Mine was more along the lines of the word “apologist tool”… which was a word selection issue, as I can understand where the originating article by piny and mcboing is coming from, and I can see their points.

zwrk, i’ve said repeatedly that I think discussion is positive. I don’t see the problem with that. No, I don’t believe anyone is above criticism as a feminist.

Catty and evil-fizz talked about personal attacks, but the only personal comment I saw was evil-fizz (!) and piny’s bit about “ethical martyrdom”, and frankly there’s a point there – and even then, that’s not so much an attack as it is an observation on one of Hugo’s relevant personality traits. Everything else has been attacking Hugo’s statements. Okay, more like pummelling, suplexing and firing squad-ing his statements, but it’s still about attacking the man’s arguments, methods and preconceptions.

Fair enough.

Hugo says:
“I just don’t know that many of my critics spend much time working with large groups of adolescent and college-aged men; until you’ve done so (for a long time), then I don’t know if you have much right to criticize the tactics those of us who work so hard to bring these fellows around choose to use.”

^^ Didn’t come across as “you don’t have the right to criticize me” -to me. He’s saying “tactic”- one that it incremental, in this case. Personally, I think head-bashing and incremental tactics have their place depending on the situation. So, that was my take on the situation.

I read Pandagon, Feministe, Hugo and other feminist blogs- and I personally enjoy them all. I’m a secular feminist- my general beliefs are probably much more closer to Pandagon or this site than Hugo. I see Hugo in one corner and other feminists in different places along the line. Again, I don’t think any feminist is above criticism, but I suppose I’m sensitive to what I consider infighting.

Let’s start with the assumption that nobody can simply switch between seeing women as people and seeing them as objects on a whim. therefor,e iether Pete does or he doesn’t see women as people.

If he doesn’t, there’s not much Hugo can do. well, maybe there is, but i don’t know what: i tend to assume that people are acting in good faith.

Let’s assumed that Pete does, in fact, see women as equals. the question, then, is what he should do about it.

Inf act, i think that form Pete’s point of view, it’s largely about labels. he thinks of feminism as a tribe and an identity label, rather than a belief, and is worried, essentially, that he will be kicked out of the tribe– that he can’t call himself a feminist if he isn’t meek.

put it another way: he’s worried that the feminist label will keep him form getting laid; he’s thinking of ditching the label, not exploiting women ruthlessly.

I don’t even think that’s within his abilities. he’s NOT a “player.” Hugo pointed out that many women are attracted to confidence, because THAT’S WHAT PETE DIDN’T HAVE.

in other words, Pete is a submissive, feminist “nice guy” and it isn’t getting him laid. being lacking in self-confidence and self-respect, he wants a scapegoat. he wants to blame feminism for his failure to get laid. It’s not like he’s about to run off to commit date-rape; that’s not in his character– far from it. he’s not a dominator looking for justification to continue dominating: he’s a guy paralyzed by his FEAR of domination.

Hugo quite rightly pointed out that feminism doens’t mean a lack fo confidence, and doesn’t prevent getting laid, and that Pete needed to work on himself, not his philosophy. I’m not altogether happy about his story about Jackie, which softened the impact of his main message.

but, on the whole, i think he had the right instincts.

I have kept up intermittently with this thread and will respond tomorrow.

I think the fact that he just lost his beloved pet and his father is dying probably are making him quite vulnerable right now. I can only imagine how much more hurtful this kind of thread is for him right now. IMHO, unnecessarily so.

No. I’m saying that it does not give him authority to speak over women who use their lived experience as basis for criticism of his methods and his ideas. It’s worth more than nothing (I’d accept Hugo’s word over, say, Dr. Phil’s); it’s not worth more than their credentials, as it were. He did argue, in as many words, that we didn’t have the right to criticize him because we don’t do what he does for a living.–piny

I see better what you’re saying now, piny. Thanks for your persistence. I think that there are two ideas going on here that I was conflating, for whatever reason:
1. The idea that Hugo is above reproach from others (including women who experience ‘teaching’ men feminism every day) because he has worked teaching men feminism for a while now.
2. The idea that Hugo’s experience teaching men feminism counts as some support for his position that incremental steps are a better way to teach men feminism than more direct methods.

I would now say with some confidence that you and I would both agree that #1 is bs. With less confidence, I would say that you and I both agree with #2, but that you would add: And Hugo’s wrong, despite his experience.

How might Hugo show support for his position that incremental methods are better than head-bashing-ish methods, other than offering up his experience (I’m talking more #2 than #1 here)? Some people of all genders seems to think that the incremental/bashing thing is up for grabs, if the comments on various blogs discussing this seem to be any indication. If Hugo had said something along the lines of “Well, in my experience this works better, but I’m open to the idea that it’s not,” (and meant it), where coudl the discussion go from there? Can Hugo make such a claim given he has never been a woman, and have it mean something (and somthing more than ‘he’s better than Dr. Phil’)?

To put it another way, when you say:

[Hugo's experience is] not worth more than their credentials, as it were…

do you mean to say that any man’s experience, no matter how in-depth, never counts as much as any woman’s experience, as far as teaching young men feminism goes? In that case, Ann Coulter is more of an authority on teaching young men feminism than Hugo, just by virtue of having lived the life of a woman in our society. I don’t mean to put worlds in your mouth–I’m honestly asking if this is what you mean. (And here I recognize that we have left the land of what Hugo said–he said something very strong that we both disagree with regarding who has a right to object to his position.)

You go grrl!

I see what you’re saying there. I don’t think Hugo was trying to say that he was above criticism. I’m going to impose my thoughts here for a second- as an educator, if Pete was one of his students or a student at his campus, you cannot be rude or harsh to them. Calling a student sexist or racist can get you in seriously hot water unless they’ve done it in a grossly overt way with many witnesses. You do often have to handle students with a certain sensibility that you don’t with other people, not because students are dumb- but because of your position and your professional reputation and career is on the line. So, I’m looking at it from an angle of having been in the position as an educator, and having to be more delicate. So, I’m thinking what he meant was more along the lines of- “understand that as a professor, when I speak to a student on my campus, I have to be more careful with my words.” did his tactic come out as being patronizing? I can definitely see how people see it to be so.

I…just have to disagree with that. I don’t see how you got that from his comments here or at PAB at all. He didn’t argue that he was constrained by his position, but that his position gave him authority.