Editor’s note: This article is also available in Romanian.
1. The dictionary definition of feminism runs as follows: “The doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.” This definition is inadequate owing to the problematic nature of the term “equality,” which has no stable meaning outside the realm of mathematics. Consequently, the meaning can forever be refreshed, reframed or updated so that new demands for “equality” can always be put forward. There will never be enough “equality,” and feminism will never go out of business because it will always find new “inequality” in need of correction.
2. Feminism’s binding principle and driving force is disaffection toward men and maleness. This is arrayed on a spectrum, with mild disenchantment to the lower end, and vitriolic animosity, bordering on psychopathic, to the upper. If disaffection toward men, as men, did not exist in the world generally, then feminism itself would not exist. Feminism is not driven by vehemence about mere issues and abstract principles. Its politics are rooted in personal feelings about men. Feminism’s political, you might say, is personal. And so personal emotion is the only thing that keeps feminism in motion.
3. Feminism divides broadly into two cultural cohorts: Academic feminism (more intellectual), and pop feminism (less intellectual). These make opposing ends of a polarity, with a continuum stretching between them. Feminism as a whole needs both the academic and the pop cohorts. The academic cohort is needful so that feminism will have an intellectual vanguard — so that the snake will have a head, in other words. The pop cohort is needful so that the vanguard ideology will be demographically incarnated in numbers — so that the snake will have a body, in other words. Sophisticated ideas originate from the academic cohort, and trickle down to the pop cohort by the process of popularization.
4. At any point on the academic-pop continuum, you will find feminists from any point on the disaffection spectrum. Simply observe that the identical range of viciousness shows up at every intellectual level. Along with viciousness comes irrationality or intellectual dishonesty. All of this is transparent among the undisciplined pop feminists, but concealed under layers of erudite doubletalk among the academics.
5. Feminism at large should be understood as a social organism. The bottom line, is a division of functions which generates the illusion that “feminism is not monolithic.” That cliché is either true or false, depending on how you apply the term “monolithic.” It is true that feminism has many brands, flavors, schools of thought, “aspects,” and so on. In that regard, it is anything but monolithic. But when you consider that these different manifestations combine toward a common purpose as the parts of an organism or mechanism would do, then feminism emerges as One Thing — hence “monolithic.” Accordingly, so far as we are concerned, feminism is indeed monolithic.
6. Several counter-feminist (or reality-based) definitions of feminism have been proposed, all of which point in the same general direction. One of these runs as follows: “Feminism is the project to increase the power of women.” When you consider this alongside the dictionary definition (which describes feminism as a quest for “equality”) and when you consider that “equality” is a mirage shimmering always out of reach, it is easy to see that chasing so-called “equality” ad infinitum, will only increase the power of women ad infinitum. But to increase the power of women, you must increase it in relation to something, and that “something” can only be men. So by its inherent logic, the feminist project can only be the project to put women in a state of power supremacy over men. In sum, therefore, feminism is female supremacism.
7. Feminism’s most effective safeguard against discovery is to ridicule the very idea that it (feminism) is female supremacist, and to mock whoever might advance such an idea. Such words as “paranoid” or “misogynistic” will typically be employed to this end.
8. The project to increase women’s power does not positively require disaffection toward men. But without it, the project would face a practical limit — to wit, the constraint that mutuality and unselfish regard for the other might impose. Yet sweep all that aside and you can pave the road of depredation as far as your lack of scruples will carry you. Indeed, that is where disaffection toward men comes in handy, and where the project to increase female power hits no glass ceiling of any kind.
9. Advocacy for women’s interests, in whatever form, will naturally increase female advantage and thereby increase female power. Yet the advocates involved in such work needn’t feel any conscious hostility toward men. They need only carry on industriously, disavow anti-male sentiments, and draw attention away from high-disaffection feminists by such distracting statements as “not all feminists are like that,” or “I’m not that kind of feminist,” or “those people are only fringe extremists.” At times, they will deny that such feminists are even feminists at all. Still, the latter will continue to exist, and to do what they do, while their milder sisters look the other way.
10.The proclivity of feminism is to grow in the direction of greater female empowerment. In so doing, it initiates changes in the surrounding world. These changes create endless new obstacles to the female empowerment project, and force endless modifications to feminist policy in order to overcome said obstacles. At times, these modifications will involve changing the rules of the game altogether. There is no help for this, for if feminism operated from a fixed and finite set of rules, this would leave degrees of freedom that would permit male autonomy to operate. And this, in turn, would set an absolute upper limit on female empowerment. Code-switching, from one code of rules to another, is therefore an inherent feature of feminism as a social organism.
11. Feminist code-switching operates through space as well as through time, since at any given moment an indefinite number of distinct feminist rule systems, planet-wide, are found to be operating. This is quite understandable, given that women differ greatly as to taste, inclination, personality, station in life, and so on. Hence, their exact empowerment needs will differ, and each must employ a suitable code of rules.
12. Feminism’s being is identical with its being-in-motion. Feminism, as a social organism, must either grow perpetually or die. “Perpetual Revolution” is the name we have given to this condition.
