tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post1114090628105046059..comments2024-03-25T19:48:24.624+11:00Comments on Oz Conservative: Leading English feminist: our big mistakesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-53973572984795519232008-05-03T21:25:00.000+10:002008-05-03T21:25:00.000+10:00"I agree that feminists have an advantage in getti..."I agree that feminists have an advantage in getting themselves heard over more traditional women - they are, after all, much more likely to have committed themselves to careers in politics, the media and the arts."<BR/><BR/>Not only that, but having fewer children (usually)they have more time and energy to promote their views.<BR/><BR/>It's no wonder they've been able to win the ideological war over conservatives.<BR/><BR/>Hopefully the retirement of the baby-boomers will help give traditionalists more space in media and academia to put their case forward.Mike Courtmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15226171376902020196noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-43977784688771838072008-04-28T21:37:00.000+10:002008-04-28T21:37:00.000+10:00Anonymous (1), I agree that feminists have an adva...Anonymous (1), I agree that feminists have an advantage in getting themselves heard over more traditional women - they are, after all, much more likely to have committed themselves to careers in politics, the media and the arts. <BR/><BR/>For this reason, the voice of opposition to feminism has often been left to those women who started out as feminists, but who in later life had a change of heart.Mark Richardsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15961688379656119701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-1797181881714789112008-04-28T08:10:00.000+10:002008-04-28T08:10:00.000+10:00There have been some excellent comments in this th...There have been some excellent comments in this thread which I'd like to briefly touch on.<BR/><BR/>Jaz put things well in writing that Boycott had kept the same tired furniture, but rearranged it to make things a little more liveable.<BR/><BR/>When Rosie B states that "Liberation must always be about being yourself" we know that we are still dealing with a seriously flawed liberalism.<BR/><BR/>What if I am, by nature, a lazy, deceptive person? Should I be myself then?<BR/><BR/>For traditionalists there exists an objective good for the individual to orient himself toward.<BR/><BR/>Yes, Rosie B makes the "be yourself" ethos more manageable for women by no longer rejecting femininity as an oppressive construct.<BR/><BR/>It doesn't though overcome the larger flaws within a liberal ethics.Mark Richardsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15961688379656119701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-14314643779431949592008-04-26T20:42:00.000+10:002008-04-26T20:42:00.000+10:00Here's one more feminist who's not exactly comfort...Here's one more feminist who's not exactly comfortable with women choosing motherhood over a full-time career. The female editor of the New Statesman <A HREF="http://ozconservative.blogspot.com/2006/09/survey-upsetting-head-banging.html" REL="nofollow">responded</A> to a survey showing that only 13% of British girls wanted to still be working full-time at the age of 40 as follows:<BR/><BR/>"Reading the newspapers ... can sometimes be especially demoralising ... sometimes it's the very smallest stories ... that really get you down. So, for instance, the widely reported magazine survey of 3,000 women (average age:28) ... made me bang my head against my desk while gouging my thigh with a compass."Mark Richardsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15961688379656119701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-11184038696022286362008-04-26T15:49:00.000+10:002008-04-26T15:49:00.000+10:00happy revolutionary touches on a delicate fulcrum ...happy revolutionary touches on a delicate fulcrum where it is "ok" for women to be homemakers but at the same time they should have a choice in what they do in life. As has been pointed out here, this is something of a contradiction. Where is the line between allowance and encouragement (or coercion), between a woman's will to shape her life and the pull from a society saturated in feminist progressivism?<BR/><BR/>Have not women, at least in the US, been free to make the career choices they wanted? Yes it could not have been easy for a woman to get a PhD pre-1940 but it happened, just as there were women in engineering, chemistry and other male-dominated fields. We're not talking Islam here. One gets the impression on hearing this argument-- that a reasonable feminism only requires the freedom to choose-- that feminists can never be satisfied with a modest number of significant successes of females realizing parity in what have been traditionally the affairs of men. But we know it is not just a numerical problem of outcome. It is a demand for wholesale transformation of society according to a radical ideology that seeks to vanquish asymmetric social order by political means.<BR/><BR/>anon said "It is only the wealth and safety of life in the West that give us the illusion that life is about some intellectually fulfilling pursuit and getting what you want from the world. Life is about not dying and reproducing. Everything else is a bonus, not entitlement."<BR/><BR/>I hope you are a teacher.leadpbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08957439101293478340noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-64515624145157833482008-04-26T03:46:00.000+10:002008-04-26T03:46:00.000+10:00'The Garbage Generation', byDaniel Amneus, which i...'The Garbage Generation', by<BR/>Daniel Amneus, which is available for free<BR/>online at:<BR/><BR/>http://fisheaters.com/gb1.html<BR/><BR/>describes the long term nefarious consequences of<BR/>feminism and so-called womens' liberation.<BR/><BR/>We are currently in a transition phase that takes us back to matriarchy.<BR/>Patriarchy equals civilization; matriarchy equals The Stone Age.<BR/>Patriarchy (and civilization) have only been around for about 5,000 years.<BR/>Before that we had millions of years of being mired in matriarchy with its<BR/>concomitant lack of any technical, cultural, or legal progress.<BR/>All these things and much more were invented by men (not women)<BR/>within a patriarchy, and all these things will disappear with the dissolution of patriarchy.<BR/><BR/>An unspoken cornerstone or premise of civilization is the concept of self-restraint or self-discipline whereby one doesn't do whatever one wants (full autonomy)<BR/>but is part of a team, be that 'team' one's family, one's community, one's nation,<BR/>or one's civilization. On a team, everyone has a role to play, be that role breadwinner or nurturer. The roles are not, or should not be, interchangeable <BR/>because some people, or some categories of people (male/female) are more<BR/>suitable for one role than another.<BR/><BR/>Just as one cannot learn to play the violin, for example, by doing whatever one<BR/>wants (full autonomy); it takes discipline, years of practice, and yes, sacrifice.<BR/><BR/>What we have now are females pretending to be men, but they are second rate<BR/>men at best and many allowances have to be made for them at work and school to maintain the liberal fantasy of equality. Females are much better than males<BR/>at being women: at nurturing and raising children, but again, too many of them<BR/>today (because of massive and constant propaganda from their mass media)<BR/>are too busy at pretending to be men.<BR/><BR/>While reading 'The Garbage Generation' I got the sense that many<BR/>of these feminist pied pipers leading females over the cliff of emancipation<BR/>are quite happy with the prospect of a return to matriarchy and all this entails (a much lower standard of living for all of us and an end to civilization). <BR/>However, many of the lemmings being led over the cliff take many things in their civilization for granted, like their cell phones, TVs, cars, as well as non-technological things like a stable<BR/>and fairly impartial legal system (except for 'Family Law') that enables commerce<BR/>etc. They might be aghast to learn that all this will come to an end<BR/>and their behaviour is contributing towards this end.<BR/>Although the most likely response will be denial of the forthcoming consequences by most who can't see this as a transition phase back<BR/>to extreme poverty and The Stone Age.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-28048000525736211292008-04-26T01:22:00.000+10:002008-04-26T01:22:00.000+10:00Mark, you might find this interesting from http://...Mark, <BR/>you might find this interesting from http://malerightsnetwork.com/articles/woman.htm.<BR/><BR/>"<BR/><BR/> The males, through their inquisitiveness, courage, and rationality, open up the possibilities of great change, but it is woman who ensures that all change be kept to a minimum and that which she does allow be kept firmly towards the "common good". Man is by nature wild and adventurous. In him lie the possibilities of great creativity, but also the possibilities of great havoc and discord within the tribe. Hence, woman evolved with the power needed to restrain him.<BR/><BR/> Women often complain bitterly about the dreaded "patriarchal society" and their oppression under it, but I cannot believe that they are completely ignorant of the vast power they actually possess in society. Indeed, they play an enormous role in the historical process. The role of woman is not only one of reproduction and the rearing of offspring. Equally important is the emotional power the females possess over the males. Women are the preservers of the social organism, and the men are tools to this end. Thus history is as much a woman's story, even though it is true that as an individual she was very much out of the limelight."<BR/><BR/>I am a woman, feminists do not speak for me in any regard whatsoever. They claim that feminism is synonymous with "the best interest of women." This is a fallacy. They are simply the loudest, pushiest, most masculine, revolutionary and therefore most listened to female voices.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Why, happy revolutionary, should only women be given choices? By your reasoning, men ought to have the same choices (an impossibility when it comes to unwanted pregnancy - only one parent can get what they want unless they want the same thing.) The 'enlightened' European countries are unable to reproduce at sustainable rates. For a society, no children = no future.<BR/><BR/>It is only the wealth and safety of life in the West that give us the illusion that life is about some intellectually fulfilling pursuit and getting what you want from the world. Life is about not dying and reproducing. Everything else is a bonus, not entitlement.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-78123688348639449572008-04-25T06:13:00.000+10:002008-04-25T06:13:00.000+10:00Boycott qualifies the equality she wants. No more...Boycott qualifies the equality she wants. No more of this "sexual equality", only "real equality" will now do. She is subscribing to a variant we could call "different but equal". Some of the furniture is rearranged, and granted it's arranged better--you can walk through the room now--but it's still the same tired, faded, threadbare furniture.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-68107092892757866562008-04-25T06:12:00.000+10:002008-04-25T06:12:00.000+10:00Happy Revolutionary, you're not a careful enough r...Happy Revolutionary, you're not a careful enough reader. It's not just me in this article making a claim, but one of the founders of second wave feminism. Would you call her profoundly ignorant of feminism?<BR/><BR/>Are there feminists who valorise motherhood and femininity? It's true that autonomy theory says that we should be free to choose who we are and that, in theory, a woman could justify being a feminine homemaker on this basis.<BR/><BR/>The problem is that this choice is seen to be the wrong one, because it is thought to restrict autonomy.<BR/><BR/>It's a difficulty within the theory: we are supposed to maximise our individual autonomy, which means that we should, in theory, be free to choose in any direction, but we violate the theory if we choose in a way which limits our autonomy. <BR/><BR/>So in practice you get feminists like Linda Hirshman who write books telling women who choose home and family that they are making the wrong choice; or else you get feminists who do choose home and family but who feel conflicted to a varying degree in what they are doing.<BR/><BR/>In the meantime, government policy around the Western world is based on an orthodox feminism which says that the traditional male role is the human one which must be divided equally between men and women and that the power of the state must be used to achieve an equality of outcome in regard to career participation and earnings (haven't you noticed this?).<BR/><BR/>There is no easy acceptance in Western societies of distinct gender roles. If more men than women choose to participate in a particular profession it causes much consternation among the political class. In the Scandinavian countries, there are policies being put in place to raise taxes on those families in which a wife spends more time at home with her children than the husband.<BR/><BR/>None of this exists by accident. It is the putting into practice of a set of political principles.<BR/><BR/>If you're really interested I've elaborated on all this in a number of articles:<BR/><BR/>On the problem within feminism of choosing motherhood:<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://ozconservative.blogspot.com/2006/01/getting-it-straight.html" REL="nofollow">Getting it straight</A><BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.ozconservative.com/isfamilyvalidfemchoice.html" REL="nofollow">Is family a valid feminist choice?</A><BR/><BR/>On feminist mothers:<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://ozconservative.blogspot.com/2007/12/when-feminists-become-mothers.html" REL="nofollow">When feminists become mothers</A><BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://ozconservative.blogspot.com/2007/12/not-quite-getting-there.html" REL="nofollow">Not quite getting there</A><BR/><BR/>On the conflict within autonomy theory:<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://ozconservative.blogspot.com/2007/05/women-coercive-autonomy.html" REL="nofollow">Women and coercive autonomy</A>Mark Richardsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15961688379656119701noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-85450027126061202462008-04-25T01:16:00.000+10:002008-04-25T01:16:00.000+10:00Sorry, but I still think that you are profoundly i...Sorry, but I still think that you are profoundly ignorant of feminism. It isn't a monolithic orthodoxy.<BR/>There are plenty of feminists who valorise motherhood and femininity, but with the disclaimer that in an enlightened society, women should be free to choose something else, if they wish.thrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14877037272249708164noreply@blogger.com