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Weiye Loh

Jacobinism: Racism; Censorship; Disunity - 0 views

jacobinism.blogspot.co.uk/...acism-censorship-disunity.html

Feminism Power Racism Politics Identity

shared by Weiye Loh on 12 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Weiye Loh on 12 Jan 14
     
    " There is a damaging idea fast gathering influence on the Left that - like a lot of contemporary postmodern Leftist thought - urgently needs dismantling. This idea holds that racism is only possible when prejudice is married with power."
Weiye Loh

How Overseas Chinese Students Navigate Different Ideological Landscapes - China Digital... - 0 views

chinadigitaltimes.net/...fferent-ideological-landscapes

Democracy Authoritarianism West China Ideology Liberal Politics

shared by Weiye Loh on 03 Jun 18 - No Cached
  • Weiye Loh on 03 Jun 18
     
    ""Why were you defending an authoritarian regime?" Tina, a friend from Comparative Politics class, asked me this as we walked out of the seminar room. We had began our graduate course at Oxford three years ago, and both carried on with doctoral research in Politics. Despite the occasional hostilities between our home countries (China and the US), we quickly became close friends and suspended the ideological differences between us. Still, her question left me half shocked and half puzzled. During the past two hours, we had been debating furiously about the "doomed future of democratization" and the "crisis of liberal democracy." As usual, I was critical of mainstream political thought, especially any definition of democracy that delimits itself to a few institutional yardsticks, along with a tone of moral proselytism that renders democracy as a dividing battle between us and them. Yet this critical perspective did not categorise me, in my peers' eyes, as a cynically postmodern left-wing liberal, as perhaps it would have my European or American counterparts. Rather, I was seen as an international student who came to the "free world" from an "authoritarian regime" that once suppressed his rights of free speech. Following this logic, anything that I said against a liberal democratic regime must be a remnant from my past life, haunted by the fears and shadows of a police state and ideological propaganda. It was therefore not surprising that my reflections on Western democracy were thought to be too similar to my home country's official clichés criticising the Western model. As I dwelled longer on Tina's question, I became restless. Was I defending China's authoritarian regime unconsciously? Could I separate my national identity from my intellectual stance? And why didn't I develop a stronger resonance with the so-called liberal world? Almost immediately, I realised I was not alone. Years of conversations with other Chinese students ab
Weiye Loh

Feminism 2.0 « Guardian Watch - 0 views

graunwatch.wordpress.com/...feminism-2-0

Feminism Postmodernism

shared by Weiye Loh on 29 May 11 - No Cached
  • The problem with feminism, even, or especially the hippy, libertarian feminism that Suzanne espouses, is it is not libertarian at all. It is imposing a morality and a judgement on women just as any conservative puritan might. And it does so in a contradictory and hypocritical way. Also. Being called a prostitute is  something that many women- sex workers and their allies, for example, would not take as an insult.  They would take it as an insult that a feminist woman should consider it to be insulting. And being a ‘pimp’ or an employer of prostitutes is also not something that necessarily has to be evil and wrong. Incidentally, many sex workers are self-employed.
  • Weiye Loh on 29 May 11
     
    Modern feminists want to maintain their feminine power in the domestic sphere, to moralise about the sex industry and women's behaviours and choices, whilst also demanding full equal rights in work and public life.
Weiye Loh

Metro or Bi? Digging Deeper into Modern Masculinity - 0 views

rachelrabbitwhite.com/deeper-into-modern-masculinity

Metrosexuality Postmodernism Gender Stereotype Objectification Desire Design Capitalism

shared by Weiye Loh on 06 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • t wherever I look there are discussions about ‘‘the objectification of women’s bodies” or “sexual violence against women and girls” or “pornography and women”. It has reached a point where I have to ask, without irony, “what about the men?”
  • it’s not as though men just became narcissistic. Simpson says it’’s clear that men had a capacity for sensuality and vanity – a desire to be desired – but for most of history it has been closeted. Men were to be warriors or laborers or empire builders. They weren’t meant to be beautiful. The Victorians codified a sexual division that decreed women were beauty and men were action. But now that men have been encouraged to get in touch with their vanity and sensuality it seems there’s no stopping it!
  • Metrosexuality differs from other incarnations of male self-love, in that it’s reliant on consumer capitalism. In other words, if you want to look hot: buy more stuff. But that narcissism, ever-apparent for the metro-man who needs mirrors like Narcissus needs the pool, is not necessarily a negative, argues Simpson. “The rise of male behaviors, practices and tastes characterised as metrosexual are made possible in large part by the decline of stigma attached to male homosexuality. While this stigma made life difficult for homosexual men, it also had an instructive, not to say repressive, effect on all men.” In contrast metrosexuality means masculinity is no longer black and white, “no longer always heterosexual and never homosexual or always active never passive, always desiring never desired, always looking never looked at,” says Simpson.
  • Weiye Loh on 06 Jun 11
     
    "Contrary to what you have been told, metrosexuality is not about flip-flops and facials, 'man-bags' or 'manscara'. Or about men becoming 'girlie' or 'gay'" says Mark Simpson, the man who coined the word "metrosexual". "It's about men becoming everything. Quite simply, metrosexuality is men's "desire to be desired". Men in contemporary society are now able to admit to wanting to be beautiful and to be appreciated as "objects of desire" in a way that was previously reserved for women."
Weiye Loh

The Grid TO | Dawn of a new gay - 0 views

www.thegridto.com/...dawn-of-a-new-gay

Homosexuality Postmodernism Gender Stereotype Gender Equality Feminism

shared by Weiye Loh on 11 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • Weiye Loh on 11 Jun 11
     
    When Carl Wittman, the American writer and activist, wrote A Gay Manifesto in 1970, it galvanized the gay liberation movement. The document was a ballsy critique of homophobia in North America, but also an unrepentant plea for courage and change within the community itself, proclaiming, "A large part of our oppression would end if we would stop putting ourselves and our pride down." Forty years after the Manifesto and the infamous Stonewall Riots in New York City, a new generation of twentysomething urban gays-my generation-has the freedom to live exactly the way we want. We have our university degrees, homes and careers. In Toronto, we've abandoned the Church Wellesley Village. We're tattooed and pierced and at the helm of billion-dollar industries like fashion and television. We vacation with our boyfriends in fabulously rustic country homes that belong to our parents, who don't mind us coming to stay as a couple. Hell, we even marry our boyfriends, if we choose to, on rooftops overlooking Queen West. Our sexual orientation is merely secondary to our place in society. We don't need to categorize or define ourselves as gay, and who we sleep with-mostly men and, hey, sometimes women-isn't even much of a topic of conversation anymore. The efforts of Wittman and his peers produced a whole new type of gay. Say hello to the post-modern homo. The post-mo, if you will.
Weiye Loh

New Metro Patriarch « Quiet Riot Girl - 0 views

quietgirlriot.wordpress.com/...new-metro-patriarch

Objectification Gender Equality Gender Stereotype

shared by Weiye Loh on 14 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • I don’t know about you, but it isn’t really my idea of emancipation to learn to be ‘poised, worldly, well-spoken and multi-talented’. The clever, metrosexy thing about this idea is that it really just copies the Heffner Playboy empire, but adds in a language and an imagery that suits the postmodern, post-feminist, post-everything world we live in.
  • And, just as Hugh is king of his castle ( a little bit deflated since his bride to be walked out on him), so will Hans be. This is all about Hans. And Hans making money.  Of course, if it was really metrosexy, the mansion would not be full of dames at all, but of dudes. My idea of a metrosexy utopia/dystopia, is a mansion full of fit buff boys, being ‘empowered’ by their freedom to be on display and adored as true ‘gentlemen’. But even in the Metrosexy 21st century, some old fashioned ideas remain. One of them is that when it comes to sex work, because that is what this is, women constitute the majority of the labour force. Because the ‘demand’ for sexual services still comes from men overall. And men who pay for sex with men, still have to do so in far more shadowy corners than the Hans Hansen Mansion.
  • Weiye Loh on 14 Sep 11
     
    'For decades, The Playboy Mansion has been a playground For Men where Playmates have entertained millions of guests with their bunny costumes, a genius concept perfectly executed by a once young and vivacious idealist. However, that once young man, along with his rabbit tricks, are now old, decrepit and stale. It is time for a new mansion, a new playground where women set the standard. The Hans F Hansen Mansion will be a place of Elegance and Mystery, where guests will reach a level of thorough entertainment not only through it's intoxicating atmosphere, but also by the exotically beautiful, multitalented, and worldly Hans F Hansen Dames. Isn't it time for change? We say YES.. It Is.' The Hans F Hansen Mansion aims to provide an environment where women can be empowered, sexy and adored by… er…gentlemen. You know, like Spearmint Rhino, that famous 'gentleman's club' that the feminists love so much.
Weiye Loh

San Francisco Sentinel » Blog Archives » Fundamentalists get a big one - Irre... - 0 views

www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=134842

Homosexuality Postmodernism Queer Theory Social Construction Religion

shared by Weiye Loh on 23 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • Michael wrote of “people scrambling for a home amidst the labels,” and in another he hoped for the day when “men who love women wave flags for identification.” It all sounded very much like the Michael I knew at XY, a young man who was fascinated by queer theory — namely, the idea that sexual and gender identities are culturally constructed rather than biologically fixed — and who dreamed of a world without labels like “straight” and “gay,” which he deemed restrictive and designed to “segment and persecute,” as he argued in a 1998 issue of XY. Though he conceded back then that it was important “to stay unified under a ‘Gay’ political umbrella” until equality for gays and lesbians had been achieved, Michael preferred to label himself queer. As Ben and I reminisced, I couldn’t help wondering if Michael’s new philosophy might, in a strange way, be a logical extension of what he believed back then — that “gay” is a limiting category and that sexual identities can change. Ben nodded. “A radical queer activist and a fundamentalist Christian aren’t always as different as they might seem,” he said, adding that they’re ideologues who can railroad over nuance and claim a monopoly on the truth.
  • I told Michael about a recent conversation I had with our former boss at XY, Peter Ian Cummings, who surprised me by wondering aloud if Michael was ever truly gay. “In retrospect, more than you or me or anyone else who worked at the magazine, his sexuality almost felt more theoretical than real to me,” Peter told me. “At a very young age, he had all these very well thought out theories about identity and sexuality. Maybe this gay or queer identity that fascinated him, and that he had taken on, wasn’t really true for him. It doesn’t explain why he says such ridiculous things about gay people now, but maybe, just maybe, he’s not in denial about his own sexuality.”
  • It doesn’t get better if you’re gay? Michael would have punched me in the mouth if I said that back when we worked together. I never would have, of course, because it’s a lie. But also dishonest, in retrospect, was our claim in a 1999 issue of XY that “everyone is happier” after coming out. Michael insisted that we include that line, but it was wishful thinking, and ex-gays are living proof of it.
Weiye Loh

No, Seriously, What About the Men? - The Good Men Project - 0 views

goodmenproject.com/...o-seriously-what-about-the-men

Feminism Gender Equality Gender Studies

shared by Weiye Loh on 22 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • 1) Whatabouttehwimmin? Any academic treatment of gender has been focused on the disadvantages faced by women and how women have been “omitted” from research, arts, literature, history, etc. An example of this assumption can be found in another book published in 1994, Angela McRobbie’s Postmodernism and Popular Culture. The book has many discussions of women, girls and “femininity,” but look for “masculinity” in the index, and you will draw a blank. She justifies this glaring omission with statements such as this one: It is in buying and selling clothes that girls and young women have been most active. The male bias of subcultural analysis has relegated these activities to the margins (McRobbie 1994:163). [My emphasis.]
  • when I have looked at contemporary books, journals, and web-based media that deal with the subject of gender, I have found no evidence of this so-called “male bias” at all. In the Internet age, there are large numbers of websites/online publications in particular, such as Jezebel, Sociological Images Feministing, Feministe and The Frisky, which look at representations of women in popular culture, for example. But there is no comparable critical consideration of how men and masculinity are portrayed in the media and culture. If anyone dares to question this imbalance, and the fact that feminist “gender studies” analyses of the media tend to only consider women as subjects, they are often met with the playground style taunt: whatabouttehmenz?
  • 2) Men are Monsters Heterosexual masculinity, in particular, has been “pathologized” by some feminist gender academics—with heterosexual men being portrayed as the oppressors of everyone else: hetero women, queer women, queer men. The idea that straight men have power that they use to oppress women, in particular, has been used by feminist writers such as Elaine Rapping, an American media and film analyst, to justify statements such as this: Everywhere you look there are books, movies, discussions and news reports about male violence … faced with the deadly serious question: “why are men such creeps?” (Rapping, 1993:114). This idea that men are “such creeps” is born out by the fact there is so much research and data on men’s violence against women, but very little about men as victims of violence, especially not at the hands of women. Is this because men are just thugs? Or is it due to the bias of gender academics? Even the name of this website, The Good Men Project, suggests to me that men are not ‘naturally’ good, but that they have to work hard to overcome the negative aspects of their ‘masculinity’ in order to become ‘Good Men.’
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • 3) “Masculinity” is Gay The only aspect of masculinity that gender studies seems to have allowed to be considered, without completely dismissing its value, has been “queer” masculinities, and this has been left to “queer theory.” Simpson, for example, tends to be categorized as a “gay” writer on “gay” men’s issues, and when he is mentioned in books about masculinity, it is often in relation to his work on gay pornography. Some feminist writers have suggested that there is a definite line between “straight” and “gay” men, and in doing so they are endorsing “gay” men as somehow better than straight men, suggesting they deserve consideration as people, not just “oppressors.” But at the same time, they are marginalizing any positive representation of masculinity into the box of “queer theory.” In other words, this suggests that taking an active interest in men and masculinity is “gay” in itself.
  • Male Impersonators is an interesting case study then, because, far from actually ignoring it, certain feminist academics have, in fact, taken its ideas, and co-opted and manipulated them and then failed to cite his work in their bibliographies. A number of feminist academics have made it clear they must have read Male Impersonators, but have not acknowledged just how much the book has “inspired” them, and in some cases have not mentioned Simpson at all. The most well-known of these is probably Susan Faludi. Her book Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, published in 2000, certainly draws on the themes introduced by Simpson in Male Impersonators. In particular, Faludi’s chapters on “hood ornaments”—men’s newfound “decorative” role in culture—and “waiting for wood”—on men in pornography—seem to owe a great deal to Simpson’s Male Impersonators. Anecdotal evidence tells of an interview with Faludi, where Simpson’s name was brought up, and she declared, ‘Oh, Mark Simpson. I’m his biggest fan!’ But not such a big fan that she could include his book in her huge bibliography. Other academics who have obviously drawn on Male Impersonators, with little or no reference to Simpson, include Susan Bordo, who wrote The Male Body (1999) (more on that here), Germaine Greer (2003), Ros Gill et al, (2005), Harris (2007), Eric Anderson et al (2009), and Hall (2010).
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