[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by rubecube

This isn't Cliff's rodeo on this topic, and he often comes across that way. Just look at his posts in this thread alone, devoid any specifics or examples and full of generalizations and misrepresentations.

You're joking, right? I post more links, stats, and direct quotes from articles than anyone on this forum. To the point where I'm mocked for it.

Originally Posted by rubecube

I've asked him the past to cite some feminist literature, writers, or thinkers that he can use to backup his claims about the ideology, and the best he can usually do is post some links to xojane or something similar that is basically a factory for the worst of the worst think pieces.

I have no idea what xojane is. I get my news and cultural affairs from: the Globe and Mail, the National Post, the Guardian, CBC, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, New York magazine, and the Economist. I get polling stats from the Pew Centre. Almost all of the links and quotes I post are from those sources.

I've read feminist writers. Naomi Wolf. Susan Faludi. I've read dissenting voices, like Katie Roiphie and Camille Paglia. And the news sources I cited have feminist columnists who I read. Denise Balkissoon. Elizabeth Renzetti. Jessica Valenti.

Look, I understand the ideological underpinnings of identity politics. I understand what structuralism is. I understand the argument that every element of the culture we live in was created by white men to rule the world.

I understand them, and I disagree with them. I disagree that structuralism is the only (or even the main) reason for the differences in social outcomes. I disagree that people are blank slates on whom we can inscribe any behaviour. I disagree that politics are nothing more than a struggle between racial and gender groups for power. I disagree that all decent-minded people should champion equality of outcome. I disagree that this subject can be so emotionally threatening that we shouldn't debate it openly.

Originally Posted by rubecube

I don't think that people need to thoroughly engage with source material in depth or anything because this is a message board and not a thesis, but it's intellectually lazy (and not very liberal) to write-off an entire movement based on the rantings of fringey scenesters.

I don't worry about the movement. It's mainly a bunch of earnest and unhappy kids who have found religion (along with a far larger group of people superficially broadcasting their virtue and tribal solidarity). What I worry about is how astonishingly rapidly the leaders of so many institutions have capitulated to their illiberal program. And I worry about how the radical left and radical right fuel one another, and contribute to the polarization that is tearing democratic politics apart and disfiguring our public dialogue and institutions.