Dear friends,
After a pretty intense week I am back. I still feel like I spent a week somewhere in deep in a bunker (been there, done that) or in a submerged submarine (I imagine – never done it). But at least I am back at the keyboard :-)
I wanted to thank all those who donated this week – you guys are fantastic! Thanks for the PayPal transfer, the checks, the cash and the Amazon cards!! I know that this is a bad time for a fundraiser, being summer and all, and while fewer people donated than previously, I am even more thankful to those who did.
Next, it will be Scott who will be off for a while, but I will let him make the announcement himself.
Other than that – we are in good shape and, God willing, we will all keep the blog going over summer.
Hugs to all,
The Saker
Welcome back and I hope Scott is not leaving us for a long period of time.
After reading your blog each day, I am really glad that i haven´t spent on yours:
The point is ” ThANK YOU GUYS” . I am female! No comment further, but absolutely and deeply disappointed. No donation from my side intended in the near future.
BTW: if you want to feed your american credit institutes and paypal scammers, without giving an alternative to adult, brainusing people, that´s it for me, on your blog.
Sorry to be so rude, but your “thank you guys” is a godamned slap directly into my female face.
Bye!
As a female myself please accept my thanks for your post Saker and my assurances that most females – certainly this one – are well aware that the term “guys” is frequently used to cover both genders. I’ve used it myself to a group of just women – no-one took offence. mod PS
Agree, PS.
At least in the US, “you guys” is a gender-inclusive term these days, and for the last couple of decades. I often meet up with a mixed group of people at the bar or whatnot, and I say ‘hey guys!’. No one, but no one, is offended in any way.
Sorry to be so rude, but you seem to have a huge chip on your shoulder. The expression is not a slap in anyone’s face, and you might want to consider unwinding a bit – you come across as very tightly wrapped and looking for ways to be offended.
I totally agree. I don’t know where “anonymous” is from. But in the US (where Saker lives BTW) the slang term “guys” is always (when in mixed male/female crowds) used for both genders. If you were speaking to all “men” you would say “guys”. If it was all “women” you would say “girls”. But when speaking to both genders, “guys” is used. In the same way “mankind” is used for both genders when talking about all people on earth.I’d say anonymous’s comment was “making a mountain out of a molehill”,at the very least.
As an editor who is conversant with publishers’ guidelinesI know perfectly well that “mankind” is no longer acceptable.
Instead, use “humankind,” “humans,” etc. There are many alternatives.
Again, as an editor I am fully aware that there are plenty of gender-neutral terms but that sometimes it is better not to insist on gender neutrality if it cannot be achieved without vitiating the writing.
But there is no need for the Saker to say “you guys.”
And there is no need for “mansplaining” from, e.g., Uncle Bob as to how the English language works.
And, BTW, since “Thanks guys” is the vocative, there should be a comma after “Thanks.” “Guys” are being addressed.
But why not drop “guys” entirely.
Some African Americans may not mind (or have minded) being addressed as “Boy.” Others do. So, don’t do it.
Katherine
Totally not analogous. ‘Guys’ means all your people, your friends. ‘Boy’ is intentionally derogatory.
You give a perfect example of the ridiculousness of PC, that is rampant throughout the West. With the hundreds or thousands of problems in the World to worry over. Trying to proclaim that the use of a neutral term ,”is just not neutral enough , so change it”. Just beggars the imagination.I’m old and old fashioned enough to use “mankind and guys” ,when and if I so desire. And really couldn’t care less if somebody thinks I’m not “Politically Correct” enough for them.
I would have fired you “as an editor” after reading your comment.:) Check for yourself, please.
Katherine ,,, ”The awake” here will not fall for that feminist B.S!!!!!!!!!!!!! (This isn’t ur average MAINSTREAM media outlet)
That’s a legalistic issue for your profession .
Not remotely applicable in the idiomatic context used here.
In my country, we often use ‘lads ‘ in exactly the same tongue-in-cheek way.
Meanwhile, the erasure of female identity continues apace with the ‘transgender’ cult, and the legal aporopriation of the universal designate ‘mother’ by wealthy American gay men, after they have dispensed with the ‘surrogate’ hired through brokers to deliver a baby.
I doubt the Saker endorses this, yet so many pee-cee types do.
It never ceases to amaze me the capacity for treating a mere ‘zit’ as a ‘ cancer’ while leaving the actual ‘ cancer’ untreated.
You must be doing something right, Saker, if your detractors have to approach obliquely. Thanks for what you do.
The phenomenon you have just described is a common feature of language, what the linguist Roman Jacobson called markedness.
I hate the term “guys.” Please do not use it.
It is really insulting, not only for its basic misyogeny but for its unwarranted familiarity.
In fairly expensive restaurants the wait staff refer to “you guys” when women are sitting there, and perhaps are actually paying the bill.
It is really obnoxioius, and its ubiquity in the USA does not make it OK.
Just don’t say it.
Instead you could say “Friends,” “People,” “ladies and gentlemen,” “comrades” (yes, that term seems to have filled a need).
Not “guys.”
Pfui!!!
As a woman I can tell you that I am not a guy and I am not part of “guys.”
If you doubt this, I challenge you to use “gals” for everyone, grown men and women.
Please try that for a while and see how that goes.
Just don’t do the “guys” thing anymore. .
Thanks.
Katherine, sick of being addressed either as “guys” or “Hon.” Just stop it with the disrespectful forms of address. Now. I would, frankly, prefer “meine Damen und Herren.”
The language changes. I don’t always like the way it changes, either, believe me, but there it is. ‘Guys’ is not offensive, not meant to be offensive. Nor, my Dear Lady, is it disrespectful. It really isn’t. It just isn’t. In fact, it approaches that feminist ideal of gender-neutrality. But if zie are offended, oh well. You might want to just get over it, for your own peace of mind.
Dear Lady Katherine, no one says you HAVE TO get over anything – I was merely suggesting that you accept the reality of a word usage, that’s all. You seem determined to be angry and offended, and it affects no one but you. If no offense is meant, if the common sense of the language is that no offense is meant, you will just make yourself crazy by insisting on taking offense.
… and people behaving like true ladies and gentlemen, of course ;)
Katherine, as a female myself, I rather love the term “guys” because it is inclusive and actually more affectionate than some of the colder alternatives such as “peoples’ (which i use as well. But only to show off my grammar challengengeness in the vain hope of being considered ‘cool”). Frankly, in group meetings with blissfully mixed genders and ages, I use “guys” all the time, which sure beats “fellow homo sapienses”, given that the sapiens part of it is sometimes questionable and the homo part may be taken astray, especially these days, when it mey be taken as an insult.
Actually, one of the issues I have with this new phenomenon of “Feminus Extremus’ (I just invented it too) is that this new species of humans contains sub-groups that scour the earth far and wide in search of insults to gender, real or imagined. When enough insults cannot be found then the term ‘gender’ gets broadened just enough to fins at least one insult per comment. especially on a blog like this one.
What some of us are sick and tired of is thread-jacking, another interesting phenomenon practiced by a sub-group, that is generally inclined to divert from whatever the topic is. Their reasons are sometimes readily surmised, at other times unfathomable.
So katherne (not ‘Hon’ because i’m not from/in the South) give the rest of us a break, OK? BTW, while typing this message, I could have used up the time to make a few more $’s so i could donate to The Saker what he well deserves.
BTW, guys and gals, shall I build this up to an essay?
PS I really really am a female. One that appreciates the incredible lightness of being human (including being one of the guys).
A small item of American culture for your edification ..
Back in the early ’70s, there was a children’s show on PBS, The Electric Company. It started the same time as Sesame Street, aimed at slightly older kids. Every show started with the line “Hey you guys!”, shouted by one of the cast members. And these shows were inclusive. So there’s that.
In 1955, there was a musical comedy Guys and Dolls, in which the word was clearly a gender reference.
So, there ya go. Language and culture evolve and change.
‘Guys’ has been a Unisex term my entire life in SoCal. But with the Feminism movement nickpicking their ‘outrages’ these days, I use the term ; ‘folks’ when addressing groups. I have though, drawn ‘a Line in the Sand’ since like most Southerners, I call all people I don’t know, ‘Maam’, or Sir. The appellation is so obviously intended to convey respect. I’ve been told ‘it’s demeaning’ a couple of
times. I’m actually happy for people who’ve never experienced anything more demeaning than, ‘Maam!’ :-)
Totaly agree gee use person instead . OMG some people seem to be a bit sensitive. Keep up the great work SAKER one of the best websites explaining the Russian perspective.
Exactly mod.
Anyone who is ‘offended’ is likely seeking an excuse to accuse of a non-existent ‘offence’.’
Assuming this isn’t a troll, as a woman myself I feel embarrassed for her.
Ridiculous post.
That is one very large chip on your shoulder.
What a great example of someone who probably continuously looks for reasons to be offended. Being around people like that can be very draining. Anyways, welcome back Saker.
Hi Saker, from now you will need to say thank you, males, females, transsexuals, cross-sexuals, hermaphrodites & unisexuals. Like that you’ve got all the genders between male and female covered and no-one feels offended.
Check, it is funny and TRUE – shows PC BS:
Now you ‘ll have to greet in 60 genders so not to offend anyone …
Oh but they will descend like locusts for that totally non-peecee ‘ transsexuals’.
A lot and time and effort has gone into manufacturing the ‘transgender’ cult to erase sex-differences ( and by extension ‘own’ motherhood itself). Any man can now claim to be a woman in the US and the UK ( except in North Carolina, the first strike-back at the cult).
My goodness Serbian Girl, you will never get an invite to the White(wash) House !
I talked to my wife about using the “guys” label in mixed company. She was not offended in the least. In fact my wife has used that expression many times to her girlfriends exclusively. So this corabulates the majority view as expressed by the moderator. But we are from Canada and share much of american slang. The word as used by Sakerit is innocent enough when no malice is intended, though it is technically incorrect. Loosen up Katherine. Not everybody is sexist by including you as one of the guys. It’s used as group bonding, a like minded association no matter what gender you are.
well I am old enough to remember when a female actor was referred to as an actress. Maybe we could greet a mixed group as Hi there guys and guyesess. Problem solved?
I know,that wasn’t “that” long ago either. Its “interesting” that that was a case of where different gender words were done away with (somewhat at least.I still see actress used by us “old” people sometimes). And the two were combined using the “male” gender term for both male and female “actors” today. PC is a strange “animal”,it can be used anyway its creators want to use it. In one case women have no problem being labeled with what was solely a male term. Somehow that is thought of as making everyone equal to each other. But on another time, what has been for years a “unisex” term,is thought of by some as suddenly being “sexist”.One more reason I gave up letting “PC” rule my choice of words.
Gotta Love this American centric linguistic debate … as always , trying to impose your version of it even in language and how it should be spoken … bad habits are hard to loose
How could it be otherwise. When you have someone attacking a term used in most of the Anglosphere as incorrect. We didn’t bring up the argument it was used to attack Saker with. So your comment is pointless as an argument.
Saker.
,
Welcome back.
You could just offer this trolling bitch an apology.
Let me just say that English is not my first language. Nor is it my second one. Nope, not the third either. It is my fourth one. So maybe, just maybe, I misused “guys”. But I doubt it. You know why? Because when I first came to the USA I too though that “guys” was only for men. But I was told otherwise and since, I have used it to informally address a mixed group for almost two decades and nobody ever told me that this was excluding women. Not once.
But if you can react with such hostility to a simple word, even if possibly misused, then, indeed, you have no business on this blog. Why? Because I make WAY WORSE mistakes than that. I get things wrong. I get frustrated. Angry. Despondent. I have poor grammar, a bad temper and my typos are legendary. In other words, I am just a fallible human being with a lot of weaknesses, sins and passions.
I would not want to expose your doubleplusgoodthinking and gender-inclusive perfection to the likes.
Send your donations to some kind of feminist group – there you will find the immaculate perfection you are looking for. I hope that you will send them as much as you sent me ;-)
Bye!
The Saker
PS: judging by your prose, your first language ain’t English either. You might want to polish it a tad before pointing fingers. Just saying :-)
Hello,
I also read the Saker daily and I am a woman but ” thank you guys” does not sound offending to me. It is a figure of speech. It has no gender relation.Look, will you be offended if he said:” thank you, friends.”- no gender, same meaning. May be English is not your first language. You don’t have to be so sensitive and feel personally insulted. I am sure he didn’t mean that.
After reading your blog each day, I am really glad that I regularly donate.
The point is “ThANK YOU GUYS”. I am female! No comment further, but absolutely and deeply grateful for your response. Donations from my side are intended in the future too.
BTW: if you want to feed your american credit institutes and paypal scammers, as well as giving alternatives to adult, brainusing people, that’s fine for me, on your blog.
Sorry to be so maudlin but your “thank you guys” is a godamned slap directly on my female, non-American, back.
Get a life. Guys is now generic. My daughter calls hrt 12 year old friends. Please try to be at least 12 years old.
@ Anonymous …”Sorry to be so rude, but your “thank you guys” is a godamned slap directly into my female face.”
As a woman, I find this fake ‘feminist’ outrage very amusing.
I remember not too long ago when Aussie men were called ‘blokes’ and women were called ‘shelias’ or ‘birds’ or the ‘missus’… then the term ‘mate’ referred to both genders…
…then the Americans came here for R & R during the Vietman War and used the word ‘guys’.
So now in Aussie, the word ‘guys’ equally refers to both genders. Don’t know where anonymous lives, (?? USA) but maybe things are different there.
Glad you are back…this will be a hot summer in more ways than one and your pithy comments are really welcome ( the piece quoting B. Brecht was awesome). Let’s hope the English people hold the course…no problem with the Russians because they always do…and maybe the Germans will come to their senses and Germexit soon so they do not end up holding the bag.
One can always hope… In the Belly of the Beast, one can hear rumblings of discontent. The anarchists and skinheads had a real rumble on the California State Capitol steps last week but No one screamed “domestic terrorist” because it has to be political for that to happen.
Saker, tell us how your thesis is progressing. I never wrote one, but i know how hard it is. I have never visited the United States, but I know the word guys is neutral.
Brexit creates uncertainty in Europe. You know Europe and you know languages. I am looking forward to hearing more from you on the subject. The people won but did the elite also win?
Some links:
This one is for those who have the time:
EU REFERENDUM- The Real Face of the European Union
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=-0WeURiShfU
“Last Friday was the worst day in worldwide stock markets in history, losing $2 trillion in one day. And, to top it off, it came exactly 7 years, 7 months, 7 weeks and 7 days after the last greatest collapse in history, on the exact end day of the Shemitah in 2008.”
https://www.dollarvigilante.com/blog/2016/06/28/next-jubilee-jolt-wake-brexit-eu-announces-ultimatum-superstate.html
I read your comment with jaw dropping disbelief. Then it hit me – you are joking right? You have an odd sense of humour, and it isn’t at first apparent that you are being funny.
I mean, at first I thought you really had come on here and given orders, laid down the law, and told fully grown adults you dont’ know from a bag of beans “I dont like it, so dont do it”. “Just don’t say it” and so forth. As though we don’t know when it’s ok to and when it is maybe not so.
It’s a pretty good diatribe though. Certainly has that “Germanic tyranical dictator sound” which you allude to in your last line.
I mean, you really had me there – for a minute.
Katherine – I send you posts to the trash because they are insulting to Americans. It is weird that you presume to teach me respect while insulting millions of people.
Feel free to insult the regime in DC or US politics to your heart’s content.
But not the people of the USA.
The Saker
Katherine,
Are you a troll?
I don’t think I am a “troll,” whatever that means.
Actually, that is an interesting question, I now see.
I do agree with the person who questioned the “guys” usage. Desptie the fact that it is the Saker’s site, which I have on occasion pointed out. I still question the “guys: usage.
I note, too, that a comment insulting Germans and their supposed “dictatorial ” attitude was posted.
Katherine
Katherine, I have reevaluated my position in regards to the ” guys ” label in mixed company. I will admit that i have trepidation when using that term towards a group who some of them are unfamiliar. It is possible a woman could be offended. Now it could be because I’m Canadian (no longer British but not quite American) or my age (let’s just say upper middle-aged) I think it is a matter of etiquette. But in a mixed company of my friends “guys” is what you are.
This is a perfect example of language evolution. The original slang word meant something quite different. Slang is the key here. It should not be used in more formal settings. I also think the gender meaning of the word has lost most of its significance.
Saker you used the noun correctly, Welcome back!
This is Saker’s site, so he uses such words as he pleases. I am a guest here and come here because it is among the few places I can get accurate information and meaningful insight. Were it my site, which it is not, I would, being a Southerner, likely use other terms; but, as a friend said, “If my grandma had wheels, she’d be a bus.” To which one of my redneck students replied when I used it, “If she had no wheels, she’d be a redneck bus, up on blocks!” Keep up the excellent work, Saker!
Every morning I greet my cats with “good morning, guys”, I’ve not yet noticed any of the females take offence at this. Apparently cats are better adapted to the way humans greet others than internet trolls are.
Hey Guys!
Some people just like to be offended, the poor wee dears. Best to ignore them and not worry about their oh so precious feelings. There are far more important matters in this world to which your attention can be directed…
Siotu
I would have sent some money but the Netherlands pension I am eligible for is being stolen from me, by US orders, by the Netherlands bank that issues the funds. Added to that is the fact the US planned my death as if by accident from 2011 on when a routine dental implant delivered an interactive brain chip to my brain without warning. Since my father was poisoned over three years by his favourite wife
also at US orders (or they would have taken care of her and her daughter) in the 1970s the children he had were in line to be assassinated and have all records of their lives removed from all archives as was done, is still being done, to his.Our family goes back 800 years to an Irish chieftain. One of us advised the first Queen Elizabeth. Dad, brought up with Princess Wilhelmina, after the King died, died to help protect new Queen Emma, not of royal blood or close relations, as Dad’s Mom, a widow too, was invited to the tiny royal family celebrations all the time with his sister, Germain De Kuyper.
Grown and at the end of WW11 when Russia stopped Germany, then Queen Wilhelmina returned from Briton she told her old friend her plans for a group of European royals to meet at least bi-yearly at least to make sure such another war was not started. Dad warned her never to set up such a group or the the US would take over Europe. Wilhelmina, knowing Jean well, listened and never started the Bilderberg Group. As is custom, Wilhelmina stepped down so that Princess Juliana could become queen. The Americans knowing Napoleon’s edict that teaching a captured country the victor’s language means no war needs be fought for that country, and Juliana was fluent in English. She made the Fourth of July a Netherlands celebrated holiday, perhaps believing as the US spread the falsehood globally, it had won WW11. then she started the Royal Bilderberg Group.
The US CIA, by then here in full force, offered to help her pay the first weeks or years of cost which she accepted gratefully. Of course they never left, will never leave and the royal families of Europe are less than marginalised and thoroughly vilified. Their histories are to be erased from all archives. The identity of the Europeans is to be remade as Hitler would have remade them.Only more efficiently, thoroughly, globally.
The punishment for my fathers family as only one of many branches of it for ever advising our Queen to shun the US advices, plans and ‘help’ was to take over our firm from 1696 remake it from a Royal protected Partnership to one run by only one de Kuyper but in reality owned by US firms and government. Of course they killed Jean ritually by his own wife so he was destroyed of his private life partner, and it was decreed this would happen to his children and maybe grandchildren as well, whenever the US “victors” decided it was time. A distinctly Zionist punishment. Jean became a Nazi member in order to save as many of his friends and workers who were Jewish or married to Jews. He saved the most famous of Dutchmen, Eric Hazzlehoff, a close comrade who’s story from WW11, Soldier of Orange is in it’s4th year of sold out theatre.
My youngest son, readying himself to move here to Netherlands and then across the world as a artistic power of great skilled insight, in his last year at SCAD in Savanah, GA., USA, was poisoned with a special heavy metal recipe of 12 heavy metals put into his foods by a SCAD professor/friend.
His entire store of work and tools and papers was stolen by the SCAD run CIA started and managed art college. My other son and I were warned never to try and get anything of James Allen Higgins. Never to seek closure. Or else. A direct continuation of my father’s assassination. Every object or picture he ever gave me was stolen from my homes. Jimmie was gone December, 2012. He was born 1962.
His brother was born 1960 the same year J. Edgar Hoover opened a top secret file on me for having him.
Holland was never cleansed of it’s Nazis, and there were millions. The CIA efforts are and were since WW11,totally around nourishing those Nazi roots to where they are in Netherlands today.And in Ukraine.
I need help bigtime. Last year there were three attempts on my life, this year so far, two. Using the interactive brain chip.
The US has been assassinating NL doctors for years using what ever. In 2012 the suicide rate of Netherlands doctors was the highest ever counted, true that same year in Switzerland.Russian leadership should know this stuff.
Dear The Saker,
Welcome back :)
I am glad you got some funding whilst away and all is well with you.
Have I walked into the twilight zone? The comments :0…….
Rgds,
Veritas
Seems my link is broken, sending it again:
Fixed link
hilarious!!! (and worrying..)
Oh, and I’d like to add a big thank-you to the moderators. It’s the hardest part of running a public discussion forum, and doubly so for one like this, a forum covering controversial material. About 15 years ago, I was a regular reader of Slashdot … and, whatever. I tired of their ‘community moderation’ experiment eventually, and quit reading it. Good moderation is hard to do.
And welcome back, Saker. I look forward to your analyses, much as I read Pepe’s columns in my quest for real news. There’s so much BS and propaganda out there these days.
First he is not allowed to use some certain words on HIS BLOG. Next he won’t be allowed to call Obama an arse hole (that’s what he is). Then he won’t be allowed to call out the AngloZionists. Next he won’t be allowed to be who he is (one if the best political and military analysts in the world).
Watch out Saker! It’s a color revolution! They are trying to hijack your blog lol.
Jokes apart though, if you want to campaign for all women, you should go to the UN or Washington. The Saker does not ‘have the power to give human rights ;).
Feminists are needed in Saudi Arabia so I will advice all those fighting for equality (let’s use the word equality and act like we don’t know this is pure trolling) to go there and do it how they do it in France.
Cheers.
Well, Katherine did nail that comma. It’s on page three of Strunk and White. That part of the English language is more stable than slangy usage which varies from village to village and year to year, class to class … if I addressed my women friends as “gals”, feminists included, they would think it was campy and giggle – kinda like telling male friends, “You cats are alright.”
How did anyone miss that the Saker was very plainly addressing dear friends in an informal fashion. I read his Thanks guys!! as an inclusive term of endearment.
The only time I ever felt awkward using the phrase in mixed company was with a group that included several young transgender folk who had grown up male but came to identify as women. My awkwardness was not for political correctness – simply respect for each person’s dignity. I was told not to worry my pretty little head.
Thanks Saker,
Brian_J
The fact that Katherine perhaps have exaggerated in her complaint about the use of the word “guys” directed towards a mixed comentariat ( although overwhelmingly male and elderly ) has nothing to do with that some men and some women here take advantage of that the “Pissuerga River passes through Valladolid” to flog Feminism once again.
I have already expressed my opinion above, according to the respectful view of Mod. PS.
Now, first of all, I will clarify that I do not militate in any feminist party, though, maybe I should do, because the injustices and abuses carried out against women, are visible to me as to any woman who had not lost their innate instincts, and my own lifestyle, the principles that guide me, are clearly feminist ( what choice have a woman who claims to be she herself today ), but have always withdrawn me to do it some attitudes, which, as occurs in all groups, feminist or not, I consider excessive, even of excessive aggression toward men, because, let’s face it, not all men are equal and therefore I refuse to lump them all in the same bag. There are alos some good and righteous men who feel better and are happy seeing us being ourselves and willing to deploy all our abilities and enjoying all the freedoms which, as human beings, are inherent to us, you just have to find them, though, I fear, of these men, there is not enough for all of us and, therefore, somewomen will have to develop their life in solitude.
That, this, condemn Feminism at every opportunity, was done by some men, simply I do not wonder, because when one enjoys extensive privileges forbidden to other groups / sectors of the population, it is a difficult act of honesty, humanity and generosity being able to recognize that this is so and being willing to lose some privilege just to have a more just society and, therefore, a more humane and decent a world.
However, that some women do this, only talk about how lost they are of themselves, their selfishness, ingratitude and meanness. Because, let´s be honest, to Feminism owe we women not being relegated to the kitchen and the walls of our own home, being considered as whole people, adult, and therefore creditors to have a voice in decisions that affect countries in which we live or homes we habit, or having freedom of movement, without a man´s (father or husband) authorization.
But then, with this happens the same as with Capitalism, that those who are among the lucky ones, enjoying all, or some, of the privileges, and are not affected by the evils inherent in both, the currently totally discredit economic system in freefall as well as the system of patriarchal social organization, simply, the problems suffered by isolated or sufficiently broad layers of population simply give them a damn.
In line with this, and although it is an analysis of some of the causes of the bad results Unidos Podemos had in the recent Spanish elections, I leave link to an excellent article by Lidia Falcon, feminist and communist, sufficiently representative of a fair and consistent militant Feminism, without exaggerations, dramatizations, or stridency. I will translate some statements which, although referred to that Spanish electoral process, are extrapolated to the sad reality anywhere in the world:
“The truth is always revolutionary. Contempt for feminism from Unidos Podemos”
https://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=214066
“The cause of the formation Unidos Podemos has not obtained the expected votes is being attributed, by all commentators and various experts, to various factors: from the psychological and mediatical features of the protagonists to the international convulsions produced with the triumph of Brexit . But what is not even mentioned is the absence of proposals that would benefit women, or that the cadent issues that Feminism is defending several decades is ignored. Like fifty years ago.
I guess the “wise” -all I read are men- will think -if it is that some of them read me- what nonsense, one more of mine, to believe that the issue of women have importance in an election and much less that it can attract votes. Because these gentlemen, politicians and commentators, they have not yet learned that women won the right to vote in 1931 and worth to lure it because we constitute 52% of the electorate.
I continually repeated to one and the others, in recent years, that, if you do not have the human sensitivity to grieve for the misfortunes that afflict women, if they have never assimilated Feminism, at least to act on electoral selfishness.
The grueling campaign of Unidos Podemos has shown that the criterion of the leaders of the formations that compose it was that the unsolved problems of women since -some decades ago as equal pay denounced during the last 220 years- had no importance, not enough to give them prominence in their programs or in their rallies and public appearances. And not only men who show themselves as absolute protagonists of the formation accompanied sometimes by a chorus of good looking girls always silent, but from those who ever speak, they never do or as feminists or on behalf of women. (…)
(…) It has designed a male campaign without participation of feminists neitherin the lists nor in acts, and where the most glaring issues, as committed femicide every two days, have consumed eight seconds of the precious time of Pablo Iglesias in the most important televised debate, in which offered the joke of housing solutions – I.e. the battered get into a room while the assailant wanders freely. It was a televised debate conceived by men, developed by men and directed to men. (…)
(…) Similarly none of the women who participated in the campaign have had feminist sensibility. Let alone the shadowing debate at four of those who went to Antena3, imitating the discussion of men but yes, only among women. Soon they will make another one between black men and then another one between black women.
The wage gap, even greater in the case of pensions, the slaves who work with her husband in agriculture without wage fro him reaching to earn his salary, hotels cleaner women, women cultivators of banana raped by the foreman, housewives without salary or retirement, marginalized professionals working as telephone operators, have no space in the complaints of our politicians.
But violence, apart from beatings, sexual abuse, harassment at work, femicide, is delivering the custody of daughters and sons to their abusive parents, through depraved infamy as SAP or erotomanías that are not supported by any scientific organization, and yes in the Spanish courts. Women suffering this patriarchal judicial violence for year ares too many, and they are electorate. The candidacy of Unidos Podemos has not said anything about it to this electorate.
As has not said anything about the savage violence that is prostitution, abolitionist Alberto Garzón spoke without specifying measures, while Pablo Iglesias in the SER ( radio channel ) intimated that there were women who do want to prostitute themselfves, Ada Colau plans its legalization, and Manuela Carmena has no opinion to this respect. They have been able to win prostituyent electorate, not chase it away, but have broken Human Rights, and have trodden sex education in a country where desire and pleasure must be reciprocal and not make people a commodify. With their silence they have left women mired in a life of nightmare in a country that is the first in Europe in the ranking of prostitution.
Neither the women’s electorate can be satisfied when having achieved that Izquierda Unida in its program does not accept the “surrogate parenting”, ie: surrogacy, which carry dangerous manipulation like the bombing of commodified female bodies hormonally, a risky pregnancy and an intolerable lack of control over the fate of babies, unlike adoption, only by a genetic narcissism that is absurd and is illegal in our country. Because the candidacy Unidos Podemos has not even made mention of this serious exploitation of poor women.
The members of the Feminist Party who took decades defending the rights of half the population have not had participation in the coalition talks or the design of the campaign and on election lists or important events. And the results have happened invoice..
But these arguments have no role in the analysis they will do in the coming days the lords leaders of the candidacy.”
As an International Analyst in a program on Hezbollah said, ( on which I left a comment on the Moveable Feast Cafe del 06/28/16) “without Hezbollah, the world would be a much more unjust world”, and I fear that, without Feminism , as well.
without Hezbollah, the world would be a much more unjust world”, and I fear that, without Feminism , as well.
It all really means what we mean by “feminism”. This is a blanket term which, like so many others (say, “democracy”) can mean almost anything. I do agree that society, especially western society, treats women horribly and robs them from their identity almost as much as it robs men from theirs. Is the best reaction to this state of affairs any form of “feminism”? I doubt it very much, but I have no problem with a person believing that. I will say that in my experience smart and self-confident women do not consider themselves feminists and those self-declared feminists which I have met were always insecure and used that feminist “label” as a shield to try to empower themselves which is not necessarily wrong, especially for somebody insecure and fragile.
Maybe it is my Russian background speaking. Most Russians my age (50+) will readily admit that they consider their wives as smarter and stronger than they are (I will be the first one to admit it in my case). And most of our wives feel what I would call “gently superior” and I have no problem with that – because they are. So in that context feminism really makes no sense.
My 2cts.
The Saker
You have certainly met very few feminists.
I guess there are very few in the Russian world, I have no idea. I remember right now only Aleksandra Kolontai, was she stupid, insecure or fragile?
The truth is that this issue I have to study it better, for I am not militant, but what I know for sure is that women owe Feminism many things, mainly the rights we enjoy nowadays and so has my respect and admiration.
As you understand Spanish, I leave you the Lidia Falcon´s web site, for you to see that she is neither an idiot, nor insecure or fragile. As you will be able to test, there are some section dedicated to one of those good and righteouse men of whom I was talking:
http://www.lidiafalcon.com/
Interestingly enough, in my case, what I have met is the contrary as you, many macho men who are precisely so because of their insecurity and fragility and hating feminists or any strong and self-confident woman who makes them the record straight because they remind them women that left them precisely because of their machismo.
OMG! 1) Femminism (whatever that means) is not the third day of creation. The fact that the modernity has created such a surplus of material goods, that deconstructionists (I am using an ist not an ism) can sit around and interpret human organization in an exclusive hegelian context does not make it so. The trivialness of current femminism is proved by this string. All of this writing and hand wringing just because Saker said “Thank you guys”. The personal insecurity, emotional instability an intellectual dishonesty exhibited by the reaction to this most sincere falicitation is what causes me to scoff a present femminist writings. Femminists, just like all corrupt power groups, want one thing: Everyone on earth to conform to their world view.
Welcome back – so glad things sound to have gone well for your thesis :-)
Like most here, I don’t know how you manage to spin do many plates in the air without crashing !!