Enlisting Alice Cooper To Respond To The Prospect Of Another Romney Candidacy

Feminists and friends of Amy Austin (@amymarieaustin) have spent the past day-and-a-half chastising me on Twitter for the tone and content of Wednesday’s post, “Feminism Repeats Itself, the First Time as Tragedy, the Second Time as Farce.” It may help to examine the “gender theory” gibberish piled into Ms. Austin’s 995-word screed entitled “Patriarchy and the Problem of Being Born Female.”

Having spent the past several months immersed in a study of radical feminism, my antennae automatically alert to the word “patriarchy,” a sort of dye-marker for radicalism. Most people who think of themselves as “feminists” are not radicals, defining their understanding of feminism in vague terms of “equality” and “choice,” signifying opposition to whatever it is they consider “sexism.”

However, when people start talking about patriarchy and male supremacy, when they speak of the systemic oppression of women — well, at that point, you can be reasonably certain you’re talking to a radical feminist. And gender theory is a spawn of this radicalism.

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. Their hostile critique of normality (for that it is what it boils down to) is couched in a pretentious academic jargon, with which Amy Austin’s 995-word rant is replete:

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. . . . .

No normal person talks this way. People must be taught to babble this ideological nonsense, which always reminds me of George Orwell’s aphorism: “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that; no ordinary man could be such a fool.”

It is not necessary, nor is it my purpose here, to dismantle and disprove Ms. Austin’s claims about “the social constructedness of what maleness and femaleness mean.” It is enough to say, in reply, that most educated people are opposed to an excessively rigid system of “gender roles.” We don’t wish to unnecessarily limit people’s career choices, nor do we go around shouting hateful slurs and epithets at people who are, as the feminists would say, gender atypical. At the same time, however, most people are basically normal — masculine men and feminine women — and don’t think of their normality as part of a harmful, oppressive hierarchy.

Radical feminism’s war on human nature is an attempt to redefine what we believe about men and women and sex, and to do so in order to destroy everything normal about men and women and sex. Radical feminism envisions an androgynous future, where human beings are more or less identical and interchangeable units, where there are no meaningful differences between men and women. This is the radical meaning of “sexual equality,” and if it is an impossible goal, its ultimate futility will not prevent feminists from destroying the happiness of normal people in pursuit of this doomed radical project.

So now, here is the concluding paragraph of Amy Austin’s rant:

It is not simple anatomy which is harmful to children, it is the forced gender roles which we assign to the sexes that harm them from birth. It is telling girls that they are inherently inferior; it is telling them that they are responsible for becoming victims of sexual assault or violence; it is teaching them that their vulvas are ‘dirty’ whilst men’s sexual parts are ‘something to be proud of’; it is teaching boys that they need to “man up”; it is teaching them that they are allowed to be violent in certain circumstances; and is it teaching them that women are enticing objects of sexual desire. We must begin to educate our sons, we must stop blaming our daughters for dressing “inappropriately” and encourage our sons to respect not only themselves, but their female counterparts. The term ‘gender’ needs to be abolished. Only then might we be able to move away from a society that fundamentally relies upon patriarchy, to one where we talk freely of female biology and remove the negative connotations that surround the term ‘female.’

Notice anything about that paragraph? First-person plural pronouns — “We must . . . our sons . . . our daughters . . . our sons.”

Yet Amy Austin is an unmarried college student who has no sons or daughters, nor does it seem likely that she will be procreating anytime soon, so that these first-person plural pronouns amount to her lecturing other people about how to raise their children.

Her lecture includes many false accusations; I assure you that my daughters have not been taught “that they are inherently inferior” or “that their vulvas are ‘dirty,'” and exactly who is Ms. Austin blaming for the “negative connotations” of “female”? Perhaps other people are not offended to encounter insulting lectures from these young fanatics who suppose that their ability to mimic the jargon of radical ideologues makes them qualified to pass judgment on the lives of people they don’t know. Perhaps others are content to ignore the fact that the madness of “gender theory” is being promulgated at taxpayer expense at public universities, where no member of the faculty or administration dares speak a word in opposition to the radical feminist agenda.

“PIV is always rape, OK?”

It was necessary, in response to one of Ms. Austin’s defenders, to recall how and why I began this long exploration of feminist theory, and the anti-male/anti-heterosexual rant of “Radical Wind” was the starting point. Of course, I’ve been critical of feminism for many years. (Since 2009, we have celebrated the week before Mother’s Day as “National Offend a Feminist Week.”) But the “War on Women” theme of the 2012 presidential election, the rhetoric about “rape culture” surrounding the Steubenville case, and the 2013 Kaitlyn Hunt lesbian molestation case had the cumulative effect of making clear it was time to begin “Taking Feminism Seriously”:

Some of my fiercest arguments over the years have been with Republican women who argue on behalf of an oxymoron, “conservative feminism,” a thing that is as ridiculous as it is impossible. Real feminism is entirely a left-wing phenomenon, and Republicans who think they can cherry-pick seemingly inoffensive items from feminism’s radical agenda are deluded. . . .
Trying to disabuse Republicans of this “conservative feminist” delusion doesn’t make me popular with certain feeble-minded superficial people, but that’s OK. I know what feminism is, I know what conservatism is, and the two things are fundamentally incompatible, no matter what anyone tries to tell you.

You can read the whole thing. Feminism’s social, cultural and political impact had become newsworthy, a sort of constant background hum that occasionally flared up into the headlines, while the movement’s deeper ideology went unexamined.

“Feminism defines patriarchy as an unjust social system that is oppressive to women. As feminist and political theorist Carole Pateman writes, ‘The patriarchal construction of the difference between masculinity and femininity is the political difference between freedom and subjection.’ In feminist theory the concept of patriarchy . . . often includes all the social mechanisms that reproduce and exert male dominance over women. Feminist theory typically characterizes patriarchy as a social construction, which can be overcome by revealing and critically analyzing its manifestations.”
— Wikipedia

Every serious student of feminism is aware of the influence of Marxism and lesbian radicalism on feminist theory, but most conservative political commentators are not serious students of feminism. They are interested in feminism only as it affects elections — the so-called “gender gap” — and do not bother to examine feminist theory as it is developed and promulgated in Women’s Studies programs. This lack of critical scrutiny toward feminist theory results in a failure to ask the key question: “What does ‘feminism’ mean?”

When it is pointed out that, for example, the most widely assigned anthology of feminist literature is edited by three lesbian professors, or that the communications coordinator of the Feminist Majority Foundation is a self-declared “raging lesbian feminist,” many people who consider themselves “feminists” are quick to protest that this sort of radicalism is not what they support. Despite the schisms and factions within the feminist movement, however, the radical influence has steadily gathered strength since the 1990s, when the Clarence Thomas hearings and the Navy’s “Tailhook” scandal focused attention on sexual harassment. And in the wake of the 2013 Supreme Court decision in Windsor v. United States, the most extreme voices of radical lesbianism have become increasingly more persistent in declaring that heterosexuality is inherently oppressive to women:

Sex for men is the unilateral penetration of their penis into a woman . . . whether she thinks she wants it or not — which is the definition of rape: that he will to do it anyway and that he uses her and treats her as a receptacle, in all circumstances — it makes no difference to him experiencing it as sexual. That is, at the very least, men use women as useful objects and instruments for penetration, and women are dehumanised by this act. It is an act of violence.
[I]ntercourse is inherently harmful to women and intentionally so, because it causes pregnancy in women. . . .
Men, by whom we are possessed, colonised and held captive, are the sole agents and organisers of PIV [penis-in-vagina, i.e., heterosexual intercourse]. Men dominate us precisely so we can’t opt out of sexual abuse by them; intercourse is the very means through which men subordinate us, the very purpose of their domination, to control human reproduction.

This was the Radical Wind rant that inspired widespread mockery from conservatives, but despite the laughter — “Was she dropped on her head?” — the doctrine this deranged young woman was expressing is actually taught in nearly every Women’s Studies program in the United States, where some 90,00 students are enrolled annually. Radical Wind was able to list the sources of her anti-male analysis, including Mary Daly, Dee Graham, Janice Raymond and Sheila Jeffreys, all of whom are or were tenured professors and feminist authors whose works have been widely cited in the field of Women’s Studies. Radical Wind could have cited any number of other sources (Charlotte Bunch, Adrienne Rich, Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, et al.) as authorities for her denunciation of heterosexuality. Examine the syllabus of the introductory Women’s Studies class at almost any university, and good luck finding any that don’t include such radical authors. At Berea College in Kentucky, for example, a 2012 syllabus for “Classic Texts in Women’s Studies” (WST 315) included assigned readings by both Adrienne Rich and Mary Daly, as well as other lesbian feminist theorists like Audre Lorde, Judith Butler and Gayle Rubin.

My background familiarity with feminist theory informed my answer to the obvious question about Radical Wind: Is she crazy?

Yes, she is crazy, which is to say her behavior has been irrational and self-destructive, and her inability to cope with disappointment — “I didn’t understand why I accumulated so many failures” — led her to adopt an extreme anti-male worldview, i.e., radical feminism. But this is all radical feminism actually is, the elaboration of mental illness as a political philosophy. Sane, normal and happy women don’t become feminists. However, as the realities of sexual behavior in our culture become increasingly abnormal — and widespread sexual promiscuity is, historically speaking, abnormal — fewer women are sane and happy, so feminist beliefs become more commonplace and abnormality is thereby normalized.

“The personal is political” has been a feminist slogan for more than 40 years, and it is therefore impossible to separate the personal experiences of these women from their political theories. As I explained Thursday on Twitter to feminist Emily Stockman:

The point is to understand feminist theory as what it actually is, a rationalization and substitute for therapy, i.e., “I’m not a misfit. I’m not unlucky. I’m not overweight. I’m politically oppressed! I’m a VICTIM OF THE PATRIARCHY!“

All human beings have problems in life. However, only women have access to the ready-made rationalizations of feminism, an elaborate belief system that offers them a political explanation for their problems, permitting them to believe that their shortcomings, failures, hardships and disappointments can all be blamed on male domination. Whatever problems she experiences in her relationships with men, whatever her career difficulties or her negative feelings about herself, at every turn feminist theory is there to teach an unhappy woman that her heartbreaks and struggles are ultimately the fault of a vast patriarchal conspiracy that oppresses women.

Feminism’s core theory is either true or it’s false. One must either accept and defend radical feminism’s anti-male/anti-heterosexual worldview, or else reject and condemn it. What is happening in our education system today, however, is that radical feminism is being promoted by intellectuals in environments where criticism and opposition are not permitted. The victims of this ideological indoctrination are, in many cases, mentally ill women — like Amy Austin who, while suffering from severe depression, has evidently embraced feminist “gender theory” as the panacea for her problems.

The accusation by Ms. Austin’s defenders that my criticism of her widely-praised essay amounted to “harassment” actually proves my point: Such is the current climate on campus that it is now considered harassment even to disagree with a feminist.

It is not for me to decide for Amy Austin or anyone else whether they should accept or reject feminism. However, I feel an obligation to ensure that no one is mistaken about the core meaning of the feminist idea. As Richard Weaver warned, Ideas Have Consequences, and the consequences of radical feminism — for individuals, as for our society as a whole — may be very serious indeed.

THE ‘SEX TROUBLE’ SERIES:

Category: Feminism, Sex Trouble

The Bloody Cost of Failure

Posted on | August 21, 2014 | 52 Comments

The New York Times reports:

Kneeling in the dirt in a desert somewhere in the Middle East, James Foley lost his life this week at the hands of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Before pulling out the knife used to decapitate him, his masked executioner explained that he was killing the 40-year-old American journalist in retaliation for the recent United States’ airstrikes against the terrorist group in Iraq.
In fact, until recently, ISIS had a very different list of demands for Mr. Foley: The group pressed the United States to provide a multimillion-dollar ransom for his release, according to a representative of his family and a former hostage held alongside him. The United States — unlike several European countries that have funneled millions to the terror group to spare the lives of their citizens — refused to pay.
The issue of how to deal with ISIS, which like many terror groups now routinely trades captives for large cash payments, is acute for the Obama administration because Mr. Foley was not the lone American in its custody. ISIS is threatening to kill at least three others it holds if its demands remain unmet, The New York Times has confirmed through interviews with recently released prisoners, family members of the victims and mediators attempting to win their freedom.

ISIS obtained it current strength in Syria after 2011, as part of the “militant opposition” to the Assad regime. ISIS was at least encouraged — and some say aided and armed — by the U.S. and its allies during the “Arab Spring” the Obama administration celebrated. Hillary Clinton’s State Department was directly involved in this series of blunders and, while we may stipulate that their intentions were good, their policy was misguided and has manifestly failed.

The Law of Unintended Consequences has not been repealed, nor have The Gods of the Copybook Headings been dethroned.

If you ever wondered what Jimmy Carter’s second term would have been like, you need no longer wonder.

Category: Iraq, Syria, Terrorism

It’s Almost As Though They Have A Script Sitting In Wait, Or Something

Posted on | August 21, 2014 | 65 Comments

by Smitty

Larry2 at Instapundit
There seems to be a pattern:

unarmed young black guy is shot,

there is a vast media outcry over the young “honor student’s” death,

family provides photos of the dead guy taken when he was 11 years old, well before he had opted for the ghetto thug look,

it comes out that the “honor student” has been committing felonies,

witnesses say the honor student was beating the hell out of the person who shot him,

Democrat politicians call for the shooter’s conviction, and

prosecutors, fearing rioting, black voters, or what have you, prosecute the shooter anyway.

Have I missed anything?

Probably could add something about #OccupyResoluteDesk inserting himself, sadly, wearily, oh-why-won’t-this-world-listen-to-me-self-righteously.

An interesting nuance is the way Obama gets his emotional vampire on in these cases, while never getting too close to Rev. Jesse or Rev. Al or whichever flag officer the Racism Industrial Complex deploys to whip up the Low Information Voters.

Then you have the logistics of bringing in your Professional Protest Staff.

Category: Barack Obama

LIVE AT FIVE: 08.21.14

Posted on | August 21, 2014 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

TOP NEWS
Ferguson Enjoys A Night Of Relative Calm For First Time Since Michael Brown’s Death

Police changing tactics to deal with rioters as opposed to protesters

“We saw a different crowd that came out tonight…less agitators,” Johnson said.
Attorney General Holder visits Ferguson
Pentagon defends program supplying military gear to police

Liberian Army Fires On People Trying To Escape Ebola Quarantine
Medical emergency becoming a security problem?

IDF Air Strike Killed Three Senior Commanders, Hamas Says
Israel focusing on leaders of the continued attacks

POLITICS
Hot Louisiana Race Could Send Battle For Control Of Senate Into OT

Sen. Mary Landrieu vs. Rep. Bill Cassidy

GOP/Tea Party candidate Col. Rob Maness complicating the race

Supremes Block Gay Marriage In Virginia

Alaska Oil Tax Credit Supporters Declare Victory In Referendum

Former Va. Governor McDonnell Takes The Stand

Judge Orders DOJ To Provide “Fast And Furious” Docs To Congress

NY Supreme Court Clears Zephyr Teachout To Challenge Gov. Cuomo

Judge Won’t Halt MN Home-Care Workers Unionization Vote

Teacher Says Union Resorting To Bully Tactics In Wake Of Kansas Decertification

THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Mixed On PRC Manufacturing, US Stockpiles: WTI $93.10, Brent $101.96
S&P 500 Jumps But Closes Just Short Of Record
Asia Shares Sour On China; US Dollar In Demand
Bank Of America Reportedly To Pay $17 Billion Settlement Over Mortgage Bonds
Target Lowers Forecast As Sales Slump, Canadian Losses Widen
HP Posts Surprising Increase In Quarterly Revenue
Netflix Swallows Another Bitter Pill, Inks Peering Agreement With Time Warner
Barnes & Noble Teams With Samsung To Create Galaxy Tab 4 Nook Tablet
Twitter To Remove Pics Of Deceased At Families’ Request
TripAdvisor Teams Up With Uber
“Grand Theft Auto V” Online Update Brings Flight School, Gameplay Changes

SPORTS
Astros Feast On Yankees’ Bullpen For Fourth Victory In Five Games

The Astros’ Robbie Grossman follows through during the four-run seventh-inning rally

5-2 win puts Astros in position to play wild-card spoiler

Rangers Hold Off Fish For 5-4 Win

Rookie TJ House, Four Relievers Combine For Tribe’s Shutout Of Twins

Mets End Three-Game Skid Against A’s With 8-5 Victory

Phillies Edge Mariners 4-3

Tony Stewart To Sit Out Bristol Race

Cruz Hits Major League Leading 33rd Homer As O’s Complete Sweep Of White Sox

Rockies Finally Win One, Top Royals 5-2

Porcello Pitches Three-Hit Shutout As Tigers Blank Rays 6-0

Nationals Streak Reaches Nine With 3-2 Walkoff Win Against Snakes

FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Beyonce Asked Gwyneth Paltrow For Divorce Advice

Isn’t that what friends are for?

Planning amicable split from Jay-Z

Miley Cyrus To Attend 2014 MTV Music Awards

Madonna Splits With BF Timor Steffens Amidst Birthday Vacation

Meg Ryan And John Mellencamp Split

Zac Efron, Michelle Rodriguez Stop Dating

Some People From “Jersey Shore” Break Up Too

Jackie Chan: Ashamed Of Son After Pot Bust In China

Cate Blanchett On Board For “Jungle Book: Origins”

Which “Desperate Housewives” Star Is Heading To “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”?

Elizabeth Vargas & Marc Cohn Divorcing As She Heads To Rehab

Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey, And The Case Of The Disappearing “Mean Girls” Selfie

FOREIGNERS
Thai Junta Leader Nominated As Country’s New PM
Iran Lashes Out At Egypt For Blocking Humanitarian Aid To Gaza As Rafah Crossing Closed
Japan Landslide Toll Hits 39
France’s Hollande Outraged By Execution Of Journalist Foley
Iranian Parliament Sacks Science Minister In Rebuke To Rouhani
Brazil’s Socialists Name Marina Silva To Succeed Campos As Challenger To Rousseff
Tensions High In Jakarta Ahead Of Court Ruling On Prabowo Challenge
“Inadequately Armed” Nigerian Soldiers Defy Orders To Deploy Against Boko Haram
UAE Blacklists Arab Hotspots In London
Head Of Guatemalan Military Dies In Helicopter Crash
Imran Khan’s Party Holds Talks With Government Negotiators
Ukrainian Soldiers Now Hold Majority Of Lugansk

BLOGS & STUFF
The Quinton Report: EXCLUSIVE – Read The Homeland Security Bulletin On Today’s Nationwide “Day Of Rage”
Doug Powers: Rick Perry Ad Knocks Out Indictment With Roundhouse Kick To The Head
Twitchy: Richard Dawkins Gets Pwned By Parents Of Down’s Syndrome Kids
American Power: Pro-Israel Hollywood Speaks Out
American Thinker: Beaten To Death At McDonald’s
BLACKFIVE: “Here I Am. Send Me”
Conservatives4Palin: Gov. Palin – “You Win Some, You Learn Some”
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, August 21
Jammie Wearing Fools: Guilty Until Proven Innocent – MO Gov. Nixon Calls For “Vigorous Prosecution” Of Darren Wilson
Joe For America: Obama’s Brotherhood Mafia Partners, Rampaging Inside America
JustOneMinute: Ebola In Monrovia
Protein Wisdom: My Response To The Beheading Of James Foley And Others
Shot In The Dark: Our Douchebag Opponents
STUMP: Public Pension Watch – California Keeps In All The Goodies
The Gateway Pundit: Mike Brown Autopsy “Expert” Not A Doctor – Holds Degree In Nonexistent Medical Field
The Jawa Report: Attention ISIS
The Lonely Conservative: Grand Juror In Perry Case An Active Democrat Party Delegate
This Ain’t Hell: Not An Attempt To Railroad Someone, No Sirree, Not At All
Weasel Zippers: Twice As Many British Muslims Fighting For ISIS As In UK Armed Forces
Megan McArdle: Target’s Troubles Go Deeper Than Data

Category: Live at Five

Ferguson Question For The Gungrabbers

Posted on | August 20, 2014 | 13 Comments

by Smitty

Instapundit notes:

What’s amazing about Ferguson is that, for all the sturm und drang, the casualty count is pretty light.

Are we supposed to expect that, for all the guns and ammo in circulation, Missouri was going to melt down in some vast firefight?

Is there some point to be made that Second Amendment Gestapo really needs to get stuffed, and we can discount anyone calling for “MOAR GUN RESTRICTIONS” than we already have from consideration for our votes?

Category: Uncategorized

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

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