Saturday, February 06, 2016

The cruellest trick

Laurie Penny, outspoken English feminist, has written a book which apparently includes this:
Perhaps the cruellest trick played on my mother’s generation was the way they were duped into believing that the right to work in every low-paid, back-breaking job men do was the only and ultimate achievement of the women’s movement.

In reply:
  • It was feminists themselves who played this "trick" - though the word "trick" is misleading, as the belief that paid work is the ultimate meaning in life is part of modern liberal thought. For liberals, there are no forms of given identity that are legitimate; nor are there given standards of character or virtue. Instead, individuals have to be "self-made" and when confronted with this belief, many people turn to the idea that the most significant path to being self-made is through the market.
  • The reality for most people, though, is that work roles do not bring the kind of metaphysical satisfactions that were promised. What is more, although there are benefits to these roles, there are major sacrifices attached to them as well: of time, energy, health and of the opportunity to live a balanced life in which we can develop in a rounded way.
  • Men have stuck with paid work roles, despite the disadvantages, often because of a sense of masculine duty to provide for their families.
  • Laurie Penny seems to assume that men "just do" these roles. There is an implication that it is OK for men to do "every low-paid, back-breaking job" but a cruel trick to play on women if they are to do the same thing.
  • In reality, women are more likely than men to have choice when it comes to paid work. Women are more likely to be able to work part-time; to retrain with the support of a spouse or partner in order to change career; to live off a combination of hobby work, financial support from a divorce husband and welfare; and so on.
  • In spite of all this, Laurie Penny still fills her twitter feed with talk of "male privilege." She isn't intellectually reflective enough to grasp that one of her ideas (women duped into traditionally male back-breaking work commitments) runs counter to another of her ideas (men occupy a privileged position in life).

5 comments:

  1. The feminists complain about a "wage gap", as if its existence is evidence of massive discrimination. They ignore that men suffer the vast majority of workplace injuries and fatalities. What they want is more money for simply being women. But women already make the majority of the consumer spending decisions in the US.

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  2. Feminism is a swindle perpetrated by what used to be called "blue-stockings" on the rest of womankind, and through them, on the rest of society. It's purpose is to elevate the privilege and power of a small subset of what was already the most privileged group of women in history - Western women. Indeed, it has only been the political power of women that has enabled the pathology that is feminism to flourish.

    The complaints of professional whiners like Penny about the misleading of women are utterly disingenuous. It is essential for the aristocracy of feminism that most women remain in the drudgery. It elevates the relative position of men, which allows the femocracy to complain even more loudly about the need for "equality," and demand even more privileges for deserving women like, well, them. For these charlatans, a quote system is the holy grail. It is based on the ridiculous assumption that womens' interest in, commitment to, and aptitudes for work are. overall, identical to those of men. If this fantastical notion were to be reflected in reality, the culture and society would collapse in a generation, instead of going through the current lingering death of fertility rates significantly below replacement.

    However, it is not supposed to true, and the femocracy depends on its not being true. Were it true, then, leaving aside the demographic effects, the competition for the sort of jobs that femocrats covet would be brutal.

    No, the demand for quotas is based on the understanding that, in this futopia, there will be only one woman for every three, four, five or more men seeking the same jobs. How sweet it is!

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    Replies
    1. "Feminism is a swindle perpetrated by what used to be called "blue-stockings" on the rest of womankind, and through them, on the rest of society. It's purpose is to elevate the privilege and power of a small subset of what was already the most privileged group of women in history - Western women."

      I totally agree. Western upper-middle class women have done very well out of feminism.  While most women are worse off as a result of feminism. The problem is that we've been living with feminism for several decades so the majority of ordinary non-elite women don't know that they're worse off - they've never known anything else. They believe the propaganda that tells them how oppressed women were in the 1950s.

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  3. "In spite of all this, Laurie Penny still fills her twitter feed with talk of 'male privilege.' "

    One of the things which reduces me to despair is that even the more intelligent and perceptive women seem to get stuck at that point. They can see that feminism hasn't worked out the way it was supposed to, they can see that it's actually been pretty disastrous. But they still can't let go of it. They can't take the obvious step and admit that feminism is inherently flawed - that it will always be disastrous.

    Unfortunately it seems to be just the way the female brain is wired. Logically they can see the flaws in feminism but emotionally they still cling to it. And emotion always trumps logic.

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  4. "And emotion always trumps logic."

    It's an issue.

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