Feminism Repeats Itself, the First Time as Tragedy, the Second Time as Farce

Posted on | August 20, 2014 | 84 Comments

Amy Austin (@amymarieaustin) is a British university student, a lovely blonde soprano, who wrote a blog post about “gender roles” that became something of a viral sensation among feminists. We’ll get to that in a minute, but first let’s acknowledge that Amy Austin has suffered serious misfortune. Her father committed suicide in December. She describes slipping into severe depression after his death:

I went home for a while and the funeral took place. We nearly didn’t make it in time. My sister was hysterical and didn’t want to leave the house, we got stuck in traffic and everything was awful and rushed. I chocked back the tears and I held my sister’s hand because I knew I had to stay strong for her and I didn’t want my family to see my weaknesses. Ridiculous in hindsight I know. Surely it’s more embarrassing not to cry at your own father’s funeral after he was found dead in his flat the day after you sent him a text telling him to get a grip, contact you, asking him, rather rudely, to realize that he was your dad and telling him, rather selfishly, that he needed to be there for you more.

What happened to her father? I don’t know. She speaks of “his flat” as if he lived alone, so I’m guessing her parents were divorced. But searching her blog yielded no information about her parents’ marriage or her childhood home life, so it is impossible to contextualize Ms. Austin’s attitude toward her father, which was rude and selfish by her own admission. Ms. Austin continues:

Back to Bristol, post funeral and after several unsuccessful attempts at waiting it out, I found it increasingly more difficult to cope with everyday life. Getting out of bed for cups of tea was about all I could manage, I looked horrendous, my skin was awful, and university became a thing of the past. If I managed to submit assignments, they were half arsed and not caring became a coping mechanism. This is when I went back to the doctor. I still wasn’t anywhere near the top of the waiting list for therapy so she decided to put me on an SSRI called Sertraline. I happily accepted in the hope that it would be the miracle cure I was waiting for. I couldn’t have been more wrong. After a few days of taking the medication I started to feel disconnected from reality, almost as if my mind and body were entirely separated. I began to watch myself existing as if I was watching from another’s perspective. After a week I wasn’t in control of myself at all. My flat mates watched horrified as I sunk from one low to another, completely incomprehensible to them. I was merely a zombie. Terrified but strangely calm, I had accepted my fate. I spoke to my mum, who told me she would drive up to me to bring me home. I couldn’t think of anything worse. I began pushing my family away and constantly wanted to be alone, but I agreed to get on a train the next day. As I stood waiting for the Northern Line at Kings Cross, I imagined myself falling off the platform. In a split second I snapped back to reality but the overwhelming (albeit fleeting) moment of helplessness was enough for me to scare myself. I called my doctor who told me that these unwanted thoughts and feelings, hallucinations, vivid dreams and blurred reality were awful but normal side effects of the drug, and I was told to carry on taking the medication, at a slightly reduced dosage, for a few more weeks.
Then came the unwanted compulsions. . . . I was self-destructing, and my behavioural patterns entered a vicious circle: the behaviour occurred, then the guilt followed, then the guilt made the behaviour occur once again, and so it went on. . . .
I eventually came off the sertraline slowly after I had a massive breakdown in front of a tutor and a good university friend. They convinced me to do something about it, and they saved my life. I am now on mirtazapine (an NaSSA) and it is amazing. Whilst it’s made me put on weight, I’m enjoying food again, and am enjoying the company of my friends and family.

First — and yes, feminists will deride this as “mansplaining,” which is their way of saying that no man knows anything about anything — get off those medications, Ms. Austin. I’m not saying to stop taking your meds immediately, without consulting your doctor, but I am telling you that (a) psychiatric medication is unnecessary for sane people, and (b) you’re not that crazy, are you? You’ve obviously experienced serious problems coping with stress in the wake of your father’s death, but this doesn’t mean your brain is abnormal.

Second, I’ve been there. When I was 16, my mother died suddenly. I was the one who found her. It would serve no good purpose for me to imitate the sad habit of modern memoir-writers whose goal in telling their stories is to portray themselves as victims of their dysfunctional upbringing, and who therefore publicly trash their own parents and siblings. My parents were good hard-working people, wonderful in many ways. They sacrificed to provide a good life for their three sons and it would be the height of ingratitude and disrespect for me to criticize them for their faults or failures. Nobody’s perfect, and everybody suffers misfortune and disappointment in life.

Rather than complain about whatever problems my parents had, what I will do is to tell you briefly the problems I had: About three years after my mother’s death, when I was 19 years old and on the verge of flunking out of college, one day I was getting high with a dope buddy who had made some psilocybin mushroom tea.

It might be inaccurate to describe my life after my mother’s death as a “downward spiral,” but I was reckless and out of control, and the miracle is that I survived at all — especially after I drank about a quart of that psilocybin tea, and also snorted up some Bolivian flake cocaine for good measure. I’d done lots of drugs before, but I’d never done either psilocybin or cocaine. The coke gave me an awesome euphoria, but I didn’t recognize the effects of psilocybin when that finally kicked in.

After about a week or 10 days of total craziness, my brother came to get me and I was admitted for psychiatric treatment. Recovering from a drug-induced psychotic episode is not easy, and it was a year before I was able to return to college. I made dean’s list my first semester back at school, but my behavior was still erratic, and getting back to “normal” was a slow process. People who think I’m crazy now have no idea how crazy I once was.

Prayer is essential, Ms. Austin. You can laugh if you want, but I’m telling you from personal experience that your problems are a matter of spiritual warfare. Not only must you yourself study the Bible and pray for God’s aid in your struggle, but you must solicit the intercessory prayers of other Christians on your behalf.

It was a blessing to me, in the darkness of the valley of death, that there were good people praying for my deliverance, and guess what? I married a praying woman. As a matter of fact, my wife is an answer to prayer. Our romance was not without its difficulties. I’ll spare you the details, but I prayed to God that my wife would marry me.

Twenty-five years, six children and one grandchild later, I regret that I have not always been as grateful as I should for this miracle. Sometimes my wife gets angry at me, for good reason, and the ferocity of her wrath reminds me of an ancient verse:

Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon,
clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?

“Terrible as an army with banners,” indeed!

But the regular readers didn’t come here for a testimonial sermon, Ms. Austin, they came to see me spank a feminist, and as always I must be diligent in my business, because whatever my hand finds to do, I do it with all my might. Selah. Prophetic authority has foretold of these evil times, Ms. Austin, but let’s just go ahead and quote your highly praised feminist screed, shall we?

Characterised by unequal power relations between men and women, patriarchy systematically oppresses those who are, through no fault of their own, born female. Ironically even the male reproductive cell triumphs here. If patriarchy wasn’t bad enough, biologically speaking men fundamentally control sex, albeit unintentionally, making it difficult for society (although I say society very loosely, clearly there are many who do so) to refute the ideology that men are biologically ‘superior’. Described as a Social System in which men are at the forefront of social organisation, patriarchy, although historically epitomised through political authority (what’s changed?), is very much in the present. Society tends to have an uneasy relationship with power and power relations tend to be socially constructed. More often than not we are offered a socially formulated interpretation of power based on pre-constructed patriarchal ideals, stemming from hundreds of years of parliamentary history, male rulers and inequality.

On second thought, Ms. Austin, maybe you should stay on the mirtazapine, because this lunatic gibberish of yours very much resembles the symptomatic “word salad” of schizophrenics. Can you step back from your subjective feelings far enough to behold the objective fact? Your father committed suicide, and here you are ranting about “patriarchy”? Hello? Can you say “acting out”?

There are layers and layers of painful irony in your situation, and your regurgitation of feminist jargon — “power relations . . . socially constructed” — is a poor substitute for therapy. But that’s the problem: You go to the doctor, who is paid to give you pills, so you take the pills, but you never get any help understanding the real sources of pain that have caused your spiritual crisis. More:

Social constructions of gender, like power, stem from patriarchal ideologies- how often have we heard the phrases “man up!” (because you’re acting “like a girl” and femininity equates to feebleness of course) or “you hit/fight/run/throw (you can pretty much substitute this with anything) like a girl!” Meant as an insult because of course, running “like a girl” means that you’re not running “like a man”, and of course not running “like a man”means that you aren’t running properly. Socialisation, whilst imperative in terms of forming independent personal identities, brings with it an air of ‘dirtiness’. The term talks of a process whereby an individual “acquires a personal identity and learns the norms, values, behaviour, and social skills appropriate to his or her social position.” (Dictionary.com) The word”appropriate” troubles me somewhat. Who are we to define what is or is not “appropriate”, or what does or does not constitute as gender? What does it mean to be male? Why should masculinity define superiority and in turn heroicness?

Anyone can read the rest of that. Suffice it to say that Ms. Austin is lost in the tangled underbrush of postmodern “gender theory,” and one almost wishes it were possible to have an “intervention” for her, like they do for drug addicts. Her rhetoric is a bad imitation of Judith Butler or Janice Raymond or some other eminent lesbian feminist whose books or essays she’s been assigned in school.

Amy Austin’s amateur feminism is like me as a teenager, trying to imitate the sex, drugs and rock-n-roll lifestyle of my guitar heroes. I didn’t have a private jet or a million-dollar recording contract, so there was no “glamour” in tripping out on psilocybin. And whereas eminent professors of Women’s Studies live a rather privileged life — faculty tenure, paid speaking engagements at feminist conferences, book deals, newspaper columns, TV appearances, etc. — the young amateur wannabe feminist receives none of these rewards for online mimicry of her academic feminist idols.

Nor can feminism solve Ms. Austin’s problems. More than 40 years have elapsed since the Women’s Liberation movement erupted in the late 1960s and early 70s, and one thing has remained constant throughout: Unhappy women are still unhappy.

In fact, having witnessed these four decades of history, I do not hesitate to say that women in general are now much less happy than they were when the Women’s Liberation movement began. The heedless pursuit of “equality” and “freedom” — really, what do these slogans mean? — has been accompanied by a plague of misery, loneliness, sexually transmitted diseases and broken minds.

Shulamith Firestone, whose 1970 book The Dialectic of Sex was one of the first works of radical feminism, died alone in 2012, having suffered through decades of schizophrenia. Yet her descent into madness, while generally known among feminists, was a sort of trade secret in the women’s movement, as was the unusual prevalence of lesbianism among feminist activists and intellectuals. Every imaginable kind of kook, freak, and misfit jumped on the bandwagon of Women’s Liberation back in the day, and yet nowadays feminists become indignant when you refer them to polls indicating that most women reject feminism per se:

Meanwhile, the vast majority of women, according to a Huffington Post poll, don’t consider themselves feminists — and only six percent consider themselves “strong feminists.”

The same poll, of course, found that most women say they believe in “equality,” but what does that word mean to most people? Does the woman who tells a pollster she believes in “equality” share the feminist belief that all women are victims of male oppression? Does she sit around brooding about “gender roles” and “compulsory heterosexuality”? Is she reading Sheila Jeffreys and Andrea Dworkin? Is she fighting to overthrow patriarchy? Probably not.

Amy Austin is unhappy, and I do not doubt she has legitimate cause for her unhappiness. What I do doubt is that Amy Austin will find happiness through feminism, unless she’s a lesbian.

As I keep saying, feminism is a journey to lesbianism. If a woman has such an overwhelming resentment of men and such an aversion to normal “gender roles” that she is incapable of finding satisfaction in her relationships with men, she might as well place a “girlfriend wanted” ad online and admit she’s a failure at heterosexuality.

Is there some young fellow out there, perhaps, who would want Amy Austin to become his wife and the mother of his children? If so, he had better make known his love for her quite soon, before she gives up hope on men entirely. She publicly declares she’s “bisexual,” but if she’s like most young women who say they’re bisexual, I figure that’s merely her way of advertising her loneliness.

HETEROSEXUAL CLEARANCE SALE
Badly damaged girl, available at a steep discount to the right male customer. Guys, this is your last chance to cope with her irrational demands, subnormal libido, and occasional bouts of unexplained crying. Hurry now for this unbelievable bargain, before she turns completely queer!

Excuse my caustic sarcasm, Ms. Austin, but my point is very simple: Your problems are your problems, and attempting to externalize blame for your unhappiness — to scapegoat men by ranting about the “patriarchy” — is the opposite of therapeutic. You are quite literally making yourself crazy, and your jargon-crammed feminist screed is a symptom of your illness, not a cure.

Welcome to your own personal Judgment Day, Amy Austin.

These evil times have been foretold by prophetic authority, and souls are being winnowed like wheat on the threshing floor.

Try to clear from your mind the confusion sown by “theory,” and resolve yourself to confront the actual facts. You attend Bristol University, and it took little research to discover that Bristol has a very lively LGBT scene. No one is stopping you from heading down to Frogmore Street and surveying that scene with calm objectivity. Do you see there a future you can envision for yourself?

It is certainly not my prerogative to make your choices for you. I’m merely trying to point out to you what your choices are.

“See, I have set before thee this day life and good,
and death and evil . . . I call heaven and earth to
record this day against you, that I have set
before you life and death, blessing and cursing:
therefore choose life, that both
thou and thy seed may live . . .”

There is no one exempt from that judgment, not me, not Amy Austin, not anyone who reads this. “Therefore choose life.”

P.S.: Pray hard. Then pray harder.

P.P.S.: Avoid psilocybin.

Category: Feminism

Comments

84 Responses to “Feminism Repeats Itself, the First Time as Tragedy, the Second Time as Farce”

Mm
August 20th, 2014 @ 4:49 pm

Let’s pray she listens.
Jeanette Victoria
August 20th, 2014 @ 5:00 pm

I wonder if she knows she is a blogging cliché as painful as her life clearly is. Liberalism is bad for people like her it leads no where but too more mistery

BTW she has a lovely voice
Elinor Cooper
August 20th, 2014 @ 5:16 pm

What a horrific way to speak about someone you have never met. If you don’t like her blog, don’t read it, and certainly don’t do this.
Freya Victoria Spriggs
August 20th, 2014 @ 5:51 pm

What do you as middle-aged, American male know about the possible life choices of this young woman you have never met? This is lazy trolling and I dare say a fair few young women care very little for what you ‘figure’ about their lives.
Bumr50
August 20th, 2014 @ 5:54 pm

I don’t do psilocybin recreationally any more, but I DO suffer from cluster headaches, and small doses of psilocybin work like a charm for them. In fact, it’s the ONLY thing that works for them. They actually have a great deal of therapeutic use.

Sertraline, however, is another matter. I’ve been taking it for six years, and can’t stop. My nervous system goes nuts every time I try. I moved from Effexor to Zoloft for even worse side effects. I’ve tapered. I’ve tried cold turkey. I tried replacing with Prozac. Nothing works.

I’m not some anti-Big Pharma activist, but I advise anyone I can to avoid going on an SSRI if at all possible. The effects are almost never divulged by the prescriber, and some claim that it’s all psychosomatic. Doctors need to use much more restraint with their pen in this regard.

Just one man’s experience.
laura
August 20th, 2014 @ 6:11 pm

You’re a dick – religion aside. This is a personal attack on this young woman (who’s blog I follow). You have no right to judge what is essentially an online journal, nor shove your religion down anyone’s throat. You’re experiences, how ever much you try to bring them up, are not applicable to Amy’s case and you have no right to assume you know everything about her from her blog. Screw you.
laura
August 20th, 2014 @ 6:12 pm

*your
McGehee
August 20th, 2014 @ 6:13 pm

A few people need to reconsider the line between sympathizing and enabling.
LLC
August 20th, 2014 @ 6:46 pm

I was on Effexor for a six-month period, which ended with me having very negative reactions to it. (Namely several passing-out incidents.) The withdrawal symptoms coming off were almost worse than the medication.
evan
August 20th, 2014 @ 6:56 pm

You take two unrelated blog posts, and some information gleaned from a Twitter account to create a lazy and turgid attack on a young woman suffering with mental health issues. You do nothing to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health, and your suggestion that ‘prayer’ is the only solution to depression is laughable and insulting to sufferers of depression. You ought to stop calling yourself a journalist.
Radom guest
August 20th, 2014 @ 7:29 pm

Looks the the professional wingers have been notified
robertstacymccain
August 20th, 2014 @ 7:42 pm

You do nothing to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health

You know who had poor mental health?

Elliot Rodger.

Mentally illness can be very dangerous, and there is a stigma for a reason. But here was this “young woman suffering with mental health issues,” on the Internet presuming to condemn patriarchy and “gender roles,” and all I have done is to suggest there may be some causal relationship between (a) her mental illness and (b) her feminism. I cite the example of Shulamith Firestone as historic precedent.

When a man goes psycho, we call him a “kook.” When a woman goes psycho, we call her a feminist.
ozanDg
August 20th, 2014 @ 7:45 pm

So you’re a dickhead then?
Nathan
August 20th, 2014 @ 7:56 pm

Elliot Rodger was not just mentally ill. There are plenty of mentally ill individuals who are not fuelled by rage at not having his white, upper middle-class privilege satiated by women who he sexually objectifies. His process of “self-emasculation” through contemporary socio-cultural discourses lead him to become an angry socially anxious individual who in fact (through much empirical evidence of his discussions with his “peers” in misogynistic forums as well as most of the content of his monologue) harboured intense resentment towards women for rejecting him–subsequently “emasculating” him. His mental illness had imperative environmental factors that led him to seek out ammunition to deal with his clear contempt for women. It was clearly not “just” mental illness, and by stating one facet of an evidently broader issue at hand is incredibly naive.
Durasim
August 20th, 2014 @ 8:00 pm

“I dare say a fair few young women are very little for what you ‘figure’ about their lives.”

So you are saying that a small number of young female persons “care very little” about what he figures about their lives? So, then that means the rest of the young female person care more? Care less than “very little”?
Depression: Personal advice from Robert Stacy McCain to Amy Austin | Batshit Crazy News
August 20th, 2014 @ 8:01 pm

[…] RSM’s advice is heartfelt. I wish Ms. Austin a full recovery. […]
concern00
August 20th, 2014 @ 8:16 pm

Do you charge for your therapy sessions?
Durasim
August 20th, 2014 @ 8:20 pm

Certainly, he was not “just mentally ill.” Yet most of the other bitter and resentful persons on the “misogynistic forums” or those of similar opinion who consumed and propagated those same “socio-cultural discourses” did not go on shooting rampages. Some other factor besides sexual resentment and class privilege may have contributed to his actions which made him different from all the other internet malcontents whose hostility remains in digital form.

The new rule is that we are supposed to take away the stigma from mental illness and consider it as something only worthy of sympathy, pity, and assistance. Whenever a mentally ill person does something bad, we are supposed to immediately downplay or erase the mental illness as a possible factor and try to assign blame to the nearest unfavorable political or social trend, and then say that all people who participate in that trend are collectively culpable for whatever violent acts.

Jared Loughner’s shooting rampage had nothing to do with schizophrenia, they say. It was because of those Sarah Palin “target” posters! Anyone who supports Sarah Palin is really to blame to shooting Gaby Giffords!
Nathan
August 20th, 2014 @ 8:32 pm

A socio-cultural phenomena and indoctrination does not even come close to the exposure of a brief bout of pro-gun advertisements. It seems almost condescending that you have to even make that comparison considering one is a longitudinal widespread pervasive and harmful cultural practice.

Removing stigma isn’t introducing sympathy and pity BUT instead EMPATHY, there is a difference in holistically understanding a situation and realising that there is more than one factor and reasoning for people’s actions rather than adopting some unilateral perspective of blame and scapegoating as you seem to suggest.

Perhaps the difference between him and his peers was that his sexist resentment amalgamated in anger and carried through in all facets of his life. I do not think you get my postulation as you seem to believe I am boiling it down to environmental factors. I am positing the fact that his mental illness, paired by a strong perpetuation throughout his lifetime is what led him to go on a shooting rampage. People with mental illness who are raised in a more stable and open environment would not made the same choices Elliot Rodgers.
robertstacymccain
August 20th, 2014 @ 8:49 pm

“Hit the Freaking Tip Jar.”

It’s not a request, it’s a command.
robertstacymccain
August 20th, 2014 @ 9:02 pm

SSRIs and SNRIs — all this messing around with brain chemistry worries me. I’m convinced that most people could deal with their problems better through counseling. The problem is, our mental health system is overloaded. it’s cheaper to give people pills than to spend time talking them through their problems.
CPAguy
August 20th, 2014 @ 9:14 pm

It is the Internet, get used to it.
Amy
August 20th, 2014 @ 9:16 pm

“essentially an on-line journal.” It’s public. That means she wants other people to read and think about what she has to say. Are you implying that only people who agree with her are allowed to comment on it? You may only opine about her public opinions if your opinion matches hers?

As for judging, everyone judges every day, including you. In fact, you’re doing it right now.

Finally, it is impossible to force anything down one’s throat by posting on a blog. It is a passive form of sharing an opinion. I worry for you if simply reading something forces you to action or changing your opinion.
Zohydro
August 20th, 2014 @ 9:16 pm

It’s money well spent, mate!
Mm
August 20th, 2014 @ 9:25 pm

I am woman, hear me roar. But, hey, if you critique what I just said, I’ll cry like a mouse and call you a meanie.
RS
August 20th, 2014 @ 9:25 pm

I always find it amazing when people get offended when others comment about public posts, especially those describing intimate personal details. As you correctly state, having a “public” online journal implies that the public will read it and draw conclusions. One may agree or disagree but to become angry when readers accept the implied invitation is rather silly. This is even more true, where one’s online writings are a political manifesto of sorts.
Käthe
August 20th, 2014 @ 9:27 pm

I was prescribed it to help with anxiety and insomnia following my child’s difficult stay in the ICU. At first I didn’t realize how sick it was making me, but by the time I started to taper off, it was obvious that it was bad news. I got the nausea, vertigo, “brain zaps,” and panic attacks like a freight train. They hand that stuff out WAY too freely. All I really needed was someone to listen to me talk without trying to “diagnose” my understandable upset feelings, and maybe some more help with the kids so I could breathe.
Durasim
August 20th, 2014 @ 9:51 pm

The “target posters” that progressive commentators cited were some proxy symbol that stood for some trend of using confrontational and hostile political rhetoric which progressive commentators alleged to be some pernicious and emerging social trend fomented by the Tea Party and other conservative factions. Whether that makes the trend “longitudinal widespread and pervasive” enough to count as relevant under formulation, I do not know. However, though you may consider the trend ephemeral, that did not prevent political opportunists from seizing and identifying it as the actionable factor of Lougher’s actions.

If you find it “condescending,” then that is probably because the condescension was inherent to the tactic of blaming a violent rampage on linguistic-political memes. But that was the conclusion which our betters designated as teachable lesson from the Arizona incident.

As for removing “stigma,” you will have to provide a thorough definition of what that requires, I guess. One can “empathize” with mentally ill persons and those affected by their illness, but still think that mental illness is a bad and undesirable condition. I have been told that if some people feel negatively about mental illness and do not wish to experience that condition or see it afflict people they care about, then that constitutes “stigma” or prejudice and that we are supposed to celebrate “neurodiversity” and not consider one neurological condition any worse or better than another. Of course, it is possible that my notion of “empathy” is outdated and that there is some new political definition that I do not understand. “Empathy” has been promiscuously promoted and repeated so much by sociological reformers in the last three years, it may have lost all coherence and meaning. Best I can tell, the term is usually employed to tell us to remove and suspend any possible negative judgment about someone who is a member of a designated underclass and to only feel sympathetic feelings about such a person. Sadly, I cannot distinguish between this new version of “empathy” and retrograde sympathy and pity.

Of course, this only applies when mentally ill persons commit common crimes that do not offend progressive political precepts. If a mentally ill person robs a 7-11 and kills the clerk, we are supposed to consider him a victim of society and bemoan how we failed to care for him. If a mentally ill person rails about how he hates women and is killing them out of revenge, we can issue opprobrium towards that person and then we are supposed to sweep his mental illness under the rug and indict societal gender constructs as the blameworthy factor.

And for the record, I am not only citing one factor for Rodger’s actions or “adopting some unilateral perspective of blame.” I think his mental illness was one of many factors, but I think it was a significant one. If anything, it was the feminists who adopted “some unilateral perspective of blame.” As soon as the headlines started, they decreed that societal misogyny and male sexual entitlement were the one and only factors to be blamed and discussed and that nobody should dare suggest otherwise under pain of denunciation.

“I do not think you get my postulation as you seem to believe I am boiling it down to environmental factors.”

Well, since we are not trained sociologists or social psychologists, it is possible that we simply cannot understand the nuance and subtlety of your missives.

Forgive my misapprehension of your postulation, but the way that you immediately objected to McCain’s citation of Rodger’s mental illness as a causal factor and then spoke at length about Rodger’s sexual and gender frustrations within the context of “socio-cultural discourses” gives the impression that you wanted to minimize and erase the attribution to mental illness and maximize and emphasis the attribution to “socio-cultural discourses” and “privilege” and other environmental factors. And that is usually the method of most sociology types, even if they pay lip service to individual factors. “Yes, he was mentally ill, and that may have contributed to his rampage, but let’s not talk about that. Let’s focus on misogyny and class privilege and other alleged structures that we must abolish.”
maniakmedic
August 20th, 2014 @ 9:53 pm

Looks like some of her friends and fans are visiting. Though I should probably use the word “friends” with more care as true friends generally don’t feed your psychological problems by enabling you.
LLC
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:06 pm

Agreed, and I’m happy to be medication-free after a year and a half of that crap. It took a while longer (and several years of counseling) to get my wife off them, too – we’re both better off now than when we were on antidepressants.

Doesn’t mean we don’t have hard days (my wife still occasionally has full-blown panic attacks that include her physically shaking and unable to stop), but we’re better off as a whole.
RS
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:15 pm

Nicely said.

. . .the term is usually employed to tell us to remove and suspend any possible negative judgment about someone who is a member of a designated underclass and to only feel sympathetic feelings about such a person.

Or, in other words, “empathy” now means to be indiscriminate, to paraphrase Evan Sayet..
DeadMessenger
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:20 pm

I would say a fair number of young women, and all feminists of any age, care very little for the opinions of mature, intelligent, psychologically healthy adults of either gender. More’s the pity for them.

p.s. Noticed you up-voted yourself Freya, followed by your anonymous “guest” groupies. No self-esteem problem there, I see.
DeadMessenger
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:26 pm

Wait a sec…are you judging Stacy for reading and commenting on Amy’s comments? Can you see your own hypocrisy here? Scariest thing is that your clearly hypocritical and irrational remarks get 8 up-votes by presumably like-minded individuals.
DeadMessenger
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:29 pm

You can see from Zohydro’s avatar picture that the therapy sessions have been quite beneficial, LOL…
Durasim
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:32 pm

Yes, I agree. “Empathy” has become a progressive buzzword used to combat and nullify any kind of value or moral judgment that offends progressive egalitarian sensibilities.

I hesitate to use the term “indiscriminate” if only because it is clear that progressives deploy “empathy” in a deliberate and “discriminate” way. They decree that we are not supposed to feel “empathy” for someone like Elliot Rodger or George Sodini, but we must feel “empathy” for somebody like Susan Smith or Betty Broderick (and therefore excuse or minimize their crimes).
Zohydro
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:33 pm

That’s an old photograph… I’m feeling “much better” now…
Nat
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:34 pm

Under what presumption do you assume that a fair number of “young women and ALL feminists of any age” dismiss the opinions of mature and intelligent ‘adults’. There are very far and few people who possess all the traits you seem to have listed. Just because you are psychologically healthy, does not mean that you are a mature individual. And being an “adult” does not necessarily provide someone with maturity. The majority of feminists are very open to other’s opinions and are more than willing to have a healthy debate. When the conversation/discussion turns into some vindictive personal attack than an actual poststructuralist perspective on said issue at hand, it is petty and shows a fair amount of immaturity.
DeadMessenger
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:34 pm

Must’ve been the psilocybin.
RS
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:34 pm

According to “laura,” we have no right to judge her online postings. Given that judgment can be either positive or negative, I suppose readers of Ms. Austin’s public cogitations are merely allowed to drool like idiots.
DeadMessenger
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:36 pm

I know you are, but what am I?
RS
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:42 pm

A fair point, fairly made. I should have said that Progressives do not view the world with a philosophical framework which is useful to judge human behavior. That is, rather than the behavior being judged, it is the actor who is judged. For those who judge behaviors, the Progs seem indiscriminate. When you realize that they judge the actor based upon where the actor falls in the “Hierarchy of Victims,” then they are indeed discriminate.
Danby
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:43 pm

“The majority of feminists are very open to other’s opinions and are more than willing to have a healthy debate.”

That’s straight-up false. The vast majority of feminists, like most leftists, are not willing to debate. They are willing to hector, deride, accuse, attack, mob, sneer at, dismiss, destroy, call for the head of, insult, Otherize, and disqualify disqualify, disqualify, anyone who disagrees with them. They claim they want to debate. This protects their self-image as a rational person. In the actual event, i haven’t seen a Leftist actually enter into a real debate since the late ’70s

But when a Leftist says he wants a debate, it means he wants you to shut up and agree with him. When he says he wants a “conversation” about a touchy subject, like race, he means he wants to lecture you and call you names, even if you already agree with him.
RS
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:44 pm

OT: Why does your smiley face avatar only have one eye? Or, have I had too many beers? Hick
RS
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:47 pm

The majority of feminists are very open to other’s opinions and are more than willing to have a healthy debate

Drop down and read “laura’s” comment and then revisit that assertion.
Durasim
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:49 pm

Of course feminists are “very open to other’s opinions.” In fact, some Canadian college feminists recently gave a shining demonstration of their intellectual plurality and tolerance.
DeadMessenger
August 20th, 2014 @ 10:58 pm

It’s supposed to resemble the spray-painted Arabic letter nun painted on Christian homes by ISIS, identifying them as “Nazarene”.
Zohydro
August 20th, 2014 @ 11:23 pm

Looks like a stylised rendition of the “hilal” or the crescent moon and star symbol…
Zohydro
August 20th, 2014 @ 11:31 pm

Wait! DM’s nun avatar is a thing…

http://www.euronews.com/2014/07/22/how-an-arabic-letter-was-reclaimed-to-support-iraqs-persecuted-christians-n/
DeadMessenger
August 20th, 2014 @ 11:32 pm

Here’s what it really looks like:

http://www.religionnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/BtZp2ynCMAAwJRZ.png
Amy
August 20th, 2014 @ 11:43 pm

Did you just say postsructuralist perspective? Heh.