"
Glossy, celebrity-driven rhetoric, peppered with slogans like 'nevertheless, she persisted' and reassurances that 'girl, you got this,' suggests that if women display competence and strength — or even just
'the confidence of a mediocre white man' — we will eventually earn equality.
This type of feminism has taken several forms — Lean In, the Women’s March, the girlboss and hashtag feminism, just to name a few iterations. But the ultimate promise has remained the same: If we work within the system, the system will reward us.... Rather than seeking the approval and validation of an unjust system, what if we rejected the system’s legitimacy and worked from there? What strengths might we be able to tap in to if we recognized that the game is rigged and gave up on trying to 'win' it?... Colonized people around the globe have only been able to expel their oppressors by refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the systems that subjugated them....Vigilante groups such as India’s pink-sari-clad Gulabi Gang, for example, wield sticks against abusers and rapists.
Abortion-rights advocates have also turned to these kinds of guerrilla tactics: In the years before the right to legal abortion was established in
Roe v. Wade, a group of women known as the Jane Collective provided safe abortions, performing an estimated 11,000 procedures in the pre-
Roe era.... It is always better when we’re able to secure our wins through established channels, when our rights are recognized through all levels of society — and certainly, voting remains a crucial tool in our toolbox.
But the feminism of disempowerment is a reminder that even when the system is rigged against us, no one can take away our truth, our personhood, our autonomy."
This essay started out well, but then got awfully confusing. It's one thing to see the limits of "empowerment" feminism, with its celebrities and slogans, but quite something else to decide you're completely disempowered and ought to adopt the mindset — and strategies — of truly oppressed people. And is she calling for violence and vigilantism? I couldn't tell. But, you know, the system is rigged against writers who won't speak clearly and who float miscellaneous ideas without following through.
Unsurprisingly, there's no comments section over there at the Times.
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Critical Womynx Theory. It's class struggle all the way down.
What a logical upchuck of an argument. If you are an advocate for abortion rights, at what point do these op ed tantrums stop and the effort to work within the system begin?
I've a suggestion for how Lux Alptraum can secure rights that are recognized through all levels of society, which the author acknowledges to be superior. Use the power of legislation, as Alito's decision directs, instead of relying on the Supremes.
When you realize the pseudonym "Alptraum" means "nightmare," it kinda makes sense.
Whine much? What must it be like to live your life with a gigantic chip on your shoulder? Nowadays, the way it appears is that the "game" is rigged in favor of women.
When women went after the "empowerment" to be more like men, we gave up a lot of the power we already had. The question for women today is where the balance sheet stands now. Are we in the black or in the red? If a woman is single and has no interest in having a family life, she's probably ahead, but for women who want to have a partner and raise a family together, she has probably lost ground.
You know, I've gotta say this. I've read for so many years about how women are short changed, held back, and discriminated against. And that was history for many, for a long time. But we 'corrected' by beating on men and boys, boys and men, until we now have a situation where boys/young men don't even graduate, and most of those who do, don't go to college. And those in college are taking BS curricula to look more feminine than to actually make a living. Oops. Did I say that? Except that now women are taking not only the bullshit curricula (gender studies), but the meatier ones- law, medicine, business. (not engineering- still). The women graduate in far greater numbers from both high school, college, and with graduate degrees.
Women have entered the workforce in greater numbers, get promoted in greater numbers, and find themselves in that dog eat dog world that was formerly only inhabited by men. And what do I read- article after article now, year after year? That it's not going well for women. It's not going as they thought it would. There's this thing, and that thing.
This article is telling women they ought to stop working in the dog eat dog world. That they ought to, instead, work on being victims. Because when you're from the Left the only thing you know is that victims get top billing and everyone around you is getting their day in the protest except women now. Strong women can't be victims any longer if they're gutting it out in the dog eat dog world of everyday business or lawyering or working ridiculous hours in a hospital. Better to be a protesting victim. Better to whine hard than to work hard.
I'd say women- now fully in control and out in the dog eat dog world that has cut men's life shorter for generations, are finding that it might be a nicer life outside of the dog eat dog world.
Feminism. You never know what it might mean the next time you use it.
Oldhouse and Nightmare ride again. This time it's personal.
Alptraum is convinced that she is more oppressed and more outside the system than she actually is.
The reason for the lack of progress by the march is that it's marching in place. It's the same thing over and over for a hundred years. Women won't be satisfied unless they learn to express satisfaction. If it involves a man, it's called a happy marriage.
The women of Afghanistan were not asked for their opinions on these ideas.
As a woman, I just can't make up my mind about what is most empowering about Liz Alptraum: her articles in Hustler Magazine or her cable show, "The Wonderful World of Boning."
The New York Times allows people to say the system is rigged against us, but does not allow people to say the 2020 election was rigged against us.
"we will eventually earn equality"
Show, don't tell. When you start dying at equal rates doing hard jobs, we'll believe you mean it.
"If we work within the system, the system will reward us"
Which it has, massively. Longer lives, cushy jobs, higher graduation rates, all the comforts of modern society. Has anyone benefitted more from the last century of progress than American women?
"when the system is rigged against us"
How so? The entire welfare state, the school system--geared toward helping women. Divorce, custody--the courts support women. Title IX--interpreted to favor women. Prisons? They cage men, not women. Etc. etc.
This author has made her fortune on the backs of exploited women in the porn industry, and now advocates for "disempowerment feminism"? If she were a brutal, misogynistic, retro cis male bent on domination of all things female, how would she behave differently?
Marxism posturing as feminism.
The part about vigilante women in India briefly made me wonder if she was about to embrace a strong Second Amendment theory of female empowerment.
suggests that if women display competence and strength — or even just 'the confidence of a mediocre white man'
Confident men attract women, which gives them currency in the system.
Confident women have an entirely different dynamic.
Perhaps the idea that there is "one system" is at the root of feminism's failures.
Feminism is a gender chauvinist ideology that empowers feminists and masculinists in the wake of social progress. Throw another baby on the barbie.
That said, men and women are equal in rights and complementary in Nature.
Marxism posturing as feminism.
Diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry).
I have a 22 year old daughter. I just want her to be happy.
Colonized people around the globe have only been able to expel their oppressors by refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the systems that subjugated them....
One suspects that Mx. Alptraum hasn't looked too closely at how many colonized people end up dying gaining their independence.
Tina Trent said...
As a woman, I just can't make up my mind about what is most empowering about Liz Alptraum: her articles in Hustler Magazine or her cable show, "The Wonderful World of Boning."
Based on the pictures I've seen of her I have a hard time believing that "boning" is her area of expertise.
Got no problem with going after rapists and abusers. Only hope they get the right guy. Is there a woman-power break for such a group if they get the wrong guy? Or does it matter?
Got no problem with going after rapists and abusers. Only hope they get the right guy. Is there a woman-power break for such a group if they get the wrong guy? Or does it matter?
“Women empowerment”… there’s something contradictory about that. Kind of like if you aren’t powerful like say… men, well, you’re not really a woman.
Are neo-feminists still playing the victim game? We've given them permission to wreck the country with their ignorant voting choices and to endorse the slaughter of 60 million babies to support their sexual choices. And that's not enough?
Meanwhile, they are mum while Democrats condemn their sisters in Afghanistan to a life of servitude and support gifted, hard working female athletes being displaced by gender disphoric bullies. Lovely.
They aren't promoting women. They are promoting The Democrat Party.
Feminism is great until the 'ladies' run up against men who are better 'ladies' than they are.
Someone made a valid point here the other day worth repeating.
Trans women are to women what minstrel show performers were to blacks.
Yet there is outrage over blackface but celebrations over woman-face.
Fucked up world we live in...
The system is rigged against us, which is why I'm writing this in the New York Times.
Okay, sure: that makes perfect sense.
Jane Collective provided safe abortions, performing an estimated 11,000 procedures in the pre-Roe era
In other words, the "women died by the thousands in back alleys" was a lie. But we all knew that, didn't we?
More whining from the winners in the sexual Olympics race. Women who want a career instead of a family have everything they think they want.
More women than men vote now. More girls graduate high school than boys. More ladies attend and graduate college than guys. The numbers are more lopsided in most graduate programs. Then in the real world women out-earn men for the same jobs. Women are promoted faster than men and women minorities tend to do so even quicker. There’s never been a better time to be a woman than now if you are concerned with equality.
WTF is this chick complaining about?
The biggest trick women ever played was getting lumped in with minorities though they are the majority...
Temujin said:
"You know, I've gotta say this. I've read for so many years about how women are short changed, held back, and discriminated against. And that was history for many, for a long time. But we 'corrected' by beating on men and boys, boys and men, until we now have a situation where boys/young men don't even graduate, and most of those who do, don't go to college. And those in college are taking BS curricula to look more feminine than to actually make a living. Oops. Did I say that? Except that now women are taking not only the bullshit curricula (gender studies), but the meatier ones- law, medicine, business. (not engineering- still). The women graduate in far greater numbers from both high school, college, and with graduate degrees."
Eleanor said:
"When women went after the "empowerment" to be more like men, we gave up a lot of the power we already had. The question for women today is where the balance sheet stands now. Are we in the black or in the red? If a woman is single and has no interest in having a family life, she's probably ahead, but for women who want to have a partner and raise a family together, she has probably lost ground."
These two posts put together speak volumes as to what has actually been going on. In the times before "feminism" came to be a thing, women didn't have less "power" than men did, they had different power than the men. This was precisely because that was how it worked, given the extant conditions which prevailed across the reality of life.
Then, some of the baseline conditions began to change, slowly, and the so-called "feminists" were able to shoehorn their way into "making things better" for women. The problem was, that while some of the edge conditions of the feminine reality shifted, slightly, the actual underlying causes remain behind. You can't get around biology; we have short lifespans, you have to actually produce the next generation for society to go on, and the fraudulently concocted premises that all this "generational change" were based on have yet to actually eventuate. Women cannot "have it all", because there's only so much "all" to be had; if you say that mothers should have careers, well... The kids get shortchanged, and then you wind up with the social conditions we're seeing. If you say that women should put off having kids, then they miss the best years of their fertility, and wind up spending vast sums on infertility treatments to have unhealthy kids that cost more money to raise. The whole thing is a travesty; healthy societies have to reproduce their members, and if you remove the part of society devoted to doing that, distracting them with extraneous bullshit, what do you really gain, a generation down the line?
(cont.)
Feminism was predicated on the idea that women's traditional role was subservient and extraneous to the needs of modern life. Nothing could be further from the truth, but because of that, we've gone down this false path that you can already see ending in demographic and cultural disaster. All because some silly jealous twits wanted what the boys had, ignoring what they already had themselves.
And, the irony is, most women do not really want to live in a truly egalitarian society, one where they have no womanly prerogatives, no special considerations. What they want is basically everything, ignoring the effect that trying to take over the male roles has had. We're now seeing the pushback, when males are "transgendering" their way into female roles and prerogatives, essentially demolishing actual females as they do it. None of that shit is going to end well, whether it's "Lia" Thompson or some other gender-confused mediocrity that can't compete against other males.
We are a sexually dimorphic species with specific biological constraints placed on us by our genetic heritage. You can't get around that, and I somewhat doubt that we ever will, short of a wholesale re-engineering of the human genome that is more likely to end in disaster than anything else. The root of this problem lies specifically in female dissatisfaction with reality, and denial of same. There's an essential unreality to the whole of the feminist mindset, one that speaks volumes as to why the majority of their philosophers wound up in treatment for mental illness. The unfortunate biological reality is this: You can't make a man out of a woman, because she's smaller, weaker, and far more mediocre than the male. Males are more widely distributed across the spectrum of whatever it is that we are testing for with IQ tests, they're bigger, they're stronger, and are better at a wider range of physical tasks. Trying to compete with them as a woman is a fool's game, which should have never been undertaken. You wipe out the legal difference between man and woman, and what you're going to wind up with is a situation wherein women are going to wind up in an even worse state than they had before all this got started, because of things like selecting a transgender male as "Woman of the Year".
You never want to get in a fight with crazy, because crazy will take you down, get you on the ground, and then beat you with experience. This is essentially what the feminists did, never expecting that the "fringe of crazy" males would do what they've done. And, we're all going to be lessened by the whole thing, going forward.
The problem with leftist feminism is the extent to which they REALLY dislike authentic womanhood in all their striving to be "just like men."
Anything that is unique to woman is despised and made the target of suppression and destruction.
And now the approved leftist feminism shows how much they REALLY dislike authentic womanhood by promoting men saying that they are women over genuine women.
Every way and all around, leftist feminism is ultimately about cancelling women.
Is there a woman-power break for such a group if they get the wrong guy? Or does it matter?
A witch is a witch, a warlock is a warlock, of course, and a baby is sometimes defined with the technical term of art "fetus" for social distance. From observation, this social, political, biological conflagration is primarily an equity property and inclusive of feminists, not women judged and labeled in a [diversity] (i.e. color) bloc.
Women have it so much rougher than men in the USA.
Men in the USA, are far more likely to:
Die while working more dangerous jobs
Die in combat
End up in prison
Be killed by cops
Commit suicide
Pay 18 years of child support, even if they wished to renounce the fetus though abortion or adoption.
Lose custody battles for children they want to raise.
Have fetuses they wish to raise be aborted against their will.
Drop out of high school or college.
etc., etc.
Wokeism: it is really victimhood that counts, so you'd better polish your victim card. It might be awkward if you are actually quite privileged. Maybe your mentors who helped you were really just perpetuating the system in which you never succeed on your merits. Just go ahead and advocate burning the place down--either as a victim, or as someone who feels the pain of victims, or some blurry combination of the two. As long as there is one trace of evil anywhere that can be presumed to be systemic, working within the system will do no good, burn the place down. Maybe escape to space with Elon.
Apparently, it sucks to be Lux Alptraum. Duly noted.
Rejecting the system's legitimacy is a good way to get fired from your job. The system doesn't always work, but very few things in life work 100% of the time. You're probably going to get better results taking a well documented complaint to H.R. than you will by taking matters into your own hands and breaking the rules.
"The game is rigged".
Lemme ask a question. If sexism is systemic, and racism is systemic, are women victims of the former but oppressors in the latter?
How's that work?
She should try being "working class". As my now 93 yr old aunt said, "She had all the equality she could handle. She went to work everyday just like her husband" Of course, my aunt met and married her husband at 15 then followed him through training and out to California before he shipped out to the Pacific theater. When he came home, she had a household set up and she had their first child at 18.
Feminism has always been mostly an upper middle class problem. On both sides. UMC men lost status if their "women", wives or daughters, worked.
All, in all, I'm tired of hearing what I have to do to make things right. Women, whoever, deserve equal opportunity and to not be denied by the old women and men who used to run things. Well, those old people are now 70+. Maybe some privileged UMC is still in a position of power, but they were created by women/POC deferring to them as frat boys and sorority girls so they didn't learn equality.
So stop treating the system as legitimate, but also stop thinking it owes you something other than benign neglect.
If women have it so bad in America, then why do some men want to transform themselves to become part of that oppressed class?
Bomb-throwing for fun and profit.
She's calling for a violent insurrection as an act of self-promotion.
Rabel - bomb-throwing is the business model. These articles are written solely to get clicks. Get links like here. That how the money is made.
Here's a young woman who once had that job for a couple media companies describing what she was expected to do. Write an article on using SEO phrases and polarizing topics to get clicks
https://youtu.be/DRvjcOQA6-w?t=216
Having freedom and expanded choice means a greater chance of fucking up and making the wrong choice. Why is that so hard to understand?
The root of this problem lies specifically in female dissatisfaction with reality, and denial of same.
Yes, and much of what else you say is true. Not all, some of your argument is off, summed up in that word "mediocre."
But it's not just female dissatisfaction and denial. It is a widespread human dissatisfaction with reality and denial of same. It is the entire cultural embrace of relativism and constant redefinition of words and established realities, of the scoffing at and rejection of truth, of a basic nihilism.
My daughter, a Chemical Engineer is general manager of a medical device manufacturing plant employing over 1,000 people.
I hope and pray that she got the job because she is really, really, good. I sometimes wonder if being a woman helped. That possibility angers me to no end.
It's always bothered me that successful women have to go through life with that possibility in the back if their minds.
When UW needed to hire a new law prof, did they think "Sam Smith is clearly the most qualified. But we need better DIE numbers and this Althouse woman is good enough. Let's hire her and keep HR off our backs."
Obviously I have no idea whether that happened or not. The possibility seems incredibly corrosive.
Men, generally, don't have to face that corrosive doubt.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
PS-at the risk of sounding braggy, my daughter was voted Industrialist of the Year Las month by the PR Manufacturers Association.
when leftists want to go all white left antifa terror on everyone - to rage for their grievances... look out.
The media will turn the cheek
Feminism has fought for freedom but not for fully informed choices and women are paying the price.
Two examples. At present there are 62 million Hispanics and 40 million blacks. 20 million blacks have died through abortion over the years and if these blacks had lived and had children blacks would still be the largest minority group in the US by far. This loss of power by the group washes back on the lives of black women. But they are encouraged to think only of their individual life as it it is at the moment.
Another example. Forty years from now social security will be gone if the present generation does not start having children. Young people talk about it all the time in a hopeless way and yet they have the answer for themselves in their power - have children. Having children would make the continuation of social security possible. Moreover, if social security is going to disappear then personal security can be gained by having children. Yet these young people, especially the women, are encouraged to think solely of the moment in their reproductive decisions.
Now feminism has agreed that fully equipped men with a history of rape can become women by saying so and then women can be imprisoned with these other women.
I believe this present weakness can be traced back to feminism's consistently one-sided treatment of a very real problem. Feminism has been advocating for freedom, an incredibly important work, but not for fully informed decisions.
Did you ever notice women in movies in the 30s-50s? They were often shown as strong characters, often having the real power. Especially in film noir.
WTF is this chick complaining about?
Same as Cookie, in another context. Turns out that on a level playing field people like her come in last. So she has to argue that the playing field must be tilted even more to disadvantage men further (or, in Cookie’s case, people with a strong work ethic) or else she’ll stamp her petulance little feet because fairness “just isn’t FAIR!”
Petulance is the key word here. One cannot truly understand the 21st century Democrat Party until one has fully grasped the meaning of the word “petulant.” Also the adjective “vicious.”
It hasn't been all that long that women have been participating in the nonviolent and non-dangerous male workforce. Hell most guys struggle adapting to the dog eat dog world and males have been doing it for thousands and thousands of years.
2020 work related deaths US
4,377 men (92%)
387 women (8%)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/187127/number-of-occupational-injury-deaths-in-the-us-by-gender-since-2003/
Gender
Men worked an average of 41.0 hours per week in paid employment. Women worked an average of 36.4 hours per week.
Marital Status
Married men worked 4.5 hours more per week than men who had never married. Married women worked 1.7 hours more than women who had never married.
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-is-the-average-hours-per-week-worked-in-the-us-2060631
General rule of thumb for any intellectuals here in the commentariat: if you work less hours at safer jobs you tend to make less money, miss out on promotions and not get hired for the better jobs.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
It hasn't been all that long that women have been participating in the nonviolent and non-dangerous male workforce.
For most women, and nearly all women of working age, it has been all of their lives.
That's pretty long I would say.
Back when I was applying to medical school, admissions committees tended to discriminate against women because there was a perceived doctor shortage and women were assumed to be less likely to practice full time for an entire career.
Now, 60% of medical students are female.
Meanwhile, one of the largest employment agency for doctors, who often work part time now, finds that female physicians were working an average of 26 hours per week. Male physicians are much more likely to work full time.
I guess those 1960 committees were right.
'Hell most guys struggle adapting to the dog eat dog world...'
Obama did OK in the man eat dog world...
"Men, generally, don't have to face that corrosive doubt."
White men. In over forty years of computer work, I have worked with four black guys. One of them was competent and the other three were AA bullshit artists. Incompetent women tend to go into management. Sometimes they are even competent, as managers.
If you account for the danger of the job (danger means higher pay), the discomfort of the job (outdoor and disgusting jobs pay more), hours worked (men work longer hours), and years working (women stay home with kids), there is virtually no pay gap. Urban single women in their 20s make more than urban single men that age. More women graduate college. So, women won. Whatever pay they don't get is due to choices. They are not oppressed, but unless you are oppressed you have no power as a movement today, so they keep pretending it is the handmaids tale. And they keep stirring up resentment in other women against the men in their lives.
Yes, of course jupiter. Should have specified.
AA harms everyone it supposedly benefits.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
What strengths might we be able to tap in to if we recognized that the game is rigged and gave up on trying to 'win' it?
How is the game “rigged against” women, when there are scholarships for women only (but never for men only), and student organizations for women only (but never men only); women get a large majority of undergrad degrees and all kinds of graduate degrees; and young women outearn young men in big US cities? Women can’t be charged more for health insurance, but men can be charged more for car insurance. There’s more funding for research on cancers rhat disproportionately affect women than cancers that disproportionately affect men. Women are generally viewed more favorably than men by the general public. Men die younger, and violence against men is more tolerated and prevalent. Many issues faced by black men also generally affect men: heavier suspicion of criminality, more incarceration, more homelessness, etc.
CNN article, 2015: "Women had an overall 2-to-1 advantage in being ranked first for the job in all [scientific] fields studied. This preference for women was expressed equally by male and female faculty members, with the single exception of male economists, who were gender neutral in their preferences."
What strengths might we be able to tap in to if we recognized that the game is rigged and gave up on trying to 'win' it?
How is the game “rigged against” women, when there are scholarships for women only (but never for men only), and student organizations for women only (but never men only); women get a large majority of undergrad degrees and all kinds of graduate degrees; and young women outearn young men in big US cities? Women can’t be charged more for health insurance, but men can be charged more for car insurance. There’s more funding for research on cancers rhat disproportionately affect women than cancers that disproportionately affect men. Women are generally viewed more favorably than men by the general public. Men die younger, and violence against men is more tolerated and prevalent. Many issues faced by black men also generally affect men: heavier suspicion of criminality, more incarceration, more homelessness, etc.
CNN article, 2015: "Women had an overall 2-to-1 advantage in being ranked first for the job in all [scientific] fields studied. This preference for women was expressed equally by male and female faculty members, with the single exception of male economists, who were gender neutral in their preferences."
it's quite surprising that our host, the feminist if ever there was one, has not engaged on this thread which essentially destroys the whole notion of feminism.
Without reading any previous comments - what further power do we women need? Or is she just talking about her disappointment that there hasn't been a women US president yet or something? Or - and I suspect this is the case - is she talking about the fact that society has not completely rolled over and remade itself to accommodate the desires of women like her - for free this and free that, no disapproval of any of her life choices, no criticism of but only support for anything she does or likes or wants?
When did men ever get that?
Bearing children. Doing laundry. Sweeping.
There's no labor market in twenty years if women didn't do that. And face it: men don't.
I'm not against a division of labor. Just stop bitching if you haven't found a bitch who wants to divide yours.
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