Posts by giovanni tiso
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to George Darroch,
Paul, to the degree in which HIV/AIDS is now no longer exclusively a power relation (which it certainly was 10 years ago) and is slowly moving back into the realm of a less socially constructed disease, the analogy doesn't hold.
Here's an analogy that holds better: Ari Ne'eman's appointment by Obama to the National Council on Disability. Much debated (including within the autistic community, by people who reckon that he isn't 'autistic enough'). But I would say that yes, his being autistic matters. And that my very well meaning advocacy for autism is not the same as an autistic person's own advocacy.
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to Paul Williams,
A friend of mine has recently been appointed the CEO of the HIV/AIDS Council. He's copped criticism for not being gay but reasonably pointed out that HIV/AIDS mustn't be conflated exclusively with a particular sexuality
Indeed. So what's your point?
If you substituted female for Maori and Feminism for Tino Rangatiratanga wouldn't you end up saying that you could be an Italian man who was pro Tino Rangatiratanga and a feminist
pro Tino Rangatiratanga and pro feminist. You're missing a key word there. By which I mean that I'm not the one who gets to decide the form that those movements for self determination will take - although I'll still get to choose whether I support them or not.
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to Russell Brown,
The way women in the comments who suggested as much -- and these are sufficiently serious women to have identified with a feminist collective -- were rounded on was depressing.
You want to count yourself lucky you're not the guy who has to walk down the road and tell the lovely Emma(*) that what she does is "absolutely the opposite of everything that feminism stands for".
(*) Not our Emma.
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to George Darroch,
But for me, having men say they support feminism and feminists has none of the costs and almost all of the benefits.
I nodded so vigorously at this point that I put my neck out. THE TRUTH, IT HURTS!
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to Paul Williams,
I identify as a man, of the straight white middle-class variety
Which would make me very suspicious indeed if you started identifying with working class or racial minority struggles. You should feel free to support them, but actually vying to occupy those subject positions, boy, I would find that very problematic. And I think feminism is not just subscription to a series of sociopolitical goals - it's also about identity. Identity politics isn't an unhelpful label for me.
But you could say you support Tino Rangatiratanga which, unless I'm mistaken, is the equivalent to "feminism' in your example.
But again supporting it and being a part of it - two different things.
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to Jacqui Dunn,
Isn't it that you recognize equal value, equal importance in the grand scheme of things?
We might disagree on what that means. To me, it's not about enabling women to occupy positions of power within social structures designed over the centuries by men; it's about changing society and how power operates so that men and women can participate in them equally.
I think tino rangatiratanga is a useful analogy: I prefer to think of it as the means of achieving self determination of tangata whenua through kaupapa Maori, rather than simply placing more Maori people at the top of Pakeha political and corporate structures (on this, I think one could do worse than reading the Bruce Jesson lecture delivered by Annette Sykes last year). Now, I support the aspirations of Maori people towards changing society in this direction, but wouldn't dream of identifying as Maori.
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to Paul Williams,
Conceptually and practically I consider men and women equal, how does my gender matter?
Equality ain't the same thing as identity.
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to nzlemming,
And, according to certain persons, males can't be feminists because we're all rapists, perhaps because we like to see females dressed in as little as possible. </sarcasm>
I really don't think that's worthy of your sarcasm. Not all men are rapists, but almost all rapists are men, and it's big fucking deal, enough to justify a certain essentialist distrust.
Is that because you don't believe men can be feminists (I totally disagree with this, but realise that some people think it)
Another way of putting it is that in order to be a feminist you have to identify as a woman first, and I don't. I think taking up the perspective of another is quite fraught. Which doesn't stop me from supporting feminist analysis and struggles more than those of pretty much any other intellectual movement, but.
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to Jacqui Dunn,
Benefit of the doubt says at least three male posters here support feminism, but wouldn't describe themselves as feminists. Am I right?
Works for me.
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Hard News: Gaying Out, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
BTW, a little more fun with Scalia “logic”
If one must. How about the fact that the objection would also apply to the time when the instution of marriage was created? Couldn't somebody have said back then well, so long as we're somehow into marrying men and women now, why not men and trees, or dogs are and houses? Amirite?