The Other McCain

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Feminism as Totalitarian Ideology

Posted on | July 22, 2015 | 58 Comments

“If we accept that gender is constructed and that it is not in any way ‘naturally’ or inevitably connected to sex, then the distinction between sex and gender comes to seem increasingly unstable. In that case, gender is radically independent of sex, ‘a free-floating artifice’ as [Professor Judith] Butler puts it, raising the question as to whether ‘sex’ is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps sex was always already gender, so that the sex/gender distinction is not actually a distinction at all. Butler dispenses with the idea that either gender or sex is an ‘abiding substance’ by arguing that a heterosexual, heterosexist culture establishes the coherence of these categories in order to perpetuate and maintain what the feminist poet and critic Adrienne Rich has called ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ — the dominant order in which men and women are required or even forced to be heterosexual.”
Sara Salih, Judith Butler (2002)

“Only the disciplined mind can see reality, Winston. You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party.”
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1948)

Feminist gender theory, explained by Professor Salih in her synopsis of Professor Butler’s influential 1990 book, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, is totalitarian in two senses of the word. First, it is a political invention, a belief system that claims to define reality in order to advance the claims of a group to exercise complete power. Second, feminism is a totalitarian movement in that its adherents employ methods of terroristic intimidation to silence those who dissent from feminist ideology. This is most evident in academia. On those rare occasions when any critic of feminism appears on a university campus, they are met by angry mobs of feminist protesters.

In October 2014, when columnist George Will gave a speech at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, more than a thousand students signed an open letter claiming that hosting this Pulitzer Prize-winner “sends the wrong message . . . about the tolerance of rape culture and predatory sexual behavior at Miami University.” Chanting and waving signs, dozens of students protested outside Will’s speech, angry about a column he’d written four months earlier. Will’s column explained how the Obama administration was coercing universities to comply with policies based on the bogus 1-in-5 campus rape statistic.

What none of the protesters did (because they could not do) was to refute the facts as Will stated them in his column.

Facts mean nothing to feminists because they are determined to use political power to force others to accept their ideological claims: “Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth.”

A decade ago, feminism’s hegemonic power in academia was demonstrated when Larry Summers was forced to resign as president of Harvard University after he had dared to suggest that there are “innate differences” between men and women. Like Winston Smith, he believed “that the nature of reality is self-evident” — men and women are different — and yet feminist ideology denies this self-evident reality.

Feminism declares that the categories “male” and “female” are fictional constructs through which people are “forced to be heterosexual.” This claim of oppression by the “dominant order” of a “heterosexist culture” is a core principle of feminist theory.

“In terms of the oppression of women, heterosexuality is the ideology of male supremacy.”
Margaret Small, “Lesbians and the Class Position of Women,” in Lesbianism and the Women’s Movement, edited by Charlotte Bunch and Nancy Myron (1975)

“The radical feminist argument is that men have forced women into heterosexuality in order to exploit them . . .”
Celia Kitzinger, The Social Construction of Lesbianism (1987)

“There are politics in sexual relationships because they occur in the context of a society that assigns power based on gender and other systems of inequality and privilege. . . . [T]he interconnections of systems are reflected in the concept of heteropatriarchy, the dominance associated with a gender binary system that presumes heterosexuality as a social norm. . . .
“As many feminists have pointed out, heterosexuality is organized in such a way that the power men have in society gets carried into relationships and can encourage women’s subservience, sexually and emotionally.”

Susan M. Shaw and Janet Lee, Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions (fifth edition, 2012)

Feminists see normal sex roles as “oppression” by “male supremacy,” and deny that heterosexuality is natural. These claims predictably lead feminists into hopeless confusion. The UCLA student newspaper published a column “calling for the government to provide women with free tampons in order to promote gender equality.” However, in order not to offend transgender activists, the editors of the UCLA Bruin felt the need to include a disclaimer:

Editor’s note: This blog post refers to individuals who menstruate as women because the author wanted to highlight gender inequality in health care. We acknowledge that not all individuals who menstruate identify as women and that not all individuals who identify as women menstruate, but feel this generalization is appropriate considering the gendered nature of most health care policies.

Winston Smith could not be reached for comment.




 

Comments

58 Responses to “Feminism as Totalitarian Ideology”

  1. Fail Burton
    July 23rd, 2015 @ 6:30 pm

    I have never seen a group use the word “systems” so much without being able to define the hard edges of such systems or use them to predict a thing. “Systems” such as “white privilege” are the socially constructed fantasy, not heterosexuality.

    A Jim Crow county embraced a “system,” women not being able to vote was “systemic.” Maintaining such things exist 50 and 100 years on as a “system” is nothing more than incitement. Institutionalized into gov’t, colleges and text books, such incitement itself becomes a “system”; systemic hate speech.

    The truth is the presence and lack of systems is the difference between a Jew having a normal life in Germany in 1928 and being shipped off to a death camp only 15 years later. In the ’60s we headed in the opposite direction of that and for some reason in the 21st century have started to head in the other direction again. The consequences are unforeseen but guarantee plenty of hate. One cannot abandon rules, principles and reality itself without a lot of destruction.

    When in the history of mankind have we ever seen a philosophy so steeped in a hatred of so many fellow human beings? On a side note, the canary in a coal mine which used to be science fiction literature has abandoned its once higher calling and descended into a dystopian nightmare of preening naive morons, racists and sociopathic women who openly admit to severe mental health issues. The result? Awards nominations.

  2. Fail Burton
    July 23rd, 2015 @ 6:33 pm

    Well, think about gay feminism; it can neither reproduce or protect itself from the results of its own agitations against the rest of humanity. That is a suicide cult inviting its own destruction, kept alive only by the protections and culture of that which it hates. That is a pitch perfect definition of madness.

  3. theoldsargesays
    July 23rd, 2015 @ 7:03 pm

    Ha!
    If our country depended on that guy and those like him we could be pveryrun by Belize’s army.
    I’ve never seen anything so gay in my life.(and I do not mean to disparage homosexual men by that remark)

  4. Dana
    July 23rd, 2015 @ 8:05 pm

    The Dana Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Sexuality would be that either we could see two people or we could observe that coitus was occurring, but could never see both at the same time, this never knowing if any particular copulation occurred between the two people.

    Throw in pegging, and we could be really uncertain!

  5. Mike G.
    July 23rd, 2015 @ 10:24 pm

    ISWYDT.

  6. DeadMessenger
    July 24th, 2015 @ 12:42 am

    [snicker]

  7. RonaldmcKnight
    July 24th, 2015 @ 3:11 am

    It’s All About You h e o t h e r m c c a i < Make It Easy

  8. FMJRA 2.0: Common People (William Shatner ST:TOS Video Remix) : The Other McCain
    July 25th, 2015 @ 9:18 pm

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