Control of the discourse, and forcing fantasy onto reality.
This week, aside from the routine claims by establishment zombies that men defending their human rights must necessarily be doing so out of a desire to subjugate, marginalize and oppress everyone else, I was entertained to see new group of actors piling on, claiming as loudly as possible that they were in no way associated with human rights activists arguing for the rights of men and boys. In the words of these new players:
- “MRAs are charlatans”
- “MRAs are even scummier than rad-scum”
- “MRAs want to oppress everyone”
Of course, this hatred from self-identified radical feminists is understandable and expected. These are after all the same ideologues whose public literature calls for eugenics, male targeting infanticide, and systematic child abuse.
However, from communities outside radical feminism, the irrational fear of men doing anything other than dutifully sacrificing themselves on behalf of others seems to be spreading. The online trans-activist community appears to have been infected by this reactionary drivel, which is unfortunate. The possibility that some of this public vilification of men’s activists is actually posturing, attempting to win approval from avowedly male-hating radical feminists has crossed my mind before. I have avoided saying so because such motivation seems almost too silly to credit, although it has been raised as an explanation by commenters other than myself on AVfM recently.
However, just as the MRA community, while is seeks to address anti male discrimination in the courts, education system, employment and elsewhere is not populated by a representative sample of “all men”, the trans-activist community isn’t necessarily composed of a representative sample of all trans-identified individuals.
The possible motivation to ingratiate trans-rights activism into acceptance in radical-feminist circles seems like a sucking up to the class bully in hopes of avoiding that bully’s attention.
Although the radical feminist community has not been consistent, a thread of distinct hatred towards trans-identified women has an established legacy in radical feminist discourse. When I first encountered this among radical scribblings, it puzzled me greatly. Weren’t trans-activists and lesbian separatist feminists natural allies? Surely – in their respective cosmologies, a struggle against the over-arching “patriarchy” would unite these two groups.
Since then my own understanding of how “patriarchy” works has broadened significantly. Far from the self-serving conception of a near magical and omnipresent conspiracy squashing all women and elevating all men; so called patriarchy is a grossly incomplete model mis-attributing cause and effect, and largely ignoring the utility to women of cultivated feminine non-agency[1][2][3][4]. This male-elevating patriarchy claimed by gender ideologues being the same one which somehow manages to kill more men than women, creates more male suicides than women (4:1), more male workplace deaths, combat deaths, higher male unemployment, et-cetera.
In spite of the appearance of natural alliance between radical feminists and transexual activists, the seemingly illogical hatred towards trans-sexed individuals has a rational source. The key to understanding this lies in two doctrines which although mutually exclusive, are each of utility in justifying rad fem hatred of transexuals. The first of these is the doctrine of the social construction if sexual identity. In this concept, male and female identities are deemed to be entirely learned, and that human identity begins as a blank slate. This is the same ideology which informed the decision of the parents of a boy named David Reimer, who was raised as a girl.
Reimer was mutilated during routine infant circumcision, and the decision taken by his parents was to simply amputate the remains of his genitals, and raise him as a female. At age 15, Reimer rejected his socially conditioned female identity, re-identified himself as male, but suffered from extreme depression for the rest of his life – finally killing himself at age 39.
Despite the empirical fallacy of the doctrine of socially constructed sexual identity, it is given continued currency by radical feminists, because it provides justification for hate. If sexual identity is entirely constructed, then non-conforming sexual identity can be deemed pathological, subject to “correction” through conditioning or medication, or simply criminalized.
The existence of trans-sexed individuals, those whose physical body, whether male or female; does not align with their internal sense of self, creating what is termed sexual dysphoria – the natural existence of such individuals DE-legitimizes a substantial body of the core dogma of gender ideologues. This is one of the reasons for what seems on it’s surface to be irrational resistance from radical feminists against recognition of the gender identity of trans-identified individuals.
The other doctrine, which although it cannot logically coexist in a consistent belief system is the idea of womyn-born-womyn. This is gender essentialism, another word for the doctrine that feminine sexual identity is chromosomal. The utility of this dogma is that it provides a pseudo-scientific basis for the sexual supremacy of much radical feminist thinking.
Whatever quasi academic language this idea is couched in, it is a re-iteration of Solanas’s rhetoric; that the Y chromosome is a defective X chromosome, and that maleness is a deficiency, or defect. Thus, the quasi-scientific justification for female supremacy is given the appearance of academic credibility, at least for the scientifically illiterate. This provides a rationalization for such rhetoric as the now infamous radical hub call for male exterminating eugenics, as written by Simon and Schuster novelist Pamela O’Shaughnessy. Hi Pam.
Obviously, these two doctrines are mutually exclusive, which is why they are rarely argued at the same time, except by the sloppiest and intellectually laziest of gender ideologues. However, these two doctrines are switched back and forth by radical feminists dependent on what justification is called for, or what abrogation of the human rights of outsiders needs justification.
These two dogmas, and the facility with which they are used to prop up what would otherwise be ethically untenable arguments from gender ideologues also serve to illustrate why the apparent alliance between those gender ideologues and the gay, bisexual or transexual activists appears to outsiders so utterly self destructive on the part of those gay, bi or trans activists.
However, the MRM, while it is not condemning of gay, bisexual, or trans-gender rights activism is not an explicitly pro-gay, bi, or trans-activist movement. In particular, transexual activist writing does not find a home on strongly pro MRM sites like AVfM, not because trans-identified individuals are unwelcome, but because the rhetoric of a significant fraction of trans-activist writing uses the language of violence.
Taken as an example; following comments made by a gender ideologue named Cathy Brennan whose views are strongly biased against trans-identified individuals, some trans activist websites circulated a photoshoped image of a can of insect repellant, modified to read: “Rid-fem :kills radfems instantly”.
Whether this style of rhetoric is informed by a real desire to do harm, or by immature idiocy is an open question. It’s already true that men declaring themselves human beings of worth outside their utility to others are accustomed to an endless torrent of accusations of violence, rape-apologism and other imputed malice. Because of the character of much trans-activist rhetoric, it is unwelcome within men’s rights circles. The trans community will have to demonstrate some maturity before any larger non dysfunctional activist community accepts them as allies. It may be the shared roots with radical feminists which informs the violent and occasionally frivolous content of trans-activist writing.
Much radical feminist rhetoric continues to advocate the organized large scale use of sexual violence as well as killing, and that community appears as-yet unable to self-regulate.
In spite of the often absurd and frequently violent rhetoric from trans-activist as well as radical feminist writing, those communities show no reluctance to repeatedly fall to the infantile and frankly craven tactic of imputed malice – leveled against anyone who doesn’t slavishly agree with whatever half-reasoned demand is made.
Imputation of malice being a dishonest but effective rhetorical tactic to attempt to force non-conformists or philosophical opponents to refute or disprove any vile accusations hurled at them. Whatever argument is being made is derailed by the intellectually lazy practice of accusation of misogyny, oppression, violence, hatred, etc…
In response to release of files by an individual known as Agent Orange; detailing violence advocacy by some gender ideologues, some within the online trans community have taken to using the twitter hash-tag OrangeIsPatriarchy.
As that short-format micro-blogging application’s limit of 140 characters concentrates thoughts down to a semi-literate essence, it should surprise nobody to see such concentrated intellectual laziness, dishonesty and hatred.
However, the regular quacking of accused misogyny and woman-hating remains, for the moment the most popular of these imputations of malice. Also, because of the seeming immaturity of many whose rhetoric employes fallacy of malevolence; the following explanation is included.
Editor’s note:
The remainder of this article is written in simplified language. This has been done in an effort to be intellectually accessible to gender ideologues, and to others who may suffer learning disabilities, brain injury or other cognitive malfunction.
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Feminism is not a group of people. It is an ideology.
That’s a thing formed from ideas.
Many MRAs (men’s rights activists) oppose the ideology of feminism.
Feminists, those who believe in feminism, are people.
But they are special people, convinced the ideas of feminism must be true.
Even though feminists are people, who they are, and what they think, are separate things.
Who you are is your identity. You cannot easily change this.
What you think are your thoughts. Your thoughts change all the time.
This is true for other people too. People’s ideas and people’s identities are not the same things.
Some feminists pretend their selves and their ideas are the same thing. To them, disagreement with their ideas is the same as hatred of themselves.
Of course it is harder defend an idea than to cry out : “you hate me”.
Some feminists like to do what is easier, so they become skilled at saying “you hate me”.
They are good at this, and many observers have forgotten that their crying is fake.
They make an awful racket, and they have been doing so for many years. This ruckus is quite disturbing to everybody else.
Many other people also like to do what is easy.
For them, it is easier to give in to children throwing tantrums than to correct their error.
This is the error in which disagreement is the same thing as hatred.
By contrast, some people don’t want to do what is easier.
They prefer to do what is right.
When cranky children say: “you hate me” these individuals don’t take the easy way out. They don’t simply give those children whatever they demand.
Unlike things formed from ideas, women are people.
They are human beings, like you, and like me.
Hatred of people based on their identity has a special word. That word is bigotry.
Because they are people, hatred of women has a special word too. That word is misogyny.
When that word is used to describe disagreement with ideas, it is used incorrectly.
Pretending disagreement is the same as hate is a trick. It is a trick to cultivate shame, or to silence those who disagree. This trick is easier than forming logical arguments around an idea. Sadly, this trick is dishonest and lazy.
Some people are in love with their own ideas. These people know that there is a difference between themselves and their ideas. But they do not defend their ideas.
Instead, they pretend disagreement with those ideas is hate against themselves.
Some people are so much in love their own ideas, they become confused.
This confusion causes them to mix up what is themselves, and what is an idea.
When faced by disagreement, these people become angry and upset. For them, disagreement with an idea is the same as hate against themselves.
This is because they have mixed themselves up.
They have forgotten that themselves and their ideas are not the same things.
For these people, pretending disagreement is actually hate diverts attention away from their ideas.
It sometimes even distracts others if those ideas are not very good.
Bad ideas can be sheltered by distracting those who disagree.
Claiming “you hate me” or “you hate women” is dishonest and lazy, but it works well as a change of topic.
Some people who play this game of distractions are filled with hate.
Hate, for them, is a special kind of fear.
Those people filled with fear and hate will hide themselves behind their game of pretend.
So, they say those who disagree with them are also full of hate.
This is easier for them than being honest.
This game also gives them an excuse to play the role of victim.
When they talk, it sounds just like this:
you just hate women! you’re a misogynist!
To adults, these people seem to be dishonest and tiresome liars.
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More writing on The Patriarchy by TyphonBlue:
[1] http://www.avoiceformen.com/men/mens-issues/patriarchy-is-the-oppression-of-men/
[2] http://www.avoiceformen.com/men/mens-issues/feminine-surrender-as-emotional-dominance/
[3] http://www.avoiceformen.com/women/domestication-of-the-human-male/
and also by JtO:
[4] http://www.avoiceformen.com/sexual-politics/the-feminine-use-of-male-dominance/
