March 1, 2015
"Sex Trouble: Essays on Radical Feminism and the War Against Human Nature."
It's Robert Stacy McCain's book about feminism. I'm resistant to his extreme form of aversion to feminism, but he's plowed (wrong word??) through a lot of books I can't be troubled with. Ah, there, I used his word: trouble. Why go looking for trouble? One reason is: to write a book about trouble, sex trouble. Why buy such a book? One reason is: to blog about it. Also, it's only $1.99 in Kindle, whence I can cut and paste things here for you.
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56 comments:
Extremism in aversion to feminism is no vice. Moderation in opposition to bigoted hate groups is no virtue.
It's way too long, to judge from the Look Inside treat.
My version is that feminism is not new. It's been marching in place for centuries.
It's women nagging, which is one of the dysfunctional modes of marriage and always has been.
It's something women do, parasitic on something that they can do that's productive.
The productive thing is
1. Send their man on a quest.
2. Man goes on quest, he likes to go on quests, but may screw up.
3. The woman shows her man that she's satisfied with him.
Feminism cuts it short a 1, which it simply repeats.
And the winner is campy!
My survey of romantic comedies (now at 199 in number) shows that when the guy is a boor, it's an over the top boor. When the woman is wrong, it's a slight matter.
Exception Sandra Bullock in Two Weeks Notice, where everything is slight. A very equal match that turns into a beautiful win-her-back speech.
And a couple other good ones, in a formula insight-free field.
I probably agree with McCain on a lot of things, but I don't read his blog often. He has a fondness for hyperbole with a tendency to use the same level against both major and minor miscreants. It just gets tiresome at some point.
One of the consistent problems is his view of human nature (or at least his rhetoric about human nature.) He likes to pretend that the understanding of human nature is a solved problem, rather than the ongoing work of science, philosophy and literature. (Maybe he'll be more nuanced in the book.)
Of course, usually the main point he is making about human nature is that modern academic feminism has a fanciful, self-serving, contradictory view of human nature, and I usually agree with him there. But he's so much more interested in scoring click points than making good arguments, that even $1.99 seems expensive.
Gender bias, like racial bias, exists and we should do what we can to eradicate it. Complaints about gender bias, like complaints about racial bias, tend to fall into 2 categories. The made up, and the universal human experience that is couched in the language of bias because the speaker belongs to one of those groups.
Note that this book is just a 120 page preview for the book he plans to complete by the end of this year. And I think this one is a collection of content that he has already posted on his blog.
I like "whence".
I'm glad that Mr. McCain is concerned that feminism's radical ideas about "equality" could destroy our civilization because I couldn't give a flying fuck one way or the other.
Feminism is pro women and so are most men. But Feminism as hatred of men for having a penis is like traditional racism. People have to be taught to do it.
It is war on Men.
What campy said.
When I was a kid the Enjoli perfume commercial seemed to strike the right balance of feminism, marriage, and cooperation. Of course it was aimed at getting guys to by the 8-hour perfume for their 24-hour women.
The actress was totally hot. My 11-year-old brain thought, "wow, if that's the ERA and Feminism, I can handle it!"
Then I went to graduate school in the early 90's, along with a few Grateful Dead shows, and it was all shattered.
I can bring home the Bacon!
Fry it up in a Pan!
And Never, Never, Never let you forget You're a Man!
'Cause I'm a Woman!
I can work till five o'clock
Come home and read you tickity-tock
Tonight I'm gonna feed the kids (man's voice)
And if it's lovin' you want I can kiss you and give you the shhhiiiivvver in bed..."
I'm resistant to his extreme form of aversion to feminism
He doesn't have an aversion to feminism, he opposes feminism.
One can't be extreme enough when it comes to aversion to feminism. It takes socialism, leftism and all sorts of victimologies and wraps it in man hating chauvinism.
I used to think those old "if you've got the time, we've got the beer" Michelob commercials depicted what life as an adult with friends would be like.
Wait. That was the Miller slogan. Now, I'm not sure what beer ad seemed to represent idealized adult friendship. Ah, well, those lovely friends never did show up. Or maybe I just never showed up at that campfire on the beach.
While I agree with BobR above about McCain's tendency towards hyperbole, in his recent blogs about academic feminism, he makes two important points: (1) these ladies are grade A, USDA certified raving nut jobs & (2) these nut jobs are not marginal; they have tenured faculty positions at major universities or they (e.g. S. Firestone) are hallowed on reading lists everywhere as one of the Founding Mothers.
Do you think that all penis in vagina sex is rape? Or, do you think that women are "naturally" lesbian? Well, welcome to the ordinary assumptions of modern academic feminism. Do I think that such thought is all that modern academic feminism is about? No, but I sure as hell think that the modern left runs interference for these nutjobs so that the rest of the world doesn't know too much about them & spoil the narrative.
I did see this last night on Instapundit, and for the price bought the book. Slow going, but interesting. To summarize, so far, feminism in general, and gender studies in particular, are heavily dominated by angry Marxist lesbians. At one point, he calls it the lesbian full employment project, or something like that.
The cultural Marxism comes in when they claim that there no innate differences between males and females, but rather just programming by the patriarchy. So, they are now trying to push their own programming down into the 10-14 year range, where girls (and boys) are the most programmable. By the time that they get to college, the girls are believed to be already boy crazy, and beyond full redemption (except for the lesbians and those with bad childhoods).
The scary thing is that we probably are seeing the side effects of this. The basic idea behind the current sexual assault witch hunts getting going on college campuses (thanks to the extra-judicial DoE letters), under the mantle of Title IX, is just that, that the males are sexually assaulting the females because of their patriarchal programming, and not as a result of females of many species expecting the males to be the aggressors.
Do you think that all penis in vagina sex is rape?
McCain supplied the abbreviation for that first (PIV), and then defined it. And, yes, a lot of those in gender studies apparently believe that PIV sex is rape. Which presumably means a lot of girl on girl action in those departments.
Shouldn't feminism be found guilty of hate speech? If we're going to go after people for making derogatory comments about gays, why are feminists spared when they accuse men of the worst things possible?
I once spooned some fruit jelly on a girlfriend before proceeding to cunnilingus.
I had her consent, but then she cried "Grape!"
I am Laslo.
Meh. Wake me when Heartiste writes a book.
Trouble via feminism is a fact this book, I presume, establishes. I won't buy it because they banned me at his blog.
At least Stacy isn't running around like an idiot saying "we need more Robert Novaks and fewer William F. Buckleys" anymore, so his trajectory is aspirationally admirable.
Ann Althouse said...
Now, I'm not sure what beer ad seemed to represent idealized adult friendship.
Go for the gusto!
It's from the Latin De gustibus non est disputandum which, loosely translated, relates to pudendal tastes.
'This is your campfire. This is your beach.'
-Come see what's happening at Althouse, a blog.
I think the ideal adult evening beach scenes were from a different beer. "But tonight, tonight ... let it be Löwenbräu."
Let us look at Lifelock and declaim feminism as causal.
Why do I pay taxes for a court system that rapes me?
Feminism.
Why don't I rebel?
Feminism.
You won. Congrats. We will all share your misery. We will be celebratory only in our appreciation of the company synonyms of misery bring.
He has a lot in common with his adversaries. They're both nuts.
"Gender bias, like racial bias, exists and we should do what we can to eradicate it."
Onward Social liberals, marching off to war, with the Cross of Jesus going on before.
The thing about feminism that amuses me is the fact that they ignore completely the role of Islam in the oppression of women. It may be that they believe they can have no influence but they seem to be in favor of Islam as an anti-American power.
Maybe it's just the old story of the drunk looking for his keys under the lamppost but it is really a glaring example of unseriousness.
The unwillingness of the greens to support nuclear peer is another "Tell"about what the real agenda is.
nuclear power, of course.
The ideal relationships are captured in old Mountain Dew commercials. They had more fun in those 30 seconds than most people have in a typical year.
Rcocean, did you stop reading at that point? Because the post did go on.
Okay I have to pay, with potentially my life, and I get no say because my credentials Don 't exist.
Fair enough, death happens.
Michael K. wrote:
"The thing about feminism that amuses me is the fact that they ignore completely the role of Islam in the oppression of women."
Feminism as practiced is a revolt against 1950s-early 1960s middle-class and upper-middle-class patriarchy (or "daddy"). It is reactionary Leftsim. There are no Muslims in the imaginary world they are are reacting against, since it exists pretty much as it did circa 1964.
The best part of Michelob was the extra foil on the neck of the bottle that you could occupy yourself with slowly tearing-off while you drank the swill.
"Weekends were made for Michelob" (1977)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1xicVRrgCc
"The Night Belongs to Michelob" Commercial w/ Genesis (1986)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8YDwuDGW3o
Clapton" "After Midnight" (I actually think his slow-hand "beer commercial version" is the best one.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3pW2REprYE
1988 Frank Sinatra Michelob Commercial "The Way you look tonight"
"A Great Day Calls for a Great Beer: Some Days are Better than Others" (1992)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HVaVJ4RCdc
Blur: "The Ultra Life with Lance Armstrong"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-MWN-XUtEQ
So you got this going and that happening that's what; so what.
EVERY PHOTO MESMERIZES.
The problem with assuming some positions are so crazy that no one would believe them is contradicted by experience.
Only a few decades ago the idea of homosexual marriage was derided as nuts. Today, opponents of said marriage are fired from their jobs. A few months ago LBGT was the semi-official term for the "differently gendered". Today you're a bigot if your acronym isn't at least LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM. A few years ago talking vaginas were the cutting edge of feminism. Today they're an example of gender oppression.
The power of the media/academia/liberal complex is incredible since we live in an increasingly inter-connected world. We may laugh, but be sure that your laugh is not recorded or a few months or years from now your "bigoted," expressions will be used as proof you don't deserve to be in the same room as the enlightened.
If you think that videos of one man cutting off the head of another, or burning someone to death in a cage is off-putting, you confuse your sensibilities with those of others. There is a market for this kind of action, just as there is a market for whatever perversion is currently flying below the radar. It will soon become mainstream and those Neanderthals who oppose it will be exiled from the community of the hip, good and wise.
@Moneyrunner,
Only a few decades ago the idea of homosexual marriage was derided as nuts. Today, opponents of said marriage are fired from their jobs. A few months ago LBGT was the semi-official term for the "differently gendered". Today you're a bigot if your acronym isn't at least LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM. A few years ago talking vaginas were the cutting edge of feminism. Today they're an example of gender oppression.
Ahh, but, Moneyrunner, that's all part of the plan. Look at the history of far-Left regimes like the Soviet Union. The Party Line changed frequently because 1) it permitted the party leadership to change course suddenly with no need to follow rhyme or reason 2) it then required the Party faithful to to renew their vows of fealty on an on-going basis & 3) it permitted the Party to persecute either dissenters or to simply to target its social enemies because the enemies always ended up as having been public supporters of a now-discredited party line.
When dealing with the modern Left always remember --- you as non-Left are imprisoned in a "narrative history", e.g racism. They are never imprisoned in their own narrative histories, because they are so special they can jump over their own shadows.
But, if you, like me, know the history of the Left, and know those "narratives", what we see before us is scarey indeed.
moneyrunner wrote:
The problem with assuming some positions are so crazy that no one would believe them is contradicted by experience.
Only a few decades ago the idea of homosexual marriage was derided as nuts. Today, opponents of said marriage are fired from their jobs. A few months ago LBGT was the semi-official term for the "differently gendered". Today you're a bigot if your acronym isn't at least LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM. A few years ago talking vaginas were the cutting edge of feminism. Today they're an example of gender oppression.
The power of the media/academia/liberal complex is incredible since we live in an increasingly inter-connected world. We may laugh, but be sure that your laugh is not recorded or a few months or years from now your "bigoted," expressions will be used as proof you don't deserve to be in the same room as the enlightened.
SO true. The other day I was reading about how, in a few years,head transplants will be possible, and I was wondering who would want a head transplant> Apparently it's for the transgendered.
Head transplants could help people with gender transmorphia. So, some people think its a good idea to decapitate someone with gender dsymporphia and put their head on the body of someone of the opposite gender (a cadaver I'm hoping) and that will solve transgenderism.
(I'm imagining Frankenstein and scenes from Re-Animator)
But the alternative is just as bad:
"The transgender representative quoted thinks transgender children should instead have puberty blocked medically to allow reassignment to be more successful–something happening already with increasing frequency: Paris Lees, a prominent UK journalist and transsexual activist, says: “This isn’t going to be the answer to the transgender problem. The answer is making sure we identify people as soon as possible so we can help them as soon as possible so they can have the body they want.”
Blocking the puberty of transgendered kids medically? THat's child abuse. All for the furtherance of an agenda that is not even scientifically sound. Gender dysphoria is real, but sex changes are not actual sex changes.
Why are we screwing with kids hormones like this? It's not responsible.
The fallacy of composition, amongst others, has paitience unimaginable.
Orwell wrote that, since the goal is power, any policy or laws created by the State must be arbitrary. Anything the State cannot do, for any reason, is a restriction that it cannot abide. Individuals are right to fear the state because there is no rule of conduct you can follow that will save you.
"Head transplants could help people with gender transmorphia. "
Those people are mentally disturbed. As I have pointed out before, Johns Hopkins the first big medical center to do sex reassignment surgery in the US closed that clinic a few years ago because the patents kept coming back and wanting to change back or having sever emotional crises.
That is a psychiatric condition even if DSM is too cowardly to say so.
jr565 said...
Shouldn't feminism be found guilty of hate speech? If we're going to go after people for making derogatory comments about gays, why are feminists spared when they accuse men of the worst things possible?
That would holding them to the same standards as they hold others. Why, that's just crazy talk!
When feminists were harping on sexual harassment in the workplace but allowed Bill Clinton "one free grope" (apparently per woman), they destroyed whatever shred of credibility they ever had. When they're praddling on about absurd "micro-aggressions" while ignoring millions of women being harshly repressed under Islam, they made themselves an international joke with a bad punch line.
Blocking the puberty of transgendered kids medically? THat's child abuse.
The book mentions a case where a young boy had his male organs cut off, and was filled with female hormones, or something to that effect. Ultimately, she/he apparently had gender reassignment back to male, was married, but ultimately killed himself. Law and Order SVU had apparently a takeoff on this, with identical male twins, with one brought up as a girl, and the other as a boy. The original surgery had been at a very young age, so the "girl" had no memory of having been a boy. But, was wired as a boy. They give the kid female hormones, etc. Ultimately, after the SUV team lost the case against the doctor in court, one of the kids killed the doctor - but they couldn't tell which, since they were identical, and the female hormones were now out of his body. The perfect crime.
One problem that I see is that we don't fully grow into our gender roles until puberty, and gender reassignment surgery essentially renders the patient sterile, if they are not already. Thus, it permanently prevents that person from ever having children of their own.
Another is that sexual orientation is not that simple, and even if it were, you can't really determine it that young. For example, apparently, there is actual orientation (which sex/gender you are attracted to), and sexual strategy (whether you take the aggressive/male role, or the passive/female role in mating). They can coincide, or conflict. So, you have gay males who are sexually aggressive, and some who are sexually receptive/passive. And, ditto for lesbians. And, yes, straight males and females.
Think of this - we all know of "Tom Boys", who are female, but want nothing to do with girls and girl things - until puberty. And, yes, the opposite. Imagine gender reassignment before then. And, that was essentially proposed by one of the feminists chronicled in the book. Part of getting the population down to 10% male.
Michael K said...
"Head transplants could help people with gender transmorphia. "
Those people are mentally disturbed.
////
OK if they are 'mentally disturbed' then why not a head transplant?
Why not?
And, freeze the body cryogenically so that you could re-transplant if the person was unhappy in their new body.
And, of course, all this is just experimentation to create people who live forever, going on from body to body. You need human volunteers to try out the surgery on and transgenders will volunteer and call it a right.
If they did a sci-fi TV show about people who found that what they read came out and inhabited their lives ten years later, the show would be nothing but a history of our times.
Bruce Hayden, there is a lot of conflicting information out there about this mysterious thing called 'orientation'. Here is what the APA says about 'orientation':
http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/orientation.aspx
Orientation is a term used to describe a behavior. Where does human behavior originate? Nature? Nurture? Both? Neither? Does orientation have the same source for every human?
There is a reason that they call psychiatrists "witch doctors."
"There is a reason that they call psychiatrists "witch doctors.""
Mine keeps me sane. Mostly.
I am Laslo.
"OK if they are 'mentally disturbed' then why not a head transplant?"
The only problem is that we are 50 to75 years from any prospect of that, if ever. The serious research that is going on is on spinal cord injuries which are serious and about 1% as complicated as a head transplant would be.
rhhardin Yeah, but after all that marching in place they've gotten to a point where they can have restrictions placed on the movements of an innocent man because he REMINDS them of a rapist.
We may have gone from priest-ridden to hag-ridden as a culture.
Chickelit ...VERY loosely...
Laslo wrote:
"Mine keeps me sane. Mostly."
But if they had the powers they claimed to have, they could simply make you believe they were responsible for you keeping your sanity.
Or you might still be insane, but they convinced you were sane.
Psychiatrists and psychologists are "Chiropractors of the mind."
Bruce Hayden, there is a lot of conflicting information out there about this mysterious thing called 'orientation'. Here is what the APA says about 'orientation':
All the more reason to ban gender reassignment surgery (or whatever) until adulthood. My view is that if someone wants to do it, then have them wait until they are 18, and it is then their decision, and they can live with permanent sterility if they were wrong.
So, you are "resistant" to his "extreme" aversion to extremism?
Ok.
. To summarize, so far, feminism in general, and gender studies in particular, are heavily dominated by angry Marxist lesbians."
So true. I had a friend taking a Marxist class. I warned her it would be dominated by ideas from lesbian separatists. She told me I was right. That was 1981.
Jason,
"Wake me when Heartiste writes a book."
Rollo Tomassi already did.
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