Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Extreme feminism

Well, most feminism is extreme when you think about it. The idea that men and women are hostile classes standing in a relationship of oppression and resistance (rather than one of fidelity) is extreme. So is the idea that masculinity and femininity are entirely socially constructed rather than reflecting biological distinctions (or essences).

However, some feminists still manage to come across as really extreme. There's been a bit of an internet reaction to a blog post by a feminist calling herself Radical Wind. The post is titled "PIV is always rape, OK?"

PIV is feminist shorthand for "penis in vagina." So the claim being made is that the most normal and natural form of human sexuality, the one that leads to new life, is always rape. Why? According to Ms Wind the problem is that intercourse is the way that men impregnate women, thereby taking control over women's reproductive autonomy:
intercourse is inherently harmful to women and intentionally so, because it causes pregnancy in women. The purpose of men enforcing intercourse regularly (as in, more than once a month) onto women is because it’s the surest way to cause pregnancy and force childbearing against our will, and thereby gain control over our reproductive powers.

She's quite serious about this. She thinks she's got it wrapped up in a logical formula:
Pregnancy = may hurt, damage or kill. Intercourse = a man using his physical force to penetrate a woman. Intention / purpose of the act of intercourse = to cause pregnancy. PIV is therefore intentional harm / violence. Intentional sexual harm of a man against a woman through penile penetration = RAPE.

It wasn't meant to be this way, according to Ms Wind:
The fact intercourse causes so many infections and tears and warts attests to the unnaturalness of intercourse, that it’s not meant to be. The vagina’s primary function isn’t to be penetrated by a penis but to eject a baby for birth. They are two muscle tissues / sphincters pressed against each other to help the baby be pushed out. Penetration of the penis into the vagina is completely unnecessary for conception.

Yes, she claims that intercourse is unnatural and that it is unnecessary for conception.

It seems that if you're an ideologue you will simply make nature fit into your intellectual scheme. In other words, it's very difficult to believe that Ms Radical Wind is really trying to understand the way that things are. The driving force in the way she understands things is her intellectual/emotional starting point of wanting to see men as the enemy and being anti-sex.

I don't think it's worthwhile getting angry about what Radical Wind has written. She is in a hell of her own making and has deprived herself of the goods of marital and sexual love. She is cut off from her own feminine soul. I'm charitable enough to want her to escape from where she is; I'd like to imagine that in ten years she may have worked her way through her issues and be in a better place, one more receptive to love and family.

12 comments:

  1. Against my better judgement, I took a look at her blog. Not just that post, but other material on her blog as well.

    She is an absolute lunatic who is spouting utter nonsense of the Andrea Dworkin variety. You are 100% correct that it's not worth getting angry at what she's written, as for what it's worth, the writing might as well be satire designed to provoke an extreme reaction.

    I think feminists and other left-wingers in general often have an agenda which involves trying to provoke right-wingers by saying things that they know that right-wingers will hate. Things that they know will infuriate right-wing types.

    Read this:

    http://mindingandmattering.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/misandry-medusa-and-mens-rights.html

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  2. And if she thinks that penis in vagina sex is unnatural, then there's always the other hole she could make use of...

    That's unnatural too? Really? Try telling that to the gays!

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    1. Like we should care about her arse? The guys don't want it and Lesbians don't tend to bowl from the pavillion end, even with implements. I do like her name though, Rectal Wind. Very expressive.

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  3. Extremists often appear to be mentally ill.

    Her view of men is not really all that different from neo-Nazis' views regarding Jews.

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  4. It seems, for "Radical Wind", that the extinction of the human species is preferable to loving adults having consenting relations. I feel that some of these people are just trying to troll us...

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  5. She has a reward for her view: a supportive social environment.

    She, in combination with those who agree with her, are trying to influence people. (Starting with reinforcing each other in their opinions.) She's unlikely to influence many people due to her lack of evident wealth, political access and so on, but that doesn't bear on the morality of what she's trying to do.

    "I'm charitable enough to want her to escape from where she is; I'd like to imagine that in ten years she may have worked her way through her issues and be in a better place, one more receptive to love and family."

    Everyone she influences is likely to be deprived of those goods or to enjoy them in a lesser measure than they could have, since women only have so long to figure this stuff out.

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    1. Titus, I generally agree with you, it's just that Radical Wind is at such an extreme fringe of feminism that I doubt she'll have influence over more than a few women, with those women already being quite a long way gone. What I think is very much the case is that the more mainstream current of feminism does influence the average Western woman in ways that makes relationships less than they could be. It makes many women hesitant in expressing femininity (they don't reject it entirely but they hold back) and it suppresses the gratitude that women might feel toward their husbands and menfolk (whilst at the same time encouraging entitlement). Feminists do harm to the culture in general.

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    2. I suggest she is in need of enforced psychiatric treatment. Seriously.

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  6. Angry! Thats the best laugh I've had in ages.

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  7. How sad to think that all sex is wrong! How naive! Even some of the most radical feminists are not so extreme to think that all romances from men are wrong. I think Radical Wind perhaps might have had bad experiences in the past?

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    1. According to Radical Wind she was very needy as a young woman and would give men sex but was not offered anything emotional in return. That seems to have deeply wounded her.

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  8. http://www.hereticpress.com/Dogstar/History/eureka.html

    Feminists are rewriting Australian history and awarding prizes to any female who discounts the role of men and promotes women as being front and center in the Eureka Stockade conflict 1854. Clair Wright won $50,000 for her very biased book "The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka". It is riddled with mistakes and errors and no male dare speak about the scientific illiteracy promoted bt Clair Wright.

    Eleven women who openly discriminate against men. A group of 11 women decide which female wins the Stella Awards? Scientific literacy does not seem to be a consideration for inclusion, only gender.

    Do they have a policy to cover ambiguous gender. If they came across a genius male author, they would ignore his work. What if a male in protest submitted a brilliant book in a female's name? The Stella awards are based on gender discrimination, not literary merit. This is just as discriminating and sexist as a group of blokes sitting in a men only Melbourne Club. It could be challenged legally as discriminating against men, Stella are unlikely to be able to justify the discrimination. The "other" related author's award, the Miles Franklin, is based on literary merit, not gender. A female author Michelle de Kretser won the Miles Franklin award in 2013. Stella are on arrogant shaky legal ground, feeling free to discriminate against men, all men are ineligible to win the Stella award through no fault of their own.

    Nicolle Flint on the Stella prize and judging by the gender of the author and not by the author's content "The Stella Prize sends a message that women are incapable of competing intellectually with men"
    Erin Handley on The problem with the Stella Prize Dr Kerryn Goldsworthy is chair of the Stella judging panel. Dr Goldsworthy stated that comparing fiction and non-fiction is "no harder than comparing books in general" The Age author Erin Handley rightly notes that fiction and nonfiction should be discrete genres, not competing for the same prize, Erin states "It seems the way women write about women is an unspoken but significant factor for the Stella judges giving the non-fiction entrants an advantage".

    A huge advantage, if the judges have no scientific literacy to evaluate nonfiction. Dr Kerryn Goldsworthy seems unable to appreciate the difference between facts and fiction or her own limitations as well as, just how hard it is to write objective nonfiction texts. The genres are blurred at Stella. Personal opinions and motivations or beliefs do not matter in assessing the quality of nonfiction, there is no democracy of opinion in good social research, other standards apply like; is it good social research, what is the study methodology and variables tested, sample size, statistical analysis, etc? Expressing a personal view about the moon, even one expressed by people in the past is not testing anything or using modern scientific method, it is fiction. The past is full of strange and wrong ideas, beliefs and superstitions, scientific methodology helps determine facts from fiction. Making disproved claims and ignoring social research standards makes a title, a fiction. It should come with a caveat to students WARNING: Not to be taught to children as factual. May contain untested and discredited author bias.

    Erin Handley states further "It is unsurprising that Wright's work was awarded the Stella's highest honour. Wright fiercely examines the historical accounts of the Ballarat gold rush and liberates Eureka from the myth of an entirely masculine domain. Perhaps so, in a fictional way, if you ignore the lack of social science research methodology, the inaccurate research and a female only research bias.

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