House of Eratosthenes

My ten-year-old son was asking “How come my mom talks about feminism as if it’s something that is still going on, and you talk about it in the past tense?” I explained that feminism was supposed to be a set of rules. It started out with one rule, that women were to have all the rights and privileges men had, including equal pay for equal work, and then this gradually morphed into a whole bunch of things. It got to the point where if you so much as acknowledged there might be inherent differences between the sexes, a feminist would be comin’ to getcha, like a real flesh-and-blood political boogeyman. This was actually years before Larry Summers had his little problem. So basically, people didn’t leave feminism, feminism left them. But the real kicker, I explained, was when Bill Clinton got in trouble for mistreating some women. One of the women he mistreated wanted her day in court, and he used his position of authority to make sure she didn’t get it. This is exactly what feminists tell us we’re not supposed to tolerate…and they themselves tolerated it, because they figured so long as Bill Clinton remained a powerful President who could abuse and intimidate people, their political movement was better off.

But they were wrong about this, because when people saw the feminists were nothing more than a cynical political feeding frenzy of mob-rule sharks, they abandoned feminism in droves. And now it’s “dead,” in the sense it’s quite safe to say we’ll never see it have the cultural effect it had in the 1970’s unless there is some major reform, with a daunting public-relations task to make it truly effective. This would be a true reincarnation. So “dead” is precisely what it is. And that’s a good thing because without this massive re-definition taking place, everything good about feminism, is in the past. On the current trajectory, Starship Feminism is cruising at maximum warp into the galaxy of totalitarianism. Controlling what people think, telling people what to do, ending the careers of big people whose latest innocuous gestures and remarks cause bile to bubble up in the throats of little people. The right little people. It’s a means by which wretched simpletons with nothing substantial to say, can climb on to soapboxes and start issuing proclamations greater than their own intellect. Equal treatment amongst the sexes, hasn’t got anything to do with what we call “feminism,” and hasn’t had anything to do with that for a very long time.

When he repeated such comments to his mother…she changed her mind, and now she refers to feminism in the past tense too.

Now if anyone would like to call this into question, or challenge any of it, then a great place to point them as the discussion kicks into high gear would be right…about…here. At Feministing. One of my favorite flogs.

…to say that the “second shift” is because of women’s genetic predisposition to housework is just absurd. And it lets men off the hook. Rena might be satisfied to spend her adult life as the happy homemaker, but the vast majority of us are not. See, those of us who manage to part with our Swiffers long enough to venture outside for a paycheck know that, as Rena notes, there are indeed minute-to-minute unpleasant tasks in the work world. But they add up to a lot more than a sparkling toilet. They allow women to have influence in the public sphere — the world beyond the “little kingdom,” where important decisions are made about the direction of society, and where money and power change hands.

No matter how many times women like Rena tell themselves they are “renegades” for liking housework, the fact remains that they’re taking the path of least resistance with domestic gender roles. That’s all well and good if it makes them happy, but Friedan called this a “mystique” for a reason. Most women aren’t as happy in this role as they tell themselves they are. As Moe puts it, “There’s nothing zen about chapped hands and Brillo pads.”

There ya go. A screed lobbed up into the air, like a cluster bomb or a pineapple grenade, in a vicious melee taking place on the innernets. The catalyst of this holy battle: Whether women should find housework satisfying or not. Gosh…uh, is it completely out of the question to, y’know, kinda let the girls figure it out for themselves? You don’t see us dudes issuing these high-minded proclamations to each other about whether we should all like sports or working on cars.

Well, I mean, other than fathers like me telling their sons what talents the sons should be nurturing so they’ll be ready for adulthood. And every now and then, some career advice to dweebs like me that if we don’t like sports, maybe for the sake of getting our next plumb assignment, we’d better learn how to pretend. Both those things seem to fall far short of what “Ann” is carping about here. Her message is crystal clear: I don’t like housework, and neither should you.

She goes so far as to say if anyone comes along to prove her wrong…if any woman ventures forward and professes to enjoy the housework that Ann says leaves the “vast majority” unsatisfied…that woman is too brainwashed to know what makes her happy. She can’t make up her own mind about this, she must be told. Ann, sweetie, there seems to be something more than a little chauvinist about that.

Ann’s not alone. Read the comments. Here and there, someone will frown on applying some sort of “you must despise housework” litmus test to feminists, but the consensus seems overwhelming that any insinuation women might be better at it than men, is to be deplored. So there ya have it: You must choose between the adoration of feminists, and reality. Anyone who hasn’t lived alone his whole life, will understand this. A lady reaches the end of her tether much quicker than her beau, when there are stacks of crap lying around that aren’t being used, and ought properly be stowed somewhere. She has a keener sense of smell. One might say she is to the dirty, streaky windows, which he could ignore for decades if left to his own devices…as he is to lights being left on. Hey, that’s just the way things are. But Ann, plus several dozens of people, say no. To avoid our condemnation, you must join us in repudiating reality

Nor can Ann be accused of perverting the feminist message. She can claim — correctly, and indeed, she has claimed exactly this — that feminism has sought since The Feminine Mystique in 1963 to culturally separate the fairer sex from things related to dishpan hands and waxy yellow buildup. The big question though is, how far back does this “thou shalt not think” stuff go? Does that go to 1963? More than one feminist has informed me that feminism is all about choice, which would logically mean in 1963, it would have been all about liberating women from the sparkling toilet. In other words, here’s another alternative; go after it if you want to, and if you don’t want to, no biggie.

I wasn’t around in 1963, so I don’t know if that was the message or not.

But I know what I’ve seen since then. I’ve met many a woman who’d just as soon stay anchored to that sparkling toilet, thankyewverymuch. I’ve met many a woman who doesn’t want a single thing to do with a paycheck…other than that spending-it thing you do once you get it. I’ve met many a woman who will go to absolutely absurd lengths to make sure she doesn’t have to step into an office, punch a time clock, answer to a boss, keep her lunch breaks down to a manageable duration, or fill out a time sheet.

No, I’m not going to say women, as a group, are unfit for the workplace. But a lot of individual women definitely are. And as individuals, they want to stay unfit for it. It’s a world they have no interest in joining. None at all.

And in forty-one years, I have yet to see anyone calling herself a “feminist” say “well, if you don’t want to do things my way, no biggie.” Not even close. It has come to be…and there is more than a marginal possibility that it started out to be…all about coercion, intimidation, and force. Choice? It might have had some relationship with it. Maybe the false promise of choice was brandished as a recruiting tool. Indeed, nearly all of the people I met who decided to support feminism, did so because of respect for choice. But today, feminism and individual choice seem to be opposites. When feminists do their arguing, they are almost always arguing over what everyone must do.

They want me to think it’s about freedom of individual choice. Reasons why I should think this, amount to…that’s what they want me to think. That’s all. No other reason.

By and large I agree with everything you say here, but I’ll allow more wiggle room for “in the beginning”. And of course, feminism goes back farther than 1963. The “Suffregettes” scene from “Mary Poppins” always comes to mind for some reason 😉

But … not being one who subscribes to grand conspiracies, I think it probably started out as a noble cause, but that cause attracted just about every woman who thought that women were, in fact, superior to men. These women had the strongest personalities, and quickly worked their way to the top due to the dynamics of groups of people. The strong willed get their way.

Unfortunately, the strong-willed aren’t always right.

In the same way, I think Environmentalism started out a noble cause, but it attracted every anti-human crackpot on the planet and it is now something quite different from what it was to begin with. Thus we have today what we have today.
- philmon | 10/09/2007 @ 11:43
Unfortunately, the strong-willed aren’t always right. In the same way, I think Environmentalism started out a noble cause, but it attracted every anti-human crackpot on the planet and it is now something quite different from what it was to begin with. Thus we have today what we have today.

To be fair about it, this happens with just about every “movement” be it right- or left-wing. The thing we tend to forget is Thing I Know #70. The “a-hole” is a vital ingredient in any movement, like oxygen is to any fire. But as you point out, said a-holes, being erroneously seen as the most courageous, tend to be in charge and to speak for the movement over a long-term timeframe…which for obvious reasons is something I see as unnecessary.

The way I see it is, Ann is right — a lot of women were feeling culturally pressured to like housework when they didn’t. But to start a movement toward liberating those women and encouraging them to better inspect their inner desires, is self-defeating. The movement was bound, from Day One, to be invested in the quantity of women so liberating themselves…to be outcome-based, if you will. So long as one woman elected to continue mopping a floor, the movement was being opposed, therefore the opposition had to be stamped out. And so a mixed result, which is the natural product of individual choice, was contrary to the political demands of the movement. The movement’s respect for, and investment in, individual choice, were terminally ill from the moment of birth.

This is a real hot-button issue with the gals, I’ve found. They’ve got their own civil war brewing, which rages on without the awareness of most of us men. I’ve gathered the impression that a significant majority of women, regardless of whether they’ve elected to work away at parenting, or their careers, or both, are pretty adamant that they be allowed real freedom. It’s the loudmouthed cranks who end up with the megaphones, the ones who want ALL the women to do things their way. Probably for the reasons you’ve pointed out, Phil.
- mkfreeberg | 10/09/2007 @ 17:16
[…] mkfreeberg wrote a fantastic post today on “Feminism Is Dead”Here’s ONLY a quick extractShe can’t make up her own mind about this, she must be told. Ann, sweetie, there seems to be something more than a little chauvinist about that. Ann’s not alone. Read the comments. Here and there, someone will frown on applying some … […]
- www.allcosmeticsadvice.info » Feminism Is Dead | 10/10/2007 @ 00:42
[…] There’s your feminist movement in 2008 for ya. Share This Article With Others:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 01/30/2008 @ 10:07
[…] six months ago I had laid out a treatise explaining exactly why I regarded feminism as being deader than a coffin nail. It boils down to this: To assess fairly whether or not it is […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 04/15/2008 @ 08:58

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Feminism Is DeadTuesday, October 9th, 2007

Feminism Is Dead
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007