House of Eratosthenes

Your defense is well-suited to any social meme that has developed a rugged exo- or endoskeleton. Feminism has neither. It’s been using a jellyfish-like form to wiggle out of trouble for quite awhile now with this “nailing jello to a tree” deflection-of-criticism approach.

That’s metaphorical for what some of our most prejudiced male chauvinists sometimes say about women overall, I would add: Women insisting on having everything their way, and then refusing to take responsibility for it. So if that’s a stereotype feminism wants to fight, it seems to me feminism could be doing a more efficient job of fighting it. From what I can see, feminism has almost been working to perpetuate it, and your “Not Our Fault” posting continues the trend.

My constructive criticism for this blogger — bloggrix, I guess — as she fisks away about supposed female privilege. The nearly-uniform spirit in each and every nugget is that any unintended consequence of the feminist movement is to be laid at the feet of something called “the patriarchy.” There is nothing bad about feminism and nothing good about patriarchy; everything about feminism is good, and everything bad that seems to result from it is that guy’s fault.

The truth is that feminists are individuals. And their movement is chock full of double standards — a relic of classic chivalry benefits men and diminishes women, it surely must be abjured from our polite society. But when another relic diminishes men and benefits women, the ambition within the feminist movement to polish that sucker off suddenly does a pratfall. Including women in selective service? Oh, we can certainly have a debate about that…as long as nothing ever comes of it.

There is a kernel of truth in what she’s saying. A lot of feminists will say “Yes! We want the responsibilities as well as the benefits!” This margin of legitimacy to the point she wants to make, ironically, is the very weakness of it. Feminism has done such a poor job of defining itself with regard to any conundrum that arises, within the “middle ages have actually been pretty good to us” family of conundrums, that it now benefits from an oozing, amoeba-like shape with neither form nor substance. What is the “feminist” take on women being required to register for selective service? We can go out looking for feminists who say one thing about it, and other feminists who say another thing about it. We’ll find plenty of both. The movement itself is agnostic about it.

Except it isn’t. Because here’s where the argument really breaks down. A feminist advocate retires from a position of leadership, and if she has two possible successors, the more militant one will win the spot. We’ve seen that happen for decades now, during which time feminism has become at certain times visceral and nasty. It shouldn’t have happened that way. To insist on equal pay for equal worth, is actually a pretty benevolent motive. But now we have feminist advocates pushing to get commercials taken off the air so that none of us dimwit men ever get the ideas in our heads that maybe our wives and girlfriends can bring us a beer from the fridge now and then.

And as I’ve pointed out garrulously, to excess, refusing to do nice things for someone, someone with whom you’re supposed to be sharing a life, is mean. Especially if you’re refusing just because he’s a guy.

But getting back to the subject at hand: The stereotype of a woman, in the mind of a true male sexist, is someone who insists on having everything her way and then when there are unintended consequences for this, she doesn’t take responsibility for it. If any individual wants to entertain that notion, he’ll have to figure out whether it holds water based on his history of the women he’s met. But what of the feminist movement itself, as presented by this fisking bloggress? The refusal to take responsibility for unintended consequences…

Again, this is the result of the patriarchy. The feminist does not see this as a privilege, but rather a ridiculous sexism, particularly because society deems the display of emotion to be bad. We are not privileged; we are ridiculed and dismissed as irrational for displays of emotions. Feminists believe that the expression of emotion is healthy, regardless of gender.

Again, patriarchy. Blame it.

Again with the patriarchy. Feminists do not believe that men should be measured by their violence, either. This is the pressure of the patriarchy.

Blame the patriarchal Abrahamic religions. Women did not come up with the idea of circumcision, and we certainly didn’t invent clitorectemies. This isn’t a privilege; it’s yet another demented result of the patriarchy.

Again! Blame the patriarchy, my male friends. It’s not the feminists that are holding you back.

Again, patriarchy. Women are expected to serve as the primary caretakers of children. If we didn’t, then fathers would have to work less, take care of children more, and then they’d have more of a role.

I wonder what happens when very young males, who are bright but far too inexperienced to have an opinion about feminism one way or the other, trip across such neurotic excuse-making. The natural and reasoned human instinct is going to be to say “well, if when all’s said and done anything that turns to crap is automatically my fault just because I’m a guy and part of this ‘patriarchy’…I don’t think I want to be around anyone like this.” Or, of course, if you do have to be around someone you anticipate won’t take responsibility for unintended consequences, you’re going to have to go nuts with insisting that everyone be done your way.

It reminds me of a broadcast of the Tom Leykis program I heard back when Braveheart came out. There was that scene where King Edward shoved his son’s boyfriend out of a third-story window, and Mr. Leykis had a guest in his studio who was organizing some kind of protest against this scene among homosexual advocacy groups.

A caller called in and posed a rhetorical question for which the guest could not come up with an answer. He said, (paraphrasing)

Isn’t this the stereotype about you people already? You go into these movies with your spiral notebooks, you probably don’t even know what the movie’s about and you don’t care, you just jot down some thing you can protest. And here you are bearing that out.

The devastating thing about that point is that you can demonize the guy making it to your heart’s content, expressing theatrical indignation about “you people” or hypothesizing about warped and bigoted intentions in some other way — but the point still stands. The advocate’s stated purpose is to enact cultural reform, toward a more tolerant society. And yet by choosing the tactics he’s chosen, even if he ultimately succeeds it’ll be two-steps-back-and-three-forward, because his first move is to organize, protest, point, condemn, mock, scold…and, generally, insist on having everything his way with no compromises.

Dictate how some other guy he’s never met and never will meet, is supposed to make a movie. If I was a gay man who was concerned about how the homosexual community is perceived within society overall, I’d have been very pissed about it.

Just as, if I was a woman or a feminist, I wouldn’t find this bloggress’ “defense” to be terribly helpful.

Thing I Know #8. It is hard to get people to argue about private matters, but easy if you can somehow turn them into public matters.

To alleviate the “you people” plaint I suggest “PCU” a relatively irreverant
movie pissing on the spiral bound champions of victimologyhoodness, granted, it elevates professional academics on the seven year plan to heroic
levels, kinda like the character portrayed by Alan Alda in the Tee Vee sries MASH who was actually quite a prick.

Of course, there’s always the (in)famous Obama cover of the New Yorker as a contemporary marker. Once the usual dodges were explained, after a suitable time
to trot out the old standards, then the chronically offended choir could jump right in at the bridge.
“You’d just never understand!”
“Taken out of context!”
“It was mis-perceived irony!”

The more things change…….
Personally, I recommend “Olianna” for no excuses available muckraking
on the human condition of desperately seeking an “our side” that will grant illusion of
autonomy and bestowed empowermentby simply joining up with, and serving the will of, the stereotypical demographic.
(ironic oxymoron contextualized for clarity)

Note: In My Humble Opinion, the “review” of Oliana linked above is as deep as a cookie sheet. I chose it on purpose.
- CaptDMO | 07/28/2008 @ 05:50

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When Do We Start Battling Our Ugly Stereotypes, As Opposed to Substantiating Them?Sunday, July 27th, 2008

When Do We Start Battling Our Ugly Stereotypes, As Opposed to Substantiating Them?
Sunday, July 27th, 2008