What Are Your Thoughts on Intersectional Veganism?

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knot
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Re: What Are Your Thoughts on Intersectional Veganism?

Post by knot »

garrethdsouza wrote:
knot wrote:
I think it's a good idea to stay out of all the identity politics craziness, and just stick to classical egalitarianism. Movements like #blacklivesmatter or 3rd wave feminism also tend to be based on feelings rather than facts, and they often seem to be very openly racist/sexist.
The suggestion that feminism/black lives matter movements are sexist/racist is absolutely asinine.
One the whole they might not be, but both movements have very loud radical segments who are decidedly anti-male/white.
"Feminism" was also Time's most unpopular word in 2014 because it's become synonymous with man-hating and whining about 1st world problems. Unfortunately, that probably ends up hurting women who still face huge inequality issues, e.g. women in Islamic cultures
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Re: What Are Your Thoughts on Intersectional Veganism?

Post by garrethdsouza »

knot wrote:
garrethdsouza wrote:
knot wrote:
I think it's a good idea to stay out of all the identity politics craziness, and just stick to classical egalitarianism. Movements like #blacklivesmatter or 3rd wave feminism also tend to be based on feelings rather than facts, and they often seem to be very openly racist/sexist.
The suggestion that feminism/black lives matter movements are sexist/racist is absolutely asinine.
One the whole they might not be, but both movements have very loud radical segments who are decidedly anti-male/white. "Feminism" was also Time's most unpopular word in 2014 because it's become synonymous with man-hating and whining about 1st world problems.
Most of this is baseless internet rhetoric that's so widespread by many many people who've never actually been in any feminist groups/circles or know anything about feminism at all other than the hogwash that's fed to them by the anti feminists. The method is similar to the one used by creationists, make an audacious strawperson caricature, then bash the crap out of the strawperson. in this case say that the ridiculous strawperson is the majority voice of the movement which couldn't be further from the truth and is blatantly obvious to anyone actually within the feminist movement/groups.

This rabid popular anti feminist rhetoric is asinine and is obviously damaging the atheist movement. Many Women do not find the climate in many atheist circles acceptable and the fewer women there are the harder its going to be for women on the whole, for community building, for dating/ partners (its a lonely world as an atheist anyways) Women anyways have to deal with society's inherent patriarchal nature and its hurdles, which means it can often be less easy for them to wind up outspoken atheist anyways and its counterproductive for everyone for making things even more difficult for women from within the atheist movement itself. To me its similar to female selective feticide that's rampant in certain communities closer to home. The only thing it winds up doing is messing up your own community. You'd think atheists whose very foundation is based on rationality would be able to see irrational issues, how damaging this is within the movement and rectify it and also participate in dismantling the patriarchy/systemic sexism on the outside but nope. I've always maintained, just because you're atheist and got it right on one part ie belief system/supernaturalism doesn't automatically mean you're right on other issues. you can easily be an atheist and a complete idiot on other issues be it gun control, veganism or feminism.

I'd attribute a significant part to how things are currently regarding women in the movement to the likes of atheist youtubers like thunderf00t and their irrational tiirades against feminism which many other popular atheists like Myers, aron have repeatedly pointed out to them but to no avail. (See section on freethought blogs and the subsequent one on feminism http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Thunderf00tt ) to an extent its also about less mainstream representation of women as leaders like how the voice of atheism is often made to look as the four horseMEN though this is changing. The four horsemen's own comments on women have also been ridiculous or even outrageous on occasion. And the nonsense that women that have risen to prominent positions have to deal with like the well spoken Greta Christina.
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Re: What Are Your Thoughts on Intersectional Veganism?

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brimstoneSalad wrote:
Feminism is inherently opposed to men's rights, which is both necessary and appropriate. I don't criticize that fact, but celebrate it, because we need both perspectives, and we need an adversarial system (it's like in court, where there is a defense and prosecution, or a two party political system).
Due to biological differences, particularly with regard to child bearing, there is no such thing as equal rights on some of these topics.


Of course feminism is sexist -- it considers the interests of one sex above another. Of course it's against men's rights (particularly where they conflict with women's). And that's OK. That's how it's supposed to be. If it were otherwise, it would no longer be effective. Feminism is advocacy for women. MRM is advocacy for men. They meet somewhere in the middle on the field of the battle of ideas, and ultimately come to some kind of balance or compromise -- or that's how it should work.

It's counterproductive confusionist rhetoric to criticize the rights movement of a gender for being sexist, whether that's people criticizing feminism or MRM.
Feminism isn't in any sense sexist nor is it against men's rights, its not much of an adversarial system. Women's rights groups have also helped in getting rights for men on many occasions. Four instance different drinking age limits, custody issues, tax issues, etc

http://mic.com/articles/88277/23-ways-f ... ce-for-men
http://everydayfeminism.com/2012/08/why ... eminism-3/

The current way the MRA movement is, a large part of the rhetoric is nothing but constantly saying something against feminism using similar disingenuous tactics to the creationists that inhad referred to along with some amount of misogyny. It may be that it's a relatively new movement so it might take its time to weed out its issues and actually focus on men's issues which is perfectly legitimate.
brimstoneSalad wrote: But the bottom line is that intersectionality on these issues is impossible without making veganism itself sexist, and that is NOT appropriate. Because Feminism and MRM can not intersect, Veganism can not take a side and can not intersect with either of them, or else it must inherently oppose the other, which would be wrong and not what veganism is about. Veganism needs to stay neutral on these other battles, and just be what it is: about the ethics of consumption of products harmful to animals.
That's not what intersectionality means.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality
Intersectionality (or intersectional theory) is the study of overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination or discrimination. The theory suggests that—and seeks to examine how—various biological, social and cultural categories such as gender, race, class, ability, sexual orientation, religion, caste, age and other axes of identity interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels. This framework can be used to understand how systemic injustice and social inequality occur on a multidimensional basis.[1] Intersectionality holds that the classical conceptualizations of oppression within society, such as racism, sexism, classism, ableism, biphobia, homophobia, transphobia, and belief-based bigotry, do not act independently of one another. Instead, these forms of oppression interrelate, creating a system of oppression that reflects the "intersection" of multiple forms of discrimination.[2]
Intersectional social justice issues simply mean that there may be multiple intersecting oppressions a person may be exposed to for belonging to multiple disadvantaged/oppressed groups. So looking at a problem only from as only a single oppression issue can lead one to make hasty generalizations. For instance POC women may experience problems as a result of being women, being POC and a combination specific. Trying to tailor solutions based on only one of the problems wont work. Similarly for veganism, expecting all people to be equally able to go vegan means not tackling issues that only some people face that prevents them from going vegan and as a result the animals and people both suffer.

Also see. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Intersectionality

Its not Veganism but the vegan movement that needs to take into account the multiple problems that people face to going vegan and try to dismantle them rather than assuming an approach that works for some will work for all or that all people equally have the same problems in going vegan with the goal being animal liberation.
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Re: What Are Your Thoughts on Intersectional Veganism?

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I want to say, I see myself as a feminist in the traditional point of view, in that I want equallity of opportunity between the genders. I think we haven't reached that point yet and to go further, we need critical analysis of the date, look for the reasons and possible solutions.
I disagree with you garrethdsouza about your stance on Thunderf00t though.

Even when it often sounds like he disregards Feminism in all ways, he often points out in his written works, and sometimes in his videos, that he is only talking about the "tumblerite feminism" which is about nonesens like the "75% wage gap for the same job". He prefers other terms instead of feminism, I personally don't care about semantics.
Im 100% behind thunderf00t in this because:

1.I followed ftb very closely before the A+ incident because I was a fan of PZ Myers and Ed Brayton.
I was shocked when the direction got more and more from "We need an open space for everyone" to "We should exclude cishet white man from speaking to make room for other people, the less privileged the better".
I'm all for inclusion and think that making voices heard is very very important. The problem was when this inclusion got wired. Many threads were pretty much about scapegoating cis ppl for the problems at hand instead of discussing the issues and possible solutions.

People got really really pissed (and I mean REALLY pissed), when white male speaker got invited, because the "time and space could be used for a less privileged person who can talk about their problems."
I didn't attend any conferences, so I can't speak about that. I haven't followed the whole topic much aside from PZ Myers, Ed Brayton and thunderf00ts blogposts. The comments were not helpfull either in that regard. More a "he said she said" thing.

When I read about problems in society in the FTB forum and comments, it was nearly always assumed, that man are at fault. I regulary read comments, that all men are potential rapists and we should be treated as such. Barley anyone called them out and if they did, they got pretty much comments like "privileged cishet scum like you is the reason for the problems we have". The forum got pretty close minded and toxic. And divergency from that was not acceptable. Shorty after I stopped reading FTB I heard about the incident with thunderf00t and was kinda surprised, that he joined FTB in the first place.


2. I was following some of the writers on twitter. For example Taslima Nasreen. I really like her but in that time she and some others got really really insufferable and even retweetet one tweet which was saying something alike "the world would be a better place if all men would be no more". That was the moment when I disfollowed her.
Alot of things written by the bloggers were so stupid and sexist, I couldn't belive a grown person could say such a thing and be taken seriously. Especially phds among people who call themselve sceptics.

I can totally understand everything thunderf00t did and still does.
Does he sometimes seems a bit douchy? Sure, but If you see what is happening, how people on the otherside behave etc. then i think hes 100% on the right side of this. He does fight against the type of feminism that says "made to penetrate is not rape" and "if a man and a woman have drunken sex, the man raped the girl", not the one that really wants equal opprtunity.

In the whole argument, I think Thunderf00t and Ed Brayton behaved the most rational in the whole argument, even if both made some (relativ minor) mistakes. There were a lot of nutjobs on both sides, thats for sure.
Last edited by Corelich on Wed Dec 02, 2015 10:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What Are Your Thoughts on Intersectional Veganism?

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I think given the level of confusionism its easy to be completely off on this. The best way to address such issues is to look at both sides much how TVA had arrived at atheism. Given the level of confusionism and how widespread it is, its no wonder many people fall for it much like the coconut oil/saturated fat issue.

When people say all men are potential rapists or use the schrodinger rapist analogy its not what you think they mean. Noones suggesting that all men have the potential to be a rapist or that you could be one someday! What they mean is that women have no idea whether or not someone is capable of/OK with some degree of rape especially when they meet someone the first time like a blind date/are not too familiar with them (eg know them from office/through an acquaintance so they'd rather have a neutral and safe venue for a date rather than say the guy insisting that have it at his house. http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Schrödinger's_Rapist

Regarding thunderf00t as well please read the rational wiki article
See section on freethought blogs and the subsequent one on feminism http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Thunderf00t )

and also join actual feminist groups for a feel of what its actually like. You will see that its literally the "traditionalist view" as you describe it, for practically everyone. For instance if you're on fb, check out the groups vegan feminists and women without religion.
Thunderf00t was off the mark entirely and made really toxic series like "how feminism spoils everything" and his legions of fans make almost no such distinction between women supremacists (sexists by definition) and feminists. From a consequentialist perspective IMO he's done the movement a LOT of damage, has been among the worst people for atheism and its going to be some time till people actually sort it all out.

(Yourovskys been a rape apologist/proponent and its arguable whether even he's as bad for veganism as thunderf00t is for atheism, in terms of consequentialism)

The drunken sex issue was also talked about incorrectly by Dawkins in a context where someone was actually intentionally getting women drunk while staying relatively sober himself and then when they are in a position too drunk to give consent, then raping them, what he of course thought was perfectly OK drunk sex. And Dawkins in this context replied that if you didn't want to get raped don't get drunk. women were made to get drunk! http://www.salon.com/2014/10/03/new_ath ... s_partner/

Atheism has enough issues from the religious fundies and can do without the people from within who are damaging it extensively.
Last edited by garrethdsouza on Wed Dec 02, 2015 10:34 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: What Are Your Thoughts on Intersectional Veganism?

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I have no idea about taslima nasreen issue, do you have a link to her actual tweet?
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Re: What Are Your Thoughts on Intersectional Veganism?

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I'm sorry but we are in disagreement here. I really think thunderf00t is on the point in terms of FTB and tumblr feminism. It really poisend the discussion about real equallity and made many people care less about the topic in hand. He's not good in his wording (titeling it feminism in general is a bad move in my opinion). If this is intentional or not, I don't know. But if you look at the crazyness FTB and alot of the community turned into, I think his participation is valuable.

Edit: Thats not "an" issue. That was the sentiment at the time overall between some bloggers..
The tweet is now what? 4 years old? Im sure as hek wont look through a huge amount of her tweets since she tweets often, sorry.

Ps. as someone who followed the FTB blog closely, i can assure you the wiki entry is higly biased and does not represent the reality of some communications in my view. Many of phil masons videos are reactions to bullshit and should not be viewed as about feminism in general, even if he sadly uses the word to general.

PPS. I'm still a feminist. Or euqalitarian, i dont care about semantics. I care about the message. And thunderf00t is right. FTB and SOME SJW are highly toxic to feminism.

Look at total biscuit and his story. He is in therapy because of this tumblerite shit. It breaks my heart hearing him talk in his podcast and how he lost joy in life because of nonsense under the disguise of (radical distorted) feminism and social justice. This man is in therapy for cancer and get deathwished because hes one of the main characters in gamergate (he talked about ethics in game journalism since years). And they talk shit about thinks he never said and talked about.
Last edited by Corelich on Wed Dec 02, 2015 1:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: What Are Your Thoughts on Intersectional Veganism?

Post by Cirion Spellbinder »

I am very skeptical that women from the first world are facing any oppression that can't be brushed off as trivial. I am aware that the systemic oppression of women exists in the rest of the world and is a serious problem. If there are still significant existing gender / sex inequalities in the first world would you mind making me aware of them?
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Re: What Are Your Thoughts on Intersectional Veganism?

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_ ... ted_States

We have a gender issue in the atheist community itself. That should be obvious, also go to atheist census and check for genderstats from any country.

Also I'm from a third world country and we have the same thunderf00t minions disparaging feminism as a whole down here, using genius terms like feminazis (similar folks using words like libtard or sickular) and describing all/majority of feminists as misandrists/female supremacists despite these folks doing nothing at all for women's rights (or anyones righrs for that matter) though we have loads of issues down here without trivialising first world issues either.
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Re: What Are Your Thoughts on Intersectional Veganism?

Post by Corelich »

garrethdsouza wrote: thunderf00t minions.
Next time i just talk to a wall.

BTW (German bereau of statistics, text in german): https://www.destatis.de/DE/ZahlenFakten ... ayGap.html

In Germany the Gender pay gap is 22% if you just average over all professions. Corrected for average worktime (without overtime) and profession the gap gets to about 7%. Its estimated that about 3-4% of the remaining difference comes from experiance (woman take more time off due to kids and are more likley to take "halftime breakes", we see a hard shift in younger people where traditional roles arent as commen as in older ones.)
which leaves 3-4% unexplained. I don't know about america, but since it startes closely (about 25%-23% depends on the source) I guess it will end at about the same amount. Hardly the 25% for the same work that is often propagated.

https://ergebnisse.zensus2011.de/#Stati ... _5,m,table

12,5 % less female atheists then male. But honestly, I don't see, that this necessarily comes from sexism.
Until I see well done research about this, i withhold believe in either way. Many of those "christians in those survey are more cultural christians than believers in christ I guess. At least thats what my experiance here in germany is, when somebody says to me hes christian.

I think http://www.atheistcensus.com/ isnt very representative. Yet at least. It does not correlate well with other sources.
Last edited by Corelich on Wed Dec 02, 2015 11:58 am, edited 2 times in total.
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