Marija Gimbutus, Her Works

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I do not know.

Perhaps if I knew what a MRA was I could clarify further.

I'm a card-carrying member, and I'm satisfied that they do what I want them to do when I pay my yearly dues. Their function is to keep women abreast of current issues, and to sometimes send out rallying cries for a particular one. Essentially, they're journalists. They serve as sort of a hub for feminist activism and networking. Some would be surprised how vast that network is, and how quickly it can be called to action. It's full of lawyers, doctors, social workers, housewives and women from every walk of life, who have one goal in mind; to end patriarchy. When our enemies say that NOW is at the center of a vast conspiracy to feminize the world, they're right. They just don't like the progress made, and want it stopped.

I'm not sure what more they could have done during the primaries. Their audience isn't everybody; it's feminists. They supported Hillary, as did I. Some thought they should have supported Palin, but anybody who understands Feminist Theory can see why that couldn't happen.

The real work of feminism is pretty invisible to the naked eye. One of the oddball rallying cries of anti-feminism right now is that nothing is being done to reach out to women in the Middle East. Because the general public is not aware of what feminists do, they have no idea how much has already been done, including by NOW, when it comes to Muslim women. If you notice, NOW doesn't take note of those who are against feminism. They just keep plugging away, keeping the network of women together, and ignoring the criticism. A lot of the experiments of feminism go on right under peoples noses, like the underground gift economy, without the general population even knowing. We know what people say about us, but the work must be done. The vast majority of complaints leveled against feminism are completely ridiculous, and sitting around listening to lies being told about the cause just detracts from what is a long road that needs to be traveled.

I strongly care that women are still being hunted and preyed on like they were game. I can confidently say that NOW shares my concerns, and is dedicated to doing everything possible to end the atrocities.

Google is your friend.

MRA's are mens rights activists. They're a bunch of men who pretend that feminism is oppressing them, and they come right out of the gate, and toss a bunch of pedantic arguments, much like yours.

Mens Rights Activist?

I'm intrigued as to why you would think so.
Surely not just because I disagree with you regarding a word's definition?

Several people on this very thread have disagreed with me. That doesn't bother me in the least.

I would take you as a mens rights activist because they always present their arguments as you did. First, they find some tiny thing (like you did with the word matriarchy) and attempt to turn it into what it's not. Then they say things like "condone does not mean ignore," (I think those are your words, but I didn't double check) but refuse to clarify what they are not condoning. I guessed that you were claiming that there are and were no matriarchies to point to as proof that they are egalitarian societies, but I couldn't be sure since you just kept right on going, and didn't stop to explain. All in all, you make it obvious that you do not approve of something, which I think in this case is feminism, but you don't make clear why.

If I am completely wrong, and you do not in fact have any issues with feminist theory, and are not on par with mens rights activists, might I suggest that you work on your delivery?

I though you were talking about the mutant registration agency. Anyway I saw one NOW spokswoman on TV during the course of the primaries and about 80 Code Pink type people so how can you say NOW is getting their message out and is well organized. Even the site is kind of feeble and looks more like an RSS newsfeed site than anything else.
It is an organization like most others. It has high overhead, a lot of highly paid staff and does a good job of recycling old news from other sources.

Actually I take most of that last post back. I'm just bitter and felt if NOW had been more active and outspoken Clinton would have won. She was a far more qualified and probably more competent candidate than Obama.
And in ways most of you are correct with respect male dom in the sciences as Gimbutus's male counterparts have always tried to discredit her work and still do so.

Garyww,

I'm not sure if you think my comments were directed towards you, concerning the out of the gate attacks. My bad for not using the quote function. I have terrible issues with navigating new websites (I actually blogged about that on Myspace yesterday). I was addressing pandd, and everything I said about mras was for him. I'll work on not just skipping over things, and use the quote functions, etc. when I'm supposed to.

I've enjoyed your posts, garyww. My only wish is that you'd say more! I am genuinely interested in criticism of my movement when it's not given in a belittling way.

About NOW, your argument makes perfect sense, from where you sit. What you see is them not being vocal to the public concerning our issues. I just don't see that being their function. I see their job as speaking to us, the feminist "army", if you will. We then use our loosely, and sometimes tightly, affiliated political action groups to carry out the work.

That said, do you (garyww) think that the general public would listen to feminists, and maybe adopt our ideals, if NOW itself were more vocal? I've never thought about that. Interesting.

Last edited by sheknight on 14 Jan 2009, 12:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

I am aware that others have disagreed with you, and my skepticism that this was the cause is expressed in my post.


I would have expected such a large group to manifest at least some in-group diversity, and accordingly find your claim that they all present their arguments some particular way dubious.

As I understand it, that is what you did.
It is most certainly not what I did, and I find myself hard pressed to credit any honesty in the accusation given your own earlier comments.
I somewhat suspect you are well aware that matriarchy means what I say it does, and that your argument is ideologically motivated.


They are not my words. I think it's meaningful that you claim to know I am an MRA because you know I argue just like they all argue, yet you do not actually know what I've argued or said.


Sometimes people do not understand what someone else has said, and there is nothing wrong with asking someone to clarify if you are unsure what they mean.
I have not made any claim as to whether or not there are matriarchies. I do not believe the definition you assert is correct and I have given reasons why.
I also commented on your claim that the existence of recent/modern matriarchies is ignored. Since claims as to whether these societies are or are not matriarchies, are an area of ongoing debate in at least one field of academia, it cannot be true that the existence of these societies, and claims that they are matriarchies, are being ignored.


Everyone disapproves of something but your assumption that disapproval has anything to do with my comments is unfounded.


You are completely wrong, and your snideness, accusations and hostility are entirely unprovoked and a rather mean-spirited response to someone who was merely responding to points of interest in a stimulating discussing.

I think that these arguments are inapplicable to the statement that I made in the context of this discussion. Your first argument actually supports what I said, and the second is about a bacterial risk, and not human behaviour. More men are involved in road rage accidents than women by far. So the generalised assumption that road rage accidents are a result of inherently violent male traits associated with stress, is pretty fair. I would be surprised if someone wouldn't admit that if people were inherently peaceful not as many accidents would occur with direct intention to cause them. DUH. The evidence is all around us. You would have made more sense if you had participated in the discussion with me first. Thanks.

Gary, if you want to argue that women have the same violent traits as men, then just say so.

pandd, I believe that you would rather argue for the sake of arguing. I already stated why I stand by my definition of matriarchy, yet instead of acknowledging that with a return argument, you repeat your non-argument. I even went so far as to allude to the dictionary definition ignoring the meaning as implied in actual, real matriarchies. Never has there, nor is there, a matriarchy where women rule over men, nor oppress them. Instead they are egalitarian.

Please take the time to tell me why I'm wrong. Please show your evidence of a matriarchy that is not egalitarian. Prove that I am mistaken when I insist that matriarchies are what I say they are, which is not, and I repeat, not, the opposite of patriarchy. If it were, it would match your dictionary definitions, all of them, not some, but as I stated before, there is confusion over the definition.

As for not quoting you exactly, you are correct that I should have checked. As I said, I have problems assimilating new sites, but I'm working on it. However, I'm positive that you are not "one of the people disagreeing with me". You had only one post when I answered you the first time. How could you be one of the people disagreeing with me when you weren't even around?

Frankly, I find myself questioning that you don't know what mra's are. The "diversity of thought" is a common thing for them to say. I am very, very familiar with them, to the point of building a website just about the mens rights groups. They are very good at doing what you just did. You jumped into the middle of a conversation about feminism, and instead of stating a coherent argument, you start flaming, and as is typical with mras, you did so in a pedantic way. With all of the things I've said on this thread, the thing you latch onto is one word. You accuse me of arguing to further my ideals, which is something I freely admit to doing. Of course I want to prove that matriarchy works. I want the whole world to see that. Yet you are doing exactly what you accuse me of. It is you who needs to argue from a place of emotion, without presenting anything to back how you feel. I can back up my ideals with tangible proof that they lead to peace. Can you do the same?

If you are not affiliated with any mras, even just online, you sure have the same problems that they do.

["mixedtapebooty"I think that these arguments are inapplicable to the statement that I made in the context of this discussion.
[/quote]
Context is entirely irrelevant to deductive validity. Both arguments were simply different linguistic expressions of the logical fallacy "some A are B therefore all A are B".

Last edited by pandd on 14 Jan 2009, 1:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

That's just a fancy way of saying that you aren't saying anything. I still have no idea what you are trying to argue. I can only infer that you have problems with the feminist movement. I can't be positive, since you haven't actually come out and said that, but my experience suggests I am seeing what I've seen in mras in you.

This thread needs to get back to the op.

It is quite clear you form characterizations of others not correlated to reality.


Yes you stand by it, but you can offer no basis in reality for it. The closest you come is an outright admission that you want to define the word as something it is not, simply because otherwise what you argue is not true. That is intellectually bankrupt, and as interesting as 'proving unicorns exist' by redefining the word to mean the most similar thing to a unicorn that actually exists and saying 'see, told you so'.
That bores me.
As does desperate name-calling in an attempt to perceptually frame those one imagines are opponents.

Is it, well you you're welcome to tell mixedtapebooty that, although in all honesty, even though I disagree with her point, I do believe she had one, expressed it quite clearly, and would be more inclined to describe her language as eloquent and precise rather than 'fancy', but to each their own.

Do you even care?
I can only infer that you are so eager and desperate to engage these mras that you probably see them in dust bunnies under your bed. All this mras hysteria does nothing for your credibility.