Reddit mentions of Why I Am Not A Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto

There's a lot of bullshit heaped onto feminism that really doesn't belong there. It really depends how you define the word as to whether or not I would consider myself a feminist.

Here is a link to a book called Why I am not a feminist: A feminist Manifesto:

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Am-Not-Feminist-Manifesto/dp/1612196012/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493343631&sr=1-1

The lady who wrote this book wrote a fairly long, very detailed account of the prevalent Oscar's question: "Are you a feminist?" in the New York Times not too long ago.

Her article basically made practically every woman who claimed to be a feminist this year look like an idiot. It was a very interesting article. Essentially, her argument is that the word has lost all value. It is either women making a lot of money but giving no thought at all to what role their gender has made in that profit (for instance, super models. Asking someone like Kim Kardashian: Are you a feminist? The only reason she's famous is because of a sex tape, and even if she has a position of power in some clothing company or something, has she done anything with that power to make things better for women who are not super models and to promote a realistic body image. Or, on the other hand, you have crazy people who are basically a parody of themselves.)

What this guy above in the picture is doing is basically repeating an idea that you see in post modern philosophy. The idea is basically that statements exist in a sort of framework, and that framework contains the argument against that idea. So, in a way, if you make a statement about being a feminist, you are reacting to a position of non feminism, and vice versa.

My guess is that the guy in the above picture has read a contemporary cultural critic named Slavoj Zizek. Slavoj Zizek is a marxist thinker, and he relies a lot on deconstructionist philosophy which is the philosophy that proposes the idea that basically says each statement, in a way, contains its own argument. Another way of looking at this idea is to say that if you have 10 things, and you select one thing, you are not just selecting the one thing. You are, also, omitting nine other things. So if you want to actually understand what these ten things are, you cant just say, I want the one thing. You have to look at all ten things.

If he did not get this idea from Zizek, I would be surprised. Zizek is very popular right now in liberal college circles. He has written many books, but he suffers from what many academic writers suffer from who write that many books: he self plagiarizes. In some books, he will basically lift a passage he has previously written and make that passage fit to the current argument. The kernal of each book is new, but some stuff can be repetitive.

However, there is a chance that he got this idea from the source or his most important interpreter, a woman named Penelope Deutscher. The source of the idea was a french philosopher named Jacques Derrida. He looked almost like a male model and was known for being fashionable and a little flashy. At the same time, he was often a sort of "adult" voice in the room, very much a non-neckbeard, please lets not let everyone get out of hand sort of man. He theorized this idea, and his purpose was to try to civilize people. Sometimes, he can be abstract, sometimes pompous, but overall, Jacques Derrida basically wanted people to understand that if they say one thing, the things opposite is sort of going to follow.

If you are interested in reading either Slavoj Zizek or Jacques Derrida, I would check out Verso Books. They only have one book by Derrida, but it is a good book from what I understand although I have only read a little of the beginning. I know him from his essays in writing and difference. Here is a link to the website for verso books. They are consciously left wing.

https://www.versobooks.com/

If reading a whole book sounds a little mind numbing, there is a very good youtube channel called "The School of Life." They have a short, 9 minute video about Jacques Derrida. Here is the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0tnHr2dqTs

As for Zizek, you can probably find a lot about him easily. He is entertaining, but many people don't like him. I think many neckbeards on the left would probably like to basically be him.

The last thing I want to say is that I think someone could get away with putting the original post on r/Iamverysmart . What the person posted on his facebook is basically taking an idea that was formulated for him and made it look like his own. And he did all of that while wearing a hat.

I hope this is helpful.