Elizabeth Farrelly: Violence against logic

Elizabeth Farrelly, in the Sydney Morning Herald, asked the question “Is Feminism only as strong as the men who support it?” The article itself is something that only the brave should read. Farrelly’s diatribe is all over the place like a mad woman’s excrement.

A wink, at least from Tony Abbott, is as bad as a multiple murder (by Elliott Rodger) to a one-eyed Feminist. She goes from Australia to the US via the UK, but also visits “Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Algeria.” All these places, the wink, the killings and more are linked by a common theme – “misogyny.”

The word misogyny has been overworked lately, but men’s hatred for women who won’t submit is everywhere.

Yes the word has been overworked, but there is still plenty of mileage in the accusation. The evidence for this misogyny is provided in these island hops of logic as she moves from theme to theme. She moves quickly, I feel, because even the most rudimentary investigation would uncover the accusation as false.

Take, for example, Tony Abbott and that wink.

But the wink! So much callow unthought in a single gesture; so much of the unearned superiority that brought the planet to its knees in the first place and could still send us to a fiery climate-change hell.

Yes! Armageddon in a facial gesture. No need for deconstruction. It is too absurd for words.

We get a quick summary of the murders by Elliot Rodger and how that was misogyny in action. She explains that, in his anti-woman rage, he killed six “people.” Of course, killing twice as many men as he did women is not a fact that Farrelly would want to dwell on. The implications for her hypothesis are not good. She’ll stick with “people.”

She also references the kidnapping of the Nigerian schoolgirls by the Boko Haram group. As Mark Dent points out in his article on AVfM Australia recently, this same group committed an atrocious gender-based murder on a far greater scale that that of Rodger. 58 boys and young men were hacked, shot and burned to death, while all the girls at that school were allowed to go free. For Farrelly, of course, only the plight of females is worth outrage.

Again and again she cherry picks her examples, wrings out all the angst she can, then moves on before anyone can question the legitimacy of her claims.

To give her ramblings some gravitas, she cites a Jackson Katz, noting that he has a Ph. D. so that we are all suitably impressed. He is a “gender-violence educator.”

His TED talk shows how easily ”John beats Mary” becomes ”Mary is a battered woman”. As though we’re saying something about Mary, not something about John.

Here is a man who is the perfect example of the pot calling the kettle a pot. In his talk, he explains how people wrongly think that “gender” issues and “women’s” issues are one and the same.

As if men don’t have a gender.

Note that he is a “gender-violence” educator who has only interest in “violence against women.” He speaks the same language as Farrelly – the Feminist Sacred Babble.

So while he and Farrelly complain about Mary being termed a battered woman, they both are more than happy making careers out of Mary’s battered woman status.

Let me explain. John beating Mary is simply a matter for the police and the courts. If John did beat Mary, John should go to jail. Mary being a battered women, however, means more than just John beat Mary, or John might have beaten Mary, or a social worker thinks that John might have threatened to beat Mary.

It means that Mary can’t leave John, and Mary can’t go to the authorities, and Mary can’t give evidence against John, and Mary is just powerless to do anything and John is an evil tyrant and everyone knows it and secretly approves of it. It means Patriarchy.

It means a Feminist Funding Frenzy in which people like Katz get paid to speak across the country and Farrelly gets paid to write her hand-wringing articles on Mary’s plight.

Of course, there are no Marys beating up any Johns. And there’s no discussion that, as individuals, a John is far more likely to be on the receiving end of violence than a Mary.

And what do the likes of Katz and Farrelly do for Mary?

Nothing.

But it is here that Farrelly gets stuck. Because Katz, for all his supposedly great insights, empathy and activism on Feminism’s behalf, is a man. It is here she asks if Feminism relies on the strength of men. Thus, for Farrelly, “the future is bleak.”

Expecting men to share power is like expecting state governments to validate local ones.

I include that quote merely to remind you of the vacuousness of her thought. Please, don’t try to work out which state governments have put which local governments in a status that would allow them to exist but not be valid. Earlier, she had this to say on women’s power:

Women’s power is different in kind, as well as gender; earthier, broader, more intuitive.

So, does men’s power also have a gender? Is that something that can be shared between genders? Do all men have this power? Is it something that they collectively hold, or is it something that can be held by one man?

I doubt it is the power of the man who regularly collects her garbage for her not-valid local government. No, there is no need for equality or power sharing there, mate. Farrelly will let you handle the smelly stuff all on your own.

Although I doubt the intention was to ask a serious question about the nature of Feminism, clearly she does. Because, for all of her talk of strong, independent, “dangerous” women, Farrelly is resolutely lying on her fainting couch with more dropped handkerchiefs than a White Knight could tie to his lance. This sister ain’t doing nothin’ for herself.

Will no good men come and take all this misogyny away? Preferably without too much noise or fuss, and at a time that is convenient. Perhaps they could do it overnight, so that when Farrelly arouses herself, it will all simply be gone as though a bad dream.

But, it’s also a question that Katz should be asking himself. Clearly he believes he has, and is answering the call. But, more specifically, Katz should be asking what happens when he is no longer useful.

Perhaps Katz should look more closely at Farrelly’s statement on men not sharing power. She doesn’t say some men. Clearly, she doesn’t think Katz will “share power” any more than Tony Abbott would. Therefore, ultimately, once his usefulness has expired, he needs to be thrown under the bus along with the rest of us.

Feminism, the radical view that women are people, threatens no one.

No one? At best, she means “no one who agrees wholeheartedly with Feminism.” Cleary “John” and his ilk are under immediate threat. In fact, in many countries Mary can get John locked up without any evidence that he beat Mary. She can definitely ensure that John never sees his kids again without a shred of evidence.

And, if Mary kills John, she can claim that he beat her and they’ll let her off scot-free.