"First, in the ’70s, women saw a series of legal victories in addition to Roe: Title IX was passed (1972), housing discrimination was outlawed (1974), the pregnancy-descrimination ban was passed (1978).... By the ’90s, we could 'do it all'... Feminism, by this point, had traded in its quest for 'liberation of women' to fully pursue parity with men, all while attempting to remain appealing to them. In short, both professionally and privately, we were chasing victories defined on male terms. (Little defines this era so clearly as feminists confidently siding with Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky affair.) Since then, the language may have changed—there were the sexual-empowerment aughts where we could have 'sex like men' (think: Sex and the City), then the career-empowerment teens (think: #Girlboss). But ultimately, each decade finds us led by a feminism that has abandoned ameliorating the struggles of our collective lives as women in lieu of chasing individual wins on playing fields drawn up by men.... The language of feminism is not working for us, not in the arena of the patriarchy or even in our own private lives.... We need to regroup and reframe our language away from 'defending' the individual and toward protecting the collective. Because yes, protecting women’s reproductive rights benefits me, but equally important is that a pro-woman reproductive policy benefits us all: men, children, our economy, and our national security."
Writes Xochitl Gonzalez in "Patriarchal Feminism Led Us to This Moment. The feminist conversation around abortion rights has gotten women nowhere. We need a new language" (The Atlantic).
Xochitl Gonzalez, a novelist, is 44. I had to look that up to get a sense of how much radical feminism she might have lived through. A lot of the linked essay is about what the mainstream women's magazines have been saying to women. Who doesn't know those things are a con? If you have any true feminist spirit, you should hypothesize that whatever the mainstream is pushing is a patriarchal scheme, especially if it's boosting women's spirits and bolstering their alliance with men.
The last sentence quoted above sounds like the very women's-magazine boosting and bolstering that she seemed to be criticizing. The sentence before that sounds like raw left-wing politics that isn't centered on women at all but simply promises incidental benefits. How is that not patriarchal?
Posts
85 comments:
If you have any true feminist spirit, you should hypothesize that whatever the mainstream is pushing is a patriarchal scheme, especially if it's boosting women's spirits and bolstering their alliance with men.
That's part of a larger critique that progressivism and radicalism have become tools of the Establishment. There's much truth in the critique, but often it either leads to a house of mirrors in which nothing can be trusted or to revolutionary totalitarianism.
Feminists of today are extremely hypocritical - note their reaction to successful conservative women.
"collective lives as women"
No thanks. I'm already in all the clubs.
’Because yes, protecting women’s reproductive rights benefits me, but equally important is that a pro-woman reproductive policy benefits us all: men, children, our economy, and our national security.’
National security? I guess someone needs to womansplain that argument to me…
"I had to look that up to get a sense of how much radical feminism she might have lived through."
Her parents were activists in the Socialist Workers Party, where her mother was a union organizer who ran for office in the Socialist Workers Party.
She's a blind member of a female clique parroting her social media friends.
The underlying phenomenon is yin versus yang.
If one group pushes and moves into another group's old territory and natural strengths (e.g., Women's rights 1970s to 2015 versus male dominance and the "patriarchy"), then there must be an equal move from the opposing group into the areas with vacated historical control.
Witness the rise of transgenderism, the destruction of biological women's ability to win in sporting competitions, mental illness and bodily mutilation described as positives, the split between the pan-genderists and bio-feminists (aka "hated" TERFs). Witness the rise of angry unmarried virgin women (formerly "spinsters") warring with ineffective male "incels" who won't play the game, the rise of financially smashed single mothers who "marry" the government to meet financial needs, and a slew of pyrrhic victories that are dirt in the mouth.
isn't TRUE Feminism,
the right for a 17 year old girl to be pressured into sex by her twenty something boyfriend?
the right for a 17 year old girl to be pressured into an abortion by her twenty something boyfriend?
the right for a 17 year old girl to lose her place on the track team to a chick-with-a-dick?
the right for a 17 year old girl to grow up thinking; that is All Good, and Normal, and Pro-womyn?
Maybe because I don’t have much “collectivist spirit” but as a woman born in 1965 I’ve always been quite turned off by feminism.
I do appreciate the gains that probably contributed to my ability to get a professional degree (although it never seemed accurate to me that any assistance was needed…I grew up learning about female scientists, doctors, etc who predated the feminist movement and I know I had the academic chops to succeed without anyone needing to clear barriers for me.)
But still, I understand that in an earlier age perhaps there would have been different expectations that shaped my life and certainly things like voting rights were important.
Where they really lost me though was on so called reproductive rights (Orwellian language for sure since they are really always talking about the right to NOT reproduce) and the fact that they always insisted on the right to kill the unborn children that result from unprotected sex. This seems obvious to me to relate to a desire to unburden women from having to accept the consequences that nature has handed them- not something that is imposed by the patriarchy.
And isn’t it obvious, too, that the sexual parts of feminist ideology fit with things that benefit men? Left wing feminism has the obsessive idea that men want to keep women barefoot and pregnant but it has always seemed to me that given the choice, most men would choose unbridled access to sex without the responsibility of fatherhood if they had the option…and feminists and the sexual revolution have given them that wish.
Women are upset with feminism, and somehow it's men's fault?
No woman must be made to feel bad about, or responsible for, anything, ever.
protecting women’s reproductive rights benefits me, but equally important is that a pro-woman reproductive policy benefits us all: men, children, our economy, and our national security.
This legislation should be done in the state legislatures -- not in the US Supreme Court.
But ultimately, each decade finds us led by a feminism that has abandoned ameliorating the struggles of our collective lives as women in lieu of chasing individual wins on playing fields drawn up by men
We've decided that what has been needed in this bank is a special officer. Or to revert to the argot of the underworld, a bank dick. In lieu of your heroism, your dauntless courage, I have the honor to offer you this position.
Oh, thank you.
- WC Fields, The Bank Dick
I've been thinking since this Roe leak about how the entire abortion debate is patriarchal. Not in the sense that men benefit the most from abortion by relinquishing responsibility, although that's true. But that the very definition of woman as shaped by "equality" may diminish us. Our difference, our sex-based limitations, have been tossed aside. Granted, who wouldn't want to focus on strengths over weaknesses? But we've ceded ground that we need and should value. The trans debate has made that clear.
America First: Nazi Authoritarianism!
The Collective: Peaceful Unity.
I’d say she lost me at “collective,” but let’s face it. Her premise is lost in the gobbledygook she larded her essay with, like the Reich article below. We are apparently entering an era of bold fresh takes centered on the idea that boy we really need us more socialism right away even if we have to deperson women and use the hated states rights argument to do it.
Sorry. Hard pass.
Do women understand society is a team sport?
Men and women are on the same team. Teams only function when they work together, each executing those skills they are best at. Being at odds with your team mates, makes for a miserably long day.
Feminists protesting in front of an actual feminist icon’s house. Crazy pants.
“I can t-t-t-taste it…”
Feminism is a constant marching in place and has been for a hundred years.
Women working in jobs that interest men will always form a Women's Workplace Issues Committee. The patriarchy is always spotted as a problem.
What the patriarchy always is is exterior to women, and women do interior. That's what women's magazines are about. The exterior is always the challenge to it.
Feminism was on a roll. Voting rights, property rights, credit, child custody, education, Title IX, workplace access, and equal pay. Then they sacrificed the support of a lot of the women working for the ERA on the altar of abortion. We never came back. What great strides has the next wave of feminism made since Roe? If anything, they're giving away the things the feminists before them won. What rights do women have now we didn't have in 1973?
"... each decade finds us led by a feminism..."
Decades are not finding us and an abstract principle is not leading us. At any given point in time — not in decade-long chunks — each of us is considering some ideas, influenced partly or fully, and always able to diverge. Feminism has never been monolithically clear, and most people are just stumbling or rolling along and not consulting the theory. Trend articles are published, and if you read them decades later, you might think that's what people were like at that time, but that would be delusional.
The first thing on her website is how to pronounce Xochitl, which I was wondering.
"IT'S PRONOUNCED SO-CHEEL"
So chill. I wonder if she adopted that name. It reminds me Saul Goodman. Which leads me to also wonder if Gonzalez is her real name or did she change it? She's from "Southern Brooklyn", she says...so practically a Sandinista.
"[saying that a pro-woman reproductive policy benefits us all: men, children, our economy, and our national security] is raw left-wing politics that isn't centered on women at all but simply promises incidental benefits. How is that not patriarchal?"
So, now you're saying that the patriarchy is good? Because making the world better for everyone, including women, sounds good. While centering all politics on women sounds bad. Let's definitely not do that.
"If you have any true feminist spirit, you should hypothesize that whatever the mainstream is pushing is a patriarchal scheme"
Or, it's the Russians!
Wikipedia says:
Gonzalez was born in New York City to a second-generation Puerto Rican mother and Mexican-American father and raised by her grandparents in the area between Bensonhurst and Borough Park.[1] Her parents were activists in the Socialist Workers Party, where her mother was a union organizer who ran for office in the Socialist Workers Party. Gonzalez attended public schools and earned a scholarship to Brown University. At Brown she intended to study creative writing but ultimately majored in art history.[2] Reflecting on her time at the university, Gonzalez wrote, "Brown was only four hours by car, a lifetime by way of cultural journey. I had dreamt for years of escaping the concrete of Brooklyn for reasons I couldn’t really ever put my finger on."[3]
Gonzalez worked as an entrepreneur and consultant for a number of years before earning her MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Brown. A school Althouse has stricken from the rolls of the Ivy League.
Kate is on to something. Feminists admitting that the path to “equality” was a trap— because you had to become/behave just like like men, who would always beat you at being male.
Meanwhile, the “chant your abortion” folks must deprive an entire class of humanity its inalienable right to life in order to achieve its vision of autonomy. I wonder if you,Ann, would agree with me that this seriously undermines the concept of equality before the law for all, on which the country is founded?
“The moment a positive law deprived a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined….as a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violations of the child’s rights.”
— catechism of the Catholic Church.
If upholding that principle is considered “theocratic”, then the very concept of inherent dignity, of equality for all before the law, is “theocratic” as well.
It’s this trying to have one without the other that has riven this country for 50 years. Lies eventually collapse.
"Do women understand society is a team sport?"
There is too much historical grief to acknowledge this. Once a victim, always a victim. For many feminists, at least.
"Being at odds with your team mates, makes for a miserably long day."
You say that like misery is not their goal.
Feminism offers a classic bait and switch: it's simply about achieving equality, so everyone should support it vs. we want what's best for women and we don't care how it affects anyone else.
They want a big tent ("it has so much popular support"), but they don't want to share.
Men who support this are pathetic. But maybe it will get you laid!
The only way to maintain dominance is to update the vocabulary of oppression.
a pro-woman reproductive policy benefits us all: men, children, our economy, and our national security."
Well, other than the products of conception who will become 'birthing persons' and the other potential soldiers, scientists, and artists who get aborted (because you know that's what she means by 'reproductive policy'), and the fact that two people have to work to sustain a family because of our expectations, but I'll agree with her that men who knock up someone who does more than just identify as a woman and then can demand disposal of the product of sexual activity have benefited.
"In light of these and other facts, the makers of Virginia Slims feel it highly inappropriate that women continue to use the fat, stubby cigarettes designed for mere men. You've come a long way, baby."
Someone has to say it….
Isn’t this just a bunch of women changing their minds over and over again about why they want?
And whining both when they don’t get it, and when they do?
Seems like a different language already. Reading the article was like listening to someone speaking in a foreign language. I got “feminism, blah, blah, blah, patriarchy, blah, blah, siding with Bill Clinton on Monica Lewinsky affair, blah, blah, blah, reproductive rights”. Did the Supreme Court majority overturn the right to reproduction? Show me in the court’s patriarchy language where they said the right to reproduce no longer exists.
"If you have any true feminist spirit, you should"
Ah, the no true feminist fallacy. Needs a tag.
"simply promises incidental benefits. How is that not patriarchal?"
Because it has nothing to do with male power.
But then, what isn't patriarchal, for "true" feminists?
What if what women have been characterizing for decades as the patriarchy…has actually been the matriarchy all along?
“The ‘oppression’ is coming from inside the house!”
Further to CStanley's point, one of feminism's logos in the 60's was "burn the bras". I didn't hear any men objecting to the beauty which appeared from that.
Althouse said...
Feminism has never been monolithically clear, and most people are just stumbling or rolling along and not consulting the theory. Trend articles are published, and if you read them decades later, you might think that's what people were like at that time, but that would be delusional.
Exactly! I find few things more off-putting than discussions of first-wave or second-wave or whatever feminism. I've been female my whole life. I've lived through a lot of this, and I have no idea which wave is what or what the theories are. How in the world is anyone convinced normal people know about, let alone are interested in, the theories and the academic-style speech?
Myopic, likely narcissistic, and #MeToo #HerToo #SheProgressed. Feminists and masculinists in the liberal fashion demanded reproductive rites held for social, redistributive, clinical, and fair weather causes. The wicked solution or selective-child is a model of one-child, delegated, through secular religious fervor (Choice).
Roe, Roe, Roe your baby... yourself down the river, and take granny with you (i.e. planned parent/hood) is a progressive path and grade.
I would say that anyone who uses the term "patriarchy" to describe any modern society on the planet today is interested only in blinding themself to complex realities.
Gilbar, in your list you should replace "17" with "15", or perhaps "14".
It's almost time for women to once again collectively withhold sex until they get "equal rights." I could use a breather....
She just hasn't met the right man yet.
We need to regroup and reframe our language away from 'defending' the individual and toward protecting the collective. Because yes, protecting women’s reproductive rights benefits me, but equally important is that a pro-woman reproductive policy benefits us all: men, children, our economy, and our national security."
I guess this is that famous "women's intuition" that we used to hear about, masquerading as logic.
Feminism, as seen from the outside by me, has always been a set of ad hoc justifications for whatever it is that a particular woman wants in her life at that moment. The after the fact classification of these things into theoretical epochs or waves bears little correspondence to what seems to me to have actually occurred.
The incoherence of the 41 year old X-lady, veering between left wing cheerleading, bad history, and make believe benevolence, is an example of what you get when all you have is a vague sort of dissatisfaction, and a very specific need to sound important.
Her number one problem was probably trying to talk for women. They can’t speak for generalized women’s issues, because that group is way too diverse. Plenty of women, likely a very strong majority, are perfectly happy in their natural role as wives and mothers. How do Lesbian abortion absolutists speak for more than other Lesbians? Now it is even worse, because feminists now purport to speak for men pretending or converting to be women.
"I grew up learning about female scientists, doctors, etc who predated the feminist movement and I know I had the academic chops to succeed without anyone needing to clear barriers for me."
Well, tough titty, Sister. Because I can guarantee you that the men you work with think you're an affirmative-action twink who has to be humored and carried on their backs across the finish line. Because that's what you were trained to be, and that's what you are.
Say, isn't it about time for you to jet off to some conference to give a talk about how hard it is to be a woman in XXXXXXXXX?
What if what women have been characterizing for decades as the patriarchy…has actually been the matriarchy all along?
It's both: feminists and masculinists, who convinced women via religious or "ethical" apology that they lack dignity and agency, to do a slut walk (sexual revolution), to abort a "burden" for profit, and reduce human life to negotiable, taxable commodities. It's been a good model to sustain the collateral damage from environmental arbitrage (i.e. Green deals), labor arbitrage (e.g. practical and actual slavery), [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] immigration reform in lieu of emigration reform, and progressive prices forced by single/central/monopolies and monopolistic practices.
Overturning Roe is a pro-woman, pro-feminism win.
’Because yes, protecting women’s reproductive rights benefits me ...’
@C Stanley: Where they really lost me though was on so called reproductive rights (Orwellian language for sure since they are really always talking about the right to NOT reproduce)
Speaking of Orwellian language. This morning's emailed NYT Opinion Today focuses on Crisis Pregnancy Centers:
Three years ago, when I was an undergraduate at Middlebury College, I started working as a research assistant for one of my professors, Carly Thomsen. Her research team was exploring the geographic reach of so-called crisis pregnancy centers (C.P.C.s), whose primary aim is to deter and delay women from getting abortions, often with deceptive practices.
C.P.C.s have flourished in recent decades, and today there are more than 2,600 of these centers nationwide — over three for every abortion-providing facility. Our analysis of driving times to C.P.C.s and abortion facilities revealed that over one-fourth of women of reproductive age currently live closer to a C.P.C. than an abortion facility.
When the Opinion section was looking for novel ideas that would help readers understand this troubling moment for reproductive rights, I brought the idea of writing about C.P.C.s to Thomsen, who suggested that we update our original driving time analysis for a potential post-Roe v. Wade America, when at least 26 states are certain or likely to ban abortion.
This week, we are sharing our findings in a piece I co-wrote with Thomsen and Carrie N. Baker, a professor at Smith College, who has written extensively on crisis pregnancy centers. Our most striking finding: If Roe v. Wade falls and nearly 200 abortion facilities close, over half of all women of reproductive age will live closer to a C.P.C. than an abortion clinic — an additional 18 million women.
We write that these shifts would make it easier for C.P.C.s to intercept women who are seeking legitimate reproductive health care and would likely have disproportionate impacts on women of color. For example, our analysis shows that the share of Black and Latina women who live closer to a C.P.C. than an abortion facility would triple in a post-Roe v. Wade world.
What significance her Aztec-origin name has on all this, I'll just leave others to ponder.
A serious feminist movement would insist on female only spaces -particularly in non-voluntary living places like jails and shelters. I'd also expect demands for child care and home school options at places of work and education, but it seems the self-identified feminists are totally uninterested in the concerns of women who want to reproduce.
I couldn’t get past “bled into…”
Give me a f/king break.
I think we’ve gone way past “The Patriarchy” into front-holed persons. Some not-so-feminine, too.
Can we just be us, again?
About Patriarchy -
The very essence of Roe and abortion is to encourage women to hate their womanhood, to hate what is unique to woman - her fertile ability to carry and give birth to a child - and seek to suppress and destroy that uniqueness of womanhood.
Can we get back to women refusing to say why they are upset, please?
Teh Patriarchy Phallusy!
Men don't need to be able to kill their kids in order to be equal, so why should women need to be able to kill their kids in order to be equal?
"The last sentence quoted above sounds like the very women's-magazine boosting and bolstering that she seemed to be criticizing. The sentence before that sounds like raw left-wing politics that isn't centered on women at all but simply promises incidental benefits. How is that not patriarchal?"
Um. How is that patriarchal? The fundamental principle of feminism is that women get to have it both ways. She is merely applying that principle to prose. Nothing patriarchal about it.
Does the intersectionality of different interests produce anything of interest?
Feminism and Climate Change.
Feminism and Black Lives Matter.
Feminism and Anti-War.
Feminism and Anti-Nuclear.
Feminism and Transgenderism.
Feminism and Racism.
Feminism and Fascism.
Feminism and Communism.
Feminism and Sexism.
Feminism and Amateur Sports.
Feminism and Tax Policy.
Feminism and Happy Hour.
Feminism and Trucker Shortage.
Feminism and Sex Workers.
Feminism and Organized Crime.
Feminism and HGTV.
Combine your own, for entertainment and insights.
For some people, the answer is always socialism ... or more socialism ... or yet more socialism.
Marxists always go after the individual in favor of 'the collective'. Which is one of the failings of feminism. After all, in the end we are all individuals. Our own private thoughts, desires, abilities, needs, capacities, and physicalities. The only way any collectivism can work is to destroy or knock down everybody who succeeds, excels, or is better at something than the pack, and bring them all down to the lowest common denominator.
Which is why collectivism never works, never has, and never will. I think I first learned about collectivism from a very strong woman who wrote a lot about it, became famous for her writings, and lived a very individualistic life. Some (myself included) would say- she lived a morally bankrupt life. Nonetheless- she was a global phenomenon who gave birth to an entire philosophical system, had a massive following in the latter half of the 20th century, and to this day still sells hundreds of thousands of books each year.
Women being strong as individuals is far more important than pushing your own self down in favor of some perceived 'common good'. There is no such thing as collective rights. If you do not have individual rights, there are no rights. Either each one of us, individually has our natural rights as an individual, or we are at the mercy of whatever current mob is in charge of the language.
And as you can see by her column, language is always the front line of attack by Marxists. They cannot win on their actual thoughts, their goals and actions. They have to manipulate the language to make you think it's something that it's not.
Ayn Rand laid it all out perfectly in her books.
Well, the so-called sexual revolution as typified by Hugh Hefner did historically precede modern "equality" feminism by a few years (a real booby prize for women, that). Hefner also started one of the first multi-issue foundations and poured cash into abortion rights groups and promoted figures like Gloria Steinem, who was more a libertine than a rights activist. He dangled cash to the pro-sex and pro-choice feminists and belittled the workplace equality ones.
So there's an argument that one of the most prominent symbols of the patriarchy was steering feminism from a pragmatic approach to expanding financial and career opportunities to a disco hell hangover of shattered sexual mores that harmed women ... and men.
I'm not endorsing this young woman's work. I can't be bothered to understand these Judith Butler-swilling elite commie grrl types. It must be a class thing. I never was rich enough to be a socialist princess: I just wanted to be paid the same as the male cashiers who were as old as me and slower at ringing people out at the Stop and Shop.
And I was paid less. So were women twice our age who had been there for decades.
If L'affaire Lewinsky taught us anything, it's that "feminism" has nothing whatsoever to do with women and everything to do with political power.
It's rather sad that the inestimably great Camille Paglia hasn't weighed in anywhere on YouTube in interviews/speeches, seemingly for the past several years. Her voice almost always rings truest to me, as it has since the "Sexual Personae" days of the early 1990s.
Her absence from the recent discussion only stresses how much she'll be missed when she shuffles off the mortal coil - it will be a tremendous loss.
I don't have a "collective" "life as a woman." Why is the Left so pro-collectivism? Every issue I've ever run into in 55 years of being female either was, or could have been, more than adequately resolved by treating me as an individual with rights, not as a member of a collective.
I feel 100% certain that the kind of woman I am - about which I reserve the right to keep my own counsel - is emphatically not the kind of woman she wants in her "collective" - yet I'm supposed to relinquish my (hard-won, primarily by others) recognized right to be the kind of woman I want to be in order to support her collectivist vision and live contentedly in the box she chooses.
Hell with that.
They can’t speak for generalized women’s issues, because that group is way too diverse.
In number, not color blocs, no "people of feminism". Women, as men, are independent, as much as that is possible in a social environment, aided by equal and complementary, and a mature character that chooses reconciliation over avoidance or dominance.
Then they sacrificed the support of a lot of the women working for the ERA on the altar of abortion.
Hadn't thought about the ERA for years but this is surely right: I distinctly recall conversations of former active ERA supporters who stopped because they were persuaded that the ERA would require the legalisation of abortion etc but I don't remember if this was because of the text itself of the proposed amendment or because people were foreseeing 'penumbras'. But then came Roe.
I'd rather be assimilated by the Borg than join the female 'collective'.
If this exchange--the Atlantic piece and Althouse's comments--are typical of "feminist" discussions, the key reason why "feminism" is having trouble maintaining significant interest is obvious.
I couldn't even begin to try to "mansplain" what they are arguing about.
Veni-vv:
She’s done an interview w/Jordan Peterson.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v-hIVnmUdXM
Temujin said..
You laid it out perfectly.
Ayn Rand laid it all out perfectly in her books.
Wasn't it Any Rand that said "there is no greater minority than the individual"?
Anyway, appreciate reading your comment.
“Bolstering their alliance with men?”
Hate to break it you for 150,000 years of humans evolution, men and women cooperated in order to eek out a brief existence against the calamity of life.
Survival required this cooperation and from there, family and social dynamics were established to reinforce the behaviors that would best predict survival. But, even with cooperation, life was insanely hard and often deadly.
Both men and women faced disease and starvation. Women also faced the calamity of child birth and violence. And men faced the calamity of the most dangerous jobs like hunting and warfare.
In the 20th Century, the calamity of life subsided for most of the industrialized world. Medicine, ample food supply, birth control, transportation all contributed to men and women needing to cooperate less.
Men had dominated the external working world while women dominated the domestic working world.
But, again, strict gender roles were no longer necessary for daily survival.
Many feminist women came to measure success through the lens of the external working world. Yet, they expected the external working world to adapt to their needs.
And many feminists began to blame the “patriarchy” for challenges they face overcoming 150,000 years of human civilization.
Life got a hell of a lot easier and many feminists complain that some parts are still hard.
Do I think that every should treat each other with respect? Absolutely. Do I think that work must evolve to accommodate a changing workforce? Absolutely.
Do I think men should be blamed for not fixing 150,000 years of momentum in human civilization to accommodate women? Nope. In fact, the more blame, the cooperation women should expect.
Also, we’re a cataclysmic event, kind the Yellowstone super volcano erupting or global war, away from being right back to men and women assuming their historical gender roles for survival.
We live in a time of extreme luxury. We can either enjoy or bitch about our incredibly blessed lives.
If Xochitl Gonzalez needs a new language, might I suggest español?
@ ALP
Agreed! Today I was listening to some music by Molly Tuttle, including a cover the Rolling Stones' song "She's A Rainbow." I went to YouTube to see if there was a video, because I really liked her version of the song, and it turned out to be a preachy commercial for feminism, which was disappointing: A bunch of grim-looking people holding up woke signs, looking like every sphincter was clenched. The audio was good, though.
Another social justice grifter. Look her up. She is whiter than I am. She looks like an untidy German house frau.
Her parents were “social justice advocates/grifters” who abandoned her to be raised by her grandparents. So she idolizes the neglectful parents like many abandoned children do.
You would think if she was really concerned with female justice she wouldn’t use that Aztec/Mexican name. You can’t find a culture much more patriarchal and demeaning of women than the Aztecs were. Mexican is close behind for a modern culture. Talk about internalized misogyny. Lol.
Someone who is obviously carrying so much baggage shouldn’t be giving other people advice about life and society. She should go clean her room.
Women in America are healthier, wealthier, and freer than women have ever been in 200,000+ years of human history, and yet they are also remarkably unhappy and unsatisfied, or so it is portrayed. It is a conundrum.
. . . all while attempting to remain appealing to them [men].
The early 90's is when I stopped contributing to NOW. I remember sitting there thinking,"They hate me, why the H*ll am I giving them money." I don't think I was imagining things. I always thought the goal should be the two sexes (disclaimer, I am not a biologist), getting along together, but somewhere along the line feminism became hostile to men.
Xochitl is the name of a brand of tortilla chips my wife likes.
---If you have any true feminist spirit, you should hypothesize that whatever the mainstream is pushing is a patriarchal scheme, especially if it's boosting women's spirits and bolstering their alliance with men.
Why?
Says who? Ann Althouse.
That's a painfully circular piece of logic based on, I am good, everybody else is bad.
Whatever I think is feminism; whatever anyone else thinks is discrimination. Especially if it involves happiness between men and women.
Equal in rights and complementary in Nature. That said, keep women appointed, available, and taxable. April fools!
You lost me at “ Xochitl”
Temujin: nice bit on collectivism and Ayn Rand. Browndog: good on you for giving props to Temujin.
Tom: you nailed the last 150,000 years of human development and the sexes' need to cooperate. And, yes, you are correct to point out how incredibly rich and lucky so many of us are now in comparison to our ancestors over that span of time. Fingers crossed, we will grow up before we blow up.
---Why is the Left so pro-collectivism? [Jamie]
Probably because it gives whoever is talking/writing/shouting an instant constituency, invoked as "the community" of whatever category applies at that moment. And it is a free constituency. That is, the speaker/writer/shouter could never have amassed any similar support on his or her own strengths; could never, and did never.
But pretend-talk for a big group and it sounds important. They get that importance for free; through no effort, no achievements, just rhetoric. The failure of American education is that there are still fools who fall for this device.
And then the speaker/writer/shouter can sometimes imagine that he she or xhi will actually lead this fantasy group. What a nice little piece of Walter Mitty adrenaline.
That biologist quip will never get old…
In the year 1985, in the USA, there were somewhere around 20 million American women with children between the ages of 1 and 15. About 1 million or so were so inveigled by feminist propaganda that they, believing that it was beneath them to be good kind mothers, were intentionally negligent to their children, believing that by doing so they were doing that which was pleasing to their heroes and heroines in the feminist establishment.
While we live in a moment of the last 150,000 years where basic survival, at least for most of us in the WEIRD world, is less dependent than ever on direct cooperation for resource acquisition, men and women still need to cooperate to ensure the survival of our species, and in general we ain't getting it done.
---If you have any true feminist spirit, you should hypothesize that whatever the mainstream is pushing is a patriarchal scheme, especially if it's boosting women's spirits and bolstering their alliance with men. [AA]
This has to have been satire, or sarcasm, whose subtlety eluded me yesterday. Too many patriarchy & patriarchal references throughout the post; the static clouded my AA-reading. Just a nod to Bentoak at 5:01 pm on the conundrum of women at the peak of prosperity and freedom in all history to date yet a certain large (?) or at least loud minority still unhappy and unsatisfied.
Shouting Thomas would say that is a result of feminism; and he's probably right.
Tina Trent said:
'...Judith Butler-swilling elite commie grrl types."
Hilarious and worth seeing in print again. Definitely stealing this phrase.
Post a Comment