Friday, June 20, 2014

Men can support feminism by...

In a recent comment thread, a reader linked to a list of suggestions made by a feminist detailing 35 "practical" ways that men could support feminism. The reader quite rightly thought that the list showcased the strangely entitled views that you find amongst feminists. But what really grabbed my attention was practical step number 34:
Get in the habit of treating your maleness as an unearned privilege that you have to actively work to cede rather than femaleness being an unearned disadvantage that women have to work to overcome.

She's serious about this. She wants men to walk around thinking of their maleness as an unearned privilege that should be actively ceded.

There is something anti-human about this. The feminist author is not interested in men developing the stronger and finer qualities of manhood. Nor is she oriented to the significance of the relationship between male and female. She just wants stuff.

There is a meanness of spirit in this, in the sense of having only lowly, materialistic, narrowly self-interested objects in mind.

And what can you say of a woman who encourages the men of her nation to take a negative view of their own maleness? How well does she think her society will hold up without the presence of confidently masculine men? When ISIS comes to her neighbourhood, does she really want the men surrounding her to be lacking in masculine strength?

3 comments:

  1. "When ISIS comes to her neighbourhood, does she really want the men surrounding her to be lacking in masculine strength?"

    My experience is that feminists are literally incapable of thinking this thought. I've tried it with them, suggested "But surely somebody needs to be able to fight?" They respond with "I don't want to fight!" or "No one should fight!": Australian men shouldn't be masculine, and ISIS shouldn't be ISIS. They may also accuse you of racism.

    Partly this seems to be due to a common Liberal problem, that they see the current conditions of modernity as permanent, immutable, eternal. Things can only stay the same or get better. They can't conceive of decline. Their brains can't process entropy, or the fragility of civilisation. Once not long ago a civilian yacht could sail around the world in near-safety. Nowadays that would be near suicidal, the seas are no longer safe. Liberals just can't hold such a notion in their heads. So they instinctively reject the posited frame.

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    1. "Australian men shouldn't be masculine, and ISIS shouldn't be ISIS. They may also accuse you of racism."

      Because they act/emote in accordance with what they want to world to be, not how it is. At its core, it's a rejection of reality.

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  2. This makes perfect sense if you view these people, as I do, as motivated by a universalist morality. They do not believe it is fair that living creatures of any sort are not born with the same amount of talents and intelligence and think it their duty to balance the scales.

    "Free love" was considered by the early Soviets (undesirable men would have the same access to the most desirable women as the most desirable men naturally have).The first sign of this in the U.S. was handicapped parking places.

    So, a "privilege" is an inborn advantage, although, since they don't want to admit that women are disadvantaged compared to men and that some races are disadvantaged intellectually compared to other races, they came up with the word privilege, which implies some sort of underhanded social trick by the privileged, when, if they were honest with themselves they would admit that these are inborn advantages and disadvantages they are obsessed with. I'm reminded of the head guy in "1984" who spoke of knowing something with one part of the brain (and acting on that knowledge) but denying what he knew was even true with another part of his brain.

    Plus, even those who are honest with themselves will not say the truth because it would hurt the feelings of the members of the disadvantaged group. And, since most people aren't universal moralists, if they spoke the truth it would be hard to get the policy changes they want.

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