Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Sweden has feminist policies

I mentioned Sweden as a feminist paradise, and it even pretentds to have a feminist foreign policy:
In the interim, Wallström will remain at the Foreign Ministry, with her feminist vision for Sweden’s ventures abroad intact. By empowering women, the argument goes, there are better chances of snuffing out wars before they start and of ending them in more equitable ways. However, it is less clear what such a feminist foreign policy has to say about the old-school power politics that Putin has helped resuscitate in the past year.

During a recent debate in the Swedish parliament, Wallström said that her feminist approach is based on the American political scientist Joseph Nye’s concept of “smart power.” “The tools of foreign policy can, in varying degrees, be hard as well as soft. The situation at hand determines this,” Wallström said. “The half of the population that so far has been almost systematically excluded and forgotten — namely, women — will now be included.”

Asked how she believes a feminist foreign policy will help end Russian aggression, Wallström suggested it would be useful to review women’s participation in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and to look at what it does to address the problems women face — a statement exactly as vague as it sounds.

Meanwhile, Putin delivered another swaggering address on Thursday. “The policy of containment was not invented yesterday. It has been carried out against our country for many years, always, for decades, if not centuries,” he said at his annual state-of-the-nation address. “In short, whenever someone thinks that Russia has become too strong or independent, these tools are quickly put into use.”

The newfound emphasis on feminism abroad has been remarkably absent in the Swedish response to the recent submarine incursion in Stockholm. When Göranson, flanked by Prime Minister Stefan Löfven and Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist, presented evidence at a November press conference of illicit underwater activity in the Stockholm archipelago, there was no talk of gender perspectives or feminist approaches to territorial breaches. (While the Swedish military maintains that it does not have the evidence to conclusively identify the submarine’s nationality, it was all but certainly a Russian boat.)
In the USA, the only group I know who are unapologetically standing up to the feminists are the video gamers:
The cost to Gawker Media of its ridicule and viciousness toward video gamers was "seven figures" in lost advertising revenue, according to the company's head of advertising, Andrew Gorenstein. In addition, founder Nick Denton has stepped down as president and editorial director Joel Johnson has been removed from his post and will probably leave the company, reports Capital New York.

"Ultimately #GamerGate is reaffirming what we’ve known to be true for decades: nerds should be constantly shamed and degraded into submission," Gawker writer Sam Biddle tweeted in October, sparking a firestorm of outrage which solidified into a sustained letter-writing campaign to Gawker's advertisers, which continues today, against the bullying of marginalised groups by mainstream media outlets.

A number of advertisers, including Adobe and Mercedes-Benz, distanced themselves from Gawker after receiving communications from GamerGate supporters. It is not known how much GamerGate, a consumer revolt advocating better ethics in video game journalism and rejecting feminist critiques of video games, may have cost other publishers.
Wikipedia has a long article on the Gamergate controversy.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The wiki article looks to be written by the SJWs and presents a very distorted view of what happened. The one lesson to take away from this is basically don't mess someone that has nothing left to loose.