By When criticising :feminism for its many and varied faults and bigotries I have not uncommonly found myself criticised in turn. “Fool! Don’t you realise that feminists are not all the same. There are many different types of feminist, so ranting on about all feminists is just ignorant and irrelevant.”
The first point I make in reply is that I haven’t said “all feminists…,” but just “feminists.” I agree that there is an ambiguity here, since I might be generalising over all feminists or just generalising over some. Feminists, however, are the last people who can complain about this ambiguity. For who has not observed them commit the fallacy of inferring conclusions about all men from premisses about only some men? (Rape culture, anyone?) Exploiting the ambiguity has been the mainstay of their rhetoric for many years. When pressed they retreat to the truth about some men (but fail to retract the conclusion that they have invalidly inferred) and when the pressure lets up they return to using the conclusion about all men.
When I say “feminists this” or “feminists that” I am generalising over the women who have formulated and propagated the central doctrines of modern feminism, and over anyone who subscribes to those doctrines. An illustrative list of the formulators and propagators, in no particular order, would be Greer, Friedan, Faludi, Wolfe, Sharpe, Dworkin, Steinem, Mackinnon, Harding, French, Millett, Segal, Boycott.
The first point I make in reply is that I haven’t said “all feminists…,” but just “feminists.” I agree that there is an ambiguity here, since I might be generalising over all feminists or just generalising over some. Feminists, however, are the last people who can complain about this ambiguity. For who has not observed them commit the fallacy of inferring conclusions about all men from premisses about only some men? (Rape culture, anyone?) Exploiting the ambiguity has been the mainstay of their rhetoric for many years. When pressed they retreat to the truth about some men (but fail to retract the conclusion that they have invalidly inferred) and when the pressure lets up they return to using the conclusion about all men.
When I say “feminists this” or “feminists that” I am generalising over the women who have formulated and propagated the central doctrines of modern feminism, and over anyone who subscribes to those doctrines. An illustrative list of the formulators and propagators, in no particular order, would be Greer, Friedan, Faludi, Wolfe, Sharpe, Dworkin, Steinem, Mackinnon, Harding, French, Millett, Segal, Boycott.