NAFALT!

This is how an MRA hears that argument…

“Hey, I know we femmies are all on the same team, and wear the same ‘uniform’, and even moderate femmies tacit approval via silence (and strength in numbers) is a given politically, you can’t hate us all. I mean, I know some of us are busy shooting your fathers, sons, and brothers in the face. I know some of us are busy taking away your basic legal rights, dehumanizing you and demolishing your future. I know some of us are setting up all the systems they can find to benefit your S/O if she leaves you and takes you for all she can get, and I know there are a whole bunch of us cheering on that entitled mentality.

but not all of us are like that.

Some of us stand around and do nothing.”

The survey, The Paradox Of Declining Female Happiness, reports that women of all ages and income are less happy than women of 40 years ago and less happy than today’s men.

Despite sexual and marital liberation, massively increased career opportunities and earning power, educational privileges and the wholesale demolition of the inhibiting conventions that restricted the lives of women in the past, today’s women report themselves as feeling a low sense ‘of life satisfaction and well-being’.

Well, men might be entitled to retort, welcome to the real world, sweethearts.

What you are complaining about is the very same life that you promoted and celebrated when you were swanking around chanting ‘sisters are doing it for themselves’.

You’ve got what you want, girls. Stop whining: Has feminism made women unhappy?(well THIS certainly will) | Mail Online

One woman commentator perfectly expressed the problem illustrated by this report, explaining: ‘It’s almost as if, in some ways, we got it all and then found out it wasn’t quite exactly what we wanted.’ 

This is exactly what I have been predicting – against a torrent of vilification and derision from feminists – for more than 20 years.

You’ve got what you want, girls. Stop whining: Has feminism made women unhappy?(well THIS certainly will) | Mail Online

The fact is, lady, if you do succeed in having it all, the effort and the burden will probably break your back.

 

Before we sympathise with this sad plight, however, perhaps we should remind ourselves of the multitude of unprecedented benefits, blessings and advantages that have been showered upon the modern women who are now whingeing about the poverty of their ‘life satisfaction’.

They have become the most privileged, the most cosseted and indulged women in the history of humanity. They are the first to live their whole lives without threat of war or plague. They are the first women ever born who could control and regulate their fertility with complete reliability, and they are the first to have the means and the right to choose an abortion if they slipped up or changed their minds about being pregnant.

You’ve got what you want, girls. Stop whining: Has feminism made women unhappy?(well THIS certainly will) | Mail Online

Motivated by conscience and a desire for justice and equality, it was primarily men who revolutionised the position of women. I can see your jaw dropping at this peculiar idea, but if you don’t believe it, ask yourself these questions: how many women MPs were sitting on the benches of the House Of Commons when, by a majority of two-to-one, Parliament passed the Bill in 1918 which extended the franchise to women? Answer: not one.

 

Who was responsible for the Abortion Act of 1967 and the Divorce Reform Act of 1969? Men. Who brought into law the Equal Opportunities Act and the Sex Discrimination Act? Men.

You’ve got what you want, girls. Stop whining: Has feminism made women unhappy?(well THIS certainly will) | Mail Online

Yet women of our time have lived all their lives with an unquestioning belief that they are members of an oppressed class of victims who have had to struggle heroically for liberation against a society cruelly organised by men for the benefit of men (‘Women are the n*****s of the world,’ as that irredeemable twit Yoko One once declared).

You’ve got what you want, girls. Stop whining: Has feminism made women unhappy?(well THIS certainly will) | Mail Online

The manifest truth of the past 200 years is that men wanted change for women as much as they wanted it for themselves.

You’ve got what you want, girls. Stop whining: Has feminism made women unhappy?(well THIS certainly will) | Mail Online

In survey after survey, men report that they resent the demands of work and that they wish they could have more time with their growing children. Yet the law continues to discriminate against fathers in the provision of time away from work to care for children.

We don’t even count it as an intolerable injustice and inequality that men are still required to work five years longer than women before they become eligible for a state pension

You’ve got what you want, girls. Stop whining: Has feminism made women unhappy?(well THIS certainly will) | Mail Online

Men don’t go on about it, but the truth is that things aren’t entirely wonderful for us, either. The difference is that we don’t suppose we’ve got a God-given right to blame women for it.

 

Ifeminism versus Gender feminism

By Wendy McElroy

The old establishment of feminism is crumbling. And fast. The National Organization for Women lost over 50% of its membership as a result of hypocritical stands it took during President Clinton’s sexual abuse of various women.

And NOW’s numbers are still declining. A cash-starved MS Magazine recently merged with the Feminist Majority in order to survive. Policies that were formerly unquestioned and unquestionable — like affirmative action — are being overturned in courts and in state legislatures. The hottest controversy in “women’s issues” right now is the “babies versus career” debate, that has been revived partly by Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s new book “Creating Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children.” And the recent resignation of White House counselor, Karen Hughes, who wants to spend more time with her family, has raised the specter of another haunting question: can women really have it all?

The ranks of “old feminism” realize that a revolution in attitudes is taking place…or, more accurately, it has taken place. Last November I did a debating tour of American universities with Kathleen Barry, a prominent radical feminist mostly known for her writings on prostitution. I was amazed…and so was she. The students didn’t want to hear what she had to say. Afterward, Kathleen told the lecture agent who had arranged the tour that she would no longer speak in public on prostitution or pornography — the two topics we were debating. In trying to find a replacement, the agent went through what could be called an honor list of radical feminists…none of them would debate…even for good money. Finally we found another Canadian who agreed to debate and, so, next November, two Canadian feminists will be imported to U.S. campuses, to tell American students what they should think about sex.

The old paradigm of feminism is crumbling because it simply does not answer the needs and questions of the 21st century woman. So tonight I will be introducing you to the new paradigm, to the new feminism that is knocking loudly at the door of the future. Ifeminism.

I want to begin by contrasting some of the basic ideas of ifeminism with those of establishment feminism, which is sometimes called politically correct feminism or radical/gender feminism. I want to start with fundamentals in order to give you a sense of how profoundly the two traditions differ. They are, in fact, two diametrically opposing ideologies. Then I’ll move on…to examine how the clash in ideology creates totally different cultural attitudes…for example, attitudes toward men and toward sex. The clash also results in the two traditions taking totally different approaches to societal change.

After that — after sketching how radical and ifeminism embody distinct ideas, attitudes and approaches — I’ll present what I consider to be the single biggest challenge confronting feminism today. As well as offering a whirlwind tour of where ifeminism stands on the basic issues, such as pornography, abortion, and affirmative action.

Of course, to a get a fuller sense of the issues, you can always pick up a copy of the anthology “Liberty for Women,” which has just come out from the Independent Institute. And the contributors will give you a sense of who constitutes the new feminism — Camille Paglia, Cathy Young, the prostitute-activist Norma Jean Almodovar, Rita Simon of Women’s Freedom Network… Equally important is the fact that men are contributors, because ifeminism welcomes the perspectives of men, who are full partners in this adventure we call society.

This is going to be a tightly-packed talk. So let me take Lewis Carroll’s advice on how to tell a story: you start at the beginning and, when you come to the end, stop. Let me start at the beginning….

The ideas of radical and ifeminism are diametrically opposed. They form the two extremes of opinion within the feminist movement. In order to illustrate this, I want to back up for a moment and ask of feminism the most fundamental question that can be asked of anything: what is it? What is feminism?

My response is simple. Feminism is the doctrine that says “women are, and should be treated as, the equals of men.” It is the political movement that focuses on women and objects to inequality between the sexes.

“Women are the equals of men.” As simple as that statement sounds, we’re already in trouble. Because what does “equality” mean? How is the term being used? For example, does it refer to equality under existing laws and equal representation within existing institutions…which requires only that current society be reformed to become gender blind? Or is the definition of equality more revolutionary, requiring that existing laws and institutions be uprooted and replaced so that society becomes fundamentally different?

The manner in which the word “equality” is defined is a litmus test by which various schools of feminism can be distinguished — one from the other.

Throughout most of the 19th and twentieth centuries, mainstream American feminism defined “equality” as equal treatment under existing law and equal representation in existing institutions. That’s what the drive for suffrage was about in the 19th century: that’s what the ERA was about in the 20th century. The goal was not revolution — it was reform. Mainstream feminism said, “treat us equally under existing law. Give us equal representation within existing institutions.”

Those feminists who were more revolutionary protested that existing laws and institutions were the source of injustice to women and, as such, could not be reformed. The system — or large parts of it — had to swept away and rebuilt according to a new vision.

Again, in simple terms, the two most revolutionary traditions were socialist feminism, from which contemporary radical feminism draws heavily, and individualist feminism of which current ifeminism is a continuation. These two traditions believed that equality required revolution but they differed dramatically in opinion about the direction that revolution should take.

To socialist feminists, equality was a socio-economic goal. Women could be equal only by eliminating capitalism and other institutions that were said to favor men, such as the traditional family and the church. They said, “don’t reform capitalism to include women in its injustice: sweep capitalism away and start with a new economic slate.” As socialist feminism evolved through the 19th into the late 20th century, it became what the key theorist of the ’70s and ’80s Catherine MacKinnon called “post-Marxist feminism.” But the goals remained basically the same. A legal restructuring of society to ensure an even distribution of power and wealth…through comparable worth, for example.

The revolution envisioned by individualist feminists was quite different. To them, equality was achieved when the human rights of individual women were fully acknowledged under laws that protected the person and property of men and women equally, including the right of every individual to freely trade their labor and property. Which includes the free market, laissez faire capitalism. And the revolution it envisions is the sweeping away of all laws and institutions that hinder individual rights and liberty…the equal liberty of all human beings, male or female.

Where does this emphasis on individual rights come from?

In the 19th century, ifeminism arose from abolitionism — the radical anti-slavery movement in the 1830s — that declared every human being, white or black, to be a self-owner. That is, everyone simply by being human had a right to his own person and the products of his person — that is, labor and property. In fighting for the rights of slaves, abolitionist women began to ask themselves a question: they asked, “do we not have these rights as well?” The abolitionist Abbie Kelley observed, “we have good cause to be grateful to the slave…in striving to strike his irons off, we found most surely that we were manacled ourselves.” What manacled them were laws that discriminated against women in a manner strikingly similar to how they discriminated against blacks.

In short, the original ifeminists sought to destroy the institution of slavery and to rewrite the law from scratch so that it made no distinction between man and woman. It spoke only of human beings. That was their revolutionary vision.

What does all this mean in modern terms? I began by saying there was an ideological war between the two extreme traditions of feminism in terms of ideas, attitudes and their method of operating in society.

First, the clash of ideas. And we may as well use the concept of “equality” — since we are discussing it already. For 21st century radical feminism, equality remains a socio-economic goal but a cultural goal has been added. The goal of compulsory respect for women through measures such as sexual harassment laws — by which I don’t mean laws that punish unwanted physical contact… Laws against assault and battery could address that behavior. By sexual harassment I mean laws that restrict which attitudes toward women can be manifested and what words about women can be expressed.

To 21st century ifeminists, equality still means equal treatment with men under just laws — laws that protect person and property. Ifeminism says nothing about forcibly redistributing anything, except that force should play no role in human interactions. Ifeminism says to the law, to government, “protect my body, protect my property then leave me the hell alone.”

But what of respect for women? The ifeminists I know care deeply about women being treated better by our culture, not just by laws. But law is not the way to change culture. You do not change peaceful behavior that is offensive by the barrel of a gun. And that is what law, what government ultimately is…”rule by the barrel of a gun.” Guns can used only in self-defense, in defending your person and property against physical attack. The law has no place in regulating attitudes or words.

Regarding respect for women, ifeminism says if you dislike pornography in your local store, if you object to the discriminatory hiring practices of a business then you should use all the nonviolent means at your disposal to change them. Education, protest, picketing, boycott, moral suasion…use the whole slate of persuasive non-violent strategies. What ifeminists cannot do — without violating their own principles, at least — is to use force to restrict words and attitudes because these are nothing more than other people exercising their own right of free speech.

This springboards into the question of cultural attitudes in general. And I want to focus in on attitudes toward men in order to contrast radical and ifeminism.

Radical feminism tells us that men and women are separate political classes whose interests inherently clash. That’s what patriarchy is: white male culture that necessarily oppresses women.

Men and women are separate political classes. The foregoing statement is quite distinct from saying men and women differ significantly. I am talking about the supposed political class conflict between men and women — the gender war — that lies at the root of radical feminist theory.

And, since this theory of class conflict is a key to why radical feminism is seen to be anti-male…is anti-male, in my opinion — bear with me as I keep hitting on theory.

Class warfare…what is a class? A class is nothing more than an arbitrary grouping of people or things that share common characteristics that is useful to whoever is defining the category. For example, a researcher studying drug addition might break his research subjects into classes of heroine-users and cocaine-users. A class can be defined by almost any shared characteristic: hair color, sexual orientation, deodorant use…

For radical feminists, gender is the common characteristic. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that choice. Many fields use gender as a dividing line. For example, medicine often separates the sexes. Women are examined for breast cancer and men for prostate problems. But medicine does not claim — as radical feminism does — that the basic interests of men and women conflict. The sexes share the same basic biology that requires the same approach of nutrition, exercise, oxygen and a common sense lifestyle. There is no attempt to deny the shared humanity of men and women.

By contrast, radical feminism doesn’t say that there are some issues on which men and women differ or should be approached differently. It says there is a fundamental class conflict based on gender. It says that men and women do not share the same basic human needs politically such as freedom of speech or the protection of private property. The two genders do not have the same political interests. This is like the doctor saying that the two sexes do not have the same biological needs. Thus, what many of us would consider to be a basic human right — such as freedom of speech — becomes a tool by which men oppress women. Through pornography, through the very use of language such as “history” rather than “herstory.”

How did this come about? The idea of class conflict is widely associated with Karl Marx, who popularized it. He said that people were either workers or capitalists. In short, he divided up humanity by looking at their relationship to the means of production and said that the two classes that resulted were inevitably and irresolvably at war. He made a further claim. The political interests of every worker were the same, just as the political interests of every capitalist were the same…. And this was true whether or not any particular or capitalist knew it to be the case.

Radical feminism consciously adapted this theory to produce “post-Marxist feminism.” Gender — not your relationship to the means of production — became the sorting point by which humanity is divided into two classes with antagonistic political interests. The political interests of every woman are the same, just as the political interests of every man are the same…. And this was true whether or not the individuals involved know it to be the case. Thus, radical feminists can level accusations of “rapist” at a man who has never harmed a woman — at a man who has protected a woman from attack — simply because he is male. As a male, he benefits from the “rape culture” — also known as patriarchy — because he shares the same political interest as all other men.

If this class analysis makes no sense to you…welcome to my world.

As far as I can see, both men and women are human beings. All of us benefit from the same political circumstances…like freedom of speech and conscience, private property, the right of self-defense. Any particular man is no more my enemy, no more a threat to me, than any particular woman is. We are all individuals to be evaluated individually.

I hope you can see how this difference in attitude toward men has widespread implications. Let me give you just one concrete example. Marriage. Both radical feminism and ifeminism want to revolutionize marriage, as we know it today. Radical feminism wants to eliminate the traditional family because it is a “breeding ground” of patriarchy, a source of women’s oppression.

Ifeminism looks at marriage and just sees individuals making choices…about whom to love and live with…choices that are valid whether we are talking about the traditional family or a homosexual union. What ifeminists want to eliminate is the role of the state in marriage and in every other personal interaction. Marriage should be a contract between those involved. If the marriage falls apart, then the divorce should handled like any other breach of contract…by binding arbitration, civil courts, whatever. So the revolution ifeminism envisions doesn’t involve changing anyone’s personal choices: it involves getting the state out.

This leads into my last point of theory — I promise! Radical feminism and ifeminism operate differently in society. I used the concept of “equality” to show how their ideas differ, I used “class” to show how the difference in attitudes. I want to use the concept of “justice” to illustrate the difference in methodology.

For radical feminism, justice is an end state. By which I mean, radical feminism has a specific picture of what constitutes a just society. A just society is one without patriarchy or capitalism in which the socio-economic and cultural equality of women is fully expressed. One in which employers are forced to pay men and women equally for the same work, pornography and prostitution do not exist, sexual comments in the workplace…”poof!”

By contrast, the ifeminist view of justice doesn’t have an end-state in mind, any more than it defines “what is a marriage?” That definition is up to the people involved. For ifeminism, just is process and it can be expressed as “anything that is peaceful, anything that is voluntary.” In other words, any situation or outcome to which the people involved have consented is, by definition, just.

You might make a foolish choice, a mistake, or end up badly. But as long as you agreed to the process by which you arrived at a certain point, then your being at that point is just.

Aspects of the society that results may or may not be moral. For example, the society may have strains of racism. I am anti-racist. I married into an Hispanic family and feel very strongly about anyone slandering, arbitrarily refusing to hire or otherwise demeaning members of my family. If that happened, I would use every peaceful means at my disposal to change that vicious behavior. But what I wouldn’t do is use force — either directly or in the form of government — to make people treat my family differently. Why? Because the freedom of association means that other people have the right not to associate with me for any reason they see fit, including my race or my gender. They have a right to not invite me into their homes and to not hire me. And I have no right to use force to override their judgment…however wrong I believe that judgment to be.

So the main difference between how radical feminists and ifeminists approach society and social change is that radical feminists use the state — the point of a gun — to impose their agenda. (Of course, at the same time, they condemn the state as patriarchal and irreparably harmful to women — but they can deal with that contradiction themselves.)

Meanwhile, ifeminism seeks private solutions to social problems. And recognizes the right to pull a gun on another human being only in self-defense against a real attack on person or property.

And this difference in approach makes sense when you think about it. After all, the radical feminist ideal of justice can be established by the use of force. Radical feminists want a particular arrangement of society. And it is possible to impose specific arrangements. For example, you can impose affirmative action policies and arrest or otherwise severely punish anyone who doesn’t abide by them.

Ifeminism doesn’t have this option. You cannot use force to impose a voluntary society. It is a contradiction in terms. You cannot put a gun to a person’s head and say, “you are now free to choose.” Freedom of choice involves taking the gun away.

And, in the final analysis, this is what ifeminism is talking about. Choice. Its view of equality is the equal protection of person and property…so that everyone can use their own judgment in choosing how to use their person and property.

So…having sketched the difference between the ideas, attitudes, and approach of the old feminism and ifeminism, let me move on to what I believe is the greatest challenge to feminism at the dawn of the 21st century. And that is to make the law and the application of the law — for example, in courts and police behavior — gender blind.

This is not necessarily a revolutionary goal. To me, it seems like a modest goal. But it is necessary to achieve before anything else can be accomplished. We have to make sure that the law and the application of law do not discriminate for or against either sex.

In some cases this means removing bias in favor of women. For example, in the family court system, especially concerning the custody of children in divorce cases and support payments. So let me deal first with bias that unfairly favors women…which leads me to the Men’s Movement.

The men’s movement is a loose coalition of individuals and organizations dedicated to removing bias against men from the system. And it is about to explode in North America. It is about to go off the charts.

Let me tell you a story. In the early morning hours of Kan. 7, 43-year-old Derrick K. Miller walked up to a security guard at the entrance to the San Diego courthouse, where a family court had recently ruled against him on overdue child support. Clutching court papers in one hand, he drew out a gun with the other. Declaring, “You did this to me,” he fatally shot himself through the skull.

Miller is not an isolated case. Consider Warren Gilbert who died of carbon monoxide poisoning, clutching a letter from the child protective service. Or Martin Romanchick — the New York City police officer who hanged himself after being denied access due to charges brought by his ex-wife, which the court found to be frivolous. I could go on and on with stories that break your heart, complete with testimonials from children who no longer have fathers… Actually, they are more pleas than testimonials.

One thing is clear: there is an alarming rise in male suicide in most western nations. According to a 1999 surgeon general’s report, suicide is the eighth leading cause of death in America, with men being four times more likely to kill themselves than women. A round of studies conducted in North America, Europe and Australia suggests that one reason for the increase may be the discrimination fathers encounter in family courts, especially regarding the denial of access to their children.

Feminism must extend a hand of goodwill toward men who are being destroyed by gender bias in the system. Women must stand up and call for the elimination of all law and all application of law that discriminates on the basis of gender, whether or not the discrimination supposedly benefits women.

(By the way, I dispute the idea that legal privileges for women actually benefit women. For one thing, the men being oppressed are lovers, fathers, sons, husbands, brothers, and good neighbors. How could it possibly benefit us to wrong them?)

The other side of the coin is bias that exists in system against women. As an example, I’ll use the current attack that is being waged by the medical
establishment on midwifery. Consider California. And for this I want to read from a letter I received from Faith Gibson, a midwife who is deeply involved in the fight to preserve midwifery and who also wrote the essay entitled “The Official Plan to Eliminate the Midwife 1899 -1999″ in the Independent Institute anthology “Liberty for Women.”

Faith writes of the various ways that midwives are being currently eliminated. “The lobbyist for California Consumer Attorneys privately told us they would ‘permit’ midwives to remove the unworkable supervisory clause” — that’s the legal requirement that midwives must have physician supervision for home birth even though there is no requirement for physicians for provide it — “they would permit midwives to remove the unworkable supervisory clause if we swapped it for a mandatory malpractice insurance clause. We of course would love to have equivalent (to docs) malpractice insurance but our ‘pool’ of midwives is so small that premiums for coverage would be twice our annual income.”

“Every time a midwife transfers a laboring women to the hospital and an on-call obstetrician gets notified to come in, he makes a complaint to the medical board that she is practicing without a physician supervisor. When the medical board prosecutes a doctor or midwife, the price tag to the practitioner for legal fees is $50,000 to $100,000.

“The last straw is that there are no direct-entry midwifery schools in California so we are now capped at the max number of 130 midwives as there is no way to get licensed without moving to Florida or Washington state and doing a 3 years out of state program. Bottom line for all of this is that we are now moving towards a return to underground lay midwifery and a massive resurgence of ‘planned unattended do-it-yourself’ births. I could just cry.”

Of course, midwives are not the only victims of this planned obsolescence — some would say they’re not even the primary victims. Every woman is victimized because she and her daughters are denied an option. They are being denied choice in how they wish to give birth to their own children.

Again, these two issues illustrate the greatest challenge facing feminism right this moment. Gender bias that has been institutionalized into the system.

Now…with a sense of the theory that underlies ifeminism and with some examples of how the theory translates into real issues, let me give you a whirlwind rundown of where ifeminism stands on some of the most important women’s issues. And I’ll be quoting from “Liberty for Women” to do so.

But, first, remember the abolitionist women — from the anti-slavery days — who argued that all human beings, male/female, black/white, are self-owners. If you put that sentiment into 20th century feminist terms, you arrive at the position “it is a woman’s body, it is a woman’s right.” Remember that principles as I run through the issues.

Pornography and prostitution, as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult, it is their business and the law should not intrude. As Martha Nussbaum concludes, the true role of feminism is to expand the options that sex workers face and to increase protection for those who choose that path.

Affirmative action and other regulation of employment, every business owner has the right to use his own property as he sees fit, including the hiring or refusal to hire anyone he chooses. And, since I’ve discussed this issue already, I’ll just move on.

Sexual harassment…as long as there is no force or threat of force involved, as long as the harassment is verbal; it deserves the protection of free speech. Most employers today would probably have rules against verbal harassment…which is their right on their own property, just as it is my right in my parlor. But the law has no business regulating words and attitudes. As Cathy Young declared in “Liberty for Women,” quote “…an individual’s non-coercive sexual behavior is no one else’s business and a lawsuit based on sexual misconduct should involve actual damages to the plaintiff.”

The choice to be a housewife…it is just that — a choice, every bit as self-respecting and valid as the choice to become the CEO of a corporation. I think that Mimi Gladstein’s article in the anthology is the first feminist defense of housewives and housework I’ve seen in the modern literature.

Violence against Women…here the force of law is appropriate. What isn’t appropriate, however, is to deny women the ability to defend themselves. The right of gun ownership should be respected. Richard Stevens has co-authored a terrific piece that not only debunks gun control myths, but also argues for gun rights along specifically feminist lines. “Victim disarmament laws that discourage women from developing the skills and using defensive firearms actually heighten the risks of criminal violence that women face. Such laws place women at a disadvantage against violent men and run against the feminist goal of equal treatment of the sexes under law.”

Abortion…it is a woman’s body, a woman’s right.

From this short list of issues, I think you can see where ifeminism would fall on most of the other issues so I won’t go on with a laundry list. (“Liberty for Women” pretty much covers the spectrum.) Instead, I’ll make a quick point in conclusion and let any loose ends be tied up in the Q&A.

My quick point is this… The mainstream feminist movement desperately needs the infusion of ifeminism because it is dying. The mainstream of feminism has become irrelevant to the needs and realities of the average woman…the housewife, the home schooler, women who love and value the men in their lives, women who rise through merit not privilege…

The mainstream of feminism has become so dogmatic that it views women who question — like me — as the enemy. Yet women who question is almost a definition of feminism itself. Alexander Cockburn, a columnist for the Los Angeles times (among other periodicals) summed up the impact that ifeminism will have upon the mainstream movement when he said of “Liberty for Women” — it will “jolt a near corpse back into life.” By the corpse, he meant feminism. But after it is jolted, it will come alive and become the healthy, robust being it once was…when women embraced men as partners, and both of them celebrated choice.

Thank you.

 

 

 

Occasionally an email pops into my box asking me, basically, why it is of any relevance today to associate cultural marxism and feminism given that feminism seems to have a life of its own; the implication being that there is not much mileage for Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) to gain by trying to associate the two.

A further point often made is that many of those MRAs who do drone on about the link between cultural marxism and feminism seem often to be ‘conspiracy nuts’.

Well, here is my take on this issue, for what it is worth.

In brief, my understanding of cultural marxism is that it is a set of ideas that gradually arose during the 20th century. These ideas were considered to be ‘Marxist’ because they extended rather than replaced Karl Marx’s ideas.

Basically, these ideas were to do with the way in which the rulers in a society kept the masses (that’s you!) in their places.

Essentially, Karl Marx had been concerned about the way in which a society that was constructed on capitalist principles (and, hence, on business-oriented systems) kept the rulers rich and the workers poor.

And the cultural ‘marxists’ that followed some decades later widened this focus in two main ways.

Firstly, they looked at how the culture itself (rather than the business systems) maintained the status quo.

Secondly, they generally decided that it was not only the workers who were being ‘oppressed’ by the (economic) powers-that-be, but also that women, blacks and gays etc etc were being oppressed by men, whites and heterosexuals respectively; more or less.

The upshot was that they gradually formed themselves into one huge victim group that has been complaining ever since.

Needless to say, the men-hating feminists and the men-hating lesbians of the 1960s climbed aboard this particular bandwagon with much enthusiasm.

“This is wonderful,” they said. “We like it.”

And the results of all the cultural marxists’ various considerations and activities is pretty much what we have seen going on in recent times; a huge and persistent onslaught against all those systems, notions, ideas, institutions and beliefs that, allegedly, kept white heterosexual men lording it over everyone else.

And so, essentially, there you have it.

The intellectual and physical associations between the cultural marxists and the feminists appear to be quite strong – with the latter being a major subset of the former these days – and these associations mostly started forming a few decades ago.

(As an aside; my own view is that blacks and gays did, indeed, have something to complain about during much of the 20th century, but the claim that women were being particularly oppressed by the culture and the business-systems of those times is preposterous nonsense. Demonstrably so.)

 

 The ‘Conspiracy Nuts’.

Many MRAs – and others – often study the academic trails and the documentation from the past and they join up all the dots between then and now.

From this, they often conclude that since “what was argued for in the past” has now actually happened, then some kind of conspiracy must have taken place in order to make it happen.

After all, behind the scenes, there were all these academics and activists beavering away over the years aiming to achieve certain things and, lo and behold, these things actually did happen and, as such, it was probably all ‘planned’.

And this does, indeed, sound like a ‘conspiracy’.

And in many ways it is.

After all, when people act together to achieve certain aims then the word ‘conspiracy’ seems to describe quite well what they are doing.

But my own view is that while it is true that people are always ‘conspiring’ with each other to do things, it does not necessarily follow that a successful outcome is something that they ‘planned’.

As an example, many MRAs are currently conspiring with each other to defeat feminism.

And in a few years time – with any luck – feminism will be defeated.

Some future academics might then look back and plot the links between MRA activity and the demise of feminism and say, “Aha! This was all ‘planned’ by Angry Harry and his chums. What remarkably clever fellows they were.”

But, of course, the truth of the matter would more likely be that MRA activity simply helped to bring about certain ‘perturbations’ within the cultural system that, quite simply – alongside a huge number of other factors that mostly arose from elsewhere – led to one thing, and then another, and then another.

As such, to suggest that the demise of feminism was actually ‘planned’ by MRAs who sneakily ‘conspired’ to bring about this result would surely be rather over-stating their role in the whole process.

And yet, of course, they did ‘conspire’ to bring about such a result.

The point that I am trying to make is that the cultural marxists did, indeed, ‘conspire’ to bring about much of what has been brought about, but the idea that they ‘planned’ things to happen in the way that they happened is probably exaggerating the extent of their capabilities.

As my regular readers will know, I tend to see large forces as the products of fairly intangible, but huge, ‘organisms’ that are, essentially, made up of lesser beings who are simply doing their own things, and serving their own purposes – often completely unaware of the myriad of forces that they are helping to procure and energise.

As such, my own view is that the success of cultural marxism has much more to do with the fact that millions of people stood to benefit from it by cosying up to it in some way, than it has to do with the ingenuity of master ‘conspirators’.

However!

In this particular case, there is, in fact, a huge amount of evidence to suggest that many very powerful and influential people and groups did, indeed, promote and adopt cultural marxist ideas and techniques in order to benefit themselves; and that they did so while quite conscious of the fact that they were powerful and influential enough to affect society quite strongly.

And because they did, indeed, have much power and influence, they were, in fact, quite able to ‘plan’ and to affect society as they desired to a huge degree.

And so, in my view, it is not much of an exaggeration to claim that the cultural marxism of today was a result of the conspiracy of a relative few.

There really was a conscious conspiracy.

And it was consciously implemented by some very influential people.

Indeed, and for example, we know from Russian defectors and from reams of documentation that the lefties in the west were continually given ideas, money and support by the Russians specifically in order to undermine the west.

And we know that cultural marxism was one of Russia’s main weapons during the long cold war with the west that lasted for some 40 years.

Indeed, it was the main purpose of the KGB (the Russian secret service) to promote cultural marxism in the west.

Think about that!

The main purpose of this hugely powerful, secretive and infamous KGB was not to find James Bond or to spy on people, but to spread around cultural marxism as much as possible.

Well, what is this, if not a ‘conspiracy to subvert’?

But it gets even worse!

If you go back even further in time, you will find that various powerful bodies (working inside government) were researching the best methods for controlling people – as individuals and groups – and for breaking groups apart.

They also looked very closely at all those things that help to bind people together; commonality in outlook and religion, similar values, family relationships, marriage, deference towards the same leaders and institutions, similarity of physical appearance, common language etc etc etc.

And they studied the ways in which these bonds could be broken.

And all this research fed right into the aspirations of the cultural marxists.

It gave them the tools that they needed to achieve their aims.

In short, therefore, we have – at the very least – various well-funded bodies trying to figure out the best methods to use in order to subvert people’s cohesiveness. We have one of the (then) two super-powers pouring huge resources into getting those very same methods implemented in the west via the KGB. And we then spend at least five decades watching those very methods actually being employed throughout the west.

Many Americans at the time knew full well what was going on. And in an attempt to stop the spread of this evil ideology that was, of course, mostly aimed at undermining America, there was put into place a huge crackdown on Americans who supported – or who appeared to support – the ‘communist agenda’.

And so arose the infamous period known as McCarthyism wherein alleged communist supporters and sympathisers in America were hounded.

Now, most of us have been brought up to believe that this particular period in American history was truly heinous and an affront to freedom.

And maybe it was.

But one needs to understand that the government of Russia was truly wicked, corrupt and self-serving, and that it had been responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people.

Furthermore, the ordinary citizens of Russia mostly lived in abject poverty.

And so, with much justification, many Americans who knew what had been happening in Russia were terrified that the spread of communist ideas into America would lead to similar disasters in their own country.

And through McCarthyism, they sought to stamp out the evil virus of communism before it spread too far.

But they failed to some considerable extent.

And, in my view, the reason that they failed is not so much because the Russian endeavours to spread ‘communism’ and ‘cultural marxism’ were, in and of themselves, hugely effective, but because millions of Americans gradually woke up to the fact that they could selfishly benefit themselves through the promotion of these ideologies.

For example, these ideologies spread disharmony (and much suspicion and, hence, breakdown in social cohesiveness) throughout a nation, while at the same time giving those who work inside government more power, better jobs etc etc.

Indeed, in such places, those who work for government are the bosses and the elite

They are the kings!

And so, of course, many western government workers had a vested interest in promoting these ideologies.

And promote them, they did.

And they still do – without actually admitting to this.

In a nutshell, therefore, you had this huge superpower which, basically, had been run by a criminal mafia for some decades – a mafia that was prepared to kill millions of its own citizens in order to retain power – pouring out research and propaganda into the west that was designed to undermine the west, and, sure enough, more and more people in the west (especially those inside government) saw how they could benefit themselves rather well by promoting the very same things.

Basically, the Russians kept sowing the seeds, and millions of westerners then took it upon themselves to nurture the growing fauna in order to profit themselves.

And one must remember that Russia’s cruel and brutal regime was highly expert at suppressing the people in order to benefit itself.

For decades it had managed to rule with an iron fist; not only Russia, but all of those satellite countries that it had invaded and taken over – the Soviet Union.

These people were the absolute masters when it came to subversion and control.

They knew what they were talking about.

They knew how to undermine countries.

This is how they had kept themselves in power for so long in their own part of the world.

These people were so powerful that they could actually get away with murder – over and over again.

Murder by the million.

And still they retained their powers and their lofty status.

To repeat; these people were the tops when it came to messing up the ordinary people in order to give themselves huge power and wealth.

They had done this successfully for decades.

And what they were doing in the west is, basically, showing others – particularly those who work inside government – how they, too, could profit themselves by doing the very same things.

“If you would like to benefit yourself, this is how you do it.”

And now, as a result of following those principles advocated by cultural marxists, ordinary westerners are gradually being disempowered, their freedoms curtailed, their taxes increased, their nations and their families broken, and their educational systems scuppered; mostly in order to furnish their governing elites with more and more goodies.

And so, for example, we can see that anyone who still believes that feminism is, basically, just the product of Biological Woman having a huge hissy fit has not quite realised the extent to which far more sinister forces have been behind it – forces that have nothing to do with the welfare of women, but much to do with the malicious machinations of a super-power intent on undermining the west, and with the greedy, self-serving nature of those working inside our own governments.

In other words, cultural marxism and feminism have been in bed with each other for a very long time, and the latter is very much not what most of its supporters proclaim it to be.

Furthermore, there was, quite clearly, a ‘conspiracy’ by some very powerful groups to promote feminism (amongst other things) and their ultimate aims were very much hidden from view from the general public.

In summary, therefore, the growth of cultural marxism and feminism was at least partly due to what can surely be described as a ‘conspiracy’.

 

 MRA Activism

Apart from it being of some general benefit to MRAs for them to recognise that some of the main and strongest promoters of feminism were, in fact, composed of some very wicked people who had some considerable malicious intent when it came to the west, often working together with leftists from within, there are further benefits for MRAs to be had if they link together cultural marxism and feminism when they are discussing men’s issues.

For example, it is currently the case that there is clearly a large and effective anti-government force a-brewing in the west; e.g. the various Tea Party groups etc.

 

 

And by showing these groups that feminism is, in fact, not what it purports to be but is, instead, mostly a mechanism through which big government is created and maintained, MRAs can generate more co-operation and integration between the MM and the Tea Party types; at least mentally speaking.

In other words, they can use the connection between feminism and cultural marxism to demonstrate to the Tea Party groups that feminism is not the benign entity that they mostly seem to believe it to be.

And this is definitely worth doing, because many of the libertarian, anti-government, Tea Party men are high-profile and/or highly-motivated activists.

And we could do with their support.

And by showing them that those whom they consider to be their main enemies are, in practice, maintaining much of their power by promoting feminism, they will surely become more aware of just how destructive is feminism to their very own cause.

As a result, many of them should eventually wake up to the fact that if they really do want to reduce the size and the power of government, then opposing feminism would be one of the very best things that they could do.

At the moment, however, most of these groups seem to be remarkably blind to the fact that feminism has anything to do with the size and the power of government (e.g. see my piece Male Bloggers – Failing Miserably To Understand The Issues).

But MRAs can open their eyes.

And one good way to do this is to keep pointing out to them the connections between cultural marxism and feminism, and to give them some idea of how the two developed, why they grew in terms of influence, and who were the kinds of people behind them.

Indeed, this approach has already met with some considerable success, judging by the fact that the MRM no longer consists almost entirely of right-wing MRAs.

Not so long ago, it did.

In a nutshell: MRAs would do well to explain to the libertarians and the Tea Party groups that if they are serious about wanting to reduce the size and the power of government then one good way of doing this is to oppose feminism.

In fact, while feminism remains a dominant ideology, they have no hope at all of achieving their aims.

Note: This piece explains why it is quite legitimate to attack very viciously those feminists, police officers, politicians and others who persistently break the Golden Rule and why, indeed, we should do so.

Regular readers of this website will know that I am not a religious person. Far from it. In my heart and my brain I would reckon that I am around 99% atheist.

Nevertheless, one moral imperative did, indeed, seem persistently to stand above all the others; in the sense that if people abided by it as much as possible, and wherever possible, the lives of most humans would be massively improved in very many respects.

This imperative is commonly referred to as the Golden Rule.

And, in essence, the rule is this.

“Do not do unto others that which you would not like them to do unto you.”

And it seemed to me that if people always attempted to behave in this manner then a positively enormous amount of good towards most humans would be the result, whereas if people did not do this then, eventually, the outcome would be positively catastrophic.

Furthermore, this very simple ‘general’ rule could be applied quite appropriately to an enormous range of human behaviour.

this Golden Rule crops up in the texts of many different religions

Indeed, this Golden Rule crops up in the texts of many different religions (e.g. see here) and this suggests to me that many other people – right around the world – in hugely different places, times and circumstances -  have also understood just how important is this rule when it comes to creating the type of world in which most of us would want to live.

All in all, therefore, my belief is that this Golden Rule is very, very important indeed.

(And this is why I was especially delighted to see Karen Armstrong make the Golden Rule the central theme in her truly excellent recent video lecture entitled a Charter For Compassion – video – 21 min)

And now, here comes the important bit!

By and large, the aims of those in the men’s movement (MM) are consistent with the Golden Rule. But the aims of those in the feminist movement are, mostly, contrary to it.

As such, the more that the MM gains in influence, the better will be the world in which we live, whereas the more that the feminists gain in influence, the worse will it be.

In order to demonstrate this, I am going to pick just one issue to show how it is that the aims of the MM are mostly consistent with the Golden Rule whereas those of the feminists are very often contrary to it.

Rape.

MRAs (Men’s Rights Activists) do not believe that they, themselves, would like to be raped, and they also believe that women do not like to be raped.

And so, unsurprisingly, MRAs do not argue that men should rape women.

In other words, MRAs do not argue that men should do things to women that they would not like to be done to themselves.

This is the Golden Rule in action.

Furthermore, MRAs do not actually engage in rape in order to further their agenda.

Thus, MRAs do not break the Golden Rule in order to further their agenda.

But now, let us look at the feminists’ take on this issue.

Feminists do not believe that they, themselves, would like to be persecuted or prosecuted for something that they have not done, and they also believe that men would not like to be persecuted or prosecuted for something that they have not done.

And, yet, feminists do argue that men should be persecuted or prosecuted for something that they have not done when it comes to rape.

As a result, thousands of men every year are persecuted or prosecuted for rapes that they have not committed.

This is the Golden Rule being willfully broken.

Furthermore, feminists do actually engage in the persecution or prosecution of men for something that they have not done in order to further their agenda.

feminists do break the Golden Rule in order to further their agenda.

Thus, feminists do break the Golden Rule in order to further their agenda.

And because feminists have had such powerful influences on western societies the Golden Rule has been downgraded significantly in western societies – and the result has, indeed, been fairly catastrophic – with much worse to come, would be my guess.

Indeed, as I type this, I hear on the radio that there are some real concerns that the world might soon experience a food shortage and, as a result, there might well soon be global civil unrests of a very serious nature.

Well, even the very possibility of this tells us that re-establishing and enforcing the Golden Rule rather than allowing it to be flagrantly broken over and over again by western governments (often pandering to the feminists) could easily be one of the most important tasks of all at the moment.

………………..

In order to bring home the points above concerning the power of the Golden Rule, let me just elaborate further, but in a more tangible context.

You often find feminist men (particularly in government) arguing that the persecution and prosecution of innocent men in connection with rape is just one of those things that simply has to be done in order to protect women from rape.

But there are only three points that need to be made in order to damn this position quite seriously.

1. Would a man with this view be happy if he (or a loved one) was being persecuted or prosecuted for something that he had not done?

No, of course, he would not be happy. And he would most likely fight tooth and nail to protest very strongly if he found himself in such a situation.

But this means that the policy that he supports (e.g. the persecuting or prosecuting of a man for a rape that he has not done) he only supports because he, himself, is not affected by it. If he or a loved one were affected by such a policy then he would be outraged.

he is a hypocrite of the highest order

In other words, he is a hypocrite of the highest order, and he is quite prepared to support policies that “do unto others” that which he would positively hate to be done unto himself – or to his loved ones.

He willfully breaks the Golden Rule simply to suit his own aims – something that is, in fact, a defining characteristic of a psychopath.

Needless to say, such a man should never have significant power or influence.

2. If it is acceptable for him to support policies that do unto others that which he would not like to be done unto himself (or unto his loved ones), then it must also be just as acceptable for MRAs to support policies that treat him (or his loved ones) in the same manner.

In other words, if MRAs take on board his sense of what is right and proper, then he can have no legitimate complaint if MRAs decide to “do unto him” or unto his loved ones that which he would positively hate to be done unto him or his loved ones.

Thus, it is quite legitimate for MRAs to hurt him and his loved ones in pursuit of their aims.

But would this man really think that it is a good idea for the world to work like this?

Surely not – unless, of course, he is a psychopath.

And now, it gets even worse for this man – because, in fact, he is not ‘innocent’.

3. He supports policies that hurt innocent others – provided, of course, that he and his loved ones are not hurt themselves.

MRAs must also be entitled to hurt him and his loved ones in pursuit of their own aims.

Now, as we have seen, this moral stance means that MRAs must also be entitled to hurt him and his loved ones in pursuit of their own aims.

But, of course, he is not ‘innocent’ at all. After all, he is quite happy to hurt innocent others. And he is quite prepared to break the extremely important Golden Rule in order to do so.

As such, therefore, MRAs are even more entitled to hurt him in pursuit of their aims.

………

It is surely clear that those who encourage people to break the Golden Rule – or who break it themselves – poison very seriously our prospects for creating or maintaining a decent society. And this is particularly true when it is those in powerful positions – such as those in government – who are doing such things.

And yet, for three decades now, feminists and left-wing western governments have broken this Golden Rule with relative impunity – mostly in order to pursue their self-serving aims.

Millions of men in the west have been treated appallingly as a result of this – child custody, child contact, divorce, alimony, etc etc – and all men have been demonised horribly in one way or another even though the vast majority of them have done nothing to deserve such demonisation.

And the result is what we have today – a great deal of disharmony, unhappiness, crime, poverty, dishonesty, greed and corruption – corruption at the highest levels.

Indeed, it must surely be evident to most people that if their societies accept the view that it is perfectly acceptable for people to break the Golden Rule whenever they feel like doing so then there is absolutely no hope for a decent future.

None!

we are far more entitled to hurt them than they are entitled to hurt innocent others

In summary: Those who break the Golden Rule in order to pursue their own self-serving aims are, clearly, a real danger to us all. Furthermore, they are hypocrites, and they have no moral leg to stand upon should we decide to hurt them. Indeed, we are far more entitled to hurt them than they are entitled to hurt innocent others; because, in fact, they are not innocent.

---

END NOTE:

It is usually argued by feminists that it is perfectly legitimate to break the Golden Rule in order to reduce the likelihood that others will break it. And so, for example, they argue that the thoroughly unjust manner in which innocent men are treated following a mere accusation of rape will reduce the likelihood that men will rape – rapists being people who break the Golden Rule.

The problem with this argument, however, is that it entitles us all to break the Golden Rule for similar reasons.

And so, for example, it could be argued that all women who accuse men of rape (even if these men are guilty) should be treated horribly simply in order to discourage other women from making false accusations; i.e. to discourage them from breaking the Golden Rule.

To do this would be completely consistent with feminist policies – the only difference being that innocent women would be treated badly rather than innocent men.

END NOTE 2:

Of course, the importance of the Golden Rule lies not in its ‘perfection’ – because it is not perfect by any means. Its importance lies in the following …

1. It is relatively simple to articulate and to understand.

2. It addresses an enormous range of human behaviours.

3. It is a very good rule that will lead to huge benefits for everybody if people can be encouraged successfully to follow it.

This is not to say that the Golden Rule should never be broken. For example, we lock up murderers even though they – like the rest of us – would prefer not to be locked up. But we lock them up precisely because they have broken the Golden Rule in a very serious manner.

What we should not be doing, however, is treating people as if they have broken the Golden Rule when we have no valid evidence to suggest that they have done so – because to do so is to break the Golden Rule.

Unfortunately, however, when it comes to matters of ‘abuse’, this is exactly what is happening to millions of men (and, increasingly, to women) around the western world thanks to the various machinations of the feminists and those working in the abuse industry.

And, in my view, as mentioned above, it is much more legitimate, morally speaking, to hurt these people than it is legitimate for them to hurt those whom they are hurting; because these people are no longer ‘innocent’. They have willfully and flagrantly broken the Golden Rule on a massive scale.

Finally, let me just clarify the important difference between MRAs and feminists when it comes to the Golden Rule.

MRAs do not advocate that men should be entitled to hurt innocent women.

MRAs do not advocate that men should be entitled to hurt innocent women.

Feminists and their associated victim groups, however, do advocate that women (and the authorities) should be entitled to hurt innocent men, and they also both support and promote governmental policies that do exactly this.

Now, given that the Golden Rule seems to be a very important rule when it comes to maintaining a decent society – something which seems to have been recognised by many different peoples for over 2000 years – it seems to me that MRAs have much reason and every right to attack very viciously indeed those who persistently break the Golden Rule; particularly those who do so on a massive scale. And, in connection with this, certain politicians, feminists and various women’s victim groups come continually to mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iOky_GeVuk

“They have to make you out to be a misogynist, and that way, they can be convinced you don’t REALLY disagree with them. When they can sit there trying defend themselves from your perfectly rational arguments, they suddenly get lost. So they have to convince themselves that you don’t REALLY disagree… That you’re a misogynist, sexist. Your disagreement is JUST A TRICK… and in that way, in their little delusional minds, your disagreement, becomes further proof of their righteousness. The more you disagree, the more they’re right.”

The United Nations manipulated the definition of “child” on purpose! So child protection laws could be extended to adolescent youth without need to be voted again. Human-Stupidity.com found the smoking gun. Proof is on the United Nations web site.

Q – What does the UN mean by “youth,” and
how does this definition differ from that given to children?
The United Nations, for statistical purposes, defines ‘youth’, as those persons between the ages of 15 and 24 years,[...]  By that definition, therefore, children are those persons under the age of 14.
It is, however, worth noting that Article 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines ‘children’ as persons up to the age of 18. This was intentional, as it was hoped that the Convention would provide protection and rights to as large an age-group as possible and because there was no similar United Nations Convention on the Rights of Youth. (www.UN.org)

The United Nations web site confesses, expressis verbis, that the language confusion was created so that childhood laws could be transferred to adolescents, without undergoing scrutiny and without needing to be voted for. The United Nations, on their own website, admit that this age definition was made for manipulative purposes, and in contradiction of  their own age definitions elsewhere.

“Seduction of an adolescent” or “unlawful sex with a 17-year-old” does not sound dramatic enough. It is easier to get harsh laws against “child rapists”. Equally, it is easier to convict for “child pornography” then for possession of tasteful “nude photos of a 17 year old”.  Just manipulate the language to manipulate the masses! And government, press, judges, jury.

“As for ‘equal rights and responsibilities for women’, that is a good phrase and I must remind myself to use it as much as I can. Those who want to set up a “real patriarchy” need not bother with such a project. All they need to do is allow “equal rights AND responsibilities”, and the feminists will hate the outcome as much setting up a so-called “real patriarchy”. Of course, equal rights and responsibilities for women is the very last thing that feminism aims to achieve. Feminism ideally aims to “empower” women to do just about anything they please, with impunity and no moral accountability. In fact, that is the ONLY logical endpoint feminism could ever reach for, since it feeds upon a totally bottomless greed. And “gender mainstreaming”, for all its rhetoric of equality, is the very same thing.

Feminism is the radical notion that women are men

Published on August 2, 2009