Reasons for Optimism.

Hello! It's been a while, but I think I can get back into the swing of things, I've been mostly reading articles and comments and even commenting on things.

Recently, Dr. Lionel Tiger (wow, two large cats in one name, no offense) debated with a DC area blogger named Amanda Hess on CBC radio about the need for Male Studies (not Men's studies, a feminist facade that's just another Women's studies course that's all about trashing Men), of which Dr. Tiger is a frontrunner in starting the Male Studies disciplines at... I believe Wagner College. That's where the symposium was held anyway.

One can learn more at:

http://www.malestudies.org/program.htm

As for the debate with Ms. Hess, it went rather well, as Welmer described in The Spearhead.

You can listen for yourself how it went (I think it's a pop-up when you click the link). Some have described him as being too soft, but I think the mere fact that he could stand his ground and she wasn't willing to start ad hominem'ing him over the air relentlessly just shows how much class he has. All I could really nit-pick about this was how he seemed a bit nervous (you could feel the unneeded adrenaline expressed in his voice), but that passes with time. I also tend to agree with one of the commenters on The Spearhead, Freepress, about how he could've torn her down by revealing that she is NOT for equality or for any such help for Men (warning, uncensored curse words follow):

Freepress wrote:

Also he didn’t do any research on Amanda so he didn’t even realize his enemy was a 2-faced cowardly bitch who regularly writes snide, sarcastic columns attacking men. If he had any sense, he would have immediately exposed her 2-faced position.

If you hadn’t read her column, you’d think she sounded reasonable. But after reading her column and hearing her on the podcast, you quickly realize she’s nothing more than a 2-faced cunt being diplomatic for the sake of the airtime. I would have immediately started reading off her own quotes to her and embarrassed the fuck out of that moron. Instead of explain himself to her, he should have been demanding she explain her hypocritical views to him. That would be more telling of a reason why male studies is such a necessity today.

The solution to a problem doesn’t become apparent until the root problem is EXPOSED. He completely failed to do that and he had the perfect opportunity with a hypocritical cunt like Amanda.

I didn't censor the curse words because, even though it's far from my style, the whole thing seems emasculated by censoring like changing it to c* or such. And just removing the words removes context. Let me know what you think in the comments.

This was just a snippet from his quote, the rest is more or less accusations that the MRA leaders are being too soft and passive, but its great he thinks that way. If he gets into the public view as Lionel Tiger and others have worked hard to do so, he can share his side, perhaps making all the "passives" seem more reasonable by comparison (not to call Freepress unreasonable, just how it'll be received).

In any case, this Man, Dr. Lionel Tiger, wasn't shouted down by either the host of the talk show... radio show... whichever it was, and he stood mostly firm on his points. My position differs from his more or less, but if he wins, I wins, We wins.

Why wasn't Dr. Tiger ad hominem'd and shouted down? I like Tim's explanation in the comments of The Spearhead:

Tim wrote:

I wasn’t sure what to make of Lionel Tiger’s thorough drubbing of Amanda Hess, when he lashed out at her for distorting his message. If he had remained silent he still would have been considered intelligent and well-intentioned, and the message would have gone out that Male Studies is a worthy and noble endeavor, regardless.

Which brings me to this thought: is it time for men now to stop looking down at their shoes and automatically apologizing to women when we debate them? Is it time now to be assertive, and even aggressive when it comes time to contesting our position regarding feminism?

I submit that it is, gentlemen, as long as it is calibrated correctly. Now is the time to throw out weight around -in the realm of ideas. Obviously I do not mean physically. However, when it comes to ideas, it is more prescient than ever to put the foot down, and even to lay the occasional verbal smackdown, if needed. We need not do this to ordinary women, who are merely going about their daily lives. But to self-described feminists? Hell yes. I don’t know about you guys, but I am smelling blood. Feminists are aware they are sitting atop a mountain of privileges and special protections.

Amanda Hess could have lashed out at Lionel Tiger just as he did to her…but she didn’t.

She didn’t because she knows that the so-called oppression of women is no longer axiomatic, and men are on to their game.
It’s time to lean on feminists, and lean hard.

Apply pressure. Lean. Argue. Apply pressure again.

Repeat.

Continue again.

Onto minor observations in television, if I see more of this, I'll post them. In new articles.

First off, I don't think this is "the end of misandry" (I like to pronounce it mizzandry, just kinda rolls off the tongue and sounds like misery, which it causes) "and we should all dance in the streets because our days of work are over".

Nope, not even close. Some companies and commercials may be willing to tone it down a bit, but that's not NO SIGN of a near end to misandry. In fact, what will end misandry will be the Misandry Bubble popping. I suppose we can think of what we're seeing as the first rats out of the burning barn, eh?

First, how swiffer has portrayed mops and brooms in the past has been, unquestionably to resemble Men being kicked out of relationships by Women.

No idea how to embed videos just yet, so until I know, go ahead and open in a new tab or whatever's most convenient for you.

swiffer 1

swiffer 2

swiffer 3

Really kind of annoying so far, but nothing to get all bent out of shape about right? WRONG. In a way it's revealing of how even a TOOL, an object that works until it doesn't, can't be appreciated by Women, especially since they're personified. Now, it's a bit hard for me to equate this to being objectifying of Men, because these are objects. Objects personified. Personified Objects are not the same as Objectified Persons... get it? It still shows that if you replaced each cleaning utencil with a Man it could be its own show on "lifetime" or "oxygen".

These next ones are a bit more realistic of the worse of what Men can go through:

swiffer 4 pickup

Wow, how entitled said bartender is. I mean, sure the feather duster isn't asking HER out, necessarily, but still, to expect that much (and even with that little feminist catch-phrase, "have it all"), that's just absurd and very princess of her/Women... and yet it's true. They DO expect all that, and probably won't get it, and if Men snap out of their daze and refuse to marry (ala Marriage Strike) then they won't get ANYthing out of Men. Also, she doesn't exactly say that Women's expectations are a bad thing with her "you're just don't get it, do ya?" and how she said "WE" when leading off this list of demands.

swiffer 5 court

Wow, "Can you point to the defendant?"... Did he seriously just ask that? Go on, go watch again, make sure he said EXACTLY that sentence, I'll be right here when you get back...

Did you hear that? HOW does that make sense? The defendant in a court is ALWAYS the defendant, that doesn't mean said person did anything, just that said defendant is accused. In a real court case, it could work out that she was describing someone else (though this whole thing is bogus for reasons I'll go into in just a bit) and then when ASKED to point to the defendant, a completely separate person from who she could've been describing, she'll point to the defendant! There's no link! This is just retarded!

Second, what's "he" on trial for? If this is a mockery of... cheating (perhaps?) then it probably wouldn't end up in any serious court, just divorce court, which wouldn't matter anyway because of "no fault divorce". Or is not picking up every last crumb now a capital crime? You probably can't even SUE the makers of said broom for not doing that. And the tagline after that? "Put your broom away for life"... wow, if they are supposed to resemble Men (again, it's hard to make the case that they are objectifying a personified object, but I'll let you make the call on that), they really don't care about the lives of Men at all, life sentences are no laughing matter, especially in issues of False Rape Accusations. Putting someone away for life is a very serious matter and should only be done when a crime is both heinous and provable enough that the law CANNOT do any harm to an innocent. Blackstone said it would be better for ten guilty Men to go free than for the government to falsely punish one Innocent one, and I agree, Justice has to be more discreet and work overtime to get any "perps" and it should be 100% certain, not just a "she said/he said and was ignored" issue, nor a "please point at the defendant... GASP!!!" issue.

swiffer 6 counselor

Going to be honest, when I started writing this, I thought it would be more positive, but it's starting to look worse. I hate this one too (counselor one above), and the only one I could find that didn't demonize an object taking the place of a Man in our everyday society was this FANMADE video (still kind of annoying, but dang is it the only one with a Man dumping a presumptively "female" mop.

swiffer 7 fanmade

EDIT: Oh wait, I found another, but it looks like it is on the boundary between "airable on TV" and "Fanmade", especially the last 7 or so seconds which really makes it look fanmade, but the whole thing looks well done... I guess.

swiffer 8 fanmade?

This ninth one is the one I've been looking for for quite a while, but the above 8 were what I clicked on in the "related" list before I finally found this one, I thought I'd only have like... 3 of these older ones, but look at it now.

swiffer 9

This one seems a bit more positive to me, for one, "he's" not actively getting "dumped", but it's more or less an assumed event of the past. Plus, there's music!... and "he's" DANCING!! Still annoying, but the rediculousness of it all makes it more lighthearted than the others.

Well, anyway, after a few years of THAT they finally changed it up a little. The mop/broom/whatever still gets "dumped" and trashed, but hey, he finds SOMEONE ELSE, rather than doing life in prison, or constantly hanging around her place forlornly.

swiffer 10 who's that lady (yeah, ignore the misspelling of the video's actual title, I'm sure the uploader [not likely the swiffer company] misspelled it)

It's still annoying, and still involves dumping, but it's definitely a more positive note for the broom, wouldn't you say? Again, this isn't the end of misandry, in fact I found more than I bargained for just writing this, but it DOES show, that on a theoretical level, maybe someone is listening to a growing concern not to treat Men like tools (okay... the broom is still a "tool"...), or rather, perhaps in some ways misandry is at least getting toned down.

I realize these are meant to be "jokes", I can laugh at myself, but when it's a full scale Men = Homer Simpson from the information mediums all day and all night, it starts to "educate" people incorrectly. Constant bombardment goes only so far from being "satirical" to being presumably "documentary", because a joke is funny when it's half true, but when its the same joke everywhere, we get the impression that it's ALL true, even if it was a joke about 0.02% (read: a fiftieth of a percent, or 1/5000) of Men, eventually it'll be presumed that most or even ALL Men are like that and deserve that... great.

How was this optimistic? Well, the last swiffer commercial was far more stomachable than the previous 9, you make the decision on what this means, let me know! If I find "more" (more is in quotes because someone may argue effectively that this wasn't a good result at all, thus any further findings would be the REAL first and this would be a "fake" first) I'll post them!

The False Rape Society is also an occassionally basin of optimism when false rape accusers get sentenced and the accused innocense realized.

Amateur Strategist: Apparently 62% Woman written.

http://genderanalyzer.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2FamateurStrategist.blogspot.com

I wonder what sort of criteria this "artificial intelligence" is going on. I think it might be like TV is currently where everything is feminized and when the topic of "when do we appeal to males?" comes up, they go over the top with every extreme stereotype under the sun and end up with something like "The Man Show" (not knocking it), when they just needed something to do with actual intelligence and not focused on relationships.

Since PMAFT started his blog a bit before I did, I kinda consider him to be more like what I'd like to write like, and that is more often, and with a lot of content. So I tested his too...

http://genderanalyzer.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.antifeministtech.info%2F
PMAFT is 51% woman written...

Alright, fair enough to base my word choice to be womaning, but you can't expect anyone to mistake PMAFT for a Woman, even in word choice. Let's test this thing with something it CAN'T get wrong.

Roissy:

http://genderanalyzer.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Froissy.wordpress.com
67% female...

Epic Fail, gentlemen, unless Women tend to write about banging Women on a balcony, while sitting in a chair, and various other things.

More on this later.

http://genderanalyzer.com/

"Mala Fide" is Latin for "Vajazzle"

That's correct, one would think that "Mala Fide" as in In Mala Fide would be Latin for "In Bad Faith," but it's actually Latin for "Vajazzle."

Vajazzling can be stated as a case of "Bad Faith", but the two shouldn't be misconstrued, because "Mala Fide" is INDEED of meaning in "Vajazzle".

Vajazzle, Vajazzling, Vajazzled, anyway you put it, Mala Fide means.

A Case Against Gene Preservation: Forum Post

By "forum post" I mean that this is really more or less something I'd appreciate read, and then posting why you think it is wrong, right or in between.

Where to begin... I've been thinking of this topic since Christmas or a little before, and have hit brick walls occasionally with where the logic ends or where it goes from there and IF we really want things to turn out that way. Welmer's recent post on The Spearhead inspired me to write this piece and get it discussed. I know there are great writers in the MRM/MGTOW, but I can't write something of this magnitude alone, it needs to be discussed and dissected from every perspective of the old, the young, the in between, the pro-natal, and the lifelong bachelors. So after reading my case, feel free to say what's on your mind. If I could get this posted on The Spearhead, that'd be great, but writings on The Spearhead a bit more thought out than this one, if a talented writer would like to take this after its processed and run with it, feel free. I don't "own" ideas or writing, at least I don't think I do.

This post is mostly intended for a male audience, because... well parts of it are only experienced by mostly Men, and Women trying to vicariously write may not understand the entire picture of what Men go through, especially since Men and Women have completely different expectations, desires toward and outlooks on rearing offspring. Feel free to post if you're Woman, but understand if you're disagreed with or supported but for reasons you didn't expect.

Anyway, my topic today is about gene preservation; bringing future generations into the world.

Now, personally, I think it is GREAT to have your own offspring, it's up to the individual if he/she wants kids, but I've always kinda imagined what it would be like, and not imagining nightmares.

"But AmStrat, this is the case AGAINST gene preservation!"

Correct, and I don't want to drive yet another difference between Men in the MRM/MGTOW/FRM (F stands for Fathers), but this needs to be dealt with, at least in a philosophical sense.

We are all familiar with the Catalog of Shaming Language, if not, click and you will be. What I see on forums occasionally is yet another series of words that seems to only really serve a purpose in argument only in shutting down opposition... that's shaming language to me. It usually goes along the lines of "The future belongs to those who create children, so your philosophies and achievements will die with you." or something to that effect.

First off, there are plenty of Men who used to strive for the "white picket fence" fantasy of a wife, children, job and being a pillar of the community (to borrow a phrase from The Fifth Horseman), but the vitriolic Man-hatred, changes in law and general trend of any Man getting married and having kids going through hell in family court, losing all or most of what they own, and never seeing their kids again have proven to these Men that perhaps it's better not trying, the statistics and risk weighting certainly say so. What good is passing on genes if 1. you'll never see them, 2. they'll grow up in a misandric household or have THEIR ideals of marriage broken just by watching what just happened and 3. they may never pass on THEIR genes, which is actually one of the main points of you passing on yours.

I want to say that to call those who don't pass on their genes "genetic losers" or "losers" is kinda irrelevant. What did they (perhaps we) lose? I don't want to sound Keynesian, but in the as n approaches infinity, the likelihood of your genes passing on (since it is not ensured) approaches zero. Calling someone a "loser" just because "their" genes won't directly show up in the next generation is like judging someone solely based on how fast they can eat, it doesn't actually matter and here's why.

I was inspired to write this topic in the first place by Biblical Manhood (I think that's the post that did it, not sure.) because he makes a point whether you're atheist or Christian; Your genes are very very VERY similar to your neighbor. Heck, biology textbooks place the genetic difference between any two people on Earth as .1%. This means that you are, at worst, 99.9% the same genetics as anyone else, and even more if that person is the same race as you, or comes from the same ancestral country. Passing on general things like your skin color, your polydactly, or your interest in engineering WON'T be in short supply from others, so why does it have to be you? (Note: It didn't mention if the people could be of different genders, seeing as how different the Y and X chromosome are, even if Men have one)

But I'm getting ahead of myself, I want to emphasize that quite a few in the MGTOW and Marriage Strike wouldn't feel this way if the laws and attitudes were different, we have nothing against kids, but to throw oneself into a meat grinder in hopes of offspring emerging is a fool's game.

"Finding a good church" and settling down with "the right Woman" isn't absolute. Women change, and though some look at them as horrific past mistakes there were regulations to keep her from breaking the marriage contract selfishly in the past. As long as there are divorce courts and the no fault divorce laws (and many others) on the books, it doesn't matter how devout you are, or how traditional you thought your wife was when you married her, you're a potential target. Change the system, then we'll see.

I want to make a point that genetic legacy SHOULDN'T be that important to a man, it's okay to want, but disadvantageous to need. If you absolutely HAVE to "get your genes passed on" you can be screwed any which way to make the deal happen. But if you only WANT offspring, you can take or leave any trashy deal, and that's precisely what many Men are doing. To me, genetic legacy is really maintenance. Some say that passing on genes is one's truest or only purpose... why is that? You live to pass on life to others? Who's purpose will be to pass genes on to more? When does something get done that isn't just about continuation? That's why I believe that gene preservation is a maintenance function, and not the "purpose of why we're here", it's something that, for a species to continue, needs to be done, but not by every individual. The ones who don't pass on a genetic legacy will pursue other callings. If we all just bred and bred and bred, what else would get done? Precisely. If a truck is traveling from Washington to Canada but needs to refuel every so often, is it's "grand purpose" to refuel, to use that fuel, and refuel again? No, it's to deliver whatever needs to be delivered, but refueling is an essential function to this. THUS, I conclude (at your discretion) that populating is an important function, but not "the grand scheme", and that those who opt not to for whatever reason are not necessarily "losers" of any sort. Feel free to call them "genetic losers", but that is a shortcoming in one field, by the same logic you are a "chemical engineering loser", a "furniture designing loser", a "satellite trajections specialization loser" and various other kinds of loser, anything you don't "do". Loser then loses any sharp point edge it had and you might as well have not even brought it up.

Still not convinced? I'm not surprised, everyone has a different idea on "how things should be" or how things are ranked. Let me tell you why I am against gene preservation as an individual NEED. It places all the power in the hands of Women. Are you saying that Women inherently know which genes are superior? To what purpose? Is every Woman getting impregnated by biker thug making the best choice? Okay, maybe (for evolutionists) in evolutionary psychology she is because (well, the short of it) is that in pre-civilization times, he would best defend her and her children, at least in theory. But are said genes the best genes for NOW? Is living a lifestyle that drains the rest of civilization good for present day? Probably not.

Now for my first brickwall: Some SMBCs (single mothers by choice, NOT Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal) and SMBC advocates (surprise surprise, usually other Women) argue that single Men should be up for marrying SMBCs even with no chance of creating a legacy of his own due to whatever limitations. They argue that such a proposition is a "ready made family". I've just argued that genetic preservation shouldn't matter to a Man, but if a Man WANTS this but doesn't NEED it, he should be able to walk away. I don't want my argument to bolster SMBCs because Women just don't get the difference between Men and Women in this regard, they get the long end of the stick. Yes, they get pregnant, then have to give birth, but to know 100% for sure that the offspring that emerges is YOURS makes it worth it and then some... with interest! Men don't have this guarantee, even if/when paternity tests become mandatory and the Man leaves the cheating and cuckolding harridan, it just means a failed trial, a broken heart, and a betrayed sense of self. This is why I don't think Women can really understand the viewpoint of the Man in this context. Gen tics don't matter to Women because they CAN'T matter to Women! You're asking the Ocean what it's like to be dry, it'll never know! Women will never understand the pains of cuckoldry.

This post is subject to edit when I think of what else I thought while thinking of this post, BUT feel free to begin posting!

Thank you.

Merry Christmas!

I'd say it was more decent than I expected, though I definetly see a lot less lights up this year, it would figure that people have a lot less to cheer about this year. Well, without the bad times, we wouldn't recognize/appreciate the good times.

I believe that even if you are in the trenches fighting the good fight, or simply in this when you have the time for it, you should maintain a disposition to enjoy yourself when you can, let the stress and distress leave you for a day, it'll feel so much better in the future.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

-AmStrat

A Downright Decent Post by Zed.

That's right, Zed, I'm capitalizing your name, even if you don't.

For a bit of background, Zed is one of the most-first writers on MRAesque musings I've ever read. Having a site on geocities for a while, which I can no longer find, I believe he went into semi-retirement from posting for a while. Well, he writes magnificent posts on The Spearhead now.

To put it in context, this is in the comments section of a piece title "Think Twice, Young Man," about how young Men should be warned about the dangers of marriage (divorce, etc.) like they are warned about the most obvious and painful possibilities of all things (perhaps being killed if you enlist in the Military for example). A troll showed up and attempted to strike a few nerves, large amounts of posts were used to refute her arguments and insult. THEN a poster comes in playing the triangulation card, after admitting to skipping the first 40 or so posts, at which Zed comes in and explains something everyone should hear. Clicking the link I just made out of the word "Triangulation" will explain what it is and why it's illogical, thank you PMAFT.



zed December 9, 2009 at 11:18 am

You know, I stopped reading the comments at about entry 40, because I just couldn’t process the anger, bitterness, and self-righteousness.

Then you missed most of the point.

We’ve been living through a remarkable social transition, which has left a debris field of broken families and damaged institutions miles wide in its wake. “Marriage” as a social institution has probably been damaged beyond repair and in 20 more years there will probably be little left which people who came of age before the 1990s would recognize.

I think the “provider” role for men is another casualty. The last vestiges of it are being desperately pursued by the family court system, but no police state which is not also a theocracy has ever been able to maintain the degree of social control which would be necessary to keep men trapped in that old provider role while at the same time allowing women to do whatever they want.

The most likely scenario for the immediate future will probably be usage and counter-usage as both sexes continue to try to get what they want out of the other while at the same time giving the minimum possible in return. It’s something of a relationship “arms race” which neither side can really win. Strategies for “Smart Hookups” will probably see-saw back and forth with each sex having a few months advantage from an innovation until the other sex comes up with a counter-measure.

Through it all I think you can expect to see relations between the sexes continue to degrade as both sides react to being used by members of the other with loss of trust and willingness to give another the chance to use them again. There will be a lot of “collateral damage” as members of both sexes who are not taking part in the cycle of usage and manipulation nonetheless find their pool of potential mates more and more polluted by the exploitation by other members of their own sex.

Regardless of what anyone reading this thread does, people are going to end up drawing their own conclusions from their own life experiences. Those who see working and relatively happy marriages around them will likely continue to believe in marriage and try it themselves. Those who see little besides carnage are unlikely to be convinced that they have much chance of their experience being different.

Through it all, you are going to hear more and more from men like the ones you refused to read here. The entire gender dialogue has been very one-sided for the past few decades as women’s subjective experiences suddenly got elevated to the most significant thing in the world, and men’s subjective experiences were denied, refuted, or simply dismissed as being due to “bitterness and anger.”

I realize that it is quite threatening to most women that their hegemony over the gender dialogue is about to end, but part of the reason for that is because they have worn out all their tools which have worked so well to silence men for so many years. As you have seen here, a large and growing number of men no longer care in the least what women think of them, and see women like Lady Raine and Amanda Knox as the prototypes for contemporary womanhood.

Survival amongst enemies requires a certain set of skills and attitudes which men are adopting. The choice of whether to adopt them or not is based on the individual man’s belief about which will insulate him best from loss. If he regards women as probable net losses, he will regard them as something he needs to protect himself from. If he regards a realtionship with a woman as a probable net gain form himself, he will likely take the risk while doing whatever he can to minimize that risk.

Where the eventual balance point will be reached as far as percentage of men who view women as a net loss versus net gain is anyone’s guess.

But, whatever that percentage is, unless the ratio is similar among women, and for every man who is just totally burned out on women there is a Lady Raine to offset him in the population, it is likely that a substantial number of people who might like to have mates will not end up finding one.



I boldened part because I can't take anyone seriously who skips anything that still has a grain of reasoning in it. feminist hate-speech, sure, because it tells you nothing and doesn't provide evidence. When these things known as "feminists" DO post something attempting to reason, it's usually easy enough to spot out of the fat and gristle of curses and shaming language anyway.

Zed often has a few grizzly predictions of the future, but this one speaks to me. It reminds us that no matter how powerful we are or become, we can't avoid this fate entirely. To put it in imagery; We are climbing a steep incline, and Zed has shown us where the boulders will fall. We cannot stop these boulders, they are already set in motion, it is too late we are "water balloons and they are tons of rock, but we can dodge them as best we can, or MGTOW and find another Mountain entirely. The point is, people are right now, at this very minute, living their lives in the squalor prequelling this, and their attitude will be nigh unchangeable after being wronged as such.

Equality Redux, by Novaseeker

Novaseeker may not be one of my original inspirations, but he's definetly an asset to hang on to once discovered. His realism and sensibility are hard to match, and the fact that he can put MRA in a religious perspective is a plus (Most of what I see is from Atheists or those who just avoid a religious context, that is, how to fight for Men's rights when you come from a white-knighting, collaborationist church). One of his few weaknesses is that he can be too pessimistic of the future. This piece itself speaks to me, there's no new content for myself, but it connects dots and puts things into words I had trouble with. Without further intro, I present Novaseeker's "Equality Redux"

This is a post I made on my blog several months ago, which I am resurrecting because it may be of interest to readers here.



Equality.

We often hear from feminists and their supporters that this is the goal of the feminist movement: true, full equality between males and females, and full freedom for all, in all walks of life. While I do not doubt that some of the Marxist radicals of the 60s and 70s honestly believed that feminism was aimed at bringing about equality for all, clearly feminism-in-fact — that is feminism as it has developed over the past few decades — has neither brought about, nor been terribly focused on, equality.

Oh? How can you say that? Haven’t women made great “gains” over the past few decades? Surely this brings about more equality?

It’s true that women have made gains in educational access and the workforce. But even these gains are quite revealing, in terms of new inequalities that feminism has instituted:

Women outnumbering men in college admissions and graduations, based on girls outperforming boys in elementary and secondary schools
Women having parity or majorities in all academic disciplines other than the STEM subjects, a disparity which is now the focus of measures to adjust it, while areas of female advantage and, in fact, domination, are ignored
Women virtually always obtaining custody of children in divorces, even in cases where their husbands have been the primary care-giver
Numerous fields being completely female-dominated (nursing, psychology, social work, primary and secondary education, numerous academic disciplines), with feminism not expressing any interest in adjusting such inequalities
And that leaves aside the substantial inequalities around reproduction that effectively give women totalitarian power over the means of reproduction, sidelining men as having only the decision as to whether to contribute sperm — so far, yet that right may itself be eradicated at some future point, in the interests of women and society, under some predictions.

What happened here? Why did feminism not succeed in its utopian goal of achieving “equality” between men and women?

The issue was that academic and radical activist feminism had to, at some point, come to terms with the concerns of women as a whole — and women as a whole had largely different interests from the academic and radical activist feminists. While the radicals and the academics sometimes talked about getting rid of female privilege (saying things such as “a pedestal is a small space”), this was never taken seriously by women as a whole, because the wider world of women had no interest whatsoever in shedding female privileges. Why would they? As Chinweizu points out in “Anatomy of Female Power”, these privileges and ideas were the ones that helped women control men behind the mask of patriarchal power and privilege. So, in fact, women as a group took a “cafeteria” approach to what feminism offered — taking what they wanted, and resisting what they did not want.

In effect, this meant that women accepted the gains women made in the areas of educational access, workforce presence and earning capacity, sexual freedom, reproductive power and so on — while resisting, tooth and nail, the abolition of any of the traditional female privileges (courtship and dating privilege, sexual power, military draft exemption, day to day deference, general conceptions of women being more moral, upstanding, empathetic, kind and so on, privileges around children). So, in effect, what happened was that the feminist leaders learned that women, as a whole, were interested in advances for women (as were the feminist radicals), but were not interested at all in giving up their traditional privileges. And so, in order to remain politically relevant for women, feminism largely confined itself, beginning in the 80s, to advancing the interests of women, rather than even attempting to achieve actual equality between men and women.

Because of that, we see the women’s groups thoroughly disinterested in the advantages women have over men outlined above. Where women are ahead, feminism defends the status quo, while where women are behind, feminism demands changes to ensure parity or better for women. The end result is that women will have parity in some fields, and domination in others … while men will have at best parity, and in many areas relegation to minority status. This is not only the case on the university level. It’s also happening in the workforce and the society in general. Women choose the fields they wish to focus on, and then they tend to dominate them. Men are increasingly relegated to the kinds of work women do not want to do — work that is either physically demanding, dirty and dangerous, or involves less life flexibility or longer working hours. And as between what was, prior to second wave feminism, the male sphere and the female sphere — women have consolidated their stranglehold over the female sphere while aggressively colonizing the male sphere … again leaving men with no space of their own, while reserving for women a huge space where their power is absolute.

In effect, one can say that when feminists speak of “equality” what they mean is equality in what was previously the male space. The female space was, by contrast, shored up by laws supported by feminism — laws covering the areas of marriage, divorce, child custody, child support, sexual harassment, and even domestic violence and rape, have all been altered in ways that decisively shift the power balance in any area relating to relationships, sex, marriage and children to women in a very substantial way. Equality was not the goal for the female space, but only for the male one. The female space, and female hegemony over it, was reinforced and substantially buttressed by feminist legislation, whereas the previously male space has been aggressively colonized, and it remains a key goal of feminists today to take over the highest echelons of power in the previously male space — again leaving men with nothing, no place where their power even comes close to the kind of total power women have over the female space.

Women may object, saying that they would be happy to cede a good amount of control over the female space to men in the name of equality, but this rings false. Even leaving aside the more controversial areas of rape and domestic violence law, family law indicates that this is simply not the case. There have been numerous cases noted by observers where a breadwinner mother and a stay at home father have divorced, yet the mother still insisted on mother custody, and succeeded in obtaining it in court. Even in cases where men are actually providing the main child care effort, courts, backed by feminist-inspired laws, award custody to mothers — ensuring that the power of women over children and divorce is absolute in nature.

This is hardly equality.

In fact, it’s female supremacy over all places where men and women interact relationally, combined with female colonization of the previously male space. It isn’t equality in any reasonable construction of the word, but an absolute power gain for women, at the expense of men, who are to be left with no space of their own, and a relegation to second class status in the female space as well.

In closing, I’ll note that it’s quite telling how this overall trend manifests itself in contemporary culture. Some of my readers may recall that feminists spent a lot of time and energy in the 80s and 90s eliminating male-only spaces, claiming the exclusion of women was discriminatory. Well, things in our species have a way of coming full circle. The recent trend of women’s only hotel floors — the creation of the type of sex-specific spaces that feminists so recently dismantled, when men were the “permitted” sex — almost perfectly demonstrates how feminism, and women more generally, are totally uninterested (in fairness, at least one feminist objected to these arrangements, but most women do not) in equality or exclusions, when men are the ones who are excluded or disadvantaged. Rather to the contrary, the movement today is simply about empowering women full stop, and if men suffer as a result of that, men be damned.

Posted at The Spearhead

http://www.the-spearhead.com/2009/12/05/equality-redux/