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Protesters are threatening to kill us, other guests and hotel staff at the Detroit Conference: here’s how you can help
2 JunFive rights feminism delivered for women, but doesn’t want to share with anyone else
22 Jan
Modern feminism, with its incessant whining and complaining and victim proclamations has quite rightly come under increasing fire not only from sites like this one, but in the mainstream media, too.
The recent brouhaha surrounding Jezebel placing a $10 000 bounty on Lena Dunham’s head, demanding to see the unretouched photos from her recent Vogue shoot, serves as an illustration of just how far feminism has strayed from its original roots. In a fit of mean-girl spite to make Regina George herself blush, Jezebel was absolutely positive that Vogue had grossly retouched Dunham, because there is no way she is actually that pretty. Lena is ugly! Let’s prove how ugly that bitch is! Someone get me the unretouched photos, stat! Here’s $10 000 for the favor.
Charming. Turns out Vogue hadn’t retouched Lena all that much, and Jezebel ended up looking like exactly the group of bitter, jealous cunts they are. And “good, it’s about time” is all I can say to that.
With feminism seeming to be on a self-destruct cycle all of its own, I thought this might be a good time to reflect on the good things feminism has accomplished and then ponder just why it is that feminism doesn’t want those gains to be extended to everyone?
Could it be that feminism isn’t about equality at all, but more about power and dominance?
Let’s investigate.
1. The right to reproductive freedom
Margaret Sanger and Otto Bobsein are credited with coining the term “birth control” and were early proponents of the wide spread adoption of family planning.
By the 1960s the birth control pill was available for women and unleashed a social revolution that broke the bonds between sex and reproduction. The ability to choose motherhood yet still have sex offered women a freedom that had never been possible for all of human history, and women took full advantage of that freedom. Freedom given to them by mostly male scientists, by the way.
Women had the children they wanted, when they wanted them.
The 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court Decision further solidified women’s reproductive rights, allowing them to abort children they did not want before they were born.
Recent attacks on abortion rights are rightly seen as an affront to womankind itself. The right to choose parenthood is absolutely essential if women are to realize their full human potential.
That is not a statement that is contested with any vigor by feminists. Planned parenthood. There can be no other way.
Curious, then, that the push to make parenthood a choice for all humans is resisted by feminists specifically. Amanda Marcotte, writing for The Raw Story is completely dismissive of that half of humanity which would also like the right to choose parenthood.
There are absolutely writers who question why feminism appears to be concerned only with women’s choice, but few will venture further than curiosity.
What is it about feminism that insists women must have the right to summarily confiscate male assets while retaining the absolute right to choose for themselves whether they will dedicate any resources at all to parenthood?
Equality seems to have gone missing from the argument.
2. The right to have rape taken seriously
Caveat: let’s keep in mind that raping white women, or even the allegation of having done so, was always a serious crime when the defendant happened to be a black man. It was generally punishable by death.
In 1793, 17-year-old Lanah Sawyer was pushed into a brothel and raped by a seemingly respectable man who had taken her for a walk in the streets of New York. In court, her assailant’s attorney said she had basically consented to sex when she agreed to go walking with him, and warned the jury against placing “the life of a citizen in the hands of a woman.” The man was acquitted.
By the 1970s, the National Organization for Women was busy drawing attention to the leniency most rapists received and the brutal questioning victims were forced to endure.
The Oscar-winning film The Accused, starring Jody Foster as a drunk woman who was gang-raped on a pool table as bar patrons watched was a watershed moment that convinced Americans that rape was a serious crime and that perpetrators deserved to be punished.
The subsequent rape-hysteria of contemporary feminism is not the topic of this post, but I will remind readers that rape hysteria is utterly out of control. As if you needed such a reminder, right?
What I am interested in is the curious phenomena of feminists dismissing male rape statistics and willfully ignoring the fact that boys are raped more often than girls. Not to mention giggling over actual cases of male rape.
Feminism succeeded in making rape a serious crime. When the victim is a woman.
Why then is feminism so reluctant to extend the same sympathy and legal protections to male victims that are afforded female victims? And just to be clear, I don’t mean sympathy extended by the courts or the general public. I mean sympathy extended by feminists, who insist that every woman who claims she has been raped must be believed, no matter how fanciful or spurious the claim.
What is that about? Again, it doesn’t look much like equality from where I sit.
3. The right to have mental health issues taken seriously
Anxiety, depression, despair, hopelessness, traumatic responses to events long passed, anorexia and suicidal thoughts were often thought to be the product of women’s innate hysteria, often relieved through the thoughtful (ahem) application of vibrating machines (double ahem) applied to a woman’s genitals (holy ahem!).
Feminists worked hard to demonstrate that women’s mental health issues were linked inextricably to their life circumstances, and rightly so. Simply dismissing the despair of some women as inherent to women was grossly insulting and reductionist.
Interestingly enough, our modern feminist sisters have no problem claiming that men’s mental health issues are inherent to men and masculinity: it is the very concept of “manhood” that creates mental illness. Describing men as “emotionless dickbots”, Anna North proposes that all masculinity needs is a good dose of shame.
But do men need, in addition, “a positive, masculine gender identity?” It’s something of a strange concept — few feminists would ever say that women needed “a positive, feminine gender identity.” While plenty of women take pride in being female, “femininity” is so loaded with patriarchal expectation that, for feminists, it’s kind of a dirty word. This may not be a bad thing — in fact, I’d argue that “masculine” should go the same way.
What is going on here? Women have genuine, human emotional problems that are most certainly not the simple result of being women, but mental health problems in men is proof of “toxic masculinity”?
Really?
Interesting.
4. The right to NOT be assumed natural caregivers
Feminists have long railed against the stereotype that women are “naturally more loving” than men, and therefore better suited to be caregivers for small children.
Of course, these very same women hire other women to care for their children when they are occupied with something more important, and are reluctant to even contemplate hiring an occasional babysitter who is male, but we’ll ignore the inconsistency for the moment.
If women have no innate advantage over men when it comes to caring for small children, why then are feminist organizations so opposed to shared parenting and automatic joint custody when parental relationships fail?
What’s up with that? Are men and women equally suited to be providers of care, or are they not?
5. The right to genital integrity
Feminism has worked hard to lift the veil on the grotesquely cruel practice of genital mutilation, but only if the genitals in question are of the female variety.
Indeed, some feminist websites openly mock men for being anti-circumcision, claiming the “intactivist” movement arises because men feel the “world revolves around their dicks”.
As opposed to all those mutilated girls who probably think the world revolves around their vaginas?
Circumcision: only cruel when it’s done to girls.
What are we to make of this curious state of modern feminism?
Reproductive rights, but only for women.
Rape awareness, but only when women are victims.
Mental health awareness, but only when women are affected.
Assumption of natural caregiving ability, but only when the option is to have a man care for children.
Genital integrity, but only for girls.
How can anyone possibly see feminism as a movement to achieve equality between men and women when feminist organizations and individuals actively work to ensure that the hard fought rights their older feminist sisters won apply to women, and women only?
I personally think it’s important to separate modern feminists from their historical counterparts. When we critique feminism, I think we should make it clear that we are critiquing modern feminism. Some might argue that the current state of affairs is not a bug of the feminist system, but a feature: that feminism intended to end up exactly where we are. I’m not convinced that is a productive conversation to have.
I think we can celebrate the triumphs of feminism while being wholly and deeply critical of the limitations. There is no room left to maneuver in modern feminism.
The rights women have gained for women now need to be extended to everyone. Reproductive freedom, the right to make rape accusations and be given a fair trial, the right to have mental health issues taken seriously, the right to be assumed a loving caregiver and the right to genital integrity.
You won’t find those issues championed at NOW or Ms. or feministing or Jezebel or any other mainstream feminist media site.
But you will find them championed here.
Feminists have completed their work and now have nothing to do but circle their wagons and try to keep others from achieving the same rights.
Well, when they’re not busy calling other women ugly and paying $10 000 for proof of just how ugly.
Fuck feminism. It’s over.
The game is now ours. And we will fight for every last right.
For everyone.
Lots of love,
JB
A list of things that annoyed me today
25 SepFor those of you that follow me on Twitter, you may have seen a note my son’s second grade teacher sent home with him. He was asked to draw a pattern, so he drew bone-DNA-bone-DNA-bone-DNA. Little bones and tiny helixes to represent DNA. It is pretty cool, for a tiny little urchin. The teacher thought so, too.
Oh, I’m so glad she’s in charge of teaching contractions to the little ones. I hope she gets her union negotiated pay raise completely unrelated to how she does her job.
The next day, LittleDude brought home a spelling test. He spelled egg EEG and still got perfect.
Why am I not homeschooling my kids again? Actually, Pinkie did not attend formal school until she was 9 years old. She was afraid of being away from me, and I didn’t feel she was going to learn anything particularly useful in the first few years anyways, so I taught her to read and do what I thought was pretty basic math at home. She had a good handle on multiplying and dividing fractions and was fascinated by prime numbers.
Oh, oops. That’s the curriculum for the eighth grade around here. Kids are capable of so much more than what they are mandated to learn in school. It’s a bit of a joke. LittleDude, like his father, is an intensely social person. He loves the presence of other kids, especially other boys, and he is bored out of his mind at home with just his sister and adults for company.
So I send him to school. Where they give him perfect grades for doing it wrong.
Le sigh. Well, his teacher is very kind. I suppose that counts for something, no? She didn’t like it when I sent her a note explaining that my son wouldn’t be doing any homework, because it has absolutely no impact on learning outcomes in the primary grades and only teaches him to hate pointless “busywork”. He’s only seven! He’s going to learn a whole more from this awesome book of maps than he will ever learn at school.
A moment of praise for authors who write books aimed at boys who enjoy being boys! Enough with the huggy-kissy crap. Bring on the adventure and survival challenges!
So begins this delightful illustrated novel and the thrilling adventures of Chuck Duganheroic, resourceful, a great swimmer, and master of disguise. In each cliffhanging chapter, Chuck must grapple with a new set of dangers, from sunken ships and buccaneers to survival on open water and a final race to the treasure ahead of the Admiral and his boys. Illuminated throughout with detailed maps of places, people, and things Chuck encounters along the way, and written with an electric sense of daring-do and whimsy, Eric Chase Anderson creates a totally original and captivating hero, and a swashbuckling adventure story for all ages.
I’m going to have cut short my post today for the second thing that really annoyed me. I attempted to submit my first assignment containing an outline of the more detailed literature review I will be conducting as I prepare to gather the data for my PhD, and it turns out I can’t do that until I have completed the mandatory library tutorial.
Are you fucking kidding me? I have two degrees already, as does almost everybody enrolled in PhD programs, and you think I don’t know how to use the fucking library? Is this kindergarten? A mandatory tutorial? It’s going to take me three hours to complete it, and the biggest joke is that I just spent an afternoon teaching the actual reference librarian how to conduct searches where established models and terms are borrowed and applied in other disciplines.
Try searching for “big data”, “cluster analysis” and “mining”. I want to see how Porter’s extension of agglomeration effects catalyzes the collection of big data with a mining cluster. Unless you know that “big data” in this context means “business intelligence analytics” and you want to eliminate the phrase “data mining”, you are going to be awash in technical papers. Yes, it’s total bullshit that in an effort to appear legitimate, business researchers borrow concepts like “agglomeration” and “cluster analysis” from more rigorous disciplines like computer science and biology and mathematics, but the point is, you can find what you’re looking for if you know how to sub-search the databases correctly.
But please, waste three hours of my life explaining to me what a “keyword” is, and how to use “Boolean” operators.
Assholes.
Here’s another thing that really annoyed me. I read the column while waiting for the washer to complete the spin cycle and then emailed it to myself and then read it again, and it STILL irritates the shit out of me.
Apparently, the NFL doesn’t like people bringing small bags into the stadiums, ostensibly because they present a “security threat” and it slows down admissions when bags have to be randomly searched. The real reason is more likely that people like to avoid paying $12 for a pint of beer, so they use the bags to smuggle in their own beverages and food.
Men have been banned from bringing in knapsacks and courier bags for a long time. Now that more and more women are attending games, the NFL has banned women’s large purses, which is obviously SEXIST because women NEED their purses.
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/24/the_nfls_ban_on_purses_is_sexist/
Note that small bags are allowed, so you can bring your wallet and phone and some extra tampons should Aunt Flo be visiting. Cue the shrieking bitches who are entitled to bring their purses because all vaginas must carry purses and men don’t need purses because patriarchy and the only way for the NFL to be fair and treat their male and females fans equally is to let women carry bags but men can’t.
Excellent logic. The NFL should treat fans equally by having contradictory rules for men and women.
Two different stories about Patrick the Gorilla have also annoyed me. Both Jezebel and Salon brand Patrick as sexist because he doesn’t have much love for the lady gorillas, completely ignoring the fact that Patrick is an asshole to the other male gorillas, too.
Patrick gets along well with humans but has problems with his bro gorillas — and flat-out conflicts with females.
http://www.salon.com/2013/09/24/what_a_gorilla_can_teach_us_about_fighting_sexism/
Patrick is just a dick, but of course this has to be spun into some sort of PUNISH THE MALE FOR BEING MEAN TO THE FEMALE bullshit. What are we supposed to take away from the feminist media spin on Patrick? It doesn’t matter that he behaves aggressively to other males. Screw them. Who gives a shit. He was mean to the lady gorillas so PUNISH HIM, rah rah rah.
Mary Elizabeth Williams flat out calls male humans apes and wonders why we can’t punish them all in the same way. You know Mary, darling, some of those commenters might actually be black people. Black men! Did you just call black men “apes”?
Yeah, if Glenn Beck said that he would totally get a pass, right?
If only all sexist, aggressive apes could be similarly dealt with. Is there room at that zoo for YouTube commenters?
So let this be a lesson, dudes who are not nice to females. You can be replaced, and by someone who knows how to execute a super-fresh spin. And while Patrick’s exile may just seem a fun bit of color from the wide world of animals, it’s also, sadly, one of the few concrete recent examples of a news story in which the abuse of females has any consequences for the perpetrator. A little more of that, please.
Right. Tell all the men wearing GPS monitors after being arrested for domestic violence, less than HALF of whom will be convicted of any crime at all, that there are no consequences accompanying even the allegation of abuse of women.
And finally, even more rape hysteria idiocy. Some reality TV star wrote a book about her marriage to a macho Italian guy whom she appears to love to bits. I don’t know the whole story, I don’t watch commercial television at all. But the following passage makes me feel like I might like both of them:
[A] woman needs to keep herself in shape. She has to be seductive. She must be willing to try new things for her husband’s pleasure and her own. And, most important, she has to be available for sex.
There’s real passionate sex and maintenance sex. You need them both for a healthy marriage. Maintenance sex keeps the wheels greased, the lines of communication open, and the fights to a minimum.
Men, I know you think your woman isn’t the type who wants to be taken. But trust me, she is. Every girl wants to get her hair pulled once in a while. If your wife says “no,” turn her around, and rip her clothes off. She wants to be dominated.
Okay, perhaps not the most eloquent or poetic description of how their relationship likely works in the day to day lived reality, but all more or less true, in my experience.
Jezebel’s response:
That is rape and it is insane that it got past the publisher.
http://jezebel.com/real-housewife-melissa-gorgas-new-book-advocates-mar-1371722729
Oh fuck off. Passionate sex within a marriage is not rape. Is there any kind of sex at all that DOESN’T qualify as rape for these ladies, or are we seeing the realization of Andrea Dworkin’s “all heterosexual sex is rape” coming to pass?
Just a few posts later, a huge discussion erupted around Jezebel’s policy of NOT posting trigger warnings. The post is titled Powerful Satirical PSA Explains Why Rape Is Always Your Fault and the sidebar stories, in bold and pretty much impossible to miss are India Has a Gang Rape Problem and Brutal Gang Rape in Mumbai Reignites Outrage in India. What further explanation do you require? What do you think you are going to read about in a post with the words RAPE screaming from every second word? Unicorns farting rainbows?
The problem, you see, is that the delicate flowers weren’t expecting there to be any depictions of violence in the PSA. It was just supposed to be about rape. Not rape-rape.
WeAreTheLadies
Maybe put up a trigger warning? The women in this video get brutally grabbed and get more bruised and bloodied throughout the video Yesterday 9:35pm
http://jezebel.com/maybe-put-up-a-trigger-warning-the-women-in-this-video-1381033486
Could it possibly be more clear that North American women have no fucking clue what rape actually IS? Rough sex between husbands and wives, sex while drunk, sex you regret, sex you went along with because you didn’t feel like informing your partner you changed your mind, sex you had because he was just so insistent, sex you felt insulted by, sex that wasn’t satisfying …. Rape, rape, rape.
http://judgybitch.com/2013/09/14/yale-confirms-it-when-it-comes-to-rape-no-really-does-mean-yes/
Let’s ask those ladies in India what rape actually looks like. It’s VIOLENT, for one thing. It’s a crime. The post needed a trigger warning for depiction of reality, which ought to have sent most of the Jezebel readers screaming in the other direction pretty quickly.
Don’t forget your purses, ladies. And watch out for sexist apes men on your way back to Delusionville.
Three hour library tutorial.
This better not be a group exercise. I’ve had my fill of retards today.
Lots of love,
JB
1st Int’l Conf. on Men’s Issues
