My New Term: I'm A Personist (As Opposed To A Feminist)
I hope "personist" is a term people will adopt and start using to direct their thinking and behavior -- and especially people who have previously called themselves "feminists."
There's a laughably unrealistic flow chart on how to know whether you're a feminist by Rebecca Searles, the "Social Community Editor" at the HuffPo, who apparently has little interest in how feminism tends to play out in reality.
Feminism professes to be about equal treatment but it is too often about demanding special treatment for women. This is why I am not a feminist. I am a personist. This means I care about injustice, whether it happens to people with ladyparts or manparts.
Being a "personist" means that I am most concerned about the biggest "rape culture," which is the one that men in prison experience. (More men than women are raped in America every year, and most are raped in prison.)
Being a "personist" also means that I expect equal treatment of men and women on the job, meaning that women don't get to demand to be treated like special fragile flowers. Meaning that we expect them to speak up when they're uncomfortable and not wait and snivel -- and snivel and snivel -- and then blow up all over the Internet and get a man fired.
Being a "personist" also means I don't see "sexual harassment" as "whatever a woman says it is," including a lunch conversation from a man with a woman who is not an employee, who is hoping for a blogging job that does not pay, and who becomes uncomfortable with the conversation at lunch but has been trained by feminism that she can just tattle to the authorities at a later date. No need to speak up -- as we'd expect a man to do -- to simply say, "Time to change the subject!"
Are we ladies "equal" -- or just pathetic?
Just think that Annie Oakley died on November 3, 1926. That was 87 years ago. She was pretty much a success, on her own, without all the laws that we have now.
The 19th amendment was only ratified on August 18, 1920.
I'm amazed she was able to get out of bed on her own.
Jim P. at November 3, 2013 6:33 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/11/03/unrealistic_cha.html#comment-4027553">comment from Jim P.I'm amazed she was able to get out of bed on her own.
I admit to having crutches for that -- fear of my column sucking and the alarm clock on the iPhone.
Amy Alkon at November 3, 2013 7:39 AM
I wouldn't go so far as pathetic. I would go with cowardly, solipsistic, and selfish. Thankfully, men are finally starting to wake up and demand adult behavior from their female associates. Women are going to hate equality.
TMG at November 3, 2013 7:45 AM
Her: "Can you do this for me? I have to go pick up my kids at school"
Me: No.
Her: "Look, the company says I get flex time and work-life balance. I need you to finish this because I have family commitments."
Me: Yes, and most likely you'll have those again tomorrow, so you'll need to balance your work with your life on someone else's back. Might I suggest your husband?
Her: "I'm calling HR!"
Me: Please do. Explain that you're dumping your work on your teammates because you've made personal commitments that take up a third of your work day, but you still want your full salary.
Her: "You just hate women!"
Me: No, I love women. Scammers, I'm not so crazy about.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at November 3, 2013 8:15 AM
Since you're a personist, you might want to look into the writings of Paul Ramsey, whose beliefs were called personalism.
Here's his NYT obituary:
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/01/obituaries/dr-paul-ramsey-74-a-professor-at-princeton-for-4-decades-dies.html
Don't forget kids. When adults misbehave, the primary losers are children. You can find what I say about that in: My Nights with Leukemia: Caring for Children with Leukemia.
I cared for two children, one about eight and one about twelve, who had no family member visiting them in the weeks before their death. They'd been abandoned.
Michael W Perry at November 3, 2013 10:51 AM
Forget the "like" button. Where's the "LOVE" button Amy? Because this is fantastic. Thank you for this! Comments are great too.
I for one would love to see "Personism" catch on in a huge way. Perhaps you have a great new topic for your next book, Amy?? ;-)
qdpsteve at November 3, 2013 12:02 PM
Hmmm... I used to say "peopleist" but personist is easier to read (no funky ei thing).
Shannon M. Howell at November 3, 2013 1:15 PM
I think the right side of the chart says a lot about what she thinks about others. Those who don't share her philosophy must be bad people. She doesn't entertain the notion that good people may disagree, and that feminism has it's less flattering characteristics that good people may not endorse.
What would she think of someone saying "if you aren't a masculist you must not care about equality"?
Or someone who says "if you aren't a Christian you can't be a good person?"
She probably doesn't even realize her own contradictions.
Trust at November 3, 2013 3:36 PM
The Smell of the Kill by Michele Lowe
"Take three delicious, malicious wives, add three miserable, unloving husbands and chill. That’s the recipe of Michele Lowe’s tantalizing new comedy that had Broadway audiences cheering.
When the men mistakenly lock themselves in a basement meat locker the women are faced with a life-or-death decision — should they leave the men out in the cold permanently or let them thaw?"
And they say theatre is dead. Pshaw.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at November 3, 2013 3:45 PM
There used to be a magazine called "The humanist". Has that term been banished for unfortunate ideological connections, because it sounds a little more elegant than "personist".
Isab at November 3, 2013 4:27 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/11/03/unrealistic_cha.html#comment-4028204">comment from Isab"Humanist" has other meanings. (I used to call myself that but would recall that every time.) And I prefer a term that's common and ordinary as opposed to elegant.
Amy Alkon at November 3, 2013 4:33 PM
I've noticed that there are two rather distinct groups of people that tend to use Rebecca's formulation of Feminism - that Feminism is simply the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.
A. Well intentioned, typically younger, people with a superficial understanding of Feminism. For these folks, the belief that men and women should be valued and treated as equals is known as Feminism. They often don't recognize that the same principles are incorporated in other forms of egalitarianism, like Amy's Personism. I'm betting that Rebecca falls into this camp.
B. Ideological Feminists who realize that they need to present an uncontroversial definition of Feminism because if the definition were to describe the actual thoughts and actions of Feminists, they'd lose the support of Group A.
Umberto at November 3, 2013 5:46 PM
More men than women are raped in America every year
If you want to amuse yourself by poking a hornet's nest, go to this blog, find a post which relates to rape(*), and put the above, or something like it, in a comment. Then put up your virtual umbrella and watch the shitstorm. The linked thread illustrates how the process works.
* - You might have to wait awhile for a post like that to come up (the one I linked to is about 3 weeks old), since the primary focus of the blog is atheism and evolution. But be patient, it'll happen.
Rex Little at November 3, 2013 11:28 PM
Come to think of it, just put scare quotes around "rape culture" like Amy did above. That should be enough to get you roasted and toasted. They take that concept VERY seriously.
Rex Little at November 3, 2013 11:40 PM
I agree with "TGM", above.
For feminists, the real-world opposite of "equal" is not "pathetic". Clearer terms describing their opportunistic accusations include:
- thuggish.
- exploitative.
- parasitic.
- predatory.
- viscous.
- swarming.
- political.
- strategic.
- duplicitous.
- calculated.
But pathetic? Never. The feminist shark-pack is anything but. TGM is right - women are going to hate equality. I'm reminded of the women who have to pay alimony to their husbands, or surrender assets during a divorce (for instance, half of a business they have built up). They are in a white-hot fury. I recall one who spit on the alimony checks before mailing them off.
Lastango at November 4, 2013 1:43 AM
What about humanist?
hu·man·ist
[hyoo-muh-nist or, often, yoo-] Show IPA
noun
1.
a person having a strong interest in or concern for human welfare, values, and dignity.
NicoleK at November 4, 2013 5:04 AM
DOH! Missed the comment up thread.
NicoleK at November 4, 2013 5:05 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/11/03/unrealistic_cha.html#comment-4029972">comment from NicoleKAgain, humanist is what I used to call myself but it has multiple meanings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism
Amy Alkon at November 4, 2013 6:06 AM
But, but "personist" has "son" in it. You have obviously been brainwashed by the patriarchy, and should have proposed "persynist." :-P
Jeff at November 4, 2013 7:33 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/11/03/unrealistic_cha.html#comment-4030292">comment from JeffBut, but "personist" has "son" in it. You have obviously been brainwashed by the patriarchy, and should have proposed "persynist." :-P
Hah. How did I miss that?
Amy Alkon at November 4, 2013 8:02 AM
English poet, novelist and children's writer Jean Ingelow (1820 – 1897) once said of woman's rights: "I don't approve of them at all. We cannot have rights and privileges, and I prefer privileges."
I wonder if she ever read Sojourner Truth's famous 1851 speech. (For those who don't remember, Truth pointed out that, even as an ex-slave, she'd never had ANY feminine privileges.) Not to mention that, as Miss Manners once pointed out, poor women of all kinds have always worked for a living.
Ingelow also said, on the need for lower classes:
"Why, if the swarms in the weaving and the spinning world are to be thinned, who will bring a revenue to the cotton-lord? If the crowded alley is to be deserted, who will make our shirts and our gowns? and if at the parish school we bring up all the children to fly like nestlings as soon as they are fledged, where are our housemaids and nursemaids and cookmaids to come from?. . . . No; truly God made my servant what he is; God placed me over him: let him work — it is his duty; let me play — it is my birthright; and let none of us presume to wish that God had placed us otherwise! That is what people say — at least a great many of them."
lenona at November 4, 2013 11:55 AM
@Rex Little: I am a fan of Myers when he posts in his field, but like so many others, he displays a crucial lack of rigor when discussing issues outside his profession. Peter Drucker called this, "the arrogance of the learned" - the tendency to believe that, because you have a handle on your job, others do not understand their own as well.
This tendency is only exceeded by his followers, many of whom seem to think that association with his blog gives them wings of some sort. This loads Pharyngula with fallacies and simple errors of assumption.
Radwaste at November 5, 2013 7:19 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/11/03/unrealistic_cha.html#comment-4033390">comment from RadwasteMyers is a mob-inciting thug whose specialty is putting out irrational thought but pretends he's in science.
Amy Alkon at November 5, 2013 7:22 AM
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