“I worry that the word ‘reason,’ being as heavily masculine-coded as it is, functions as a kind of buzzword.”
— Kate Manne, Ph.D., January 2016
Misogyny is “the system which operates within a patriarchal social order to police and enforce women‘s subordination, and to uphold male dominance,” according to Cornell University Professor Kate Manne. Thus, a sentiment — misogyny actually means hatred of women — is transmogrified into a “system” through the magic of feminist rhetoric.
“Misogyny” is one of those slanderous insults that feminists fling around so habitually and haphazardly as to be meaningless, the way “rape culture” now means almost anything a heterosexual man says or does. Yet no man can object to such insults, nor protest against this slander, without bringing upon himself the suspicion of guilt. The anti-male propaganda of feminist rhetoric is part of a psychological warfare strategy, one which routinely employs “Kafkatrapping” tactics, where denying the accusation is considered proof of guilt. Males exist only as demonized scapegoats in the feminist imagination, as I have explained:
Feminism provides an analytical framework within which almost any aspect of male behavior can be viewed as “problematic” — yet another example of misogyny, “male entitlement,” etc. — so that every man the feminist encounters is viewed as a suspect, a likely perpetrator of sexism, and she is a detective on the case, gathering evidence to indict him.
Feminism condemns all men as complicit in patriarchal oppression, and nothing so conclusively proves a man’s active role in this conspiracy as when he commits the crime of disagreeing with a feminist. The paranoid circularity of Feminist Logic™ is so obvious that it is frightening to think that Cornell University (annual tuition $49,116) would hire a fanatical ideologue like Kate Manne for a tenure-track position, but let’s read more of Doctor Manne’s definition of “misogyny”:
[M]isogyny is primarily a property of social systems or environments as a whole, in which women will tend to face hostility of various kinds because they are women in a man’s world (i.e., a patriarchy), who are held to be failing to live up to men‘s standards (i.e., tenets of patriarchal ideology which have some purchase in this environment). Because of this, misogynist hostilities will often target women more selectively, rather than targeting women across the board. And individual agents may harbor these hostilities for numerous different reasons; the full psychological explanation of their attitudes and actions will also vary widely. Such hostilities may alternatively have their source in the actions, practices, and policies of broader social institutions. What these hostilities are required to have in common is the above social-cum-structural explanation: i.e., roughly, they must be part of a system that polices, punishes, dominates, and condemns those women deemed to be an enemy or threat to the patriarchy.
If you encountered an ordinary person spewing such gibberish — mumbling to themselves at a bus station about “misogynist hostilities” — you’d figure them for a kook on the brink of a psychotic breakdown. However, Kate Mannes has a Ph.D. from MIT, so her gibberish will be published in a book by a major university press. Among other targets, Doctor Mannes takes aim at Heather Mac Donald:
Finally, there is no conflict between social progress for women and misogynist aggression towards them, contra Heather Mac Donald. Progress and misogyny are perfectly compatible. As each of my main examples in this paper has suggested in their own way, and as my analysis predicts, the former may be precisely what engenders the latter, in the form of backlash. That is, women may be resented and punished precisely because they are achieving rapid progress in certain areas. Some women‘s success in hitherto male-dominated roles, as well as their abandonment of traditionally feminine-coded forms of care work, would be predicted on my account to make them the targets for misogynist aggression. And this is what we find. Misogyny often stems from the desire to take women down, to put them in their place again. So the higher they climb, the farther they may be made to fall because of it. But the women who rise up and the women who fall down may not be identical. The glass ceiling may be broken; but then, there may be smack-down. And some women may be hit by the shards of glass following others escalation.
In other words, the more women succeed, the more men hate women, so that no matter how much actual equality may be achieved, there will never be a point in the future when feminists stop claiming to be victims.
Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t — feminism is a lose-lose proposition all the way around, with increasing hostility between men and women as the necessary byproduct of “progress.” Why? Because modern feminism is derived from Marxism, i.e., “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Feminists simply substitute patriarchy for capitalism as the oppressive system to be destroyed in the prophesied revolutionary apocalypse that will usher in a future egalitarian utopia. Nothing good ever comes from such radicalism, but Doctor Manne teaches philosophy, not history, so the blood-stained record of Marxist-Leninist regimes in the 20th century does nothing to deter her dreams of dictatorial feminist power in the 21st century. And speaking of feminist dictators . . .
Hillary Clinton is a victim of misogyny, according to Doctor Manne: “When Hillary Clinton behaves as other politicians do, or changes her positions, she is perceived as more dishonest and as having less integrity.” Accusations of wrongdoing against Hillary “are feeding into gendered tropes and stereotypes as old as misogyny itself — e.g., of the woman who can’t be trusted, and to whom we hence don’t have to listen,” according to Doctor Manne. Just as no one can criticize Barack Obama without being accused of racism, now the Clinton campaign is planning to make the 2016 election a litmus test of sexism, and Doctor Manne has published a 5,000-word opus in The Boston Review that depicts Donald Trump as the living embodiment of misogyny:
Trump’s blunt kind of misogyny is a good place to start in understanding the general phenomenon. It is so crude, shameless, and unapologetic that we run little risk of getting lost in its nuances. But we must ask the natural next question: What happens to misogyny when it acquires a little subtlety or goes underground and manages more by way of plausible deniability?
The answer, all too often, is that it is transformed into moralistic forms — which are not . . . historical artifacts. What unites these varieties of misogyny, past and present, and moralistic and non-moralistic alike, is that they enforce the patriarchal order by lifting men up and taking down women. . . .
Four thousand words later, Doctor Manne concludes by wondering whether some “progressive” men will join the misogynistic backlash:
It is not difficult to see why misogynistic aggression might coexist with progressive commitments. Many white men, including those who espouse egalitarian and progressive values — even those who pride themselves on being good feminists — have recently experienced a loss of power and status relative to nonwhites and white women. Some are in denial. And some are angry. Some are lashing out in grief cloaked in outrage.
The strength of these forces will become clearer in November. I confess that I am not optimistic about the outcome. Electing Trump would strike a major blow for patriarchal restoration. Misogynistic social forces are hence pushing in this direction. And if Clinton does win, she will have to govern in the face of a revanchism intensified by Trump’s defeat. Another fear is that the least privileged and most vulnerable women will bear the brunt of the trickle-down aggression.
We will see soon enough. But insofar as there is a distinctively modern strain of misogyny, it is this: the backlash to women’s social progress and to feminism.
What? Does the professor mean that Republicans complaining about Trump are against “patriarchal restoration”? As a leading spokesman for misogynistic social forces, this is very disturbing to me. If the GOP isn’t going to do its part to enforce the patriarchal order, who will?
At least I’m not one of those pathetic progressive dudes “who espouse egalitarian and progressive values” and “pride themselves on being good feminists” while they suffer “loss of power and status,” etc. Equality is impossible, social justice is a mirage, and Progress Is the Root of All Evil.
Of course, nobody who hopes to get tenure at Cornell University would dare speak such blunt truths, and Doctor Manne finds herself surrounded by male faculty members who never dare say a word against her feminist ideology. Their timorous silence probably leads her to suspect that her male colleagues are all secretly plotting to uphold their dominance and enforce her subordination. One reason paranoia is so typical of academic feminism is simply because no one on campus is permitted to dissent. Every member of the faculty and administration at an Ivy League school like Cornell is expected to sing from the Diversity Hymnal, and if any of them privately harbor doubts about “egalitarian and progressive values,” they know they would be persona non grata on campus if they ever gave voice to any skeptical opinion toward feminism. Yet surely not everyone at Cornell shares Doctor Manne’s fanatical zeal, and her ideology tells her that “even [men] who pride themselves on being good feminists” are apt to join the “backlash to women’s social progress.” So who is this Judas at Cornell who will betray her? Which member of the faculty may even now be secretly sabotaging Doctor Manne’s path to tenure?
Madness looms as fear haunts the feminist imagination. Last year, an academic philosophy journal rejected one of Doctor Manne’s articles, which caused her to erupt in a memorable Facebook conniption:
I received a rejection notice from a journal yesterday. This is a pretty routine occurrence in this game, admittedly. Acceptance rates are notoriously low in philosophy; well under five per cent in the top journals. So you have to learn to accept the rejections themselves gracefully. And much as you slightly dread reading the reports, they can be valuable, even invaluable, in making the paper better. They can help to expose unclarities in your claims, gaps in your argument, etc. But sometimes, they simply confirm that you are fighting a losing battle.
This referee report was one such. The reviewer complained about my use of feminist terms and concepts throughout the paper — e.g., “hegemonic dominance”, “messages that are not only false but oppressive,” and “hermeneutical injustice,” being the specific phrases which they listed as objectionable. And they went on to remark more generally that “the rhetoric of the ms. is such that it will, I think, (1) turn off some readers and (2) distract from the author’s argument. The author brings in some concepts and language which, whatever their merits, seem dubious to many of us in the analytic tradition.”
As a feminist philosopher in the analytic tradition, this is a very disappointing reaction to encounter. Many of us — me included — take the above terms and concepts to be standard, useful, and indeed vital, stock-in-trade. And the people who the reviewer feared would be so “turned off” by the language as to be “distracted” from my argument seem to include the reviewer themselves, ironically. They not only managed to completely miss, but handily illustrated, my central point in the paper. The point being that if one espouses politically marginalized views within philosophy, then one is disproportionately likely to be dismissed, disparaged, silenced, or even excluded from the discipline altogether. One is less likely to be given a platform in leading journals, for one concrete example, in view of which one is of course less likely to be able to earn a living wage, let alone get tenure.
Taken alone, my experience is just one data point, of course. But recent work by Sally Haslanger, among others, strongly suggests that it is not anomalous. Feminist philosophy is virtually absent, and plausibly systematically excluded, from top journals, she argues.
You see? Feminism is “politically marginalized” and Doctor Manne is a victim — dismissed, disparaged, silenced and excluded! — of misogyny.
She’s only three or four years away from tenure now, so her dreadful ordeal on the “publish-or-perish” treadmill will soon be over. And if Cornell votes against tenure for Doctor Manne?
Federal lawsuit, guaranteed. She’s probably got a massive cache of evidence already. Every email or text message from any of her faculty colleagues that could plausibly be interpreted as “sexist” is stored somewhere, in anticipation of a future Title IX claim against Cornell. Why are feminists so common in academia and so rare in the private sector? No major business could survive in this litigation-happy country if managers didn’t carefully screen applications to make sure they don’t hire any woman with Gender Studies classes on her college transcripts. Any involvement in campus “activism” is likewise a red flag in the hiring process. The activist mentality represents a potential threat of lawsuits claiming “discrimination,” “hostile work environment,” etc., and companies would go broke paying settlements if they hired kooks who use social-justice jargon like “hegemonic dominance.”
This is the real tragedy of elite education in the 21st century. Parents pay $49,116 a year to send their kids to Cornell, hoping that an Ivy League education will qualify their child for successful careers, and instead the kids are being indoctrinated in bizarre “progressive” nonsense that renders students incapable of functioning in the real world. Honestly, what parent would want their child to turn out like Alanna Bennett, who went to Oberlin College (annual tuition $50,586) and ended up ranting about Ghostbusters at BuzzFeed?
“Hey, how’s your daughter doing?”
“She’s got an apartment and a cat and a job writing for BuzzFeed.”
“My condolences.”
Redefining words — so that “misogyny” is now simply a synonym for something a feminist dislikes — won’t change reality. What it will do is make it more difficult for allegedly “educated” people to understand why the world doesn’t conform to what they have been taught by the ideological commissars who control higher education in this country.
Is it really what feminists don’t like? Or is it more, if I act like a jerk and someone complains, it’s because of misogyny.
I can’t get past the unsupported “reason is masculine-coded” assertion before commenting. In my business, that constitutes a “fact not in evidence.” Is she arguing that reason–which is nothing more than a tool used to ferret out Truth–is somehow sex specific? Is she arguing that females cannot employ the tools males do with equal proficiency?
Finally, where did she get her Ph.D.? The Nashville YMCA Night School of Vaginal Contemplation and Refrigerator Repair?
Now I’ll go read the rest of the post.
And people wonder why PhD’s have a major loss in status.
It’s this woman’s pathetic complaint about the rejection letter.
A feminist is sexism personified.
In her Facebook rant about not getting published, she criticizes the reviewer by making this statement:
Many of us — me included — take the above terms and concepts to be standard, useful, and indeed vital, stock-in-trade.
In philosophy, it is absolutely necessary to define one’s terms at the outset of any argument. The fact that “many” may know the definitions of terms indicates that not all do. In fact, the vast majority of readers may have no clue as to what Manne is talking about because Feminism so filled with jargon and fluid definitions, it is impossible to keep them all straight. Jargon is a means to obscure meaning. If the terms she cites have established definitions, then those definitions should be noted. The critique is not anti-female; it’s anti-shitty writing.
Reason and critical thinking are not feminist traits, so one must conclude that either feminism attracts those lacking these traits, or requires that they be left at the door.
Feminism is inherently subjective, dismissing the male viewpoint of human relations as invalid and postulating that only the perspective o women is relevant in the discussion of women’s oppression.
Note that this “oppression” is asserted as a fact. To deny that women are oppressed — historically, systemically and universally — is to dispute the entire purpose and meaning of feminism.
Feminism is a conclusion in search of evidence.
?Sentence first — verdict afterwards.?
— The Queen of Hearts, Alice In Wonderland
Misandrist – A person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against men.
“the counterpart to a misogynist is a misandrist”
The image might lead an unsuspecting viewer to believe that this was staged for the photographer, but alas no. Aunt Mabel caught Cedric kissing a shelf stacker girl at Tesco on the cheek because she had helped him find a particular grocery item and as a punishment he had to carry her around like this…
Needless to say the marriage lasted about as long as Cedric’s back
Yes, both.
Also, if you act like a jerk and they don’t complain, then they’re infantilizing you with the soft misogyny of gendered low expectations for civilized behavior, concomitant with (and presumably deriving from) a pedestalized ideal that is paradoxically also an object of implicit contempt, as the withholding of criticism signifies a psychosocial context in which the female-gendered person is considered incapable of personal growth and mature reactions to illumination of flaws, which is incredibly insulting to women qua women, notwithstanding her reaction to what Betty said in the faculty lounge the other day.
Her blood sugar was low. She’s rebalancing her medication. And what Betty said was really, really mean! She’s been keeping a journal, and someday we’ll all be sorry!
Thank you for this interesting article..
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“Yet no man can object to such insults, nor protest against this slander, without bringing upon himself the suspicion of guilt.”
It’s been said that “social justice” is Jesse Jackson’s favorite word for the same reason, because the term is absolutely meaningless. What is “social justice?” You don’t know, but if the question is framed as “Do you OPPOSE social justice? Are you AGAINST social justice?” no one in their right mind would say “no.”
“Alright then,” says Jesse, as he prepares his demands for money.
Jeez, Stacy, 2360-odd words for Kate Manne? What is she, a moron? Look, same as Blacks kill a lot of Blacks, yet they scream when cops kill two bad ones in a week, Kate Manne avoids HERs and Feminist, Inc.’s uncomfy truth: Women hate women worse than men hate women. Misogyny is single-gender, women hating women. All I have for Feminism, Inc. is, wait until Allah gets here. There will be precious little of this nonsense from Ms. Manne. Spoiled children and delicate little and pouty girls like Manne aren’t accommodated by men with a real agenda, conquest. And she won’t much care for the result from that quarter. But, them thar Muslims ARE onto something as regards women.
Part of the problem is that the feminist professors, those with tenure or who are tenure tracked, are envisioning and are getting used to a career path in which they are not held accountable for their actions or, once they achieve tenure, their production.
Those of us out in the real world have to produce, or we lose our jobs. We have to be able to take criticism from our bosses, and be either able to defend our actions or comply with whatever changes are required. We have to be able to use reason and logic and standard procedure, or we’re gone.
The lovely Dr Manne believes that “reason” is a “heavily masculine-coded” word, when, as nearly as I can tell from the definition, it ought to be part of anyone’s thinking, whether that person is male or female. (Yes, you may now denounce me for my gender-binary thought process.) Is Dr Manne saying that women have less capacity for reasoning?
The entry of women into the professions means, inter alia, that women must now be judged according to the standards of the professions, and Dr Manne doesn’t like that, doesn’t like that at all. Once she is granted tenure, she’ll not be held to any but the most basic of standards — don’t copulate with underaged students and don’t walk around campus naked — but, until then, her production must be evaluated and judged, to see if she has earned tenure, and that subjects her to, horrors! the judgement of other people, some of whom might even be male.
I have heard of professors refer to themselves as Poor, Hungry Doctors rather than Millionaire Doctors, though I always thought that the professors made a pretty decent living.
Yes, I oppose ‘social justice,’ am in my right mind, and am perfectly willing to say so.
[…] “reason” is so “heavily masculine-coded” that it’s just a buzzword, how do you […]
I am sorry, I don’t get it. How do people think like this? I have been following your quest for however long (at least a year?) and it seems that it just gets crazier with each post. My brain just cannot understand how they come up with this $h!t
Looks like she found the cookie jar.
I think you may enjoy this McCain….
Coming to you soon….The possibilities are endless!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nottinghamshire-police-to-record-misogyny-and-harassment-against-women-as-hate-crimes-a7134306.html
…”Logic” is nowhere in the Feminazi vocabulary!
BS- Bull S—-
MS- More of the Same
PhD- Piled Higher and Deeper.
You left off the ‘?’
If those are supposed to be links, they aren’t.
Since I don’t know where you are from, you may not know that there was a Law School in Nashville that used YMCA facilities and became known as the YMCA Law School. they later were forced out and they obtained other lodgings and changed their name to the Nashville Law School.
As you might imagine, their pass rate on the Bar exam was pretty bad.
“Feminism is a conclusion in search of evidence.” – I don’t think so. Feminism is a conclusion that resists all contrary evidence, invents supporting evidence and discredits anyone who questions the validity of its wildly illogical assumptions.
The World: 78% of feminists end up psychotropic medication and with a house full of cats.
Feminist World: Statistics are patriarchic hegemony!
The World: Studies show that married women are the happiest demographic in America.
Feminist World: Women have been brainwashed by the Patriarchy!
The World: It’s generally accepted…
Feminist World: …that you need to SHUT UP!
Or maybe I’m just traumatized from my run in with Peta yesterday. They were handing out vegan ice cream. I foolishly mentioned that they can’t legally call a product “ice cream” here unless it actually contains cream. By speaking the word “cream” out loud (and despite it being on her sign) the young woman in a bikini and high heels got triggered and had to lecture me that “dairy” requires the “rape” of millions of cows daily. “Rape?” sez I. Which prompted her to point to her chest. Sensing that the air was saturated with “crazy,” I made my goodbyes. Yes, I was thoroughly and utterly punished for my weak attempt to tweak the nose of a vegan. Now I’m totes: those poor poor cows.
Bear in mind, it’s women that “produce” stuff like this, that have SOMEHOW “attained” bestowal of a PhD, by SOMEONE, that are cited as “data” in IQ actuarial tables.
The adjective denies the noun. Social justice is not justice in much the same way that root beer is not beer, ginger ale is not ale, and Christian Scientists are rarely scientists.
Never met a lawyer who could pass a bar…rimshot…
Hire a feminist, hire a lawsuit.
Actually, I recall that fact from the days when I took the LSAT and was shocked that there was such a thing. At the time (mid-’80s), it was called the “Nashville YMCA Night School of Law,” and one could forward one’s LSAT scores to that august institution. The name has been a running joke of mine since then.
That might have been their official name. We always called it the YMCA Law School. I’m guessing it still exists, but haven’t lived in the Nashville area since ’92.
I once hired a young woman based on very good references. After hiring her, a prior employer called me to warn that she had filed harassment complaints at her past three workplaces (she was 25). Public records backed up his info. Soon thereafter she came to me and asked if I had heard a rumor that she had a history of sexual harassment complaints. I responded that I’d heard no such “rumors” (since what I’d heard was an established fact). She then told me that she had heard such rumors about herself and that if I let her go because she mentioned it, it would be a violation of her rights and she would “be forced” to sue. She turned out to be an ideal employee…until she filed a sexual harassment suit against our largest client. I can’t imagine how many cats she has these days.
Shorter G: True dat!
So, if misogyny means disagrees with feminists and racist means votes against Democrats. I guess I’m cool with being a racist misogynist. I don’t think I’m alone and I’m not surprised to see those “SHOCKING” poll results showing Trump overtaking Hillary in battleground states.
Excellent Finrod!
“Electing Trump would strike a major blow for patriarchal restoration!”
Sounds like a good campaign slogan…
Would that a prior employer had called to warn you that she had filed harassment complaints at her past three workplaces before you had hired her, and not after.
Mr Reardon, you should not be satisfied with being a racist misogynist, when you could be a Cisheteronormative White Christianist Patriarchist! Step up your game, man!
I’d have problems with the ‘normative’ part. There are witnesses.
There is no way that anyone can convince me that Clinton is a “victim” of anything.
Kate wants to redefine words…fine. Kate’s definition is Pseudo- Misogyny and is best defined as a syndrome. Lets call it PMS for short. Kate is full of it.
This is the very reason I want a job in which I’m the only woman working there.
In her earlier quoted comments, she marginalizes others. In the Facebook rant, she complains about being marginalized herself. Hm. Isn’t there a saying about doing unto others? Oh, but wait, that concept comes from the holy book of another group she marginalizes.
Interesting. But hateful rhetoric and aggressive physical approaches made by women against men is just peachy, eh?
I’m assuming, because this is Nottinghamshire, the anti-woman hate speech law does not apply to Muslims.
By pointing to her chest, perhaps she was indicating a different source of cream to you? Not sure. Would that then be vegan? I’m not clear on how the whole vegan thing works, exactly.
I think you should more accurately say that you are “more or less” in your right mind. That might help fend off arguments.
I personally like to say that’s not so much that I oppose “social justice,” but more like I’m totally for “social injustice.” Probably don’t wanna say that while I’m standing outside my house or next to my car or anything, though.
This occurred to me, too, when I read the article. Perhaps I accidentally used reason, when apparently, I’m not supposed to.
But as you suggest, and in spite of being a woman, if I made the sort of asinine statements at work that Dr. Manne* does, I would be labeled incoherent and get dumped posthaste.
* Is this pronounced “man”? Wouldn’t that be almost a Freudian slip of a surname for a feminist? Maybe she could have her name legally changed. Allow me to suggest “Alotta Fagina.” She would be Dr. Fagina. Which would be cool, and may even guarantee tenure.
I believe it’s related to the last word of your post.
I would have put her in a department with a female manager. Just another reorg, you know how that goes.
Dana’s right, Mark. You could also be a fat-shaming, rape-apologizing neckbeard with mommy issues if you play your cards right.