GENIUS FORUMS

Carmel to Kelly wrote:You rely heavily on stereotypes except when they don't suit your agenda. "Women's intuition" is now man's intuition. The "male ego" is magically the female ego. You've mentally arranged so that all positive human qualities are "masculine" and all negative ones are "feminine". It's like your mind is crazy fun house of mirrors where self delusion and mental distortions take precedence over objective reality.

The fourth sentence is the crux of it. I once saw this written on a GF cubicle wall:

The group known as Q, R and S
Were not at all shy to profess
That in women what's great
Is their every male trait
And the woman in man makes him less.

The QRStians will literally (prove me wrong) not grant femininity a single positive characteristic, and will literally (prove me wrong) not admit of a single failure in masculinity: what's bad in a man is the woman in him; what's good in a woman is the man in her. It's a sham. The QRStian forays into empiricism are ultimately beside the point, because, sound as some of the research might be, QRStians will inevitably promote an interpretation of it in which masculinity reigns supreme, and femininity whimpers from the sidelines.

It's pointless to debate them, because, as we've seen in this thread, their bias is entrenched, and, more importantly, definitional: any time a positive feminine characteristic is raised, the fervent QRStian will claim it as truly a masculine one; any time a negative masculine characteristic is raised, the fervent QRStian will religiously reassign it as a feminine one.

What are we to make of this? In the past I've agreed that it's not misogyny, and that "male chauvinism" fits better, but there is definitely something malignant about it. It is with a kind of delighted glee that the fervent QRStian asserts the inferiority of women, as set up in the ultra-dualistic QRStian definitions of femininity as all bad and masculinity as all good; it is with amazing gall that Dan asserts that "it's not about women". Blind Freddy knows better.

There is a kind of twistedness in the QRStian claim that this is all for the purpose of raising women's consciousness. David, for example, claims that women have effectively zero chance of reaching enlightenment: so if they can't make it anyway, then what's the point of rubbing their noses in their supposed inferiority? You can see the answer in the question itself: the very point of this exercise is to rub their noses in it, to gain - as with the game of enlightened QRStian versus the mediocre, unenlightened hordes - a sense of superiority; that old game of "we're better than you". And this from a bunch of supposed non-dualists!

It's a neat little trap that's set: for a woman to ignore their claims is to let sexism run rampant; for her to point out their bias is for her to subject herself to the rejoinder: "See, that's exactly what we mean - your feminine emotionalism is what causes you to complain about the truth of the genders when that truth is presented to you."

The undercurrents of contempt in this game are palpable. Consciousness-raising ultimately reduces to acceptance of QRStian dogma, in which a woman is required to reject with disgust that which defines her gender, and aspire to be "a man": a QRStian. It is a confused woman who, not rejecting the reality of her biological gender, nevertheless submits herself to this game; it is a perverse man who encourages it.

guest_of_logic wrote:The QRStians will literally (prove me wrong) not grant femininity a single positive characteristic, and will literally (prove me wrong) not admit of a single failure in masculinity: what's bad in a man is the woman in him; what's good in a woman is the man in her. It's a sham. The QRStian forays into empiricism are ultimately beside the point, because, sound as some of the research might be, QRStians will inevitably promote an interpretation of it in which masculinity reigns supreme, and femininity whimpers from the sidelines.

You are, as ever, clueless in the extreme and in your haste to be indignant and appear morally superior, forget - or do you? - the most important aspect of all such value judgements - context.

Assessments that do not take into consideration the quintessentially contextual nature of our judgements of the value of the feminine and masculine are less than worthless.

Context is not at all a salient point.

For a start, you can generally strip, alter or reinvent the context, and the negative value judgement remains. Here's an example: not long ago in another thread, David claimed that top female sports players (I think he used the example of tennis players) give up very readily in their games. This claim is completely bogus, but that's beside the current point, although it does go to the point that QRStians are unabashedly biased in their judgements of women. With respect to the current point, you would presumably claim that in context, David's claim is that women are unsuited to enlightenment because they lack the drive and determination to get there. Let's remove the context, though, and see what we have left: a claim that even at the highest levels, for the most skilled women who have specifically dedicated themselves to the most extreme of competitiveness, those women give up very readily. In which reasonable and relevant context is this not a negative value judgement on women?

What's more, the context that your claims occur in is supposedly the highest context available to a human being, so what you're really saying is that even in the highest possible context for humanity, masculinity has no weaknesses whereas femininity is pure weakness. It's still as biased (largely through definitions) as it would be in any other context.

By the way, my objections aren't based in a desire to appear morally superior, but in concern about the effects that the negative attitudes on this board towards women have on other people - not just on women but also on men - and I think it's important that they don't go unchallenged.

Your objections, per se, may not be based in any desire to appear morally superior, but the manner in which you construct and present them reeks of it. No matter, I'll come back and explain why your opinion about the significance of context is totally wrong.

guest_of_logic wrote:David claimed that top female sports players (I think he used the example of tennis players) give up very readily in their games. This claim is completely bogus

One of the major problems a female top sporter faces is her stronger dependency on the approval of coach, family, audience or even the competition. This causes performance to become way more spottier and fluctuating than one is required at the level the male is used to operate on. If this is a factor in giving up a tennis game, I don't know, but I do know that in top sport it's all about focus on the very next thing: a point, race, step, jump - without thinking too much about a final result, scores, cup, audience, context or consequences. It's therefore quite likely females will have significant troubles with this when competing directly with men, even when physical build would not be limiting.

guest_of_logic wrote: so what you're really saying is that even in the highest possible context for humanity...

Highest only for those interested in such heights. This particular peak of interest is so much interwoven with the issue of masculinity, that one can almost speak of "by definition". There's as such no "context for humanity" or any other such cosmic sounding purpose to assert.

Carmel wrote:Animus: I admire Kelly for her whit and wisdom. She is evidence that ignorance and egotism aren't wholly determinate of women.

Carmel:
Is that because you're a misogynist? Just recently she said "Women are very wretched". She relies on childish ad hominems and subjective opinions too heavily. There's nothing to admire about that. Most of the men here are more objective about women than she is.

I've noticed her descending into ad hominems, but I'm not completely above that myself.

Allow me to share something with you, a secret about "feminism". Taken from: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quote ... riedan.htm

Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique, helped begin a new interest in women's rights, debunking the myth that all middle-class women were happy in the homemaker role. In 1966, Betty Friedan was one of the key founders of the National Organization for Women (NOW).

(note the similarities in philosophy)

• A woman is handicapped by her sex, and handicaps society, either by slavishly copying the pattern of man's advance in the professions, or by refusing to compete with man at all.

• The only way for a woman, as for a man, to find herself, to know herself as a person, is by creative work of her own. There is no other way.

• It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself.

• Men weren't really the enemy -- they were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to kill.

• It isn't that I have stopped being a feminist, but women as a separate interest group are not my concern anymore.

The right focus of feminism is on the archetypal masculine and feminine. The "mystique", and liberating men and women from it. But this is as much something women have to liberate their own minds from. They can't go about being the archetypal woman and simultaneously claiming they are not. I don't like what feminism has become or even the narrow framing of it. But I see that feminism has its roots in the same sort of philosophizing that QRS do.

Animus wrote:

Carmel wrote:Animus: I admire Kelly for her whit and wisdom. She is evidence that ignorance and egotism aren't wholly determinate of women.

Carmel:
Is that because you're a misogynist? Just recently she said "Women are very wretched". She relies on childish ad hominems and subjective opinions too heavily. There's nothing to admire about that. Most of the men here are more objective about women than she is.

I've noticed her descending into ad hominems, but I'm not completely above that myself.

Well, I'd like to challenge Carmel to demonstrate these ad hominems. 90% of the time people use that term without even knowing what it means or its proper context/use. If you think calling women "wretched" is an ad hominem, you desperately need an education in the formality of logical fallacies.

guest_of_logic wrote:Here's an example: not long ago in another thread, David claimed that top female sports players (I think he used the example of tennis players) give up very readily in their games. This claim is completely bogus, but that's beside the current point, although it does go to the point that QRStians are unabashedly biased in their judgements of women.

guest_of_logic, do you have a link to that claim? Looking through recent woman/feminine topic threads I couldn't find anything. Similar-ish stuff, but not that exactly, that they 'give up' readily. I think it's only fair to correctly quote someone if you're going to use their words as a basis for your own argument (even if you think it's not the point of your main argument).

Dan Rowden wrote:Your objections, per se, may not be based in any desire to appear morally superior, but the manner in which you construct and present them reeks of it.

Well, that stands to reason, and I phrased what I wrote carefully. I do believe that my position is morally superior, so it's not surprising that "the manner in which {I} construct and present {it} reeks of it". My point is that it's not that sense of superiority that drives my posts: it's the desire to counter what I consider to be a malignant position that drives my posts, and of course, that drive only makes sense when I believe that my position actually is morally superior to the position that I perceive to be malignant. Hence the "reek".

Dan Rowden wrote:No matter, I'll come back and explain why your opinion about the significance of context is totally wrong.

Oh, Dan, you're always promising to call, but you never do... are we forever doomed to one night stands?

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:One of the major problems a female top sporter faces is her stronger dependency on the approval of coach, family, audience or even the competition.

And you know this exactly how? From years of experience as a top female sports coach? From empirical research into female sports psychology? I mean, give me some basis for believing you.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:This causes performance to become way more spottier and fluctuating than one is required at the level the male is used to operate on.

Same questions as above, plus an additional one: what if external approval is 100%? Does that mean that the female sportswoman is 100% effective, and not spotty or fluctuating at all? What if a man's internal approval is spottier and more fluctuating than a woman's external approval?

Now don't get me wrong: I'm sure that internal "approval" is very desirable, but within limits - it's no good to approve of yourself when you're consistently hitting double-faults. What I'm simply trying to do is to explore your paradigm of external versus internal approval.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Highest only for those interested in such heights.

And what of those who aren't interested? Are they but fools, setting their heights too low? You don't rebutt me at all in this response: you simply imply my point. It's all about superiority: those who aren't interested are simply inferior for their lack of realisation of what's possible.

And yet let's say that it's all subjective. So here this forum is, set up to argue a strong case for its philosophy of rational enlightenment: exactly how subjective do you want to allow it to be? At what point will you allow for the notion that its founders have some confidence in the Absolute nature of enlightenment?

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:This particular peak of interest is so much interwoven with the issue of masculinity, that one can almost speak of "by definition".

Masculinity is wonderful, don't get me wrong: so many powerful phenomena have emerged out of it. But likewise is femininity wonderful: so much has been born of it. To say that the highest of heights ("for those interested") is "by definition" attainable only through the use of masculinity is to commit an injustice.

Robert wrote:

guest_of_logic wrote:Here's an example: not long ago in another thread, David claimed that top female sports players (I think he used the example of tennis players) give up very readily in their games. This claim is completely bogus, but that's beside the current point, although it does go to the point that QRStians are unabashedly biased in their judgements of women.

guest_of_logic, do you have a link to that claim? Looking through recent woman/feminine topic threads I couldn't find anything. Similar-ish stuff, but not that exactly, that they 'give up' readily. I think it's only fair to correctly quote someone if you're going to use their words as a basis for your own argument (even if you think it's not the point of your main argument).

Robert,

I do apologise: I've misremembered David's claim. What I actually remembered was a personal conversation that I had with Kevin, perhaps around the same time but probably a little earlier: I seemed to remember that David echoed Kevin's sentiments, but it appears that I'm off base there, and that what David actually said was slightly different. I'm 100% certain though that I'm not misquoting Kevin's claim that female tennis players give up readily - he used essentially those words in his verbal conversation with me. David's posts which I misremembered are these:
* Re: What is the consciousness of a woman really like?: "You just have to watch female sport to see how mediocre women are. The quality of their play, their pace, their decision-making, their tactical nous, their aptitude for brilliance and flair - all of it is markedly inferior to the way men play sport. Watching women play sport is like watching talentless kids in lower divisions play sport." This is an opinion with which I disagree as much as I disagree with Kevin's in-person claim that women give up too easily. The vast majority of women's sport is inferior to men's only in its lesser physical power, and in nothing (or at least very little) else.
* Re: What is the consciousness of a woman really like?: "Male tennis is far more powerful, but it also displays a far larger amount of tactical intelligence and finesse. Roger Federer, a master of strategy and finesse, and physically not all that powerful, has been the dominant player for some years now. The same with golf. Tiger Woods has flair and finesse by the bucketload, far more so than the plodding, robotic nature of the top female golfers." Again, I disagree with David's characterisation of top female players as "plodding" and "robotic". Lacking male power - sure - but lacking flair and finesse: certainly not.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:

guest_of_logic wrote:David claimed that top female sports players (I think he used the example of tennis players) give up very readily in their games. This claim is completely bogus

One of the major problems a female top sporter faces is her stronger dependency on the approval of coach, family, audience or even the competition. This causes performance to become way more spottier and fluctuating than one is required at the level the male is used to operate on. If this is a factor in giving up a tennis game, I don't know, but I do know that in top sport it's all about focus on the very next thing: a point, race, step, jump - without thinking too much about a final result, scores, cup, audience, context or consequences. It's therefore quite likely females will have significant troubles with this when competing directly with men, even when physical build would not be limiting.

Ha ! What's up with men having/needing sexy half-naked gyrating cheerleaders to energize them along the way ???? Huh Huh Huh ???

Kelly:

Beingof1: Men need to stop corrupting women after they gain their trust. This acts fosters resentment in both parties.

Kelly: Men need to stop giving in to women's need to blend and merge.

Beingof1: In your philosophy, women are not as capable as men for undertaking the path of understanding. Now you do not want them to seek it out in men. I guess women are just screwed either way?


Kelly: I can't follow the reasoning you present. Namely, that if someone is less capable than another, that means they automatically must trust someone else to help them.

If you do not know how to work on cars and your car breaks down, what would you do?

The truth is, it just means women have to work harder to get to the same bottom rung. It doesn't mean that for women, the need to rely on one's own reasoning is suddenly obsolete.

Why would you assume that to seek out wisdom in another individual means you must surrender your own powers of reasoning?

It is exactly the opposite.

Kelly: Women should not be encouraged to trust.

Beingof1: Take a second look at what I am saying. Try not to color it with your experiences of misplaced trust.


Kelly: ....in other people, or external authorities. Blind trust.

Women should be encouraged to seek out a wise man who is deserving of the trust - isnt that what you did?

My experience tells me that most women will deny reality itself in order to appear to be indespensible. They are the first to create enemies in and ouside of the tribe and will lie, deny, and twist reality in order to 'win' the argument. Do you think something like that might be happening now?


That's why I pointed out that women's need to find approval should not be encouraged, such as by building personal relationships. Their need for personal relationship is so strong, that any interaction will be dominated by it.

You say this as if it is a 'bad' thing; as if the name itself "relationship" is a dirty word.

What is wrong with relationships?

The seeds of all discussions with women will bear fruit not with greater understanding (the purpose and content of the discussion), but with their motivation for engaging in it, namely, bolstering the delusion of inherent existence. They use interaction to feel more concrete, not to become wiser. So one has to really be on guard at all times with women.

"All discussions" - do you mean like this one?

Should I be on guard with you?

Beingof1: The way to heal relationships

Kelly: Stop right there. Forget relationships.

Beingof1: You are kidding right? We have a relationship - it is platonic and never have we met but have spoke over the internet. Should we crash and burn it now or later?


All things are in relationship automatically and immediately, without anyone having to build anything. Focussing on trying to build relationships is an act of destroying consciousness.

If you want to build a house, why focus?

I am not against relationships at all. The parties just need to know what is involved.


If anyone is a member of the Genius Forum, and they are seeking anything other than a perfect understanding of Reality, then they have ignored the information on what is involved. It is all clearly explained in the Welcome forum.

How trite.

Kelly: Then all those love-needing relationships will be revealed as illusions of the ego.

Beingof1: Misplaced trust is an illusion of the ego If you put your entire faith in a mere mortal human, you are setting yourself up to fail.

All relationships, without exception, will create some pain and others will hurt you.

Its a matter of enduring the wrong and believing the other person is worth the pain and effort.


There shouldn't be any pain of an emotional sort, such as feeling hurt, or relieved, when engaging with others in a discussion. Or doing anything at all, for that matter. If there is, the ego is involved.

How do you know?

It is not a matter of it being wrong to be "putting your whole faith in a human being". Rather, it is misunderstanding the nature of existence, so that one feels that there is anything to be gained or lost by what one experiences.

Why do you post at this forum?

That is, one doesn't realise the nature of the relationships that one is automatically and immediately involved in - whether with people, with the room, the air, gravity, passing cars, fish in the sea, the gradually warming climate, etc. etc. etc.

This is not logic because a person is not the same thing as the air or a room.



A womens heart should be so lost in God, that a man needs to seek him in order to find her.

Sup Laird. I would define higher level masculinity as LOGIC, specifically about reality=self=inner beliefs/structuring. It's a mistake to attempt or pretend that this would be one's only value - there will always be more than that - but it is the FORUM's only value. It does feel good to know you're not logically retarded. As for raising other's consciousness, it only helps for those already strongly inclined (sexism is great). And even then, it's still a solo road.

guest_of_logic wrote:

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:One of the major problems a female top sporter faces is her stronger dependency on the approval of coach, family, audience or even the competition.

And you know this exactly how? From years of experience as a top female sports coach? From empirical research into female sports psychology? I mean, give me some basis for believing you.

Although I present it also as my opinion formed on anecdotal evidence, reading about sports, social contacts and so on, it's not different from what is known about female psychology in various literature on the topic, describing women as being more relational, deriving self-esteem from relationships, being more approval-oriented and compliant. It's not hard to see how that could work through in their sports; they don't seize being woman suddenly!

And what of those who aren't interested? Are they but fools, setting their heights too low? You don't rebutt me at all in this response: you simply imply my point. It's all about superiority: those who aren't interested are simply inferior for their lack of realisation of what's possible.

The ones not interested are not interested and can still lead pleasant lives and then die. Perhaps they earn more money or status, or believe they have more fun, or more purpose, than the ones who are interested. So where's exactly the implied inferiority? Why would anyone of the "inferior" bother with that to them uninteresting idea? Unless someone would be extremely insecure and hyper-sensitive for perceived injustices and sleights.

So here this forum is, set up to argue a strong case for its philosophy of rational enlightenment: exactly how subjective do you want to allow it to be?

The power of reason or rationality does not need this forum to argue its case. It's already the case and any thinking individual knows it.

To say that the highest of heights ("for those interested") is "by definition" attainable only through the use of masculinity is to commit an injustice.

What I was saying was that masculinity is at the core that very power, will and drive to attainment, to climb peaks, to peak. It pans out differently in each human though. This has not much to do with "peak experiences", involving all kinds of pain and pleasure.

Dan Rowden wrote:

Animus wrote:

Carmel wrote:Animus: I admire Kelly for her whit and wisdom. She is evidence that ignorance and egotism aren't wholly determinate of women.

Carmel:
Is that because you're a misogynist? Just recently she said "Women are very wretched". She relies on childish ad hominems and subjective opinions too heavily. There's nothing to admire about that. Most of the men here are more objective about women than she is.

I've noticed her descending into ad hominems, but I'm not completely above that myself.

Well, I'd like to challenge Carmel to demonstrate these ad hominems. 90% of the time people use that term without even knowing what it means or its proper context/use. If you think calling women "wretched" is an ad hominem, you desperately need an education in the formality of logical fallacies.

You are correct, they are not formal logical fallacies, however they are probably unnecessary and counter-productive.

Kunga wrote:

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:

guest_of_logic wrote:David claimed that top female sports players (I think he used the example of tennis players) give up very readily in their games. This claim is completely bogus

One of the major problems a female top sporter faces is her stronger dependency on the approval of coach, family, audience or even the competition. This causes performance to become way more spottier and fluctuating than one is required at the level the male is used to operate on. If this is a factor in giving up a tennis game, I don't know, but I do know that in top sport it's all about focus on the very next thing: a point, race, step, jump - without thinking too much about a final result, scores, cup, audience, context or consequences. It's therefore quite likely females will have significant troubles with this when competing directly with men, even when physical build would not be limiting.

Ha ! What's up with men having/needing sexy half-naked gyrating cheerleaders to energize them along the way ???? Huh Huh Huh ???

Is this an ad hominem tu quoque? Looks like it.

FYI:

Title: Relationships between physical self-presentation and sport competition trait anxiety: a preliminary study.
Personal Authors: Martin, K. A., Mack, D.
Author Affiliation: Department of Kinesiology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada.
Editors: No editors
Document Title: Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology

Abstract:
Sport competition trait anxiety (A-trait) reflects an individual's tendency to perceive threat and to experience anxiety in competitive sport settings. This preliminary study was carried out to investigate the relationship between two aspects of physical self-presentation, namely, social physique activity (SPA) and physical self-presentation confidence (PSPC), and sport competition trait anxiety. Participants were 146 volunteer first-year kinesiology students (93 females and 53 males) from two universities, all of whom had a history of sport involvement. The most frequently listed competitive sport activities were ice hockey, basketball, volleyball, squash, swimming, tennis, skiing, running and soccer. A-trait was assessed using the Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT), and the participants were required to indicate their attitudes towards sport and exercise participation. The effects of gender were also considered. As hypothesized, it was found that women's A-trait was significantly correlated with both PSPC and SPA. This suggests that women may be threatened not only by negative evaluation of their sports performance, but they may also fear negative evaluation of their physical appearance. Conversely, males' A-trait was not significantly correlated with either SPA or PSPC, although different results may emerge among males from a sport in which physical appearance is critical to performance outcome (e.g., diving or gymnastics). Overall, the findings indicate that sport competition anxiety stems in part from the self-presentational implications of competition.

Here is another: https://repository.abertay.ac.uk/jspui/ ... Divers.pdf

Or google something like: Gender differences in sport psychology

"They
showed that those variables associated with Physical Self-Presentation, i.e. Social
Physique Anxiety and Physical Self-Presentation Confidence, were respectively
positively and negatively correlated with Competitive Anxiety in women only."

Gender differences in perseverance and other entrepreneural traits:

Gender differences in entrepreneurial traits, perceptions and usage of information and communication technologies.
Publication: Academy of Entrepreneurship Journal
Publication Date: 01-JAN-08


Research on gender differences has suggested that for men, job/work activity is typically their most important role (Barnett & Marshall, 1991), while working mothers prefer part-time work, flexible work schedules, and telecommuting in order to accommodate their family responsibilities (Shellenbarger, 1991; Kantrowitz et al., 1989). O'Niel (1982) suggested that men are greatly preoccupied with work, accomplishments, and eminence. Similarly, Hoffman (1972) reported that men, more than women are motivated by achievement needs, while Hennig and Jardim (1977) stated that men adopt strategies focused on bottom-line results versus methods used to achieve those results. Hence, men tend to be more directed toward impersonal and individualistic tasks and goals, compared to women (Gill et al., 1987). Other reports, for example, Rosenkrantz et al. (1968) suggested that "objective" and "logical" are more male-valued traits, Minton and Schneider (1980) is convinced that men may be more task-oriented than women, a finding consistent with Sargent (1981), which reported that men have been socialized to value having an impact and therefore, tend to engage in task-oriented or instrumental behaviour.

Animus wrote:Ha ! What's up with men having/needing sexy half-naked gyrating cheerleaders to energize them along the way ???? Huh Huh Huh ???

Is this an ad hominem tu quoque? Looks like it.

No.... it's tit for tat.

Animus wrote:

Dan Rowden wrote: Well, I'd like to challenge Carmel to demonstrate these ad hominems. 90% of the time people use that term without even knowing what it means or its proper context/use. If you think calling women "wretched" is an ad hominem, you desperately need an education in the formality of logical fallacies.

You are correct, they are not formal logical fallacies, however they are probably unnecessary and counter-productive.

That's a personal call, really. I think there is sometimes a need to be openly candid about such things. If one can't handle candour, what hope is there for them?

Dan:

That's a personal call, really. I think there is sometimes a need to be openly candid about such things.
If one can't handle candour, what hope is there for them?

Carmel:

The misogynists says:
Women are very wretched.

The misandrist says:
Men are very wretched.

Both statements may be indicative of an attachment through hate or envy to the intended target of their verbal attack, but other than that, it's meaningless. A mere child can engage in name calling. When an otherwise intelligent adult does it, they are demeaning themselves and their argument(or lack thereof).

That would only be true if that's all the person stated - that a gender was wretched. But when that judgement is supported by an entire philosophical overview, it's really quite silly to characterise it as you wish to. The question becomes one of the validity of that overview.

Is it wrong to simply say that rapists are wretched? To one without the moral overview to know why that statement is fair enough, it would be, right?

Oh, and while I'm at it: what exact meaning are you assigning Kelly's use of the word?

Dan:
That would only be true if that's all the person stated - that a gender was wretched. But when that judgement is supported by an entire philosophical overview, it's really quite silly to characterise it as you wish to.

Carmel:
Right, and misandrists support the view that men are wretched with a "philosophical" overview too. In both cases, there exists an internal conflict that is manifest into an external view. Kelly's views say more about her own psychology than they do about women. Her constant demeaning of women appears to me to be a form of psychological self mutilation. It's spiritually and emotionally perverse. It would be foolish for a misogynist to judge people without receiving judgement in return.

Dan:
The question becomes one of the validity of that overview.

Carmel:
..and that is what I'm questioning...

Dan:
Is it wrong to simply say that rapists are wretched?

Carmel:
It's is neither "wrong" nor "right" to say they are wretched, but to say they are "wretched" would imply to me inner conflict on the part of the accuser. They are what they are for a myriad of reasons...genetics, environment etc., but even so, I personally wouldn't use the word "wretched" to describe them.

Dan:
To one without the moral overview to know why that statement is fair enough, it would be, right?

Carmel:
I'm not clear what you're asking me, but perhaps I already answered this question in my reply...?

Dan: You see all things for what they are. On one level all things are "equal"; on another, they are not - e.g. Kleenex and sandpaper are not equal in the context of the need to wipe one's....anyway, you get the idea.

Carmel:
Actually, Dan, in an emergency situation, the really cheap generic brand of toilet paper functions quite well as a substitute for fine grit sandpaper. :)

Carmel wrote:... misandrists support the view that men are wretched with a "philosophical" overview too. In both cases, there exists an internal conflict that is manifest into an external view.

In general the tendency is to demonize views as being driven by hate or conflict when they are for purely emotional reasons unacceptable. For example any strong view against Zionism or the state of Israel is by and large labeled: antisemitism and hate-speech. Any strong view against any perceived Muslim 'backwardness' in their moral outlook is often labeled discriminatory. And this judging is done by large organizations, politicians as well as academics.

Therefore it's no surprise that strong negative but reasoned views on a particular gender, being it criticizing male or female psychology, is labeled likewise by many. Perhaps we could derive from this behavior the hypothesis that such defense mechanisms, this projecting hate and aggression on what is deemed offending, is more often than not a mental block preventing a serious larger discussion around the actual issues lying on the table, by keeping them off the table. It's the old tactic of moral devaluation in advance or the latest variety of plain old prejudice and bias.