Amy Austin (@amymarieaustin) is mentally ill and bisexual, and also a feminist, but I repeat myself. Last year Ms. Austin, a British university student, wrote a rant entitled, “Patriarchy and the Problem of Being Born Female”:
Social constructions of gender, like power, stem from patriarchal ideologies . . .
Environmentally speaking, gender is independent of sex . . . and signifies the social constructedness of what maleness and femaleness mean in a given culture. The hierarchy that implicitly positions men above women due to reproductive difference, is a harmful one.
Her 995-word rant went viral in the feminist blogosphere, which attracted my notice, and when I wrote about Ms. Austin, her Twitter admirers then came after me like the Furies pursuing Orestes, which prompted me to write a second post entitled “The Madness of ‘Gender Theory’“:
Attempting to explain gender theory to normal people is like attempting to explain a schizophrenic’s delusions to sane people. Normal men are masculine in the most common-sense understanding of that word, and normal women are feminine. Because the meanings of male/masculine and female/feminine are so obvious, from a common-sense point of view, normal people take these categories for granted.
However, radical feminists are not normal people. They are intellectuals, and the most eminent feminist intellectuals have spent the past four decades denouncing the common sense of normal people when it comes to men, women and sex. Anything that normal people believe about sex is a myth, according to feminist intellectuals, and in place of our oppressive patriarchal myths, they offer us feminist ideology and gender theory. . . .
You can read the rest of that. That was a year ago, and since then I’ve plunged even deeper into the Mariana Trench of radical feminism which is, as I’ve said, a totalitarian movement to destroy civilizationa as know it. Sunday afternoon, my Twitter feed erupted after Ms. Austin saw me retweeted (sarcastically) by a British writer named Emily Stockham (@Emily_Camilla), who mocked me as an ignorant bigot. You see, feminists are so morally and intellectually superior to everyone else that to disagree with feminism proves that you are a stupid and hateful person. Quod erat demonstrandum.
Because I was just procrastinating, I ping-ponged tweets back and forth with Ms. Austin and Ms. Stockham a while. At some point, Ms. Stockman mentioned witchcraft, and I tweeted to her my recent post, “Feminist Tumblr: Justifying Hatred With Radical Ideology and Also, Witchcraft.” The point being that it is not me saying that feminists advocate witchcraft, it’s feminists, including eminent Women’s Studies professors. And then I called their attention to a provocative post by Ashton Blackwell, who described “a mainstreaming of dark, gothic, alternative culture” among some feminists:
These young women think they are “feminists” because feminism appeals to their frustrations, insecurities, and their bitterness over being used for casual sex. . . .
[Y]oung women in general have become darker and more bitter, and with good reason . . .
The dress style of the alternative scene — piercings, black apparel, combat boots, and surly expressions — broadcasts, “Stay away from me, I’m dangerous.” . . .
Septum piercings and unnatural hair colors have become so common that they have lost their whiff of punk subversion . . . The witchy, neo-pagan look is trendy . . .
I posit that it stands to reason that young women are attracted to alternative culture because the social breakdown and erosion of sexual decorum over the past half century or so has fostered conditions that make it more likely that they will have traumatic experiences. . . . Female psychology does not respond well to licentiousness, as much as feminists peddle so-called “sexual liberation.” Sadly, this dysfunction has been fully imbibed by the culture, and of course the consequences explain women’s receptivity to feminism — an ideology that purports to empathize with their pain, gives them a scapegoat, and thereby eclipses feminism’s own pivotal culpability in their plight.
Ms. Blackwell illustrates this with photos posted by self-proclaimed feminists, some of whom display pentagrams, crescent moons and other symbols associated with neopagan Wicca. The significance of this should not be dismissed because, you see, I have studied the history of feminism far more deeply than have these young feminists.
Mary Daly’s 1973 book Beyond God the Father not only celebrates witchcraft, but has a chapter called “Transvaluation of Values: The End of Phallic Morality,” in which advocates rejection of Judeo-Christian morality in favor of a “revolutionary morality.” Daly denies that “the life of the fetus is an absolute value,” denies also that there is such a thing as “nature” involved in human reproduction, and calls for “social change . . . to eradicate sex role socialization and the sexual caste system itself,” an “overturning of the sex role system.” In the next chapter, Daly speaks of “the significance of the women’s revolution as Antichrist . . . a spiritual upraising that can bring us beyond sexist myths” and as “the Antichurch . . a communal uprising against the social extensions of the male Incarnation myth.” Daly urges feminists to express “the witch that burns within our own true selves.”
Certainly, any Christian must recognize Daly’s feminist arguments as “doctrines of devils” (I Timothy 4:1), an explicit and deliberate embrace of evil. Knowing where feminist theory ultimately leads, should we be surprised to see that the “witchy, neo-pagan look” is “trendy” with young feminists? And are we surprised that Amy Austin claims her sexuality is gender-neutral:
Personally, I identify as somebody who has a changeable and emotional attraction to people, regardless of gender. Although generally I find women more attractive than men, gender is not really a defining factor in my romantic relationships . . .
The notion that women form relationships with other women as a result of childhood trauma is a harmful, almost laughable, stereotype that lesbian and bisexual women continually face. It is simply untrue . . .
Damaged, you say? How dare you imply Amy Austin is damaged? Despite her claim that gender is not a “defining factor” in her sexuality, Amy Austin is contemptuous of men because she can’t stand to be “a tool for the arousal of men . . . this object of sexual desire.” She finds normal male sexuality inherently repulsive, because “patriarchal ideologies” or something. If feminism is a “spiritual uprising,” as Daly said, what sort of spirits are these? If there is no “absolute value” in life, nor any such thing as “nature” in “the sex role system,” who can say what meaning or purpose there is in life at all?
We live in dark times, my friends. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
"Dark Feminism" correlates with mental illness (e.g., depression) and sexual abnormality. @ashtonbthinks @Emily_Camilla @amymarieaustin
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) August 17, 2015
@rsmccain Feminists are caught in a vicious, confused cycle of blaming "sexism" for the ills of feminism. @Emily_Camilla @amymarieaustin
— Ashton Blackwell (@ashtonbthinks) August 17, 2015
Loyal readers have been funding my research into radical feminism, thanks to the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:
Nice, “no true Scotsman” fallacy.
Without Government taking the place of bread-winner for women, men can take that role again. That’s healthy for men AND women. Over 1 in 4 women in America are on head meds, I think feminism and it’s drive for women to deny their biology is a large reason why. No government check can replace a father. And cats do not equal kids for career women.
The use of Islam in my comment was what they call “an example”. When an example is used, it does not necessarily have to be stated in specific within the text being remarked upon. Further, the actions of those who do not follow Biblical doctrine or commands, be it the Westboro Baptists, the RCC, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hindus, Wiccans, or Richard Dawkins, for example, has nothing to do with me. And I won’t be tarred with that brush.
Regarding punishment, at least you will get to live out your life. But yes, you have committed sin crimes against a holy God and have been warned that you will ultimately receive punishment for them. You may choose to take this warning under advisement and take corrective action, or you can choose not to do so. Frankly, most unbelievers ultimately tell me that they’d rather spend eternity in hell than to worship my God, and so those people will get their wish. Whether you express this in words or not, it is nonetheless your preference, obviously. So it seems to me as if everybody gets what they want.
As for Nietzsche’s attacks on Christianity, they are precisely the same as Marxist/Feminist attacks, and are no more from a different perspective than any individual’s attack on Christianity. Everybody puts their own spin (and rationalization leading to “justification”) on it, but foundationally they are all the same thing: We hate your God, and so we hate you, too.
Jabizgetme?”
Not in the least, no. : )
So, you’re saying women shouldn’t work, and live off men, and this is a biological imperative? Well, it isn’t biology, it’s socialization, and part of a very antiquated evolutionary paradigm. Its quite clear women can make their own money, and live their own lives.
Yes, it seems that feminists don’t actually think — they feel. And the primary feeling is resentment. Thus as political as they are, they don’t have an ideology — they have a religion of resentment.
Second, consumerism, and the labor market, has completely upended the idea of the “male breadwinner”, (and to a lesser degree feminism)and most homes, majority of which are non-feminist require two incomes to thrive, and survive. Most jobs do not pay enough for a man to be the sole breadwinner, especially in a consumerist, lifestyle obsessed, socio-economic paradigm such as ours. Feminism, especially the third wave, encompasses far more than the issue of women in the workforce, too.
I am still right. I refuse to give into the pollution of the language.
even though I’m a non believer I won’t act like so many militant leftists and atheists who live to demean Christians. I really dislike that.
Yet you just called Jesus a Schizophrenic. Your good intentions didn’t last very long, huh? LOL
My sister in law had an extremely violent and traumatic upbringing including a lot of sexual abuse. So its “well adjusted despite….”
Including a pack rape while underage by one of Australias worst serial rapists (who has been in and out of jail for decades) which nearly killed her.
Shes an unusual girl, nice, good looking and damaged.
Good Lord. That’s horrible. Well, I’ll pray for her.
Cheers, shes overcome 9as far as I can tell) all that and had helped my brother recover from the divorce from hell as well as brought up their family together.
Ended up as one of those happy stories in the end.
We need to fight for a cure for Toxoplasmosis.
http://sf.co.ua/14/02/wallpaper-812958.jpg
Cats are actually aliens who have infiltrated our world and try to control us with their toxic cat feces parasites. Feminism is a symptom. The crazy cat lady coincidence…there are no coincidences.
I mean, thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that as a non believer you’re above being insulting about Christianity like all those other Militant Atheists. ROTFL.
Never saw/heard of that!
I simply must bundle-up and visit Der Utube!
:~)?
So women aren’t biologically prone to raising the kids they birth? REALLLYYYY?
Hail and well-met, Friend!
Yeah, they are, but in an era of working women, stay at home dads, and nannies they don’t have take that responsibility completely in themselves, and make a major sacrifice of their own fulfillment on other areas. If this was truly a hard wired biological imperative no woman would choose to go back to work after childbirth, or avoid motherhood at all. This is purely socialization, and birthed at a time when women didn’t have choices.
I’ve always found that emoting my way through life an absolutely exhausting practice— it’s no wonder feminists are so constantly “cranky”!
Life-energy drained, trying to recharge on the “thin gruel” of hate and envy!
I feel pity for them.
But don’t take that as an indication that I’ll stand down and let them roll-over my loved-ones or me!
Nope. Not a bit.
I’m going to say something unpopular (and note I earn more than my husband), but if women aren’t to evaluate men on their money earning potential than what would they use to assess them? I think at that point women may then start evaluating men on looks or maybe their homemaking skills because there has to be something. Also, when men stop worrying about how women look, then men can complain about being valued for their earnings/wealth.
Two responses, sir:
(1) There’s the “majority of cases” case where something could be said to be contributing but not causal.
(2) the phrase “your mileage may vary…” springs to mind…
;~)?
Monogamous lifetime pair-bonding — otherwise known as marriage — is the most obvious solution to all these problems. Of my three adult children, one married at 21, another married at 22, and the third — twin brother, also 22 — is in the Army and has a steady girlfriend. If we could get back to a culture that supports marriage, discouraging premarital promiscuity and encouraging young people to view dating as courtship, a lot of these problems would go away. However, feminists hate marriage, condemning it as slavery and an institution of male supremacy, which is why feminism cannot be part of the solution to the problem, because feminism is a main cause of the problem.
I know that many MRAs are secularists who do not support traditional morality, yet I feel obligated to say that you can’t beat something with nothing, and trying to battle feminists on their own turf — amoral secularism — is foolish strategy. This is why, even if you are not a religious believer yourself, opponents of feminism must recognize why feminists like Mary Daly directly attacked Christianity. It was (and still is) the bastion of Western civilization, a civilization that feminists intend to destroy.
Hmmm, oh, I dunno, personality, intelligence, outlook, kindness, spirit, etc., etc. Women are negatively viewed as materialistic, one dimensional, and shallow because of this very attribute, but if you look to the source, you realize it’s part of a fading evolutionary paradigm, and will be selected for de-evolution as women take more control socially, and finance their own lives. Furthermore, if it was really a biological imperative for a woman to oy go after high earners they would always chase high earning men (and some do)regardless of how violent, boorish, and ill bread they are. Using men as a source of security was a survival strategy when women either had few choices socially, couldn’t do the same work
as men due to being barred from higher education, or severely curbed in most professions, and were physically vulnerable.
You know what will fix that…quit buying shit you can’t afford. This ” keeping up with the Jone’s ” mentality is also a big part of the problem…at least on the financial end of things.
I don’t think you realize that you are defending an historical aberration. The ancient order of man as breadwinner and woman as keeper of the hearth developed for very good reason. The last 70 years is not typical, and it will not survive a serious economic and political collapse such as we are headed towards.
Nice to demonstrate you have no idea what you are talking about. But given you hold with Neitzsche, that’s not surprising.
Neitzsche didn’t know what he was talking about either. There are many people who claim to be devout Christians that also believe it’s quite alright to murder babies in womb, or even later.
It is Christian teaching that we are to warn of the judgment to come. You make the mistake that it is the Church that will send people to hell. We simply warn of the wrath of God. There is a huge difference.
They end up at the same place. A difference that makes no difference is no difference, to borrow from a well known Star Trek character.
You make a good point, although I’m not sure you understand the full consequences of the point you’re making.
Feminism is many things, but one thing it has always been is about redistributing economic resources from men to women. Wherever policies of affirmative action (“diversity”) are enforced, a white man can never be hired for a position if a qualified female or minority applicant is available. These policies — deliberate discrimination in the name of “equality” — are most clearly evident in higher education, where for the past 25 years or so, the departments of arts, humanities and social sciences have effectively put up a “No White Males Need Apply” sign outside their faculty hiring offices.
This anti-male hostility in higher education explains why male students are now only 43 percent of undergraduate enrollment. This in turn produces a shortage of colleg-educated males qualified for professional career opportunities, so that about one-third of young college-educated women find they have no reasonable expectations of finding a husband of comparable socioeconomic status. And because affirmative action policies are also enforced in many workplaces, even well-educated men find their prospects of career advancement are impeded by deliberate anti-male discrimination.
The male/breadwinner-female/homemaker marriage arrangement has become less common not because women don’t want high-earning husbands, but rather because decades of anti-male policies have significantly reduced the number of high-earning young males, relative to the available population of young females.
This kind of “equality” reduces opportunities for women to marry, and also reduces the benefits that married women obtain through marriage. As marriage becomes less beneficial to women, divorce and unwed motherhood increase, and society rearranges its political priorities, so that taxpayers (most of whom are married) are required to pay for the lifestyles that anti-male/anti-marriage policies encourage women to lead.
All feminist policies are anti-male, and therefore are harmful to all heterosexual women, depriving single women of opportunities for marriage, depriving married women of the full economic benefit of their husband’s labor, creating a competitive hostility between men and women that limits cooperation within marriage, and producing conditions that incentivize divorce.
“So, you’re saying women shouldn’t work, and live off men, and this is a biological imperative?”
When my wife was homeschooling our six — yes, six — children, she would occasionally be asked by a woman, “What do you do?” And after my wife told her, the woman would say, “So you don’t work?”
The idea that motherhood is not “work” is a huge lie that feminists have helped create.
The Rule of Liberal Social Science: No statistical correlation is valid if it does not support liberal arguments.
Personally, I dislike the way the abuse/homosexuality correlation is sometimes wielded as if it were the universal explainer. It is important to say that different people are homosexual for different reasons, and the etiology of homosexuality is therefore never a one-size-fits-all formula. However, it might be possible to say that homosexuals are more likely than heterosexuals to have been victims of childhood sexual abuse. I say such a correlation “might be possible” if enough careful research were done on the subject, but since the APA normalized homosexuality in 1973, research in this area has been almost completely taken over by pro-gay activists who have no inclination to provide an accurate understanding of the environmental factors in the etiology of homosexuality.
Yet even if we did have good research, we would still have to explain why many heterosexuals experience child abuse (including same-sex abuse) while many homosexuals were not abused.
Forsooth! Thy intents art the nob’lest kind,
But methinks thou hast surrendered ‘ere now
To the baser prose of today’s weak minds
Wounding thee, and bringing thy grammar low.
Can’st we return? ‘Tis the Bard’s prose we seek!
Language and meter that raises the soul
To heights unmatch’d by the Latin or Greek
Falter not in seeking that noble goal!
For if we give in to this baser prose,
Give in to today’s tongue which has no class,
The street speak that marks our bitterest foes,
It will come back to bite us in the ass!
Alas! I fear ’tis already too late,
And the gutter is now our only fate.
Honestly, I require a work ethic. I think basic human decency is a given — beyond that (and call me sexist) I expect that the man be able to use power tools and kill things when necessary (those are masculine traits I value and need as I am lacking in those areas). I believe men value women for feminine traits and that’s because we are meant to complement one another. I have a number of friends and acquaintances where the wife is the breadwinner and quite frankly their marriages have had a great deal of strain because this goes against human nature. Society may appear to be changing roles, but I’m not sure I believe you can fundamentally alter human nature and the only way these changing social roles are maintained is through the acquiescence of men and what we define as a First World economy — lose either and these ‘egalitarian’ sex/gender roles are no longer an option.
Neil deGrasse Tyson regularly beclowns himself.
That would not be difficult. Evidence continues to mount that most behavioral traits are half genetic, half environmental, and it is increasingly well understood.
For example, someone that rates higher on neuroticism can be permanently (negatively) affected by moving around a lot during childhood, while non-neurotic siblings bounce back. Surely a lack of resilience — or in other words, susceptibility to trauma — is a major factor in the environmental cases.
Oh I agree entirely about academia, but I think (and I’m going to say something else unpopular) there are still many options for men, and these career options are found in fields where men excel and women as a group are far less capable. Young men who desire a college education need only choose disciplines that require math — the lack of jobs in STEM fields is not a result of affirmative action it is a result of corporate in-sourcing and out-sourcing an entirely different issue. Young men can also seek jobs that require physical courage and/or strength. There is also any occupation that requires risk-taking like small business (women as a whole are not risk takers). I would also point out that the entire social construct is based upon an economic model that is not sustainable and that men, as you said, fund. As this site is not about economics, I will not elaborate on the unsustainable nature of a debt-based system that relies upon constant growth. I will note that the circumstance where men support women to whom they are not married through welfare and large local, state, and federal governments that disproportionately employ women and pay salaries and benefits above the norm for private sector male taxpayers was created and is sustained by male politicians with very little complaint from male voters and taxpayers. For some reason, men keep screwing themselves…
I don’t think women lose their feminine traits by having careers, or independence from men, just like I don’t think a man becomes less of a man if he makes less money than his wife, or opts to stay home with the kids. Those things are perhaps less about gender, and more about character. I’m not sure if I believe in this static thing called “human nature”, when mind/consciousness, and subsequently life, seem to be all about movement. the root of our evolution seems to be technological, and it’s been technology that has helped liberate women from dependence on men more than anything else. This seems to be speeding up now, and consequently we’ll wind up seeing more breakdown of traditional gender norms, and institutions, until we meet some kind of healthy equilibrium via open conflict, and chaos. I guess that’s kind of Hegellian? I think feminism was inevitable, but as an ideology, and social force, especially in the third wave which seems to emphasize victimhood over empowerment, it’s not the driver of what a lot of people consider to be social breakdown. There are plenty of conservative anti feminist women who are independent and career minded.
…the social breakdown and erosion of sexual decorum over the past half
century or so has fostered conditions that make it more likely that they
will have traumatic experiences. . . .
She seems to forget who, exactly, was responsible for that. Hint: It sure wasn’t straight, conservative, Christian men. Just sayin’.
Men, by and large, genuinely love women in general and find it difficult to say “no” to them.
The converse does not hold true.
And one of the greatest lies of feminism is that reality is opposite.
I’m not going to say it is all women, but I think many women would lose respect for a man who stayed at home and they supported — it goes with that thing where women tell men that they want them to have all these “nice” habits and traits that make them an awful lot like the woman’s best girlfriend and then those women have contempt for the man who is just doing/being what she said she wanted. The same way I think not all but many men would resent being dependent on their wives if they did not make any money of their own — it is emasculating. Neither of these opinions/observations suggests that women should not have careers or that men can’t earn less if both are working.
I wouldn’t say feminism is the prime cause for the breakdown of sexual mores over the past fifty years. I’d start with industrial/post industrial society, technological advances, and consumer-capitalism. Feminism is just an outcrop of all those things.
I’m going to say the left is to blame.
And feminism runs in the pack with the left.
Yeah, undoubtedly women lose respect for men who stay at home, take care of the kids, and don’t earn money, but again that’s just social conditioning, and feminists are guilty of it as well, regardless of all their egalitarian, “gender fluidity”. In their case, and this is what makes most feminists entitled, and self centered, is that they want an ease toward prescribed gender roles for themselves, but expect men to adhere to rigid, traditional gender norms, until of course those norms don’t suit them in some fashion. I personally believe that if women expect men to make more money, or be the sole breadwinner that should coincide with certain male priveleges for playing that role, and a certain level of ownership. If they’re going to try to force men into traditional roles then they should get the traditional privileges that go along with it.
Of course you are, but then you would be wrong. Technology, and capitalism have done more for women than Karl Marx ever has, and feminism is a result of those things. From home labor saving devices, to advertising, private education, and buying power, women’s independence in the West has been a result more of the consumer capitalist system, and less by a group of radical bra burners. Oh, but I forgot, the free market system is God, and can’t be held accountable for any wrong doing, or negative effects.
I’m sorry, I’m in no way criticizing women who make the very reasonable choice to forgo career, stay home, and raise children. That is definitely work! Feminists who show disdain for these women have always been wrong. My response was to the commenter who seemed to think a woman’s only role in life is to stay home, and raise children, and that somehow societal collapse will put them back in that sole role, and wholly dependent on men.
First wavers included.
http://unmaskingfeminism.blogspot.com/2010/03/feminists-as-mistakes-of-nature_07.html
Laura Grace Robbins is the best site for looking into feminism’s history and not herstory.
In other news, which I’m sure shall be near and dear to our host’s heart, I present the shock troops in the battle against Feminist Oppression:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KudwS5U9ouA
I would argue that first female suffrage, and then The Pill, unleashed the feminine imperative. Peter Wright traces it back to literal knightly chivalry.
Things that don’t pass the Bechdel Test: War in the Pacific, construction of the Suez Canal, Gothic cathedrals, moon landing, the Crusades, Conquest of Mexico, declaration of Independence, etc.
Back in the early ’80s, I wanted to ask a girl out but she wasn’t into me.
A friend of mine suggested that I ask a different girl out – one that I wasn’t at all interested in. When I told him, “I’m just not interested in her at all,” he said (in utter surprise), “You’re shopping for a wife!”
Then it was me who was surprised. “Isn’t that what dating is?”