I read through a couple of months worth of FeministX when I first discovered it...
(Because of a particular skill exhibited: namely the ability to not force your self-image into a narrow box based on the labels you apply to yourself, a topic on which I should write further at some point. See the final paragraph of this post on how much she hates sports for a case in point. Most people calling themselves “feminist” would experience cognitive dissonance between that and their self-image. Just as most people who thought of themselves as important or as “rationalists” might have more trouble than I do publicly quoting anime fanfiction. There certainly are times when it’s appropriate to experience cognitive dissonance between your self-image and something you want, but most people seem to cast that net far too widely. There is no contradiction, and there should be no cognitive dissonance, between loving and hating the same person, or between being a submissive feminist who wants alpha males, or between being a rationalist engaged on a quest of desperate importance who reads anime fanfiction, etcetera. But most people try to conform so narrowly and so unimaginatively to their own self-image that there is little point in reading anything else they say, because it is all predictable once you know what “role” they’re trying to play in their own minds. And among people who are unusually good at not conforming to their own images, their blogs often make for good reading because it is often surprising reading.)
...and I still don’t know what is meant by the “feminist” in the title, so I have to agree with all the commenters who asked for a definition of “feminism”. Definitions are oft overrated but in this case I literally do not know what is being talked about.
If it were me, I’d probably be saying something to myself along the lines of: “So long as such a large flaw exists in my own work, which I can correct myself without waiting for permission from anyone else, there is no point in asking whether others have done worse.” This is by way of encouraging myself to do better, for which purpose it is unwise to focus on other people’s flaws as consolation.
EDIT: Finished reading through the comments. Some commenters did better than you, some commenters did worse, e.g. Aretae’s separate post gave you good advice. Definitely you’ve got more to learn about which arguments and evidence license which conclusions at what strength. None of the arguments including yours were noticeably up to LW standards and so there’s not much point in trying to figure out who “won”. The winners were the commenters who said “I don’t know what is meant by ‘feminism’ here, please define”. Some of the others could have carried part of their argument if they had been a bit more careful to say, “Here is something that ‘feminism’ could be taken to mean, or that many/most men take the label ‘feminism’ to mean, now I am going to talk about how many/most men react to this particular thing regardless of whether it is what you call ‘feminism’, and if it isn’t, please go ahead and define what you mean by it.” That would have been Step One.
I read through a couple of months worth of FeministX when I first discovered it...
(Because of a particular skill exhibited: namely the ability to not force your self-image into a narrow box based on the labels you apply to yourself, a topic on which I should write further at some point. See the final paragraph of this post on how much she hates sports for a case in point. Most people calling themselves “feminist” would experience cognitive dissonance between that and their self-image. Just as most people who thought of themselves as important or as “rationalists” might have more trouble than I do publicly quoting anime fanfiction. There certainly are times when it’s appropriate to experience cognitive dissonance between your self-image and something you want, but most people seem to cast that net far too widely. There is no contradiction, and there should be no cognitive dissonance, between loving and hating the same person, or between being a submissive feminist who wants alpha males, or between being a rationalist engaged on a quest of desperate importance who reads anime fanfiction, etcetera. But most people try to conform so narrowly and so unimaginatively to their own self-image that there is little point in reading anything else they say, because it is all predictable once you know what “role” they’re trying to play in their own minds. And among people who are unusually good at not conforming to their own images, their blogs often make for good reading because it is often surprising reading.)
...and I still don’t know what is meant by the “feminist” in the title, so I have to agree with all the commenters who asked for a definition of “feminism”. Definitions are oft overrated but in this case I literally do not know what is being talked about.
If it were me, I’d probably be saying something to myself along the lines of: “So long as such a large flaw exists in my own work, which I can correct myself without waiting for permission from anyone else, there is no point in asking whether others have done worse.” This is by way of encouraging myself to do better, for which purpose it is unwise to focus on other people’s flaws as consolation.
EDIT: Finished reading through the comments. Some commenters did better than you, some commenters did worse, e.g. Aretae’s separate post gave you good advice. Definitely you’ve got more to learn about which arguments and evidence license which conclusions at what strength. None of the arguments including yours were noticeably up to LW standards and so there’s not much point in trying to figure out who “won”. The winners were the commenters who said “I don’t know what is meant by ‘feminism’ here, please define”. Some of the others could have carried part of their argument if they had been a bit more careful to say, “Here is something that ‘feminism’ could be taken to mean, or that many/most men take the label ‘feminism’ to mean, now I am going to talk about how many/most men react to this particular thing regardless of whether it is what you call ‘feminism’, and if it isn’t, please go ahead and define what you mean by it.” That would have been Step One.