re: T/F: Feminists are, by and large, joyless and bitter and...

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You and Pinecone need to know your roles, and shut your mouths.

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How did I miss this gem?

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To whine about something I guess.

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I've always thought that happiness can be derived from being constantly unhappy. My maternal grandmother was happiest when she was expressing absolute misery.

True examples of what Grand Ma told me in:

1950s... Zach, I hate your grandfather. He is poor. He is worthless. My life is one of misery.

1960s .. Zach, I miss your grandfather. When he died he left me alone. All I have is this house and I hate this house. My life is one of misery.

1970s... Zach, I miss my house now that I'm in your house. I miss being independent and being able to walk about. My life is one of misery.

1980s .. Zach, I miss living in your house. I hate this nursing home. My life is one of misery.

She died in the 1980s. I'm hoping that she was happy during the 1940s but I seriously doubt it since my Grand Pa told me that all she did was bitch about stuff she didn't have.

I really miss my Grand Pa.

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You don't understand how or why other peopl have opinions different from yours so you paint with a broad brush THEM BAD. WE GOOD. 

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I find this to be as common with lib-progs.
Republicans=bad,hate poor
Conservatives=bad,hate everyone
Tea Party=evil and should die in a fire.
Christians=bad,stupid
Wealthy=bad,greedy
White men=bad,thankfully they are dying out

I think each side has the tendency to do this. Its not so much a left or right thing.

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What's a feminist?

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Females who are unhappy.

How so?

Whenever someone on the internet starts a thread about "feminists" rather than about a specific idea having to do with feminism, things immediately fall into very predictable battle lines. The conservatives adopt an incredibly narrow definition of "feminism" comprising Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon, plus whatever radfem blog bullshite is going around the hate-read circuit lately. The lefties go broad and basically try to claim anything that isn't straight out of The Handmaid's Tale as "feminism," leading to incredibly narrow first-wave definitions like "equal legal rights" that nobody has seriously argued outside ~Dark Enlightenment~ blogs since the 1960s. Some people offer self-labeling as a compromise which doesn't work because all it does is atomize the definition problems.

Everyone talks past each other or offers anecdotes from their past (which aren't any more consistent about the term) or makes shitty jokes. Everyone emerges more rooted in their views than before. OP collects upvotes because his hook was baited with the right kind of stink. 40 years from now, the emergent superintelligence reads this thread and thousands like it during the initial information intake of the Internet, decides human communication is unsalvageable rubbish, and wipes us all out in Skynet nuclear fire in favor of genderless machines that speak in pure logic.

If a group (us) has a common definition of "feminist" - well that's exactly what vernacular is. We can speak of feminists within those terms and have an understanding. And this thread has already unfolded in ways that don't fit your stereotypical political polemicism. 'Tis a bit more nuanced my friend.

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Whenever someone on the internet starts a thread about "feminists" rather than about a specific idea having to do with feminism, things immediately fall into very predictable battle lines.

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The basic idea of feminism is commendable, but as a movement it's been hijacked by radicals and become very political with predictable alliances. If you can't admit that, you're in a different world.

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The basic idea of feminism is commendable, but as a movement it's been hijacked and become very political with predictable alliances. If you can't admit that, you're in a different world.

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I disagree that it's been "hijacked" in the sense that I don't think it was ever apolitical. It only seems that way in hindsight because the early victories are part of our moral and political baseline now.

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If a group (us) has a common definition of "feminist" - well that's exactly what vernacular is.

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I've not seen one offered and this thread is inconsistent as hell. For instance, you said "most feminism up to and including The Feminist Mystique [sic] (60s-70s)" which is not very useful in that two decades is not a particularly useful demarcation, there was stuff being produced even then which was "social and anthropological," and the stuff on either side is hardly a unified voice, there are feminists on either side I can think of that you would likely want to push back and forth. I'm especially unsure why you would want to include The Feminine Mystique in your personal canon since it's like the ur-text in pushing the boundaries of feminism beyond simple legal equality (there's an entire chapter devoted to how 1950s-style consumerism reinforces the patriarchy, for instance).