Journal of Other Forum Analysis

[benji]

If Nepenthe had a sense of humor, she'd retweet this:

[benji]

Another day, another genocidal fascist trying to claim their obsessive hatred is feminist:

The belief that women are oppressed by men is an underlying assumption of CSJ and visible in its discourses which include talk of patriarchy, male privilege and toxic masculinity. However, in practice, this has been complicated so much by critical theories of race and ‘queering’ of the categories of ‘woman’ and ‘man’ that it is seldom expressed alone without considerable qualification. If a woman were to simply state the position “Women are oppressed by men” as a standalone statement she would be very likely to be suspected of being a “White Feminist” or a TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist).

A White Feminist (you don’t have to be white) is understood to be someone who cares only about issues faced by middle-class white women or who assumes that all women’s experiences are generalisable to this demographic. However, in practice, it can also be applied to anybody who has liberal approaches to opposing racism rather than Critical Social Justice ones (hence the existence of ‘white feminists’ who are not white) The term “TERF” is often accompanied by accusations of hostility and prejudice against trans people and a wish to deny their right to exist. However, in reality, it can be applied to anybody who does not think that trans women can safely and fairly be accepted straightforwardly as women in every situation and/or believes that ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are biological categories, not internally felt gender identities.

Even though Critical Social Justice relies on a framework of power and privilege which assumes men to have power and privilege over women, the sex axis is very weak compared to those of race and gender identity. White women who identify as women rank very low on the CSJ oppression scale and in the last few years have increasingly been presented as dangerous and oppressive.

...

The claim that women commonly make false allegations of sexual harassment or assault would seem to conflict with support for the #MeToo movement and its hashtag #BelieveWomen but this is where we see the hierarchy of identity-based power dynamics. White men have more power than white women due to patriarchy so in this case, CSJ advocates would advocate #BelieveWomen, but white women have more power than black men due to white supremacy and are theorised to be deeply invested in maintaining it so then we are warned that “#MeToo needs to talk about predatory white women.”

...

The other area in which women are seen as dangerous and oppressive is when they are gender critical feminists seeking to protect women’s single-sex spaces and/or the definition of ‘woman’ as ‘adult human females.’ Trans activists working on queer theory concepts of gender and even sex as something self-identified would certainly not see the people they are trying to protect them from as men, but gender critical feminists do. Sometimes they even frame the aim to give trans women access to all women’s spaces including lavatories, changing rooms, shelters, prisons and sport as a form of men’s rights activism or a patriarchal attempt by men to take women’s spaces away and appropriate womanhood. Blaming men or patriarchy for authoritarian trans activism is incorrect as I have argued here.

CSJ approaches to trans activism which begin and end at ‘Trans women are women. End of discussion” see any disagreement or qualification to this as transphobia and ‘transmisogyny.’ They see gender critical feminists as failing at feminism by refusing to include a particularly vulnerable subset of women. Sometimes, they even try to present the motivations of left-wing gender critical feminists as socially conservative. This is also incorrect. Gender critical feminists and social conservatives agree that people cannot have a gender identity different to their sex, but gender critical feminists are ultimately critical of the concept of gender with accompanying roles, traits and presentation while social conservatives are critical of non-conformity with them. Gender critical feminists therefore would like trans men and women to understand themselves as gender-nonconforming women and men and be comfortable with that, accepting that there is no right way to be a man or woman. Social conservatives would like trans men and women to understand themselves as women and men and also to behave and present in traditionally feminine and masculine ways according to their sex. These values are opposed.

Within the queer theory branch of Critical Social Justice, then, we see a belief in patriarchy as a persistent oppressive power dynamic permeating all of society but this is not expressed as“women being oppressed by men” for two reasons. Firstly, the belief that having stable categories of ‘women’ and ‘men’ is inherently oppressive makes such a declaration problematic. Secondly, within the hierarchy of power dynamics and intersectional framework, men have more power than women, but cis (non-trans) people have more power than trans people making trans women doubly oppressed and a priority.

Feminists have long criticised the social construction of womanhood as oppressive with the most famous declaration of this being Simone de Beauvoir’s “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” However, what radical and gender critical feminists mean by this is that the construction of gendered roles, traits and presentation of socially sanctioned womanhood are oppressive, not the recognition of ‘woman’ as a biological category. Queer theorists, however, take a postmodern stance on their understanding of social constructionism and believe that accepting stable categories of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ is inherently oppressive. “Is the construction of the category of women as a coherent and stable subject an unwitting regulation and reification of gender relations?” asked Judith Butler, in Gender Trouble.

...

Of course, contemporary trans activism and scholarship is often less theoretical and few people cite Derrida even as they insist binaries are inherently oppressive hierarchies. However, the rejection of understanding our (sexually reproducing) species as comprising of male and female people is deeply entrenched within it. Within this thinking, then, the statement ‘men oppress women’ would be seen to reinforce the binary of male and female and arrange them in a hierarchy which also reinforces men’s power over women. Anybody who understands male and female as sex categories can come under fire for this, but feminists (who are mostly female) face particular hostility for doing so in the interests of protecting women’s sex-based rights. They are accused of upholding patriarchy using biological essentialism while perpetuating transphobia which is particularly dangerous for trans women from their privileged position of being ‘cis’ women.

...

This is repeated in popular outlets like the Guardian which often publishes articles, like this one by Rebecca Solnit saying things like: “Trans women pose no threat to cis-women, but we pose a threat to them if we make them outcasts and pariahs (and insisting they use men’s bathrooms endangered them horribly)” This is, of course a false dilemma. The options are not “regard trans women as sexual predators, treat them as pariahs and have no concern for their safety” or “happily open up spaces which have been single sex for reasons of privacy and safety to anybody who identifies as a woman.” Solnit is incoherent in her assertion that trans women are horribly endangered if forced to enter single sex male spaces but that no danger is presented at all by enabling any of those dangerous men to enter single sex female spaces as long as they identify as a woman at the time they do so.

Sounds about white.

[benji]

From the river to the sea, trans women are women. End of discussion. Inshallah. 🙏

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

Wrong. Dengism is based and cutepilled.

[benji]

Wrong. Dengism is based and cutepilled.

Gameboy Nostalgia has been banned for dismissing concerns about capitalist roaders within the party and for putting staff in danger.

Also account in junior status.

[Potato]

If Nepenthe had a sense of humor, she'd retweet this:

Communism really needs to be classified as a mental illness at this point.

[benji]

Communism really needs to be classified as a mental illness at this point.

Please do not confuse the comrades unfortunately suffering from sluggish schizophrenia with those loyal party members dedicated to liberation.

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

Wrong. Dengism is based and cutepilled.

Gameboy Nostalgia has been banned for dismissing concerns about capitalist roaders within the party and for putting staff in danger.

Also account in junior status.

r/GenZedong will rise again! 

[Daffy Duck]

Also, why call the discourse sexist when there is a lot of female players complaining about? 

Isn’t worse for the female players that they are forced to play as a sexless ugly blob regardless of their choice? Wasn’t “power fantasies” the whole reason why you demand character creators?

Because real women need to be protected and told what they can do by trans women, as only trans women know what’s best for women

[benji]

r/GenZedong will rise again! 

Please cease reading Western propaganda and focus on the eternal lessons within Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.

Use the handy party-provided flowchart as a guidebook for the everlasting wisdom, if necessary:

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

Can't I just order The Governance of China off Amazon or is that outdated now?! 

[NekoFever]

*That* being the pic with by far the most traction makes me really side-eye.

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

It's an absolutely dysphoric picture.  

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

androgynous body-type options

I really would love a better explanation for this bit because the rest of the article is about bad hair styles and poorly remodelled face designs which honestly comes across as the author pulling the androgynous = Ugly and bad (espcially after sarcastically going "Great, right? That's far more inclusive, and only the wahhiest crybaby would struggle to just pick the one that matches their own preference"). Like the author does know androgynous people can have really great hairstyles right?

Like while Niantic has done it poorly, given everyone the same options and not restricting pronouns and bodytypes is a good thing and should be encouraged.

[benji]

If you're that porn obsessed then go play Stellar Blade (which shouldn't exist) to objectify women, stop trying to force your heteronormative fetishes onto everyone else in popular queer franchises like Pokemon.

[Boredfrom]

   

*That* being the pic with by far the most traction makes me really side-eye.

 

I just checked. There's a chest slider now, so that character can add their boobs back if they lost them in the auto conversion.

The lack of boobs is not the only problem.

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

wait so chest sliders are okay now? 

[Boredfrom]

Like while Niantic has done it poorly, given everyone the same options and not restricting pronouns and bodytypes is a good thing and should be encouraged.

They did this by removing everyone else more popular options. Isn’t option what everyone wants in the Burka thread? Not removing them to make a mentally ill minority feel better.

[Nintex]

Nintendo is gonna be pissed to be dragged into the culture war like this 

Lots of crying little girls and angry parents.

[benji]

I just checked. There's a chest slider now, so that character can add their boobs back if they lost them in the auto conversion.

Fuck, and I thought Nintendo cared about women but they're just like Sony.

[benji]

Like while Niantic has done it poorly, given everyone the same options and not restricting pronouns and bodytypes is a good thing and should be encouraged.

Literally saying that trans women shouldn't be allowed to exist. Not surprised to see this after B-Dubs banned challenging fascists who are calling for genocide.

[Daffy Duck]

I do find it funny that these nerds are still playing Pokémon Go and are now upset how shit their avatars look.

OMFG…it’s TransEra the gif…
https://www.resetera.com/threads/kotaku-pok%C3%A9mon-gos-new-character-creator-is-out-and-everyone-hates-it.848307/page-2?post=121863066#post-121863066

[HaughtyFrank]

Never have seen people get upset that a character creator have more sliders than before. Confident this has never happened since video games have been a thing. Well done Niantic. Now all the chuds will point at this update and say "See??? DEI Californian wokeness ruined Pokémon GO!"

https://www.resetera.com/threads/kotaku-pok%C3%A9mon-gos-new-character-creator-is-out-and-everyone-hates-it.848307/post-121869753

Well... how is that not what happened? Someone clearly thought it was bad that female characters had hips and a waist in this game.
If this was just about NPCs and not the player character I imagine RE would have fully turned this into the "only Chuds hate this" narrative

[Snoopy]

Ree continue to highlight what a bunch of selfish, spoilt clowns they are

Wanted to see what is was like for y'all when you began working or whenever you became an adult.

I was given a stipulation that I either go to college, get a job and pay a weekly rent, or move out... So I fumbled around in college for awhile, quit college, got a job and immediately moved out. I wasn't about to pay my parents to stay in the home I grew up in, not when making my own money and having enough to have my own apartment somewhere.

This self righteous idiot paid rent to a landlord instead of helping his family.

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

I bet the weekly rent would've just been to cover food bills. 

[Tektonic]

Never have seen people get upset that a character creator have more sliders than before. Confident this has never happened since video games have been a thing. Well done Niantic. Now all the chuds will point at this update and say "See??? DEI Californian wokeness ruined Pokémon GO!"

"See??? DEI Californian wokeness ruined Pokémon GO!" Also made the ship crash into the Baltimore Bridge thingy. And some other stuff i'm sure happened. Oh, warhammer?

[benji]

Pokemon Go's original character creactor and that bridge only existed because of the horrors of capitalism, colonialism and white supremacy in the first place, in a truly trans affirming liberated indigenous society where everyone lives where they belong there would be no need for bridges or character creators because the take a carrot-like Pokemon, leave a carrot-like Pokemon economy would be truly inclusive from the start rather than preyed upon by international terrorist forces like those underlying AI's genocide of artists to steal art from the poor and Palestinians that art was created to empower. At a time when the tendrils of fascist algorithms are dominating all media and controlling the staff of video game forums we need to resist the chuds harder than ever rather than grant any validity to any of their narratives.

[Snoopy]

I bet the weekly rent would've just been to cover food bills. 

Basically. He probably went mental over 20 quid a week

[benji]

Typical greedy parents, just like mine demanding I wear headphones for my sapphic euphoria because "guests are over" like fuck those fash, it's my right to exist. They've never given a dime to any of my online suicide threats. The cruelty is the point.

[benji]

The PoliEra Discord is probably seething at that Gaza thread where B-Dubs silenced all the marginalized voices, all kinds of posts talking about how Biden is a terrorist, a racist, an anti-American, loves murder, sits around all day wanting nothing but people to hurt, is establishing fascism, gets off on having blood on his hands, etc.

Remember to vote!