The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

No, Sir, You Cannot Be a Feminist

Posted on | March 7, 2015 | 33 Comments

Feminists gather in their covens on Tumblr.com:

raddefemme:
convincing an anti-feminist man that he’s actually a feminist because he believes in “the equality of the sexes” may seem like a victory, but in the end all you’ve done is convince a woman-hater that he’s a feminist.

celtyradfem:
This is actually very dangerous. If a man is anti-feminist it’s because he hates women not because of some misunderstanding. Don’t waste your time and energy on convincing a woman hater he’s really a nice guy deep down. All you’ll do is give him a bigger victim complex when things don’t go his way.
Anti-feminism is the political defense of woman hating — Andrea Dworkin

One of the most amazing things is to see how feminists, whose movement is not only anti-male but also anti-heterosexual, become angry when confronted with their own words. This eminent professor or that popular feminist author you’ve quoted does not actually speak for the movement, the feminist will insist, and how dare you suggest that all feminists agree with Andrew Dworkin . . . or Charlotte Bunch, Mary Daly, Marilyn Frye, Monique Wittig, Audre Lorde, Catharine MacKinnon, Joyce Trebilcot, Janice Raymond, Shulamith Firestone, Susan Brownmiller, Sally Miller Gearhart, Judith Butler, Sheila Jeffreys, Gayle Rubin . . .

Feminists have spent decades erecting a wall that divides their esoteric doctrine — the core beliefs which form the theoretical basis of their ideology, the language feminists use when speaking among themselves — from their movement’s exoteric discourse, the “mainstream” rhetoric feminists use in speaking to the public. This separation, which conceals from public view the nature of radical feminist theory as it is taught in university Women’s Studies programs, is essential to preserving the credibility of feminism as a respectable movement concerned only with “equality” and “fairness” for women.

Just before launching the Sex Trouble project last June, I wrote a post called “You Magnificent Lesbians — I Read Your Books!” (An allusion to a line from the movie Patton, in case you didn’t know.) For months, I had explored the canon of radical feminist literature, publishing commentaries based on that literature, and resisting the urging from readers to write a book about it. Anyone who has ever gone through the ordeal of Publishing Hell knows that a book deadline is a soul-destroying nightmare, and I’d been through that human meat-grinder more than once. But this feminist stuff kept piling up and it was apparent that no one else was crazy enough to try to make sense of it all, so I decided to risk it. What I aimed to do was to tear down the wall separating feminism’s esoteric doctrine from its exoteric discourse, to make readers understand how the day-to-day eruptions of feminist insanity we see in the headlines are connected to this core theory of the movement.

What we see, if we study carefully and pay close attention, is a movement of Having Cake and Eating It, Too. That is to say, feminists claim unlimited license to vilify men as violent oppressors, to denounce marriage and motherhood as slavery, to impugn religion, to call for the destruction of society in order to “smash patriarchy” and yet — here is the catch — they expect to be taken seriously when they denounce as a hateful misogynist anyone who objects to their radical agenda.

“If a man is anti-feminist it’s because he hates women,” says the feminist on Tumblr, assuming that only feminists are reading her words, and thus expecting that the Dworkin quote — “Anti-feminism is the political defense of woman hating” — will be accepted as the final word on the matter. But wait just a minute: Who is “raddefemme,” whose quote generated more than 5,000 notes on Tumlbr in less than three day?

“florence … 19 … lesbian … white … very neuroatypical.”

Search for definition of “neuroatypical”:

Neuroatypical is used to describe people who have bipolar disorder, ADHD, schizophrenia, circadian rhythm disorders, developmental speech disorders, Parkinson’s disease, dyslexia, and dyspraxia.

In other words, it’s a fancy synonym for “crazy.”

Here then, we have a crazy teenage lesbian acting as self-appointed arbiter of feminism, warning her fellow radicals not to persuade males that feminism means “the equality of the sexes” because doing so would merely “convince a woman-hater that he’s a feminist.” Perfect!

“All that is necessary to discredit feminism is to tell the truth about feminism.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, Sex Trouble: Essays on Radical Feminism and the War Against Human Nature

They make my work so easy sometimes.

What is feminism? If “the equality of the sexes” is not the goal of this movement, what is their goal? Feminism as we now know it began with the radical New Left of the 1960s. Consider an example: Charlotte Bunch became part of an “anti-imperialist” (which is to say, pro-communist) faction of the Women’s Liberation movement, and participated in such key events as the 1968 protest against the Miss America pageant. In 1970, Bunch traveled to Hanoi as part of an “antiwar” (which is to say, pro-communist) delegation, then returned to Washington, D.C., where in the summer of 1970 she and her husband, antiwar activist Jim Weeks, moved into a communal house with Bunch’s best friend, Sharon Deevey, Deevey’s husband, and a lesbian named Joan Biren. Deevey and Biren were lovers, and soon departed to live in an all-lesbian house, leaving Bunch with the two men. Eventually, Bunch was seduced by lesbian radical Rita Mae Brown and left her husband to form a lesbian separatist collective known as The Furies.

All of this is recounted on pages 174-176 of Susan Brownmiller’s 1999 book In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution. We have elsewhere cited Bunch’s 1972 manifesto “Lesbians in Revolt,” and here we will quote one of Bunch’s radical comrades in The Furies collective, Ginny Berson:

We are angry because we are oppressed by male supremacy. We have been f–ked over all our lives by a system which is based on the domination of men over women. . . . It is a system in which heterosexuality is rigidly enforced and Lesbianism rigidly suppressed. . . .
Lesbianism is not a matter of sexual preference, but rather one of political choice which every woman must make if she is to become woman-identified and thereby end male supremacy.

Well, there you have it in so many words. It was 1972 and, despite Ginny Berson’s demand that “every woman must make” the choice of lesbianism to “end male supremacy,” most women rejected her demand. Most women still reject her demand, and so this “system . . . based on the domination of men over women” continues to operate.

The patriarchy is still open for business.

Ginny Berson? Oh, she went on to become co-founder of Olivia Records, worked for 16 years for Pacifica Radio and eventually became vice president of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB). Berson’s comrade Charlotte Bunch, of course, became an esteemed Women’s Studies professor at Rutgers University. Isn’t it weird how, despite being “f–ked over” and “oppressed” by this system of male domination, these women nevertheless enjoy prestigious careers within the Feminist-Industrial Complex? Yet here were are, more than four decades after Bunch and Berson declared war on heterosexuality and “male supremacy,” and crazy teenage lesbians are on Tumblr warning about the dangers of letting men think they can become feminists by endorsing “the equality of the sexes.”

There is something wrong with this picture, don’t you agree? Feminism is a movement that always succeeds but never declares victory. That is to say, there is never any end to feminist demands, no final objective which, once attained, will cause them to proclaim, “That’s it. We won.” So long as anyone is still free to oppose their movement — until feminists have achieved total power — they will continue discovering grievances to protest and keep demanding more! more! more!

Feminism is not a democratic movement about “equality,” it’s a totalitarian movement about power, and there is no limit, no feasible stopping point on their march to power. So long as any man has liberty or property, so long as Christians are free to preach the gospel and practice their faith, so long as young women dream of marrying men and having babies rather than becoming lesbian cat ladies — so long as anyone still resists feminism’s imperious demands for gynocratic supremacy, the movement will continue its militant aggression.

Feminism has declared war on human nature, a war it can never win. Yet the Feminist-Industrial Complex, based in academia and non-profit organizations funded with millions of dollars in tax-exempt contributions, continues to gain political power and wield cultural influence, so that this war can never end. Come back in another 10 or 20 years and, no matter how much more “progress” toward “equality” feminism has achieved by that time, the lesbian cat ladies will still be screaming as loudly as ever about how oppressed and victimized they are by misogyny and patriarchy.

What kind of man would listen while a feminist tried to “convince” him to believe in “the equality of the sexes”? 

Even if she’s attractive, what is to be gained by listening to her angry feminist lecture? She’s either crazy or a lesbian or both.

“Nah, baby,” he says. “I don’t believe in equality. I believe in love.”

And then just walk away.

 

Category: Feminism, Sex Trouble

Comments

33 Responses to “No, Sir, You Cannot Be a Feminist”

  1. Fail Burton
    March 7th, 2015 @ 10:57 pm

    Simone de Beauvoir was the one to start this ball rolling with her promoting the idea in 1949 that sex and gender are more than just biological vs. pants, dresses, powdered wigs, etc. To her heterosexuality itself sits on the same level as high-heels and lipstick. Even worse, it was created to control and oppress women as virtual slaves. Only by abolishing static ideas of heterosexuality can women ever be free. Gender-fluid is freedom and social justice.

    Fast forward to 2014 and the unprecedented sweep of S. Fiction awards goes to a novel about a zombie that can’t see gender from a literary community awash in the ideas of de Beauvoir, Audre Lorde and Judith Butler.

    “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. No biological, psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society; it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature, intermediate between male and eunuch, which is described as feminine.” – Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1949

    Unlike equal rights, this is powered by hate and resentment. There is no end game. They will manufacture oppressions throughout eternity, because reality isn’t going to give.

  2. DeadMessenger
    March 7th, 2015 @ 11:04 pm

    de Beauvoir was wrong. Women are born, but then become (or not) ladies.

  3. concern00
    March 7th, 2015 @ 11:32 pm

    In my day…the word ‘hate’ actually had a meaning centering around an intense visceral dislike. Today, it seems it is just another word for someone who disagrees with you.

    I am sure there are a couple of real women hater’s out there, à la “it puts the lotion on its skin,” but I am pretty sure I don’t know any.

  4. Julie Pascal
    March 7th, 2015 @ 11:57 pm

    The exoteric discourse isn’t just for men. It’s for women, too. I’d guess that the vast majority of women who self-identify as feminists love men and believe (and will tell you with extreme reason) that the definition of “feminism” is belief in equality.

    The thing about “identity” is this… if it ends, so do you.

    I believe in equality. I have never called myself a feminist because even as a teenager it seemed obvious to me that one could not be a feminist unless you were a statist baby-killer. I don’t suppose I thought in those terms back then but I definitely saw the disconnect between “government must take care of me” and “I am woman, hear me roar” and between “I’m in charge of body and my life” and “you can’t possibly expect me to be in charge of my reproduction, can you?”

    Somehow I got stuck on “I am woman, hear me roar” and “I’m in charge of my body and my life” and just ran with them.

  5. Adobe_Walls
    March 8th, 2015 @ 12:27 am

    They are correct you know, it is all the Patriarchy’s (blessed be it’s name) fault. It’s obvious to me that feminists major complaint is that they are not as oppressed as they once were. Our failing (the Patriarchy blessed be it’a name) was in humoring the notion that perhaps the feminists had a point. That perhaps there was a system in which women were not treated fairly. Our mistake, the Patriarchy (blessed be it’s name) was in falling for deception that fairness for women had anything to do with the feminist movement. Now that women do by and large receive equal treatment in the courts and in employment opportunities the feminists are pissed. They’re pissed because the Patriarchy (blessed be it’s name) fell for the gambit that feminism was about equal rights for women. They didn’t want equal rights for that would diminish the oppression that feminists must have to fuel their grievances. It is therefore through the unfortunate confluence of a sense of fairness and the crisis of Peak Oppression that feminists have been brutally deprived of that which gives their lives purpose. Which is grievance. Now they must manufacture both grievance and oppression and are forced to go to preposterous lengths to create it.

  6. wbkrebs
    March 8th, 2015 @ 1:02 am

    I toy with the notion of “Samuel Gompers Feminism” which advances the simple policy “More for Women!!” Of course, this policy has no natural stopping point, and must be balanced by countervailing force.

  7. wbkrebs
    March 8th, 2015 @ 1:06 am

    You write, “Yet the Feminist-Industrial Complex, based in academia and non-profit organizations funded with millions of dollars in tax-exempt contributions, continues to gain political power and wield cultural influence, so that this war can never end.”

    If the current cultural formation that confers power onto anybody willing to claim victimhood breaks up, then the oxygen for the war is cut off, and it will die. It is, however, true that the radical feminists will never willingly let go of their grudge.

  8. Steve Skubinna
    March 8th, 2015 @ 2:58 am

    No ladies, I do not hate women. I despise you personally, but that’s only because I hate all evil, toxic, anti-human, soul destroying ideologies.

    And for some wonderfully deft skewering and petard hoisting, check out this guy’s hysterically funny Twitter feed:

    https://twitter.com/GodfreyElfwick

    The sad thing is, his parody is only, like Max Headroom, twenty minutes into the future. Watch his memes turn up in bona fide feminist threads soon. For example I expect his claim to be “trans-black” to legitimately appear eventually once people work through the logical implications of “trans-” anything.. Why should only cis-blacks have all the racial grievance?

  9. Daniel Freeman
    March 8th, 2015 @ 3:16 am

    I’m a trans-cobalt-blue dragon that is also Earth’s only mortal avatar for the star/demigod Zeta Puppis, called Naos in Greek and Suhail Hadar in Arabic, but you may refer to me as “Your Majesty.”

  10. robertstacymccain
    March 8th, 2015 @ 6:00 am

    Effective patriarchal oppression requires that every oppressor do his share: Marry a woman, stay married, sire children, etc. Unfortunately, some of you guys have been slacking off, so that we have all these unoppressed women running around.

    Don’t blame me. I’ve done my part.

  11. K-Bob
    March 8th, 2015 @ 7:26 am

    I’m gonna add this to K-Bob’s codex, once I clean it up a bit:

    Once the crazy people take over your movement, you get Hitler. Feminism is only one putsch away from a female Hitler. (Suck it, Godwin.)

    The funny thing is, the GBLT-soup folks will make sure that the Feminist Hitler has no gender whatsoever, which the mythic version of Hitler has very nearly managed.

    (A more interesting read about Adolph’s monorchism is here. Which begs the question: Can one be nuckin’ futz if one has less than a pair?)

  12. Steve Skubinna
    March 8th, 2015 @ 7:46 am

    Camille Paglia states that women are born, but that boys must become men. There’s actually some biological logic to that, as the default fetus is always female. If the mother’s biochemistry produces a testosterone jolt at the right point (signalled by the XY chromosome pair) then it is born male. The next stage is puberty when the young boy himself is flooded with testosterone by his own system, with the amusing results we all know.

    The cultural conditioning on how to be a man is what these anti-human harpies are attacking. So if they have their way boys will become men without it an it’s Lord of the Flies. And they are too stupid ot understand that.

    Or perhaps they know exactly what they are trying to unleash and it’s revenge on humanity for their own self loathing.

  13. Steve Skubinna
    March 8th, 2015 @ 7:49 am

    What are your triggers? You have to have triggers to explain away your own inability to function.

  14. RS
    March 8th, 2015 @ 8:03 am

    On behalf of The Patriarchy, I’d like to invite you to present your findings at this week’s meeting which will be held in the Fellowship Hall of the First United Methodist Church in Cut Bank, Montana on Wednesday evening at 6:30 PM. There will be a dinner of lamb fries, slaw and a choice of potato. Leave the booze at home because the Cut Bank Methodists are teetotalers.

  15. The original Mr. X
    March 8th, 2015 @ 8:07 am

    I find the term “trigger” triggering, because it reminds me too much of gun violence.

  16. The original Mr. X
    March 8th, 2015 @ 9:29 am

    “One of the most amazing things is to see how feminists, whose movement is not only anti-male but also anti-heterosexual, become angry when confronted with their own words. This eminent professor or that popular feminist author you’ve quoted does not actually speak for the movement, the feminist will insist, and how dare you suggest that all feminists agree with Andrew Dworkin . . . or Charlotte Bunch, Mary Daly, Marilyn Frye, Monique Wittig, Audre Lorde, Catharine MacKinnon, Joyce Trebilcot, Janice Raymond, Shulamith Firestone, Susan Brownmiller, Sally Miller Gearhart, Judith Butler, Sheila Jeffreys, Gayle Rubin . . .”
    A move which is especially annoying because of its sheer hypocrisy. Whenever a man says or does something sexist, that’s never just because he’s a jerk, it’s a manifestation of some deep-seated cultural misogyny, it’s the responsibility of #yesallmen to deal with it, if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem, etc., etc., etc. But when a leading feminist says something misandrist, then suddenly we’re expected to believe that it’s just an outlier, we can’t generalise from what person says, nothing to see here, move along now… And then people wonder why feminism has such a low reputation in some circles.

  17. Lazarus Long
    March 8th, 2015 @ 9:35 am

    Next up is to being exploring how feminism (especially the female supremacy angle) is poisoning the workplace, destroying men’s careers on a wholesale basis, and causing the decline of American business’s competitiveness. Think of all the articles saying that companies with more women at the top are more: profitable, ethical, “sustainable,” innovative, etc. Think of rackets like AWESOME.org. Think of interviews like this from Harvad Business Review:
    HBR:
    You realize you’re saying that groups of women are smarter than groups of men.
    Woolley: Yes

  18. Fail Burton
    March 8th, 2015 @ 9:54 am

    Gee, where would a sociopath with a big mouth get the idea men hate women.

  19. No, Sir, You Cannot Be a Feminist | Living in Anglo-America
    March 8th, 2015 @ 10:03 am

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  20. Adobe_Walls
    March 8th, 2015 @ 11:38 am

    As have I, married once and still have four children all grown. One grandchild.

  21. Daniel Freeman
    March 8th, 2015 @ 12:33 pm

    The outrage junkies have had a great deal of difficulty finding any such person that doesn’t also hate men. Good luck finding a couple of needles of misogynists in the haystack of misanthropes.

  22. Adobe_Walls
    March 8th, 2015 @ 12:39 pm

    I suspect you’ve missed my point. It’s not that the Patriarchy (blessed be it’s name) has failed humanity, though as you point out above, to some extent it has. My point is that feminists are pissed that we and society in general have rectified their more insincere complaints leaving them no actual grievances to shriek about. In short the feminists then and now didn’t want equal pay for equal work because they needed that issue to gull women into supporting the feminist movement without knowing it’s actual goals. The radical feminists need the Patriarchy (blessed be it’s name) as a surrogate for heterosexuality their real enemy.

  23. Daniel Freeman
    March 8th, 2015 @ 12:44 pm

    Many of you live-born, single-souled fools fail to give me the deference and praise that are my proper due as an egg-born and a demigod’s avatar. This triggers an overwhelming desire to smite you with my lightning breath, which I’m unable to use in my human form. The internal conflict is staggering. Does that count?

  24. Robert What?
    March 8th, 2015 @ 8:42 pm

    I find the sign in the photograph, “Fuck the System”, to be quite ironic. Nothing defines our current “system” like radical feminism. Hell, they even have one as President. Face it. They are the System.

  25. Steve Skubinna
    March 9th, 2015 @ 2:38 am

    Are flamethrowers legal in your area? If not, there are always the old standbys, like Molotov cocktails.

  26. Steve Skubinna
    March 9th, 2015 @ 2:39 am

    Probably because every man she encounters hates her. Hmmm…

    #YesAllMen

  27. Steve Skubinna
    March 9th, 2015 @ 2:39 am

    Plus, by using sexual imagery they are directly perpetuating Rape Culture.

  28. Daniel Freeman
    March 9th, 2015 @ 4:23 am

    Oh, I can still smite — with tools. I just feel this absence where my ability to breathe lightning should be. You cis-softskins wouldn’t understand.

  29. Daniel Freeman
    March 9th, 2015 @ 4:40 am

    I find the term “trigger warning” triggering, because it reminds me too much of SJWs. Brrr!

  30. Toastrider
    March 9th, 2015 @ 10:49 am

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, Paglia has been exiled from feminism for having her own ‘wrongthink’ ideas.

  31. Toastrider
    March 9th, 2015 @ 10:51 am

    Maybe I shouldn’t mention my friend’s new armor then. Our adventuring party bagged an ancient blue dragon and now it exists primarily as dragonscale plate armor.

    (yeah, I’m a geek, bite me 🙂

  32. Toastrider
    March 9th, 2015 @ 10:53 am

    I always wonder about those ‘smash the patriarchy’ signs. Isn’t that a masculine expression, to ‘smash’ or ‘tear down’?

    What’s more, what do they do with someone who won’t be ‘smashed’? Who might opt to ‘smash’ right back?

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