Girl Talk goes vaguely feminist. Of course people compared that to Nazi indoctrination, because that’s totally reasonable. Discussion below.
Indoctrination begins early for the feminist agenda. Get ‘em while they still can’t formulate their own opinions about the world and fill them with the lies that will support your ideology. Didn’t the fucking Nazis do that?
AS A JEWISH FEMINIST I AM HEREBY INFORMING YOU THAT YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO FUCK OFF
STOP FUCKING COMPARING SHIT TO NAZIS
FUCKING
STOP
THE NAZI’S “IDEOLOGY” WAS KILL EVERYONE WE DON’T LIKE
THE FUCKING HASHTAG FOR THIS IS GIRLS ARE AMAZING
THERE’S A FUCKING DIFFERENCE, YOU BOWL OF LUKEWARM SOUP
You do understand that the Nazis were enforcing discrimination tactics against certain groups of people inside of Germany well before the war or the holocaust, right? Fucking read a book. Not every comparison to the Nazis equals a comparison to the holocaust.
The comment was pointing out that indoctrinating youth is something the Nazis did and I don’t give a fuck how positive you think feminism is. There is zero justification for feeding children the lies of ideologies that box them up into neat little packages of prejudice and biases before they can even critically think or formulate opinions based on real world experience. There are plenty of ways to boost self-esteem and confidence in young girls without using feminism.
The propaganda tactics alone of the Nazi party has a fucking massive history to it, and if you think that Hitler showed up and the Nazis literally just sprung out of nowhere and started murdering Jews, finish 8th grade history and then we’ll talk. As a Jewish egalitarian, I cordially invite you to fucking try learning something about the lead-up to the shoah and recognizing basic analogies instead of not only being dismissive but contributing to the stereotype about Jews pulling out the ‘offended’ card about the holocaust whenever it’s convenient to an argument. This is not how you dismantle gender roles and this is not how you help young girls understand gender and become empowered properly. Manipulating and indoctrinating people through the media “for a just cause” is still fucked up, and at large, feminism has proven fallible and problematic enough to warrant concern.
And for what it’s worth, I have in fact seen a nice slew of casual antisemitism in the feminist community on tumblr.
How is this indoctrination though? I agree that indoctrinating kids is bad, but there is nothing wrong with telling girls that they are awesome.
The problem is tying the ideology of ‘feminism’ to the plan. Feminism is an ideology. And like any ideology it has tennants, beliefs, theories and what it believes to be truths.
This is the problem. The problem is that by injecting feminism into this you are injecting an ideology into a child’s mind before they are able to form their own opinions. It is indoctrination, pure and simple.
Now, you may argue that feminism is a GOOD ideology and SHOULD be put into kids heads. Well, if you do you’re a horrible person. Why? Because you are still taking away a child’s freedom to choose. You are forcing an ideology down their throats, removing their autonomy and making their choices for them.
If you believe feminism to be good and only good (I don’t but if you’re really curious as to why you can find more info about it on my blog) then the kid should be able to make their own decision when they are old enough to. And if it is so good then you shouldn’t be worried that the kid may not choose it.
There are other ways to promote wellness in children and it doesn’t have to tie into an ideology.
Basically nothing in our societies is free of ideology. Certainly nothing in our media landscapes.
There are enough messages in media that teach girls of all ages that they are not amazing, that they need to be prety and skinny to be worthy. Countering that with a message of positivity is valuable – and tying that message to a pro-girl, pro-woman movement, which feminism is at its most basic level, and which the publisher seems to commit to, is not ridiculous or indoctrination. I’d argue it is just being honest to the children. If it is positivity born out of a feminist understanding – why not call it that?
All this new direction does, as far as I can tell, is add to the girly (beauty) tips and celebrity news age-appropriate articles about positive role models, amazing girls, and world events. Which part are the ideology-driven lies?All of this is less dangerous than the body negativity or materialist ideology that other publications spread, that also reach young girls – because even young girls/children in general do not live on a vacuum and are not stupid. They really are amazing.
Also, this is a privately run magazine AFAIK advertising to private individuals, not mandatory propaganda. This isn’t the only publication the children and their parents are aware of, or that they consume. Girls and their parents can still freely choose. Other factors – area she lives in, our economic system, school, group pressure, parents – affect a girl’s freedom to choose more than a single magazine. To call this indoctrination that is dangerous to children is ludicrous, to compare it to Nazi propaganda is disgusting. Yes, there was propaganda before the mass killing started, but from the start Nazi propaganda was a propaganda of aggressive, oppressive supremacy, nationalism, and militarism that was leading up to World War II and the holocaust. Not a message of “hey little ones, you are awesome, you can do a lot of great things.. We think women are awesome and can do a lot of great things. That’s why we’re feminist.” This type of very basic feminism is hardly radical, discriminatory, or misanthropic – three things early fascist indoctrination is.
You/a parent might dislike this basic form of feminism – then you are free to teach your child otherwise, to consume other media.
Thoughts?