So, I’m currently reading a book laced with feminist articles, and it’s highly amusing. The author, it appears, is attempting to justify the nonsensical nature of feminist rhetoric — and, by extension, the argumentative style of “hysterical women” (the author genuinely uses that term) — by claiming that logic and reason are the domain of “Masculine Discourse”, and that any woman who wishes to oppose the patriarchy must shed herself of these oppressive boundaries and go beyond logic and reason, into the emotional, “more meaningful” realm of “Feminine Discourse”. As evidence of this, she points out that the stereotype that women don’t talk plain is patriarchal oppression, because forcing women to utilise reason instead of “woman’s intuition” means forcing them to conform to the masculine way of thinking — logic, she argues, is a patriarchal construct and is therefore not necessary. This, apparently, makes it perfectly acceptable for an angry feminist to engage in an argument “in which she sets off in all directions, leaving ‘him’ unable to discern the coherence of any meaning.” Of course, this is all the man’s fault for adhering so adamantly to that damn patriarchal tool he calls “reason”, instead of adopting feminist emotional responses as his primary cognitive function. Damn him and his “logic”. Well, that explains everything, doesn’t it?
So logic is patriarchal and oppressive to women? I believe the implication that women are inherently illogical and driven by subjective, emotional reasoning is way more sexist. Nonetheless…
You’ve got to be shitting me. There are a lot of women I know who would be really insulted by assumptions and statements like that.
yes, this type of argument has been used in feminist and hence social justice circles for a long time. check out the entirety of SJ bible derailing-for-dummies, it categorically defends screaming at people like a spoilt toddler or insulting people on the basis of your ‘minority-ness’ and them being a patriarchal kyriarchal douchefucker for disagreeing with you (even if you know nothing about them whatsoever). they also claim that this kind of discourse is part of white male culture, so anyone who isn’t white can use the same illogic.
‘feminine discourse’ and screaming ‘tone’ every time someone points out their rudeness perfectly explains why none of these idiots will ever get anywhere meaningful and why they are such a joke.
Who is this woman?
I wanna drop a bomb of pure logic on her.
And I’m a girl.
The flip-side, though, is the tone argument - the idea that if you can’t sit down and calmly dispassionately explain with accepted (by others, who reserve the right to disbelieve for non-specified, or otherwise obfuscated, reasons) reasoning and logic.
In short, tone policing is destructive because it allows anyone with privilege to change the nature of the argument from a grievance on the oppressed side, to the manner in which arguments are presented.
TL:DR, this sounds like an exaggerated response to the tone argument.
