that minimizes rape more than they currently do.
BP, if they want independence they should work. If there husband doesn't let them, they should leave him, and collect alimony because his ass deserves to have to pay it.
BP, Try reading Alas, A blog for a while, or Den of the Biting Beaver. It's not an unheard of argument there. And when people say "Feminist" that's pretty much what I think of.
Just to illustrate what's wrong with a quiz like that, Dr. Helen got 91%. What's missing? Well, the word 'abortion' for one thing. For another, anything at all beyond the blandest platitudes about 'equality'--when what separates feminists from anti-feminists (like Dr. Helen) is in many cases the question of how (or whether) we can achieve 'equality'. This quiz doesn't measure feminism; it measures (as in Dr. Helen's case) one's ability to fake it.
For what it's worth, I read question 1 as applying to the class "women," not individual women. So I took it to mean that the centuries-old, primogeniture-based, patriarchal structure in which women inherently relied on men is wrong. Individual women are free to make the choice to be stay-at-home moms (though the notion that this is relying on men is not entirely fair, since the overwhelming bulk of non-earning work will be theirs to do) but that's still an independent decision that did not come about because women as a class were forced to accept that role. Or perhaps I'm now reading too much nuance into the internet quiz.
Why do I hate the word "Patriarchal". I think it's somewhat dishonest. We live in an elite aristrocratic society, not a truly patriarchal one. It has a great many patriarchal undertones, but all men do not automatically come before all women. A Wealthy woman has far more rights and privileges than a lower income male. To me, that makes CLASS the primary dividing line, not gender. We like in a Patriarchal Aristocracy, not an aristocratic patriarchy.
Jhupp, good and evil are always decisions we make. Do you want to be with someone because you love them, or for what they can do for you. That's the decision, and it is one of good and evil. If everyone went by the first, there would be a lot less pain and hatred in our society. But they don't, everyone asks "what can you do for me". Feminism doesn't seem like it really wants to change that, it just wants to make the lives of some women, particularly wealthier white ones, better.
I guess that's my primary issue. Feminism seems so often seems like a bunch of upper-middle class to upper class women who notice some real problems in our society. Then then create a construct that ignores the very deep effects of class in our society, and instead lumps ALL men in with the wealthy white ones who actually do control everything. But the guy working 50 hours a week at 7-11 to pull in his truly awesome 25K a year doesn't control jack shit.
#5 -- "Women should accept their bodies as they are. Women should not have to conform to wacky beauty ideals." -- bothered me as well. It looks as though the author thinks the two sentences are two ways of stating essentially the same point, but they aren't at all. Nobody (M or F) should have to conform to some external body ideal ("wacky" or not), but if a woman (or man) doesn't like his/her body the way it is, why the hell should s/he just accept it as it is? Dieting, exercise, tattoos, piercings ... sorry, these are not all tools of the patriarchy! In general, the thing is so poorly worded that I quit after that.
Kelly -- I take your point. And I'm certainly sympathetic to the idea that until we've achieved real parity we need to have a sort of "affirmative action" type ideal that deprives women of choices that superficially match the old bad norms. I'm just not convinced that such a strategy is either desireable or would be effective. I think that perhaps what I'm proposing is that "feminism" should be defined as a desire for women's equality rather than adherance to a particular strategy for achieving said equality. So for example, I can imagine a legitimate version of feminism that is anti-abortion -- if you believe that a fetus is a child and that abortion is murder, oppostion to abortion is neither pro- nor anti-feminist, it's anti-"murder" (by a definition of "murder" which I don't hold, to be clear). Classical feminism would, I suspect, say that feminism requires a pro-choice position, and while I myself am firmly pro-choice I don't think it's fair or productive to declare the hypothetical anti-abortion/murder person a non-feminist.
Soullite, while I'm not willing to agree with you, I do sympathize with your perspective. Obviously, though, there is some variation among feminists. And Amanda Marcotte, at least, is an example of a feminist who understands this class issue. In fact, it is kind of a trend with her to note how the 'patriarchy' harms lower status men. You are probably right that patriarchy is a misleading term, but if your broke it down, the only difference b/w you and her on the issue might be in the degree to which she believes that 7-11 guy does help to perpetuate the patriarchy (and many women, as well).
soullite: -The issues relevant to feminism in the cases of low-income working women and middle-class women are different (though overlapping). That does not mean they are not both real. This dumb quiz that set all this off focused on the latter and that is the direction the discussion has gone. -The critique of feminism as an upper-class white phenomenon, which is not without merit in the cases of some, mostly earlier, feminist writers, originated with other feminists (non-white/upper class ones). So it seems odd to take it as an indictment of feminism--it's a critique from within. -I never said the government should redistribute anything. I just suggested that it would be a good thing if married couples where the husband earns all of the money and the woman does all the housework explicitly agreed that some of the income belonged to the wife, instead of some kind of vague sharing arrangement. Why is alimony a better solution? It's another kind of dependence. Galen: Feminists could think abortion is wrong for religious reasons but I don't see how feminists (or anyone) could think this is grounds for criminalizing it.
Affirmative action in theory is great, but in practice it generally only helps the elites of the group being preferred. It isn't the sons of auto-workers or prisoner's who get those slots at Harvard, it's the sons of doctors who could have likely gotten in anyway. College should be done as it is in France, you take a test and if you do well enough, you're in. No payment needed. That way people have a real incentive to achieve, and they don't give up as is so often a the smart decision in this country. If it won't matter anyway, why even bother to go to school at all?
Easter egg alert: if you check "strongly agree" to everything, it says you're a "Feminazi".
LMAO, I have my problems with feminism but the word Feminazi is just ridiculous. They simply do not have a fascistic character. Fascism is, either by design or happenstance, usually a pro-elite male ideology that institutes rigid gender rolls throughout the societies they infect. They are also inherently violent, something I've never seen from feminists as a whole.
Worthless, Matt. I'm a slavering misogynist and I scored a 96%! These surveys are so worthless as to be insulting... PS: I'm not really a misogynist...ladies ;)!
I'm 100% feminist, 87% indie, the pie I am is lemon meringue, and my famous last words will be "I can pass this guy." Dear lord this website is a giant timesuck.
Men and women should be held to the same sexual standards. If men can sleep around without judgment, women should be able to as well. My goodness. How could anyone fail to strongly disagree with that? A woman should be able to marry and have kids with anyone she wants - including another woman. Okay, there's a biological reality issue here.
Adult: Men and women should be held to the same sexual standards. If men can sleep around without judgment, women should be able to as well. My goodness. How could anyone fail to strongly disagree with that? Um, this double standard is the fundamental unfairness. Most misogyny stems from the male promiscuity good, female promiscuity bad dynamic. The subjugation of women is justified worlwide through this bizarre dichotomy. Female sexual empowerment begins with women defining THEIR OWN sexual standards, apart from patriarchal pandering. And no, Sex and the City is not what I mean: I mean a fundamental rethinking of the paternalistic "women are to be sheltered and protected because their sexuality is a valuable commodity" mindset. The anthropological reasoning is apparent, the unfairness is blatant, and the paradigm must be shifted. True equality necessitates a refutation of such antiquated stigmas. A better way to phrase it would be, a healthy society would stop viewing sex with such prudishness and hypocrisy and acknowledge the beauty and complexity of sexual relations, the variance of mutability of human sexuality, and the inherent power dynamics of sexual relationships, and seek to eradicate sex as a weapon of shame, torture, subjugation, or coercion. Each sexual agent should be allowed his, her or haze own sexual identity determined by none other than his, her or haze own particular desires and interests at the time. Now, pardon me, I'm gonna go fag out for 5 minutes with this buff cop in a men's room before returning to my loving wife and daughter. Do you have change for a 50?
Matt, you got a buncha f**king wankers here! It always amazes me, cruising around comments sections in the leftish-wing blogosphere (e.g., TPMCafe), how bad this "anti-feminist" problem is among the pasty-white-male cyberspace bien-pensants. I might prefer to remain ignorant of how ignorant many of us are.
I checked "strongly disagree" to number 5, because although I agree with the second sentence, the first sentence seems to me to preclude gender reassignment for transgendered people. While I understand that there are some schools of feminism that believe in gender essentialism, I don't think I have to embrace transphobia in order to be a feminist. Of course, most likely, the quiz is just poorly written, not transphobic.
10 question quizzes are for entertainment, not even infotainment. The only thing you really learn about someone from 10 questions is that someone is bored at work.
I got 93% feminist, though i think I should have been marked down because my "strongly agree" answer to question 3, the sleep-around question, was given for extremely non-feminist reasons.
"Pasty-white-male?!" This is just gratuitous self-indulgence which is not necessary to a reasoned argument and it's reason #15,431 why I think of myself of a progressive rather than a liberal. I know this is just a blog, but this kind of BS is just too commonly accepted on the left. And people are still confused about why common people in Red State America don't trust the left?
There is no monolithic "the Left"; that's the problem. Ideological lockstep groupthink is the sole domain of the KarlRovian dogs of the right. The Left branches out like the bristles of the broom, we do the sweeping, we do the weeping, we mine the gloom. The right is the handle, hard and high, on money, on power, removed from the sty. The lowly who vote on the pulls of their guts speak a language of mom, Jesus, and Adam's Apple pie, even as their diaper-wielding Madam's bid them beddy-bye.
Huh. I am only 83% feminist, less even than MY! On the other hand, I am "too shy" to have a bf. Which is true. Sigh. Did I answer the questions correctly, or incorrectly, since I've been to a happy hour tonight? Hmm... MY's next birthday gift: a subscription to Cosmo, so he can take all the silly quizzes he wants (and the gf can take the rest)!
It would be nice if one day Matt were to put his Harvard trained mind to use and actually examine "modern mainstream feminism." I think he would be appalled for many of the reasons that soullite has aptly mentioned. Until then Matt is just another pussy whipped faux echo feminist.
Den of the Biting Beaver. It's not an unheard of argument there. And when people say "Feminist" that's pretty much what I think of. Maybe that's your problem. BB doesn't do theory, she doesn't understand what's she's talking about and what goes on over there has about the same relevance to feminism that the guy at the 7/11 screaming about gas prices has to Marxism. Feminists tend to talk about women and BB and her ilk don't. An alien reading that blog could conclude nothing about women other than they were some sort of extention of male dominance. There isn't one feminism anyway, there are wildly differing schools of thought and if you want to critique them you need to do better than dumpster dive at Bighting Beaver.
Gregorio rocks! that is all.
Sure Ed, that's why the BB rape checklist has been linked to from all of the top tier feminists bloggers. And that's why NONE of the top tier feminists bloggers have mentioned this theory of yours that BB is a 9/11 hate monger. Actually BB is loved throughout the feminist blogosphere, just as Ace, LGF, Malkin, etc. are loved in the thugosphere.
Biting Beaver's blog isn't really even publicly accessible anymore. It seems to have gone the equivalent of "friends only."
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Heads in the Sand
all the quizzes on that site are heavily biased toward a female audience. Alan Keyes '08!
Posted by i luv luv luv alan keyes | August 9, 2007 9:27 AM