academiccompositionab
Empowerment Equalizer
SSaragian
Ann Sterzinger
Rodney
RJ
busterjames
cainusmaxus
Craig FitzGerald
David Heleniak
Caity & Dan Greene
keirmartland
Keith Preston
Bill the Butcher
ljp711
MRDA
Jack Donovan
Rachel Haywire
comrade hermit
Michael
Vince
robertstark2014
Noonan
S E Pearson
Rachel Haywire
Nexus X HumectressAttack the System
Women Against the State
February 1, 2014
A panel discussion with M.K. Lords, Becky Belding, Trista Rundatz, and Keith Preston about gender issues in the libertarian milieu, and wider issues facing the libertarian and anarchist movements. Topics include:
Topics include:
- Why anti-state movements attract more men than women.
- The left/right divide within libertarianism and anarchism.
- The role of statist oppression vs oppressive social and cultural norms.
- The relationship between libertarianism and women’s issues.
- Currents within feminism and how these compare and contrast with libertarian values.
- Is the pendulum swinging concerning gender role issues and gender oppression?
- The men’s rights movement.
- How the state is a common denominator in all forms of oppression.
- Why men and women often differ in their political issues of interest.
- The issues of pornography, prostitution, and sex work.
- Anarchist strategy and communication.
- Gender roles and mental health.
- Psychotropic drugs and the pharmaceutical industry.
- War-profiteering and the military-industrial complex.
M.K. Lords is an activist, writer, and fire dancer. She edits and contributes regularly at Bitcoin Not Bombs and also writes for Young Voices. Her work has been featured in Bitcoin Magazine. Her activism emphasizes direct action and agorist methods of building the counter-economy. You can get in touch on twitter @mklords, Facebook M.K. Lords, and view her writings at Bitcoin Not Bombs. She is also a returning guest to the Attack The System show.
Becky Belding is a libertarian and married mother of three living in South Carolina. She is a part time wage slave in finance to fund her expensive lapidary and wire art hobby, Eclectic Spectrum. She also has a political blog at Meat Curtain of Doom.
Trista is satanic anarcha feminist, small business owner and blogger. You can read her rantings here: And I rant….
File type: MP3
Length: 2:09:16
Bitrate: 32kb/s CBR
Download (right click, ‘save as’)
Email Keith:
kppgarv@mindspring.com
Great discussion everyone. I particularly enjoyed everyone’s input on the corollaries between legalization of prostitution and legalization of marijuana. I have always been in favor of both, while still being skeptical about handing over control and regulation of these markets to the state. The high rate of taxation of marijuana and the cartelization of the industry in Colorado reveals what legalization is: just a government protection racket with all the pomp and circumstance of “legality.” I could see a very similar situation occurring with prostitution; perhaps even to the point that the industry is so regulated that black market prostitution still flourishes which would allow the darker side of human trafficking to continue on. I’ve always thought that it would be best if marijuana were de facto legal, allowing the market to simply sort itself out without interference from the police state and organized crime. I could see similar benefits for prostitution being de facto legal as well. Small chance that the government would allow that, though.
If find it humorous and off-putting that these women on the one hand do not want to be pigeonholed as Feminist-(fill in the blank), but continually identify their perspective in terms of gender issues. I have to say that as a male, I don’t go out of my way to identify myself as a male-(fill in the blank). If you believe you have good ideas fine, but lets keep this gender hyphening under the table, given that even these women admit is a leftist form of control. A good example of this is Ayn Rand, love her or hate her, she never used the hyphenated feminist-(fill in the blank) type arguments.
If found it interesting that Trista, the self-proclaimed feminist, saw that some men are loosing out on the legal issues of today and she also made the connection between psychotropic drugs and social control.
The sort of gender cooperation which was advocated, as apposed to radical feminists and MRA’s, seems to be a sort of cultural fascism. In the sense that fascism talked about class cooperation, in its cultural forms it can be seen as gender cooperation.
I agree with the general conclusion that identity politics is a sort of petty tribalism and a source of incivility.
“…but continually identify their perspective in terms of gender issues.”
It was a discussion about women, and gender issues was a topic of discussion. It’s impossible to discuss gender issues without relating it to gender issues.
“The sort of gender cooperation which was advocated, as apposed to radical feminists and MRA’s, seems to be a sort of cultural fascism. In the sense that fascism talked about class cooperation, in its cultural forms it can be seen as gender cooperation.”
As opposed to anarchy? Isn’t anarchy cooperative to an extent? It is entirely possible to acknowledge the differences between genders in a cooperative fashion without being “fascist”. What is your proposed alternative?
Yeah, we were responding to the questions Keith selected and one of the main subjects was about gender and activism. I do not identify as any form of feminist hyphenated or otherwise, but can appreciate Trista’s views on drugs and social control. Those don’t really have anything to do with feminism, though, so I don’t get why you felt it necessary to point out Trista’s feminism.
I also am not seeing a strong connection with your point about gender cooperation and fascism. Maybe if people were forced to cooperate by a corporate owned state, but we’re not really. That’s why MGTOW, MRAs, and radical feminists all have voices in this country; there’s still a semblance of free speech. These groups vehemently oppose each other, even saying that the opposite of gender cooperation should be practiced–MGTOW advocate separating entirely from women to pursue career ambitions as do some radical feminists in regard to men.
I believe societies run more smoothly when there is cooperation between genders; indeed history shows this as a natural relationship between the men and women. But I’ll never advocate that you be forced to get along with women.
“I believe societies run more smoothly when there is cooperation between genders; indeed history shows this as a natural relationship between the men and women” – Then why did you make a video talking about the duluth model, ignoring men who are victims of domestic abuse? There are women, even feminists, who I respect, you are not one of them, Lords.
While I found this to be an interesting interview I feel the need to point out some things that were not touched on that would seem relevant. One of the ladies uses the fact that more men commit suicide than women even though more women are diagnosed with depression, as evidence that men are now more oppressed than women. However, one thing she failed to mention (perhaps she isn’t aware of it) is that more women than men actually attempt suicide and are just not successful. That seems like an important piece of information to leave out of the discussion. She also talks about why she thinks the actual suicide rate of men is higher than that of women, and related it to boys being discouraged from crying or expressing their feelings the way girls do. However, being discouraged from doing something in the same way girls do is not the same as being discouraged from doing it at all. The problem as I see it is that certain emotions are considered masculine while others are considered feminine, and both males and females are expected to express only those emotions that are allowed within their gender and only in the manner approved by society. Crying is seen as a weakness and is therefore only acceptable if practiced by those who are considered weak, like women and children.
As to the question of why more women aren’t interested in Libertarianism or Anarchism the answers given were overly simplistic and typical, again leaving out important questions. Can we come up with some answers that don’t bring us back to the misguided notion that women in particular are just weak, dependent and either unwilling or unable to be responsible for themselves? My own opinion is that it has something to to with the fact that the majority of women are going to be mothers at some point in their lives and having children strongly influences our views about freedom and government. There is more I could say on this subject but since it is late I will just leave it for now.
“My own opinion is that it has something to to with the fact that the majority of women are going to be mothers at some point in their lives and having children strongly influences our views about freedom and government.”
I am a mother, and having children does strongly influence my opinions about freedom and government.
Granted, I don’t encounter many other mothers in Libertarianism, primarily because the children take the front burner immediately, and it’s a highly involved, long-term activity.
Again, I don’t think it’s an issue which attempting to force change on will make a net positive difference. It’s possible that women have libertarian opinions, but they’re not as prominently vocal about them in forums we frequent. My mother (as an example) has heavy libertarian tendencies, but we won’t find her in these discussions.
The question is whether or not it’s a “problem”. Additionally, the “typical” answers can frequently be the correct ones.
In other forums, I’ve expressed that I’m not interested in expanding the definitions within the tent in order to gain numbers, increasing dissonance for the sake of catering to a target audience. We can’t make promises to a group like women -as an example – promising external protection for special interests, for the sake of gaining more followers. If we follow that path, we will be on the road to liberal interventionism in no time, absorbed into the democratic party.
“One of the ladies uses the fact that more men commit suicide than women even though more women are diagnosed with depression, as evidence that men are now more oppressed than women.”
I am that lady and I don’t like to concentrate on which gender is more oppressed. It serves no purpose other than to allow certain people to point fingers at the other side and neglect their issues. I used it as evidence that gender issues are relevant and can have a great impact on one’s life.
“However, one thing she failed to mention (perhaps she isn’t aware of it) is that more women than men actually attempt suicide and are just not successful.”
A man who has committed suicide cannot reattempt it, so of course there will be a higher number of attempts made by women.
Also, how many of those attempts made by women were simply cries for help as opposed to real attempts? Women are also more likely than men to be diagnosed with Histrionic Personality Disorder which could cause that number to be higher via insincere attempts for attention seeking purposes.
Plus there is the fact that the attempts in question need to be reported for them to make it into the statistical data. If the problem here truly is that men do not seek help as often as women for their depression, it would stand to reason that those numbers are skewed simply for lack of reporting. Four times as many men than women die by their own hand and i think this is something that needs to be addressed properly. I will admit that more research needs to be done to discover the exact causes, but I do think societal and cultural demands on men maybe at the very least partly to blame.
“Crying is seen as a weakness and is therefore only acceptable if practiced by those who are considered weak, like women and children.”
This does not negate the damaging effects that these expectations can have on men. I also do not understand why you felt the need to bring this point up. It almost seems like you are trying to garner more victim hood status for women in respects to gender norms which I find more than deplorable given the gravity of the topic.
“Can we come up with some answers that don’t bring us back to the misguided notion that women in particular are just weak, dependent and either unwilling or unable to be responsible for themselves?”
Men and women both have their own shortcomings according to their gender.These may have their origins in biology or social conditioning. That being said, I think its important for us to point these out as much as possible so that we have the opportunity to gain awareness of and evolve past them to some extant if possible. Women are taught to be less independent, to conform to social norms more readily and to be generally more agreeable all around. This maybe the reason there are less women in movements that encourage independence and personal responsibility. I wish the reality were different, but its not. Pretending that a problem does not exist out of our own vanity does not solve it.
“It was a discussion about women, and gender issues was a topic of discussion. It’s impossible to discuss gender issues without relating it to gender issues. ”
The problem is, they all claimed to not want to be pigeonholed as feminist-(fill in the blank), but that is exactly what they identified themselves. I could talk about male issues, but that doesn’t mean I would identify myself as masculinist-(fill in the blank). If anarcho-masculinist sounds silly then why is anarcho-feminism not silly? I think Mr. Preston and Karl Hess are right, if one is to be an anarchist one must be an anarchist without hyphens.
“The problem is, they all claimed to not want to be pigeonholed as feminist”
“I could talk about male issues, but that doesn’t mean I would identify myself as masculinist”
I clearly identified myself as an anarcha-feminist.while the others did not. By your own logic, it seems as though you should have no problem with non-feminists discussing women’s issues.
Hyphenating IMHO is a good way to focus on issues that one is more knowledgeable of and proficient in handling as oppression takes many forms.
Did you even listen to how I identified myself? Because the word feminist never came up in that description. I do not identity as a feminist nor do I identify as an anti-feminist. I am mostly agnostic towards it in general. My labels, if you must have them, are somewhat panarchistic with an emphasis on cryptoanarchy. Don’t misrepresent my position so you can regurgitate an old talking point made by other anarchists.
If feminism is defined as “gender equality” then I suppose I am a sort of feminist. The term “anarchy” includes “gender equality” under it’s umbrella, however, and I don’t find it necessary to stress whether or not I include gender issues at the forefront of my interests. If I had specific focus on gender issues, I would use that hyphenation, as Trista does.
I do not self identify as a feminist, and if I recall, I described myself as an egoist/nihilist/libertarian. One does not have to be “anti-feminist” to drop “feminism” from self identification, and one does not have to subscribe to traditional feminine roles in order to not be a feminist, because we’ve moved past that need as a culture.
If it makes you happy, I’ll self identify (for you) as a POST-feminist/egoist/nihilist/libertarian. LOL.
The above reply was directed towards Todd, not Trista. I was looking for a way to delete it, but I can’t seem to find it. Just wanted to clarify.
Done.
LOL@ the thumbs down you got. Man, screw you, getting it done.
“By your own logic, it seems as though you should have no problem with non-feminists discussing women’s issues.”
Elaborate. Unless I see a syllogism starting with one of my positions leading to a conclusion I would not want to accept, I don’t see how I can make sense of what you said.
A good start would be a hypothetical syllogism.
A->B
B->C
A->C
With the letters representing a syllogism.
Again the statement is unclear to me.
“Did you even listen to how I identified myself?”
You certainly did not identify yourself as such, explicitly, but I believe you did implicitly. You might appeal to the fact that you were merely answering Mr. Preston’s queries, OK maybe so, I have more to say below.
“It was a discussion about women, and gender issues was a topic of discussion. It’s impossible to discuss gender issues without relating it to gender issues.”
This leads to the underlying problem here. This being Keith Preston’s own website, he can ask whatever questions he pleases. I am not questioning that. But the underlying assumption is that by the very framing of the discussion it presupposes a dual standard. Nobody would think of having three men on and ask them about male gender issues? (Well maybe Keith Preston, just to ruffle up some feathers). And I’m not saying one should. I don’t like identity politics, but the very fact the people perceive the need, explicitly or implicitly, to cater to female gender issues, further more as 21st century women, you unless you are Amish almost automatically fall into the one of four waves of feminism. By implicitly accepting either first, second, third or fourth wave feminism your are implicitly identifying yourself as a feminist.
“I don’t like identity politics, but the very fact the people perceive the need, explicitly or implicitly, to cater to female gender issues, further more as 21st century women, you unless you are Amish almost automatically fall into the one of four waves of feminism.”
If you’re not a fan of identity politics, sweet Todd, then why is the focus of your debate against our podcast an attempted cherry pick of our perceived and stated identity politics rather then the discussions we had over the course of 2 hours?
Is it necessary to defend a position we didn’t explicitly state? Are we debating feminism or your preference for the semantics surrounding the definitions of feminism?
““By your own logic, it seems as though you should have no problem with non-feminists discussing women’s issues.”
Elaborate. Unless I see a syllogism starting with one of my positions leading to a conclusion I would not want to accept, I don’t see how I can make sense of what you said.”
“I could talk about male issues, but that doesn’t mean I would identify myself as masculinist-(fill in the blank).”
And therefore, as women, are we unable to discuss women’s issues without identifying ourselves as feminist-(fill in the blank)?
Hopefully this clarifies.
“With the letters representing a syllogism.”
I meant to say with letters representing antecedents and consequents.
(A) is an antecedent in both the first premise and the conclusion.
(B) is a consequent in the first premise, but (B) is a consequent in the second premise.
(C) is a consequent in both the second premise and the conclusion.
unfinished thought
“to cater to female gender issues”
I should have said: “to cater to female gender issues is unsettling”
“I also am not seeing a strong connection with your point about gender cooperation and fascism.”
“I believe societies run more smoothly when there is cooperation between genders; indeed history shows this as a natural relationship between the men and women. But I’ll never advocate that you be forced to get along with women.”
This is a misunderstanding. I did not use the term fascist as an epithet, but merely in a descriptive way. Fascism posited class cooperation rather than class consciousness. Communists posited class warfare. I was only saying that to the extent that you and the fascists advocate cooperation you are similar. Modern feminists and classical Marxists are like in that they advocate conflict between genders for the former or classes for the latter.
“class consciousness”
meant “class conflict”
“If you’re not a fan of identity politics, sweet Todd, then why is the focus of your debate against our podcast an attempted cherry pick of our perceived and stated identity politics rather then the discussions we had over the course of 2 hours?”
There is no cherry picking. Throughout the whole two hour period you and MK Lords answered all of Keith’s questions in such a manner that would be compatible with one of the four waves of feminism.
“Is it necessary to defend a position we didn’t explicitly state? Are we debating feminism or your preference for the semantics surrounding the definitions of feminism?”
You can speak things implicitly. Which I believe was done.
Let me rephrase this. If some said that there is a Jewish conspiracy, whites are superior to all other races, George Lincoln Rockwell is a hero of his, but did not explicitly call himself a white-nationalist and denied being one, would anyone bye that? No. If he said he is not a white-nationalist because he does not use the label, in spite of the fact that he adheres to the beliefs the label implies would anyone bye it? No.
I am claiming that in a similar way, two of you three women, did not ‘explicitly’ define yourselves as feminists, but implicitly did by the answers you gave the Mr. Preston’s queries.
To avoid all ambiguity I am not claiming that these three women are neo-nazi’s, but if we use the concept of abstraction we can see that having rejected a label explicitly, two of these three women implicitly accept the label by accepting and believing the beliefs that fall traditionally under that label (feminism).
We can talk about the semantics of feminism if you want, but I don’t think it is to the point.
Before we move on lets try to recapitulate each other’s arguments so as to reach some agreement.
I believe Mrs. Belding and M.K. Lords to be saying: “Since we did not ‘explicitly’ identify as feminists were are not feminists.” If this is not what you are saying please provide further clarification. Second I want to see you recapitulate what you think my argument is so I can correct any misunderstandings.
If we can recapitulate each other’s arguments to each other’s satisfactions we might be able to get some where.
“And therefore, as women, are we unable to discuss women’s issues without identifying ourselves as feminist-(fill in the blank)?”
That is not my point or what I said. I am saying that (1) discussing women’s issues as a discreet political question is already a tacit concession to feminism (though this is a minor point) and (2) women could and can talk about issues that are of concern to women and not be feminists. I am not saying that all discussion of women’s issues is ipso facto closet feminism, but something more subtle. That one can talk about women’s issues with the implicit or tacit admission of feminism with out acknowledging it or being aware of it.
A lot of millennial women don’t identify as feminists. I don’t identify as a feminist. I am more of a traditionalist as far as gender roles go, and I think if you listened closer you would have picked up on that, though, to your credit, my microphone is not very loud.
If it makes you feel better to assume that because something I said as a response to the topics in question sounded vaguely feminist in nature, then so be it.
You’re reaching, and there are far more critical issues at hand than debating whether or not two women who chose to not *self* identify with feminism are actually feminists.
For someone who is not a “fan” of identity politics, you certainly seem overly concerned with the self identification of our politics. I suggest taking your abundant wits and talent for critical thought to something more important than this.
Oh – “bye” means “good bye” and “buy” would be the form to use in the context you needed. For future reference, you know…
I stop listening to moment they start to talk about Men’s rights. They are clearly partial AND uninformed on the issue. And all they did was strawmanning.