On Feminism (vs. 3rd Wave Feminism)

one of the topics I get asked to speak
on pretty regularly and I think from people with real sincere interest is feminism and really what they want me to comment on is what feminism has become in say the last 10 or 15 years um I'm hesitant to speak on this because it's an example of an issue on which I do not think i can make a positive difference or not by talking about i'm in the class of people who has tremendous respect for first wave feminism and second wave feminism i'll explain what those terms mean it just a second but I'm extremely disappointed with third-wave feminism and it seems to me that the word and concept of feminism really has been brought into a state of disrepute by what third-wave feminism has become there's a lesson for vegans in that now before I even get to the question of what those terms mean they are I think well enough to find on Wikipedia if you want to look them up it has to be said feminism is not in the situation the communism was am after 1989 communism didn't just have a credibility deficit didn't just make itself sound ridiculous it wasn't just rude or offensive or disappointing to its fans communism at a body count measured in the millions of people communism had failures and almost every sphere competed in including things like agriculture food production so feminism we can't point to any disaster in third-wave feminism comparable and scale or severity what we're talking about when we suggest that communism is discredit itself it's a very important caveat and I'd also say there's no sense in which feminism can ever discredit itself to the same extent that Catholicism does every day the Catholic religion likewise as a body count measured in the millions of people historically I realized they don't kill millions of people every year but looking back over the centuries because the oldest ISM is attached to a remarkable history of violence oppression etc which all of us have to take seriously we're all burdened with the legacy of that no matter what your personal religious beliefs are whether you're an atheist or Catholic or what have you and of course when Catholics sit down to pray they're talking to a god that doesn't exist that discredits Catholic read in very different sense of course and you know I say even that with some degree of sympathy I know what it's like to want to believe in something that can never be real I know what it's like to care passionately about something matters to you but can never be true and I do feel sorry for our true believers in a religion like a thoughtless ISM first wave feminism I won't say too much but I mean first with feminism is associated with the basically heroic era struggling for women to have basic human rights such as the right to vote the right to drink alcohol the right to smoke smoke cigarettes that may sound like a joke but it's not in many countries historical these two have laws that prevented women from smoking at least in public or this kind of thing so getting basic rights of this kind I'm reading an account of that a woman who had a dispute the authorities as over 100 years ago because she was daring to smoke cigarettes in a train station and again this is in Europe may sound like a joke but it's not a joke you know first wave feminism in the Western world was associated with fundamental human rights that in a sense nobody disputes I can't even say that hilariously third-wave feminism has become so odious and so noxious that I have seen people seriously try to dispute the validity of first wave feminism just because they have a chip on their shoulders before third wave phones but any case the vast majority of people both conservative and liberal recognize the first wave feminism was something tremendously important positive in history of Western civilization and most of us feel that we may have trouble expressing it politely that it still is something tremendously important for many countries that are religiously conservative whether those are Muslim countries or Christian countries certainly at least some neighborhoods within the one Jewish country in the world within Israel first wave feminism still as an important message for message for conservative Jews no doubt so it's still there still conflicts with one of the hat second wave feminism is a new era of challenges and it is a special associated with some of the sexual identity politics that first wave feminists were not comfortable in dealing with and then third-wave feminism is the current era were in that as they say it's just really a great shame I wish I lived in a world where I could use the word feminist positively but it's become so nauseous and so odious in its third wave incarnation and the sequel to the sequel to the original concepts of feminism that I really do understand why all kinds of people have distanced themselves from the term or have even made an effort to ridicule the term and you know I mean all this stuff touches me I've had girlfriends who strongly identified as feminist although I think none of them were thinking of third-wave feminism are they were thing at first and second way and I remember once I was watching a one of these hilarious blooper reels on the internet where people put together the greatest hits moments of academic third wave feminist conferences you know you know different professors and graduate students standing at the podium my speechifying on feminism and you know these are kind of the most embarrassing or outrageous moments and one of my blood relations was actually odd careful hi everybody don't think it named her you know the video vine you write a four voice I knew right away who and I emailed that to some of my relatives and none of them replied um it was it was completely ridiculous what she was saying uh now again I feel like putting in a caveat here the difference between feminism and say Buddhism because I've been involved the academic study of Buddhism is that if I put together a blooper reel like that of the most outrageous and most ridiculous things that professors of Buddhism say at a conference almost nobody would understand it like me and five other guys will laugh at okay maybe worldwide 15 to 20 guys would really be able to laugh at a video like that because what we do with the the academic study Buddhism relies on jargon it relies on technical knowledge deep historical knowledge of a certain specialized literature and even then you know religious maniacs many of whom are professors they'll never admit what's hilarious and ridiculous with us but yeah you can have clips from a conference of Buddhist professors and there will be a professor up there making excuses for slavery and there will be another professor at you but it'll be coated in such a way that you won't realize how ridiculous it is unless you're already a specialist in the field and feminism is not like that it's true that outsiders people who aren't members that field can pretty easily scrutinize and laugh at what's going on within the the hothouse at those conferences so yeah my heart goes out to people in all sides a lot of ways I think that right now in 2016 we're in a period of time where the promotion of feminism in the Western world has become lame because it's become detached from those fundamental principles of first wave feminism if you like and on the other hand I have to say the whole demi-monde of anti-feminism is also extremely lame and embarrassing at me and tends to fail to recognize that you are often looking at people who have good intentions and that's something hard for us to in veganism oh so right when you're looking at someone who's actually going out and preaching that human being should stop using soap I've seen that not just on the internet if dealt with that face-to-face vegans who are out there teaching their fellow man that they should stop washing their hands with soap and they sincerely believe that as wrong and misguided as they are I have to engage with that person beginning with the recognition that they are from their perspective sincerely trying to make the world a better place