Discussion Main / TheHorseshoeEffect

The quote page has a lot of problems.

I started a query about it here.

I will happily include a note on the description on the main page explaining the terms TERF and SWERF. However, I think it is extremely misleading to categorize radical feminists who are opposed to sex work and trans people as a tiny subset of radical feminism as a whole.

Some of the most prominent and influential feminists in the history of the movement have been opposed to prostitution, pornography and trans rights. The "feminist sex wars" of the 1970s and 80s (remnants of which persist to this day) were massively divisive and polarising debates about pornography, prostitution and the role of trans people in the feminist movement; to some extent modern feminism is still effectively divided between "sex-positive" and "sex-negative" feminists. The anti-pornography side was led by Andrea Dworkin, who at her peak was one of the most prominent feminist activists in the US, and testified in favour of banning pornography before the US Attorney General.

In terms of trans issues, influential feminists including Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem, Mary Daly, Julie Bindel and Julie Burchill have all publicly expressed their opposition to trans rights and to trans people being active within the feminist community. During the 1970s the term "womyn-born womyn" was coined specifically in order to exclude trans women from appearing at feminist events, which included the popular annual Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.

It may well be the case that only a minority of modern feminists are opposed to prostitution, pornography and trans rights (it's hard to get hard data on this sort of thing). But when looking at the historical context of feminism as a whole, it's abundantly obvious that sex work and trans rights have been (and continue to be) enormously divisive issues on which there is little consensus. Describing feminists who are opposed to sex work and trans rights as a "tiny subset" of feminism as a whole is misleading to the point of historical revisionism.

I intend to restore the description as it stood before the last edit. However, I will include a note explaining the terms TERF and SWERF.

For future reference, you don't make changes to a main page until a consensus has been reached on a discussion page. The entire point is that the argument gets hashed-out BEFORE further edits are made on the main page.

Now, that being said, what you're talking about is the exact reason feminism is broken into "waves" (First, Second, Third, etc.). TER Fs, SWER Fs and White Feminism are all qualifiers used by the more progressive circles of radfem to identify people who hold onto non-radical beliefs (again, "radical" feminism by definition means that they believe systems need to be broken down at the core.

That being said, I'm satisfied with the latest revision, so good job on that.

Wikipedia defines the horseshoe effect as specifically relating to the political spectrum, and the idea that the far left and far right are similar. A lot of the examples on this page, and the page definition, are just examples of two ideologically opposed groups agreeing on something, which doesn't fit. Should we clean this up and remove the irrelevant examples, or is our definition different from Wikipedia's?

Our definition is different from Wikipedia.

Doesn't seem very horse-shoe-ie then, particularly when we've got examples that only constitute a very small part of each group's ideology. The listed example is radical feminists vs conservatives fundamentalists. Both disagree about 99% of everything, but both happen to dislike prostitution, pornography and Transgenders for VERY different reasons. Is that really an example of this?

And should we even have real world examples at all, considering this trope is part of No Real Life / Too Controversial?

Those were only mentioned in the description, to provide real-world context. The point wasn't to list every single thing that made them similar. Also, the claim that the theory is making is not that two opposite ideologies become EXACT the same thing.

The other problem with using TER Fs is that they're a fringe group so far outside the feminist academic mainstream that wether they even count as feminists is controversial.

This page is not an opportunity to rehash No True Scotsman arguments ad nauseum. Trans-exclusionary radical feminists may be considered persona non grata in academic feminist circles today, but this was not the case fifteen or even ten years ago, and the trans-inclusive wing of the feminist is a very recent development.

The shift probably started earlier than that, tbh. As early as 2008, there was a marked increase intersectionality between trans rights and feminist goals.

You might not agree with the content or message of the Ryan Long video. However, it is unambiguously an example of "The Horseshoe Effect", in that Long's sketch is arguing that racists and anti-racists share many opinions. Maybe the argument is uncharitable or unfounded; it is not the job of this page to pass judgement on whether or not examples of this trope are charitable and well-founded or not. Whether or not the creator of the video has some obnoxious opinions or is "actively trying to strawman people on the left" has no bearing on whether or not it's a valid example of the trope.

The video you linked does not "explain" anything. That video argues for a particular interpretation of Long's comedy, which one might or might not agree with.

I do not care whether or not including a link to one of Ryan Long's sketches is thereby "signal-boosting" him, and I object to the suggestion that "we" should not be signal-boosting him simply because you disagree with his opinions.

"Joe Bloggs thinks that XYZ is an example of this trope" is quite different from "XYZ is an example of this trope". Unexcused unattributed real life examples should be removed outright though, so thanks for your help.

I feel like saying "Joe Bloggs notes that XYZ is an example of this trope" is edging into the latter, describing it as a fact the work documents rather than an opinion the work displays.

That's a valid point. We should be favouring "thinks/observes" rather than "notes" in order to maintain neutrality. I'll go through the page and update any examples I come across. Thanks again for flagging it.

Agreed

Go ahead and add that but qualify it and say that this doesn't mean it doesn't have meaning and purpose, just not directly in terms of political processes. That should be neutral enough.

Wikipedia would beg to differ. "The earliest use of the term in political theory appears to be from Jean-Pierre Faye's 2002 book Le Siècle des idéologies.[2] Others have attributed the theory to Seymour Martin Lipset, Daniel Bell and the 'pluralist school'.[3]"

I can't view that link without a login. Try saving the image and uploading it to an image-sharing site like Imgur.

Is there a way to make that link available without the need for a login?

Like I said, download the image and upload it to a public image-sharing site. Imgur or Flickr, for example.

Well I don't have a login to that site and I don't plan to...

Then how were you able to view the image in the first place?

I wasn't

This is a really bizarre thread. You want to feature an image that you haven't even seen as an example in the trope page?

I don't.

I want to see it. I have no opinion on featuring it before seeing it.

Sorry, I misread who was replying to these messages. Unless the OP links the original image, there's really nothing we can do.

No, definitely not. It's too subjective and a magnet for flame wars.