An excellent summary of the intellectual lineage of the "toxic femininity" that has overtaken Western society. I would disagree with one of your claims, though. I don't think you can dismiss the decline of traditional religion and our "shared mythology" as a cause for our current woes. While I don't dispute your claim that we are reaping what has been sown in intellectual circles for the past few centuries, I think you also have to look at the "soil" into which these seeds have been sown. In psychiatry we talk about a "stress-vulnerability" model of disease. For example, if you have an identical twin who suffers from schizophrenia, you are "vulnerable" to developing the disease yourself -- you have about a 40% risk. But that means that, even with identical DNA, there is a 60% chance that you won't develop the disease. So is it a genetic disease or is it related to something in the physical/social environment? It would be wrong to say that it is one or the other. It's not an either/or proposition. Likewise, I don't think we'd be seeing the growth of Wokeism -- which has all the hallmarks of a new religion--if we didn't have a pre-existing "God-shaped hole" that we are (as a culture) trying to fill. Nietzsche predicted this outcome long before most of the writers you cite were even born.
I'm glad you brought that up Pairdocs. Mr. M and I had a discussion about this exact thing. Maybe we could have done a better job of being clear. I don't disagree with you at all. I think the moral degeneracy and the "God-shaped hole" are part of an enormous existential crises. So, I think a better way to put it, is that the moral degeneracy and Godlessness is part of what helped the long march, but the actual cause of wokeism is the deliberate actions of agitators. It is a little difficult to really make the distinct ion here, because I agree with you. However, lack of Godlessness is an environmental condition, while the subversive work of radical agitators is deliberate direct human action. So, I would say that moral degeneracy, Godlessness, etc, are characteristic of the conditions in which social agitators can most frictionlessly impose their agenda.
Yes, I guess I just bristle at calling something the "actual cause." David Hume explored the idea of "levels of causation." What is the "actual cause" of a fire if children are playing with matches and burn the house down? Is it the children? The matches? The combustible materials in the house's construction? The absent parents? The underlying economic/cultural factors that pushed both parents to be working instead of supervising the kids? Video games or TV shows that influenced the kid's behaviour? All of the above? Once again, in psychiatry we have a useful way of conceptualizing this. We talk about predisposing factors, precipitating factors and perpetuating factors. All are important to think about, because they all impact how you might treat the patient and restore health.
It's a misogynist trope whether you intended it that way or not. You can't claim liberalism without being open to critique and argument. You're doing important work to counter dangerous trends in schools and elsewhere, but I fail to see the point of taking such a dogmatic stance on a definition unless it's just an excuse to hate on feminists. What are you aiming for? It's time for alliances around common values and a vision for a better world for our daughters and sons, not name calling and bickering.
"It's a misogynist trope whether you intended it that way or not." - this is a highly disingenuous woke practice. Our intent is everything...your projections are entirely made up and baseless (I've never even heard of the trope you mention). We used the Janus symbol to show two sides of a political coin...one side liberalism, one side socialism - we could not have made that more clear. The level of disingenuousness is expected and predictable from people captured by the feminist mind virus.
I must agree with James that, yes, no trope of the "two-faced" woman occurs whatsoever in the above piece. The Janus face is a visual metaphor and the referent which is the subject of that visual metaphor is, in fact, modern politics. Hence, what was said was "it is necessary to insist that the most important distinction one can make about the shape of modern politics is that it is Janus-faced." Women are not addressed in this section of the discussion. Neither are we arguing that women should be reduced, much less reduced to infants as you imply below, rather, because we do believe liberalism and free inquiry, we are subjecting feminism to a critique of sorts and pointing out some a few of its ugly aspects that really ought to be reformed. For us, although perhaps not for you if we were being real about this for a moment, feminism is not beyond reproach and criticism. I do agree with your comment below about the prospect of finding a "new vision for women's and men's rights." But it isn't a waste to examine the language and ideology of the feminism of the last hundreds of years. It is the means with which to object and to legitimize a call for a new vision of rights, one that is genuinely without animus.
If the two faced metaphor wasn't intended as misogynist I take you at your words, but it is a common woman-as-deceitful trope. Google it. It's a thing.
Absolutely agree about the need to examine and reform every movement including feminism, but redefining terms and insisting on your own take is pedantic and illiberal. Feminism is many things to many people, and there's such a thing as common usage. Words evolve as every linguist knows.
In these volatile times it is good to know who your allies are and aren't. Women who call themselves feminists and those who don't are taking enormous risks by standing up for women and children's rights across the English-speaking world and getting their heads bashed by violent misogynist extremists. Useful to know which men truly respect women and will stand with us.
I mean, you're putting far too much stock in activist intellectualism which is essentially what Women's Studies is. Things like "feminist epistemology" (feminist theory of knowledge) are a gross conceit and an embarrassment to the history of academic thought. The piece above questions the liberal credentials of key thinkers in the feminist movement in a way that is generally obfuscated elsewhere. You're not going to be persuaded, I'm sensing an obvious intransigence and an oppressed/oppressor mentality (socialist in essence) which means that there is no point extrapolating in this reply. I wrote the above piece for other types of thinkers.
The piece and the replies above as well as other posts here do demonstrate a different worldview, one that positions those who disagree as villains. Seeking truth takes an open mind. Whether it's Wollstonecraft or today's woke school leaders, most people who aim for social change are not evil but may be misguided. Nobody has the whole truth, and only through good faith, rational discourse can we hope to improve our democracies. Hyperbolic denunciations and character assassinations of those who disagree is not a path to solutions.
Putting aside the misogynist trope of the two-faced woman, this is a whole lot of words about defining a word. Very woke-like to insist others accept your definition. "Many people describe women's rights advocacy but invoke the term feminism while doing it." Yes because that's what it means to them/us. Feminism, the classically liberal notion that human rights and individual liberty apply to women, predates and is not always correlated with socialism although the latter has infected the former like every other movement and discipline in academia.
If you want to spend reams of print and time parsing old texts and squabbling about definitions, that's up to you. It would be more timely and effective to find a new vision for women's and men's rights, call it what you will. Lots of women are fed up right now, but we won't be inspired to spend any time or energy on a movement that seeks to put us back in the legal position of children, dependent and powerless, no matter how elaborate the justification. You've said what you're against. What are you for?
That is super disingenuous. An example of toxic feminity. We employed no such trope implying women are two-faced and you know we didn't. It is also made clear throughout this piece - and the majority of writing on WWC - that it is Liberalism we advocate for.
And lastly, it does not matter what you and other women think Feminism is. Unless you define it correctly in an academic way (like we have, and the sources we provide have) than you are simply projecting your own meaning on a word. You can think all day long that feminism somehow means women's rights - but that will not make it so.
You are making the classic presumption of “feminists” everywhere, that woman = feminist.
I AM a woman, in my sixties, I am NOT a feminist, nor have I ever subscribed to any iteration of “feminism” and while I will aknowledge that “feminism” has engaged in slippery ideological and semantic word games to “re-brand” to re-position itself over the last six decades, what “feminists” like to think of as “progressive” the author is correct to trace the underlying seed bed of this toxic ideology – the “philosophical” seed bed that has re-seeded itself and engaged in ongoing political propagation with whatever cultural and political fertilizer best suited its toxic ends.
Personally, I have always enjoyed watching feminists tie themselves into semantic knots desperately trying to wave away any discussion of the historical and philosophical roots of feminism when it doesn’t suit them, and always if the discussion is getting right down into the “philosophical” weeds.
They will celebrate, appropriate, and drag into the “feminist” fold what they sometimes call proto feminists, and appropriate ANY female person IF it suited their ideological ends.
Though writing history backwards requires a skill that alas, feminists rarely possess.
With regard to your use of the term “misogyny” how very tiresome –. and again, a presumption on your part, that this blanket accusation is a legitimate conversation ending slur to derail criticism of “feminism” as “hatred of women” – to repeat, woman does NOT equal “feminist” it never has – it is a presumption of the most unacceptable kind. To me, WOMAN. A biological WOMAN.
The only thing “feminism” has done for “women” is turn them into nodding, emptyheaded ideologues, vacuous caricatures of human beings and intensely irritating slogan spouting narcissists and self-absorbed cultural and political bullies – of everybody, men and women.
My apologies for being a bit tetchy – I have had five decades now of having to endure this tedious gobbledygook [feminism] both personally and professionally, and now that its toxicity has come to full fruition with the tra-gnder insanity – a result of the core premise of “feminist gender ideology” the “gender is a social construct” rubbish, I am in no mood to tolerate ANY feminist, or pseudo feminist trying to now rebrand themselves as ALWAYS having been “women’s rights activists” or “biological essentialists”
Feminism has always been one of the absolute WORST things to happen to not just women but men, it has always been and will remain, a toxic, divisive, incoherent, and ridiculous “theory” in all its emanations/versions/waves/iterations/types/stripes and manifestations.
Further, the “feminism” espoused by non-academics, is the dumbed down, pop culture, lowest common denominator pap that certain types of “women” cling to, parrot and chant drunkenly when out and about on “hen nights” or do you call them bachelorette parties in Canada.
It is “feminism for dummies” and is designed to appeal to vanity, shallowness, entitlement and self-absorption – its “guuuuurl power” and “men are mean” and “you must love me because……………………….an accident of birth meant I came out FEMALE – ergo I am endowed with celestial beingness [I made that word up] the kind of feminism that has convinced certain types of women that being a woman is………………an EXTRAORDINARY state of existence.
It has been my personal and professional experience, here in Ireland, that “feminists” of all stripes lack one singular thing – basic HUMAN decency.
Beauvoir was a pervert who wrote about feminism while diddling kids.
I think you're right that there's been a Marxist and socialist influence in feminism for a long time.
Women's studies has that negative influence nowadays for sure. Degrees that end in "studies" are often influenced by Marxism and therefore pretty much a waste of time.
The illiberalism of this, the illiberalism of that. This newsletter is extremely predictable and repetitive. Is it explicitly ideological? Seems that way. Is it that we're all supposed to be generally 'liberal'? 'Classically' liberal?
And then there's the recurring articles concerning Jewish identity politics, the only valid identity politics according to this newsletter. What's with that?
And there's posts almost everyday. Like a broken record. These people are the real bigots, these people are the real fascists. Western civilization is in peril.
The right's classic argument made against people who want to turn the liberalism clock back to 2004 applies here, almost comically so. I can never get that thought out of my head whenever I glance through the articles published here.
Why don't you present your own counter-analysis of the way to approach woke and the ways in which it may be understood and countered. And we will either be persuaded or judge it just as harshly as you have done. Leave a comment below, several pages would be advisable.
Lmao! Is this supposed to be an echo chamber? Are there no questions to be posed here in this space of sacred rational thought? This all seems highly illiberal to me, friend.
I actually would love to hear a substantive argument against the post you are criticizing. What you wrote was just labelling bordering on ad-hominem. Do you actually have a real criticism that you can articulate? If this article was wrong, in what way? What specifically do you disagree with, why, and what do you believe is more correct?
You're right, I am basically trolling. At least I was after my initial comment. My knowledge of the subject extends as far as the various articles and podcasts I've taken in on the matter. I'm a retail consumer of such content and not an anti-woke researcher, no. I'm a provincial chud and not a digital nomad.
I guess I'll make like a tree and vote with my feet now :D
its a mistake to blame or equate efforts to improve womens rights and equality with gender ideology. for one, each take the opposite approach to further their rights. gender ideology has been successful because its a PR and lobby effort that uses misinformation to further its goals. the idea of magical kids who were born in the wrong body. the idea that gender meds help these kids. the idea that kids who are dysphoric commit suicide more than others with same psych issues. the claim that IDing as "trans" isnt a choice. these are all provable lies. these lies and a 1000 others is what caused the spread of gender ideology. not feminism. everyone knows and no one disputes the issues feminism seeks to address. women are treated unfairly. thats a fact. feminism seeks to gain more fairness for women by convincing ppl to care about it. in the past feminist academics have theorized about this unfairness using terms like "gender". this had nothing to do with gender ideology which has hijacked many common words for its own corrupt purposes.
the women's rights movement is as old as the hills. in the 7th century muhammad sought to improve womens rights when he founded islam. islam was a revolution for womens rights allowing women the right to inherit and saying that women are equal with men. of course, men didnt have much rights in those days either. in ancient Egypt there wasnt even a word for "rights" , except the right to serve pharaoh. so womens rights seek equal rights. this is the opposite of gender ideology, which erases the rights of a half a doz groups, literially the opposite of feminism.
"women are treated unfairly. thats a fact." - Not a fact. This is the false premise on which the entire mind virus of feminism is based. Men are not treated equal...and are suffering in countless ways because of it. One small example would be, how do you account for the over representation of women in universities?
Please read some of Barbara Kay's and and Janice Fiamengo's analysis of what feminism is. It is perfectly fine, reasonable and normal, and not misogynistic, to criticize feminism for what it actually is (based on what its most famous advocates say it is), and say instead that women deserve all of the same rights as men do. Women's rights advocacy is to ensure women have equality under the law, which they deserve. Feminism holds a set of illiberal ideas that are terribly destructive to society.
I do not disagree. Gender ideology is a terribly destructive force. I appreciate you reading our criticisms and comments. We will be writing about gender ideology and we will unpack in it an academic way. The analysis of feminism is essential though to understand the basket of woke ideologies that re-enforce each other. Feminism is a crucial element to all of the radical ideologies. I will ask Mr. M to expand.
"Throughout most of Western history, women were confined to the domestic sphere, while public life was reserved for men." "Moreover, women had little or no access to education and were barred from most professions. In some parts of the world, such restrictions on women continue today."
yes, there has been progress on these fronts. quite a lot of progress. so maybe feminism isnt as big an issue now. and hense people who rail against it are having a fight with windmills. academics who write about it are speaking of issues of the past. meanwhile a wholly different con is blatantly robbing the rights of womem, kids, gays, parents and other based on a fraud. ppl pushing gender ideology are really unparalleled in history. government runs by trial. its initiatives run until enough ppl object. objecting to gender ideology should be the focus. not tearing down others for no sane reason .
I'm a 58 year old woman who grew up in Canada and I can honestly say that, with the exception of a few very trivial examples, I have never been the victim of any kind of discrimination or had any opportunity denied me. (Lots of women still use "the patriarchy" to make excuses for their own failures, but I call BS on that.) My nephews, on the other hand (white men in their 30's) have faced overt and systemic discrimination their entire lives. I am well aware that my mother's generation of women faced significant obstacles when it came to career choices, etc. On the other hand, my father's generation of men didn't exactly have an easy life either--being sent off to war, or to work at age 14 in dirty, dangerous coal mines, etc. Times change. And the pendulum of "equal opportunity" has swung well past the midpoint, imho. That's why the hard-core feminists and the "Woke" in general have decided that the goal isn't equality of opportunity after all, but "equity". -- i.e. equality of outcome -- which, by definition, precludes freedom and destroys the entire liberal tradition. It's not going to end well.
hard core feminists? like who? where are these imaginary bad people.
"My nephews, on the other hand (white men in their 30's) have faced overt and systemic discrimination their entire lives."
this sounds like complete BS. really funny in a way that people would blame feminists becuase some dude have the same problems anyone else has. welcome to reality. its tough out there. always has been.
Just to give you one of a thousand examples; One of my nephews wanted to be a fire-fighter from the time he was a small child. He aced all the course and screening tests and came out near the top of the pile of applicants on several occasions when he applied. But the local Fire Department was not hiring white men. Full stop. No matter how good they were. If he had been female, he would have been hired with much lower scores on both physical and written tests. I could go on with specific examples but lets talk stats. There are major pushes for "equity" in the STEM fields. But no one seems to be pushing for equity in veterinary medicine (80% female grads) law (60% female grads) medicine (58% female grads) and teaching (74% women). So, the majority of grads in these fields are now women and that's okay, but now we also want 50% of engineers and computer programmers to be women? Where are we going to find all these women? Should we just lower the standards to entice the ones that aren't already busy becoming lawyers and veterinarians? Keep in mind that for every women hired as a math or physics professor for the sake of increasing "diversity" there is a man out there with a Ph D who should have gotten the job but is now unemployed. This is happening everywhere.
why do you think the fire dept wants to hire womem? could it be that in a dept of 200 fire fighters there are proli 10 womem and 190 white males? its not easy for anyone to become a fire fighter. the line is around the block. they probably get hundreds of applicants for each position. no one is entitled to a job. yes, there are more women college grads, but men are getting hire salaries and have all the best positions. i never said it should be fair. its not fair for anyone. its less fair for women than men
Kyle: what you've just said, especially about Islam and Egypt, demonstrates a shocking lack of coherence. You are awarded no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
yup, just like the main article, anything that conflicts with knee jerk misogyny and religious racism is attacked. you take history lessons from a pulpit peacher who can barely read? congrats. the ignorant are easily manipulated.
As for the main article, it isn't an attack to examine a set of ideas and to characterize its set of assumptions as belonging to one or another tradition of politics. If you think you could more persuasively argue another point of view, by all means write a piece and reply with the link.
I have reached the end of my rope with all this woke nonsense and this liberal Government, talk is cheap and solves nothing with these type of idiots and besides all opinions are now outlawed under the small potato,s new bill that just passed or should I say more correctly was bulldozed through Parliament without proper discussion by the communist bastard trudope and dingbat Singh.
I am mad and will be attending some of these confrontations with the woke being a judo blackbelt anyone that assaults me will receive a minimum of a broken wrist enough is enough.
An excellent summary of the intellectual lineage of the "toxic femininity" that has overtaken Western society. I would disagree with one of your claims, though. I don't think you can dismiss the decline of traditional religion and our "shared mythology" as a cause for our current woes. While I don't dispute your claim that we are reaping what has been sown in intellectual circles for the past few centuries, I think you also have to look at the "soil" into which these seeds have been sown. In psychiatry we talk about a "stress-vulnerability" model of disease. For example, if you have an identical twin who suffers from schizophrenia, you are "vulnerable" to developing the disease yourself -- you have about a 40% risk. But that means that, even with identical DNA, there is a 60% chance that you won't develop the disease. So is it a genetic disease or is it related to something in the physical/social environment? It would be wrong to say that it is one or the other. It's not an either/or proposition. Likewise, I don't think we'd be seeing the growth of Wokeism -- which has all the hallmarks of a new religion--if we didn't have a pre-existing "God-shaped hole" that we are (as a culture) trying to fill. Nietzsche predicted this outcome long before most of the writers you cite were even born.
I'm glad you brought that up Pairdocs. Mr. M and I had a discussion about this exact thing. Maybe we could have done a better job of being clear. I don't disagree with you at all. I think the moral degeneracy and the "God-shaped hole" are part of an enormous existential crises. So, I think a better way to put it, is that the moral degeneracy and Godlessness is part of what helped the long march, but the actual cause of wokeism is the deliberate actions of agitators. It is a little difficult to really make the distinct ion here, because I agree with you. However, lack of Godlessness is an environmental condition, while the subversive work of radical agitators is deliberate direct human action. So, I would say that moral degeneracy, Godlessness, etc, are characteristic of the conditions in which social agitators can most frictionlessly impose their agenda.
Yes, I guess I just bristle at calling something the "actual cause." David Hume explored the idea of "levels of causation." What is the "actual cause" of a fire if children are playing with matches and burn the house down? Is it the children? The matches? The combustible materials in the house's construction? The absent parents? The underlying economic/cultural factors that pushed both parents to be working instead of supervising the kids? Video games or TV shows that influenced the kid's behaviour? All of the above? Once again, in psychiatry we have a useful way of conceptualizing this. We talk about predisposing factors, precipitating factors and perpetuating factors. All are important to think about, because they all impact how you might treat the patient and restore health.
It's a misogynist trope whether you intended it that way or not. You can't claim liberalism without being open to critique and argument. You're doing important work to counter dangerous trends in schools and elsewhere, but I fail to see the point of taking such a dogmatic stance on a definition unless it's just an excuse to hate on feminists. What are you aiming for? It's time for alliances around common values and a vision for a better world for our daughters and sons, not name calling and bickering.
"It's a misogynist trope whether you intended it that way or not." - this is a highly disingenuous woke practice. Our intent is everything...your projections are entirely made up and baseless (I've never even heard of the trope you mention). We used the Janus symbol to show two sides of a political coin...one side liberalism, one side socialism - we could not have made that more clear. The level of disingenuousness is expected and predictable from people captured by the feminist mind virus.
I must agree with James that, yes, no trope of the "two-faced" woman occurs whatsoever in the above piece. The Janus face is a visual metaphor and the referent which is the subject of that visual metaphor is, in fact, modern politics. Hence, what was said was "it is necessary to insist that the most important distinction one can make about the shape of modern politics is that it is Janus-faced." Women are not addressed in this section of the discussion. Neither are we arguing that women should be reduced, much less reduced to infants as you imply below, rather, because we do believe liberalism and free inquiry, we are subjecting feminism to a critique of sorts and pointing out some a few of its ugly aspects that really ought to be reformed. For us, although perhaps not for you if we were being real about this for a moment, feminism is not beyond reproach and criticism. I do agree with your comment below about the prospect of finding a "new vision for women's and men's rights." But it isn't a waste to examine the language and ideology of the feminism of the last hundreds of years. It is the means with which to object and to legitimize a call for a new vision of rights, one that is genuinely without animus.
If the two faced metaphor wasn't intended as misogynist I take you at your words, but it is a common woman-as-deceitful trope. Google it. It's a thing.
Absolutely agree about the need to examine and reform every movement including feminism, but redefining terms and insisting on your own take is pedantic and illiberal. Feminism is many things to many people, and there's such a thing as common usage. Words evolve as every linguist knows.
In these volatile times it is good to know who your allies are and aren't. Women who call themselves feminists and those who don't are taking enormous risks by standing up for women and children's rights across the English-speaking world and getting their heads bashed by violent misogynist extremists. Useful to know which men truly respect women and will stand with us.
I mean, you're putting far too much stock in activist intellectualism which is essentially what Women's Studies is. Things like "feminist epistemology" (feminist theory of knowledge) are a gross conceit and an embarrassment to the history of academic thought. The piece above questions the liberal credentials of key thinkers in the feminist movement in a way that is generally obfuscated elsewhere. You're not going to be persuaded, I'm sensing an obvious intransigence and an oppressed/oppressor mentality (socialist in essence) which means that there is no point extrapolating in this reply. I wrote the above piece for other types of thinkers.
The piece and the replies above as well as other posts here do demonstrate a different worldview, one that positions those who disagree as villains. Seeking truth takes an open mind. Whether it's Wollstonecraft or today's woke school leaders, most people who aim for social change are not evil but may be misguided. Nobody has the whole truth, and only through good faith, rational discourse can we hope to improve our democracies. Hyperbolic denunciations and character assassinations of those who disagree is not a path to solutions.
Putting aside the misogynist trope of the two-faced woman, this is a whole lot of words about defining a word. Very woke-like to insist others accept your definition. "Many people describe women's rights advocacy but invoke the term feminism while doing it." Yes because that's what it means to them/us. Feminism, the classically liberal notion that human rights and individual liberty apply to women, predates and is not always correlated with socialism although the latter has infected the former like every other movement and discipline in academia.
If you want to spend reams of print and time parsing old texts and squabbling about definitions, that's up to you. It would be more timely and effective to find a new vision for women's and men's rights, call it what you will. Lots of women are fed up right now, but we won't be inspired to spend any time or energy on a movement that seeks to put us back in the legal position of children, dependent and powerless, no matter how elaborate the justification. You've said what you're against. What are you for?
That is super disingenuous. An example of toxic feminity. We employed no such trope implying women are two-faced and you know we didn't. It is also made clear throughout this piece - and the majority of writing on WWC - that it is Liberalism we advocate for.
And lastly, it does not matter what you and other women think Feminism is. Unless you define it correctly in an academic way (like we have, and the sources we provide have) than you are simply projecting your own meaning on a word. You can think all day long that feminism somehow means women's rights - but that will not make it so.
Madam
You are making the classic presumption of “feminists” everywhere, that woman = feminist.
I AM a woman, in my sixties, I am NOT a feminist, nor have I ever subscribed to any iteration of “feminism” and while I will aknowledge that “feminism” has engaged in slippery ideological and semantic word games to “re-brand” to re-position itself over the last six decades, what “feminists” like to think of as “progressive” the author is correct to trace the underlying seed bed of this toxic ideology – the “philosophical” seed bed that has re-seeded itself and engaged in ongoing political propagation with whatever cultural and political fertilizer best suited its toxic ends.
Personally, I have always enjoyed watching feminists tie themselves into semantic knots desperately trying to wave away any discussion of the historical and philosophical roots of feminism when it doesn’t suit them, and always if the discussion is getting right down into the “philosophical” weeds.
They will celebrate, appropriate, and drag into the “feminist” fold what they sometimes call proto feminists, and appropriate ANY female person IF it suited their ideological ends.
Though writing history backwards requires a skill that alas, feminists rarely possess.
With regard to your use of the term “misogyny” how very tiresome –. and again, a presumption on your part, that this blanket accusation is a legitimate conversation ending slur to derail criticism of “feminism” as “hatred of women” – to repeat, woman does NOT equal “feminist” it never has – it is a presumption of the most unacceptable kind. To me, WOMAN. A biological WOMAN.
The only thing “feminism” has done for “women” is turn them into nodding, emptyheaded ideologues, vacuous caricatures of human beings and intensely irritating slogan spouting narcissists and self-absorbed cultural and political bullies – of everybody, men and women.
My apologies for being a bit tetchy – I have had five decades now of having to endure this tedious gobbledygook [feminism] both personally and professionally, and now that its toxicity has come to full fruition with the tra-gnder insanity – a result of the core premise of “feminist gender ideology” the “gender is a social construct” rubbish, I am in no mood to tolerate ANY feminist, or pseudo feminist trying to now rebrand themselves as ALWAYS having been “women’s rights activists” or “biological essentialists”
Feminism has always been one of the absolute WORST things to happen to not just women but men, it has always been and will remain, a toxic, divisive, incoherent, and ridiculous “theory” in all its emanations/versions/waves/iterations/types/stripes and manifestations.
Further, the “feminism” espoused by non-academics, is the dumbed down, pop culture, lowest common denominator pap that certain types of “women” cling to, parrot and chant drunkenly when out and about on “hen nights” or do you call them bachelorette parties in Canada.
It is “feminism for dummies” and is designed to appeal to vanity, shallowness, entitlement and self-absorption – its “guuuuurl power” and “men are mean” and “you must love me because……………………….an accident of birth meant I came out FEMALE – ergo I am endowed with celestial beingness [I made that word up] the kind of feminism that has convinced certain types of women that being a woman is………………an EXTRAORDINARY state of existence.
It has been my personal and professional experience, here in Ireland, that “feminists” of all stripes lack one singular thing – basic HUMAN decency.
Slainte agus is mise le meas.
Beauvoir was a pervert who wrote about feminism while diddling kids.
I think you're right that there's been a Marxist and socialist influence in feminism for a long time.
Women's studies has that negative influence nowadays for sure. Degrees that end in "studies" are often influenced by Marxism and therefore pretty much a waste of time.
https://unskool.substack.com/p/academias-infatuation-with-racist
The illiberalism of this, the illiberalism of that. This newsletter is extremely predictable and repetitive. Is it explicitly ideological? Seems that way. Is it that we're all supposed to be generally 'liberal'? 'Classically' liberal?
And then there's the recurring articles concerning Jewish identity politics, the only valid identity politics according to this newsletter. What's with that?
And there's posts almost everyday. Like a broken record. These people are the real bigots, these people are the real fascists. Western civilization is in peril.
The right's classic argument made against people who want to turn the liberalism clock back to 2004 applies here, almost comically so. I can never get that thought out of my head whenever I glance through the articles published here.
All this that's wrong with this newsletter, and yet you are here commenting. So strange...
"The illiberalism of thinking it strange to read the thoughts of those you might disagree with."
See, what you're missing is that I don't know if I agree or disagree with you, since you haven't actually said anything.
Why don't you present your own counter-analysis of the way to approach woke and the ways in which it may be understood and countered. And we will either be persuaded or judge it just as harshly as you have done. Leave a comment below, several pages would be advisable.
You deleted your cornball digital nomad comment, nice.
I'm not an anti-woke researcher like yourself, and will be doing nothing of the sort.
Lmao! Is this supposed to be an echo chamber? Are there no questions to be posed here in this space of sacred rational thought? This all seems highly illiberal to me, friend.
I actually would love to hear a substantive argument against the post you are criticizing. What you wrote was just labelling bordering on ad-hominem. Do you actually have a real criticism that you can articulate? If this article was wrong, in what way? What specifically do you disagree with, why, and what do you believe is more correct?
Are you my English teacher?
There are no answers to your questions, sorry. As you were...
I like your username!
You're not anti-woke, or you don't really have any knowledge of the subject or both, you're just a troll lol. Vote with your feet, buddy.
You're right, I am basically trolling. At least I was after my initial comment. My knowledge of the subject extends as far as the various articles and podcasts I've taken in on the matter. I'm a retail consumer of such content and not an anti-woke researcher, no. I'm a provincial chud and not a digital nomad.
I guess I'll make like a tree and vote with my feet now :D
its a mistake to blame or equate efforts to improve womens rights and equality with gender ideology. for one, each take the opposite approach to further their rights. gender ideology has been successful because its a PR and lobby effort that uses misinformation to further its goals. the idea of magical kids who were born in the wrong body. the idea that gender meds help these kids. the idea that kids who are dysphoric commit suicide more than others with same psych issues. the claim that IDing as "trans" isnt a choice. these are all provable lies. these lies and a 1000 others is what caused the spread of gender ideology. not feminism. everyone knows and no one disputes the issues feminism seeks to address. women are treated unfairly. thats a fact. feminism seeks to gain more fairness for women by convincing ppl to care about it. in the past feminist academics have theorized about this unfairness using terms like "gender". this had nothing to do with gender ideology which has hijacked many common words for its own corrupt purposes.
the women's rights movement is as old as the hills. in the 7th century muhammad sought to improve womens rights when he founded islam. islam was a revolution for womens rights allowing women the right to inherit and saying that women are equal with men. of course, men didnt have much rights in those days either. in ancient Egypt there wasnt even a word for "rights" , except the right to serve pharaoh. so womens rights seek equal rights. this is the opposite of gender ideology, which erases the rights of a half a doz groups, literially the opposite of feminism.
"women are treated unfairly. thats a fact." - Not a fact. This is the false premise on which the entire mind virus of feminism is based. Men are not treated equal...and are suffering in countless ways because of it. One small example would be, how do you account for the over representation of women in universities?
Please read some of Barbara Kay's and and Janice Fiamengo's analysis of what feminism is. It is perfectly fine, reasonable and normal, and not misogynistic, to criticize feminism for what it actually is (based on what its most famous advocates say it is), and say instead that women deserve all of the same rights as men do. Women's rights advocacy is to ensure women have equality under the law, which they deserve. Feminism holds a set of illiberal ideas that are terribly destructive to society.
I'm a woman and I totally agree. If anyone is treated unfairly in 2023, it is men, and especially white men and boys.
When women say this...it literally makes me weep with hope for humanity. Thank you.
we all have our challenges. none of these compare with ppl who are being scammed by gender ideology.
I do not disagree. Gender ideology is a terribly destructive force. I appreciate you reading our criticisms and comments. We will be writing about gender ideology and we will unpack in it an academic way. The analysis of feminism is essential though to understand the basket of woke ideologies that re-enforce each other. Feminism is a crucial element to all of the radical ideologies. I will ask Mr. M to expand.
"Throughout most of Western history, women were confined to the domestic sphere, while public life was reserved for men." "Moreover, women had little or no access to education and were barred from most professions. In some parts of the world, such restrictions on women continue today."
yes, there has been progress on these fronts. quite a lot of progress. so maybe feminism isnt as big an issue now. and hense people who rail against it are having a fight with windmills. academics who write about it are speaking of issues of the past. meanwhile a wholly different con is blatantly robbing the rights of womem, kids, gays, parents and other based on a fraud. ppl pushing gender ideology are really unparalleled in history. government runs by trial. its initiatives run until enough ppl object. objecting to gender ideology should be the focus. not tearing down others for no sane reason .
Again, I think that there are some false premises and assumptions here. The work of Janice Fiamengo especially, illustrates why I say that.
I'm a 58 year old woman who grew up in Canada and I can honestly say that, with the exception of a few very trivial examples, I have never been the victim of any kind of discrimination or had any opportunity denied me. (Lots of women still use "the patriarchy" to make excuses for their own failures, but I call BS on that.) My nephews, on the other hand (white men in their 30's) have faced overt and systemic discrimination their entire lives. I am well aware that my mother's generation of women faced significant obstacles when it came to career choices, etc. On the other hand, my father's generation of men didn't exactly have an easy life either--being sent off to war, or to work at age 14 in dirty, dangerous coal mines, etc. Times change. And the pendulum of "equal opportunity" has swung well past the midpoint, imho. That's why the hard-core feminists and the "Woke" in general have decided that the goal isn't equality of opportunity after all, but "equity". -- i.e. equality of outcome -- which, by definition, precludes freedom and destroys the entire liberal tradition. It's not going to end well.
hard core feminists? like who? where are these imaginary bad people.
"My nephews, on the other hand (white men in their 30's) have faced overt and systemic discrimination their entire lives."
this sounds like complete BS. really funny in a way that people would blame feminists becuase some dude have the same problems anyone else has. welcome to reality. its tough out there. always has been.
Just to give you one of a thousand examples; One of my nephews wanted to be a fire-fighter from the time he was a small child. He aced all the course and screening tests and came out near the top of the pile of applicants on several occasions when he applied. But the local Fire Department was not hiring white men. Full stop. No matter how good they were. If he had been female, he would have been hired with much lower scores on both physical and written tests. I could go on with specific examples but lets talk stats. There are major pushes for "equity" in the STEM fields. But no one seems to be pushing for equity in veterinary medicine (80% female grads) law (60% female grads) medicine (58% female grads) and teaching (74% women). So, the majority of grads in these fields are now women and that's okay, but now we also want 50% of engineers and computer programmers to be women? Where are we going to find all these women? Should we just lower the standards to entice the ones that aren't already busy becoming lawyers and veterinarians? Keep in mind that for every women hired as a math or physics professor for the sake of increasing "diversity" there is a man out there with a Ph D who should have gotten the job but is now unemployed. This is happening everywhere.
Pairodocs gets it.
why do you think the fire dept wants to hire womem? could it be that in a dept of 200 fire fighters there are proli 10 womem and 190 white males? its not easy for anyone to become a fire fighter. the line is around the block. they probably get hundreds of applicants for each position. no one is entitled to a job. yes, there are more women college grads, but men are getting hire salaries and have all the best positions. i never said it should be fair. its not fair for anyone. its less fair for women than men
Kyle: what you've just said, especially about Islam and Egypt, demonstrates a shocking lack of coherence. You are awarded no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
yup, just like the main article, anything that conflicts with knee jerk misogyny and religious racism is attacked. you take history lessons from a pulpit peacher who can barely read? congrats. the ignorant are easily manipulated.
As for the main article, it isn't an attack to examine a set of ideas and to characterize its set of assumptions as belonging to one or another tradition of politics. If you think you could more persuasively argue another point of view, by all means write a piece and reply with the link.
I have reached the end of my rope with all this woke nonsense and this liberal Government, talk is cheap and solves nothing with these type of idiots and besides all opinions are now outlawed under the small potato,s new bill that just passed or should I say more correctly was bulldozed through Parliament without proper discussion by the communist bastard trudope and dingbat Singh.
I am mad and will be attending some of these confrontations with the woke being a judo blackbelt anyone that assaults me will receive a minimum of a broken wrist enough is enough.
Many people are feeling this way...hang in there Peter!!