Why do so many people think that feminists are not egalitarians?
From Wikipedia:
Feminism is a range of movements and ideologies that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women.
Emphasis mine. By definition, someone who does not believe in equality is not a feminist.
When a large number of people who don't live within the official boundaries of Scotland nevertheless loudly identify as Scotsmen (and have some historical ties to possibly legitimize their claim to the identity), saying "WikiAtlas defines the borders of Scotland as..." and then saying the people who don't live within those boundaries are not, by definition, Scotsmen, is by definition an example of a No True Scotsman fallacy.
I disagree. No True Scotsman suggests an ad-hoc modification to support a previously inadequate assertion. If we accept your, and (presumably) the previous posters understanding, we'd be able to dismiss, for example, countless syllogisms on the same grounds. Worse, we could reject any operational definition!
In your example, there's merely a simple disagreement with the definition which serves as the premise: all Scotsmen live in Scotland. You're miss the essential bits: First: the claim that there exists
Yes, the whole point of that analogy was that the first premise of such a syllogism (either about Scotsmen or feminists) is tenuous because citing dictionary definitions to define who falls under the umbrella of an identifying term is inherently problematic, given the possibility (or especially the actuality) of people identifying with that term and failing to stay within the official definition of it. So defining "Scotsman" as "someone from Scotland", as obvious as it sounds on the surface, gets you into some trouble when the children of the children of the children of people who were from Scotland, who are not themselves from Scotland, are still identifying as "Scotsmen", just because they inherited the identity from their predecessors. Or likewise, defining feminism as "someone favoring gender equality" (which doesn't even have the superficial obviousness of "Scotsman = from Scotland"), when factions of later generations of the movement are not acting in favor of gender equality, but just inherited the identity from their predecessors.
Feminism, like most identifying terms in practice, is defined by whatever those who identify as feminists say and do, and to say that some of those who identify as feminists aren't really feminists because they're not sticking to some dictionary definition of it is a textbook case of No True Scotsman.
Alternately, we could take a literalist etymological approach (which I actually like, in general, a lot more other than the "an x is anyone who calls themselves an x" approach, for any x, but it doesn't seem to be very well-received these days), in which case "feminism" is literally the promotion of women's interests, period. To the extent that it's promoting their interests just up to the level of equality with men, it coincides with the dictionary definition of feminism; but the promotion of women's interests beyond that point does not fall outside the scope of such a literal sense.
Although since everyone self-identifying as a feminist, whether they really follow the dictionary definition of it or not, does actually fall under that literal etymological definition, it doesn't actually make any practical difference in this case which approach we take. Feminism as what those who call themselves feminists do, and feminism as what the word literally says, are both broader than what the dictionary says feminism is.
Feminism, like most identifying terms in practice, is defined by whatever those who identify as feminists say and do, and to say that some of those who identify as feminists aren't really feminists because they're not sticking to some dictionary definition of it is a textbook case of No True Scotsman.
I pointed this out before. By your reasoning, we can claim "No True Scotsman" when presented with any operational definition.
You can disagree with the definition, but that's insufficient to dismiss its use under "No True Scotsman" banner.
Consider this terrible example. I have a club for fishermen. We have 1800 members and we're growing rapidly. None of the members have ever gone fishing. You come along and say "You can't possibly be fishermen. To be a fisherman requires that you go fishing."
In this specific case, we have the implication that feminists and egalitarians don't overlap.
Everything else aside (I still have disagreements but I don't care to argue them, it's late), I just want to note that I don't think anyone's claimed that feminists and egalitarians don't overlap, but that the former is not a proper subset of the latter. Everyone I've ever read acknowledges that some feminists are egalitarians; the proposition in dispute is whether all feminists are egalitarians, or conversely and more to the point, whether some feminists are not egalitarians.
egalitarian? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Why do so many people think that feminists are not egalitarians?
From Wikipedia:
Feminism is a range of movements and ideologies that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women.
Emphasis mine. By definition, someone who does not believe in equality is not a feminist.
Re: (Score:0)
No true scotsman logical fallacy.
Re: (Score:2)
No, it is not.
Re: (Score:2)
When a large number of people who don't live within the official boundaries of Scotland nevertheless loudly identify as Scotsmen (and have some historical ties to possibly legitimize their claim to the identity), saying "WikiAtlas defines the borders of Scotland as..." and then saying the people who don't live within those boundaries are not, by definition, Scotsmen, is by definition an example of a No True Scotsman fallacy.
Re: (Score:2)
I disagree. No True Scotsman suggests an ad-hoc modification to support a previously inadequate assertion. If we accept your, and (presumably) the previous posters understanding, we'd be able to dismiss, for example, countless syllogisms on the same grounds. Worse, we could reject any operational definition!
In your example, there's merely a simple disagreement with the definition which serves as the premise: all Scotsmen live in Scotland. You're miss the essential bits: First: the claim that there exists
Re: egalitarian? (Score:2)
Yes, the whole point of that analogy was that the first premise of such a syllogism (either about Scotsmen or feminists) is tenuous because citing dictionary definitions to define who falls under the umbrella of an identifying term is inherently problematic, given the possibility (or especially the actuality) of people identifying with that term and failing to stay within the official definition of it. So defining "Scotsman" as "someone from Scotland", as obvious as it sounds on the surface, gets you into some trouble when the children of the children of the children of people who were from Scotland, who are not themselves from Scotland, are still identifying as "Scotsmen", just because they inherited the identity from their predecessors. Or likewise, defining feminism as "someone favoring gender equality" (which doesn't even have the superficial obviousness of "Scotsman = from Scotland"), when factions of later generations of the movement are not acting in favor of gender equality, but just inherited the identity from their predecessors.
Feminism, like most identifying terms in practice, is defined by whatever those who identify as feminists say and do, and to say that some of those who identify as feminists aren't really feminists because they're not sticking to some dictionary definition of it is a textbook case of No True Scotsman.
Alternately, we could take a literalist etymological approach (which I actually like, in general, a lot more other than the "an x is anyone who calls themselves an x" approach, for any x, but it doesn't seem to be very well-received these days), in which case "feminism" is literally the promotion of women's interests, period. To the extent that it's promoting their interests just up to the level of equality with men, it coincides with the dictionary definition of feminism; but the promotion of women's interests beyond that point does not fall outside the scope of such a literal sense.
Although since everyone self-identifying as a feminist, whether they really follow the dictionary definition of it or not, does actually fall under that literal etymological definition, it doesn't actually make any practical difference in this case which approach we take. Feminism as what those who call themselves feminists do, and feminism as what the word literally says, are both broader than what the dictionary says feminism is.
Re: (Score:2)
Feminism, like most identifying terms in practice, is defined by whatever those who identify as feminists say and do, and to say that some of those who identify as feminists aren't really feminists because they're not sticking to some dictionary definition of it is a textbook case of No True Scotsman.
I pointed this out before. By your reasoning, we can claim "No True Scotsman" when presented with any operational definition.
You can disagree with the definition, but that's insufficient to dismiss its use under "No True Scotsman" banner.
Consider this terrible example. I have a club for fishermen. We have 1800 members and we're growing rapidly. None of the members have ever gone fishing. You come along and say "You can't possibly be fishermen. To be a fisherman requires that you go fishing."
Are you gu
Re: (Score:2)
In this specific case, we have the implication that feminists and egalitarians don't overlap.
Everything else aside (I still have disagreements but I don't care to argue them, it's late), I just want to note that I don't think anyone's claimed that feminists and egalitarians don't overlap, but that the former is not a proper subset of the latter. Everyone I've ever read acknowledges that some feminists are egalitarians; the proposition in dispute is whether all feminists are egalitarians, or conversely and more to the point, whether some feminists are not egalitarians.