Imagine two professors of German studies: Hans, a native and citizen of Germany, and Bob, a native and citizen of the United States.
If you are asking questions about what it is like to live in Germany, sometimes you get correct answers from Hans, and sometimes from Bob. There’s no reason to believe that Bob will never have useful things to say about Germany, even when talking to Hans. Even if Hans will give a more accurate answer more often.
Why is it different when the subject is feminism and Hans is female instead of German?
Because it’s easier to get facts about what it’s like to live in Germany if you aren’t a German than it is to get facts about what it’s like to be a woman in patriarchy if you aren’t a woman.
To put it another way, until it’s possible to print out and debug human connectionist networks and association maps, most of the knowledge about gendered oppression can only be obtained by listening to women.
This is, of course, something that men under patriarchy are loathe to do, which is why Less Wrong (a male-identified male-dominated community) insists that men are perfectly fine sources of feminist analysis.
I certainly don’t expect Bob to give more useful answers than Hans a majority of the time. When it changes from Hans & Bob to Alice & Bob, the percentage will fall further.
In short, your position is that men have no useful input, which is very different from saying that they seldom have useful input. Bob should never have become a professor of feminism, as you describe the issue.
Imagine two professors of German studies: Hans, a native and citizen of Germany, and Bob, a native and citizen of the United States.
If you are asking questions about what it is like to live in Germany, sometimes you get correct answers from Hans, and sometimes from Bob. There’s no reason to believe that Bob will never have useful things to say about Germany, even when talking to Hans. Even if Hans will give a more accurate answer more often.
Why is it different when the subject is feminism and Hans is female instead of German?
Because it’s easier to get facts about what it’s like to live in Germany if you aren’t a German than it is to get facts about what it’s like to be a woman in patriarchy if you aren’t a woman.
To put it another way, until it’s possible to print out and debug human connectionist networks and association maps, most of the knowledge about gendered oppression can only be obtained by listening to women.
This is, of course, something that men under patriarchy are loathe to do, which is why Less Wrong (a male-identified male-dominated community) insists that men are perfectly fine sources of feminist analysis.
I certainly don’t expect Bob to give more useful answers than Hans a majority of the time. When it changes from Hans & Bob to Alice & Bob, the percentage will fall further.
In short, your position is that men have no useful input, which is very different from saying that they seldom have useful input. Bob should never have become a professor of feminism, as you describe the issue.
How seldom does seldom have to be before seldom becomes ‘no’?