Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Running Responses to 'Challenges of Motherhood'


Isn't this all a bit disingenuous coming from the woman who said, "Frederic, your assumption that I was weak when I didn't answer was highly revealing. I was introducing topics I wanted to cover in my articles and ignored all the rest." So you can ignore articles and cites, respond as you wish, and enter into highly acrid summaries of your opponent's positions without ever reading their sources, but if your detractors don't proactively go out of their way to read everything you cite and comment then they must be trying to shut you down? I'd say that's a 'double standard', but it seems (note: seems) far closer to deliberately baiting attacks.

Who made you the moderator of these forums, WR? Answer: Nobody. If Brian thinks that a poster is doing something illegitimate, he'll ban them. Aside from that, neither you nor I are arbiters of what should or should not be discussed. That's why realpc and Yakov still post here.

"The main intent is to shut down discussion of women's issues and silence women. That's evident by the fact that when Shih Tzu and I said good-bye on the Forbes thread, the conversation stopped."
Like when you predicted the conversation would end when it turned to Marxism and you were wrong?


Now, I could concede that you and ST leaving was the cause of the end of discussion and still not phrase it as abusively and sillily as you do. After all, at that point, there was two camps, NOT camps designed to crush women's voices but two groups of people discussing. By then, Graeme, bwong, Kyle and I had said everything we wanted to to each other; the only real issue was who would abandon that particular comments system first.
Of course, WR, YOU ended that discussion, which would mean that YOU imperially (and abusively, given the history) decided that you had had enough and made the ending so acrid and ridiculous that it wasn't worth continuing. But of course this is all a conspiracy by men to smash you.
After all, as you so judiciously ignore, we're still hijacking a forum that isn't entirely intended for this. Brian's allowed it within limits, but there isn't supposed to be a discussion here in the first place.
I also like the implication that your psychic powers extend to being able to tell my, bwong's, Kyle's and Graeme's motives, even when they deny your implication, so that by extension a) you know their motives better than they do (when you couldn't tell them from the next Jill, Jane or Janice if you met them in person) or b) they're lying.

"By obscuring the real issue (millions of women and children dying needlessly) behind multiple posts of nonsensical, off-topic arguments..."
Nonsensible off-topic arguments like the actual causative influence of these and so many millions of other deaths, with the goal of stopping them? Please don't be offended when I don't feel especially guilty for defending bwong. And again, I think that a lot of times (though not all the time) the unique problems women face in the Third World aren't just due to global inequity but due to decisions made in those countries as well.

"By provoking an argument about whether or not women dying is a valuable issue to examine...they've accomplished their goal."
This is so diametrically opposed to what is actually being said that I'm incredibly tempted to heed your advice and 'not respond'. But I won't do that because I think it'd be childish. Especially since, as I agree, you're 'on topic', but so is bwong (and I say bwong, because I'm closer to you than bwong on this issue).
Please cite me one comment, one comment anywhere, that says that bwong thinks that women dying of childbirth is really something to not get worried about. If you can't do that, you'll have shown these criticisms to be baseless, and, by your standards, an attempt to monopolize the discussion for your school of feminism.

"I've included links to unnecessary childbirth deaths in all areas, all economic circumstances and a multitude of reasons. None of these factors been discussed."
Wrong again. First of all, WR, though you may seem to like mutual aggrandizement and self-congratulatory gestures, not everybody likes to simply say "Good! I agree with that!" Either someone will let it stand by virtue of not posting, take umbrage with the argument, or agree and post something that comes to mind. We only have 1500 word posts every 20 minutes, we don't want to waste it saying "Yes, I agree" to every sentence. (I seriously hope these consistent misunderstandings have to do with inexperience on your part with online fora...)
Second of all, here and elsewhere, serious discussions about causative forces are going on. I direct you to me and ST discussing with Yakov about Africa and to me and Bwong disagreeing about whether or not there is a primary or important gender influence here. For you, WR, it seems that any time a woman is hurt it must be connected to gender institutions. But that's a silly, reductivist and not-at-all useful position.
Also, WR, you throw up numbers of fairly long articles, cite from them without quotation, etc. Now, I appreciate the articles, but you can't just toss them out there and be irritated when someone doesn't read them and respond. Of course, I have also cited numbers of long articles, but my position wasn't "If you don't talk about this you can't be serious", it's "If you don't mention these articles when I discuss with you then you're not giving my position a fair shake". If, in our discussions, you had either read the articles and commented or not read them and said openly "I didn't read this, I don't have time for this discussion, let's go somewhere else" or asked "Could you please direct me to the relevant parts?", again, those would all have been fine responses.

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