Aqvarivs, you say my "only statement" is that anti-feminism is harmful (untrue I said it can be), I “give feminists carte blanche” (rubbish), you suggested that I claimed that women “don’t have the right to anti-feminists thought” (that is untrue, quiet the opppisite, I said that there was nothing wrong with anti-feminst thought so long as it was seen for what it truly is - in this case gendered conservative propaganda); “what a load of crap” (If I was on your side with your untrained eye you'd probably say the opposite; you say that I claimed that women don’t have the right to antifeminsts thought and you claim I claim “victim as the highest moral ground” (no I don’t this is misleading propaganda).

You can’t offer a sensible argument can you?

Why do you go on with this nonsense? Who do think you’re fooling? Do you think posters are stupid? You go on in relation to my posts with nonsense like the following: “Embedded feminist”, “poor Ronnie Peters”, “ blind defense of woman as victim”; JamesH is willing to explore a subject implying others don’t (so why all the anti-feminist conclusions); I’ve” chosen victim”; “my blindfolded cheerleading”; you imply that I don’t think women have a “right to anti-feminist thought...and it says a lot about you doesn’t it” (It didn't say anything (invalid) because it is a baseless opinion).

Now all these personal slights take up roughly half your post and you’ve apparently just cut pasted the usual anti-feminst clichés; added a few verbs and presented them. Actually the other half was more from Aqvarivs’ catalogue of anti-feminist slights. It’s hilarious. How passé. And you go on about “my personal bias”. You’ve just proven your own bias Aqvarivs. If you are truly consistent in your reasoning then you must be seeking victimhood with your claim that I have launched “personal attacks” at you.

Of course, you’ve convinced yourself that you’re totally committed to an even-handed appraisal of the situation. You fail quality control.

JamesH says: “ I have read obviously much more extensively than you Roonie Peters.”

So what? I can bench press a car. That doesn’t make me a good mechanic.

I cook the world’s best Duck Flambe So f ‘ ’en what? Doesn’t mean I know how a duck feels.

I’m an ex-speedway star (doesn’t make me a good taxi driver- I even get lost on OLO).

It doesn’t matter JamesH if you quote Daphne Pata, et al, or if you have degrees from both Harvard and Yale or I’m thick because if you had any knowledge of the processes involved you wouldn’t have this mistaken idea for an opinion to carry weight you just post a bunch of positioned links, articles and quotes. Dissect the text at hand and by all means use quotes to back up your position. Quotes only confirm your position they don’t necessarily destroy others’ arguments.

JamesH you clearly have a modernism attitude.

(Aside: Roonie to right-winger. “Why do you say the left is trendy.” Right-winger: “You’re all modernists aren’t you?” Puzzled Roonie: “ Huh?” Indignant right-winger: “You know, trying to be modern.”)

A modernist work invests authority in the author. It’s an elitist author/ thick reader relationship. For instance: While recognising the instability of genre, T.S. Eliot is regarded in literature circles as a modernist. His works “dovetailed” for readers widely read and trained in Classical literature (or “The Golden Bough”). For T.S. Eliot the reader was slave to his footnotes and reminded of their lower understanding. Of course, the likes of Wolfgang Iser, Roland Barthes came along and killed off the author. The addressee of a text became empowered.

Thus when women read :
“Morning stirs in feet and hands
(Nausicaa and Polypheme)
Gesture of orang-outtang
Rises from the sheets of steam.”

The reader of “Sweeney Erect” may note the crudity, condescending tone and the subservient t role of Eliot’s women - heightened by the Nausicaa myth in which Nausiaa pursues a married man and Polypheme who hangs herself. Thus woman is portrayed as weak and promiscuous.

The feminist reader puts pen to paper.

"A modernist work invests authority in the author. It’s an elitist author/ thick reader relationship." Roonie

The works of many feminist authors are or have been given such authority such as Lenore Weitzman, Germaine Greer, Naomi Wolf and Susan Faludi et al.

Susan Faduli "Backlash" has 80 pages of footnotes.

Is accepting research results unquestioningly without critical analysis also a modernist attitude? or just lazy?

First time I've been accused of having a modernist attitude. I have however been accused of reading and relying on books too much. But then how does one find out information if they don't read?

I find authors like Daphne Patai or Melaine Phillips to be much more articulate than my poor attempts at articulation. I do not profess to be a great liturature author.

JamesH asks: "Is accepting research results unquestioningly without critical analysis also a modernist attitude? or just lazy?"

Huh? I didn’t mention research results. Eliot’s internal references to Classical Greek characters and the Golden Bough are hardly comparable to the explanatory footnotes of a feminist author.

One of my points JameH is that mere mortals like you and I can question the authors feminist or otherwise. I don’t think you question works, just look around until you find something that coincides with your established schema and then post it. Call others lazy?

Also, most sensible analysis doesn’t mean haranguing or investing power to the author - but it’s about dissecting the text.

If you were so expert in analyses, you’d know that. That you use positioned works of feminist or anti-feminist authors to show us how you can critically analyse is hardly convincing.

Indeed, your research has apparently found that Greer et al are poor researchers and Phillips et al good researchers? Who’d a thought it?

Funny how your analysis always brings you to the same conclusion as the works of positioned conservative authors that you posit as evidence of your supremacy.

Read Dilthey, Derrida, Levinas, Aristotle, Rawls et el or less ideological works and maybe you’ll get a real understanding of words like analysis and research. And when someone uses literature text to show posters something it doesn’t follow that one is suggesting you are a great literature author.

You say: “I do not profess to be a great liturature author”.

You give the impression that you are the only one on OLO who can analyse anything. It is ironic but had you had an inkling of an idea of analysis you’d have understood it was about analysis - not literature.

Nevertheless, I used a few references that only DM fans would pick up on. My point was to show that we live a post-modernist world. It is not just the elite who can see more in a text than you or I. Everyone understands a text differently depending on what knowledge they bring to the text.

Roonie, you are a much more skilled debater than I, and thanks for the criticism both fair and unfair.

You seem to imply that like TS Elliot that I am dependent on footnotes and I merely pointed out that Susan Faduli had 80 pages of footnotes in her book and that modernists invest in the authority of the author.

If that is true than most, if not all the feminist literature could be called modernists.

“A modernist work invests authority in the author. It’s an elitist author/ thick reader relationship.”

Christine Stolba wrote ‘Lying in a room of one’s one; How Women's Studies Textbooks Miseducate Students", in her book she also points out how misinformation has been used in the “Womens studies classroom. She said that in reviewing the textbooks in Women’s studies courses that what she found was propaganda not scholarship. A view which is supported by Patai and Hoff Sommers.

Myrna Blythe “Spin Sisters” her book is about how the editors of womens magazines sell unhappiness to the women of America and keep women in a state of anxiety.. Again another example of the elitist author syndrome.

Germany’s Top News Anchorwoman Leads “Anti-Feminist” Revolution
Admitted to regretting her three divorces, and condemned abortion By Gudrun Schultz
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/mar/07032009.html

“Everyone understands a text differently depending on what knowledge they bring to the text.”

I agree. There is also their own values, resolved and unresolved life experiences etc.

I am sure that in another 10-15 years there will a new generation of authors offering a different perspective. Hopefully by then I would have weaned myself off this stuff and headed in a new direction.

yes it would definitely depend on ones education as to what one would bring to any conversation on any subject. Especially those who would toss around concepts like postmodernist and modernist as if they were "world" movements. We do not live in a postmodernist world. The concept of postmodern thinking is highly contentious. That a minority of pseudo-intellectuals advance their work as postmodernist hardly denotes the passing of an historical era. One good look at the world would show that in many cases we are still fighting WW2.

"It’s the combination of narcissism and nihilism that really defines postmodernism," Al Gore

The "God is dead" types don't rule the world. Nor do they define it.

I learned this as a child, "Haters never prosper." It's still true today. Haters just try to make everyone as miserable as themselves