“The male gaze creates a power imbalance. It supports a patriarchal status quo, perpetuating women’s real-life sexual objectification.”
— Janice Loreck, Ph.D. Monash University
As a result, some concerns have been raised in the feminist community as the visual representations seem to normalize . . . the belief that people are categorized as female or male and that the genders fall into a particular role in the world. To address these concerns, one can explore the principles of psychoanalysis, a method of investigation of the unconscious mind affecting the conscious, founded by Sigmund Freud. By looking at Freud’s idea of phallocentrism, which was later elaborated by Laura Mulvey and branched out into the male gaze, festishistic scopophilia, and masochism . . . communicated to the audience by objectifying femininity.
In order to understand psychoanalysis, one must be aware of its center principle, phallocentrism, an idea indicating that cultural meanings are structured around masculine terms (Rose, 2016). Phallocentrism, derived from the castration complex, is a belief in which the phallus (penis) is associated with the dominance of the male sex. . . .
With the idea that masculine is superior, males gain a visuality that “asserts that the masculine position is to look and the feminine is to be looked at as the feminine seems lacking” (Rose, 2016, 157). This concept can be explained through male gaze, an idea that is closely linked to voyeurism, the pleasure of looking. Specifically, male gaze “invokes the sexual politics of the gaze and suggests a sexualised way of looking that empowers men and objectifies women” (Loreck, 2016). In cinema, Mulvey describes that females are generally characterized for their beauty. As a result, women are portrayed as an “‘object’ of hexterosexual male desire [and] her feelings, thoughts, and her own sexual drives are less important than her being ‘framed’ by male desire” (Loreck, 2016).
Having never seen any K-Pop videos, I can’t say whether this feminist criticism of the genre is accurate. However, I will ask a question no one ever seems to ask: “Why are feminists always against anything which might appeal to the interests of heterosexual males?”
Who has time to come up with this kind of pseudo-intellectual Freudian nonsense? Have we solved the problems of poverty, hunger, disease and war so that now there is nothing left for our university faculty to do except purging “the male gaze” and “objectification” from music videos?
This is how Third-Wave feminism works:
Find something normal people enjoy.
Subject it to a Marxist, Freudian or Foucauldian analysis to explain how it oppresses women.
Be rewarded with a book contract, TV appearances, faculty tenure, a glowing profile feature in the New York Times, etc.
Condemn anyone who criticizes you as a “misogynist.”
You’d think people would catch onto this scam sooner or later, but there is never a shortage of fools in the world, and the progressive elite creates a system of incentives for the pseudo-intellectual hustlers who specialize in peddling feminist nonsense about “oppression” to these fools.
Left-wing billionaire George Soros gave $246 million to more than 100 organizations involved in the “Day Without a Woman” protests. Stop to think how much “activism” can be purchased for that kind of money. Then, consider how many Gender Studies professors and their students would like to get a slice of that lucrative “activism” pie. Next, ponder how much “monkey-see-monkey-do” imitation could be inspired if a network of a few hundred hired “activists” spent many months promoting the Feminist™ brand in campus protest rallies, magazine articles, blog posts, YouTube videos, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
Gosh, do you think giving so many millions of dollars to feminist groups had something to do with the 2016 presidential election? Or are you such a clueless fool that you think this was all just a random coincidence?
Like I said, I’m working on something else now and don’t have time to explore this at length, but “Heteronormativity in K-Pop” is the kind of toxic feminist nonsense that college professors are now cramming into the minds of impressionable young people.
Feminism was always crazy, but since the 1990s, the movement’s inherent madness has been augmented by the French-influenced postmodernism of academic intellectuals. The enormous influence of Professor Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity has served as the vehicle by which French philosopher Michel Foucault (The History of Sexuality) became a feminist idol. Butler’s book is also the means by which American college students have been introduced to the work of French feminists Luce Irigaray (This Sex Which is Not One) and Monique Wittig (The Straight Mind). Keep in mind that Butler’s book is lodged more or less permanently among the Top 10 Amazon bestsellers (as of 8 a.m. ET today, #4 in Media Studies, #6 in Women Authors, #8 in Gender Studies) not because it is pleasant reading, but because it is required reading in so many college and university courses. Every year, many tens of thousands of young people enroll in Women’s Studies classes, and are introduced to Professor Butler’s version of feminist gender theory — the social constructionof the gender binary within the heterosexual matrix. This one book by a University of California professor, therefore, has had an enormous effect in popularizing what has come to be known as Queer Feminism. The core logic of 21st-century feminist theory is that heterosexuality is wrong because it is “a socially constructed institution which structures and maintains male domination,” to quote Diane Richardson, a professor at England’s Newcastle University who is, among other things, an editor of the textbook Introducing Gender and Women’s Studies, now in its fourth edition.
“By the end of the 1970s feminist theories of gender were becoming increasingly sophisticated. . . . [T]hey questioned the idea that gender is a universal category. . . . Instead, they defined gender as a socially constructed product of patriarchal hierarchies.”
— Diane Richardson, Introducing Gender & Women’s Studies (3rd edition, 2007)
The young feminist can cite the authority of eminent professors and their influential books in condemning “patriarchal hierarchies” and the oppressive “socially constructed institution” of heterosexuality. As to proposed alternatives, however, feminists seem to have no definite blueprint for a post-patriarchal society. Their ideas for the future are mainly expressed in slogans — Equality, Diversity, Inclusion, etc.
What does feminism mean in practice? How does the student live her life in accordance with the ideology her professors teach her? This is something she must work out for herself, which can be quite confusing, and particularly so when the young feminist happens to be male.
Just two years ago, Justin/Riley graduated from Whittier College, a private school in California where annual tuition $44,574, plus $12,902 room and board, bringing the total cost to $57,476 a year. This may seem a high price to pay to learn “the nuances of gender, sexuality, and intersectional feminism,” but it takes highly qualified instructors to educate polyamorous, atheist, gender non-binary young people.
“Trans women are not male, and saying that they are allows some people to justify the mistreatment of trans people. . . . For a long time, gender has been assigned to people based on their perceived sex. A doctor looks at a baby’s genitals and determines what gender it will be raised as. In our culture, this used to be unquestionable fact. You were raised as the gender you were assigned at birth, and being transgender wasn’t an option. . . . Now we can say that your gender is based on how you identify, because we realized that basing gender on perceived sex was oppressive. . . .”
Well, I could transcribe more of that video, but I’ve already cited five different authors (Butler, Foucault, Irigaray, Wittig and Richardson) whose books you could order from Amazon and read them yourself. That would cost a lot less than $57,476, but then again, you’re probably not a 24-year-old polyamorous, atheist, gender non-binary transwoman, and you don’t need a Ph.D. to tell you that Justin/Riley is crazy.
Everyday Feminism tells its readers that it is an “act of violence” to say that 24-year-old “Riley Jay” Dennis is the same human being as Justin David Dennis, the 18-year-old male student from a Seattle suburb who enrolled at Whittier College in the fall of 2011. These are what we used to call facts, back in the old days when people believed in something called “reality.” However, we didn’t have Women’s Studies professors and their theories to explain “patriarchal hierarchies” to us, so we were ignorant of “the nuances of gender, sexuality, and intersectional feminism.”
Left: Justin Dennis in 2012. Right: “Riley Jay” Dennis in 2015.
Justin/“Riley Jay” Dennis can change his/“her” name to Sheena Queen of the Jungle, and demand to be called Your Highness, but this would not oblige the rest of us to play along with his/“her” make-believe game.
What part of crazy do I have to explain here? Feminists are berserk, bonkers, deranged, demented, delusional, irrational, non compos mentis, unhinged, wacky, psycho, off their rockers, nuttier than squirrel farts, a few fries short of a Happy Meal and cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
The Whittier College football team went 0-9 last fall, and this is probably not a coincidence. It might be difficult to concentrate on football when you’re trying to figure out whether you identify as male or female. What if the quarterback decides he’s “non-binary,” changes his name to Sheena and demands to be addressed with “they”/“them” pronouns?
“Gender is a hierarchical system which maintains the subordination of females as a class to males through force. Gender is a material system of power which uses violence and psychological coercion to exploit female labor, sex, reproduction, emotional support, etc., for the benefit of males. Gender is not natural or voluntary, since a person is not naturally subordinate and no one chooses to be subordinated.”
— Rachel Ivey, 2013
“Sexuality, then, is a form of power. Gender, as socially constructed, embodies it, not the reverse. Women and men are divided by gender, made into the sexes as we know them, by the social requirements of heterosexuality, which institutionalizes male sexual dominance and female sexual submission.”
— Catharine MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (1989)
“The patriarchal construction of the difference between masculinity and femininity is the political difference between freedom and subjection.”
— Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (1988)
More than once, I have explained what’s wrong with the Third Wave feminist T-shift slogan, “Raise Boys and Girls the Same Way.” The slogan presumes that a gender-free androgynous childhood will eliminate inequality (“the subordination of women as a class”) by eliminating differences between men and women. Actually, what gender-free childhood will produce is failure, at the most basic level of biology. Insofar as sex is about reproduction, sexual success requires young people to acquire the traits and skills necessary to attract a mate and establish a family. Your son must become the kind of man whom a woman will find desirable as a husband, and as the father of her children, while your daughter must become the kind of woman whom a man will find desirable as a wife, and as the mother of his children. This is so obvious, from a common-sense perspective, that it should require no explanation.
Human being are mammals. Whatever else might be designated by the word “sex,” from the perspective of science, sex is about reproduction, procreating offspring. Does anyone think it likely that “non-binary” Justin/Riley Dennis will succeed in this Darwinian sense of what sex is?
Some people are so “smart” that they are incapable of understanding basic common sense. Justin/Riley Dennis is typical of the kind of intellectual decadence that prevails on 21st-century college campuses. Feminism is both cause and effect, both symptom and disease. On the one hand, no sane person can believe that Justin/Riley is a woman, but on the other hand, Justin/Riley must have been emotionally disturbed before he was exposed feminist gender theory. Any psychologically healthy would laugh at the ideas that Justin/Riley seems to take so seriously.
You had to be crazy to vote for Hillary Clinton, so no one is surprised to learn that Justin/Riley is a Democrat. And if you want your kids to grow up to be “non-binary,” then you should definitely vote Democrat.
It’s been so long since I’ve done a book post, I can’t even remember when it was. Sometime last year, for sure. Anyhow, before we get any further into 2017, I want to cover some of the books I read late last year, since not everyone reads everything, and I may have picked up something you missed.
I’m going to lead off with the latest novels in Larry Correia’s Monster Hunters International franchise, Monster Hunter Memoirs: Grunge and Monster Hunter Memoirs: Sinners. These were written by John Ringo and edited by Larry, and it shows. They’re the first two books in a trilogy about (Oliver) Chad Gardenier, one of MHI’s top hunters during the Reagan years: a former Marine who dies in the Beirut bombing but gets sent back with a mission. Chad’s not a particularly likeable guy. As is pointed out in the foreword, he always had a huge ego and is therefore not the most reliable of narrators, and that ego is nigh-insufferable in Grunge, which is set in Seattle. Sinners, on the other hand, is set in New Orleans, where MHI’s relationship with the Federal Monster Control Bureau is (to say the least) very different than elsewhere in the country since people in the Big Easy believe in hoodoos and monsters, and a bunch of gangbangers is downright honored to have a “hoodoo man” in their turf. I liked Sinners a lot better, frankly, and I think that was the consensus of most folks in the MHI group on Facebook as well.
Next up, a pair of books that are almost mirror images of each other: Kurt Schlichter’s People’s Republic and Tom Kratman’s A State of Disobedience. In Schlichter’s novel, Blue and Red America separate amicably (mostly) but years later, Red America (the People’s Republic of the title) is collapsing under its own ineptitude, and a spec ops vet has to penetrate California to rescue a wayward Texas heiress. I found it to be a tense thriller, even though it was too short and most of the characters a tad on the cardboard side. Kratman’s novel, on the other hand, posits a President like Hillary Clinton who wants to use the Government’s expanded anti-terror powers against her domestic political enemies. When a Federal raid on a Texas orphanage goes awry (much like Waco, but on a smaller scale) the Governor of Texas decides that Texas needs to go its own way, and that’s when the shooting starts. There’s more political maneuvering and talk about logistics than one might expect, but then, Colonel Kratman is a professional.
You may recall that among the links a couple years back to Mitch Berg’s Minnesota politics blog Shot In The Dark were some chapters of his novel Trulbert!, which related how Minneapolis adapted to the end of the economic world as we know it. Violence, mayhem, libertarianism, gang war, the NFL, and church militias feature prominently. It’s an amusing little short novel, and you may recognize a few characters in the book as people you’ve run into online. Or hopefully not.
David Drake’s Death’s Bright Day and S.M. Stirling’s Prince of Outcasts are the latest books in the RCN and Change universes, respectively, and if you like the other books in those series, then these books are something you’ll like as well.
Hajime Isayama’s Attack On Titan was a hit anime series a couple years ago, but the first volume of the manga left me cold; it was an action story that didn’t seem to move too quickly. John C. Wright’s Iron Chamber of Memory is not as annoying, but I’m having problems sticking to it. I keep getting distracted by other books.
Between Cirsova magazine and the bloggers at Castalia House, there’s a push on to bring back Pulp SF, which should delight every SF and fantasy reader not in thrall to the Puppy Kickers. However, I think posts like this one by Jasyn Jones are barking up the wrong tree. Isn’t there enough to loathe about the New Wave and post-modernist Pink SF without also trying to tarnish the legacy of John W. Campbell Jr.?
A man faces deportation after being arrested on charges of raping his girlfriend’s daughter starting when she was 11 and impregnating her at 15.Henry Jose Garcia, 40, of Cocoa Beach, Florida, was charged Monday with two counts of sexual battery by custodian on a victim under and above 12, according to the Brevard County Sheriff.Immigration authorities had been contacted and his status pending. He had been in the country on a work visa for 10 years, according to WKMG. His country of origin is unclear.
He reportedly worked at the Resort on Cocoa Beach hotel and was attempting to get asylum in the US, according to MyNews13.
The victim recently turned 18, and said after discussing it with family members, she said she realized the abuse was wrong and went to police.
She told them the suspect would wait until her mother went to work and, starting when she was 11, force her to have sex twice a week under threat of violence to her family. He would also allegedly buy her things and give her cash to keep quiet.
The abuse ended when she became pregnant at 15 with his child, she alleged. She showed police text messages where he admitted being the father, reported WKMG.
Feminists haven’t mentioned this crime, for some reason . . .
For nearly two weeks her boyfriend held her in their apartment against her will, drugged her, raped her, beat her and at one point used pliers to rip her acrylic nails off, she told Miami Beach police.
On Sunday, Evan Xavier Little, 25, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment and sexual battery. He also had a warrant for a probation violation, police said.
The woman showed up at Miami Beach police headquarters Sunday to report the incident, which happened at the end of January, according to the report. She told police she “feared for her safety,” the officer wrote.
She said Little was mad at her because she had left a purse he bought her in an Uber vehicle, and began hitting her with a suitcase and his fists, according to the report.
“The defendant then used pliers and pulled some of her acrylic nails off her,” the officer wrote in the report, adding that she said he struck her legs with a golf club. “The victim attempted to leave the apartment, but the defendant grabbed her by her hair and started to choke her with his hands.”
She also said Little “held a knife to her neck’’ and threatened to harm her if she attempted to leave the apartment, the report said.
For the next two weeks, according to the report, he forced her to stay, drugged her and “had non consensual sex with her.”
Priyanka Kumari before (left) and after (right) she was attacked in January.
Priyanka Kumari had just gotten off her school bus and was walking down her home in the Raleigh, N.C., suburb of Apex when a man attacked her with a machete. The man “stomped her by his feet and jumped on her body and then started to cut her throat and cut her head off,” her father, Pankaj Kumar, told the local ABC affiliate WTVD-TV.
Priyanka survived the attack, but suffered injuries so severe that her father did not recognize her when he visited her in the hospital. He said he is praying “my daughter will come back to normal one day.”
Kumar said Mehta was obsessed with his daughter from the time they attended school together at Green Hope High School in Cary.
He said he had her transferred to Holly Springs High School at the end of 2015 to get away from Mehta, who he said was trying to force her to do drugs.
About a month before the attack, Kumar said Mehta started sending her threatening texts and messages on social media.
Warrants say “He has used both his real email and social media accounts as well as numerous fake accounts to reach out to her. He has also used free phone apps that allow text messaging from randomly assigned numbers to contact her.”
He used fake Instagram accounts and she took screen shots of recent messages sent from those accounts, as well as Snapchat, warrants revealed.
A review of screenshots reference him threatening to “come see” victim if she blocks that account and stating to her that “a restraining order won’t do (expletive).”
Mehta is being held on $2 million bond. For some reason, American feminists who claim to care about “violence against women” have said nothing about this brutal attack on a teenage girl in North Carolina.
