Kitty Flanagan, it seems, has read a pamphlet on Feminism, and we’re supposed to be in awe of her genius. Watch this video if you can. It’s only about three minutes long, but a warning here that the logic really hurts.
http://youtu.be/8iADPHWoJb0
The comedian has a regular slot on Channel 10’s The Project. In this she is expected to make comedy of current events and is usually given a topic. This particular show sees Flanagan introduced as a “woman against women against Feminism.”
Flanagan is “a little light on the jokey jokes,” she tells us up front. From this we can deduce that although billed as a comedian she is actually a politically correct propagandist who attempts to make the medicine go down with a spoonful of laughter.
But tonight, the seriousness of the matter means that the humour can be dispensed with. The political is far more important than the mirth.
The introduction still gets a laugh, as does much of Flanagan’s material. The laughter, however, is more ironic jeering. They are most definitely laughing at the women against feminism rather than with them.
Let’s not forget these are the same morons who will tut-tut a rude facebook message and call it cyber-bullying, demanding a prison sentence for such behaviour.
Flanagan proposes to “explain Feminism to these misguided lasses.” What follows is a demonstration of sarcasm, rather than an explanation of anything. I felt that Flanagan was harsh, condescending, patronising, smarmy and rude. These women have sinned against the one true religion, and Flanagan intends to give them Hell.
Ironically, Flanagan attempts to point out these women’s ignorance by showing her own. The cheer squad, firmly aware of the Feminist dogma, laugh and applaud at the appropriate places without asking, for one moment, if any of these things could actually be true.
She first takes to task a woman who claims she has a successful career and is a mother. Flanagan, without any other information on the woman’s life whatsoever, decides that this couldn’t have happened without Feminism.
Flanagan makes no mention of the Industrial Revolution, without which any ordinary woman’s career would consist of a hard rural life. She would be well familiar, for example, in what it is like to strangle, behead, gut and skin something before she ate it. The myriad of inventions that allowed office work and service work (which makes up the majority of female occupations) don’t get a mention either.
Moreover, the husbands who work full-time, and sometimes two jobs, so that women can stay home don’t get any credit. Nor do the men whose taxes fund the government services that subsidise childcare and maternity leave.
Next, Flanagan wants to remind these nincompoops of the Suffragettes.
Without them you wouldn’t have the vote.
Flanagan’s ignorance of history here is astounding. There is no mention here of the Magna Carta, which began the process of Parliamentary rule in England, which eventually brought the Westminister system to Australia. Similarly, the men who died in many wars protecting those freedoms (at their various stages from 1200s to the present day), don’t get even a grudging nod.
Not only that, but Australian women had the vote in 1902, and Emmaline Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union, better known as the Suffragettes, was formed in 1903. Although it is true that women formed groups in Australia to promote voting for women, they did not resort to the tactics (which included firebombings) of their English counterparts and couldn’t properly be called Suffragettes.
It is also worth noting that the majority of British and German men dying in the trenches of World War One did not have the same voting rights as Australian women. They didn’t get the vote until 1918.
And, of course, we are all to ignore the obvious doublethink in declaring that women had no political voice, but it was the women who got the politicians to give them the vote.
One woman felt she doesn’t need feminism because “she has equality and her own voice.”
What do you reckon that is?
cries Flanagan, assuming that Feminism gave it to her. Here again we need to deal with the doublethink. Women need Feminism because they don’t have equality and a voice, yet this woman already has equality and a voice and that must be because Feminists have already given it to her.
Maybe it’s just a Patriarchal thing to want your time events linearly.
We then move on to credit cards and mortgages, which Flanagan claims were “not so long ago” unavailable to women. Again the history of banks and credit in the Western world is not as simple as Flanagan would have us believe. Banks have never handed out credit to every and any person who just walked in the door with a penis and a need for cash, and the number of official lending institutions, until recently, (ie not loan sharks) was small. No one without a savings history or collateral got finance.
These days, however, credit is handed out to anyone who can fill out a form. Did we forget the recent Great Financial Crisis? A lot of people blamed banks for giving people loans they could not repay.
But also, since the 1842 Mines Act in Britain, women were progressively taken out of all of the heavy, dirty and dangerous jobs (without Feminist complaint, I might add). In many cases, these were the best paying jobs, and up until the 1960s often the only jobs. Don’t forget that up until the 1960s, the Western world was the leading manufacturer. There were more jobs on factory floors than there were in offices.
There was also a Social Contract that evolved. Since women couldn’t do the heavy, dirty, dangerous work of construction, heavy manufacturing and mining, employers were coerced, by unions and governments alike, to give a working man a “living” wage, ie a wage that would support him, a wife and kids (again without Feminist complaint – it made “decent” alimony so much more affordable).
Throw into this picture the fact that men were legally responsible for their wives debts, and so would have put some pressure on banks not to sign them up for debts without their knowledge. Fair enough too.
In other words, women and credit was a much more complicated affair that Flanagan lets on.
One of the reasons that you can write your little sign is because education is available to everyone.
Again, we have a complete fiction masquerading as a fact. The implication here is that there was a time when state funded education was available to males only. This is utter nonsense.
The grain of truth Flanagan relies on goes back to the early 19th Century, when most university places were taken by males in Europe, including Britain. Let’s not forget that most people who had a job in those days, with the exceptions of medical doctors, lawyers and religious ministers, did not have a university degree. For those families who could afford the education (and most could not), the choice was usually taken to make an investment in a male child’s career.
This was not Patriarchy, as the likes of Flanagan would claim, but simply that most women, if sexually active, would produce lots of children. The technologies of birth control, baby formula as well as the lack of state funded childcare meant that women, regardless of how talented they might be, would have any potential career severely limited. Therefore investing in a male’s education made much more financial sense.
However, by the turn of the 20th century, as technologies began to solve these problems and business grew to require more administration and management, it was not uncommon for women to hold university degrees. Many of the Suffragettes were tertiary educated. Pankhurst herself was educated at the elite École Normale de Neuilly in Paris.
Flanagan’s piece has a surreal moment. Some women used the word “vagina” as a clear substitute for “woman” in there messages. Flanagan is clearly bothered with this, but doesn’t say why. For reasons that are not explained, this woman’s face, unlike all the other photographs shown, is deliberately blurred. They only other people who get this treatment are those who are awaiting the verdict of a trial.
Weird.
Lastly, to explain Feminism to these women, Flanagan has done some signs of her own, which are informative although not in the way I think she intended. The first sign says:
Shut up you idiots
Flanagan promptly disowns the sign she just held up. This seems to be an attempt to remove all responsibility from Flanagan for calling the women idiots. This, of course, is the first true expression of Feminism: There are no consequences for Feminists.
The second sign is more in line with Feminist dogma:
Feminism is about choice.
Of course, we’ve just had a smarmy lecture culminating in “Shut up you idiots” for those who chose against Feminism. Is a choice of one any choice at all?
Choice, ladies. Be grateful you have it.
Yes, choose Feminism or go to the corner until you realise your mistake. When you’ve thought about your behaviour you can choose again.
Feminism is about social, political and economic equality.
No, Feminism is about rewriting history so that women are always perceived as victims and underdogs.
There is a bit at the end which is worth watching if you can make it that far. Sometime ago, I wrote about Charlie Pickering and his claim that five out of every three women get beaten or raped. Charlie Pickering, for those who don’t know, is the clown who introduces Flanagan at the beginning of the show.
Look at the end, when the camera cuts from Flanagan back to the Project Team. Pickering has his fist raised in what looks like a salute to Flanagan’s piece.
If you think it is just rhetoric to refer to Feminism with a capital “F” and describe it as religious zealotry look again at Pickering with the raised fist salute as the rest clap and cheer. I would call the look on his face “triumphant”.
Links
http://au.avoiceformen.com/legal/domestic-violence/charlie-pickering-five-out-of-every-three/
