Why Do MRAs Keep Attacking Feminism?
Feminism is a label used to identify two major sets of viewpoints and ideologies. Because they apparently oppose one another, I’ve argued in the past that re-branding would ameliorate much of the confusion of conflicting ideologies with the same name. Two different points of view, which, to outsiders appear to oppose one another, yet continue to both call themselves feminism, albeit with different prefixes. Liberal feminism and radical feminism, might seem like different ideologies to a feminist, but prog-rock and hard rock don’t appear much apart to a follower of baroque chamber music.
When I made the suggestion of re-branding, the small number of liberal feminists I was in routine contact with experienced a collective melt down, insisting that their own version was the “true feminism” and that all others were corruptions. I was roundly excoriated for my suggestion. However, since that minor controversy, my own viewpoint has changed based on an increased understanding of the ideology in it’s different versions, but still operating under that label.
For purpose of discussion, two main camps are identifiable, one which we can call liberal feminism, and the other, radical feminism. Liberal Feminism is the ideology most people are familiar with, and is, on it’s face, similar to a philosophy of humanism. This is the ideology’s great disguise. Superficial examination of liberal feminism reveals a drive toward equality of legal rights between men and women, a libertarian view of bodily autonomy, sexual self determination, and equal access to opportunity. These are all goals a humanist or a small-L libertarian would support, and which are represented in feminist literature written for a non-feminist general public. What differentiates liberal feminism from true humanism is that all these goals are taken in the context of patriarchy theory. That is the name of a specific dogma of the ideology of feminism.
According to wikipedia, Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination. In short, men rule society. The lack of veracity of this claim will be addressed shortly.
Patriarchy theory is not a theory in the scientific sense. It could be used to make testable predictions, such as a prediction that men receive favourable treatment by the criminal or the family courts, or that they die on the job at lower rates than women, or commit suicide a lower rates then women. However, if “patriarchy theory” were examined with any degree of intellectual rigour, it would be immediately discredited and forcibly discarded. The persistence of the idea as a foundation of feminism, and the aversion of feminist adherents to critical evaluation of this dogma suggests it is part of an ideology rather than a philosophy.
The difference between ideology and philosophy being a matter of rigidity and adaptability to conflicting data. In contrast with a philosophy, an Ideology starts from a fixed idea, deemed “the truth” and discards or suppresses nonconforming evidence. In spite of the untenability of the core doctrine of “patriarchy theory,” liberal feminism is the friendly face of the ideology, which when challenged uses the humanist goals of equal legal rights, bodily autonomy and other humanist ideas to diffuse suggestions that it is a supremacist hate movement.
By contrast, radical feminism is liberal feminism’s ugly, violent and politically potent big sister. The core views of this brand of feminist ideology are reflected in the writings of a number of feminist authors. Valerie Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto Susan Brownmiller’s Against Our Will being examples.
Radical feminism is unambiguously an ideology of violence, female supremacy and class hatred. Brownmiller wrote in 1971
Man discovered that his genitalia could serve as a weapon to prehistoric times, along with the use of fire and the first crude stone axe. From prehistoric times to the present, I believe, rape has played a critical function. It is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.
In this execrable passage, Brownmiller indicts every man on Earth for participation in a conspiracy to consciously brutalize and terrorize every woman. The author, who regularly writes for sites such as Huffington Post, still touts her authorship of this hate literature, with no apparent remorse or contrition. In comparison, Valerie Solanas’ manifesto is characterized by the opening declaration:
The male is a biological accident: the Y (male) gene is an incomplete X (female) gene, that is, it has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion, aborted at the gene stage. To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples.
However, as obviously hateful and reality-challenged as such views are, the ideology embracing and developing these doctrines is not at the fringe of the feminist movement. This radical version of feminism has built steadily on its foundation of relatively simple-minded hate, into a murderous, antihuman ideology of hatred and genocidal ambition. It is radical feminists, the ideological inheritors of Solanas, Brownmiller and Dworkin who now occupy tenured positions in major universities, who write white papers for the United Nations and who rewrite law and craft domestic policy. Radical feminism is the politically potent, mainstream and established flavor of the ideology.
Following the exposure of the contents of a clandestine radical feminist online message board, it has become evident that rather than marginal, politically impotent, low influence shut-ins, the individuals advocating sex-selective infanticide, mass murder and eugenics are published authors, advisors to government, and senior, tenured academicians. Indeed, the political and academic elite of western nations have been poisoned by an ideology of irrational, violent hatred toward half the population. While individual radical feminists refer derisively to moderate feminists as “fun feminists” – they absolutely depend on the humanist cover provided by these moderates who are in reality, a politically impotent minority.
This is the mask which must be stripped away if an agenda of apartheid and mass murder is to be avoided.
In Australia, a radical feminist conference named after Solanas’s manifesto for genocide was held between September 23-25th, 2011. Two members of the Radfem Hub and Radfem forum, Danielle Elina Pynnonen (Allecto) and her partner, Kat “Kitten Pinder (Amazon Mancrusher) organized and hosted the three day event in Perth, which they called the ‘SCUM Conference’. They billed it as:
[box type=”alert” icon=”none”]THRILL SEEKING FEMALES UNITE! Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore, this THREE DAY RADICAL FEMINIST CONFERENCE is for civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females who want to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.[/box]
For reference, Danielle Elina Pynnonen is the child-care worker who labeled a 9 year old boy in her care as “Mr Rape Threat,” and discussed the open desire to harm him and other male children in her care.
Quoting her comments on the rad-fem-hub site:
I honestly have been reassessing the fact that I am giving care to these little future rapists, and what that says about me and my separatism. I know it is kinda going against my principles to support and care for these little fuckers.
Kat Pinder is a former contestant on the TV show Big Brother, who was booted from the show for disruptive behavior and property damage. Evaluating the account provided by the online blog for the show, Pinder appears to be an individual afflicted by High Conflict Personality Disorder. Whether this is due to upbringing or malfunctioning brain chemistry is a matter of academic interest only. Surely a self entitled, personality disordered rich white girl is the one to tell the rest of the world how oppressed she is due to being daddy’s little princess.
However, although examination of these individuals reveals them as low integrity, personality damaged violent sociopaths, they align with ideological contemporaries who have conned their way into positions of public trust and authority all over the world.
This is reflected in a male-hostile environment in higher education[1], while female-favouring affirmative action admission policies and university-endorsed anti male hate-rallies combine to push male students out of school. To clarify, affirmative action is a pleasant-sounding name for a policy of discriminatory treatment of one demographic over another. It is a synonym for apartheid.
The success of the hate fuelled ideology of radical feminism is further evident in mainstream commentary excoriating and condemning masculinity as the source of all social pathology. This is so universally common the contained class hatred passes unnoticed without tedious and explicit explanation in each case. The UNICEF public literature on domestic violence identifies women and children as victims, and excludes men from any category besides perpetrators.
This reflects a picture in opposition to that provided by the majority of peer reviewed literature[3], which shows men and women coequally committing domestic abuse. For an institution as well funded and organized as UNICEF, this cannot be attributed to error or omission. Around North America, law enforcement policies and domestic policy are shaped by an ideologically driven, methodologically flawed “theory” of domestic violence which starts from the unexamined assumption that men are innately evil. This is called the duluth model[4], and despite it’s well known departure from credible research and statistical analysis of domestic violence, it’s application continues. The model focuses solely on the men’s use of violence in abusive relationships, rather than on the behavior of all parties concerned, as would be necessary for any model to be effective in violence reduction.
“Programs based on the Duluth Model may ignore research linking domestic violence to substance abuse and psychological problems, such as attachment disorders, traced to childhood abuse or neglect, or the absence of a history of adequate socialization and training.[5][6]
Donald Dutton is a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia who has studied abusive personalities. According to Dutton:
The Duluth Model was developed by people who didn’t understand anything about therapy.
An exhaustive list of examples would change the focus of this discussion, however, what is obvious from even the few listed is that the ongoing narrative of men as villains and perpetrators and women as eternal, permanent victims is a doctrine immune to contrary evidence, peer reviewed study or even common experience of men and women living in the real world. Whether argued from the camp of radical, kill-all-men feminism, or it’s politically correct cover version posing as humanism, the doctrine endorsing patriarchy has all the tenacity, the immunity from reason, the immunity from data and logic that characterize religious cults.
Radical or moderate adherents to this ideology are, it is increasingly obvious; followers of a religion. Here, of course, I am likely offending individuals who follow any of the primitive mythologies of the desert dwelling goat herders of the iron age mid-east. Taken as an example, Christianity is a death cult which worships the murdered human scapegoat of the rest of humanity’s transgressions. It’s mostly treated as normal by conformists in the continental United States. However, this relatively old cult is based on a scripture which makes as much objective sense as the Norse creation myth from the bones of the ice giant Ymir, the ancient greek, or the creation myths of native North American stone age humans.
The religion of feminism, whether radical or liberal, by adhering to “patriarchy theory” counter-indicated by male death rates on the job, suicide rates, lifespan, income disposal disposable etc; is similar to other fundamentalist cults by it’s persistence and the reality-denial of it’s adherents.
However, after recognition of what appears to be emotional attachment to dogma, another model besides religious conviction emerges. The established behavior in proponents of both the radical and liberal female-centrism of refuting male-rights argument with accusation, obfuscation, censure and goalpost mobility is explainable by emotional arrest.
An Insight to Motivation:
One of the ongoing campaigns of radical feminism, of reclassifying the physical expression of love and affection between adults as a violent crime has always been impenetrably confusing to this author. To exploit the human need for physical intimacy in men and women as a weapon for vilifying one half of the human race appears on surface examination; a deeply evil tactic. To re-label something beautiful as the ugliest of crimes seems a most depraved and vicious tool of political and legal leverage.
As an optimistic person, it was always difficult coming to terms with the idea that a large subset of the female population was possessed by such amoral malice and conscious will to do harm. The radical feminist view; that male sexual agency is inherently malicious, was very hard to explain without viewing it’s proponents as thoroughly vile. Alternative explanations such as prevalent dementia or intellectual failure, while more palatable than an explanation of evil, seemed far less probable.
However, in recent discussions posted at AVfM, I have on several occasions suggested the hypothesis that Western society provides scant, or no motivation for women to develop emotionally beyond a childish and selfish mode of pure self interest. Certainly, an emotionally immature mind is far easier to deceive and influence, which is why corporations like McDonalds, Coca-Cola, and RJ Reynolds Tobacco bend so much effort to market their products to children. Emotionally immature individuals are more malleable and easier to sell to.
This is why for at least several generations, a major fraction of adult females have operated with the singular self-interest and disregard for others of overgrown children. We provide no incentive, indeed substantial disincentive for women to grow up. Controlling a customer base through flattery, greed, envy and guilt is far easier than appealing to critical thinking or rational analysis. Similarly, love, affection and empathy take on substantially different characters in a mature adult’s mind than in an immature child.
An adult understanding of love and affection beyond the simple desire for self gratification means that expressed love through physical intimacy is perceived merely as satiation of appetite from an immature point of view. Seen through this lens, the feminist narrative that male/female sexual congress is oppressive and exploitive is suddenly comprehensible.
In addition, the radical feminist doctrine denying female adult agency and volition is also compatible with a model of emotionally arrested development.
A woman who has sex with a man, therefore, does so against her will, even if she does not feel forced. – Judith Levine
In a patriarchal society, all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent. Catharine MacKinnon
When a woman reaches orgasm with a man she is only collaborating with the patriarchal system, eroticizing her own oppression. Sheila Jeffrys
By the tenant of radical feminist doctrine, female agency and volition does not exist, and the illusion of the ability of a woman to make a self determined choice is an illusion used by “the patriarchy” to further oppress each woman.
This is not a new doctrine of radical feminism, but a persistent one. To an outsider to that ideology, it seems flatly absurd until and unless it is examined from the viewpoint that adult women may be emotionally infantile, and like children, controlled by a the parental influence of men. Men; who being responsible (for all evil) are mature and accountable adults. If this idea is tenable, then while men must shoulder all accountability for ill, they must also carry responsibility for good in the world. Indeed, in addition to human damage through history, almost all modern medicine, philosophy, science, art, literature, music, innovation, and the improvement over time of human living standards can be blamed squarely on men.
Taken to a logical conclusion, if radical feminists are correct, and females lack personal agency, then revocation of the rights of enfranchised adulthood must be immediately effected. Only a self determined and accountable adult can vote, own property, testify in a courtroom, hold public office, or be taken seriously in expression. Radical feminists must, if they are correct, immediately declare females the wholly owned chattels of the only responsible human beings, namely men.
As a humanist, a small L libertarian and a men’s rights advocate, I strongly disagree with this absence of individual agency in women. My relatively new understanding of culturally induced infantilism does provide a explanation of what previously appeared deeply malicious behavior. I also hope for and encourage women, self identifying feminists or not, to grow up.
Addendum: I will not be holding my breath in anticipation of this outcome.
[1] http://www.ccl-cca.ca/ccl/Reports/OtherReports/201104GenderReport.html
[2] http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2005-10-19-male-college-cover_x.htm
[3] http://csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
[4] http://www.theduluthmodel.org/about/index.html
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duluth_model
[6] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-abusers-02-jan02,0,1147422.story?page=2
[7] http://www.themensproject.ca/files/uploads/stfnetw_tmp2-files/menandhealingfinal.pdf
