Oh, she's quite charming! I'd read some of her articles in the past - but didn't know how balanced, warm, humorous, eloquent and responsive to questions she'd be "in person".
well, i must say, Sommers seems to be teh perfect example fo where we want to be. ?Intelectual, pragmatic, honest and not motivated by bias or gain. nad she is sticking up for boys who were growing up int he 90s. its really sad that a whole lot of the nutjobs are trying to denouce, Sommers who is such a fair and pragmatic voice of reason. still, lets not let her stand alone, humanist movement! UNITE!
@nigen she is totally motivated by bias, and she betrays her bias when she declares that the inequities are mostly things in the past in America. Is that any different than the conservative token blacks like Michael Steele, Herman Cain and Clarence Thomas, who tell their white conservative/libertarian audiences that they racial discrimination and inequalities don't really exist now. And she supports the phony war against sharia.
yet, she still argues with intellect and common sense rather than religious passionate mumbo jumbo, conservatives tend to use. she doesn't strike me as some one who s taking sides, by rather some one who is trying to paint a clear picture of what the problem is and how best to deal with it. if you have feminist groups exaggerating rape statistics like Ms Magazine or that superbowl hoax, you are not actually solving anything but making things worse. that's why clarity is needed.
@rusty57 She's politically conservative and I don't agree all her views. But I do appreciate her critique of radfems and their over the top attitude toward men.
I like Sommers. She's a really smart woman. I respect anyone who would rather debate using intellect then only try to defend their beliefs. I find that too many radical feminists, especially sex negative feminists, spout emotional garbage instead of examining behavior and cause/effect in a wider context than just "patriarchy makes all men oppressors and all women victims". The world is much more complicated than that. Good video, thumbs up.
I hate all the left right rhetoric. I'm certainly a leftist, and consider myself a feminist, but I'm on a different planet than the NN type of feminist.
Other than that crap I agreed with most of what she had to say. I think she would have appealed to me more if she had simply said "some feminists on the left" rather than branding all of us as multicultural radicals.
@TheNakedAtheist agreed. Just like I hate it when SOME feminists say "feminists are against the sex industry." Well, that's just not true. I try to listen to the way someone makes their points and pay less attention to what side they are on i.e. left or right. If they make a good point...they make a good point.
The Woman Suffrage movement in its conception was called a radical movement. The only meaning of the word "radical" is in terms of the mainstream standing point an/or the speaker's standing point. The word is almost always used entirely with a subjective meaning. What is radical now may not be radical 50 years from now and what is mainstream now was radical 100 years ago and so on. Sommers' assertion that "radical" feminists killed the movement is also never meaningfully substantiated by her.
I watched this video twice…the first time my hackles were up a bit and the second time I tried to watch it more objectively. This is probably due to my own bias of Christina Hoff Sommers {some things I read in the past I was not too pleased with}.
However, in this talk she raised a few great points. In general I do agree with you that there definitely inequalities that men face that I think would be nice for feminists to at least address. Things such as rights for fathers, resources for men and boys who have been sexually abused, the stigma of spousal abuse {when a male is the victim}, and many other things.
I agree some of those things are real issues, but I consider them a minor issues. When I hear men in particular talking about them they often seem to be blaming women for them. It leaves the same bad taste in my mouth as when I hear white males complaining about "reverse discrimination". Were white men complaining about these issues when women, and blacks were treated as second class citizens? I don't recall it happening.
@TheNakedAtheist No doubt there are people who want to blame women for these types of things, but I personally think that they are residual side effects of what feminists often call 'patriarchal oppression'. These are mens’ issue and I think that the solutions should be directed by men {who are interested in equality}, and supported by feminists and other women {who are interested in equality}.
A better illustration of what I mean is child custody. Historically men didn't file for custody. Following the advances in equality for women in the 70's men began, at to claim, they wanted custody. In fact I recall looking at some statistics in the 80's, or 90's showing that men were more likely to get full custody when they filed for it than women.
Continued.. It was almost as if men, and the courts were saying "you want equality?, I'll give you equality". Filing for custody almost became a form of punishment for women daring to demand equal rights. I perceive many of the complaints by "men's rights groups" today to be of a similar vein. As almost a way to get back at women for daring to no longer be barefoot, pregnant, and subservient to their man.
Do we stop building women's shelters because we aren't building men's shelters? Do we stop pushing for better representation of women in upper management, and elected government because some men might suffer due to over zealous implementation of equal opportunity programs? I say NO, but I think these types of things are part of the unspoken agenda of many so called men's rights advocates.
@TheNakedAtheist Oh I am not denying that there are knuckledraggers that want to fling us back into the dark ages, and really they can just go fuck themselves. And these people who have the mentality that we need to somehow knock men/women down to elevate men/women aren't getting it right, IMHO.
Men who think that we need to stop fighting for the rights of women, are obviously not interested in equality. Those are the knuckledraggers that I mentioned earlier and I am quite sure they are the same one you were talking about as well. Those folks are FUBAR.
@TheNakedAtheist I think it's importaint to ask ourselves...Has Sommers claimed the MRA or has the MRA claimed her? I don't care who claims her as their patron saint or if she's on the right or the left...if she makes some good points I'm going to give them the respect they deserve.
@TheNakedAtheist, one thing that is necessary if equality is to be achieved is to escape from the past, to overcome the past. The men in the times when women were second-class citizens were also the product of their times, in some sense as crippled in their formation as any victimized minority. If you stereotypize them, if you talk about 'The Menz' as if they were a homogeneous group (and an anti-feminist one at that)... then you're creating your own proto-oppressive system.
@TheNakedAtheist, on minor issues; if you agree they are issues, then let's treat them as such. One of the devil's worst invention is this "hierarchy of issues": is feminism more important or less important than environmentalism? Or ending war? Or Global Warming? Is rape more of a problem than false rape accusations? Etc... My answer: we don't have to decide. We can be AGAINST ALL THAT -- big and small -- and condemn it all as a whole. So that all victims, female and male, will feel supported.
That's a complete misrepresentation, or at best misunderstanding of my "minor issue" comment except perhaps for the rape vs false accusation example which are related. I'm talking about the greater good. Do we stop putting out house fires because occasionally someone drowns from the water used? The death while tragic is a minor issue compared with the alternative.
@TheNakedAtheist, well, I don't mean to misrepresent you -- I thought you had meant the issues usually claimed by MRA's (child custody, false rape accusations, paternity laws, domestic violence against men, etc.). Didn't you? As for drowning in water used to put out fires -- have you got the numbers? If hundreds die from the water in question, it may be a good idea to start thinking of another method. Besides, isn't it better NOT to let fires start? Isn't THIS the goal?
It's true, most men go to great lengths to keep their women happy. Sommers is kinda like a Paglia for everyday people, but conservative. She is not a throw back, but somehow retro in her views. I've always intended to read more of her stuff.
I think much of the derision Sommers get's is because she is a conservative. Even though she is definitely a realist and somewhat pragmatic she will be discounted by the liberal left. Pointing out how institutions have been co-opted doesn't help either.
@alowlyapprentice you know, she is known as a conservative by many but to me she seems more socially liberal than most of the other leading feminist authors today. Take for instance...Sheila Jeffreys. She is openly trans-phobic as are many who align themselves with her strand of feminism.
@Divinity33372 I guess you can call her a social conservative. But in a sense she is saying the radical wing of feminism are "Tea Baggers", to use our current political climate as a metaphor. I wonder what her stance is on sex work and the adult entertainment industry.
@alowlyapprentice I don't know that she talks much about it. I know she confronts misandry quite a bit. Many feminists don't believe it exists but I see it quite a bit.
@Divinity33372 That is one of the things that pisses me off the most about some of the radical feminists {the old guard at least} is the transphobia. As a feminist I can understand the critique of the gender binary, which is something that many folks in the Trans community address. But this theory that Janice Raymond is infamous for concocting that the existence of Trans people is a conspiracy for ‘men’ to infiltrate the feminist movement is bat-fucking-shit crazy and bigoted.
@YeOldeHeretic Agreed. The transphobia issue has always struck me as bizarre, I would think a male who identifies as a woman would be recieved warmly by feminists. I have even seen some anti-trans rhetoric here on Youtube, against Baronesa mostly.
@BobChaos23 I would hope that any decent person would accept a Trans person regardless if the are M to F, F to M, or go by some other type of identity. Is this anti-Trans shit you are seeing here on YT coming from feminists?
@YeOldeHeretic Well, they *call* themselves feminists...I know you are going to have a dialogue with them soonish(good luck on that issue again, sincerely), I wouldnt want to bias you, so I will say no more...you can ask BaronesaReturns if you want details. :)
I agree, but why does she put such emphasis on labeling those she disagrees with as "the left". I assume she must consider herself at minimum a centrist if not a conservative.
Oh, she's quite charming! I'd read some of her articles in the past - but didn't know how balanced, warm, humorous, eloquent and responsive to questions she'd be "in person".
Richard19551 1 week ago
Amen
1awareness 1 month ago
well, i must say, Sommers seems to be teh perfect example fo where we want to be. ?Intelectual, pragmatic, honest and not motivated by bias or gain. nad she is sticking up for boys who were growing up int he 90s. its really sad that a whole lot of the nutjobs are trying to denouce, Sommers who is such a fair and pragmatic voice of reason. still, lets not let her stand alone, humanist movement! UNITE!
nigen 11 months ago
@nigen she is totally motivated by bias, and she betrays her bias when she declares that the inequities are mostly things in the past in America. Is that any different than the conservative token blacks like Michael Steele, Herman Cain and Clarence Thomas, who tell their white conservative/libertarian audiences that they racial discrimination and inequalities don't really exist now. And she supports the phony war against sharia.
rusty57 6 months ago
@rusty57
yet, she still argues with intellect and common sense rather than religious passionate mumbo jumbo, conservatives tend to use. she doesn't strike me as some one who s taking sides, by rather some one who is trying to paint a clear picture of what the problem is and how best to deal with it. if you have feminist groups exaggerating rape statistics like Ms Magazine or that superbowl hoax, you are not actually solving anything but making things worse. that's why clarity is needed.
nigen 6 months ago
@rusty57 She's politically conservative and I don't agree all her views. But I do appreciate her critique of radfems and their over the top attitude toward men.
prschuster 2 weeks ago in playlist Hoff Sommers
I like Sommers. She's a really smart woman. I respect anyone who would rather debate using intellect then only try to defend their beliefs. I find that too many radical feminists, especially sex negative feminists, spout emotional garbage instead of examining behavior and cause/effect in a wider context than just "patriarchy makes all men oppressors and all women victims". The world is much more complicated than that. Good video, thumbs up.
Dirge987 1 year ago 3
This was a cool vid.
BobChaos23 1 year ago
I hate all the left right rhetoric. I'm certainly a leftist, and consider myself a feminist, but I'm on a different planet than the NN type of feminist.
TheNakedAtheist 1 year ago
Continued...
Other than that crap I agreed with most of what she had to say. I think she would have appealed to me more if she had simply said "some feminists on the left" rather than branding all of us as multicultural radicals.
TheNakedAtheist 1 year ago
@TheNakedAtheist agreed. Just like I hate it when SOME feminists say "feminists are against the sex industry." Well, that's just not true. I try to listen to the way someone makes their points and pay less attention to what side they are on i.e. left or right. If they make a good point...they make a good point.
Divinity33372 1 year ago 8
The Woman Suffrage movement in its conception was called a radical movement. The only meaning of the word "radical" is in terms of the mainstream standing point an/or the speaker's standing point. The word is almost always used entirely with a subjective meaning. What is radical now may not be radical 50 years from now and what is mainstream now was radical 100 years ago and so on. Sommers' assertion that "radical" feminists killed the movement is also never meaningfully substantiated by her.
NoMoreMasters 1 year ago
This was very interesting perspective. Thanks you.
koreamy 1 year ago
She has a very sexy mind.
rep5281 1 year ago
Great vid. Thanks
Professoranton 1 year ago
Rational thought For The Win!
papafox 1 year ago
I watched this video twice…the first time my hackles were up a bit and the second time I tried to watch it more objectively. This is probably due to my own bias of Christina Hoff Sommers {some things I read in the past I was not too pleased with}.
CON’T
YeOldeHeretic 1 year ago
However, in this talk she raised a few great points. In general I do agree with you that there definitely inequalities that men face that I think would be nice for feminists to at least address. Things such as rights for fathers, resources for men and boys who have been sexually abused, the stigma of spousal abuse {when a male is the victim}, and many other things.
YeOldeHeretic 1 year ago
@YeOldeHeretic She has a bad rep I will admit, but it makes one wonder who assigned it to her.
Divinity33372 1 year ago
@Divinity33372 Indeed, you have a point. My own negative opinion her stems more from my being left-leaning than from my being a feminist.
YeOldeHeretic 1 year ago
@YeOldeHeretic
I agree some of those things are real issues, but I consider them a minor issues. When I hear men in particular talking about them they often seem to be blaming women for them. It leaves the same bad taste in my mouth as when I hear white males complaining about "reverse discrimination". Were white men complaining about these issues when women, and blacks were treated as second class citizens? I don't recall it happening.
TheNakedAtheist 1 year ago
@TheNakedAtheist No doubt there are people who want to blame women for these types of things, but I personally think that they are residual side effects of what feminists often call 'patriarchal oppression'. These are mens’ issue and I think that the solutions should be directed by men {who are interested in equality}, and supported by feminists and other women {who are interested in equality}.
YeOldeHeretic 1 year ago
@YeOldeHeretic
A better illustration of what I mean is child custody. Historically men didn't file for custody. Following the advances in equality for women in the 70's men began, at to claim, they wanted custody. In fact I recall looking at some statistics in the 80's, or 90's showing that men were more likely to get full custody when they filed for it than women.
(cont)
TheNakedAtheist 1 year ago
Continued.. It was almost as if men, and the courts were saying "you want equality?, I'll give you equality". Filing for custody almost became a form of punishment for women daring to demand equal rights. I perceive many of the complaints by "men's rights groups" today to be of a similar vein. As almost a way to get back at women for daring to no longer be barefoot, pregnant, and subservient to their man.
TheNakedAtheist 1 year ago
Continued...
Do we stop building women's shelters because we aren't building men's shelters? Do we stop pushing for better representation of women in upper management, and elected government because some men might suffer due to over zealous implementation of equal opportunity programs? I say NO, but I think these types of things are part of the unspoken agenda of many so called men's rights advocates.
TheNakedAtheist 1 year ago
@TheNakedAtheist Oh I am not denying that there are knuckledraggers that want to fling us back into the dark ages, and really they can just go fuck themselves. And these people who have the mentality that we need to somehow knock men/women down to elevate men/women aren't getting it right, IMHO.
CON'T
YeOldeHeretic 1 year ago
Men who think that we need to stop fighting for the rights of women, are obviously not interested in equality. Those are the knuckledraggers that I mentioned earlier and I am quite sure they are the same one you were talking about as well. Those folks are FUBAR.
YeOldeHeretic 1 year ago
@YeOldeHeretic Women have all the rights and you know it, you conveniently never bothered to comment on what Christina was saying..
jimmy27paul 7 months ago
@jimmy27paul Hello, caveman.
YeOldeHeretic 7 months ago
@jimmy27paul Why say that? im not against womens rights im not an animal. Just name one right i have that you dont, go on name ONE....
jimmy27paul 7 months ago
@TheNakedAtheist I think it's importaint to ask ourselves...Has Sommers claimed the MRA or has the MRA claimed her? I don't care who claims her as their patron saint or if she's on the right or the left...if she makes some good points I'm going to give them the respect they deserve.
Divinity33372 1 year ago
@TheNakedAtheist, one thing that is necessary if equality is to be achieved is to escape from the past, to overcome the past. The men in the times when women were second-class citizens were also the product of their times, in some sense as crippled in their formation as any victimized minority. If you stereotypize them, if you talk about 'The Menz' as if they were a homogeneous group (and an anti-feminist one at that)... then you're creating your own proto-oppressive system.
Asehpe 1 year ago
@TheNakedAtheist, on minor issues; if you agree they are issues, then let's treat them as such. One of the devil's worst invention is this "hierarchy of issues": is feminism more important or less important than environmentalism? Or ending war? Or Global Warming? Is rape more of a problem than false rape accusations? Etc... My answer: we don't have to decide. We can be AGAINST ALL THAT -- big and small -- and condemn it all as a whole. So that all victims, female and male, will feel supported.
Asehpe 1 year ago
@Asehpe
That's a complete misrepresentation, or at best misunderstanding of my "minor issue" comment except perhaps for the rape vs false accusation example which are related. I'm talking about the greater good. Do we stop putting out house fires because occasionally someone drowns from the water used? The death while tragic is a minor issue compared with the alternative.
TheNakedAtheist 1 year ago
@TheNakedAtheist, well, I don't mean to misrepresent you -- I thought you had meant the issues usually claimed by MRA's (child custody, false rape accusations, paternity laws, domestic violence against men, etc.). Didn't you? As for drowning in water used to put out fires -- have you got the numbers? If hundreds die from the water in question, it may be a good idea to start thinking of another method. Besides, isn't it better NOT to let fires start? Isn't THIS the goal?
Asehpe 1 year ago
Good vid!
Vogter2100 1 year ago
It's true, most men go to great lengths to keep their women happy. Sommers is kinda like a Paglia for everyday people, but conservative. She is not a throw back, but somehow retro in her views. I've always intended to read more of her stuff.
I think much of the derision Sommers get's is because she is a conservative. Even though she is definitely a realist and somewhat pragmatic she will be discounted by the liberal left. Pointing out how institutions have been co-opted doesn't help either.
alowlyapprentice 1 year ago
@alowlyapprentice you know, she is known as a conservative by many but to me she seems more socially liberal than most of the other leading feminist authors today. Take for instance...Sheila Jeffreys. She is openly trans-phobic as are many who align themselves with her strand of feminism.
Divinity33372 1 year ago
@Divinity33372 I guess you can call her a social conservative. But in a sense she is saying the radical wing of feminism are "Tea Baggers", to use our current political climate as a metaphor. I wonder what her stance is on sex work and the adult entertainment industry.
alowlyapprentice 1 year ago
@alowlyapprentice I don't know that she talks much about it. I know she confronts misandry quite a bit. Many feminists don't believe it exists but I see it quite a bit.
Divinity33372 1 year ago
@Divinity33372 That is one of the things that pisses me off the most about some of the radical feminists {the old guard at least} is the transphobia. As a feminist I can understand the critique of the gender binary, which is something that many folks in the Trans community address. But this theory that Janice Raymond is infamous for concocting that the existence of Trans people is a conspiracy for ‘men’ to infiltrate the feminist movement is bat-fucking-shit crazy and bigoted.
YeOldeHeretic 1 year ago 2
@YeOldeHeretic Agreed. The transphobia issue has always struck me as bizarre, I would think a male who identifies as a woman would be recieved warmly by feminists. I have even seen some anti-trans rhetoric here on Youtube, against Baronesa mostly.
BobChaos23 1 year ago
@BobChaos23 I would hope that any decent person would accept a Trans person regardless if the are M to F, F to M, or go by some other type of identity. Is this anti-Trans shit you are seeing here on YT coming from feminists?
YeOldeHeretic 1 year ago
@YeOldeHeretic Well, they *call* themselves feminists...I know you are going to have a dialogue with them soonish(good luck on that issue again, sincerely), I wouldnt want to bias you, so I will say no more...you can ask BaronesaReturns if you want details. :)
BobChaos23 1 year ago
-she seems more socially liberal
I agree, but why does she put such emphasis on labeling those she disagrees with as "the left". I assume she must consider herself at minimum a centrist if not a conservative.
TheNakedAtheist 1 year ago
An interesting vid.
APDurrant 1 year ago
Quite an intelligent perspective. Thank you for posting this
BespokeGroupUK 1 year ago 9
@BespokeGroupUK Agreed!
VinnyMonster1 8 months ago