Posts
What do these women have in common?
Bjork
Taylor Swift
Lady Gaga
Geri Halliwell
Juliette Binoche
Marissa Leo
Carrie Underwood
Dita Von Teese
Sandra Day O’Connor
Beyonce
Marissa Mayer
PJ Harvey
Carla Bruni
Madonna
Demi Moore
Sarah Jessica Parker
Kelly Clarkson
You guessed it: none of them are feminists.
Naturally, the Jezebelles consider these women to be “misguided.”
Apparently, respect for women’s minds does not extend to the minds of women who freely
choose not to be feminists.
Why do these women reject feminism?
Jezebel lists the reasons:
They
like men.
They
don’t like the word.
They
think it needs a caveat.
They’re
not angry.
They
don’t need feminism any more.
They’re
really just a humanist [sic].
All of
the above.
I would also add Beyonce’s reason:
I'm just a woman and I love being a woman.
The Jezebelles believes that any woman who believes in equal rights
for women must be a feminist. They do not understand that the truth does
not lie in the lofty ideal but in four decades of feminist practice.
Feminism has garnered itself a bad reputation. Intelligent,
successful women understand that identifying as a feminist involves embracing
the bad as well as the good about the ideology.
Perhaps more significantly, women who are clearly in the
public eye feel that they can say No to feminism without suffering any damage.
What if these women do not want to identify as feminists because
feminists demean women who choose not to embrace it? Isn’t it about time for
feminists to start asking themselves how they have managed to tarnish their own
brand? Getting over their contempt for women would be a good place to start.
5 comments:
Girls are mean. Don't stand out and don't straggle behind, lest ye be crucified. The Jezebelles are but the latest iteration of this groupthink mentality and uber-orthodoxy.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain... the greatest threat to women's liberation is other women. Kudos to all the women who step out and follow their own drum, because it takes a lot of guts, and it's not the men who have the sharpest elbows.
But hey, what do I know? I'm just a man, and I like being a man.
Tip
For men, it's important to avoid being misled by the mere absence of the "feminist" label. As a poster at The Spearhead blog noted about this Orwellian manoeuvre:
===
I actually fear this lady’s idea because it’s very cunning and tactical. By removing the label of feminism it will not remove the feminist ideology saturated in the minds of nearly everyone in the western world. Feminism as an ideology will not die with feminism. Just as marxism has not died as an ideology but is still condemned. Feminism could be condemned as a group but still supported.
Do you see the danger here? There is nothing to oppose because there is no feminism. There is nothing to rally against and yet the ideology remains everywhere.
===
A woman who declares, "I'm not a feminist" may be engaging in a strategic and tactical ploy; she has incorporated feminism's key tenets, but knows self-identification has downsides. So she conceals her ideological orientations from the men she aims to use to fill in the gaps in the world she is constructing for herself. For her, nothing good can come of giving men clues that she considers them the enemy, has bonded with the sisterhood, and that she has an intellectual "out" she can fall back on when she decides it's time to dynamite the family and use the court system to collect the cash and prizes that are her natural due.
Switching labels has become a major feminist initiative in the past couple of years. Some don't want to, but support for the adjustment is strong. They're doing it in related areas too. For instance, colleges first morphed from Women's Studies to Gender Studies. Now, Men's Studies are being created. Of course, this is merely feminism by other means. The goal is to re-define masculinity in ways that serve women and women's goals -- especially regarding the sorts of careers associated with power, which is feminism's holy grail. Men are being recruited to teach these courses, and terminology associated with feminism (empowerment, equality, partriarchy) is methodically stripped out in favor of newspeak like "resiliance". If you haven't heard that term, it means that men can become even better providers for their families by adopting the flexibility that comes with abandoning traditional gender roles. Feminists stand ready to help you understand that you can become even more masculine by becoming less masculine.
Some of feminism's most subtle tricksters have introduced smokescreens and misdirections. Bell Hooks, for instance, uses "love" to pretend that men and women are really on the same team, and that feminists want what's best for men. She calls for both sides to move beyond animosity by meeting together on feminist ground, in a place beyond patriarchy. Said another way, men surrender by leaving behind their outdated concepts of masculinity and accepting the roles and identities feminists have deemed acceptable.
And on it goes. Changing the signage out in front of the reeducation camp has become a major feminist focus. Colleges are a focus because men are staying away in droves. Feminists and their academically-linked allies know this is not only a threat to their gravy train of government-sourced money, but they're losing their best opportunity to get inside the heads of young men. But the switching, in forms great and small, is ubiquitous. Somewhere, there's a feminist gleaning the observations of the young, very feminine Maya Van Wagenen for affects that can be weaponized to conceal the feminist psychopath behind behind the cardigan.
"They like men" says it all. There could no more defining statement.
Lastango,
Would it not be better to bring the large percentage of women to one's side of the discussion than to, in essence, condemn all women? A true feminist cannot hide their dysfunctional philosophy of long.
The mere fact that they are attempting this subterfuge is demonstrative of their failing ideology. The enemy is radical feminism not women who have sought to be treated equally.
Feminism is destined to fail in one of two manners. It will succeed in weakening men to the point that some outside force, Islamic fundamentalists, will take over and the feminists will become slaves or it becomes less and less of a force that it loses all power.
I suspect if conditions don't find there natural balance that men will disengage and become a restive force that will not be there when the country needs them. I am more sanguine that the pendulum always swings both ways. History demonstrates this repeatedly.
There is a reason that almost every species is divided in male and female categories. We will fail to survive if one gender or the other really predominates and attempts to sublimate the qualities that make the other gender important.
Dennis,
Unfortunately, I disagree with the premise that the pendulum swings both ways. I think history demonstrates the opposite.
Consider Robert Putnam's core finding in "Bowling Alone": that individual people rarely change their minds or habits. Instead, what we observe as societal change occurs by generational cohorts. For instance, on the whole there is less volunteering than there used to be. The older generations still do as much volunteering as ever. But the younger ones do far less, and they will not start doing more as they age. So, in the overall, volunteering is on a distinctly downward trend.
On the larger scale, empires and nations go extinct while clinging to their threadbare, outmoded concepts to the bitter end. In effect, they commit national suicide. Mark Steyn, for one, thinks this is well underway in Europe and the US. Steyn notes that we (like the Europeans) can't even muster the political will to defend our own borders. He expects that we will continue to stand idly by while demographic shifts destroy our political system and our culture. America will exist in name only, if that. It will happen under our noses, and with our collective agreement that it is a Good Thing. We will explain it away to ourselves using concepts like "Diversity", and concur that its failings must be because we aren't yet diverse enough.
Another example is the US college system, which has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Washington and totally dependent on a river of debt money. It is dying precisely because it refuses to change. Insiders there are privilege, wealthy, and influential beyond all merit, and they will not give this up. Men refusing to enroll is a symptom of this decline, not a cause.
So, IMO, the upshot is that North American men need to vet their prospective mates carefully -- doubly so, since women have begun making tactical adjustments to feminize their exterior, and to avoid obvious links to feminist ideology.
Best to assume a woman hates and uses men, and operates from a feminist ideological base, until she proves she doesn't. A man should stay MGTOW until he finds one. And when he does find one, it will be unsurprising if she comes from another culture.
Lastango,
While I might agree with you on some of the argumentation you present such as ensuring men pay close attention to how, especially American, women act I think one might take more time to look around and notice that there is a whole subset not driven by the "blue areas" model. By the way women are not so different in other countries.
I stated that a true feminist cannot hide who and what they are for any length of time so it behooves every male to not allow themselves to be overpowered by lust.
One has to remember that if one is constantly looking for the storm they never have time to enjoy the sunshine. I would rather isolate feminism from its base than to isolate myself from women. One also has to watch out for becoming that "bitter ender" that seems to be what the opposition represents.
As Ronald Reagan once stated, "Trust but verify." People do change as they grow and mature. Having lived for better than 70 years I have experienced much of feminism, and maybe lost a position to a woman who was no where as qualified as myself. No different than losing to Affirmative Action or any other interest group. Every notice that the face of failure is more represented by feminism lately? It is what one takes out of adversity that really matters. Learn to take advantage out of what seems to be disadvantage.
I have raised daughters and granddaughters, also son and grandson as well. and have been surrounded by women most of my life and have recognized the insecurity that goes with being a woman.
I would argue with some of your premises, but that is for another time. Again, never spend so much time looking for the storm that you fail to enjoy the sunshine. I almost always look for the good in people in the beginning, even though I recognize that so will disappoint me. Most of the time I get the good. The more people one has on their side the higher the chance that one can affect those things around them. Women are women first. The more one understands that the more one controls his own situation.
Post a Comment