Introduction to the page
Top jobs'
Feminism and the material conditions of life
Celebrating'
Obstacles
The art of car maintenance: an inquiry into
values
Feminism and the biological conditions of life
Green ideology and feminist ideology
Babies and bathwater
Mary Wollstonecraft, the famousest feminist
Women and bullfighting, 'sexism' and cruelty
Feminism and animals: the contracting circle
Bonds: famine, families, Sophie Scholl, mining
Feminism, the Taliban, the shooting of schoolgirls
Women in traditional Moslem societies
The patriarchy thesis and some powerful
women
Slavery and serfdom
Women in Nazi Germany
Feminism and the death penalty
National feminist magazines?
Trash and trivia
Gretchen Rubin and The Happiness Project
More inconvenient facts
Kingsley Amis
Claiming superiority the easy way
The sphere of 'strict facts'
Gendercide'
Academic
publishing
Feminist and non-feminist chronology
Feminism and dressing up
Wittgenstein and the monotonous diet of feminism
Feminist divisions and in-fighting
Troubled relationships
Profiles - some feminist non-academics
Beulah Devaney on eating dogs, the London Review of Books and booking.com
Triona Kennedy: sermonizing and heckling
Martin Firrell: 'RENOUNCE THE MONSTER MALE'
Laura Bates BA (Cantab), BEM: everyday sexology
Caroline Lucas MP: for and against
Profiles - some feminist academics
Introduction to this section
Dr Felicity Donohoe on torturing to
death
Dr Lisa Downing on M. Hindley,
murderer
Dr Terese Jonsson on 'white feminist racism'
Jude Kelly CBE, artistic director and WOWSER
Professor Nussbaum on Professor Butler
Professor Jennifer Saul: philosopher, social engineer
Professor Quentin Skinner (historian) on hard times
Hypatia: decolonizing science, philosophy, feminism
Women's studies are alive and well'
Philosophy, feminism and dogmatism
Friendly fire: criticism of some anti-feminist Websites
Angry Harry
The
Anti-feminist
Fidelbogen
Steve Moxon
Justice for Men & Boys
See also, the pages
Cambridge
University: excellence, mediocrity, stupidity which has
profiles of feminists at or associated with Cambridge University: Professor Susan McClary,
Professor Sandra Harding, Professor Rae Langton, Dr Lauren Wilcox, Dr
Priyamvada Gopal, Dr Lorna Finlayson, Dr Rachel Bower as well as
material on other universities.
Academics against
armaments
The page includes discussion of issues to do with national security,
defence and armed forces
The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney contains criticism of articles by two
feminists
Fran Brearton: Bowdlerizing and Breartonizing
Guinn Batten and the drowned sheep
and criticism of the volume as a whole.
Bullfighting: arguments against and action against contains material
on some heroic women
Veganism: against has a section
Dr Lisa Kemmerer, feminist vegan
And the pages
Palestinian ideology
Green ideology
Irish nationalist ideology
Kafka and Rilke: I think that some of the criticisms I make of the poet
Rilke apply to some feminists as well. An extract from the page:
'Now, more than ever, denial of {restriction} is the source of endless
illusion and disillusionment. Very many people are unable to acknowledge
harshness, unable to recognize {restriction} on their freedom of action,
expect no {restriction} on their happiness. They have 'extravagant
expectations' (the title of the book by Paul Hollander.) Rilke's denial of
checks, frustrations, obstacles, harshness, undermines so much of his poetic
work.
...
'{restriction} is central to Kafka. In 'The Trial,' Joseph K.'s
freedom of action is progressively restricted, in 'The Castle,' K. faces
insuperable difficulties in reaching the castle ... Kafka's employment at
the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute surely helped to form his
clear-sighted view of the world. It involved the investigation of accidents
to industrial workers, such as falls from a height and loss of limbs.'
Religions and ideologies has a section
What is an ideology? In this section, radical feminism is used as the main illustrative example.
Nietzsche: against has a section
Nietzsche and pity Criticism of Nietzsche (an anti-feminist) and a defence of humanitarianism
Ethics: theory and practice
Introduction
I oppose most forms of
'political correctness' (which I prefer to the term 'woke') but I don't support all the views of opponents
of political correctness, or most of their views, such as views which
appear on the site 'Conservative Woman.' 'Conservative Woman' often
publishes articles and comments by pro-Christian writers. My page on
Christian religion
makes it clear
that I oppose Christianity. Christianity contains doctrines which are
indefensible, and more grotesque than anything believed by feminists,
except for the most radical feminists. My page on the
Culture Industry has a section on
'Conservative Woman.'
The
material conditions of life are of fundamental importance. It's
overwhelmingly common for feminists to neglect them. The section below
Feminism and the material
conditions of life
provides argument and evidence. Feminists
haven't found in the least congenial an examination or appreciation of the work of constructing reservoirs (before the hardest manual
work was partly replaced by machinery, itself the product of immensely long
and arduous work, including intellectual work of a very high order), or the
mining of copper to make copper pipes to bring water to the feminist.
Feminists in general find it much more congenial to criticize male plumbers for what
they claim is 'patronising' language (their own virtue being supposedly
unquestionable) than to empathize with the Chilean copper-miners, trapped
undergound by a rock fall.
In general, who are the most important people, to feminists? Not the men
who discovered laws of chemical combination, for example, and made other
advances in chemistry, bringing to an end the Malthusian
nightmare which involved the death of countless women in childbirth. The
most important people to so many feminists are feminists, who claim such
skill in detecting 'sexism' and 'gender stereotyping.'
My criticism isn't directed at all women, and men, who have
described themselves as feminists - for example, women and men who
campaigned for the extension of the suffrage to women by more or less
rational means, and women and men who describe themselves as feminists who
campaign against abuses to be found in some parts of the Moslem world, such as female genital circumcision
(which, however, is usually performed by women), honour killings, and
others. More often than not, the majority of
feminists and radical feminists 'play safe:' they neglect these outright
abuses, cruelties and injustices and prefer to criticize what they
call 'sexism' in societies with strong legal and other safeguards. This
often amounts to outright cowardice. Some information about just one case
(from my page
Israel, Islamism and Palestinian
ideology.)
The easiest targets are the most
deranged feminists and the most deranged feminist claims, such as Sandra
Harding's claim that Newton's Principia Mathematica is a 'rape
manual' because 'science is a male rape of female nature.' Or Susan
Brownmiller's 'From prehistoric times to the present, rape has played a
critical function. It is nothing more nor less than a conscious process of
intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of
fear. ('Against our Will.') Or Sally Miller Gearhart's ''The proportion
of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10 percent of the
human race.' I don't give much
space to such feminists as these.
An example of a
statement which isn't obviously deranged but a generalization which amounts to gross falsification:
the claim of Susan James and the claim of Quentin Skinner criticized in
the third column of the page.
Before the modern era,
there were many immensely powerful and immensely wealthy women - I examine a
few of them - empresses, queens, heiresses, property owners on a massive
scale. And I examine property-owners on a modest scale, such as the black
women in Louisiana who owned slaves. It has been convenient for feminists to overlook them, just as it has
been convenient to overlook the very hard lives of innumerable men,
including the backbreaking work of manual workers.
I outline another fundamental error: treating the linkage between women as usually the most
important, whereas in many situations there are other linkages which are
often far more important. To make gender the
overwhelmingly important criterion is a
reckless distortion in most circumstances. I point out, for example, the stupidity
of singling out and emphasizing the linkage of gender between the Nazi
Frau Goebbels and Sophie Scholl, executed for anti-Nazi activity.
The feminist myth of woman, all or nearly all women virtuous and all or
nearly all women downtrodden, in the present as in the past, is an
outrageous distortion. What? Women don't include in their number many
trivial-minded people, greedy, incorrigibly
self-centred people, pampered people, and people with other faults? Or is it to be supposed
that a woman's faults must always be the fault of a man? Many feminists obviously
believe that women are very malleable, very easily influenced, very easily
controlled by men - not in the least a robust view of female strength. Of
course, not all feminists do believe in the myth.
I discuss and comment on many feminist writers and feminist views here. None of my
discussions are very extensive. My objective isn't scholarly exposition but
presenting arguments and evidence against which lose nothing by presentation
in fairly concise form.
There are more important and less important necessities. I regard
scholarship as one of the most important necessities of cultural and
intellectual life. Its value at a time of trivialization and short
attention spans is greater than ever. But scholarship doesn't guarantee
truth, of course.
If feminist scholars have a 'poor impression' of the arguments and
evidence I give here, I hope that some of them will be able to explain
exactly what faults are to be found in the arguments and evidence.
An aphorism of mine: 'Ideologists' disdain for answering objections: the need
for a clashing of minds if a meeting of minds is impossible.'
(
Aphorisms:
religion, ideology and honesty.)
'Top jobs'
The plight of women seeking
'top jobs' often arouses an incandescent fury, in feminist circles, which is rarely directed
at gross deprivation and extreme suffering. Instead, women's
'under-representation' in 'top jobs' is taken to be gross
deprivation and extreme suffering. It's reasonable, I think, to examine these
top jobs very carefully. Some of my examples here are to do with issues I examine on other
pages.
I put the case against supermarkets on my page
Supermarkets, but I also put the case against some small shops. To
feminists such as Triona Kennedy, it seems,
putting more women into senior positions in Wal-Mart, and Tesco in this country,
counts for more - far, far more - than any examination of the retail power
of Wal-Mart and Tesco. What these feminists are doing is supporting
uncritically the power of these massive companies and doing nothing to
encourage a healthier system, one in which the man or woman who wants to
start a business and has the skills and energy to do that doesn't face
extreme or even insuperable difficulties. In general, far too many feminists
show an uncritical acceptance of existing patterns of power. The only thing
that counts is ensuring that women can become part of these patterns of
power, in large numbers. So, independent bookshops can go to the wall, but
this will hardly matter to the feminists who want more women in senior
positions in the Tesco supermarket chain, which sells books.
Triona Kennedy wants more women in 'top positions' in the BBC. Any
concern for any other issue is lacking, such as dumbing-down and the bias of
the BBC. My page
The Culture Industry
gives some brief observations on the media, including the BBC (which, unlike
some media organizations, does produce outstanding programmes as well as
dross).
Getting more women into senior positions in engineering is generally
regarded as less important than getting more women into senior positions in
the media. There are feminists who support women who
want to enter engineering. It's Green Party policy for boards of companies
to be made up of 40% women and this would include engineering companies, of
course, but the Green Party has next to no interest in engineering or the
importance of engineering. Feminists want women to have 'top jobs' in
engineering but far more often than not no interest in engineering or
the importance of engineering. to who want women to be on the boards
of engineering companies Any
recognition of the importance of engineering, any interest in engineering
are almost completely lacking.
A preoccupation with 'top jobs' in established companies and institutions
is characteristic of feminism, and a neglect of the long and arduous route
to setting up a new company, by, for example, invention, innovation and
risk-taking. Once someone has worked 70 hour weeks or 80 hour weeks for a
very long time, with no guarantee of success, once someone has risked
bankruptcy or been made bankrupt and recovered from bankruptcy, after more
unrelenting work, once someone finds that, against all the odds, they have a
successful business, or a very successful business, perhaps in the
manufacture of lathes or milling machinery or welding equipment, providing
jobs for people interested in lathes or milling machinery or welding
equipment, then feminism will at long last take an interest - why are
women under represented in this company?
Lathes and milling machinery and
welding equipment, of course, and countless other products of light
engineering and heavy engineering are needed to ensure the supply
of safe drinking water, the supply of medical equipment, all those
thinks needed for everyday necessities, everyday comfort, the relief of
suffering in humanitarian emergencies.
A very different issue. Women have been
making steady or even spectacular gains in the Church of England. In 2010,
more women were ordained than men - 290 compared with 273. This is only a
significant development for people who believe that the Church of
England is a significant institution. If feminist
Anglicans believe that they are making a vital contribution to the
world-wide community of feminists, they are thinking in naive Anglican
terms. There's no such thing as a community of feminists but a disparate
group riven by deep divisions. It's certain that the contribution of
Anglican feminists, even radical Anglican feminists, won't be gratefully
received by radical feminists, who are likely to view the Church
of England as a complete irrelevance.
Feminism and the material conditions of life
See also my page
Industry.
Anyone using the language
of oppression should have the insight, the knowledge and the honesty to distinguish
degrees of oppression, so different in intensity that they belong
to different worlds: the 'oppression' a women's studies professor
with tenure in the United States claims to be suffering, for example, or the
'oppression' of Professor Susan James at a British university, and the back-breaking
work of women in Scottish coal mines in the eighteenth century, carrying on
their backs massive loads from the coal face to the mine-shaft, carrying the
massive loads up ladders to the pithead again and again, day after day.
Robert
Bald wrote, in a 'General View of the Coal-Trade of Scotland,' 'it is no uncommon
thing to see them, when ascending the pit, weeping most bitterly, from the
excessive severity of the labour.' And he writes of a woman, 'groaning under
an excessive weight of coals, trembling in every nerve, and almost unable
to keep her knees from sinking under her. On coming up, she said in a most
plaintive and melancholy voice: "O Sir, this is sore, sore work. I wish
to God that the first woman who tried to bear coals had broke her back, and
none would have tried it again." ' (Quoted in Anthony Burton's 'The Miners.'
All the unattributed quotations in this section come from this compelling,
deeply humane, outstanding book.)
Historical study is one of the best defences against parochialism.
In Britain, women hauled
coal on their backs only in Scotland and the practice was banned in the Glasgow
region by the end of the eighteenth century. In other parts of Britain, men,
women and children generally hauled coal in waggons.
'... between 1841 and
1843, the Reports of the Royal Commission on the Employment of Children in
Mines appeared ... It was the illustrations, more even than the words, the
interviews, and descriptions, that made an immense impact. Here were portrayed
men and women and small children living the life of beasts: a teenage girl
struggling on all fours harnessed to a waggon of coal that she was pulling
along a narrow seam; little children clinging to a rope as they were lowered
down a shaft by an old woman whose rags told of her poverty: boys chained
to heavy corves, with only a single candle to light the dark roadways ...
In one mine, near Chesterfield, boys had to pull corves weighing at least
1/2 ton and sometimes as heavy as 1 ton, for 60 yards along a roadway that
was only 2 feet high ... The boys who worked as hauliers might work as many
as fourteen hours a day, from six in the morning to eight at night, and on
top of that they would have an often lengthy journey to and from work. (See
my poem Mines in the
poetry section 'Child Labour.') The pages of the Royal Commission Reports
are full of accounts of children returning home too tired to eat, who fell
asleep as soon as they sat at table an had to be carried to bed. Some were
not even able to walk the distance to their homes, and parents would find
them asleep by the roadside.'
Children as young as four,
five or six would not have been able to do the back-breaking work of hauling
coal, of course. There were various ways to be killed by working in the coal
mines - drowning, crushing, or the much slower clogging up of the lungs with
coal dust -but the leading cause of death was explosions resulting from the
explosive gases of the mines. They accounted for about 90 per cent of deaths.
'Continuing explosions soon convinced colliery managers that the only solution
was to ventilate the the whole pit, so the galleries and roads were turned
into a vast labyrinth, along the whole length of which the air was coursed
by using a system of trapdoors to keep the air current in its right path.'
The system was only effective if the doors were kept shut, except when a waggon
was passing through. The youngest children opened and closed these ventilation
doors, hour after hour, in deepest darkness.
Extracts from the 1842
Report:
'We find in regard to
COAL MINES
1. That instances occur
in which children are taken into these mines to work as early as four years
of age ...
3. That in several districts female children begin to work in these mines
at the same early ages as the males.
8. [Of operating the trapdoors] That although this employment scarcely deserves
the name of labour, yet, as the children engaged in it are commonly excluded
from light and are always without companions, it would, were it not for the
passing and repassing of the coal carriages, amount to solitary confinement
of the worst order.
Susan James writes that
'Feminism is grounded on the belief that women are oppressed or disadvantaged
by comparison with men' but here we have suffering in common, the
suffering of men and women together, boys and girls together - like the suffering
of American slaves, the suffering of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto or Jews walking
towards the gas-chambers at Auschwitz or Treblinka. Sometimes men suffer disproportionately,
sometimes women, but a very great deal of human suffering - oppression, disadvantage
- is like this, inflicted no more on women than on men.
This common suffering
of men and women in the mines of this country was ended by The Mines Act of 1842, which prohibited the employment
underground of girls and women (and boys under 10 years old). After this time,
girls and women were exempted from the dangers and back-breaking
work deep underground. After this time, gender equality was replaced by
gender inequality. Only males faced the backbreaking work and the
dangers. Feminists don't in general acknowledge at all any of
the significant ways in which women have been exempted from particular hardships
and dangers and men not at all.
There are two poems of mine on child labour on the page
Poems in Large Page Design:
Abuses in British workplaces
were addressed far too slowly, but at least they were addressed, one by one.
Patriarchy didn't show the quietism, the moral apathy, the selective compassion,
the lack of interest in practicalities and legislation of innumerable contemporary
feminists - failings which
Martha Nussbaum addresses
in the case of American feminists. So many of these feminists ignore massive
abuses against women, not just massive abuses against men. Patriarchy got
things done, it achieved, in the area of humanitarian legislation, just as
it overcame the barriers of wide rivers, hills and mountains by building massive
bridges, constructing massive tunnels, without which travel and transportation
of the necessities of life would have been difficult or impossible, constructed
thousands of miles of railway line, developed all the techniques of converting
iron ore into iron and steel for the achievement of these and many other things.
Any feminist travelling by rail in this country to attend a meeting at which
'patriarchy' is denounced is benefitting from such engineering triumphs as
these.
These
are a few examples of British legislation (from
Key
dates in Working Conditions.) Patriarchy, whatever the
accusations levelled against it, wasn't selective, it didn't ignore in this
legislation the harsh and dangerous working conditions of girls and women,
in fact in many cases it exempted girls and women from harsh and
dangerous working conditions which continued for males.
1802
Health and Morals of Apprentices Act limited the work of children in textile
mills to 12 hours per day; prohibited night work; required minimum standards
of accommodation; some elementary education to be provided; factories to be
periodically lime washed; and infectious diseases attended to and reported.
The act attempted to enforce on all employers the conditions provided by the
more humane mill-owners.
1819
Cotton Mills and Factories Act prohibited children under the age of nine years
from working in cotton mills, and restricted those over the age of nine to
a 12 hour day. Enforcement was in the hands of local magistrates. The act
owed much to the efforts of Robert Owen.
1844
Labour in Factories Act amended the regulations concerning factory inspectors
and certifying surgeons; for the first time machinery was required to be guarded;
the age at which children may be employed was reduced from nine to eight years;
and the maximum hours of work for children and women was prescribed.
1847
Hours of Labour of Young Persons and Females in Factories Act, the Ten Hours
Act, reduced the permitted maximum hours of work for women and children to
10
hours per day and 58 hours in any one week.
1850
Coal Mines Inspection Act introduced the appointment of inspectors of coal
mines and set out their powers and duties.
1862
John Simon in his fourth annual report to the Privy Council drew attention
to the ill effects of much factory work and concluded that "to be able
to redress that wrong is perhaps among the greatest opportunities for good
which human institutions can afford".
1868
First report of the Royal Commission on the Employment of Children, Young
Persons and Women in Agriculture published.
1872
Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act prohibited the employment in the mines
of all girls, women and boys under the age of 12 years; introduced powers
to appoint inspectors of mines; and set out rules regarding ventilation, blasting
and machinery.
1874
Factory Act raised the minimum working age to nine; limited the working day
for women and young people to 10 hours in the textile industry, to be between
6 am and 6 pm; and reduced the working week to 56½ hours.
1880
Employers Liability Act extended the law regarding injuries to employees.
1883
Factory and Workshop Act set standards for all white lead factories.
1886
Shop Hours Regulation Act attempted to regulate the hours of work of children
and young persons in shops; the hours of work were not to exceed 74 per week,
including meal times.
1891
Factory and Workshop Act consolidated and extended safety and sanitary regulations;
transferred enforcement in regard to some workshops from the factory inspectors
to the local authorities; raised the minimum age for employment in factories
to 11 years; prohibited the owner of a factory from knowingly employing a
woman within four weeks of giving birth; and introduced some measures to control
conditions of “outworkers”.
1893
Women factory inspectors introduced.
1895
Factory and Workshop Act amended and extended previous acts regarding sanitary
provisions, safety, employment of children, holidays and accidents; and made
certain industrial diseases (lead, phosphorus, arsenic and anthrax) notifiable
for the first time.
1897
Workmen’s Compensation Act established the principle that persons injured
at work should be compensated.1898 Thomas M Legge (later Sir, 1863-1932),
appointed as the first medical inspector of factories.
Is it true that the few
feminists of that age only paid attention to the suffering of the girls and
women and had no further interest in conditions in the coal mines once the
1842 Act had been passed? No, it wouldn't be true. It's true to say that most
feminists showed no interest in conditions in the mines before the passing
of the Act. The suffering of girls and women was invisible to them. They belonged
to a section of society which had no interest in such things, except for the
'immorality' of girls and boys working together, half-naked. Nor could they
imagine all the other intensely difficult, dirty or dangerous trades. 'There
were many occupations as likely to end in fatality - the grinders in Sheffield
or Redditch could look forward to no longer life than the miners before they
succumbed to chest disease; the lead-glazers of the Potteries needed to spend
little time at their trade before the symptoms of poisoning appeared.'
When women were working
in the mines, 'At the end of a shift the family had the walk home to the cottage.
They were still in their pit clothes and pit dirt, soaked with water, covered
in mud and, in winter, their clothes all but froze stiff as they walked. Once
home, there was no brightness, only the deserted house. The babies had to
be collected and fed first before life could return slowly to the house.'
Once the system of horse-drawn corves was adopted, women in all the Scottish
mines stayed at home. The men and boys worked in the mine and at the end of
a shift 'they were still in their pit clothes and pit dirt, soaked with water,
covered in mud and, in winter, their clothes all but froze still as they walked'
but once they reached the house 'the men and boys returned to a warm fire
and a hot meal instead of cold and desolation.' How would radical feminists
interpret the 'sexual politics' of this? The 'sexism' of women as home-makers
rather than working, the 'sexism' of women not admitted to the working world
of men?
Susan James ignores the
overwhelming importance of innovation in science and technology which
has reduced so much human suffering. Feminists who claim that many of these
innovations were due to women should provide the necessary evidence.
Some of the suffering
in the mines was eventually lessened by developments in bulk-handling,
innovations which of course needed innovators - people who actually produced
innovations and actually reduced suffering, not people who might have produced
innovations but were prevented by 'prejudice' or 'stereotyping.' An early
innovation was introduced by John Curr, who described a system of 'corves'
in 1797: four-wheeled vehicles running on iron rails or plates. 'One horse,
he reckoned, could shift as much as 150 tons a day along a 250-yard roadway.
This was very evidently a much more efficient and economical method of moving
coal.' Often, though, there was insufficient height for a horse, and man-hauling
continued.
Successive innovations,
using increasingly sophisticated advances in engineering based upon increasingly
sophisticated advances in Physics and Chemistry, made coal-mining less and
less arduous.
By the time that George Orwell visited coal-mines in the twentieth
century, the work was still desperately hard, impossible for the majority
of non-miners to imagine let alone to carry out, but not as degradingly hard
as work in an eighteenth century mine. Alongside innovations in bulk-handling
which reduced and eventually eliminated the back-breaking work of hauling
coal (and freed pit-ponies from a grim life spent entirely or almost entirely
underground) there were innovations at the coal-face, such as the technology
of compressed air, which reduced and eventually eliminated the back-breaking
work of extracting coal at the coal-face with hand-pick and crowbar, although
these innovations were much more difficult to implement. Well into the twentieth
century, hacking at coal was back-breaking work even when the miner could
stand. It was even harder when the seam was narrower and he had to kneel.
It was hardest when the seam was very narrow and he had to lie down, contorted.
The work was harder, more unpleasant still if this was a 'wet' pit, one in
which water was a constant problem.
In the mines, 'after-damp,'
the explosive gas which was a mixture of air and methane, was the cause of
many catastrophic mine accidents. Naked flames needed for illumination could
ignite the gas very easily. 'The Davy lamp wasn't 'the perfect solution to
the problem,' but it was revolutionary in its benefits even so. 'The Davy
lamp, because it was invented by the leading chemist of the day, is something
of a landmark in the relations between science and technology, as also in
the use of technology to serve humanitarian rather than purely economic purposes.'
(T K Derry and Trevor I Williams, 'A Short History of Technology.')
The light from the Davy
lamp was not very bright. A better solution to the problem of lighting mines
(and the problem of lighting rooms so that feminists could compose their tracts
against patriarchy during the hours of darkness) was only found with a spectacular,
and spectacularly complex, series of innovations, acts of genius, such as
those which made electricity generation practicable. Michael Faraday's demonstration
of electromagnetic induction, which was announced to the Royal Society in
1831, was a fundamental first-step. When electric current could be generated,
the conversion of electric energy into light energy required further intensely
difficult and protracted work.
The claim that none of
the 'humanitarian blessings' of feminism have come anywhere near to equalling
the humanitarian blessings of modern contraception isn't an original one.
Effective contraception depends on the innovations of scientists and technologists,
including the chemical engineers and production engineers who make it possible
to manufacture on a large scale.
In nature, there are
many progeny but only a few survive. Animals living in the wild are still
subject to these harsh Malthusian laws of nature, and so were human societies
for so many millennia. As a matter of strict fact, the scientists and technologists
who dramatically reduced infant mortality and dramatically reduced the risks
of a woman dying in childbirth have almost all been men.
The material conditions
of life, such as water supply and sewage, are almost entirely ignored by feminists.
The most significant cause of ill-health and premature death by far has always
been failure in supplying water and disposing of sewage, a simple problem
with a very complex solution: such as the development by organic chemists
of techniques in molecular architecture, a precondition for manufacturing
modern pipework, without which modern water supply and sewage systems aren't
feasible, more generally advances in iron and steel manufacturing, the manufacture
of components for hydraulic drills, petrol and diesel engines, needed for
laying the pipes and and maintaining the pipes.
Water,
although not an element, is elemental, a basic requirement of life, but providing
this basic requirement isn't at all simple. Water illustrates the complexity
of reality. It can carry disease organisms, such as those that cause cholera.
The cholera-causing organisms are just as much part of nature as plants and
trees, but it's vital to control nature by eradicating them from drinking
water. Any notion that 'nature' is feminine, control over nature masculine,
to be opposed by feminists, is obviously ridiculous.
The separation
of water for drinking and water for disposal of faeces poses immense practical
problems. Gratitude is the only proper response for the work of the engineers
who designed dams, for those who built the dams and made the bricks and the
materials for the pipes which led the water from the dams, for the foundries
and other factories which manufactured the taps, the pumps, for the mathematical
and scientific innovators who developed the techniques in calculus, fluid
mechanics and the other techniques needed for supplying water efficiently.
Radical
feminists have made spectacular use of generalization, as in 'all men are
useless' or 'all men are rapists, or potentially rapists.' John Snow is a
man who led a blameless life and a man whose contribution to human welfare
was surely greater than that of any radical feminist. He was one of the founders
of epidemiology. He identified the source of a cholera outbreak in 1854, without
the use of any advanced scientific ideas. There was a miasma or 'bad air'
theory of cholera: the disease entered the body through the mouth. He disputed
this. He investigated the cholera outbreak of 1854 in Soho, London and plotted
cholera cases on a map. He identified a water pump in a particular street
as the source of the disease. As soon as he had the handle of the pump removed,
cases of cholera began to decline. He also used more advanced science. He
was a pioneer in the use of anaesthetics and made anaesthetics safer and more
effective. But control of life-threatening diseases such as cholera and control
of pain by means of anaesthetics aren't high in the priorities of most radical
feminists, who would far sooner attack men, any men, such as John Snow.
Earthquakes show that
control over nature is sometimes impossible. Patriarchy has developed a method
of delaying the crushing effects of a building collapsing so that the occupants
have enough time to escape to safety - the technological / humanitarian innovation
of metal ties connecting together walls and roof. When victims are trapped
under rubble, then of course technological techniques are the only effective
ones - the use of heavy lifting equipment, made up of a very large number
of separate components, ultimately derived from metal ores, crude oil and
other raw materials, which demand techniques of very great complexity, even
the screw-threads of the fixings.
The precise engineering essential for manufacturing
these components wasn't inevitable or easily gained. It was due to the achievements
of such particular men - again, representatives of 'patriarchy' - such as
Joseph Whitworth, who by 1856 'was regularly using in his workshops a machine
capable of measuring to one-millionth part of an inch.' ('A Short History
of Technology.') Without the work of Joseph Whitworth and many other innovators,
earthquake victims would have to be rescued by bare hands and the simplest
of tools. Precision engineering and scientific and technological advances
in general, again, almost unimaginably complex, are needed, of course, to
transport food and other relief supplies to earthquake zones by air, road
or sea. In the absence of these, human labour and pack animals will give aid
to only a tiny fraction of those in need.
Feminists
not only fail to acknowledge the work of scientists and technologists working
at a high intellectual level, they fail to acknowledge the work of men doing
far more humble work. George Orwell, in 'Marrakech:' 'All people who work
with their hands are partly invisible, and the more important the work they
do, the less visible they are.'
Unless
the sick are to be looked after in simple shelters or in the open, the work
of roofers and scaffolders and other manual workers in building hospitals
is so important that they deserve heartfelt appreciation - and proper pay
and working conditions - but the work of roofers and scaffolders is almost
invisible, their work taken for granted. The average roofer or scaffolder
lacks refinements and many would fail any tests for political correctness,
but few people in possession of those advantages would choose to do physically
demanding work at a height in almost all weathers.
The industrial
revolution was harsh, as harsh as the pre-industrial age, but a necessary
prelude to this age of comfort and comfortable assumptions and illusions.
The harshness
of the industrial age, like the comfort of this age, wasn't, of course, shared
by everyone. The harshness was experienced by people who really are all but
invisible today, all but forgotten, such as the navvies.
'Men of
Iron,' the superb book by Sally Dugan, is mainly concerned with the audacious
work of the engineers Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Robert Stephenson (she also
does justice to the genius of their fathers, Marc Brunel and George Stephenson).
She writes
of the navvies' work, 'Maiming or mutilation came with the job, and navvies
were lucky if they escaped with nothing more than the loss of a limb. They
worked using picks and shovels, crowbars and wheelbarrows, and their bare
hands; the only other aid they had was the occasional blast of gunpowder.
Some were blinded by explosions; others were buried in rock falls. All led
a life of hard, grinding physical toil, tramping from one construction site
to another in search of work. Their reputation for violence and drunkenness
made them a frequent focus for missionaries and temperance society members,
as well as turning them into the bogeymen of folk myth.' Elizabeth Garnett
was the secretary of the Navvy Mission Society and might have been expected
to give a harsh verdict on their uncouthness and worse. Far from it. 'Men
of Iron' quotes her words: 'Certainly no men in all the world so improve their
country as Navvies do England. Their work will last for ages, and if the world
remains so long, people will come hundreds of years hence to look at it and
wonder at what they have done.'
There
are many people who like their reality smoothed out, comfortable, free of
unsettling paradoxes and contradictions. How could such people, sometimes
drunken and violent people, generally, to a feminist, sexist people,
no doubt, have done so much to reduce human suffering, and far, far more,
in general, than the genteel and the anti-sexist? The human suffering they
reduced was not their own, but the suffering of the wider population, including
the suffering of their critics, in far more comfortable circumstances.
The phrase 'control over
nature' offers so much scope to radical feminist interpretation - nature viewed
as female, control as male, 'control over nature' as male supremacy and exploitation,
to be opposed by radical feminism, as in the 'thought' of Carolyn Merchant. A little thought shows that this amounts
to complete distortion. In this section, as in most of the others, anti-feminists
will be familiar with the arguments I use, but not, probably, with all the
illustrative examples and the evidence.
Nature offers no easy
way of heating rooms or heating water, or constructing rooms or effective
shelters against the forces of nature, such as wind, rain and snow. Radical
feminists, in societies where the control over nature is at a high level,
get up in the morning in modern buildings or older buildings with modern conveniences.
Putting on the electric kettle for a first cup of tea or coffee in a centrally
heated room after a warm shower has advantages over waking up on a winter
morning in a simple shelter constructed of natural materials with only natural
fuel, such as branches or logs (cut with a stone-age axe) no obvious or easy
way of lighting them, and no convenient source of water, in the absence of
technological achievement (if rainwater is collected, in what kind of container?
Not one made of PVC, polyvinylchloride) other than the water in streams and
rivers probably polluted by human waste, and nowhere to wash away dirt from
body and clothes, whatever natural clothes may be available, except for the
icy water of those same streams and rivers.
Control over nature, which
has given the benefits taken for granted by feminists and others, has required
immense human effort and creativity of a very high order, the creativity which
for once isn't misnamed - in organic chemistry, physical chemistry, heavy
electrical engineering, quantum theory, seemingly remote fields such as the
mathematical calculus and linear algebra, and many other fields. It's a matter
of strict fact that the contribution of men to all of these has been overwhelmingly
important.
For a long period of time,
it was coal in this and other countries which offered the only practicable
way in most cases to heat homes and heat water and cook food, to carry out
innumerable other jobs, such as relieving agricultural workers of a significant
part of the back-breaking work on the land by means of steam-driven machinery,
pumping water, and of course transporting goods and people on the railways
and over the oceans. In 'On the Road to Wigan Pier,' George Orwell wrote,
in connection with society's indebtedness to miners at that time, 'all of
us really owe the comparative decency of our lives to poor drudges
underground, blackened to the eyes, with their throats full of coal dust,
driving their shovels forward ...'
Mining - for lead, copper
and other metals as well as for coal - gives illuminating insights into feminism.
It illustrates the intersection of humanitarian history and technological
history. It illustrates the fact that most human suffering has been caused
by nature, not by men, and that the achievement of men in overcoming the harshness
of nature is incalculable. The world isn't nearly so dependent on coal mining
now, but it's still dependent on technology. Modifying what George Orwell
wrote to take account of changed conditions, 'You and I and the radical feminists
who write about 'phallocentric' society and 'patriarchal society' and the
defects of men really owe the comparative decency of our lives to
a large extent to the scientists and technologists, far more often than not
representatives of 'phallocentric and patriarchal' society, far more often
than not men, who made the innovations which lessened the impact on human
life of nature's harshness, and to the labourers who did the hard, often dangerous
and dirty work needed to implement their ideas.'
'Celebrating'
We're
encouraged to 'celebrate' so many things now other than the traditional objects
of celebration such as Christmas, weddings and birthdays. 'Celebrating' now
often means showing respect for, and more than that, admiring. The great achievements
of the pre-industrial age in wood and stone, the great achievements of the
industrial age in stone, iron, steel and all the new materials which were
created during the industrial age - these and other achievements should give
rise to awe as well as respect and admiration.
Anyone
looking at rocky outcrops and quarries can understand that the rock was shaped
by cutting and incorporated into buildings and bridges, although the tools
used and the explosives now used involve less straightforward transformations.
The intricate fan-vaulting of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, was achieved
by precise cutting and the lifting into position of heavy loads, but no prosaic
account can possibly do justice to the sublime achievement, which gives the
appearance of effortlessness despite the enormous difficulties, overcome with
enormous effort, the quarrying and transporting and lifting of stone.
The massive
stone blocks which make up the aqueducts which carrying canals over valleys,
the railway bridges and road bridges, the massive stone blocks which are used
in harbours and ports - how many travellers notice them and 'celebrate' the
extraordinary achievement by which these blocks were placed one above another
with such precision, sometimes submerged, starting from the sea-bed?
Anyone
looking at rocks, fields, the natural or semi-natural world, and then looking
at iron or steel should understand that the process by which the ores were
converted into iron and steel was a massive human achievement. The uses of
iron and steel represent an achievement which couldn't possibly be adequately
'celebrated.'
How to
'celebrate' the Forth Railway Bridge, which was completed in 1890, the first
major bridge made of steel? A recital of some statistics is a tribute, too,
to the achievement of the men who played a part in its construction, and for
some at the cost of their lives. Although there were boats under each cantilever
for rescue, 57 men were killed during construction.
The bridge
is 2.5 km (1.5 miles) long. The spans of the girders are gigantic - 521m (1710
feet). The ties and struts of the bridge are the setting for enormous, balanced
forces - tension in the ties and compression in the tubes. Each of the cantilevers,
110 m (361 feet) high is supported on massive granite piers. Granite is a
particularly hard rock and the difficulties in cutting and shaping it are
extreme. 54 160 tonnes of steel were used, and 4 200 tonnes of rivets. Steel
plates were shaped using a 2 000 tonne hydraulic press. The bridge was constructed
simultaneously on both sides of the three massive main piers. 'The precision
of the assembly, using hydraulic cranes and riveting machines, was such that,
when the work from the two sides was to be joined up, it required only hastily
improvised fires of wood-shavings and waste to expand it by 1/4 in. for the
final bolts to be inserted.' (T K Derry and Trevor I Williams, 'A Short History
of Technology.'
Rail travellers,
including feminists, headed for Northern Scotland still use this bridge -
but its achievement, like other great bridges, goes far, far beyond usefulness.
Obstacles
Here, I directly compare
'patriarchy's' attitude to obstacles and that of feminists. Above, in connection
with the 'patriarchy' of the first industrial age, I show that patriarchy
'got things done, it achieved, in the area of humanitarian legislation,' just
as it overcame, but far more dramatically, natural obstacles.
In a speech at Newcastle,
the great engineer Robert Stephenson said, 'It seems to me but as yesterday
that I was engaged as an assistant in laying out the Stockton and Darlington
Railway. Since then, the Liverpool & Manchester and a hundred other great
works have sprung into existence. As I look back upon these stupendous undertakings,
accomplished in so short a time, it seems as if we have realized in our generation
the fabled powers of the magician's wand. Hills have been cut down and valleys
filled up; and when these simple expedients have not sufficed high and magnificent
viaducts have been raised and, if mountains stood in the way, tunnels of unexampled
magnitude have pierced them through, bearing their triumphant attestation
to the indomitable energy of the nation and the unrivalled skill of our artisans.'
At the time he spoke,
the railway age had been in existence for only twenty years. By then there
were 6 084 miles of railway in Great Britain. The achievement is directly
relevant to our own age and its concern for sustainability and climate change.
Once railway lines have been electrified - another achievement of patriarchy
- trains can use, of course, electric current produced by any means, including
renewable sources. The cutting down of hills and the filling up of valleys
was carried out for one purpose only - to achieve a level foundation. Without
it, the railway line could not have been used at all. This was not patriarchal
despoliation of nature.
Robert Stephenson's did
far more than assist in laying out the Stockton and Darlington Railway. He
built (with the assistance of navvies, of course) the first main railway line
to serve London, the London and Birmingham railway. It was completed in 1838
and Thomas Roscoe described it as 'unquestionably the greatest public work
ever executed, either in ancient or modern times.' He built the great High
Level Bridge, opened in 1849, which links Newcastle-upon-Tyne with Gateshead.
He built the Royal Border Bridge, carrying the North Eastern Railway across
the River Tweed. This formed the last permanent link in the continuous line
of East Coast Railway between London and Edinburgh. His tubular railway bridge
by Conway castle was completed in 1848. Each of the wrought-iron tubes weighs
more than 1000 tonnes. Robert Stephenson had taken his railway along the coast
of North Wales. To take the railway into the island of Anglesey and then to
the port of Holyhead, where ships left for Dublin, it was necessary to bridge
the natural obstacle of the Menai strait. He did this with his Britannia Bridge,
completed in 1850. This was a major advance in engineering. Earlier girders
had not exceeded 35 feet but the main spans of this bridge were much longer,
460 feet.
The Cambridge
Biographical Encyclopedia, edited by David Crystal, 'celebrates' Robert Stephenson's
achievements in 11 lines, and the engineering achievements of Isambard Kingdom
Brunel in 12 lines, whereas their contemporary Horace Bushnell, 'Congregational
minister and theologian,' who published Christian nurture in 1847
is given 15 lines.
'Railway
mileage in Great Britain reached its peak with 20 443 route-miles of which
a total length of about 310 miles was in 1 085 tunnels (excluding the London
Underground). The longest was the Severn Tunnel (4 miles 628 yards) and in
addition there were eleven tunnels over two miles long and a further forty-five
over one mile long. Bridges totalled 62 244 ...' (Charles E Lee, 'Railways,'
in 'The Archaeology of the Industrial Revolution,' edited by Brian Bracegirdle.)
The obstacles overcome
by the civil engineer John Metcalf were first of all severe personal ones.
'One of the few civilian road builders of ability active in the eighteen century
was the remarkable Yorkshireman, 'Blind Jack of Knaresborough ... born in
1717 and blinded by smallpox at the age of six. Despite this disability he
grew up strong and active ... Metcalf's road making career began in 1765,
when he succeeded in winning a contract to construct three miles of the new
turnpike from Harrogate to Boroughbridge. So superior was his stretch of road
that fresh work came pouring in. Altogether he built about 180 miles of road,
mostly in Yorkshire and Lancashire but also extending into Derbyshire.' (Anthony
Ridley, 'Other Means of Communication,' in 'The Archaeology of the Industrial
Revolution.') He built bridges too to carry his roads over rivers.
Many or most radical feminists
claim that 'gender' is socially constructed, they would claim that women have
just as much interest as men in technical matters and are just as good as
men at solving technical problems, the major technical problems of civil and
mechanical engineering and the much smaller technical problems involved in
working on car engines, that it's only patriarchal oppression and patriarchal
stereotyping which could explain women's seeming lack of interest in technical
matters, compared with men.
Feminists should have
realized that the recital of these 'facts' was no substitute for actual achievement,
for overcoming obstacles. The obstacles were not so very great, after all.
By now, feminists should have organized in every town and city women-only
garages, for example, proof that women were not at all dependent on men for
servicing cars, for carrying out minor and major repairs on cars. This would
not have involved the difficulty of developing the techniques and designing
and manufacturing the tools and heavy equipment and the specialist chemical
products needed to do the work, the obstacles to be overcome would have amounted
to only a tiny fraction of the obstacles overcome by patriarchy, but it would
have earned them respect. As it is, feminist talk is cheap, available in vast
quantities. It talks about obstacles and how enormous the obstacles are, but
the triumphant overcoming of obstacles isn't much in evidence.
The art of car maintenance:
an inquiry into Values
(The title of the section: see Robert Pirsig's book 'Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance: an Inquiry into Values.')
Feminist attacks on 'gender stereotyping' include attacks on the alleged
'sexist' attitude that generally, women have less interest in mechanical
matters than men. To claim that this attitude has no basis in reality is
easy. Making every attempt to ensure that the reality corresponds with the
claim is far more difficult. Feminists who own a car or some other vehicle can further their
arguments by simply doing mechanical work on their car. My education
included absolutely no mechanical components. For a long time I had hardly
any interest in anything mechanical. When I became a car owner, I
began to service and repair the car myself, from straightforward jobs such as changing the oil and the oil
filter to major mechanical work on the engine, carried out without a garage,
the engine parts by necessity put on the pavement. Now that cars are much
more complex, major mechanical work is more problematic, but changing the
oil and oil filter is still straightforward. So are many other jobs. Any feminist who undertakes
these jobs - with proper safety precautions, such as the use of axle stands
to support the vehicle - has made a greater contribution to reducing
'gender stereotyping' than a feminist who leaves all work on a car to men,
surely.
If feminists are serious about countering the
objection that feminists talk - and write - as a substitute for action in
many ways, they will want to set up a national network of women's garages.
If they claim that they're deterred by the 'sexism' of suppliers of
automotive tools and equipment, then tey could consider setting up a
national network of suppliers. This is far, far easier than making all
the scientific and technological advances - in metallurgy, organic
chemistry, electronics and so many other fields - which underlie the
manufacture of automotive tools and equipment.
Instead of complaining endlessly about the deficiencies of male-dominated
garages, as they see it, it would be far better if feminists could have
their vehicles serviced and repaired by all-women teams of mechanics, for
work they can't carry out themselves. It
will require a high degree of organization, financial risk, the learning of
a wide range of skills, but innumerable men have overcome these obstacles,
gone ahead and opened up garages. Why not women? This is a far, far simpler
matter than Garages, unlike many
branches of employment, are still open to independent people, even if there
are many national chains. Feminists should stress the importance of
independent women mechanics as well as national companies with a women's
workforce in combatting 'gender stereotyping.'
Replacing a cylinder head gasket, however, offers none of the
superficial pleasure of reciting 'men are useless' or 'car mechanics are
sexist.'
So far, the feminist record is very, very poor, as an internet search
with the search term "women's garage" will quickly show. Two feminists in
this city - Sheffield - were associated with a couple of short-lived women's
garages a long time ago: Karen Griffiths and Rosalind Wollen. Rosalind
Wollen has been associated with 'non-traditional" trades for women, Both
deserve some credit for their efforts, but feminist inaction in non-traditional
trades, motor mechanics and other fields is scandalous. An outline of an
intervew with Karen Griffiths is available at 'Feminist archive north,'
feministarchivenorth [dot] org [uk] and leaves a dispiriting impression of
the garage project: a project abandoned, although the reasons aren't given.
Her feminist activism seem to have been disillusioning, on the evidence that
she decided to concentrate on her personal life: 'Comments on how political
action took over her life, and how now she wants to focus more on herself.'
Any woman climber who spent most of her time attacking the 'sexism' of
the climbing world instead of grappling with the hard realities of rock,
snow and ice, the risks of injury or death from rock-fall or avalanche,
could be accused of being a dilettante. There are many, many women climbers
who have faced the realities, and often died in the attempt. The realities
of mechanical work at least involve only a negligible risk of death and
injury.
Without discussing here the merits and faults of the many branches of
feminist theory - theory due to women, such as Judith Butler, and theory due
to men such as Derrida which has been incorporated to some extent into
feminism and used by feminists - one disadvantage, for intellectual honesty,
is the utility of theory, particularly arcane and impenetrable theory in
arcane and impenetrable language in offering a refuge from such dilemmas and
challenges. Theory blunts their impact.
There are many, many feminists, of course, with an intense interest in
literature, but feminists without the least interest in literature can still practise a form of 'literary criticism,' including criticism of
literary critics, to their own satisfaction and the satisfaction of many
feminists: the art of feminist mechanical criticism: 'mechanical' here
to be sharply distinguished from the technological mechanical I discuss
later. The mechanical critic notes that the author of a piece of writing is
a man, and notes further that this man has an inadequate view of gender.
Perhaps he uses 'he' when he should use 's/he' or 'she.' This is an
effortless way to establish superior insights, values and worth. Someone who
attempts literary criticism without the least interest in literature I
describe as an 'external critic,' practising 'external criticism.'
Feminists who have an intense interest in, an appreciation for, cultural
and intellectual achievement outside feminism (and there are many of them)
will recognize that feminist objections aren't final in matters of
undeniable achievement. There are feminists, although not radical feminists,
who would recognize that feminism is far from being the key to
everything, the summum bonum, always the most important of considerations.
No feminist view of the ancient Greeks which concentrates complete
attention on the extreme subordination of women at the time and ignores
Greek achievement in architecture, sculpture, tragedy, comedy, philosophy,
the writing of history and other fields is an adequate one.
There are feminists who would refuse to consider that Mozart's opera 'The
Magic Flute' has any merit at all, given the misogynistic views in some
places (the libretto was mainly written by Emanuel Schikaneder, but
Mozart did choose to use it). Many feminists would have more sense.
External criticism is rife in feminist discussions of technology.
Feminists without the least interest in machine tools, iron and steel
rolling mills, shipbuilding or any of the techniques and materials of
technology have simply to point out examples of 'sexism' in technology to
establish instant superiority over the people who have.
Feminism and the
biological conditions of life
See also, on my page 'Veganism: against,' material on the
vegan feminist academic Dr Lisa Kemmerer
and smallpox.
Any society which neglects the material conditions of life faces
destruction. It's usual for feminists to neglect these material conditions
of life. Any society which neglects the biological conditions of life faces
destruction.
Some radical feminists haven't hesitated to support policies
which would end human life on earth - if it weren't for artificial
techniques developed by patriarchy.
Charlotte L Graham gives a brief account of a survey of feminist
'theory,' in
a piece published under the auspices of the University of Oregon.
'In Rosemarie Putnam Tong's survey of feminist theory, Feminist
Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction, she uses chapter two to
describe the perspective of radical feminism.'
She distinguishes radical-libertarian feminists from radical-cultural
feminists.
'When it comes to reproduction and mothering, radical-libertarian
feminists see reproduction as women's main weakness. They are against
biological motherhood and the sooner all reproduction can be done
artificially the better. They see no biological imperative for reproduction
[!] and propose the possibility that motherhood is a misplaced attempt to fullfill ego needs. In direct opposition to this, radical-cultural feminists
see reproduction as a woman's main sourse [sic] of power (this is why men
are always trying to control it) and advocate natural procreation. It is the
institution of motherhood as controlled by men that is bad, not motherhood
itself. If women could be mothers on their own terms, everything would be
great.'
The 'radical-libertarian feminists' are shameless in their promotion of
artificial techniques which, as a matter of strict fact, were developed
overwhelmingly by men and which rely on scientific and technological
advances made predominantly by men. Sally Miller Gearhart advocated use of a
different artificial technique, 'ovular merging,' in her 1982
manifesto `The Future–If There Is One–Is Female.' The technique can be used
to produce only female offspring. She doesn't, though, wish to eliminate men
entirely. Instead, 'The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained
at approximately 10 percent of the human race.' This will obviously require
a mass influx of women into non-traditional jobs. Some feminists may well
find themselves working in almost all weathers at a height, or trapped
underground in mining accidents. (If mining is banned, then feminists and
the rest of the population will have to manage without copper, iron ore, and
the rest, and manage without copper pipes, copper wiring, stainless steel,
and the rest. The list will be a very long one.)
'Tong ends chapter two with a critique of radical feminism. This theory
of women is shown to be ensnared by rigid roles and stereotypes which ignore
the flaws of women.'
Those feminists with no opposition to motherhood, those feminists who can
find fulfilment in motherhood, who nevertheless criticize medical
interventions in childhood (they may regard nature itself in maternal terms)
have some explaining to do - or explaining away. Childbirth without medical
intervention tends to be intensely dangerous. Mother nature, disappointingly
arranged things so that many mothers were no better off than mayflies, and
died soon after giving birth.
The sum total of feminist benefits to women come nowhere near the
benefits to women of oral contraception - with no implication whatsoever
that women have to have sex with men or are expected to have sex with men -
although as a matter of strict biological fact - regrettable but inescapable
- there will be obvious consequences for population numbers if most women
chose not to.
Feminists very often prefer to stress the personal and the social rather
than the biological sphere.
Similarly, feminists often prefer to stress the personal and the
social rather than the material sphere. Issues to do with sharing housework
are stressed, the technical ingenuity and overcoming of immense difficulties
which were necessary to provide the equipment which overcame the worst
drudgery and unending labour of housework are taken for granted - but
fortunately, many women, including proto-feminists, were spared much of this
drudgery and labour during the long period when vast numbers of domestic
servants were available.
Feminists are more likely to emphasize the work of advocates of
contraception such as Marie Stopes than the scientists without whose work
Marie Stopes and other campaigners would have had nothing but dangerously
unreliable methods to advocate. Marie Stopes argument (in 'Married Love,'
1916) that women were as entitled to the sexual pleasure which can be
enjoyed during intercourse as men is completely convincing, unanswerable, of
course, but this pleasure, like the pleasures of food, the pleasures of an
adequate and varied diet, requires an immense expenditure in knowledge and
the implementation of knowlege to achieve. Without efficient methods of
contraception, the same pleasure can be enjoyed, but pleasure which isn't in
the least risk-free.
Emily Wilson, in a series of reviews with the title 'On Maternity,'
published in the 'Times Literary Supplement' (No. 5720). One of the books
she reviews is 'Mothering and Motherhood in Ancient Greece and Rome,' by
Lauren Hackworth Petersen and Patricia Salman-Mitchell. She writes (this can
be considered as one account of the consequences and implications of the
Malthusian nightmare, of course):
'Even male authors of antiquity were aware that motherhood was a very
dangerous business ... Those who survived to adulthood must have been
conscious that their mothers could have died giving birth to them; men must
have been aware that fathering children on their wives could, and quite
likely would, kill them.' ['quite likely would ...' is hyperbole but not in
the least a blatant distortion.]
'Ancient mothers were also likely to watch their babies die. One
estimate, cited in this book, suggests that in the ancient Greek world no
more than one in three infants survived. Of course, it often happened, then
as now, that both mother and child died in a difficult birth. But in other
cases, one lived and the other died ...'
The bond between mother and baby, the joy and fulfilment which so
many women - not all - find in the experience of motherhood - these
experiences turn out not to be part of the natural order of things, there to
be enjoyed, easily available experiences, but to be fraught. Joy and
fulfilment as a possibility for most mothers turns out to have a
disappointing linkage with technical advance.
Gratitude is in order, surely, for the work of investigators such as Gregory Goodwin Pincus,
who introduced the oral contraceptive pill, or the work of the organic
chemist W S Johnson, who undertook the complete synthesis of progesterone.
Progesterone is an example of a synthetic chemical substance which is
practically 100% effective.
A diagram which summarizes the Johnson
synthesis of progesterone hints at only a tiny fraction of the work
needed to produce progesterone. Without the work of the pioneers in organic
chemistry as well as other branches of chemistry (the reactions obviously
need inorganic compounds, for example) there would have been no oral
contraception. Of course, many other branches of science play a part
in modern organic chemistry, as in the spectroscopic methods which have
become indispensable in the field.
It's self-evident to many feminists that 'men are useless.' They have
failed to take into account, not obscure and unimportant evidence to the
contrary, not a few extenuating circumstances, not matters which are
marginal, but vast areas of experience.
Babies
and bathwater
The reference to 'babies and bathwater' has to be explained. I'm not
alluding to the well known phrase, 'throwing the baby out with the
bathwater.' (Oxford English Dictionary: 'to reject what is essential or
beneficial along with what is inessential or harmful; to discard something
valuable along with other things that are undesirable.) For the information
of feminists who have strong feelings about maternal matters, of whatever
kind (defending or rejecting the existence of a 'maternal instinct,' for
example) I'm not alluding to maternal matters either.
The meaning of 'baby' here is
similar to this, in the Oxford English Dictionary: ' ...a person's
particular responsibility, concern, or area of interest; (also) something
that a person has invented or brought to fruition, to which he or she has an
emotional attachment.'
'Baby' here means specifically 'well-established topic discussed (or
mentioned without any attempt at argument) very often, and very often to the
exclusion of other topics. In the case of feminism, 'babies' include
references to domestic violence against women, in the case of men's movement
Websites references to the feminist views on domestic violence. The topic of
domestic violence is very important, obviously, but is very fully covered in
other Websites, the Websites of feminists and the 'men's movement.'
(feminist answers to the arguments of the 'men's movement aren't in the
least plentiful, I think.)
On this page, I discuss many issues which belong to 'the bathwater,' which
in my special use here is the wider context, including the wider context
which is so often neglected, in books and Websites of the 'men's movement'
as well as feminist books and Websites.
These are just a few examples of topics which belong to 'the bathwater,' in
this sense:
'Care ethics' is an influential theory of morality. Care ethics 'treats care
as central for understanding the nature of morality. The development of care
ethics was largely sparked by the psychologist Carol Gilligan's 1982 book, In
a different voice.' (Mark Timmons, Moral Theory: An Introduction.') On
this page, I argue in various places that compassion is often ineffective -
or completely ineffective - without material provision, and I stress 'the
material conditions of life.' I understand completely, of course, that not
all compassion needs material support, that kindliness, sympathy, empathy,
patience can very often be shown without any material conditions. But
compassion, and care, often do need to take account of material conditions.
To give an example to do with babies, human babies rather than anything
figurative, and bathwater, bathwetar which is literally water, without
reference to my extended use, as context, if babies obviously need baths,
and washing in general, whoever is doing the washing, man or woman, needs a
supply of water, and preferably water which has been warmed. To obtain the
water, advanced technological civilization provides reservoirs and other
water sources and methods of heating the water, which usually involves very
complex generating facilities and transmission facilities. The role of men
in creating the scientific theory and the technological expertise and the
labour for building the facilities should be obvious, even if it isn't
obvious to many feminists. Care ethicists, and others, surely have to take
account of this context ('the bathwater.')
If care ethicists do happen to be discussing the care of babies -
there are many, many other topics which will interest them, of course - then
it may well be relevant to discuss the wider context, the bathwater. This
involves consideration of factors which may well be uncongenial, factors
which care ethics generally neglects.
Feminists make many different claims, with or without
an attempt at supporting argument, in the print, digital and other media -
these claims are 'the baby.' The relevant 'bathwater,' the wider context
includes the invention of printing, the development of printing techniques
and printing technology, the invention of computer communications and the
development of computer communications. Any feminist claim that 'men are
useless' should take account of the fact that the men involved in these work
can't possibly have been as useless as claimed. Their work has been, to me,
astonishing, very impressive.
On this page, I discuss the fact that in this
country, the main - or only - feminist print publication of any prominence
at all, 'Spare Rib,' collapsed amidst recriminations. Why have feminists
failed to launch and sustain a variety of print publications?
I also note that feminists, in stark contrast with
the energy and achievement of 'patriarchy,' have failed to launch and
sustain a nationwide network of women's garages, managed by women, with
women mechanics. Feminists often make scathing reference to the 'patronising'
language they claim is inflected on them by men at garages run by men. A
much more convincing response would be sustained work on setting up feminist
garages, run on feminist lines: workshops not the feminist 'talking shops'
which are so common, I think.
If the subject is domestic violence, or rape, then of
course feminists (and anti-feminists) are entitled to discuss the subject in
relative isolation, but if the impression is given that these subjects, and
a restricted range of other subjects, are the only ones which have an
influence on the well-being of women (or men), then this is a mistake. It's
essential, I think, to stress the importance of external security. If North
Korea proves to be engaged only in a war of words and its nuclear capability
is never used against other states, another rogue state with nuclear
capability or great conventional capability is likely to threaten the
well-being of men and women in the future. Domestic violence is far from
being the only form of violence, of course. Again, I'd refer to this wider
context, often overlooked, as 'the bath water.'
To summarize, 'the baby and the bathwater,' not an
established use but a phrase with this new and useful interpretation, refers
to the importance of taking into account context (the 'bathwater') in
discussing the subject (the 'baby.) The subject here is very often a
widely discussed one and the relevant context often neglected. I hope that
any feminists who do contribute arguments against my views take up the
challenge of considering this kind of context.
Conjugates can be
regarded as an instance of the 'bathwater.' I explain my concept of
conjugates on the page Ethics: theory and practice, without giving any
feminist examples. A non-feminist illustration of a conjugate which is
harmful, I claim: a plausible and reasonable-seeming advocate for the Green
Party (there are green parties in other European countries as well as this,
but I think particularly of the Green Party in this country, could stress
that concern for the environment is very important, that reducing waste is
very important, that energy conservation is very important, that action to
combat pollution is very important, and the rest. If human adaptability were
greater - the kind of well-formed adaptability I refer to as
{adjustment} - then there would be no reason
why the speaker should not have a whole range of well-formed attitudes going
well beyond thinking on the environment. There is no evidence that if the
government elected a Green Party as the governing party, that the party's
defence policy would be adequate in the least. (My page on
veganism gives greater detail, in connection with
the similar failings of vegans.) It does seem that lack of attention to
defence issues is a conjugate of some views.
I think that feminism has its own harmful conjugates
too, and very often in this same field, although the exceptions are many
more than in the case of the green party and vegans - not including radical
feminists.
A realistic defence policy is essential for a liberal
democracy, unless the state has far more powerful and willing protectors. A
realistic defence policy is an aspect of physical security, mentioned by
John Kekes in his 'The Morality of Pluralism.' He writes, the protection of
life, physical security, and some freedom to do as we please are normally
good in all historical and cultural contexts.' (Quoted by Geoffrey Scarre in
his review, in 'Mind: A Quarterly Review of Philosophy,' Volume 103 Number
411.) To return to the matter of material conditions and material agency,
how are protection of life and physical security to be attained without
material provision, material infrastructure, equipment and the rest? The
concept of the conjugate is value-neutral in itself, and conjugates can be
harmful or valuable, essential. Material conditions can be regarded as the
enabling context of those values, the protection of life and physical
security. As for 'some freedom to do as we please,' this freedom too has a
material conjugate. In certain material conditions, this freedom is subject
to extreme {restriction}. The freedom to travel requires the material means
to travel, the freedom to think and reflect may require the material means
to avoid the constant search for food or shelter or warmth,
Mary
Wollstonecraft, the famousest feminist: a vindication of the right of criticism
This is a vindication of the right to criticize Mary Wollstonecraft from
an anti-feminist perspective. She has already been criticized from a
feminist, particularly a radical feminist perspective.
For Mary
Wollstonecraft, writing in 'Vindication of the Rights of Woman,'
'Youth is
the season for love in both sexes; but in those days of thoughtless
enjoyment provision should be made for the more important years of life,
when reflection takes place of sensation.'
At the time
she wrote, for many, many people, youth was the season for sitting in complete
darkness and nearly complete isolation, youth was the season for hauling almost
impossible loads, inhaling coal dust and risking crushing, drowning and being
blown limb from limb, childhood likewise, the generally short period of adulthood likewise. The life of the
children in the mines was beyond her inner resources.
Feminism and the death
penalty gives another instance of Mary Wollstonecraft's failures of
empathy, and Slavery and serfdom criticizes her
for her
disastrous blurring of the difference between the lives of slaves,
male and female, and the lives of non-slave women, such as women of the
middle-class to which she belonged. The information I provide will remove
any doubts about the reality of the extreme difference.
A radical revaluation of Mary Wollstonecraft is long
overdue, and not a radical feminist revaluation. Criticism of Mary
Wollstonecraft the early feminist and reservations about Mary Wollstonecraft
have generally come from feminists, particularly radical feminists, who
regard her as too timid, ready to accept far too readily some aspects of
'patriarchy.' This is, I think, the first critical view of Mary Wollstonecraft from a
very different perspective, an anti-feminist one - but emphatically not one
which opposes such advances as extension of the suffrage and higher
education to women. (See my comments on Fidelbogen's Counter-feminist blog.
I quote these words of his, 'Again, for the record, I am stating no personal opinion
about the issue of women's voting rights. Let the fact be well
noted, that I have said nothing either pro or con upon that
subject.' I add this comment, 'His failure to state a personal opinion,
his failure to support the extension of the franchise, has to be
criticized severely. He's right about many things, as I see it, but
not right about everything. He's right about many things but
misguided about others.'
I concentrate attention here on these limitations: her self-centredness,
quite often amounting to self-pity, and her lack of curiosity and I give
further evidence of her lack of empathy. I do far more than acknowledge the
importance of her work in furthering female emancipation, for example her
pleas for opening up women's access to education, but point out how limited
was her conception of education, as of so much else. (In the terminology of
{themes}, these limitations all amount to {restriction}:- {scope}.) I begin
with evidence from the letters. These unwittingly reveal how much in the
'Vindication' belongs to the word-sphere: ringing declarations are easy,
translating them into reality often very difficult.
Even Janet Todd, a sympathetic feminist commentator, who edited the
Collected Letters, finds it impossible to overlook a tone in the letters
which I criticize more severely. In the Introduction, she writes, 'The
letters sometimes appear melodramatic and self-indulgent but part of this is
the fashion of the times, and they need to be judged beside the extreme
self-dramatizing of her sister Eliza for example or indeed of her friend
Mary Hays, similarly caught up in unrequited love.' I make connections -
linkages - with contemporary feminism, which, in the writing of many
feminists, has certainly sustained the self-dramatizing of Eliza and the
self-indulgence of Mary Wollstonecraft. I also show the linkage between
self-centredness and lack of curiosity in Mary Wollstonecraft, as in
contemporary feminism.
Janet Todd's mention of 'the fashion of the times' as an extenuating
circumstance is far from being a feeble comment, at first sight. Many
individuals who transcended their times or who were far ahead of their
times had limitations which tied them to their times - but the
limitations had to do with less central matters, not the achievements
themselves. In the case of Mary Wollstonecraft, the weaknesses had to do
with her central claims and arguments. They showed the gulf between words
and practice, and some severe difficulties in implementing feminist ideals.
The musicologist Hans Keller wrote well on these matters, even if he
failed to distinguish central achievement and peripheral weakness. In his
book 'Criticism,' he quotes Martin Cooper's review of 'the man and the
music,' the man being the composer Benjamin Britten, one of the greatest of
English composers: 'It would be rash to attempt a forecast the place that
Britten will occupy in the history of European music. He was essentially a
child of his day, when music had lost its traditional cosmopolitan idiom and
composers had to choose between devising an individual dialect of the old
language or following the few radicals into unknown territory. Britten's was
perhaps the happiest of all the personal idioms achieved, by modifying
rather than defying tradition.'
Hans Keller finds this useless: 'Britten - like every genius - was
essentially not a child of his day: what distinguishes his art is what
distinguishes it from every single contemporary trend which, if he used it
at all, he used as a background against which he threw his meanings into
relief; as a result, and as distinct from the majority of contemporary
composers (any age's contemporary composers) he is recognizable within a
bar, whereas they, unidentifiable, pass from being contemporary into having
been temporary. So estranged did he, in fact, feel from his time, in which
he found more than the few radicals which Mr Cooper describes, that his
situation in our musical world deeply depressed him.'
If Mary Wollstonecraft's views had been immediately influential, if they
had been implemented immediately, and as fully as she would have wished, one
consequence is that women would have been admitted to higher education in
large numbers, but she showed minimal interest in the curriculum. It was
important that women should have far greater access to education - and it
was important, very important. It was very important to consider too what
sort of education women, and men, should receive. Mary Wollstonecraft
showed not the least interest in science and technology and in fact higher
education at the time gave only patchy coverage to science and practically
none at all to technology. The remarkable advances of the early industrial
age through which she lived owed very little to higher education. Mary
Wollstonecraft showed no interest in these at all. If Mary Wollstonecraft's
views had dominated the thinking and practice of society, any advances in
science and techonology - including the advances which had profound
humanitarian effects - would have owed nothing to her school of thought.
She died as a result of complications in childbirth, and all the advances
which made childbirth so much safer owed nothing to her way of thinking. If
she had been much more convincing, much more influential, much more
successful in her advocacy, it would have retarded, not advanced, the vastly
reduced mortality rates, not just the mortality rates during childbirth but
of cholera, smallpox and many, many other causes of premature death.
Smallpox is now an extinct disease. Nobody suffers from smallpox or dies
from smallpox now. Mary Wollstonecraft mentions smallpox in her letter to Everina Wollstonecraft (Paris, September 20, 1794.) In the closing years of
the 18th century, smallpox killed an estimated 400 000 Europeans each year.
Of cases of blindness, a third were caused by smallpox. Smallpox was
responsible for an estimated 300 - 500 million deaths during the 20th
century. In 1967, the World Health Organization estimated that two million
people died of smallpox. Smallpox was eradicated by vaccination, not by
feminism. Men's overwhelmingly important role in eliminating this scourge,
such as the work of Edward Jenner, is something which has a place in any
((survey)). It alone is overwhelmingly important evidence than men are far
from useless, as so many feminists think.
Mary Wollstonecraft's child caught smallpox, as she records in this
letter: 'She is now only four months old - She caught the small-pox at
Havre,' where they treated smallpox 'very improperly - I, however,
determined to follow the suggestions of my own reason, and saved her much
pain, probably her life ... by putting her twice a day into a warm bath.'
Her own reason never suggested anything like scientific method, which
gives a rigorous way of comparing useful and useless methods of treatment,
in this case vaccination and warm baths. (The overall fatality rate for
children less than one year old is 40% - 50%, and the recovery of Mary
Wollstonecraft's child owed nothing to the treatment.)
It's fair to assume that education according to Wollstonecraft principles
would give no emphasis to scientific method. In general, feminists promote
the greater participation of women but are vague when it comes to the
objectives and policy of the organization - apart from the objective of
greater participation of women and the policy of greater policy of women.
In his essay, 'Charles Dickens,' George Orwell identifies a vagueness and
a weakness in his educational ideas. After quoting Dickens, beginning with,
'Doctor Strong's was an excellent school, as different from Mr Creakle's as
good is from evil' he comments, In the woolly vagueness of this passage one
can see Dickens's utter lack of any educational theory. He can imagine the
moral atmosphere of a good school, but nothing further.'
Feminist schools would be nothing like so vague. They would teach
feminist theory and feminist history, for sure, but what else? Critical
thinking? Scientific method?
She was not one to confront real difficulties, let alone insuperable
difficulties, for the most part. In the case of education for working class
children, the difficulties were immense. Jane Humphries gives a
comprehensive account in 'Childhood and Child Labour in the British
Industrial Revolution' of the realities. (Below, I distinguish my own
comments by putting them in brackets.)
She claims that children experienced the most violence not at home or in
the factories where they worked but in private schools, the 'Dame schools.'
The teachers at these schools were incompetent and generally physically
abusive. (In fact, most of the teachers at these schools were women. The
liberal, refined education which Mary Wollstonecraft advocated so
persuasively, at first sight, in the 'Vindication' ovelooked the fact that
there was no extensive supply of liberal teachers at the time. Changing
conditions so that teachers became more liberal and education lost its
brutality was an objective that was general not feminist, to do with human
values. It couldn't and shouldn't have been addressed by the spread of
feminism alone.)
The economic difficulties confronting any reform of education - the
education of boys and girls - are described at length in the book.
Jane Humphries describes the gnawing hunger that dominated every day:
working-class childhood 'was one long empty belly.' In these circumstances,
(Mary Wollstonecraft's view of education was an unreal one for working-class
children. The priority was to assure the supply of sufficient food, and the
industrial and agricultural reforms did eventually achieve that objective,
by technical means, not feminist means.)
gives information about the brevity of schooling for working-class
children. Between 1790 and 1850, the median age at which children started
work was 10. Before and after that date it was 12.
Families without fathers and very large families were common, as a result
of high mortality and fertility rates. (This is the Malthusian nightmare
which was ended in industrial societies.) Children were generally crucial
for economic survival. Working class families needed the wages of the
children to survive. The wages of children were very significant for these
families. Any form of education other than a brief period of education
would have been an impossibility. 'Sons, as well as daughters, were
withdrawn from school to hold the domestic fort when mothers went out to
work.'
'Before the spread of state financed schooling in the second half of the
nineteenth century, it was expensive to send children to school. There were
both direct and opportunity costs that were immediate and palpable. In
contrast, the benefits were distant and uncertain ... Schools charged fees,
and these were substantial relative to families' incomes. When Daniel Chater
started at his local 'seat of learning'' his father was only earning 18s per
week and there were three younger children in the family. The 6d fee proved
'too high for my parents' pocket' and he was removed. Fortunately a Board
school opened nearby that charged only 3d, but Chater senior's wage was not
regular, and so 'there were occasions when even that small sum could not be
spared.'
William Chadwick (born 1822) lost his father aged five: ' ... To attend
day school was out of the question and at eight years of age I was sent to
work, for about thirteen hours a day, at a cotton mill.'
She points out that schooling was often seasonal to accommodate pressing
demands for labour, particularly in agricultural areas. She gives this
example, 'William Stout and his brother were so frequently out of school to
assist on the family's farm that they made little progress, 'for what they
got in winter we forgot in summer.'
In some areas there were no schools, or the journey to school, always on
foot, was simply too long.
Harsh realities - other than a very restricted class of harsh realities -
and concrete proposals to overcome harsh realities, were never a forte of
Mary Wollstonecraft. In her letter to Gilbert Imlay (Gothenburg, August 26,
1795) she writes, 'I have lived in an ideal world ...' Or of later feminists, in general. A great variety of
other problems has been neglected too. The focus has been almost entirely on
the non-material aspects of education, with complete indifference towards
making bricks, quarrying stone, felling trees and shaping timber to build
the school, the plumbing of the school - providing safe water and taking
away sewage - in later times providing electricity for the school, and all
the immense ingenuity and labour needed to ensure this.
The plight of poor families became less and less common, eventually, and
the Malthusian nightmare was only ended, by wealth creation, the creation of
the surpluses that were generally impossible in pre-industrial societies.
For most feminists, this requires a journey into uncongenial territory, the
absolutely unavoidable and pivotal dominance of coal as an energy
source (and later as a source of carbon for making steel on a large scale)
and mechanization, even if they wouldn't for one moment care to be without
the benefits of technological advance in the home and at work.
Mary Wollstonecraft's lack of curiosity, her indifference to matters with a direct bearing
on her activities as well as matters which might have expanded her limited
horizons, are dispiriting. Her lover Gilbert Imlay and his business
associates imported alum and soap into France. Alum (hydrated potassium aluminium sulphate) has a variety of uses. Present day uses include
extinguishing chemical and oil fires, and treating cloth, wood and paper to
increase resistance to fire. If Gilbert Imlay had said to Mary
Wollstonecraft, 'Don't take any interest in this compound. Leave it to us
men,' he would have been accused of 'sexism.' If Mary Wollstonecraft
declared, 'I have no interest in alum,' leaving it to men such as Gilbert
Alum to take care of the compound, this was allawable. In her letter to
Gilbert Imlay (Paris, September 22, 1794) she mentions these products and
immediately passes to matters of much more concern,
'Well, this you will say is trifling - shall I talk about alum or soap?
There is nothing picturesque in your present pursuits; my imagination then
rather chuses to ramble back to the barrier with you, or to see you coming
to meet me, and my basket of grapes.' Janet Todd explains that 'the barrier'
is the Paris gate where Wollstonecraft and Imlay used to meet when the
former lived in Neuilly ...' Nobody can blame Mary Wollstonecraft for not
discussing alum any further here, but she can be blamed for not taking any
interest in practical matters which were of no direct concern to her. Her
indifference to such things has relevance to her views on education.
Nietzsche, who occasionally wrote sense, who occasionally had remarkable
insights, wrote, 'Where neither love nor hatred is in the game, a woman's
game is mediocre' ('Beyond Good and Evil,' 'Epigrams and Interludes,' 115).
This is an untrue generalization when applied to woman - he wasn't writing
sense here, this was no remarkable insight - but it seems true enough of
Mary Wollstonecraft.
However, even Nietzsche couldn't rival the gross stupidity of those
generalizing feminists who include the humane and the inhumane, the honest
and the dishonest, the cruel and the kind, liberators and enslavers,
benefactors and barbarians, in the one all-inclusive category of the hated
and despised: men.
Janet Todd's edition of 'The Collected Letters'
groups a number of letters under the heading 'Scandinavia 1795.'
She has sailed to Gothenburg in Sweden. At this time, seafaring, like
child-bearing, had not become immeasurably safer as a result of technical
advance. She shows no curiosity about the hard and dangerous lives in the
sailors or the construction of their ships. She is largely oblivious to
everything but her own emotions.
Extracts from the series of letters sent to Gilbert Imlay from Gothenburg:
'What I suffered in the vessel I will not now descant upon ... here I
could not get a fire to warm me, or any thing warm to eat; the inns are mere
stables ... I believe I alluded to the extreme fatigue I endured on
ship-board ... I am overwhelmed with civilities on all sides [an interesting
way of making kindness into yet another burden] ... a deadly weight of
sorrow lies heavily on my heart. I am again tossed on the troubled billows
of life; and obliged to cope with difficulties, without being buoyed up by
the hopes that alone render them bearable ... I long every night to go to
bed, to hide my melancholy face in my pillow; but there is a canker-worm in
my bosom that never sleeps ... I labour in vain to calm my mind ... Every
thing fatigues me ... My heart is so oppressed, I cannot write with
precision ... What peculiar misery has fallen to my share!' ... Love is a
want of my heart ... soul and body seem to be fading away before the
withering touch of disappointment ... I blush when I recollect my former
conduct - and will not in future confound myself with the beings whom I feel
to be my inferiors. - I will listen to delicacy, or pride ... though every
remembrance stings me to the soul, I think of you, till I make allowance for
the very defects of character, that have given such a cruel stab to my peace
... Do not tell me, that you are happier without us ... Ah, why do you not
love us with more sentiment? ... With what a cruel sigh have I recollected that I had forgotten to hope!'
A reminder of some others who had 'forgotten to hope,' in very different
circumstances. From the section above,
The
material conditions of life:
'Here were portrayed
men and women and small children living the life of beasts: a teenage girl
struggling on all fours harnessed to a waggon of coal that she was pulling
along a narrow seam; little children clinging to a rope as they were lowered
down a shaft by an old woman whose rags told of her poverty: boys chained
to heavy corves, with only a single candle to light the dark roadways ...
In one mine, near Chesterfield, boys had to pull corves weighing at least
1/2 ton and sometimes as heavy as 1 ton, for 60 yards along a roadway that
was only 2 feet high ... The boys who worked as hauliers might work as many
as fourteen hours a day, from six in the morning to eight at night, and on
top of that they would have an often lengthy journey to and from work. (See
my poem Mines in the
poetry section 'Child Labour.') The pages of the Royal Commission Reports
are full of accounts of children returning home too tired to eat, who fell
asleep as soon as they sat at table an had to be carried to bed. Some were
not even able to walk the distance to their homes, and parents would find
them asleep by the roadside.'
She writes, 'There are misfortunes so great, as to silence the usual
expressions of sorrow.' (Letter to Gilbert Imlay, Strömstad, July 7,
1795). She was not thinking of misfortunes of the kind suffered by miners,
of course. The letter begins, 'I could not help feeling extremely mortified
last post, at not receiving a letter from you.' And she writes, 'There are
characters,' she writes, who 'cannot rest satisfied with the common comforts
of life.' The 'common comforts of life'were beyond the expectation of the
miners, of course. She continues, ' ... had not disappointment cut me off
from life, this romantic country, these fine evenings, would interest me ...
am I ever to feel alive only to painful sensations?' (But not the painful
sensations of struggling on all fours harnessed to a waggon of coal.)
Janet Todd a writes of Mary Wollstoencraft's time in Ireland, 'After a
year of suffering depressive illness, and of surviving prickly encounters
with Lady Kingsborough, Mary was dismissed in 1787.' A reading of the
letters makes it clear that Mary Wollstonecraft suffered from depressive
illness for much of her life, but there have been many, many people of high
achievement who suffered from depressive illness (or bipolar illness)
whose interest in other people was not nearly so restricted, whose horizons
were not nearly so restricted, and not because their illness wasn't nearly
so severe.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, unlike Mary Wollstonecraft, was capable of empathy
for people unlike himself, in a sphere remote from his own. He writes in a
letter to Robert Bridges (August 2, 1871), 'But it is a dreadful thing for
the greatest and most necessary part of a very rich nation to live a hard
life without dignity, knowledge, comforts, delight, or hopes in the midst of
plenty - which plenty they make ... England has grown hugely wealthy but
this wealth has not reached the working classes ... The more I look the more
black and deservedly black the future looks ...' Mary Wollstonecraft's
absorption in her own black moods dominated her for very long periods, and
when she felt happier, she rarely strayed far beyond her own class.
His despair is given artistic expression in the 'terrible sonnets,' which
include these lines:
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black
hourswe have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you
went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
With
witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life ...
And these:
O the mind, mind has mountains, cliffs of fall
Frightful,
sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
Mary who ne'er hung there ...
Linked with the terrible sonnets by its desolation is the poem 'Justus es
...'
... See, banks and brakes
Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd
they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them;
birds build - but not I build; no, but strain,
Time's eunuch, and not
breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
His nature poetry throws into contrast Mary Wollstonecraft's obliviousness to
nature. If she noticed none of the developments which were transforming life
in England, she noticed too very little of natural beauty. The life of the
working classes were remote from her but so too, to a lesser extent, was the
independent life of an animal or a plant. Hopkins, by contrast, had an
intense, ecstatic interest in such animals and plants as the windhover
(falcon), the skylark, the woodlark, poplar trees, ash trees.
Letters have often been the occasion for an outpouring of despair, for
gloom and experiences much worse than gloom. Mary Wollstonecraft's letters
reveal a depression which is repetitious in its expression, one which
quickly becomes predictable in its expression, formulaic, a depression which
is raley put to good use (empathy with other afflicted people, for
instance), depression which is without benefits for herself or her readers.
Janet Todd also wrote of Mary Wollstonecraft, when she was in Ireland
'She noticed little about the social and economic situation around her.' It
would have been better if Janet Todd had explored the issue at some length.
The dangers and backbreaking work of the coal miners were unavoidable.
What was avoidable was the employment of women as mine-workers and children
as mine-workers, and after 1842 in this country, only men and boys over 10
years old worked underground. But the dangers and backdreaking work were not
the result of greed, exploitation or incompetence but due to the harshness
of reality. The factors included geological conditions, the natural
production of explosive and poisonous gases, matter in bulk. The
technology needed to reduce the dangers and eliminate much of the
backbreaking work was sophisticated and could not be developed quickly. When
children opened and closed ventilating flaps deep underground, in complete
darkness, children could have been spared the horrors of the task, but the
task could not be avoided - someone had to open and close the ventilating
flaps, if not children then women and if not women then men.
There was an alternative to the use of coal as an energy source, wood,
but wood had insuperable disadvantages, and not only the disadvantages of
deforestation. Before the industrial revolution, extensive use was made of
water power and wind power for powering machinery, such as the machines used
for grinding agricultural and other tools and for grinding wheat and other
cereals, but water-powered machines could not be used in periods of drought
in summer and wind-powered machines could not be used when there was no
wind, with obvious consequences for the livelihood of workers and their
families.
Lack of wind obviously made sailing in a sailing ship impossible.
Some of Mary Wollstonecraft's letters record the difficulty (there were no
dangers, but the crews and passengers of vessels becalmed in the
middle of the Atlantic Ocean or Pacific Ocean often faced great danger).
They give too further instances of her self-pity - her depressive illness is
an extenuating circumstance but not in the least a complete excuse - her
obliviousness to, her lack of all curiosity about, the crew of the ship, the
discomforts and difficulties they faced, not just then but throughout their
working lives:
To Gilbert Imlay, Hull, June 17, 1795
I was hurried on board yesterday
about three o' clock, the wind having changed. But before evening it veered
round to the old point; and here we are, in the midst of mists and water,
only taking advantage of the tide to advance a few miles.'
To Gilbert Imlay, Hull, June 18, 1795
Here I am still - and I have
just received your letter of Monday by the pilot, who promised to bring it
to me, if we were detained, as he expected, by the wind. - It is indeed
wearisome to be thus tossed about without going forward ... [Marguerite] is
unable to do any thing, she is rendered so sick by the motion of the ship,
as we ride at anchor.'
To Gilbert Imlay, Hull, June 20, 1795
This is the fifth dreary day I
have been imprisoned by the wind [not, 'we have been imprisoned by the
wind], with every outward object to disgust the senses, and unable to banish
the remembrances that sadden my heart.
Eventually, a favourable wind takes the vessel to Sweden and she arrives
in Gothenburg: 'What I suffered in the vessel I will not now descant upon.'
(Letter to Gilbert Imlay, Gothenburg, June 27, 1795.) In a letter written
two days later, she mentions 'the extreme fatigue I I endured on
ship-board,' one of its causes being 'the roughness of the weather,' of
which the crew will have had far more experience. She ends the letter, 'I
long every night to go to bed, to hide my melancholy face in my pillow; but
there is a canker-worm in my bosom that never sleeps.' What she would have
felt if she had had to sleep on bare boards or the ground can only be
imagined.
The difficulties of sailing ships when there were no winds or the winds
were unfavourable, the difficulties of wind and water powered machinery,
were solved by the extraordinary developments, creative and immensely
difficult, which created the steam engine. This allowed machines to be
powered almost anywhere - there was no need to site the machinery by a
source of water power, for example - and the machines could run
uninterrupted by the vagaries of wind and water. Ships could run according
to schedule. Crew and passengers were not held up for days at a time.
At a very early stage in the 'Vindication,' Mary Wollstonecraft, in the
seventh paragraph of Chapter 1, she makes an observation which she never
heeded, and which later feminists have practically never heeded. In general,
the failure is far more serious for the later feminists with wide-ranging
claims than for Mary Wollstonecraft, whose claims are more modest.
'Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices,
which they have imbibed, they can scarcely trace how, rather than to root
them out. The mind must be strong that resolutely forms its own principles;
for a kind of intellectual cowardice prevails which makes many men shrink
from the task, or only do it by halves. Yet the imperfect
conclusions thus drawn, are frequently very plausible, because they are
built on partial experience, on just, though narrow, views.' [My
emphasis.]
If someone is buying an everyday article, then a ((survey)) of factors
will include, in many cases, for people who take account of environmental
and ethical considerations, ((cost, colour, availability, acceptability in
ethical terms, acceptability in environmental terms ... )). In deciding
whether or not men are tyrannical or far from tyrannical, the most
inadequate basis for decision is the autocentric one: personal experience.
This is open to objections based on sampling. The person's experience may be
atypical. The factors which a feminist should take into account in deciding
on the culpability or otherwise of men are very many. In general, feminists
confine themselves to too few: {restriction}:- survey. My page
Introduction to {theme} theory explains my terminology and the
associated symbolism, and my reasons for using them. I attempt to give a
((survey)) on this page which, though necessarily incomplete, includes a
greater range of factors than is usually provided in feminist and
anti-feminist discussion.
'Rousseau exerts himself to prove that all was right
originally: a crowd of authors that all is now right: And I, that all will
be right.'
A generalization (which is a counter-{restriction}:- (scope)) of the
principle of falsification: the application-sphere of falsification is not
only empirical science, but an application-sphere which includes ideology.
If conclusive certainty in falsification is difficult in science, far
more so in matters of ideology.
Similarly, the principle of the uniformity of nature - inductive
inferences applied to nature, future cases resembling past, previously
observed cases - can be generalized: what can be called 'the principle of
the uniformity of flawed human nature,' and flawed society. Utopianism is
denial of this principle, and Mary Wollstonecraft gives approval to a form
of utopianism here. Christian doctrines of the Fall of Man entail, of
course, a Christian-feminist doctrine of the Fall of Woman too.
The Christian doctrine is subject to excessive {restriction}. The
application-sphere of {restriction} in my account is not only human behaviour and motivation, deeply flawed in the Christian account, but the
thinking which underlies the origins and continuance of Christianity.
Christianity's insights into human imperfection are more realistically based
in general than secular views which are perfectionistic, but
misinterpret the problem and propose a false solution.
The linkage between Mary Wollostenecraft's view (and feminist views in
general) and these Christian views: she misinterprets the problem and
proposes a false solution. The uniformity of human nature extends to men and
women, surely, to the extent that women, like men, have no natural or
artificial immunity (to use a linkage with human biology) to gross error,
gross failings, all those shortcomings which amount to {restriction}:-
('virtuousness').
'A standing army ... is incompatible with freedom;
because subordination and rigour are the very sinews of military discipline;
and despotism is necessary to give vigour to enterprizes that one will
directs.'
{substitution} of 'police' for 'army' and 'military' gives, 'A standing
police force ... is incompatible with freedom; because subordination and rigour are the very sinews of police discipline ...' In Mary
Wollstonecraft's time, the army had some of the functions of a police force,
when called upon. Abuses of power and mistaken use of power are obviously
likely to be vivid in the mind. The horrors which a population is spared
because the exercise of power has deterred or otherwise prevented them tend
to be harder to grasp. Liberal laws, including laws which rectify
injustices, not only have to be passed, they have to be enforced. If women
and children are forbidden by law from working underground in coal mines,
then in the absence of a police force, they can defy the law with impunity.
The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 had to be enforced, and it was. From the
section Slavery and serfdom, 'Slavery
was ended not just by reformers who worked for legislative change and
eventually achieved it. The legislation had to be enforced. The British Navy
(which would count as an agent of patriarchy in most feminist histories, no
doubt) played a prominent part in enforcing anti-slavery laws.Between
1811 and 1867, the British Navy's Anti-slavery Squadron liberated 160 000
slaves. In 1845, 36 British vessels were assigned to this squadron.'
Looters and rioters who have no valid reason for rioting, can either be
permitted to do exactly as they wish - the absence of a police force would
allow that to happen. Invaders can be permitted to invade - the absence of
armed forces would allow that to happen. The frequency of invasion in the
history of the world is astonishing. Wikipedia gives a useful and
comprehensive
List of Invasions.
She hasn't any conception of the reasons for military discipline. It lies
well beyond the scope of her insight and experience.
She goes on to lambast sailors and soldiers, and here she becomes
insufferable, a prissy Sunday school teacher of a writer. She
criticizes sailors as 'indolent, when not discharging the ceremonials of
their station' and the 'active idleness' of soldiers - who were not always
marching long distances each day with a full pack, admittedly. She
criticizes sailors because they 'acquire a fondness for humour and
mischievous tricks.' But in the case of both soldiers and sailors, 'mind is
equally out of the question.' 'May I be allowed to extend the comparison to
a profession where more mind is certainly to be found.' Who are these
paragons? The clergy in fact - who aren't criticized for their idleness.
Women and
bullfighting, 'sexism' and cruelty
See
also my page Bullfighting: arguments against and action
against.
Above, Cristina Sánchez, who cut a total of 231
bulls' ears during her career, which began in 1993. (GNU Free Documentation
License.)
Karla Sanchez San Martin, a female bullfighter,
has said that 'she wants to inspire girls to fight sexism wherever
it occurs, as it is something she still faces in her chosen career.'
('The Indepenendent,' 4 January 2015.)
There
are feminists who would claim that the Spanish bullfighter Noelia Mota has
faced hideous sexism during her career. More importantly, infinitely more
importantly, Noelia Mota has inflicted hideous cruelty during her career.
Watching this film should leave not the slightest doubt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB8sPRXrOj4
The
film is the third part of a series which depicts scenes of
extreme cruelty. It shows Noelia Mota at last killing a bull, after repeated
stabbing at the spine.
She is a mounted bullfighter ('rejoneadora'),
by this stage
dismounted.
In the film which forms Part 1 of the series,
she is shown stabbing the
bull with the rejones de castigo (lances of punishment), which weaken the
bull. Then, she stabs the bull with banderillas, which
further weaken the bull. At 04:35
in
Part 2 of the series, she is shown stabbing the bull with the 'rejon
de muerte' ('lance of death') intended to kill the bull. She fails to kill
the animal. With the lance embedded in its back, the bull is subjected to a
long series of further stabbings, first with other lances, which again fail
to kill the bull. Assistants use capes to make the bull move its head from
side to side, in a failed attempt to make the lances cut a vital organ, a
standard technique. Then, she makes repeated use of a sword, the descabello,
in an attempt to sever the bull's spine. The descabello has a very sharp,
broad blade about 10 cm (4 in) long. The repeated stabbings with the
descabello continue in
the third part, the animal by now almost helpless. At 0:56
one of the lances of death is pulled out by a member of the audience. Soon
after the bull has died, one of the bull's ears is cut off (not shown in the film.) She
is awarded the ear as a trophy and throws it into the audience.
I don't know how many times Noelia Mota stabbed the
bull with the descabello. I haven't counted. This repeated hacking at the
spine, like the use of the capes to make the embedded sword cut a vital
organ, is very common. 'Alexander Fiske-Harrison, an apologist
for the bullfight, saw a bull
stabbed three times with the 'killing sword' but still alive, and then
stabbed repeatedly with the descabello. According to the 'bullfighting
critic' of the newspaper 'El Mundo' who counted the stabbings, the bull was
stabbed in the spine seventeen times before it died.'
Daniel Hannan, another apologist who isn't deterred by any of the scenes he's witnessed, writes
about the matador Talavante, 'who gave up trying to kill his first
bull after much dreich [Scots word meaning 'miserable,' most usually in
connection with weather] hewing with the descabello: 'I lost count after his
twelfth attempt.'
How is a feminist to approach bullfighting? Surely,
not in purely feminist terms, to call for an end to 'gender stereotyping' in
bullfighting, the assumption that a woman is less capable of fighting and
killing a bull in the bullring than men, to call for an end to 'gender
imbalance,' and to regard a world in which half the bullfighters are women
as a victory for feminism.
When feminists routinely stress the linkages
between women, they ignore the fact that time after time, it's the
linkages between men and women which are vastly more important.
There are women who, like myself, loathe
bullfighting, who regard it as depraved and disgusting.
Then there are women who attend bullfights and support bullfighting. There
are very large numbers of these. One of
them is Muriel Feiner, the author of 'Women and the Bullring.' The
description of the book on the site for Abebooks includes this:
'The story of Women and the Bullring is one
of daring and determined women who overcome countless obstacles and sexist
barriers to realize a unique dream--that of becoming a "matadora de toros."
In the first English translation of this award-winning book on the subject,
Muriel Feiner chronicles the struggle of women to become matadors--not only
Spanish and Latin American women but also American, French, and
British--from the 17th century to the present day. She also includes women
who have attempted to make inroads into the bullfighting world as bull
breeders, journalists, photographers, managers, artist, and impresarios, as
well as a section devoted to the wives and mothers of some of the most
prominent male toreros. Feiner's extensive research included interviews with
noteworthy authorities and with the protagonists themselves. The text is
complemented by an extraordinary collection of historical and recent
photographs. Feiner's investigation into the fears, frustrations,
determination, and motivations of these remarkable women provides a unique
insight into an often misunderstood spectacle.'
Muriel Feiner's book is endorsed, very
enthusiastically, by Allen Josephs (Muriel Feiner has endorsed Allen
Joseph's adulatory book on bullfighting just as enthusiastically): 'Muriel
Feiner's Women and the Bullring is a ground-breaking work - a
feminist treatise sprung from one of the last bastions of
male dominance.'
To all committed opponents of bullfighting, men or
women, feminist or non-feminist, these 'successes' won't be regarded as
anything like a triumph for feminism.
See also the account which forms part of
'Women of Achievement and Herstory'
www.thelizlibrary.org ('Compiled and Written by Irene Stuber who is
solely responsible for its content'):
'CONCHITA CINTRON, THE FIRST PROFESSIONAL WOMAN
BULLFIGHTER
'Conchita Cintron, is
recognized as the first woman to compete at a high professional level as a
bullfighter. In her lifetime she mastered over 1,200 bulls. ['mastered'
is a gross euphemism, of course: this includes killing, either
instantaneously, or, much more likely, not at all quickly. Another point:
'mastered' is a surprising word to find in a feminist diatribe.]
'She started in Lima, Peru at
age 12 in what was to be a lifetime struggle for recognition and respect
since bull fighting is one of the most macho sports there is in a culture
known for its machismo.
'However, she was so talented that she fought
in most of the great rings Europe.' [The word 'of' is missing in the original.]
As a matter of strict fact, many, many women attend
bullfights and there are many, many women who are aficionados. The most
prominent association of aficionados in this country is the Club Taurino of
London. The men who contribute to the club's journal, 'La Divisa,' outnumber
the women but not at all overwhelmingly. Diane Strange is one of them. She
wrote a piece which included reporting of 'El Toro de la Vega' in the
Spanish town of Tordesillas: an event which has a notorious reputation
amongst anti-bullfighting campaigners, for very good reasons. It involves
spearing and then killing a bull. In the photograph below, only some of the
spear wounds are shown, of course. I give further information about
the spearing of bulls at Tordesillas
on my page 'Bullfighting: arguments against and action against,'
including this brief summary: 'The bull is driven by horsemen wielding
spears from the town to a meadow. During the run, the horsemen are only
allowed to wound the bull. It's only when the badly wounded animal reaches
the meadow that it can be killed.'
Diane Strange's view of the multiple stab wounds
and the killing is a severely restricted one: she was only concerned about
another kind of view and another kind of restriction:
'By this time I was regretting my decision to
position myself so far away from the action. If we return another year, we
will certainly stand on the other side of the bridge to get a better view of
the action.' She knew what 'the event' involved but she records no
reflections, either troubled or otherwise, on its morality. The piece ends,
'A quick drink at a café and we made our way out of Tordesillas, and
back to the hotel to catch up on some much needed sleep.'
www.thebulltribune.org
(an excellent site, promoted by the outstanding Spanish organization ADDA,
'la Asociación Defensa Derechos Animal'
for 2011 in Tordesillas, and the protests against the disgusting spectacle,
as the Antibullfighting Tribune refers to it:
'This year, more than five hundred animal defenders
met in Tordesillas to protest against the macabre festival of Toro de la
Vega, where bulls are chased and speared to death ... This year one of the
bulls was named the Afflicted one after he fell to ground overcome by the
wounds inflicted on him by spears and, unfortunately for him, the person who
was supposed to kill him by severing the spinal cord did not appear. Instead
the crowd continued to spear him until one finally delivered the coup de
grace with a screwdriver. Another disgusting example from this disgusting
spectacle.'
'This year one of the bulls was named the Afflicted
one after he fell to ground overcome by the wounds inflicted on him by
spears and, unfortunately for him, the person who was supposed to kill him
by severing the spinal cord did not appear. Instead the crowd continued to
spear him until one finally delivered the coup de grace with a screwdriver.
Another disgusting example from this disgusting spectacle.'
Is the most important objection to the spearing of
the bull at Tordesillas its 'sexism:' only men take part. Is it essential
that women should be allowed to take part, preferably in equal numbers? Or
will radical feminists agree that often, there are non-feminist
considerations, moral and practical, which are not just very important but
which must, in fact, be given priority?
How would feminists belonging to one of the less
liberal schools of feminist thought judge Diane Strange, other women
aficionados, women members of the audience at bullfights, the women
bullfighters I discuss in this section, and other women bullfighters? As
inherently virtuous, or at least in a different, superior category from the
category of all men. Susan Brownmiller belongs to this school of thought (if
'thought' is applicable here). She believes that men use rape as a weapon
and that rape is 'a conscious process of
intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of
fear.' There are less deranged versions of feminism which still practise
{separation}, with approval for women and disapproval, or much worse, for
men, and deranged views comparable to Susan Brownmiller's, applied
with relentless, stupid and inhuman consistency. According to Susan
Brownmiller's view, it would seem, at Nazi extermination camps, the men kept
the women in a state of fear - the men who kept women in a state of fear
included the men about to be gassed as well as the men who did the gassing,
whilst the women supposedly kept in a state of fear included the women
camp guards, such as Irma Grese at Bergen-Belsen and Maria Mandel at
Auschwitz-Birkenau, whilst outside the camps, the men who 'kept women in a
state of fear' included members of the resistance to Nazism and men who
fought against Nazism, and the women who were kept in a state of fear
included Nazi women.
Other contributors to 'La Divisa' in recent
years are these women: Shelly Frape, Rosannah Smith, Elizabeth Schraft,
Draza Webb, Helen Leary, Diana Webb-Davies, Janet Fisher, Fiona Cook,
Barbara Jeffery, Helen Windrath, Lucy Burman, Mareta Sánchez, Fiona
Cook, Diana Thurston.
See also my page on
A L Kennedy. I strongly criticize her
book 'On Bullfighting,' but not the fiction of hers which I review. There's
an extract from my review of 'On Bullfighting' on my page, 'Bullfighting:
arguments against and action against.'
Some
groups and individuals have greater volume, as I put it. My page
Ireland and Northern Ireland: distortions and
illusions gives an extended criticism of the volume of Irish
nationalists. I write, 'According
to the mythology of Irish nationalists, nobody has suffered like the
Irish, nobody has exploited others like the English.' I subject the claim to
detailed examination and find it unjustified.
The earlier works of Nietzsche made
modest claims for his own importance. The later works were misguided not in
making very great claims for his own importance but for making distorted
claims. 'Ecce Hom' has the chapters entitled 'Why I am so wise,' 'Why I am
so clever' and 'Why I write such excellent books,' Nietzsche by now writing
at full volume.
My page
Bullfighting: arguments against and action
against includes criticism of 'the
romanticized exaggeration, the flagrant myth-making' of bullfighters and
bullfighting supporters, as I see it. For example, many of them give the
impression that the dangers of the bullring are extreme and that
bullfighters are the most courageous of people. In the section 'the courage
of the bullfighters' I show that this isn't so.
Similarly, feminism has its own
versions of flagrant myth-making, exaggeration and distortion.
Feminists have been loud - they have had great volume - but it's essential
not to leave feminist claims unexamined.
Feminism and animals: the contracting circle
'He would just state one case which had occurred at the Westminster
pit, it was a fight between an unlucky bear and a bull dog: the lower jaw of
the bear was torn off, and he was then not killed and put out of pain, but
allowed to languish in torment; the dog had its jugular artery cut, and
died. The wretched animals that survived one combat were brought out month
after month. He had seen one that had lived two years; its eyes were out,
its lip torn off, and the keepers said that it was necessary to shoot it at
last, as there was nothing left for the dogs to lay hold of.'
This is Richard Martin, speaking in a debate on 'bear baiting and other
cruel sports' in the House of Commons (Hansard, HC Deb 26 February 1824 vol
10 cc485-96). The Cruelty to Animals Act of 1835 banned bear-baiting
(bull-baiting had been banned in 1822.) The Act also furthered animal
protection and humane treatment of animals in other ways.
Bear-baiting has a very long history in this country. Women as well as
men went to see bears baited. Queen Elizabeth I had a passion for
bear-baiting. On 36 occasions, she vetoed laws passed by Parliament, as in
the case of a law passed in 1585 which prohibited hunting, cock-fighting and
bear-baiting from taking place on Sundays.
Taking seriously the suffering of animals - those animals which can be
regarded as sentient beings - challenges the priorities of very many
feminists: it becomes even harder to treat seriously the claim that women
have a monopoly or near-monopoly of suffering and exploitation if the
avoidable sufferings of animals are taken seriously. Very many of these
suffering animals suffer in ways which are surely far more severe than the
sufferings which are the staple of feminist claims. Feminists who
mechanically divide humanity into the virtuous - women, such as Queen
Elizabeth I - and the despotic - men, such as Richard Martin - have some
explaining to do.
Mary Wollstonecraft advocated kind treatment for animals, as her
'Original Stories from Real Life' of 1788 makes clear, but her advocacy was
vague and sentimental. She devoted none of her time and energy to opposing
bear-baiting or any other form of animal cruelty.
The campaign against the fur trade in this country tested the priorities
of very many feminists. Wearers of fur were overwhelmingly women
and criticism of the fur trade entailed criticism of women. The most
energetic and determined campaigning organization at the time was 'Lynx,'
founded by Lynne Kentish and Mark Glover. Lynx had no hesitation in
criticizing women in its poster campaign. It organized large-scale events in
which women models took part. Lynx was accused of 'sexism' by feminists. At
one of the events I attended, there was a protest by feminists outside the
hall, although not many of them - a man and a woman. No matter what the
issue, there are feminists who will automatically give precedence to the
feminist 'perspective.'
I played a part in this campaign - and other campaigns concerned with
other aspects of animal welfare:
Animal
welfare: arrest and activism. From this page, in connection with the
book 'Facts about Furs,' by Greta Nilsson and others:
'The images in the book are shocking, but the book doesn't make the mistake
of suggesting that an image can be any substitute for rational argument, the
presentation of evidence, although now, when I'm no longer involved in the
struggle to end the fur trade, the images do linger in the mind particularly.
Above all, the images which show the cruelties of the leghold trap (banned
in this country in 1958 but still permitted in most American states and Canada):
a beaver which chewed off both its front paws to escape the leghold trap,
a raccoon hanging by one leg from a trap, a large hole dug by a badger trying
to escape a leghold trap, a coyote dead of apparent starvation in a trap,
an animal with all its teeth broken, its jaw bone eroded in the struggle to
escape, a golden eagle, a swan and many pets caught, losing limbs or their
lives, a bobcat with protruding bones, a trapper killing a coyote by trampling
on it. Methods of killing trapped animals aren't regulated in most American
states. The cruelties involved in farmed fur are less obvious but real - keeping
animals in barren cages until the time comes for their asphyxiation, and all
for a completely unnecessary product.'
I've taken part in the campaign to end the battery cage over a long
period of time. The life of the battery chicken is extreme in its
deprivation and suffering, of course - the chicken given a space about the
size of an A4 sheet of paper, unable to extend a wing, often debeaked to
prevent it pecking the other chickens in the cage out of frustration, given
no veterinary treatment.
When feminists claim that nobody is as exploited as a woman - a gross
falsification applied to people, What if the circle is expanded? Are women
the most exploited of sentient beings? Are well-off women, are women in
middling circumstances, who buy battery chicken eggs to be pitied for their
sufferings?
Feminists in general approve of higher standards of animal welfare. (I
don't explain here my preference for 'animal welfare' rather than 'animal
rights.') Some feminists actively campaign for animal welfare. There are
many feminist vegetarians and vegans. But there are many feminists who claim that women's
degree of exploitation is unique: they are badly mistaken.
'Expanding the circle' is a phrase coined by William Lecky, an Irish
writer. In a book published in 1869, he wrote, 'At one time the benevolent
affections embrace merely the family, soon the circle expanding includes
first a class, then nation, then a coalition of nations, then all humanity
and finally, its influence is felt in the dealings of man with the animal
world.'
If feminists favour the extension of compassion to animals, there are
many of them who are unwilling to overlook the fact that it was a man who
wrote these words and who are less interested in the expanding circle than
in denouncing the blatant 'sexism' of 'man' in 'the dealings of man.'
The philosopher Peter Singer's influence on animal welfare has been
immense. His book 'Animal Liberation' described the sufferings of animals in
harrowing detail and gave impetus to the campaign to reduce it. The title of
his book 'The Expanding Circle' follows Lecky. Both Lecky and Singer,
to the most uncompromising feminists, are exploiters themselves, with the
mentality of rapists.
So is the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, to these people, even though he
advocated women's suffrage, long before the suffragettes and in advance of
Mary Wollstonecraft, and other women's causes. He saw animals as sentient
beings and wrote powerfully on behalf of animal rights. His breadth
can be contrasted with the narrowness of so many feminists, their lack of
concern for any people, for any sentient beings, other than women (with the
emphasis on the interests of feminists). He wrote,
'The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire
those rights which never could have been witholden from them but by the hand
of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the
skin is no reason a human being should be abandoned without redress to the
caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognised that the number
of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os
sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a
sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the
insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason or perhaps the faculty of
discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog, is beyond comparison a more
rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a
week or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would
it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk?
but, Can they suffer?'
These claims have become very, very influential in moral philosophy. The
philosopher J L Mackie, for example - who criticizes utilitarian thought,
particularly act utilitarianism, writes, 'A human disposition is a vital
part of the core of morality ... Such a disposition, if it exists,
naturally manifests itself in hostility to and disgust at cruelty and in
sympathy with pain and suffering wherever they occur.' This includes the
suffering of animals: ' ... we cannot be callous and indifferent, let alone
actively cruel ... towards non-human animals.' ('Ethics: Inventing
Right and Wrong'. Chapter 8: Practical morality, section 8: Extensions of
morality.)
Peter Singer failed to take into account some difficulties in expanding
the circle of moral concern. Its expansion weakens feminism's claims to a
monopoly or near-monopoly of exploitation, or at least shifts attention from
these claims.
A feminist who conceded that the suffering of a battery chicken is greater
than that of a very prosperous woman with many, many advantages, forced to
live in a liberal democracy which she interprets as 'sexist' and who was determined
to act against might, hypothetically, go on to formulate a 'gender-based animal
rights programme.' This would be disastrously misguided.
She (or he - after all, there are males who advocate feminist ideology) might
advocate vigorous campaigning against the factory farming of battery chickens,
female, but not against the factory farming of male chickens reared for their
meat. She, or he, would campaign against the confinement of cows in 'zero
grazing' systems, in which cows are confined indoors for life, with no access
to fields, but not against systems which cause suffering to the males of the
species. The female calves born to cows have value for milk production, but
not the male calves. In many, countries, the male calves are confined to veal
crates, without even the comfort of bedding, without even the opportunity
to turn round. Cows are occasionally used in bullfights. The feminist would
oppose these bullfights, but not the usual kind, in which only the males,
the bulls, are repeatedly stabbed before killing them.
Lisa Kemmerer, of Montana State University Billings - someone whose
delusions it would take a very long time to discuss - does mention on her
Website
http://www.lisakemmerer.com/presentations.html
'Sister Species explores the relationships between various forms of
oppression, highlighting similarities between the exploitation of female
humans and the exploitation of female nonhumans.' What her attitude is
towards bullfighting I'm not sure. Bulls are perhaps viewed as inconvenient
for her theory.
For more on Lisa Kemmerer's vegan views, see my page
Veganism: arguments against.
The morality of this hypothetical programme, the moral depth of this hypothetical
programme, is obviously subject to severe {restriction}. Almost always, animal
welfare activists, and those who call themselves animal rights activists,
aren't guided by considerations like these. Sentient beings capable of suffering
are the subject of their concern, not the suffering of a gender. Those people
who give most of their time and energy to ending the gross abuse of battery
chickens aren't oblivious to the suffering of male animals.
In attacking human suffering, a 'gender-based' approach would usually be
just as limited as in this hypothetical example. To cite examples which are
mentioned on this page, slavery and serfdom were opposed and ended by people
who recognized the suffering of male and female slaves, the death penalty
has been opposed, and ended, in the majority of the countries of the world,
by people who recognized the suffering of male and female prisoners under
sentence of death and their suffering, so often, during the process of execution.
Bonds: famine, families, Sophie Scholl, mining, happiness
Linkages include bonds,
including the bonds formed by bitter experience. Often, these tie men and
women together far more closely than the ties of men to other men and women
to other women. Radical feminists isolate linkages between women,
they treat the linkage of 'gender' as always the most important. Often, this
amounts to a complete distortion. A feminist who claims or assumes that she's
speaking for 'women' is more often than not speaking for women similar to
herself, not women whose experiences are vastly different.
There are many communities
with relative unity of outlook and feeling. Feminists outside those communities aren't
speaking for women within those communities. Usually, they have not the least
conception of the difficulties they face. The women whose husbands or partners
go to fight in Afghanistan won't take seriously the idea that these husbands
or partners are oppressors. The inconvenient fact, for feminists, is that
these soldiers are doing a very great deal for women, facing risks of course
beyond the experience of most Western feminists. See also the next section,
Feminism and the Taliban.
'By the waters of Doo Lough we lay down and slept'
During
The Great Famine in Ireland, six hundred starving men, women and
children walked from Louisburgh in County Mayo to Delphi Lodge to ask,
unsuccessfully, for famine relief. Many of them died on the way back, below
the stark mountains which overlook Doo Lough. Searing experiences such as
these establish linkages which are vastly more significant than any linkage
between a starving woman and a prosperous woman, or between a starving man
and a prosperous man.
The linkages between Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans - they were
guillotined by the Nazis on the same day for membership of the White Rose
group, which protested against the Nazis - were far more significant than
the linkage of gender between Sophie Scholl and the wife of Goebbels or the
linkage of gender between Hans Scholl and Goebbels.
I quote from the account given in William L Shirer's 'The Rise and Fall
of the Third Reich:'
'The University of Munich, the city that had given birth to Nazism,
became the hotbed of student revolt. It was led by a twenty-five year-old
medical student, Hans Scholl, and his twenty-one-year-old sister Sophie, who
was studying biology. Their mentor was Kurt Huber, a professor of
philosophy. By means of what became known as the 'White Rose Letters' they
carried out their anti-Nazi propaganda in other universities; they were also
in touch with the plotters in Berlin.'
'...the students, led by the Scholls, began to distribute pamphlets
calling on German youth to rise. On February 19 a building superintendent
observed Hans and Sophie Scholl hurling their leaflets from the balcony of
the university and betrayed them to the Gestapo.'
'Their end was quick and barbaric. Haled before the dreaded People's
Court, which was presided over by its president, Roland Freisler...they were
found guilty of treason and condemned to death. Sophie Scholl was handled so
roughly during her interrogation by the Gestapo that she appeared in court
with a broken leg. But her spirit was undimmed. To Freisler's savage
browbeating she answered calmly, 'You know as well as we do that the war is
lost. Why are you so cowardly that you won't admit it?'
She hobbled on her crutches to the scaffold and died with sublime
courage, as did her brother. Professor Huber and several other students were
executed a few days later.'
There are photographs of the female camp guards and the male camp guards
taken after the liberation of Belsen concentration camp. One of them is
shown in Tom Bower's 'Blind Eye to Murder,' which is about the failure of
Britain and America to prosecute Nazi war crimes effectively, except in
limited cases. Anne Frank died at Belsen. Any bonds of gender between Anne
Frank and the female guards are irrelevant. Feminism is irrelevant here.
To return to coal-mining, women worked in the mines in this country until
the passing of the Mines Act in 1842. The men and the women working
underground had this in common: they did backbreaking work in complete or
almost complete darkness, breathing in coal dust, constantly at risk of
severe injury or death by explosion, crushing or drowning. These linkages
were vastly more significant than the linkage between the women toiling in
the mines and the wife of a colliery owner or an aristocratic woman. During
the last miners' strike in this country, there were linkages between the
miners' wives and Mrs Thatcher based on gender, but the linkages based on
shared hardships in the mining communities were far more significant.
There was no linkage of sympathy and empathy between a woman novelist,
George Eliot, and the miners, including the miners' wives. 'George Eliot's
approach in her novel Felix Holt the Radical is reasonably typical. She
introduces the miners into the story as an ignorant mob, preyed on by every
kind of agitator, frequently drunk and often riotous. Although they play an
important role, they never emerge as characters nor do we ever learn
anything about either their work or their lives away from work.' ('The
Miners.') The miners and their wives had bonds, George Eliot had no bonds
with the miners' wives except 'gender,' which radical feminists would count
as the most important bond of all.
An extract from Anthony Burton's 'The Miners' about the rescue of five
men trapped underground at Tynewydd Pit in 1877, to illustrate not just
these bonds but the heroism of the rescuers - these men, like other men,
would be dismissed as 'useless' or 'no more than rapists' by lunatic
feminists - of whom there are many. The rescue was the subject of a book by
an eyewitness, Charles Williams, 'Buried Alive!'
'Between the rescuers and the trapped men there was a 38-yard barrier of
coal, which could only be approached down roadways turned into a vast
underground sea. The alternative was to try and reach them through the main
floodwater, and divers came who volunteered to attempt to travel the 257
yards of passages flooded from floor to ceiling. They tried and failed. It
was clear that if there was to be a rescue, then a way would have to be
forced through the coal barrier ...'
[After many difficult operations, complicated by gas seeping into the
workings] 'All through the rescue operation, the men kept continuously at
the task ... They worked under the double threat of inundation or explosion,
but no one hesitated ... on the Friday, the attempt was made. The coal-face
was broken in, gas and air rushed out like a hurricane, and, before the
waters could fill their refuge, the five prisoners were pulled to safety.
'The Tynewydd accident was not exceptionally bad, nor the rescue
exceptionally heroic: it is mainly notable for having been so carefully
recorded. But death and injury were familiar enough in every mining village,
and the endurance, the carelessness of danger shown by the rescuers, were
repeated a hundredfold with no one on hand to record them. Although Williams
hardly mentions it, this common experience of sharing hardship, of facing
death, drew the mining community together by uniquely strong bonds. when the
news of a pit accident reached the village, everyone felt it as a personal
disaster. Each wife knew that her husband or her sons stood in the same
danger. So too, the rescuers were working to save friends and relations.
These strong bonds were reinforced by the nature of the mining village and
its community. They were isolated, with the mine often the only source of
employment. Miners, looked upon almost as a race apart, ignored by the rest
of the world, were content to draw inwards, to make their own lives.
Probably only the fishing villages, which shared the same sense of isolation
and shared danger and loss, could show a comparable unity of outlook and
feeling.'
Happiness and unhappiness are different communities of feeling. Ludwig
Wittgenstein wrote in Proposition 6.43 of the 'Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus,' 'Die Welt des Glücklichen ist eine andere als die des
Unglücklichen.' C K Ogden translates this, accurately but not gracefully, as
'The world of the happy is quite another than that of the unhappy.' I would
give this as one interpretation, which of course leaves out all the possible
reasons for being happy or unhappy:
'The world of the happy woman is different from the world of the unhappy
woman. The world of the unhappy woman is similar to the world of the unhappy
man.'
Feminism, the Taliban and the
shooting of schoolgirls
To expect British feminists of a certain kind - the predominant
kind - to admire the courage of British armed forces in Afghanistan would be
asking the impossible. To expect these feminists to admire and put on
record their admiration for the courage of women members of the armed forces
serving in Afghanistan is asking too much.
Some instances of harsh reality are freely discussed and condemned, such
as the domestic violence of men against women (but not the violence of women
against men - that particular demonstrable fact goes unexamined, the
arguments of anti-feminists which point it out go unanswered.)
Will feminists whose main concern is 'sexism' in this country, including
the sexism faced by women who are pampered, be able to maintain their
self-image much longer if they go on ignoring a wider world of
harshness?
Malala Yousafzai, 14 years old, was shot in the head by the Taliban for
espousing secular values. The incident should have aroused an upsurge
of comment in feminist blogs and websites throughout the world, including
ones where the focus of attention is 'patronising language' and similar
issues - or if not this incident, others which are similar.
This is from the BBC's account:
'Miss Yousafzai came to public attention in 2009 by writing a diary for
BBC Urdu about life under Taliban militants who had taken control of the
valley.
'She earned the admiration of many across Pakistan
for her courage in speaking out about life under the rule of Taliban
militants, correspondents say.
'She was just 11 when she started her diary, two years after the Taliban
took over the Swat Valley and ordered girls' schools to close.
'The group captured the Swat Valley in late 2007 and remained in de facto
control until they were driven out by Pakistani military forces during an
offensive in 2009.
'While in power they closed girls' schools, promulgated Sharia law and
introduced measures such as banning the playing of music in cars.
'In the diary, written under the pen-name Gul Makai for the BBC's Urdu
service, she exposed the suffering caused by the militants.
'Her identity emerged after the Taliban were driven out of Swat and she
later won a national award for bravery, while being nominated for an
international children's peace award.
'Since the Taliban were ejected, there have been isolated militant
attacks in Swat but the region has largely remained stable and many of the
thousands of people who fled during the Taliban years have returned.'
The Taliban were driven out of the Swat valley, of course, by military
action.
A simple, direct question for radical feminists. Should Western military
action in Afghanistan continue or be ended as soon as possible? Bear this in
mind:
Under the Taliban, 4 - 5% of Afghan children received primary education,
virtually none of them girls. Now, about half of Afghan children do, about a
third of them girls. If the Taliban can be driven out of the areas they
still control - by the use of military force, unless radical feminist have a
better idea - then the number of girls being educated will rise. If Western
armed forces are withdrawn before the Afghan forces are ready, then the
Taliban will surely defeat the Afghan armed forces. (But radical feminists
may well view the Afghan army, like the coalition forces, as one more
manifestation of 'patriarchy.' They are paying a heavy price. At least 616
Afghan national army members were killed in a two month period in 2012.) If
the Taliban take control of Afghanistan, then the plight of girls and women
(and males) will be extreme. As it is, the Taliban burn school books, bomb
schools, murder teachers and plant bombs that kill civilians. The number of
civilians killed unintentionally by coalition troops is vastly exceeded by
the number of civilians killed by the Taliban.
Radical feminists prefer posturing and pontificating, are fond of
quoting, some of them, Hélène Cixous or Judith Butler or other feminist
luminaries, like the sound of like 'logocentric' and 'phallogocentric'
(see my discussion of
Fran Brearton) - far more pleasant and congenial activities than
answering legitimate objections, accounting for inconvenient facts, engaging
with reality, which is so much harsher and so much more unfair than they
suppose, no more designed to fit radical feminist conceptions than Christian
ones.
Whether it was advisable or not to go into Afghanistan in the first place
is a separate issue. The case for intervention is much stronger than is
often supposed. As a matter of strict fact, Western armies were engaged
there.
I see every reason why radical feminists should be intensely grateful to
these soldiers, whose achievement is all the greater if we remember the
massive dangers they face, but of course there isn't the least chance that
they will be grateful. But to repeat the question, should Western military
action in Afghanistan continue or be ended as soon as possible?
Faced by a situation of extreme difficulty, asked to state how they would
resolve the difficulty, if that is possible at all, or how they would at
least make it less extreme - lessen its harshness - ideologists often make
use of a simple tactic - why, if people had only followed our beliefs, they
claim, the difficulty would never have occurred in the first place! So, many
vegan ideologists show no interest in opposing factory farming of
animals. If people had only followed a vegan diet, there would be no factory
farming of animals, or any farming of animals for that matter. If the world
would only listen to feminists, there would be no such thing as injustice
and barbarity. (But it's highly likely that a vegan feminist world - a
complete impossibility, surely - would never have developed the heavy
lifting machinery to help people trapped under fallen buildings after an
earthquake, or the lorries and helicopters to bring aid to earthquake
victims. I give earthquake victims as an example because earthquakes are one
catastrophe, which have killed millions, for which even feminists can't hold
patriarchy responsible.) The solving of such technical problems isn't in
general uppermost in the minds of feminists and vegans.
This was long before the British army went to Afghanistan, but some
feminist graffiti which appeared on the walls of the army barracks near here
typify the glibness, superficiality, simple-mindedness of radical feminists:
'All war is war on women.' 'War - men make it, women take it.' 'Take the
toys from the boys.' When they write at enormous length, the writing isn't
always less glib, superficial and simple-minded.
At the time of the graffiti, the most recent operation of the British
army had been the one in Northern Ireland. I discuss the
British army and terrorism in connection with Seamus Heaney's 'The Toome
Road.' Before that, there was the British army's part in defeating fascism,
with weapons, of course, not 'toys.' Radical feminists would do well to
refresh their memory on such matters as Nazism and the Holocaust by reading
some histories of the subject. Fran Brearton's glib comment on the
'emasculation' of British soldiers becomes much worse than glib in the
context of The Second World War. I discuss it in the link above.
As a matter of strict fact - although radical feminists show few signs of
caring very much for the world of strict facts - men have 'taken it' very,
very often in war, if the number of casualties is any criterion, and it is.
The name of the barracks is a reminder of that: 'The Somme Barracks.'
The Taliban have been shooting other schoolgirls. Schoolgirls helping
with the campaign to eradicate polio in Pakistan by vaccination have been
killed, along with adult workers. Feminists who say that all men are useless
would do well to consider the case of Jonas Salk, the American medical
researcher who developed the first polio vaccine. If gratitude to such
benefactors is out of the question, they might just be able to modify their
inhuman and inhumane stupidity, which treats the conquerors of infectious
disease as simply agents of patriarchy, or even would-be rapists. This is
from the Wikipedia entry for Jonas Salk:
'Until 1955, when the Salk vaccine was introduced, polio was
considered the most frightening public health problem of the post-war
United States. Annual epidemics were
increasingly devastating. The 1952 epidemic was the worst outbreak in the
nation's history. Of nearly 58,000 cases reported that year, 3,145 people
died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis,[1] with
most of its victims being children. The "public reaction was to a plague,"
said historian William O'Neill. "Citizens of urban areas were to be
terrified every summer when this frightful visitor returned."
...
' ... The field trial set up to test the Salk vaccine was, according to
O'Neill, "the most elaborate program of its kind in history, involving
20,000 physicians and public health officers, 64,000 school personnel, and
220,000 volunteers." Over 1,800,000 school children took part in the trial.[3] When
news of the vaccine's success was made public on April 12, 1955, Salk was
hailed as a "miracle worker," and the day "almost became a national
holiday." His sole focus had been to develop a safe and effective vaccine as
rapidly as possible, with no interest in personal profit.
...
"If Salk the scientist sounds austere", wrote The New York Times, "Salk
the man is a person of great warmth and tremendous enthusiasm. People who
meet him generally like him." A Washington newspaper correspondent
commented, "He could sell me the Brooklyn Bridge, and I never bought
anything before." Award-winning geneticist Walter Nelson-Rees called him "a
renaissance scientist: brilliant, sophisticated, driven... a fantastic
creature."
He enjoys talking to people he likes, and "he likes a lot of people",
wrote the Times. "He talks quickly, articulately, and often in complete
paragraphs." And, notes the Times, "He has very little perceptible interest
in the things that interest most people—such as making money."
Women in traditional Moslem societies
The incandescent fury of radical feminists when they attack the
'oppression' of women is more often than directed at the alleged failings of
liberal democracies, not at the harshness of traditional Moslem societies
and traditional Moslem enclaves in liberal democracies. When they attack
'sexism,' they are more likely to be referring to slights, real or
imaginary, or disadvantages, real or imagined, which are worse than slights
but which fall well short of such practices as honour killings or the
beating of wives which is recommended in the Qu'ran. This is Sura 4.34,
translated by Dawood:
' As for those [women] from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and
send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no
further action against them. Surely God is high, supreme.'
This has advantages for them. It allows them to maintain their
self-image. But this is moral cowardice.
Feminism isn't an adequate basis for opposing the injustices and abuses
of traditional Moslem societies, or in general other injustices and abuses.
A radical feminist view of social and economic history which finds
horrifying the atrocious labour of girls in mines in this country and finds
nothing wrong in the atrocious labour of boys in mines at the same time -
and later, when girls no longer worked underground - is worse than
inadequate. A radical feminist view of Moslem punishment which finds
horrifying the stoning to death of women but not the stoning to death of men
is shockingly inadequate.
Broadly based opposition to Islamism is far better than the
selective opposition which recognizes only the harm done to women, not at
all to men. Broadly based humanitarianism is far better than selective
humanitarianism. Qur'an 24:2: "The woman and the man guilty of adultery or
fornication,- flog each of them with a hundred stripes: Let not compassion
move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if ye believe in
Allah and the Last Day: and let a party of the Believers witness their
punishment."
Hirsi Ali, the Somali former Moslem who is an outspoken critic of Islam
and whose life is still threatened, is one of those women whose criticism of
Islam goes well beyond a specifically feminist one. She has said that Islam
is 'not compatible with the liberal society that has resulted from the
Enlightenment.' I fully agree.
When Salman Rushdie's life was threatened by Moslem fanatics, many, many
writers committed themselves to opposing this assault on free speech.
Germaine Greer (the author, of course, of 'The Female Eunuch') wasn't one of
them. She refused to support Salman Rushdie.
In the traditional Moslem societies where there is gross injustice in the
treatment of women, women who oppose the injustice are outnumbered by women
who are willing accomplices. The practice of female genital circumcision is
perhaps the most dramatic illustration, practised in various non-Moslem
societies as well as in some Moslem societies.
As a matter of strict fact, in societies where female genital
circumcision is practised, the women generally carry out the operation,
which leaves the woman, very often, with medical problems for life. There
are growing numbers of men who try to stop women carrying out circumcision.
One case was reported in 'The Times.' A man identified as 'Abdi' tried to
stop his wife 'from circumcising their two daughters, aged 2 and 4. She
called him from Somalia while on holiday to say she wanted to carry out the
procedure.
'But he refused to be swayed, despite his wife’s argument that the girls
would improve their chances of attracting a good husband because they would
be perceived as being more traditional and pure.
'It is women who believe in the concept as their duty to look after their
children,” said Abdi, who is also aware of prospective mother-in-laws
examining their sons’ future brides to ensure they are circumcised.
'Women “fear that if they don’t circumcise their daughters then they
won’t be able to get them married”, he said.
Here are six translations of Sura 4: 34 in the Qur'an quoted from
http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-wife-beating-koran-4-34.htm:
-
"Men are superior to women on account of the qualities with which God
has gifted the one above the other, and on account of the outlay they
make from their substance for them. Virtuous women are obedient,
careful, during the husband's absence, because God has of them been
careful. But chide those for whose refractoriness you have cause to
fear; remove them into beds apart, and scourge them: but if they are
obedient to you, then seek not occasion against them: verily, God is
High, Great!" (Rodwell's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)
-
"Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior
to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good
women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has
guarded them. As for those from whom you fear
disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.
Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. Surely God
is high, supreme." (Dawood's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)
-
"Men are in charge of women, because Allah has made the one of them
to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the
support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret
that which Allah has guarded. As for those from whom you fear
rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart,
and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them.
Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great." (Pickthall's version of the
Koran, Quran, 4:34) [The copy of this translation which I have varies
from this modernized version, with 'hath' instead of 'has' and 'ye'
instead of 'you.']
-
"Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that God has
preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have
expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient,
guarding the secret for God's guarding. And those you fear may be
rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them. If
they then obey you, look not for any way against them; God is All high,
All great." (Arberry's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)
-
"Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them
to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good
women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded;
and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them,
and leave them alone in their sleeping places and beat them; then if
they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High,
Great. (Shakir's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)
-
"Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has
given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support
them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly
obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what Allah would have
them guard. As to those women on whom part you fear disloyalty and ill
conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and
last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not
against them means (of annoyance) for Allah is Most High, Great (above
you all). (Ali's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34)
But to be outraged in this case or to oppose these religious beliefs,
would be to confront dissonance. As a result, many, many feminists are
silent - for once.
The patriarchy thesis and some very powerful women
Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I in the Long Gallery at Hardwick Hall,
commisioned by Bess of Hardwick. © Richard Croft and licensed for reuse
under a Creative Commons Licence
The Empress Maria Theresa, ruler of the
Habsburg dominions,
the sovereign ruler of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Transylvania,
Mantua, Milan, Galicia, Lodomeria, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma.
Above, equestrian portrait of Empress Elizabeth
of Russia
Above, equestrian portrait of Empress Catherine
the Great of Russia
Radical feminists generally give the impression that 'patriarchy' has
been a constant in the recorded history of government, in the recorded
history of the world. They fail to mention the extended
periods of 'non-patriarchal' government, the vast power and influence which
women have so often exercised. They give the utterly false impression that
in all times and in all places women have been downtrodden.
In democracies, a female Prime Minister or President is subject to checks
and balances. Instructive examples come from the Age of Absolutism, when the
Empress was subject to far less {restriction} in her policies and actions.
From these examples, it would be impossible to conclude that women make a
mess of government whenever they are given the chance. Maria Theresa,
Empress of Austria, and Elizabeth and Catherine the Great, Tsarinas of
Russia, were all strong and effective rulers, the Russian Tsarinas quite
enlightened rulers, for their time, but none of them promoted the freedoms
of women more than any 'patriarchal' rulers. None of them promoted the
freedoms of men and women more than any 'patriarchal' rulers. 'Patriarchy'
has achieved far more. More often than not, reality is desperately harsh -
or awkward and inconvenient. Reality hardly ever flatters utopian,
sentimental or naive illusions, such as those of radical feminists. Their
very strong interest in women who reach positions of power and influence and
ensuring that there are more of them isn't accompanied by any strong
interest in the success or failure of these women, their strengths and
weaknesses. The very notion that there can be such a thing as female failure
and female weakness is an affront to believers in the inherent virtuousness
of women. This is truly living in illusion and estrangement from reality.
The only form of female weakness which is acknowledged is the weakness of
women who fail to see the attraction of radical feminism and the women who
sell out to men, by, for example, posing for advertisements, with the
extenuating circumstance that it's men who bear the main responsibility.
It isn't possible to do justice to the achievements and limitations of
the three Empresses here, but I mention some facts which suggest
falsification of some radical feminist interpretations.
Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia,
ruled the Habsburg empire between 1740 and 1780 - four decades of
non-patriarchal rule. She was succeeded by her eldest son, Joseph II. Like
any representative of patriarchy, she was preoccupied for long periods of
time with military matters - the Seven Years' War, for example - but here
domestic policies were more instructive, for the purposes of the discussion
here, and the contrasts between her domestic policies and those of Joseph
II.
Toleration for people with religious beliefs different from the state
religion and toleration for people with no religious beliefs, the toleration
taken for granted now in liberal democracies, was originally denied. It was
dangerous, it required courage and a revolution in outlook to bring it
about. The Enlightenment gave the powerful ideas of toleration, the rulers
of Europe adopted those ideas enthusiastically, cautiously or not at all.
Maria Theresa, a Roman Catholic, was virulently anti-semitic and loathed
Protestantism. She rejected religious toleration completely. The
Enlightenment also promoted humanitarianism. In penal reform, Beccaria and
his circle in Milan - representatives of 'patriarchy' - were the most
important of all advocates of humanitarianism, such as the abolition of
torture. The legal system, codified in the 'Constitutio Criminalis
Theresiana' which came into force in Austria and Bohemia, allowed the use of
torture and criminalised witchcraft
From the Wikipedia entry:
'She was particularly concerned with the sexual
morality of her subjects. Thus, she established a Chastity Commission (Keuschheitskommission)
in 1752 to clamp down on prostitution, homosexuality, adultery and even sex
between members of different religions. This Commission cooperated closely
with the police, and the Commission even employed secret agents to
investigate private lives of men and women with bad reputation.They were
authorised to raid banquets, clubs, and private gatherings, and to arrest
those suspected of violating social norms. The punishments included
whipping, deportation, or even the death penalty.'
The reforms of Joseph II improved the lives of men and women in the
Hapsburg Empire dramatically. In 1781, a year after succeeding Maria
Theresa, he abolished serfdom and an edict of toleration gave Protestant and
Greek Orthodox subjects almost complete equality with Roman Catholics. In
1782, the Jews of the Empire also had their rights recognized to a large
extent. His codes of criminal law (1787) abolished torture and even the
death penalty, a very rare accomplishment in the eighteenth century, but one
shared by the Empress Catherine. Both, though, made use of punishments which
were not intended to cause death but did cause death almost as certainly as
by execution - forced labour of a very severe kind in the Hapsburg Empire
and such punishments as running the gauntlet in Russia.
The most serious humanitarian objection to the rule of the Empress
Elizabeth and the Empress Catherine the Great concerns their failure to
abolish serfdom in Russia. When she dismissed her lover Lavadovsky in 1777,
Catherine gave him, by way of recompense, money - and 4 000 peasants, men
and women. It was a representative of patriarchy, Alexander II, although
much later, who ended serfdom. In 1861, he freed the serfs from private
estates and household serfs. In 1866, he freed the state-owned serfs.
In this country, Queen Elizabeth I was hardly the exploited victim
beloved of so many feminists, including feminist scholars, nor was Mary I of
Scotland (Mary Queen of Scots.) The conflicts between these two, which ended
with Queen Elizabeth's decision to sign Mary's death warrant and the
beheading of Mary in 1587, would require considerable ideological 'analysis'
to explain in feminist terms. Reality (including harsh historical reality)
undermines ideology.
Mary Queen of Scots ('Bloody Mary') came to the throne in 1553. The
restoration of the Roman Catholic Church in England was her great aim and
she began a relentless persecution of protestants. In 1555, a protestant was
burnt alive in full view of his wife and children. In the next five years,
over 300 protestants were burned. Torture was used extensively, with no
exemption, of course, for women. This reign of terror took precedence over
the economy, which was neglected, leading to severe hardship.
In those distant centuries, well before the Birth of Feminism, women who
weren't a Queen or an Empress were able to accumulate vast wealth and
exercise enormous influence, far beyond the reach of most men of the time.
Bess of Hardwick is an instructive example Hardwick Hall is not so far from
here, across the county border in Derbyshire. The Hall is owned by the
National Trust and open to the public. There's an excellent National
Trust guide to the hall and its remarkable builder - except that Hardwick,
like the seven gates of Thebes in Bertolt Brecht's poem 'Fragen eines
lesenden Arbeiters,' was built by toiling men, quarrying the stone, hauling
the stone, lifting up the stone. This is the beginning of the poem, in my
translation:
Who built seven-gated Thebes?
In books stand the names of kings.
Did the kings haul the blocks of stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed -
who rebuilt the city so many times?
This is from the section 'The fruits of ambition' in the guide:
'With her second marriage Bess emerged from obscurity, and the main
aspects of her character became clear. She was capable, managing,
acquisitive, a businesswoman, a money-maker [but the greater part of her
money had been made by one man or another - above all her fourth husband,
the immensely rich Earl of Shrewsbury], a land-amasser, a builder of great
houses, an indefatigable collector of the trappings of wealth and power, and
inordinately ambitious, both for herself and her children ... She was
immensely tough ... Her amazing vitality carried her unflaggingly through
her four marriages and widowhood to her death in her eighties, immensely
rich and still formidable.'
In the same era, but in a very different society - on the wild west coast
of Ireland - women could achieve power and influence. Feminists,
include the biography of Grace O' Malley, the pirate queen, in your thinking
(or, not with condescension but with anger, 'thinking') about patriarchy.
This is the account in 'Ireland: The Rough Guide:'
'Grace O' Malley, or Gráinne Ni Mháille (c. 1530 - 1600; often corrupted
to Granuaile), was the daughter of Owen O' Malley, chief of the west coast
islands. Through fearless and non-too-scrupulous warfare and piracy, she
made herself queen of the Clew Bay area when he died. She effectively
controlled the vigorous trade between Galway and the Continent, as well as
running a lucrative business importing Scottish mercenaries for chieftains'
wars against Elizabeth I and their cattle-rustling and plundering. She
earned her place in Irish legend by being one of the few Irish chiefs to
stand up to the English.
' ... When she met Elizabeth I in London in 1593, she insisted on being
treated as her regal equal. However, always a canny tactician, Grace
switched sides when she realized she couldn't beat the English, and her son
was created first Viscount Mayo. Continually mentioned in sixteenth-century
dispatches, her exploits included dissolving her Celtic secular marriage to
her second husband, Sir Richard Burke of Mayo, by slamming the castle door
in his face and then stealing all his castles.'
Living in illusion and making excuses blight the thinking of so many
feminists. If anything is likely to make achievement difficult or
impossible, it's the ideological belief that 'sexism' or 'patronising
language' hold back women at every turn. Why can't a woman open a garage and
service and repair cars? The patronising language of motor-parts suppliers
and male customers? If so many obstacles could be overcome centuries ago,
far more so now, when such measures as 'affirmative action' are commonplace.
Except that affirmative action is itself an obstacle, giving some people the
impression that sustained hard work, often great abilities and the ability
to face risk can be dispensed with.
'It was, of course, the period of Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher and
thus of the near defeat of organized labour within both the U.S. and Britain
...' This is the feminist writer Rosalind C. Morris, in 'Can the Subaltern
Speak? Reflections on the History of an Idea.' ('Can the Subaltern Speak?'
is the title of an essay by the Marxist - feminst- post-colonial studies
writer Gayatri Spivak.)
The linkage of politics between Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher is an
instance of cross-linkage, as I term it. The linkage of 'gender' between
Margaret Thatcher and female feminists is important but outweighed by the
massive contrasts. So much of life is like this - considerations of gender
may not be primary at all. Putting women into senior positions puts highly
competent and incompetent women, clear-sighted and deluded women into senior
positions - but feminists and non-feminists are certain to disagree about
the criteria of clear-sightedness and delusion.
Rosalind Morriis ought to have paused at this point and given some
evidence. As regards Margaret Thatcher, it can be argued that her labour
policies were realistic and courageous, disastrous and devoid of insight. (A
verdict on the 'community charge' or 'poll tax' need not be ambiguous in the
least. The 'community charge' provided for a single flat-rate per-capita tax
on every adult, at a rate set by the local authority. It promoted
egalitarianism of the worst kind - the rich and the poor paying equal
amounts. Its effects were destructive.) The power of some trade unions was
excessive, and she showed great determination in opposing it. She
showed no insight into the pride and strength of the mining communities but
understood very well the disastrously misguided leadership of Arthur
Scargill, the leader of the National Union of Miners.
From 'The Guardian,' 12 March 2009:
'The former
Labour leader Neil Kinnock today accused
Arthur Scargill of "suicidal vanity" and said that his
leadership of the miners' strike was a "gift" to the then prime
minister
Margaret Thatcher.
'In a devastating critique of the dispute that split the
nation 25 years ago, Lord Kinnock said Scargill was responsible
for the "ruthless exploitation" of the solidarity displayed on
the picket lines.
...
'Kinnock reiterated his regret that he did not call publicly
for a national strike ballot. "A ballot would have been won for
the strike," he said. "What it would have done is guarantee
unity right across the mining labour force."
'The former Labour leader added: "The strike was ruined the
minute it was politicised and in the mind of Arthur Scargill it
was always a political struggle … He fed himself the political
illusion that as long as the miners were united they had the
right to destabilise and overthrow the democratically elected
government."
' "The miners didn't deserve him, they deserved much, much
better. My view is Margaret Thatcher and Arthur Scargill
deserved each other. But no-one else did."
'Praising the "raw courage" of rank and file union members,
Kinnock argued that had the coal industry survived, advances in
new cleaner coal technologies would "have been at a much more
advanced state now".'
Arthur Scargill, like so many feminists, believed in the
overwhelming importance of ideological purity.
The complexity of reality requires a far from simple
response. The different feminisms are simple-minded responses.
The conflicts between these feminisms reflect the complexity of
reality. Angela Merkel is to me a very strong, very competent
political leader. There are feminists who would agree and
feminists who would strongly disagree. Angela Merkel would be
regarded as a tool of capitalism by Marxist feminists, for
example. In the confrontation between Arthur Scargill and
Margaret Thatcher, Marxist feminists would support the man
rather than the woman. Harriet Harman, a vastly less impressive
politician, has claimed that it's not possible to be a
conservative as well as a feminist.
Slavery and serfdom
Many, many men, as well as many, many women, have been 'the property' of
- women. ' ... at the beginning of the nineteenth century an estimated
three-quarters of all people alive were trapped in bondage against their
will either in some form of slavery or serfdom.' (David P Forsythe,
'Encyclopedia of Human Rights.' Oxford University Press.) Slavery and other
forms of bondage have been dominant realities in virtually every century of
recorded history.
The male slaves listed as being for sale in the poster above (from 1829)
- Hannibal and William - and the female slave - Nancy - and the
male and female slaves listed as being for hire, shared a common plight. To
claim that women with the status of citizens and women who were slaves
shared a common plight, exploitation by men, that this was the most
important form of injustice in slave states, is more than misguided.
Slavery has not only involved the buying and selling of people but more
often than not negligible protection for the slaves. In some
slave-owning states, the owners, men and women, have had almost unlimited
freedom to treat slaves as they wished. In ancient Rome, the owner could
impose almost any punishment, for almost any reason. Flogging was one of the
mildest punishments, and was generally carried out in public view.
Execution of slaves was generally by crucifixion, most often preceded by
flogging, a punishment which was practically never imposed on Roman
citizens, men and women.
The Roman poet Juvenal (who was not at all a moral paragon - he went to
watch gladiators fight to the death) describes the cruelty of a Roman
citizen towards a slave. In this case, the citizen was a woman. Of
course, men as well as women in ancient Rome bought and sold and
mistreated slaves.
'pone crucem servo,' she says, 'crucify the slave!' The husband pleads,
'Where are the witnesses? Who gave evidence against him? Give him a
hearing.' (This degree of kind-heartedness wasn't usual.) She replies, 'A
slave is a man, is he? He has done no wrong. It may be so. But this is my
will. This is what I order.'
Charles Darwin on slavery (from Chapter XXI of 'The Voyage of the
Beagle):
On the 19th of August we finally left the shores of Brazil. I thank
God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. To this day, if I hear
a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when
passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could
not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was
as powerless as a child even to remonstrate. I suspected that these
moans were from a tortured slave, for I was told that this was the case in
another instance. Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady,
who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have
staid in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was
reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest
animal. I have seen a little boy, six or seven years old, struck
thrice with a horsewhip (before I could interfere) on his naked head, for
having handed me a glass of water not quite clean; I saw his father tremble
at a mere glance from his master’s eye. These latter cruelties were
witnessed by me in a Spanish colony, in which it has always been said, that
slaves are better treated than by the Portuguese, English, or other European
nations. I have seen at Rio de Janeiro a powerful Negro afraid to ward
off a blow directed, as he thought, at his face. I was present when a
kind hearted man was on the point of separating for ever the men, women, and
little children of a large number of families who had long lived together.
To give just one named example of a male slave, and his exceptionally
grim fate, which may be sufficient to implant the first signs of uneasiness
in those who accept without question the dogma that throughout history, men
have enjoyed all the advantages. From the Website executedtoday, an entry
for May1.
'On this date in 1830, a slave named Jerry was executed in Abbeville,
South Carolina … by burning to death.
The slave was the property of a Miss Elizabeth McQuerns, a schoolteacher who
hired him out — in which capacity he raped the wife of his subcontracted
master.
This case is treated in an April 1990 piece for The South Carolina
Historical Magazine by Lowry Ware, titled “The Burning of Jerry: The Last
Slave Execution by Fire in South Carolina?” ... As remembered, decades
later, by a minister named Samuel Leard who witnessed the execution as a
teenager, thousands of men, women and children, both white and colored,
assembled together in an old field not far from the residence of Mr. Donald
to witness the execution of a beastly criminal by burning alive at the
stake. The crime cannot with propriety be named — the name and the memory of
the criminal ought to be consigned to eternal oblivion. But there sat the
prisoner, the waiting impatient crowd, the immense pile of pitch pine logs
and kindling wood scattered around, the sheriff and his posse, the temporary
platform for the preacher … for it was determined that the fiendish criminal
should hear his own funeral sermon pronounced … As the poor doomed man
ascended the pile, he began to pray audibly and this was kept up
continuously during the process of chaining him to the stake, and until the
mounting flames deprived him of a wretched life. This was the last execution
by fire ever seen in South Carolina.
-Abbeville Press & Banner, July 2, 1879.'
The views of Mary Astell (1666 - 1731), the English proto-feminist
writer who gives her name to Triona Kennedy's 'Astell Project for Women and
Gender Studies' should be examined very carefully. Her best known
pronouncement is probably this (in 'Reflections'): 'If all Men are born
Free, why are all Women born Slaves?' Did she think, did she reflect on
realities, before writing this?
During the many, many centuries of slavery, women slave-owners in general
were incomparably more fortunate than their male slaves. In many
slave-owning societies, women had the power to beat their slaves and in some
to have them executed. What would be the feminist interpretation of these
incidents?
The slave Henry Bibb 'decided to flee in 1835, when his Kentucky mistress
began abusing him physically, "every day flogging me, boxing, pulling my
ears, an scolding" (From Peter Kolchin's exceptional analysis, 'American
Slavery,' in the chapter 'Antebellum Slavery: Slave Life.'
From the same chapter: 'Virginian William Lee got tired of the beatings
he suffered from his mistress, who would hold his head between her knees and
"whack away" on his back, so he grabbed her legs and "bodily carried ole
missus out an' thro' her on de ground jes' as hard as I could." In this
slave society, the penalties for such resistance could include death but far
more often more physical punishment. In the slave society of ancient Rome,
it would have been crucifixion or some other atrocious form of execution.
Lewis
Clarke, a
house slave
in
Kentucky,
Lewis Clarke, a slave in Kentucky, described in his autobiography the
behaviour of his mistress: 'Instruments of torture were ordinarily the raw
hide, or a bunch of hickory-sprouts seasoned in the fire and tied together.
But if these were not at hand, nothing came amiss. She could relish a
beating with a chair, the broom, tongs, shovel, shears, knife-handle, the
heavy heel of her slipper, and an oak club, a foot and a half in length and
an inch and a half square. With this delicate weapon she would beat us upon
the hands and upon the feet until they were blistered.'
I don't underestimate feminists. This is one site which offers a feminist
perspective on the sufferings of plantation mistresses. Extracts:
'Women in the Civil War era were little more than slaves themselves. Even
in the most deluxe of plantations, the mistress of the house was expected to
run the household, make clothes, darn socks, make soap, make butter and
cream, plan and fix meals, educate children, and keep the valuables locked
from the household help.
Plantation mistresses' 'diaries, letters, and other hand written works
were FILLED WITH LETTERS OF COMPLAINT, not resignation. Many women of
plantations felt that the wife was the most complete slave in it.'
'Health was poor in the South, and death in childbirth as well as
stillborn children made many women fear having children. And the rampant
epidemics made sure that the majority of the wife’s life was spent nursing
ill slaves and family members. The only escape was to be sick themselves.'
This particularly site doesn't in the least give a comprehensive or
detailed view, but the perspective of scholarly feminism may be just as
selective in its indignation. Observance of the scholarly convention of
references and citations is obviously no guarantee that a writer will be
providing sense rather than rubbish.
It would be asking too much to expect even a passing mention of the men
whose work drastically reduced morbidity and mortality rates from such
conditions as these. Men such as John Snow and William Budd, whose work did
so much to reduce the incidence of typhoid and cholera, contracted from
contaminated water.
Louis Pasteur
Robert Koch
Edward Jenner, Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, who worked on vaccines against
smallpox and polio, leading to the complete eradication of smallpox and the
near eradication of polio.
Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin
Gerhard Domagk, who discovered sulphonamides, the first broad spectrum
synthetic antibacterial drugs
and scientists whose work was indispensable for these advances, such as
the microscopist Anton van Leeuwenhoek and the chemists who synthesized the
compounds used in these advances, and the engineers and labourers who
constructed the vast works of civil engineering which supplied safe water.
In the antebellum south, slave owners included
black women. 'Opportunists or Saints? Slavery and Free Women of Color in
Antebellum New Orleans' by Anne Ulentin gives information which is resistant
to feminist interpretation. I view it as the defeat of ideology in the
conflict between realitiies and ideology. Extracts: 'In New Orleans in
1810, a twelve-year old girl, named Francoise, passed from one slaveowner to
another, both of whom were free black women ... this story is one instance
of a larger trend in antebellum New Orleans: free black women buying,
selling and holding slaves ... These women are called Free Women of Color
... they benefited from certain unique opportunities for social and economic
advancement in colonial and antebellum New Orleans. Some of them came to
hold prominent roles in the society and economy of the city ... Gary B.
Mills, in his study of Cane River's Creoles of Color in Louisiana, claims
that Louisiana's free persons of color entertained feelings of superiority
to "Negroes," just as whites did. Indeed, the development of a caste system
separated slaves from free people of color. In such a strict social and
racial hierarchy, free persons of color were color conscious just as whites
were ... Free women of color did not identify with white women. Scholars
such as Jacqueline Dowd Hall and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese showed that women of
color and white women did not share bonds of gender because they were
"profoundly divided by class and race." ... A general knowledge of the
wealth of such women [free women of color] and the extent to which they
resorted to legal transactions, may be derived from wills, successions,
slave sales and mortgage records. Such records not only show the amount of
land and slave free women of color possessed, but they also reveal the
nature of the relations between free women of color, slaves, whites, and
free men of color. I started my research in the pivotal year of 1810. Free
women of color were particularly numerous in New Orleans at that time
because of the recent Haitian refugee incursion, and generally played an
active role in the city's economy ... Besides the notaries' records, I used
the New Orleans Public Library's extensive collection of microfilms and
original manuscripts of wills, successions, inventories, suit records, and
emancipation petitions ... From this rich documentary record, I concluded
that most free women of color viewed slaveholding as a commercial venture
... My research shows that free women of color traded slaves of all ages -
from infants to 60 year-olds. The majority were between the ages of 11 and
30, when they were the most valuable ... Some documents show that slaves ...
were to be handed down from parent to child just like any other possession
... The free women of color, for whom we have inventories, often owned
significant property, including slaves, houses, lots, and furniture ... It
was very common for these women to choose not to emancipate their slaves,
and instead to pass them down to children or other relatives ... it is
difficult to ignore evidence that free women of color, like whites, engaged
in slavery for commercial purposes, and that, in doing so, they prospered.'
In North and South America, men made up the majority of slaves.
Hugh Thomas wrote (in 'The Slave Trade: the history of the Atlantic slave
trade 1440 - 1870), 'Throughout the slave trade, women and children were
less sought after than men in the prime of life. This was a contrast with
the Arab trade in West African slaves across the Sahara ...
'In the New World the reverse was often true. A decree in Lisbon of 1618
sought to ban female slaves absolutely, as well as males less than sixteen
years old. Two men to one woman was the proportion which the Royal African
Company customarily sought. In the Dutch trade between 1675 and 1695 18 000
women slaves seem to have been carried, compared with 34 000 men. The
explanation is that planters preferred slaves whom they could work hard and
then discard, or leave to die, without the troubles of having to rear their
families.'
I'm not in the least danger of overlooking the male monsters who made
the lives of slaves hellish (the whipped slave in the photograph above was
whipped by a male overseer. The fact that he was discharged later by the
male owner isn't an extenuating circumstance.) I don't make any
excuses for thinkers such as Nietzsche who ignored or attacked humanitarian
thought and practice, as
my page on Nietzsche makes clear (although it should be obvious to
anyone who reads his work with care that he was far from being deluded in
everything, that he was a very substantial thinker.) Many feminists
seem to me to have a ridiculous belief in the innate virtue of women. I've
no belief whatsoever in the innate virtue of men.
Mary Wollstonecraft, the proto-feminist author of 'A Vindication of the
Rights of Men' and 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,' opposed
slavery but never gave to the issue anything like the prominence it
demanded, given the scale and extremity of its cruelties. Moira Ferguson
writing in 'Feminist Review,' No. 42, Autumn 1992: 'Whereas the Rights of
Men refers to slavery in a variety of contexts only four or five times, the
Rights of Woman contains over eighty references; the constituency
Wollstonecraft champions - white, middle-class women - is constantly
characterized as slaves.' Moira Ferguson goes on to explain this in these
terms: 'For her major polemic, that is, Mary Wollstonecraft decided to adopt
and adapt the terms of contemporary political debate.' But the
overwhelmingly important point to make is that these white,
middle-class women (with unfortunate exceptions) were incomparably more
fortunate than slaves (with particularly fortunate exceptions), just as they
were incomparably more fortunate than the miners - men, women and children
of the Industrial Revolution.
A concrete objection to the equating of the experience of slaves and the
experience of white, middle-class women at the time - a concrete objection
not to the blurring of differences but the bridging of a chasm. There
were many slave rebellions during the eighteen century, as in earlier
centuries and later times. Slaves found their lives intolerable. They
rebelled despite the huge risks. The chances of success were minimal. There
was an immense risk of execution or torture or beating. Their fate was
so extreme that they decided they had nothing to lose. If the fate of white,
middle-class women could be compared with the fate of slaves, why were there
no rebellions of white, middle-class women? If they failed, they would never
have been punished with the gallows or burning alive. After Mary
Wollstonecraft wrote the 'Rights of Woman,' why was there no unstoppable
support from these middle-class victims, eager to escape their bondage? Why
did she receive so little support? Can it have been that the lot of these
people was far from being unbearable? Feminists who argue that in the case
of white, middle-class women the system of repression was much worse than in
the case of slaves, making rebellion not just difficult and dangerous in the
extreme but absolutely impossible are surely living in a fantasy world.
The records of the Slave Compensation Commission
offer astonishing insights, amongst them insights into the status of women
at the time.
'On 28 August 1833, the Abolition Bill received the Royal Assent. From 1
August 1834, slavery was to be abolished in the British colonies. The Slave
Compensation Commission was established - not to compensate slaves, but to
compensate their owners. The massive sum of 20 million GBP was paid to the
slave owners, the equivalent of 17 billion GBP in today's values.
'David Olusoga 12 July 2015 'The Guardian'
'The records of the Slave Compensation Commission ... represent a near
complete census of British slavery as it was on 1 August, 1834, the day the
system ended. For that one day we have a full list of Britain’s slave
owners. All of them. The T71s tell us how many slaves each of them owned,
where those slaves lived and toiled, and how much compensation the owners
received for them. Although the existence of the T71s was never a secret, it
was not until 2010 that a team from University College London began to
systematically analyse them. The Legacies
of British Slave-ownership project, which is still continuing, is led by
Professor Catherine Hall and Dr Nick Draper, and the picture of slave
ownership that has emerged from their work is not what anyone was expecting.
...
'Slave ownership, it appears, was far more common than has previously
been presumed. Many of these middle-class slave owners had just a few
slaves, possessed no land in the Caribbean and rented their slaves out to
landowners, in work gangs.These bit-players were home county vicars, iron
manufacturers from the Midlands and lots and lots of widows.'
Over 40% of the people who applied for compensation for losing the slaves
they owned were women.
From the site
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/media-new/pdfs/hyoung.pdf
Dorothy Little was a seventy year old widow who claimed £297 13s 6d for
13 slaves in the Jamaican parish of St James ... between mid-1833 and March
1835 she wrote at least five separate letters to the Commission asking for
information and advice. She was not simply passively waiting for an award
but taking an active involvement in the compensation process ... Despite
politics supposedly being a masculine domain she unashamedly reveals that
she has “with the greatest attention read every debate in the House of
Commons on the West India question”, seeming far more perturbed that the
concerns she had previously voiced had not been raised. Indeed, the letters
of reply from the Commissioners, which answer her questions fully and
comprehensively, paid little heed to the fact that they are writing to a
seventy-year old widow: the language, tone and style of the letters is
little different to those sent to male inquirers. Perhaps the fact that she
was a resident of Clifton, near Bristol, an area with extensive links to the
West Indies may explain why Dorothy Little‟s knowledge of the compensation
process was so remarkable. Dorothy Little was clearly an intelligent,
informed and forthright woman: her cognisant letters to the Slave
Compensation Commission highlight the extent to which, in reality, women
were not completely restricted by domestic ideology. Indeed, Dorothy Little
felt so passionately about the subject of compensation, and the fact that
she felt it disproportionally punished those who owned slaves but no land,
that she even sent a petition to Lord Stanley, the colonial secretary,
voicing her concerns ... upon realising that the Lord Chancellor “took no
notice” of the original petition she sent it directly to Lord Stanley
herself. This was accompanied by a warning that if politicians
continued to ignore what she believed to be the injustice of the current
system she would ensure that “the matters…be brought before the public in
the next sitting of Parliament.” Threatening, of all people, the colonial
secretary in this manner is hardly the action of someone restricted to the
private domestic sphere. Dorothy Little may have sent her first letter
anonymously for fear of “seeing my name in the newspapers” but her
determination to right the wrongs that she believed lay at the heart of the
plans for compensation ensured a dramatic change of heart. Indeed,
that she questions why she cannot be given “£100 a piece for [her
slaves]…which is the sum the French received for theirs in America”
demonstrates that Dorothy Little had an interest in global as well as
domestic politics, and was willing to use this information to achieve her
own ends. Similarly, in voicing her fears that an annuity she received from
the Clergy Fund was potentially at risk should emancipation “produce anarchy
and revolution in the island” she is highlighting her knowledge of the
recent slave insurrections in Jamaica and again, using this knowledge to
strengthen her argument. The detail and knowledge invoked in Dorothy
Little‟s letters and petition highlights that politics was hardly
exclusively the preserve of men. Dorothy Little‟s letters also highlight an
acute awareness of the situation she found herself in. “There is a wide
difference between the situations of those who, like your Petitioner, are
Owners of Slaves only and those who are owners of Estates and also of the
Slaves” she perceptively noted. As a slave-holder who owned no land she was
in a particularly vulnerable position. Whereas at the end of the seven
proposed years of apprenticeship those who owned land would probably “find
their properties equally valuable as at present” the property of those who
owned slaves alone would be “completely annihilated.”Yet they received no
greater proportion of the compensation fund, and it was this which Dorothy
Little took issue with. An intimate knowledge of her own finances is clear:
she explains that she has been receiving £80 sterling a year for “eight
working negroes” for the last twenty years, although “in consequence
of a change in the ownership of the Estate [to which they were hired] and
the late rebellion” the rental was reduced to £57 sterling. Yet she
calculated that at £26 per slave she would receive a sum of £364 sterling
“which will produce an [annual] income not exceeding £12 14s 9d.74 Indeed,
she ultimately received £310 18s 11d, including interest, which a W.P.
Kerridge picked up on her behalf in February 1836.75 Thus, far from being an
“unconscious stipendiary of a wicked system” as abolitionists tended to
argue widows were, Dorothy Little was aware that emancipation would have
severe personal financial implications. Indeed, since women made up a
considerable proportion of non-land-holding slave-owners they were, on the
whole, disproportionately affected by the privileging of land in the
compensation process. Dorothy Little clearly recognised this: “Your
Petitioner…believes that there are many in her situation, but they are
principally Widows and Orphans and she is sorry to perceive that the large
Proprietors have not had the generosity to put forward their peculiar
situation.” In lamenting the lack of help she, and others, had received from
the large, usually male, landowners Dorothy Little is certainly reinforcing
the belief that women are dependent on men‟s help. Yet she is
simultaneously, by writing letters and petitions herself, challenging this
very notion ... this excerpt from a letter dated May 12th 1834 suggests that
a strict distinction between „moral‟ women and „depraved‟ men simply cannot
be made: I am anxious to ascertain if there is a prospect of my getting a
full and fair compensation for my unattached field labourers. They will I
fear be put down as inferior labourers, for out of the whole number 10
of them are females, but from that very circumstance they have been more
valuable to me than if they had been strong men, for they have more than
doubled their original number, and of course doubled my income. This
demonstrates that far from only „slave-masters‟ manipulating the fertility
of the female slaves for their own economic advantage, the imperatives of
their female counter-parts were hardly rooted in any greater sense of
morality. The callous manner in which Dorothy Little proudly talks of how
the reproductive capacities of the female slaves have enabled her to “double
my income” may initially seem shocking but it suggests that female
slave-owners were no less inclined to prioritise their own economic needs
over the well-being of slaves.
In the case of slavery, the reformers who opposed it, successfully, in
country after country comprised very many men, of course. To treat such men
as these as part of a group, the homogeneous enemy or object of contempt, as
many feminists do and have done, is deeply shocking. To treat men with other
achievements to their credit, including labouring with dignity, as the
homogenous enemy or object of contempt, is deeply shocking. Mary
Wollstonecraft, writing to Gilbert Imlay, Paris, December 30, 1794: 'You
know my opinion of men in general: you know that I think them systematic
tyrants ... '
Hugh Thomas, in 'The Slave Trade,'
'The determined efforts of philanthropists, in France, North America, and
Britain, and later in Spain, Brazil, and elsewhere, working through the
press, parliaments, and diplomacy, eventually achieved the abolition of the
Atlantic slave trade and of slavery in the Americas, so paving the way for
the beginning at least of the abolition of slavery and the traffic in
Africa. Experience of what occurred between 1808 and 1860 suggests that the
end of the slave trade came not because, as the French historian Claude
Meillassoux put it, 'slavery as a means of production hindered agrarian and
industrial growth', but because of the work of individuals, with writers
such as Montesquieu playing an essential part. Thomas Clarkson and
Wilberforce in England, Benezet and Moses Brown in the United States, and
Benjamin Constant and other friends and relations of Madame de Staël in
France, were the heroes. The effectiveness of Louis Philippe's first
government, in particular of the Minister of the Navy, Count Argout, showed
that a determined leader could do much. Isidoro Antillón, who first first
spoke against the slave trade in Spain in 1802 and who may have been
murdered for repeating his views in Cádiz in 1811, should not be forgotten.
Other Spanish abolitionists such as Labra and Vizcarrando should have their
places in the Pantheon. Nelson Mandela, during his visit to the British
Parliament in 1995, recalled the name of Wilberforce. He might have
mentioned others, not to speak of the British West Africa Squadron. In
Brazil, Dom Pedro's opposition to the slave trade was continuous ... '
Slavery was ended not just by reformers who worked for legislative change
and eventually achieved it. The legislation had to be enforced. The British
Navy (which would count as an agent of patriarchy in most feminist
histories, no doubt) played a prominent part in enforcing anti-slavery laws.
Between 1811 and 1867, the British Navy's Anti-slavery Squadron liberated
160 000 slaves. In 1845, 36 British vessels were assigned to this squadron.
Feminists, particularly pacifist feminists, should not overlook the role
of military action in ending slavery in the United States, even if this
wasn't uppermost in the minds of many of those who went to war.
Peter Kolchin, in 'American Slavery' gives a very good account in Chapter
7, 'The End of Slavery:'
'The Civil War began as a war for - and against - Southern independence.
Although slavery was the issue that both underlay and precipitated the
conflict between North and South, the initial war goals of both sides were
simple, and only indirectly linked to the peculiar institution: Confederates
fought for the right to secede and form their own country; federal forces
fought to prevent them from doing so. During the secession crisis preceding
the start of hostilities, Abraham Lincoln had promised that the new
Republican Administration, although opposed to the expansion of slavery,
would pose no threat to slavery in the states where it already existed, and
in the early months of the war he took pains to reemphasize his
government''s limited war goal: preservation of the Union ...
Lincoln's caution stemmed not from moral equivocation - he constantly
reiterated his belief that slavery was wrong and ought to be abolished - but
from potent practical considerations. Four slave states - Maryland,
Delaware, Missouri, and Kentucky - remained in the Union, and a fifth, West
Virginia, was in the process of breaking away from its Confederate parent;
defining the war as a struggle over slavery threatened to push these states
into the Confederate column ...
As the war dragged on, however, the President ... faced mounting
pressures to seize the moment and embrace a new war aim: freedom for the
slaves. Such a move appeared increasingly desirable to American diplomats
striving to prevent foreign powers - most important, Great Britain - from
extending recognition (and assistance) to the Confederacy; so long as the
Confederates could portray their rebellion as an exercise in national
self-determination, their cause aroused considerable sympathy abroad, but
much of this sympathy would be likely to dissipate if the war could be
redefined as a struggle over slavery.'
The treatment of serfs in Russia in the nineteenth century, before the
abolition of serfdom, poses more questions for feminists. Radical
feminists may feel anger, outrage at the injustice, when they read that '...
in the higher classes, it was normal for married women to own property, even
landed property, at a time when this was difficult in England. ''On the
front of every house in Moscow and St Petersburg'', reported Haxthausen in
the 1840s, ''is written the name of the proprietor, and before every third
house at least the name is that of a woman.'' ' (Angus Calder, 'Russia
Discovered: 19th-Century Fiction from Pushkin to Chekhov.') Anger and
outrage because women found it difficult to own property in England, and
anger because every third house in St Petersburg has the name of a woman.
Why not something like 50 % of the houses, in accordance with the 'gender
ratio?' The anger at this further statistic would probably need to be of a
complicated kind. It concerns the kind of inequality which feminists would
probably prefer not to confront - women valued less than men! During the
reign of Catherine the Great in Russia, a pedigree dog could be bought for
2000 roubles. A male serf could be bought for 300 roubles but a female serf
cost less than one hundred.
Just as everyday cuts and burns are outweighed by life-threatening
injuries, and aches and pains are outweighed by the agony of torture, there
was a major injustice, an overwhelmingly important injustice, which made
such considerations far less important by comparison: serfdom.
The woman who owned property in Russia, even if less property than men,
had incomparably more freedom than the serfs. The property owned by women in
Russia often included serfs. The owner of the serfs had almost unlimited
power over them. The owner had no right to kill a serf but did have the
right to flog the serf with 'the knout,' which tore strips of flesh from the
skin. If the serf died under the knout, then this was allowable. Serfs were
bought and sold and were hardly distinguishable from slaves. In the census
of 1857, the private serfs (not owned by the state) amounted to 23 million
out of a total population of 62.5 million Russians.
The writer Turgenev was a young adult in the 1840's. His mother owned 5
000 serfs. She had them flogged and she had Turgenev flogged very often.
When two young serfs failed to bow as she was passing them, she made use of
her almost absolute power over them by ordering them to be deported to
Siberia.
From 'Turgenev: His Life and Times' by Leonard Schapiro:
' ... her general practice was to maintain a rule of terror under which
complete subordination was exacted from her peasants, who were never allowed
to forget that they were serfs or to think of themselves as human beings.
'From childhood he had always felt instinctive sympathy with the domestic
serfs as fellow human beings ... '
One incident:
'Turgenev, hearing that his mother had sold one of her young girl serfs,
announced that he would not tolerate the sale of human beings, and hid the
girl with a peasant family. The purchaser applied to the police, and the
local police chief, with a posse armed with clubs, arrived to demand the
girl. He was greeted by Turgenev with a gun, who threatened to shoot.' On
this occasion, his mother backed down and she agreed to cancel the sale of
the girl.
The title of Jerome Blum's book 'Lord and Peasant in Russia: From the
Ninth to the Nineteenth Century' may infuriate some feminists: obviously a
sexist title, women excluded. The author does include material on women,
such as here:
'The helplessness of the serfs proved too great a temptation for those
proprietors in whose natures sadism lay close to the surface. These people
inflicted frightful cruelties upon their peasants. One of the most infamous
cases was that of Devia Saltykov who in 1756 inherited 600 serfs from her
husband.'
(The subject of wealthy heiresses and their plight isn't a flourishing
topic in feminist writing.)
'In seven years she tortured scores of them to death for petty or
imagined offenses. Her conduct became so atrocious that the authorities
decided they had to do something. So in 1762 they began an investigation. It
lasted for sex years. Finally, she was stripped of her noble rank, pilloried
for one hour in Moscow, and then sentenced to spend the rest of her life in
confinement in a convent. In contrast to her mild punishment, the serfs who
at her command had aided in the torturing of her victims were beaten with
the knout and then condemned for life to hard labor in Siberia.'
The serfs in Russia were liberated not by the Empress Catherine or the
Empress Elizabeth - although both were very able rulers - but by Alexander
II, who emancipated by decree all Russian serfs. Triona Kennedy complains
that 'only a handful of schools ... address feminist thought and history.
This act, which of course brought immense benefit to an immense number of
women as well as men, would go unrecorded in a history of feminism, but
would be recorded in any comprehensive history of humanitarianism.
Women in Nazi Germany
the policy of deportation and extermination which began to be
implemented in 1941 made the favoured status of aryan women and men compared
with the fate of Jewish women and men all the more shockingly obvious.
Radical feminist writers prefer to generalize rather than to write about
women who may be heroic or cowardly, wonderful or repulsive, civilized or
barbaric, and women with all the contradictions and mixture of strengths and
weaknesses which are more common in human nature than the absolutes.
They have nothing to say about Nazi women, the subject of the book
by Kathrin Kompisch. She writes, 'Apart from a few particularly cruel
examples, the participation of women in the crimes of the Nazis has been
blended out of the collective conscious of the Germans for a long time ...
The history of National Socialism has long been reduced to one that blamed
men for everything. This was and is the popular picture ... Women typed the
statistics of the murdered victims of the SS Action Squads in the east,
operated the radios which called up for more bullets, were invariably the
secretaries - and sometimes much more - in all the Gestapo posts. And at the
end of the war they tried to diminish their responsibility by saying they
were just cogs in the all-male machine which gave the orders." The Gestapo
files in Düsseldorf noted that women "try to change the power balance of the
household by denouncing their husbands as spies or Communists or
anti-Nazis." Most of the people in apartments who spied on their neighbours
and reported them for ideological unsoundness or for being Jewish were
women.
Perhaps the best known of the 'particularly cruel examples' was Ilse
Koch, who 'had become infamous for her manufacture of lampshades and gloves
made out of tattooed skin of dead inmates ... Other accounts detailed her
sadism while walking or riding through the camp, ordering SS guards to beat
or whip individual inmates who displeased her ... the victims of Buchenwald
included 51 000 who had perished ... as a result of straight physical
torture and starvation ... Through all this Ilse Koch lived quite
voluntarily. She had no military rank, so there was no suggestion of
compulsion or fear of death should she refuse to remain. On the contrary,
all the evidence suggested that she enjoyed living in Buchenwald. After all,
she even stayed on after her husband's dismissal as camp commandant.' (Tom
Bower, 'Blind Eye to Murder.')
'Women in Nazi Germany' is the title of the book by Jill Stephenson. She
makes it completely clear that the apparatus of terror was set up by men -
only someone who was exceptionally stupid could possibly disagree. My views
are counter-feminist, not 'masculinist.' I've no belief whatsoever in the
intrinsic virtuousness of men. She also makes it clear that the apparatus of
terror was actively supported by large numbers of women in Germany and that
many women took an active part in the apparatus of terror. Some extracts
from the book ('Opponents, perpetrators and the persecuted'). References not
included.
‘As Wiggershaus says, ‘in terms of arrogance and
self-righteousness, inventiveness in kinds of torment and unbounded sadism,
there was no gender-specific difference in women’s favour.’ Women victims
were shocked by the pleasure some female warders took in inflicting cruelty
from a position of power. For Goldhagen, ‘German women [camp] personnel
sought to strip the Jews of all vestiges of humanity.’ Some showed a
pitilessness defying belief in their brutality towards women and children.
They personally beat and kicked the defenceless to
a pulp, unleashed savage dogs on them, drowned them in latrines. In
extermination camps, they whipped victims towards the gas chambers. Wives
of SS men and camp commandants sometimes made a sport of tormenting inmates
or ‘selecting’ them for death. The most notorious of these was Ilse Koch, at
Buchenwald, but there were others.
…
‘Professionally-qualified people of various kinds …
oiled the wheels of the machinery of persecution … Social workers, who were
overwhelmingly female, identified candidates for sterilization: as Rosenhaft
says, ‘women [in] the welfare service … stood at the cutting edge of
Nazism’s most inhumane policies.’ Nurses in psychiatric institutions
participated in the murder (‘euthanasia’) of their charges, or knowingly
assisted those who did by moving patients to rooms where the killing took
place or preparing lethal medicines …
One of the paradoxes of Nazi Germany is that, while
the Gestapo was rather thin on the ground, ‘no one felt far from the
scrutiny of the Nazi state whether in public, at work or even at home.’ The
reason is that ‘there were many professional and amateur helpers on whom
they could rely.’ There were networks of official informers, and, beyond
them, there were thousands of individuals who denounced neighbours,
lodgers, acquaintances and even spouses to the police. Franziska Haenel, a
clandestine socialist and pacifist, was denounced by a female neighbor in a
close-knit community. Her reaction was: ‘I just couldn’t believe such people
existed.’ While for the state’s purposes denunciation served political ends,
by uncovering nonconformists and dissidents, for the denunciator it was
often a means of settling a personal score. Thus wives
informed on husbands who were unfaithful or
drunken or violent, in the hope of being rid of them for a while.
Alternatively, a long-standing grudge against a former husband might be the
motive. Women who were not Nazis might exploit state repression to solve
their personal problems.
The accusations varied. A slighted wife might
denounce her husband’s lover. Although the Gestapo often recognized personal
grudges for what they were, if the woman denounced was a Jew or had dealings
– particularly sexual relations – with Jews, its officers took a strong
interest … ‘Aryans’ convicted on the basis of denunciation generally
received a prison sentence, but Jews would be sent to a concentration camp;
they would be lucky to survive. Denunciation of one ‘Aryan’ by another
tended to be of the stronger by the weaker, ‘with both sexes evenly
distributed.’
Feminism and the death penalty
See also the page
The death penalty: reasoned revulsion.
Feminists have chosen to ignore the complete or almost complete exemption
of women from the death penalty in many jurisdictions. Their
((survey)) of women's sufferings and disadvantages, the real and the
imagined, the substantial and the trivial, is subject to serious
{restriction}.
The Death Penalty Information Center in the United States documents and
discusses the death penalty in meticulous detail. From the page
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/women-and-death-penalty
'Women account for only 1 in 50 (2%) death sentences imposed at the trial
level;
Women account for only 1 in 67 (1.5%) persons presently on death row; and
Women account for only 1 in 100 (1%) persons actually executed in the modern
era.'
Another aspect. From the Abtract of 'Chivalry is Not Dead: Murder,
Gender, and the Death Penalty' (Social Science Research Network) by Steven
F. Shatz of the University of San Francisco School of Law and Naomi R. Shatz
of the New York Civil Liberties Union:
'The data for the article comes from our original study of 1299 first
degree murder cases in California, whose death penalty scheme accords
prosecutors and juries virtually unlimited discretion in making the
death-selection decision ... We ... found substantial gender-of-defendant
and gender-of-victim disparities. Women guilty of capital murder are far
less likely than men to be sentenced to death, and defendants who kill women
are far more likely to be sentenced to death than defendants who kill men.'
The walk to the execution chamber or conveyance to the execution chamber
on a wheeled stretcher of the arguably innocent, the mentally ill, the
victims of gross childhood abuse, the juvenile offenders, and offenders who
are none of these things, after the degrading ritual of the 'last meal'
(called the 'special meal' in Ohio) has been overwhelmingly the experience
of males. The state of Indiana, like the state of Oregon, has never executed
a female offender. At the time of her execution in February 2014, Suzanne
Basso was the 510th person to be executed in Texas, the most prolific
executing state, since the death penalty was restored in 1976. Of these, 505
were men.
Feminism isn't responsible for the continuance of capital punishment in
the United States, which separates it from more civilized countries. But
feminism gives the impression that the continuance of the death penalty
isn't so important, or not important in the least. For a whole range of
issues and not just the death penalty, feminism's tendency is to monopolize
attention or to deflect attention from the need for reform.
Only one country in Europe still carries out executions - Belarus. Since
March 1, 1994, women have been exempt from the death penalty.
Section 4.5 of the new constitution for Zimbabwe reads in part: 'A law
may permit the death penalty to be imposed only on a person convicted of
murder committed in aggravating circumstances, and the penalty must not be
imposed or carried out on a woman.'
Countess Constance Markievicz played a prominent part in the Easter
Rising of 1916 against British rule in Ireland. She was sentenced to death
but wasn't shot. Sixteen men went before the firing squad at Kilmainham Gaol
but she was reprieved explicitly on grounds of 'gender.'
From information supplied by 'Hands off Cain,' an Italian anti-death
penalty organization:
February 14, 2010: Bangladesh has executed more than 400 people since the
country became independent in 1971, an official said, and more than 1,000
others are currently sitting on death row.
At least 36 women have been sentenced to death but none went to the gallows,
another prison official said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he is
not authorised to reveal figures.
"Those hanged were all men," the official said ... '
Any honest ((survey)) of the relative sufferings and disadvantages of men
and women should take account of the death penalty.
Extracts from a newsletter I receive from 'Hands Off Cain,' an Italian
anti-death penalty organization (06.10.12):
SRI LANKA: GOVERNMENT MOVES TO REVIVE THE DEATH PENALTY
Child Development and Women’s Affairs Minister Tissa Karaliyadda told the
Nation in July that the death penalty should be imposed for those convicted
of rape, with no amnesty given. “I hope to present a cabinet memorandum
requesting to amend the laws regarding the matter,” the minister said.
LOUISIANA (USA): THIBODEAUX FREED FROM DEATH ROW
September 28, 2012: Damon Thibodeaux, 38, white, was freed from death row
through DNA after 15 years.
Today a Jefferson Parish judge overturned the conviction and ordered
Thibodeaux released from death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also
known as Angola, at 12:35 p.m. Central Time, a corrections spokeswoman told
The Times.
Thibodeaux was convicted in October 1997 and sentenced to death after he
confessed to the July 19, 1996, rape and murder of his 14-year-old
step-cousin, Crystal Champagne. He at first confessed to the attack after a
nine-hour interrogation by detectives. He recanted a few hours later and
claimed his confession was coerced.
In 2007, Thibodeaux's legal team persuaded Jefferson County Dist. Atty. Paul
Connick to reinvestigate the case, and DNA testing showed that Thibodeaux
was not the murderer and that the victim had not been raped. Connick, who
was elected in 1996, said he supports Thibodeaux's release and would
continue to search for Crystal Champagne's killer. Thibodeaux is the 141st
person to be exonerated and freed from death row since 1973, and the 18th
person released through DNA evidence.
My page
The Death Penalty has evidence concerning the death penalty and
arguments against the death penalty but it can only give a brief indication
of its horrors, which are the experience almost entirely of men in The
United States. This is one more horror which I don't describe on that page.
I travelled to London to attend a vigil outside the United States embassy.
Gary Graham, a black prisoner, was due to be executed in Texas later that
day. At the time I travelled to London he was alive, at the time the vigil
started he was alive, but meanwhile, as he was in the holding cell,
preparations had been made to kill him. He was a juvenile offender at the
time of the offence. Almost all the jurisdictions which still executed never
executed anyone under the age of 18 at the time of the offence. The United
States was an exception. A couple of hours after I arrived to take part in
the vigil, news came that there had been a stay of execution. Who can convey
the horror of facing extinction? Dostoevsky could, but he had been sentenced
to death himself, led out to execution and only reprieved at the last
moment.
A long time later, Gary Graham faced execution again. By this time, he
had been given not one execution date, on the day I took part in the vigil,
but six times. This was gross cruelty, not the actions of a civilized state.
He refused a final meal. (The Web site of the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice used to provide details of the last meal but now no longer does. I
refused to look at this information even once.) This time he was executed,
one of four juvenile offenders executed that year in the United States, all
male. He went to the execution chamber protesting his innocence. There was
only one eyewitness evidence of the murder and no forensic evidence at all.
The horrors of the execution or attempted execution: 'Ohio prison staff
earlier this month failed to administer a lethal injection to another man,
Romell Broom, despite 18 attempts to insert a needle into his veins. After
two hours, Broom was returned alive to his cell ... the 2007 case of
Christopher Newton, when it took more than an hour to find a vein, giving
him enough time to go to the bathroom in the middle of the procedure. And
there was also the case of Joseph Clark who sobbed in agony during his
execution when his vein burst.'
Even if the execution is fast and painless, waiting for execution is very
prolonged and far from painless. After being sentenced to death long before
(12 years is the average but Cecil Johnson was executed in Tennessee after
29 years on death row), the inmate may in the end, after losing the last
appeal, be given an execution date which is eight months ahead, an exact
date on which he (or she) will be put to death. Then comes the weekend
before the execution, the day before the execution, and unless the inmate
has been given a stay, he or she has to reckon with an hour of life left. In
99 cases out of 100 it's a 'he' rather than a 'she.' Radical feminists -
what comments do you have to make about this form of 'gender disparity?
The history of the death penalty in this country offers instructive
insights into feminism. Two quotations from my page
The Death Penalty:
'Rituals of Retribution: capital punishment in Germany 1600 - 1987 by
Richard J. Evans. The author writes that "The past, as the famous opening to
L.P. Hartley's novel The Go-Between says, is a foreign country; they do
things differently there. By visiting this foreign country we can enlarge
our conception of what it means to be human, and perhaps gain a better
understanding of the limits and possibilities of the human condition. One of
the aims of this book, therefore, is to restore a sense of strangeness to
the past. We have to make an imaginative leap of understanding by which to
comprehend mentalities which present-day Europeans may find at first
encounter repulsive and bizarre."
'The Hanging Tree: execution and the English people 1770 - 1868 by V.A.C.
Gatrell. I fully agree with the comment on the cover: "This gripping study
is essential reading for anyone interested in the processes which have
'civilized' our social life...Panoramic in range, scholarly in method, and
compelling in argument, this is one of those rare histories which both shift
our sense of the past and speak powerfully to the present." The author
writes, "Late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century English people were
very familiar with the grimy business of hanging. This is so large a social
fact separating this era from our own that although it is not the most
obvious way of defining modern times, it must be one of them...What they
watched was horrific. There was no nice calculation of body weights and
lengths of drop in those days; few died cleanly. Kicking their bound legs,
many choked over minutes.'
Mary Wollstonecraft, the author of 'A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman,' lived at a time when executions were frequent, the time of the
'Bloody Code.' There was a peak in the 1780's and a decline in (public)
executions after that. V A C Gatrell: 'Trevelyan thought the eighteenth
century English 'a race that had not yet learned to dislike the sight of
pain inflicted'. There's no evidence that Mary Wollstonecraft was any
different. She has many, many observations to make on female dress, but
makes no comment at all on public hangings, whether of men, women or
children.
Lyndall Gordon describes Mary Wollstonecraft's move to London in Chapter
7 of 'Mary Wollstonecraft: A New Genus.' She moved to an area near St Paul's
cathedral. 'An eighteenth century drawing showsa bustle of business and
shoppers, not far from the Fleet Prison, Newgate Prison with its public
hangings, and the skewed old justice of the Old Bailey ...' But living near
to the gallows wasn't in the least essential for knowing something about
the realities of the death penalty. The something that Mary Wollstonecraft
knew never roused her to indignation, it would seem.
In the Preface to 'The Hanging Tree,' V A C Gattrell writes, 'Complex ...
were the defences polite people erected against experiencing the scaffold:
this is the subject of Part III.' Part III has the title, 'The Limits of
Sensibility.' Mary Wollstonecraft was surely one of those polite people and
the limits of her sensibility should never be overlooked, although of course
they have been. Her reaction, or lack of reaction, to the lives of people
caught up in the Industrial Revolution, the world of mines, mills and other
factories, the world of vast works of civil engineering, was similarly the
reaction of one of those polite people. He writes further, 'Most
middle-class diaries, letters, and newspapers reveal an extraordinary
detachment about the spectacle, or else they reveal defences, denials and
rationalizations which spoke for anxiety at the least.' The sympathies
revealed in Mary Wollstonecraft's letters are heartening but it would be a
mistake to ignore their limitations. As for this issue, there's detachment
but no defences, denials or rationalizations.
Compare Cesare Beccaria. From my page on the death penalty: 'Cesare
Beccaria (1738 - 1794), the author of 'On Crimes and Punishments' (Dei
lelitti e delle pene) is magnificent, astonishing. His work has had an
incalculable effect, wholly for the good. At a time when the criminal
justice systems in almost all countries were hideously barbaric, he cut
through all the traditional arguments and traditional complacency and
attacked the death penalty and other abuses. From section XXVIII, on the
death penalty: 'This vain profusion of punishments, which has never made men
better, has moved me to inquire whether capital punishment is truly useful
and just in a well-organized state...In order to be just, a penalty should
have only the degree of intensity needed to deter other men from crime...If
anyone should cite against me the example of practically all ages and
nations, which have assigned the death penalty to certain crimes, I shall
reply that the example is annihilated in the presence of truth, against
which there is no prescription, and that human history leaves us with the
impression of a vast sea of errors in which a few confused and widely
scattered truths are floating.'
If he had confined himself to attacking the death penalty, this would
have been an enormous achievement, but his humanitarianism was very broadly
based and deserves to be mentioned here. From the introduction to 'On Crimes
and Punishments' (Hackett edition, translated by David Young):
'The criminal justice systems of Europe in the eighteenth century were
open to criticism on a number of counts. There was often cruelty in the
investigation and punishment of crime. Judicial torture was frequently used,
and the death penalty was common even for relatively minor crimes. Almost
everywhere, the law reflected the common assumption that political loyalty
and good behavior were best secured by religious uniformity. Reliance on
tradition and ancient custom tended to reinforce the powers of local courts
and parochial elites...and to circumscribe the central authority of the
state. In most countries, equality before the law was not recognized, even
in principle; different rules applied to different levels of the social
hierarchy. The law's vagueness, contradictions, and wide scope for
interpretation and discretion tended to reinforce the personal dependence of
the disadvantaged on those with inherited property and authority.'
Beccaria wrote against all these abuses, and his writing had a dramatic
impact. It should be read, and remembered, with gratitude.'
The risk of executing the innocent is a powerful argument against the
death penalty. I mention it on my page
The death penalty: reasoned revulsion. I discuss in more detail a
further argument against the death penalty, one which is neglected far
too often. I refer to it as 'the risk of executing the damaged.' I
discuss the case of Johnny Garrett, executed by the state of Texas - and a
juvenile offender: ''Chronically psychotic and brain damaged, Johnny Garrett
had a long history of mental illness and was severely physically and
sexually abused as a child, which the jury never knew. He was described by a
psychiatrist as "one of the most psychiatrically impaired inmates" she had
ever examined, and by a psychologist as having "one of the most virulent
histories of abuse and neglect... encountered in over 28 years of practice".
Garrett was frequently beaten by his father and stepfathers. On one
occasion, when he would not stop crying, he was put on the burner of a hot
stove, and retained the burn scars until his death.'
Why are there no national feminist
magazines?
Print magazines not only survive but flourish,
to an extent, despite the importance of
internet publication. There are print magazines concerned with a vast range
of topics, from Allotment gardening to Zymurgy (the magazine of the American Homebrewers' Association.') There are many, many magazines, of course,
devoted to trash and trivia.
According to many feminists, very few women are concerned with trash
and trivia, or none at all. (For my own opinion, see the section
Feminism: trash and trivia.) If there are women who seem to have an interest
in trash and trivia, then they've been influenced - or oppressed - by
patriarchy's promotion of trash and trivia. At the same time, many of these
feminists insist that women - all women or almost all women - are strong,
not in the least weak beings.
Feminists don't agree about the extent of women's oppression but there's
general agreement that women are victims. You'd imagine, then, that these
victims, yearning to be free, eager to end their oppression, would welcome
nothing more than a feminist magazine to inspire them and guide them and
inform them - and not just one magazine, but many magazines. Why, then, is
there no widely available feminist magazine in this country?
There used to be a widely available feminist magazine in this country,
'Spare Rib.' It ceased publication in 1993. Its history isn't encouraging.
According to the Wikipedia entry, 'As the women's movement evolved during
the 1970s the magazine became a focus for sometimes acrimonious debate
between the many streams which emerged within the movement, such as
socialist feminism, radical feminism, revolutionary feminism, lesbian
feminism, liberal feminism and black feminism.'
In the section Triona Kennedy and feminist sanctity, I point out that she
ignores these conflicts. She promotes feminist lesson-plans in schools but
it really does seem that the variety of feminism to be promoted in lessons
plans is the variety she supports. See also the section Feminist
divisions and in-fighting.
If patriarchal entrepreneurs and risk-takers have managed to launch
succesfully many, many magazines, including magazines for minority
interests, what about feminist entrepreneurs and risk-takers? What's
stopping you?
Spare Rib was succeeded by 'The Feminist Times.' It lasted just 12
months. From the report in the Huffington Post, 14.07.2014.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/14/
feminist-times-spare-rib-magazine-close_n_5584591.html
'When radical feminist magazine Spare Rib relaunched as The Feminist
Times last year, we were excited about the return of their iconic
straight-talking, sexism-busting journalism.
'But just 12 months after their re-naming ceremony, The Feminist Times
have announced that this week will be their last.
'In a saddening statement
to readers, the publication say that they "simply cannot survive any
longer".
'Speaking to HuffPost UK Lifestyle, founder Charlotte Raven, editor
Deborah Coughlin and deputy editor Sarah Graham explain why The Feminist
Times is really shutting up shop.
...
'Sarah puts the magazine's closure down to "lack of sustainable funding."
...
'In order to keep afloat the publication tried crowd-funding and appealed
for more paying members and donations, but sadly their business is not
sustainable.
...
'Fans may be disappointed to hear that there are no immediate plans to
re-model the magazine - Sarah and Deborah are both moving on to other
projects.'
My comments and criticisms are directed at the feminist movement, which
seems so far incapable of launching ventures of any size. I don't criticize
the women who were involved in launching 'The Feminist Times.' Why the
feminist movement didn't support the publication, by buying it at least, is
a question I can't answer.
One of the founders of 'The Feminist Times,' Charlotte Raven, has the
condition Huntington's Disease. A long time ago, I had the responsibility of
helping to care for someone who had the disease. Her Website on the
condition is very impressive, the way she is dealing with the effects of the
condition is very impressive. This is someone I admire very much.
Trash and trivia
A significant proportion of women have an intense interest in shopping,
in the kind of shopping which is more to do with status and image than with
needs - the most trivial ways of enhancing status and the most trivial ways
of presenting the right image: the world of rampant consumerism which leads
some women to buy things on credit which they can't possibly pay for - they
will need to take them back and get a refund but they will have had The Joy
of Shopping. These women are unacknowledged by many feminists. 'Facts' are
crude or imaginary things according to higher feminist views.
Feminists will either be indifferent to consumerism or give it a low
priority, if the consumerism seems to have nothing to do with feminist
issues. If women are buying things to please men, then that's a very
different thing. Here, as so often, feminist criteria turn out to be
completely inadequate.
Mary Wollstonecraft, proto-feminist, like so many later feminists, is
fond of the nonsensical generalization, as in this, 'If then women are not a
swarm of ephemeron triflers ...' As a matter of fact, there were many women
then and there are many women now who could be described as 'ephemeron
triflers,' although a less quaint description would be preferable.
This is a man, Paul Kingsnorth, criticizing a woman, name unknown. If
there's a distinctively feminist perspective which can illuminate this, what
is it? Surely, one conclusion that can be drawn, a non-feminist conclusion,
is that in this instance a woman can have debased values and a man can have
better values and the man is fully entitled to criticize the woman.
Paul Kingsnorth is writing in 'Real England: The Battle Against the Bland.'
'A few days ago, I was lying in bed listening to a current affairs programme
on the radio. A presenter was interviewing a woman who was angry with Tesco.
At first, through my fug of half-sleep, I thought this sounded promising. I
wondered what was bothering her: the death of the high street, the
crucifixion of local farmers, over-packaging, junk food ... there was so
much to choose from. But it wasn't any of those.
'The woman was angry because Tesco had refused to accept her brand of credit
card when she went shopping. She was so angry, she wanted to tell the
nation. She thought it was an outrage. She couldn't see why a big
supermarket like that couldn't accept every credit card there was. 'It's my
right,' she said - and Tesco was violating that right by telling her to pay
some other way. She was going to start a campaign. I felt a strange and
alien emotion: sympathy for Tesco was coursing through my veins.
'Some on the political right used to talk a lot about the 'dependency
culture' created by the welfare state ... Increasingly, as the Tesco woman
showed, we do live in a 'dependency culture' - of a different kind. We
depend on the consumer machine to provide for us - to give us what we want,
when we want it. This is our 'right'. The Thing has dehumanised us, and we
are all increasingly dependent on it for succour. We expect. We demand. We
are like children. Everything must be instant and, if it isn't, somebody
must pay.'
In this instance he had a legitimate point but I criticize him severely
in the section
Paul Kingsnorth and green terrorism of my page 'Immature,
unsophisticated, or gullible:' green ideology.'
My page on
Supermarkets has extended criticism of Tesco and some other supermarkets
- and criticism of some small shops.
'Dumbing down,' the relentless tide of trivialization, the huge numbers
of infantile adults, moronic media (moronic TV and radio programmes, moronic
magazines and books, not forgetting moronic contributions to the social
media) only attract attention from feminists qua feminists if they infringe
feminist norms.
There's a place for the trivial in human life - how would comedy
manage without it, for example? - but so much that's trivial is dispiriting.
In a world awash with trivia, to meet more of it at every turn depresses the
spirits. Not again! And again and again, the trivial is hard to separate
from the moronic
Theodore Dalrymple, writing in 'The Spectator,' 'I have come to the
conclusion that ... most thoughts lie too shallow for words. That is why an
age of easy communication is almost certain to be an age of absence of
communication. There will be no plumbing the shallows of the human heart.'
His starting point (one of a vast number of possible starting points, of
course) is the visitor's book for annexe of the Rijksmuseum at Amsterdam
Airport: ' ... there is nothing quite like a visitors’ book for appreciating
the preponderance of the banal in human thought and existence.
'Some of the praise of the museum was for distinctly extraneous reasons:
Your couch is really comfy. I will sleep on it again when I return.
It was a very nice museum. I was able to find my husband here and
now we are happily married. Thank you Amsterdam Museum. I love you.
Best place to fart in the airport.
An Indian wrote:
Amazing art show. Got new trivia about European culture.
Between a tenth and a twentieth of the comments were bizarre in various
revealing ways. First was the purely egotistical:
Hey Bridget, I can’t believe we’re finally in the same place at the
same time, but apart from my flight… I miss you like crazy and
check in your Facebook to see all the fun you’re having… I will leave
your present at your house so you can get it in December. Don’t
forget that trip that we’ll plan.
This is signed Hanna, with a little heart that — well, makes the heart
sink. Or again:
From Boston Bar, to Amsterdam, to Kenya and back again. 13 small
town members travel half way around the world to help build a primary
school in Kenya. What an adventure!
The Great British Bake Off
Yet again:
All the way from Sac-Town, California! Holla! Always mackin, never
slackin.
Egotism is international and not the property of one country:
I’m from Taiwan.
Next came the patriotic-xenophobic range of comments:
Bonjour à tous les French people qui passeront par ici! Escale dans
cet aeroport en direction Nouméa! Faites bon voyage les français.
Hello from Cleveland Ohio, in America, aka USA. The land of the
free, if you didn’t know.
Bien por inculcar cultura en general espero haya variedad de
presentaciones en específico México.
Thailand rulez.
A foreigner has tried his pidgin Dutch to say something ideological:
Europeers is niet die beste kunstenaars! (Europeans are not the best
artists.)
Or simply:
USA! USA! USA!
Then there are the religious enthusiasts:
He died for our sins – J-C – Praise God for the gift of eternal
life.
Waddup! Shout out to Bethany Church and my second family from
Terradise! Love you guys!
Then there is the purely-irrelevant-to–outright-thought-disordered range:
I love sandwiches.
Amsterdam 4 ever! But the prices are RIDICULOUSE!
What’s Jello meat about… thanks, -Belarus!
Girl don’t play with my fine art! Ain’t gonna put no dance Club or
nothin, but as museum? bid please! – Ya heard.
Finally, there is the facetious to vulgar range:
Wally the pregnant walrus was here.
Charles son of Darmouth, King of Uranus, we appreciate this here
service.
Please excuse my terrible language. Now bugger off.
Literally mindblowing, where’s my mind? My breasts just about fill
this hell hole.
Wordup to all you Motherlickas from the nasty nati.
No me gustó el arte holandés, nunca estuvo de moda. Pongan unas
chavas bien chulas! (I didn’t like Dutch art, it was never cool. Put up
some pretty chicks!)
To which someone has appended Puto, male prostitute.'
Faced with this list of banalities, the feminist duty - or pleasure - is
clear, for so many feminists. Not all feminists would react in the same way,
but as for the rest, condemnation consists in finding out which
comments were written by men and then condemning them.
The comments sections of many, many Webs and blogs offer unlimited
illustrative material. Here, superficial, inane, moronic and worse than
moronic material abounds.
I don't in the least contend that people should spend all their time or
most of their time addressing extreme suffering and injustice. I only
object when people seem to actively distort and make distorted claims,
claiming that less serious injustices, for instance, are much worse than the
worst injustices.
People are fully justified in addressing lesser concerns and other
concerns - the problem of litter in a neighbourhood, which may well be a
real probelm in that neighbourhood, the decline in the standard of string
playing, the choice of wildly unsuitable tempos, after a now conductor has
been appointed.
It pleases me very much that during the Second World War, including the
years when Britain's survival was very much in doubt, cultural life was far
from coming to a standstill. Many books to do with the arts were
published, for example. Susie Harries' wonderful biography 'Nikolaus
Pevsner: The Life' is about the German Jew whose writing on the architecture
of this country has very great significance. He wrote most of the volumes in
the monumental series, 'The Buildings of England.'
His book, 'An Outline of European Architecture' was published in the
grim year of 1942. She writes that it , ' ... took the great buildings of
Europe and the vocabulary of architecture to a wider and older audience ...
'Thousands,' wrote Banham, 'must have made their discovery of
Vierzehnheiligen in an air raid shelter, or the Pazzi Chapel in a transit
camp.'
Gretchen Rubin and The Happiness
Project
What are feminists to make of Gretchen Rubin's blatant promotion of
infantile attitudes? Don't many, many feminists settle for something
similar? This is what she writes on her Website, 'The Happiness Project,'
www.happiness-project.com
Why I Treat Myself Like a Toddler. A Cranky Toddler.
'I remember reading somewhere that writer Anne Lamott thinks about
herself in the third person, to take better care of herself: “I’m sorry,
Anne Lamott can’t accept that invitation to speak; she’s finishing a book so
needs to keep her schedule clear.” [No criticisms. Anne Lamott can't be
faulted.]
'Similarly, I imagine myself as a toddler. “Gretchen gets cranky when
she’s over-tired. We really need to stick to the usual bedtimes.” “Gretchen
gets frantic when she’s really hungry, so she can’t wait too long for
dinner.” “Gretchen needs some quiet time each day.” “Gretchen really feels
the cold, so we can’t be outside for too long."
'The fact is, if you’re dealing with a toddler, you have to plan. You
have to think ahead about eating, sleeping, proper winter clothes, necessary
equipment, a limit on sweets, etc. Because with a toddler, the consequences
can be very unpleasant. In the same way, to be good-humored and
well-behaved, I need to make sure I have my coffee, my cell-phone charger,
my constant snacks, and my eight hours of sleep.'
Gretchen Rubin is obviously dependent on people who don't follow her
example, who couldn't possibly follow her example, such people as loggers,
labourers, roofers and trawlermen, who have to be outside 'for too long'
whether they like it or not, who become 'over-tired,' exhausted, every
working day. Many millions of the world's population do have to 'wait too
long for dinner,' or any sort of meal, of course. This objection
is such an obvious one that only a devoted narcissist could fail to
notice it.
Various comments followed, none of them expressing incredulity. This is
from Williesha Morris:
'Williesha pretty much likes to sit around and do absolutely nothing for
long periods of time. Williesha needs a lot of motivation and excitement to
get things done. Williesha needs a buddy. Thankfully she is married to that
person.'
This is Mary Sahs:
'When Mary Beth eats too much sugar, she gets very emotional and unhappy,
and then she feels sick. She really needs to pay attention and only eat a
tiny bit and she really needs to stop sitting there like a lump and go out
and play ... or even to the playroom in the basement ... work off some of
that bad energy.' (I can't confirm beyond all doubt that this is Mary Sahs
the 'Natural Health Consultant and Wellness Planner' and a grown adult, but
it seems likely.)
Of the groups mentioned in this section, who are the more privileged and
who are the less privileged?
Gretchen Rubin's devotion to herself does allow for some
consideration for her husband. She has given some thought to Maximisation of
Married Bliss. Her observations will be an affront to many feminists. They
seem to come from a different, and surely better, person than the spoilt
brat:
'I complain about the time I spend paying bills, but I overlook the time
my husband spends dealing with our our car. It’s easy to see that
over-claiming leads to resentment and an inflated sense of entitlement. So
now when I find myself thinking, “I’m the only one around here who bothers
to…” or “Why do I always have to be the one who…?” I remind myself of all
the tasks I don’t do.
...
' ... Just as I find it easily to overlook the chores done by my husband
... it’s easy for me to forget to appreciate his many virtues and instead
focus on his flaws. For example, although I find it hard to resist using an
irritable tone, my husband almost never speaks harshly, and that’s really a
wonderful trait. I’m trying to stay alert to all the things I love about
him, and let go of my petty annoyances. This is easier said than done.'
As regards car maintenance, see the section
Feminism and the art of car maintenance.
has importance in feminism Although her liberal treatment of
her husband may disappoint, or outrage, so many feminists, Gretchen Rubin's
curriculum vitae will be very encouraging and heartening to the
many feminists who emphasize the importance of studying at the 'best'
universities and being appointed to 'top jobs.' She studied law at
Yale University and she has been a lecturer at Yale Law School and the Yale
School of Management.
William Deresiewicz has written well on the disadvantages of an education
at Yale and other prestigious universities. The American Scholar gives his
very interesting essay
The disadvantages of an elite education. It certainly interests me.
His essay isn't in the least an anti-feminist (or pro-feminist) one but I
think it contains a great deal which challenges some common feminist norms
and tendencies. Do many feminists have any more idea how to talk to a
plumber, or a mechanic? (whose jobs, they may forget, are skilled or very
highly skilled ones, perhaps demanding more skill than the feminist's own),
or to a labourer (whose job is intensely demanding.) When they find the
plumber, the mechanic or the labourer 'patronising' we only have their word
for it, usually, that they aren't to blame, that they haven't patronised the
plumber, the mechanic or the labourer. What William Deresiewicz writes about
Ivy League universities is often more widely applicable, surely. Professors
of Women's Studies (or other studies, of course) at a very different kind of
university may well lack understanding of men's and women's lives if the men
and women belong to a section of society which they know next to nothing
about. I do think that a knowledge of 'différance,' acquaintance with the
important works of Derrida, Kristeva and the rest won't be of any help. What
William Deresiewicz writes about 'top jobs' is highly relevant
to feminism, surely. He wrtes from experience. He was a Professor of English
at Yale University until he got out.
Extracts:
'It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education
until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and
the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy
with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly
learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like
him. So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so
mysterious his very language, that I couldn’t succeed in engaging him in a
few minutes of small talk before he got down to work. Fourteen years of
higher education and a handful of Ivy League degrees, and there I was, stiff
and stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness. “Ivy retardation,” a friend of
mine calls this. I could carry on conversations with people from other
countries, in other languages, but I couldn’t talk to the man who was
standing in my own house.
'It’s not surprising that it took me so long to discover the extent of
my miseducation, because the last thing an elite education will teach you is
its own inadequacy. As two dozen years at Yale and Columbia have shown me,
elite colleges relentlessly encourage their students to flatter themselves
for being there, and for what being there can do for them. The advantages of
an elite education are indeed undeniable. You learn to think, at least in
certain ways, and you make the contacts needed to launch yourself into a
life rich in all of society’s most cherished rewards. To consider that while
some opportunities are being created, others are being cancelled and that
while some abilities are being developed, others are being crippled is,
within this context, not only outrageous, but inconceivable.
...
'The first disadvantage of an elite education, as I learned in my
kitchen that day, is that it makes you incapable of talking to people who
aren’t like you. Elite schools pride themselves on their diversity, but that
diversity is almost entirely a matter of ethnicity and race. With respect to
class, these schools are largely—indeed increasingly—homogeneous. Visit any
elite campus in our great nation and you can thrill to the heartwarming
spectacle of the children of white businesspeople and professionals studying
and playing alongside the children of black, Asian, and Latino
businesspeople and professionals. At the same time, because these schools
tend to cultivate liberal attitudes, they leave their students in the
paradoxical position of wanting to advocate on behalf of the working class
while being unable to hold a simple conversation with anyone in it.
' ... Graduates of elite schools are not more valuable than stupid
people, or talentless people, or even lazy people. Their pain does not hurt
more. Their souls do not weigh more. If I were religious, I would say, God
does not love them more.
' ... When elite universities boast that they teach their students how
to think, they mean that they teach them the analytic and rhetorical skills
necessary for success in law or medicine or science or business. But a
humanistic education is supposed to mean something more than that, as
universities still dimly feel. So when students get to college, they hear a
couple of speeches telling them to ask the big questions, and when they
graduate, they hear a couple more speeches telling them to ask the big
questions. And in between, they spend four years taking courses that train
them to ask the little questions—specialized courses, taught by specialized
professors, aimed at specialized students. Although the notion of breadth is
implicit in the very idea of a liberal arts education, the admissions
process increasingly selects for kids who have already begun to think of
themselves in specialized terms—the junior journalist, the budding
astronomer, the language prodigy. We are slouching, even at elite schools,
toward a glorified form of vocational training.
'Indeed, that seems to be exactly what those schools want. There’s a
reason elite schools speak of training leaders, not thinkers—holders of
power, not its critics. An independent mind is independent of all
allegiances, and elite schools, which get a large percentage of their budget
from alumni giving, are strongly invested in fostering institutional
loyalty.'
More inconvenient facts
Generally, the 'Men's Movement' opposes particular distortions, such as
the notion that all domestic abuse is by men against women. It doesn't claim
that men have the monopoly of virtue. Many feminists are close to claiming
that women have the monopoly of virtue, or do claim it.
I recognize that many men are irrational, trivial-minded, cruel,
vindictive, bullying, infantile, easily-led, and many women likewise. Some
feminists give the impression that they believe women are inherently
virtuous. If so, this view is vulnerable to experience, I think. Feminists
may find that in the workplace, some of the men are unexpectedly and
uncomfortably compassionate and that not all the women are all they seem.
One very bad woman boss may destroy the illusion for good, just as one very
bad male boss may confirm views. A heterosexual feminist loses a husband or
partner to another woman. The belief that women are inherently virtuous is
diminished. A 'Women's Studies' academic is more often than not competing
against other women rather than men and if she fails in an application, she
may well blame women rather than men.
The harshness of reality, the injustice of reality, tend to destroy
illusions and support deeper thought but sometimes illusions have such a
grip that {modification} of reality is more convenient than {modification}
of the illusions.
Instances of hostility between women are so common, of course, that it
requires an effort to realize this: according to one stream of
feminist thought, disharmony between women is, if not impossible, negligible
in comparison with the disharmony between men and women - men and women
opposite but not in the least equal. Women are the victims. An instance of
disharmony between women, which can be interpreted according to the
affiliation of the feminist.
From
http://www.pugbus.net/artman/publish/
printer_07217002_11
rowlingfeud.shtml
'Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling, has accused New York Times book
reviewer Michiko Kakutani of "gross unprofessionalism" for writing a review
of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before she had read the entire book.
'Saying that she was "staggered, gobsmacked" and several other Briticisms
that mean "like totally surprised," Ms. Rowling registered her complaint
with Rod Bender,THEM Weekly's children's lit editor.
' "An author of my stature and earning power [earning power!] deserves more
respect than that Yoko Ono gave me," said Ms. Rowling. "How dare she buy a
copy of my book in the morning and post a review of it that same evening? I
spent weeks [weeks!] writing that book. The least she could do is give me
the courtesy of reading all of it. Besides, she had the cheek to post her
review three days before the official release date of Deathly Hallows. I've
got a mind to buy the bloody New York Times and fire that woman." [the
privileges of wealth!]
'Ms. Kakutani refused to discuss her working method or her reading speed, so
we do not know if she had help reading Deathly Hallows. If she did, however,
why weren't her elves mentioned in one of those additional-reporting
footnotes at the end of her review? At worst she appears guilty of skipping
large portions of Deathly Hallows, a short cut that would earn any junior
high school student an F on her book report. Or else Ms. Kakutani is guilty
of passing off others' work as her own, another F bomb in book report
circles.
'Although Ms. Kakutani wouldn't say how much of Deathly
Hallows she had read, she was willing to answer Ms. Rowling's criticism of
her review.
' "Nobody reads her [stuff] cover to cover except ten-year-olds," she
said. "Adults, for whom my review was intended, skim the Harry Potter books.
I don't know of anyone with a mental age greater than nineteen who reads
those books in their entirety.
' "Furthermore, what does Ms. Rowling have to complain about? I said nice
things about her book. That woman needs to get over herself." '
In general, the warm feeling of sisterhood in the face of male
opposition is a feeling difficult to maintain indefinitely. Reality is
denied, modified to support the illusions but sooner or later, the
complexity and harshness of reality make it impossible to continue believing
in illusion, except for the most deluded fantasists, those with the weakest
grasp of realities - but many feminists are exactly that.
Kingsley Amis
At the end of his novel 'Jake's Thing,' Kingsley Amis, a novelist
obviously vastly inferior to such women novelists as George Eliot or Emily
Bronte, or male novelists such as Kafka and Coetzee, writes about women. His
intended target here isn't one I accept, but it can be reinterpreted as an
attack on radical feminists, and then it's surely devastatingly accurate -
'... their concern ... with seeming to be better and to be right while
getting everything wrong, their automatic assumption of the role of injured
party in any clash of wills, their certainty that a view is the more
credible and useful for the fact that they hold it, their use of
misunderstanding and misrepresentation as weapons of debate, their selective
sensitivity to tones of voice, their unawareness of the difference in
themselves between sincerity and insincerity, their interest in importance
(together with noticeable inability to discriminate in that sphere), their
fondness for general conversation and directionless discussion, their
pre-emption of the major share of feeling, their exaggerated estimate of
their own plausibility ...'
These lines from his poem 'A Bookshop Idyll' will probably be just as
offensive to feminists:
Women are really much nicer than men:
aaNo wonder we like them.
Here, Kingsley Amis is using generalization, of course. Feminists' use of
generalization is almost limitless and just as empty. Feminist claims
beginning with 'men are ...' or 'women are ...' should be examined very,
very carefully.
Claiming superiority the easy way
In the final paragraph of her book 'Mary Wollstonecraft: A New Genus,'
Lyndall Gordon repeats the glib phrase which dismisses from serious
consideration not just a few achievements - but achievements which are
massive and momentous - such as the Periodic Table, Quantum
Theory, the building of a masterpiece such as King's College Chapel - but an
almost limitless number of achievements. She writes, 'Women who imitate men
lack ambition, goes the old phrase.' The phrase isn't likely to motivate any
woman to make discoveries in science far more remarkable than the Periodic
Table or Quantum Theory or to design and construct buildings far more
remarkable than King's College Chapel, but to leave a feminist with the
certainty that if she ever did want to achieve on such a scale, it wouldn't
be difficult. I think that Lyndall Gordon is deluded here.
Faced with a man's massive achievement, which has directly or indirectly
reduced suffering - but only some massive achievement has humanitarian
benefits - feminists more often than not overlook the achievement. If the
man can be found to be 'sexist' in some way - the criteria used are very
broad, the judgment regarded as practically infallible - then of course the
matter is clear-cut, but otherwise, simplification-words such as
'phallocentric' and 'patriarchal' will do and the achievement can be
dismissed or overlooked. Who are the important people? Why, the feminists.
They are spared the necessity of achieving, they can gain a reputation for
superiority by this easiest of ways, by using simplification-words, by
showing that they know how to use the word 'gender' instead of 'sex.' In any
case, 'achievement' may well be a 'masculinist' idea, according to some
feminists.
'Sexist' is an easy way of disposing of arguments without the hard work
needed to present a case in detail, with supporting evidence. It's far
easier to say that a garage is 'sexist' or 'patronising' than for a radical
feminist to set up a garage. Lying underneath a vehicle trying to dislodge a
rusted part, covered with grime and oil, doesn't offer the same advantages
in self-promotion. It's easier to deny angrily that in general women have
less interest in mechanical matters and to speak glibly of 'gender
stereotyping' than for a feminist car-owner to study a workshop manual and
actually carry out major mechanical work on a car.
The sphere of 'strict facts'
I refuse absolutely to apologize for men or to defend men if their
actions seem indefensible, or to defend women if their actions seem
indefensible. I follow the principle of cross-linkage. In some cases,
'gender' is the most important linkage, but very often not. I feel ties to,
linkages with, men in some cases, not in others. In other cases, I feel ties
to, linkages with, women. 'Facts' were under attack for a time, but facts
can now be seen as clear-cut in very many cases, open to theoretical
objections but no more so than the existence of an external world or the
materiality of a stone, a 'fact' of the external world, as shown by kicking
it.
In the previous section, on the death penalty, I discussed the use of the
death penalty in this country in the eighteenth century, and the failure of
Mary Wollstonecraft to show any awareness of its evils.
As a matter of strict fact, the harsh penal code of the later eighteenth
and early nineteenth century was imposed by men, not women. As a matter of
strict fact, the harsh penal code of the eighteenth and early nineteenth
century was opposed by a tiny minority of men but no women, or none that I
know of. As a matter of strict fact, the worst excesses of this harsh penal
code were ended by men. V A C Gatrell: 'Then suddenly - and I mean suddenly
- this ancient killing system collapsed. The 1832 Reform Act ... opened
parliament to some hundred independent MPs, largely middle-class advocates
of progress and critics of the ancien régime, fervently advocating the
bloody code's repeal ... When most capital statutes were at last repealed in
1837, only eight people were killed that year in the whole country, and six
in the year following, all murderers ...' As a matter of strict fact, women
were denied any political say in such matters. Not as a matter of strict
fact, but as a likelihood, if they had been, they would not have been any
more humanitarian. As a matter of strict fact, Mrs Thatcher in the twentieth
century made determined efforts to reintroduce the death penalty in this
country after its abolition in the 1960's by Harold Wilson's government.
As a matter of strict fact, the Nazi terror in Germany was due to men. As
a matter of strict fact, the Nazi regime came to be supported actively and
passively by the overwhelming majority of Germans. As a matter of strict
fact, the Nazi regime was actively opposed by only a tiny proportion of
Germans, men and women. As a matter of strict fact, the armed military
action which eventually ended the Nazi regime was overwhelmingly due to men
rather than women.
As a matter of strict fact, virtually all the scientific and
technological advances which have made life longer and less subject to such
scourges as famine and epidemic disease have been achieved by men. As a
matter of strict fact, feminists have increased human happiness to a far,
far lesser extent than the work of these men.
'Gendercide'
The attempt to be as fair as possible, the attempt to avoid distortion as
far as possible, the attempt to take account of evidence, to avoid selective
use of evidence, so far as possible, including evidence which is
inconvenient to a theory or a view of the world - these aren't
characteristic of feminism and feminist 'theory.' The examination of 'gendercide'
in the Website
www.gendercide.org
does seem to me to follow these principles. From the introduction to the
site:
'Gendercide is gender-selective mass killing. The term was first used by
Mary Anne Warren in her 1985 book,Gendercide: The Implications of Sex
Selection. Warren drew "an analogy between the concept of genocide" and what
she called "gendercide." Citing the Oxford English Dictionary definition of
genocide as "the deliberate extermination of a race of people," Warren
wrote:
' 'By analogy, gendercide would be the deliberate extermination of
persons of a particular sex (or gender). Other terms, such as "gynocide" and
"femicide," have been used to refer to the wrongful killing of girls and
women. But "gendercide" is a sex-neutral term, in that the victims may be
either male or female. There is a need for such a sex-neutral term, since
sexually discriminatory killing is just as wrong when the victims happen to
be male. The term also calls attention to the fact that gender roles have
often had lethal consequences, and that these are in important respects
analogous to the lethal consequences of racial, religious, and class
prejudice.'
'Warren explores the deliberate extermination of women through analysis
of such subjects as female
infanticide,maternal
mortality, witch-hunts
in early modern Europe, and other atrocities and abuses against women.
Gendercide Watch includes all three of these as case-studies of gendercide.
In addition, we include cases of mass rape of women followed by murder, as
has occurred on a large scale in recent decades (see the case-studies of
gendercide against both women and men in Nanjing in
1937-38 and Bangladesh in
1971). We also feature a case-study of the
Montreal Massacre (1989), a gender-selective mass execution of young
women that is indelibly imprinted in the memories of millions of Canadians,
and which shocked many others worldwide.
The difficulty with Warren's framing of gendercide, though -- and this is
true for the feminist analysis of gender-selective human-rights abuses as a
whole -- is that the inclusive definition is not matched by an
inclusive analysis of the mass killing of non-combatant men. [In my
terminology, feminists use a defective ((survey)), a ((survey)) subject to
unwarranted {restriction}, or {restriction}:- ((survey))]Gendercide Watch
was founded to encourage just such an inclusive approach. We believe that
state-directed gender-selective mass killings have overwhelmingly targeted
men through history, and that this phenomenon is pervasive in the modern
world as well. Despite this prevalence of gendercide against males --
especially younger, "battle-age" men --
the subject has received almost no attention across a wide range of policy
areas, humanitarian initiatives, and academic disciplines. We at Gendercide
Watch feel it is one of the great taboos of the contemporary age, and must
be ignored no longer.
'We offer case-study treatments of gendercide against men in political,
military, and ethnic conflicts over the last century-and-a-quarter. If the
case-studies numerically outweigh those of mass killings of women in wars
and other conflicts, this reflects our conviction that men are, indeed,
generally the victims of the most severe gender-selective atrocities in such
situations.
'Case-studies range from The
Paraguayan War of 1864-70 to the gendercides in Kosovo and East
Timor in 1999. Other cases of gendercide against men include theIndonesian
genocide of 1965-66, Bosnia-Herzegovina,Kashmir/Punjab/The
Delhi Massacre, Sri
Lanka,Burundi, Colombia,
and the Anfal Campaign in
Iraqi Kurdistan (1988). We analyze little-known gendercides such as the Nazi
murder of 2.8 million Soviet
prisoners-of-warin just eight months of 1941-42 -- possibly the most
concentrated mass killing of any kind in human history. The ambiguous case
of Stalin's Purges in
the USSR receives case-study treatment because of the sheer scale of the
gender-specific killing (tens of millions of men). It is harder to say
whether Stalin's mass murders were intentionally gender-selective, in the
manner of the Serbs in Kosovo or the Nazis in Occupied Russia. Should they
truly be considered acts of "gendercide"? Where such difficulties and
ambiguities arise, we will do our best to acknowledge them and open them for
discussion.
'As feminists have sought to move beyond traditional political-military
framings of conflict and violence, we seek also to understand institutions
rooted deep in human history that have consistently been "gendercidal" in
their impact on men. Four of these institutions have been discussed
alongside "non-traditional" institutions that overwhelmingly or exclusively
target women. For men, the case-study institutions are: corvée (forced)
labour, military
conscription, incarceration/the
death penalty, vigilante
killings, and violence
against gay men. [I discuss the general 'imbalance' in inflicting the
death penalty above.]
Academic publishing
This is Hélène Cixous urging women to write: 'Write, let no one hold you
back, let nothing stop you: not man; not the imbecilic capitalist machinery,
in which publishing houses are the crafty, obsequious relayers of
imperatives handed down by an economy that works against us and off our
backs; and not yourself. Smug-faced readers, managing editors, and big
bosses don't like the true texts of women - female-sexed texts. That kind
scares them.'
This, of course, was published by W W Norton and Company, a big
publishing house based in the United States which is inextricably linked
with 'capitalist machinery,' and one of those 'crafty, obsequious relayers
of imperatives ...' It's not true that the managing editors and big bosses
of this publishing company 'don't like the true texts of women -
female-sexed texts.'
In this book of 2 624 pages (General editor, Vincent B Leitch) there are
many, many feminist essays, extensive extracts from such works as Adrienne
Rich's 'Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,' Monique Wittig's
'One is not Born a Woman,' (Monique Wittig is described in the introduction
as 'the French writer and radical lesbian theorist,' one who claims that
"lesbians are not women"), Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar's 'The Madwoman
in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary
Imagination,' (the extract begins 'What does it mean to be a woman writer in
a culture whose fundamental definitions of literary authority are, as we
have seen, both overtly and covertly patriarchal?'), Annette Kolodny's
'Dancing through the Minefield: Some Observations on the Theory, Practice,
and Politics of a Feminist Literary Criticism,' Donna Haraway's 'A Manifesto
for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980's,'
Barbara Smith's 'Towards a Black Feminist Criticism,' Susan Bordo's
'Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body,' Judith Butler's
'Gender Trouble.' There are no 'masculinist' essays at all. In some of the
introductions, there are criticisms, but only of particular points. In the
whole massive volume, there are no extracts from some of the very many works
of sustained criticism of feminist interpretations which exist. Any readers
unfamiliar with these works would never know from reading this book that
they do exist.
Two of the notes to the Introduction to 'Theory's Empire' concern 'The
Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.' From Note 6: 'Harpham's detailed
review addresses the great gaps, arbitrariness and presentation of the
Norton Anthology, noting the tendentious introductions to the essays
included and the tone celebrating the risky business of Theory. See his
"From Revolution to Canon," The Kenyon Review, n.s. 25, no. 2 (Spring 2003):
169 - 87. Of course, the Norton Anthology is hardly unusual in its biases.
For critiques of major reference works with similar agendas, see, for
example, John Ellis's "In Theory It Works," a review of The Penguin
Dictionary of Critical Theory, by David Macey, Times Literary Supplement, 29
September 2000, 6 -7. Ellis demonstrates Macey's partisan view of his
subject, especially deplorable in reference works, which, Ellis states, have
a duty "to represent the real state of opinion in the field, and that means
getting [the author's] own commitments under control so that he can present
the full range of opinion in a reasonably balanced way." ' In the term I
used, a comprehensive reference work should offer a
((survey)).
John Ellis discusses the selectivity of David Macey in the review:
' ... when the topic is feminism, for example, neither text nor
bibliography show any sign of the major critiques by Christina Hoff Sommers,
or Elizabeth FoxGenovese, or Daphne Patai/Noretta Koertge, among others.
Dozens of books that have had an enormous impact - from Higher Superstition
by Paul Gross and Norman Levitt to Dinesh D’Souza’s Illiberal Education -
are missing from the world of critical theory as presented by Macey.'
The claim that 'female-sexed' texts have no chance of being published by
mainstream publishers isn't true in the least.
It's true that general publishers generally don't publish books with such
sentences as this, 'As Judith Butler notes in her discussion of the
dialectic of Same and Other, that dialectic is 'a false binary, the illusion
of a symmetrical difference which consolidates the metaphysical economy of
phallogocentrism, the economy of the same.' But so many academic publishers
don't hesitate. (This is taken from
Fran Brearton on 'Heaney and the Feminine' in the 'Cambridge Companion
to Seamus Heaney.') But general publishers do publish novels by women
novelists, biographies by women biographers, poetry by women poets, and of
course books by women in other fields - but the books may not in general
meet the exacting criteria of radical feminists.
Every one of the books in the 'Cambridge Companion' series which I've
referred to contains a chapter which could be described as feminist. It's
not true that the 'managing editors, and big bosses' of the Cambridge
University Press don't like the true texts of women - female-sexed texts.'
What they don't appear to like are texts which criticize feminism. In the 1
000 pages (a little more) of 'The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy' there
are substantial entries for feminist epistemology and feminist philosophy,
but no entries which are critical of feminist epistemology and feminist
philosophy. Above, I quote from the article by the feminist Susan James in
the 'Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.' Again, there are entries
on feminism but no entries critical of feminism.
These books in general reflect the vigorous debate in contemporary
philosophy. They show the extent to which views are vulnerable to criticism
as well as the extent to which they can withstand criticism. They
fair-mindedly give the case against and the case for. To give just one from
innumerable examples, in the Cambridge Dictionary, on the 'moral
implications' of utilitarianism, we read 'Most debate about utilitarianism
has focused on its moral implications. Critics have argued that its
implications sharply conflict with most people's considered moral judgments,
and that this is a strong reason to reject utilitarianism. Proponents have
argued both that many of these conflicts disappear on a proper understanding
of utilitarianism and that the remaining conflicts disappear on a proper
understanding of utilitarianism and that the remaining conflicts should
throw the particular judgments, not utilitarianism, into doubt. One
important controversy concerns utilitarianism's implications for
distributive justice ...'
Feminist essays and articles and feminist works published by academic
presses in general either contain no criticism of feminist views at all or
the criticism is muted, reflecting none of the vigorous, sustained criticism
which exists.
It would be far closer to the truth to say that radical feminism has a
stranglehold over academic publishing, with few exceptions, and over
universities, with few exceptions, than that radical feminism is shunned,
not at all welcome.
Academic publishing
This is Hélène Cixous urging women to write: 'Write, let no one hold you
back, let nothing stop you: not man; not the imbecilic capitalist machinery,
in which publishing houses are the crafty, obsequious relayers of
imperatives handed down by an economy that works against us and off our
backs; and not yourself. Smug-faced readers, managing editors, and big
bosses don't like the true texts of women - female-sexed texts. That kind
scares them.'
Women who are inspired by these words to write may find that the blissful
vision fades very quickly. The editors at radical feminist publishing houses
don't, of course, accept for publication all the 'female-sexed texts' they
receive. The writer may be obviously a committed feminist, a fierce
opponenty of patriarchy, but may lack any skill with words, any skill in
organizing material.
The essay of Hélène Cixous was published in 'The Norton Anthology of
Theory and Criticism' by W W Norton and Company, a big publishing house
based in the United States which is inextricably linked with 'capitalist
machinery,' and 'an economy that works against us and off our backs.' It's
not true that the managing editors and big bosses of this publishing company
'don't like the true texts of women - female-sexed texts.'
In this book of 2 624 pages there are many, many feminist essays,
extensive extracts from such works as Adrienne Rich's 'Compulsory
Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,' Monique Wittig's 'One is not Born a
Woman,' (Monique Wittig is described in the introduction as 'the French
writer and radical lesbian theorist,' one who claims that "lesbians are not
women"), Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar's 'The Madwoman in the Attic: The
Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination,' (the extract
begins 'What does it mean to be a woman writer in a culture whose
fundamental definitions of literary authority are, as we have seen, both
overtly and covertly patriarchal?'), Annette Kolodny's 'Dancing through the
Minefield: Some Observations on the Theory, Practice, and Politics of a
Feminist Literary Criticism,' Donna Haraway's 'A Manifesto for Cyborgs:
Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980's,' Barbara Smith's
'Towards a Black Feminist Criticism,' Susan Bordo's 'Unbearable Weight:
Feminism, Western Culture and the Body,' Judith Butler's 'Gender Trouble.'
There are no 'masculinist' essays at all. In some of the introductions,
there are criticisms, but only of particular points. In the whole massive
volume, there are no extracts from some of the very many works of sustained
criticism of feminist interpretations which exist. Any readers unfamiliar
with these works would never know from reading this book that they do exist.
It's true that general publishers generally don't publish books with such
sentences as this, 'As Judith Butler notes in her discussion of the
dialectic of Same and Other, that dialectic is 'a false binary, the illusion
of a symmetrical difference which consolidates the metaphysical economy of
phallogocentrism, the economy of the same.' But so many academic publishers
don't hesitate. (This is taken from
Fran Brearton on 'Heaney and the Feminine' in the 'Cambridge Companion
to Seamus Heaney.') But general publishers do publish novels by women
novelists, biographies by women biographers, poetry by women poets, and of
course books by women in other fields - but the books may not in general
meet the exacting criteria of radical feminists.
Every one of the books in the 'Cambridge Companion' series which I've
referred to contains a chapter which could be described as feminist. It's
not true that the 'managing editors, and big bosses' of the Cambridge
University Press don't like the true texts of women - female-sexed texts.'
What they don't appear to like are texts which criticize feminism. In the 1
000 pages (a little more) of 'The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy' there
are substantial entries for feminist epistemology and feminist philosophy,
but no entries which are critical of feminist epistemology and feminist
philosophy. Above, I quote from the article by the feminist Susan James in
the 'Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.' Again, there are entries
on feminism but no entries critical of feminism.
These books in general reflect the vigorous debate in contemporary
philosophy. They show the extent to which views are vulnerable to criticism
as well as the extent to which they can withstand criticism. They
fair-mindedly give the case against and the case for. To give just one from
innumerable examples, in the Cambridge Dictionary, on the 'moral
implications' of utilitarianism, we read 'Most debate about utilitarianism
has focused on its moral implications. Critics have argued that its
implications sharply conflict with most people's considered moral judgments,
and that this is a strong reason to reject utilitarianism. Proponents have
argued both that many of these conflicts disappear on a proper understanding
of utilitarianism and that the remaining conflicts disappear on a proper
understanding of utilitarianism and that the remaining conflicts should
throw the particular judgments, not utilitarianism, into doubt. One
important controversy concerns utilitarianism's implications for
distributive justice ...'
Feminist essays and articles and feminist works published by academic
presses in general either contain no criticism of feminist views at all or
the criticism is muted, reflecting none of the vigorous, sustained criticism
which exists.
It would be far closer to the truth to say that radical feminism has a
stranglehold over academic publishing, with few exceptions, and over
universities, with few exceptions, than that radical feminism is shunned,
not at all welcome.
Feminist and non-feminist chronology
I begin with one date and one event, and then give others, from a little
earlier, with occasional brief comments. The first date and event is
the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft's 'Vindication of the Rights of
Women' in 1792.
Although there are differences of opinion, Mary Wollstonecraft's
book is still regarded as a very important one by many
feminists. I think that radical feminists will be much more united in their
attitude to the other dated events I give: a very brief and necessarily very
selective list of scientific, technological and other achievements which
changed for the better the lives of women, and men and children. The primary
question for radical feminists isn't 'Did this change for the better the
lives of women, men and children?' or even 'Did this change for the better
the lives of women and girls (for many of them, not all, the welfare of men
and boys can be disregarded) but the question 'Was this the work of a
sexist? Was this the work of a representative of patriarchy?'
And we're supposed to recognize that arduous, patient scientific work,
technological advances achieved against all the odds, including physical
danger, amount to very little or nothing in comparison with the superior
insights of the radical feminists, whose antennae are uniquely sensitive. In
this {ordering}, the radical feminist is given (by radical feminists
themselves) the greatest importance.
In this simple-minded view, it's obvious that a publication by a woman
which is concerned with advancing the cause of women must be more important
than a development by a man which has no 'gender' implications for the man
at all. But just as the unintended consequences of an action may be far more
important than the intended consequences, the benefits of an advance pursued
by a 'sexist' - or a nationalist, or some other object of disapproval,
rightly or wrongly, a semi-lunatic, for that matter - can be immeasurably
more important. But there have been many, many advances by men who led
blameless lives, heroic lives, lives of intense difficulty, automatically,
mechanically described as sexist.
Such advances as oral contraception and other modern forms of
contraception which have released humanity in part at least from the harsh
rule of nature and the Malthusian nightmare in which many are born and many
of those born die prematurely, such advances as antisepsis and anaesthetics,
are often considered in isolation, with far too much {restriction} of focus.
Each of these advances would have been impossible without, for example,
the genius of chemists who worked in seemingly remote fields, who put
in place the framework of Chemistry, and contributed to such scientific
advances as the atomic hypothesis, atomic and molecular masses, the theory
of oxidation and reduction, chemical thermodynamics, the isolation of
elements, the building of the Periodic Table.
Similarly for non-scientific, non-technological advances. The blighting
of the lives of servant girls who had a child out of wedlock and the
blighting of the lives of other women by the harsh code of pre-enlightenment
Christianity was dramatically reduced not by claims that this was a wrong or
campaigning against this wrong, but by work seemingly very remote. It
includes the patient work of scholars such as the textual critics who
examined the Pentateuch and other Old Testament writings, and New Testament
writings, who put forward abundant evidence that so much in the Bible wasn't
at all what it seemed, and that traditional interpretations were certainly
or almost certainly mistaken. The authority of the Bible, its hold over law
and custom included, was eroded.
The parallels between examination of the Bible and current examination of
the Koran are important. Of course, examination of the Koran is resisted
very fiercely, but is essential, and is an activity with practical
consequences, like the practical consequences which followed the examination
of Biblical texts.
Some of the developments given here illustrate the discussion above (such
as the abolition of slavery and serfdom by some jurisdictions, Catherine the
Great's work for freedom of religion) and some extend it, by giving
further examples of the complexity of social, economic, technological and
humanitarian history: dimensions which are neglected by radical
feminists. The information here gives a little more evidence of the benefits
of patriarchy. This explains the inclusion, for example, of Jesse Ramsden's
screw cutting lathe of 1770. How could machines which end drudgery and
worse, which save lives, which have so many other advantages, have been
constructed without screws and other fixings? These are some developments
before the publication of 'Vindication of the Rights of Women' in spheres
about which she seemed to care little, with few exceptions, notably slavery.
She lived at a time when industrialisation was transforming England and
transforming the lives of women, in the longer term very much for the
better, in the shorter term generally not, but her neglect of
industrialisation, her neglect of the misery endured during this phase of
industrialisation, was effectively total. In this regard, she has an
instructive cross-linkage with Nietzsche. Later feminists have generally
found these matters just as uncongenial. How are people to be clothed? How
are textiles to be produced? How is textile machinery to be manufactured and
powered? And, of course, many more issues, ones with a far more obvious
linkage with human welfare. How are houses to be heated in winter? How is
water to be heated? How is sufficient food to be produced to end the risk of
famine? Hand tools are insufficient for this purpose? How is agricultural
machinery to be manufactured and powered?
The industrial developments mentioned below are also creative acts,
stimulated by needs and necessities. Peter Mathias has a good account in
'The First Industrial Nation:'
Once an economy is on the move innovations become cumulative. One
innovation breaks an equilibrium in a traditional series of processes,
creating a distortion with the others. The flying shuttle created such a
demand for yarn by increasing the productivity of weavers that it created
great incentives to develop productivity there. Hargreaves' spinning-jenny
was born in a flurry of activity to do just this. On a larger scale
factory-spinning created the same incentive to develop power-weaving. The
distortion, the bottreneck, or the problem created by an innovation could be
one of material as well as of the flow of production. When a steam engine
was attached to wooden machinery it shook it to pieces and required the
innovation of iron machinery. That innovation allowed more complicated,
heavier machinery to be built, which created an incentive for a more
powerful engine. This lay directly behind Watt's development of the
double-acting low-pressure engine. One can multiply such examples without
end.'
A closer examination by contemporary feminists of the lives of the poor
at this time would, like a closer examination of the lives of slaves and
serfs, surely give rise to uncomfortable conclusions. But even a cursory
look at the conditions of the poor and the rich would be sufficient. Wealthy
women who had servants had linkages to do with gender with impoverished and
malnourished women who lived in damp cellars and worked an eighty hour
week, but other linkages were far more important, the linkages between
wealthy women and wealthy men and the linkages between impoverished and
malnourished women and impoverished and malnourished men.
1792
Mary Wollstonecraft, 'Vindication of the Rights of Women.'
Abolition of the slave trade by Denmark. (See my discussion of
feminism and slavery above. Less powerful countries
have often set an example for more powerful ones.)
William Tuke's reformation of the treatment of the mentally ill at the
York Retreat. (Although very wide-ranging pronouncements have their
importance, important too are the small reforms - but not in the least small
for the people who benefit - which together transform an abuse.)
In France, civil marriage and divorce are instituted. This is a reform
which owed nothing to feminist pressure but which obviously benefitted
innumerable women trapped in unhappy and disastrous marriages. The reform
would not have been possible without the prior work of the thinkers and
writers of the age of enlightenment, who undermined Catholic and other
Christian views, such as the belief that marriage was a sacrament and
indissoluble.
For the earlier period, I begin at 1764. I've made a close study of many
of the topics I include below, well before the planning of this page but in
compiling the brief list below I've made use of the excellent 'Chronology of
the Modern World: 1763 - 1965 by Neville Williams.
1764
Publication of Cesare Beccaria's 'Crimes and Punishments,' (see
my brief discussion above, which includes a
comparison of the author with Mary Wollstonecraft.)
Invention by James Hargreaves of the spinning jenny, which made it
possible for one person to produce simultaneously a number of wool or
cotton threads, using eight or more spindles.There were many more advances
in textile technology still to come, of course, but this advance, and the
later ones, were essential. Without them, clothes could never be cheap
enough for the poor, they brought advantages in health, hygiene and comfort.
The textile industry was the first industry to be transformed by the
industrial revolution.
1765
Pioneering work by L. Spallanzani - preservation of food by hermetic
sealing.
Invention by James Cook of the condenser, leading to his construction of
a steam engine in 1774.
1766
Henry Cavendish delivers papers to the Royal Society on the chemistry of
gases. Without preliminary work on the chemistry of gases - massive in scale
- it would not have been possible to introduce anaesthesia by ether and
chloroform and later gases, of course.
Catherine the Great introduces freedom of
worship in Russia.
1770
Development by John Hill of methods of obtaining specimens for
microscopic study.
Publication of the great mathematician Leonhard Euler's 'Introduction to
Algebra.'
Jesse Ramsden's screw-cutting lathe.
1771
Abolition of serfdom in Savoy.
1772
Decision by Lord Mansfield that a slave is free upon landing in england.
Discovery by Daneel Rutherford of nitrogen.
Henry Cavendish: 'Attempts to Explain some of the Phenomena of
Electricity. The use of electricity in the mines for lighting and to power
labour-saving machinery, its use for countless domestic and industrial
machinery and appliances, was a long time in the future, but this is one of
the pieces of preliminary work.
Leonhard Euler discusses the principles of mechanics, optics and other
branches of science and technology.
Thomas Coke begins reform of animal husbandry in Norfolk.
1773
T. F. Pritchard suggested the building of a cast-iron bridge over the
Severn near Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, and later designed it - the world's
first cast-iron bridge.
1774
Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen.
K. W. Scheele discovers chlorine. The greatest single factor in disease
causation now, as in the past, is unsafe drinking water, including pollution
of water by sewage. Chlorination of drinking water has saved more human
lives than the collective efforts of all radical feminists.
Construction by John Wilkinson of a boring mill which improves the
manufacture of cylinders for steam engines.
1775
James Watt makes very notable advances in steam engine design at Matthew
Boulton's works in Birmingham.
. J. Griesbach's critical reading of the Greek New Testament. Later, he
gave rules which reflect the new way of reading the New Testament, not now
regarded as an infallible document, produced without errors. His first rule:
'The shorter reading is to be preferred over the more verbose ... for
scribes were much more prone to add than to omit. They hardly ever leave out
anything on purpose, but they added much. It is true indeed that some things
fell out by accident; but likewise not a few things, allowed in by the
scribes through errors of the eye, ear, memory, imagination, and judgment,
have been added to the text.'
1777
The prison reformer John Howard: 'The state of the Prisons of England and
Wales.'
Invention by C.A Coulomb of the torsion balance.
1779
David Hume's ''Dialogues concerning Natural Religion' [Given incorrectly
in 'Chronology of the Modern World' as 'Dialogues of Natural Religion.] (See
my page
Religions: observations and reservations.)
Feminism and dressing up
Many feminists like to dress up and have quite a talent for dressing up:
improving - 'dressing up' - the appearance of naked dogmas. I discuss many
of these in other sections. In this section, I present some feminist dogmas
in a very clear and simple form: the Empress Feminism with no clothes.
A feminist who would agree with another feminist in full flow,
arguing a feminist case or seeming to argue a feminist case with an
abundance of examples, might find it impossible to agree if the argument
were to be presented in its bare essentials.
Attempts at persuasion are often successful because the language used is
vivid and forceful. The argument clothed in this vivid and forceful language
may be a good one or a bad one. It can be useful to examine the argument in
a relatively bare form. The language may be anything but vivid and forceful
but theory-laden arguments expressed in academic form may be undeservedly
convincing. A claim in academic garb may be readily accepted even though
there are strong arguments against it and strong reasons for thinking that
it's hoplessely misguided, ridiculous. Again, it can be useful to display it
in outline form.
To this end, there are only two basic concepts I use here, 'outweighing'
and 'linkage.' As I explain on the page
Introduction to {theme} theory, I advocate supplementing natural
language with symbolic notation. The symbols I use to present some feminist
dogmas here unadorned are very few and very simple.
> is read as 'outweighs.' This symbol, an introduction of my own,
has many, many uses in ethical argument and other argument. It allows many
ethical views and ethical differences to be presented very clearly and
economically. >> is read as 'very much outweighs.' This is a very simple way
of showing gradation, but is often useful.
< > is read as 'is linked with.' The application-sphere is very, very
wide (not subject to substantial {restriction} but here all the linkages are
between people. The people linked are in square brackets, [ ... ].
I don't give each of the feminist claims I examine on this page in this
bare format, but I think it would be useful to do that. All I do is to give
a few examples.
So, I'd claim that
(disadvantages of women in present-day traditional Islamic societies) >>
(disadvantages of women in present-day liberal democracies).
Does feminism have an international dimension? If so, why do so many
feminists neglect issues to do with Islamism? Unless a feminist
believes that no women suffer like women in presend-day liberal democracies.
(sufferings of Jewish men and women as a result of the Nazi
Holocaust) >> (treatment of Nazi women at the hands of 'Nazi form of
patriarchy.')
[a Jewish woman during the Nazi Holocaust] < > [a Jewish man during the
Nazi Holocaust] >> [a Jewish woman during the Nazi Holocaust] < > [a Nazi
woman during the Nazi Holocaust]
The denial that gender linkages are always or usually the most important
(in my terminology, have prior-{ordering}.
The introduction to {theme} theory introduces a much wider range of
symbols than the ones used here. I explain some of my reasons for using
symbolic notation:
'Natural language is recognized as a cumbersome and inadequate means of
expressing most mathematical argument,. Symbolic notation very often
supplements or replaces natural language in logical argument. The
information expressed in tabular form, in rows and columns, is superior to
continuous prose as a means of expressing information in many cases,
allowing comparisons to be made easily. Tabular display is used in truth
tables, the rows showing possible assignments of truth values to the
arguments of the truth-functions or truth-functional operators. Philosophers
occasionally make use of diagrams. There are a number of examples in Derek
Parfitt's 'Personal Identity' (1971). Even so, most philosophical argument
is in continuous prose. I think that symbolic notation as well as very
concise but non-symbolic expression has great utility and can often replace
or supplement philosophical prose.
'The symbolic notation I propose for the expression of some concepts has
very little in common with Frege’s ‘Begriffsschrift' (1884) : less rigorous
but with a far wider application-sphere (the examination and generalization
of ‘application-sphere’ is one of my aims.) I do share Frege’s ambition,
expressed in the Preface to the Begriffsschrift, ‘if it is one of the tasks
of philosophy to break the domination of the word over the human spirit by
laying bare the misconceptions that through the use of language often almost
unavoidably arise concerning the relations between concepts and by freeing
thought from that which only the means of expression of ordinary language,
constituted as they are, saddle it, then my ideography, further developed
for these purposes, can become a useful tool for the philosopher.’ Frege’s
ideography was difficult to implement. I have taken care to use only symbols
which are typographically ready to hand.'
Wittgenstein and the monotonous diet of
feminism
I need to explain the reasons for the tedium and
monotony I find in general in feminist books, articles and Websites,
including the feminist Websites discussed below.
Wittgenstein wrote in 'Philosophical Investigations,
'A main cause of philosophical diseases - a one-sided
diet: one nourishes one's thinking with only one kind of example.'
'Eine Hauptursache philosophischer Krankheiten - einseitige Diät: man nährt
sein Denken mit nur einer Art von Beispielen.' (Section 593.)
This seems applicable to non-philosophical as well as
philosophical expression. I don't stress 'diseases' here. I avoid calling
opponents diseased or their writings diseased. Otherwise, I'd claim that
what Wittgenstein writes can be applied to so many feminists, whose diet is
one-sided, who nourish their thinking with only one kind of example.
There are feminists whose non-feminist achievements are
substantial. There are feminist philosophers, for example, whose
non-feminist achievement is substantial. There are feminists with a very
wide range of interests. There are also feminists whose feminism seems to
occupy their attention almost exclusively. Their world is etiolated, the
focus terrifyingly narrow. Feminist women who intend to succeed in a
demanding field are more likely to appreciate the importance of the
knowledge, skill, experience and practice which are essential for success.
Feminists who fail to recognize the importance of such things may compensate
by giving almost exclusive attention to the 50% demand, to 'putting
feminism' at the centre of politics, or education, or whatever field they
turn their attention to.
If the feminists who campaign for the 50% norm in
politics and aim to put feminism at the centre of political life ever
succeed in their objective, then they will find that the honeymoon period is
very short. Feminist views are no guarantee of competence in any of the
skills needed by politicians, which are obviously very varied and demanding,
including taxation law, financial administration, and many, many more.
Politics gives harsh lessons to politicians who have no understanding of
unintended consequences. If feminist politicians already dominated
parliament in this country, it's likely that they would vote not just to
withdraw British armed forces from Afghanistan but to end defence
expenditure. If feminist politicians in other countries which have forces in
Afghanistan did the same, then the result would be the control of
Afghanistan by the Taliban and the beginning of a new dark age for girls and
women there. But I don't in the least share the cynical view that all
politicians are corrupted by power. Power may be a reality check, consigning
to irrelevance the naive views of political dilettantes, including bland and
glib dilettante feminists, who think that everything they want should be
exempt from criticism and everything they want can be achieved.
The feminists whose main interest in politics is in
ending 'gender imbalance' seem to imagine that when gender imbalance has
been corrected, then women politicians will spend much of their time passing
feminist legislation. Missing is any recognition that in the US,republican
women politicians may have fundamental disagreements with democratic women
politicians, that the objectives of Israeli women politicians are likely to
be irreconcilable with the objectives of women politicians in an Arab
country, or Iran, that in this country, Labour and Conservative women
politicians may not see each other as sisters. These are elementary
observations, often overlooked and neglected, particularly in the euphoria
of a demonstration, when people are convinced by simple slogans and believe
that anything is possible.
There are feminists who will have nothing to do with
democratic politics - unsatisfyingly imperfect, unlike satisfying utopian
politics. The demands and responsibilities of practical politics, a
generally harsh world, would leave far less time for denouncing and
disputing. There's now a feminist political party in this country, the
'Women's Equality Party.' Feminists will be able to translate
their conviction of the centrality of feminism into the sphere of practical
politics, with the objective of getting feminists elected to local
government and national government. Can the party counter the common
feeling that in general, feminism isn't a movement which 'gets things done?'
Is the party electable? Unfortunately, for many feminists, there is no
such thing as a 'reality check.' If patriarchy can be blamed for almost all
the imperfections of the world, it would certainly be blamed for the failure
of a feminist political party.
If orchestral music or opera is a primary concern, then
the narrow feminist may ignore the staggering riches of the orchestral
repertoire and opera and concentrate attention on the music of Judith Weir
and other women composers, or may ignore the riches of Mozart's opera scores
and concentrate on the misogynist references in the libretto of 'The Magic
Flute,' or may campaign for the 50% norm in the appointment of conductors or
'top positions' in different sections of the orchestral world. A feminist
who wants to become a conductor has to give most attention to the exacting
disciplines of conductor, starting with a thorough study of harmony,
counterpoint, orchestration and the rest.
A narrow feminist with a concern for the novel may ignore
Flaubert, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, in fact all novels written by men. A
feminist who claims to be interested in literature may have far less
interest in literature than in campaigning for the 50% norm in various
sections of the publishing industry. Even so, feminists who are united in
their demand for making feminism central to literature may disagree about
feminism and resort to in-fighting. Kwame Anthony Appiah includes a very
good account of the troubles of Professor Sandra Gilbert, a feminist who
wrote 'The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the
Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination,' in conjunction with Professor
Sandra Gilbert. He writes:
'Despite their own experience of successful feminist
collaboration, the response to their scholarly undertaking hardly confirmed
this happy conviction. In later years, Susan Gunbar writes, she has found
herself ... lambasted by various "insurgent" critics for various purported
sins: she was "essentialist," didn't sufficiently acknowledge black women or
lesbians, failed to keep pace with high theory - the list was no doubt long
... To judge from her later book, Critical Condition: Feminism at the Turn
of the Century, the experience has been demoralizing. The field of feminist
criticism - a field she did much to establish - is now, she tells us,
cluttered with alienating jargon and riven by divisive identity politics.'
Kwame Anthony Appiah ends his essay ('Battle of the Bien-pensant,'
in 'Theory's Empire') on a relatively hopeful note. His opinion is that at
the time of writing, ' ... mirabile dictu, there are more and more
literary critics - feminist and otherwise - who actually devote themselves
to ... literature. Susan Gubar's field may well be in a "critical
condition," but there are signs that it is on the mend.'
Feminist divisions and
in-fighting
Feminist notions of feminist virtue and feminist sisterhood and feminist
solidarity are contradicted by reality again and again. From the feminist
site 'The F Word,' www.thefword.org.uk Extracts from an article by
Terese Jonsson. At the time, she was a PhD student at
London Metropolitan University, whose supervisor was the feminist
Irene Gedalof. She's now Dr Jonsson and a lecturer at Portsmouth University.
'Piercing the whitening silence
' ... When are the white, privileged, cis-gendered,
university-educated, able-bodied women who too often insist on dominating
feminist conversations going to actually start listening? And following on
from that, when are we going to start changing? Annika addressed many
different issues in her article, all important and inter-connected, but
right here and now I want to focus on one strand in particular; namely, the
ongoing racism and unchecked white privilege in many feminist communities in
the UK.
''I should mention at this point that I am a white, middle-class
feminist. I'm not saying I have all the answers or that I occupy any moral
high-ground on this matter, but I am saying that if we are to build real
feminist movements in the UK, if this recent "upsurge in feminist activity"
oft-cited in Guardian lifestyle columns is going to mean anything to the
women Annika wrote about in her article, white feminists have some serious
shit to sort out.
...
' ... Most white feminists these days know how to adopt a superficial
language of anti-racism. But that is far from enough ...
'Feminist conferences, demos, Ladyfests, discussion groups, mailing
lists... they all-too-often pay lip service to being inclusive. But saying
that you provide a welcoming and safe space for all women is not the same as
making it so. Like Annika noted, when filling in the monitoring form at the
feminist conference, "There wasn't even a box for me to tick! [The writer
seems unaware of some connotations of 'box-ticking.' The entry for
'box ticking' in dictionary.reference.com is 'derogatory the process of
satisfying bureaucratic administrative requirements rather than assessing
the actual merit of something.']
How is this progress? The lack of a box on a monitoring form may not seem
like a big deal, but the problem is such 'oversights' reveal so much more.
They reveal a lack of a meaningful anti-racist perspective which takes the
intersection of oppressions such as racism and sexism as it's starting
point. They expose white feminists' inability, or more correctly
unwillingness, to put anyone other than ourselves at the centre of our
organising. [This is what I call the autocentric approach, which should be
corrected by a ((survey)) which takes all relevant considerations into
account, or as full a range as possible. The idea that a black feminist
perspective can also be autocentric, centred on the self, wouldn't appeal to
the writer at all.]
'I was called out on some silencing behaviour myself recently. I had
failed to address the white-centricity of an event that I had been part of
organising. [A classic instance of self-flagellation] The most infuriating
realisation for me was that I already knew 'better', but had still let the
sense of security and safety afforded to me by my whiteness (as well as a
feeling of the inevitability of it ending up this way) lull me into
complacency, taking the least challenging route. 'I
'It is only white (middle-class, straight, able-bodied, cis-gendered...)
women who have the privilege to separate out gender as a single axis of
oppression, to only look at an issue from the 'gender angle...'
'In Britain in 2009, when we talk about women's rights, we need to be
talking about the anti-immigrant rhetoric and violence against asylum
seekers committed by the British state, about militarist and cultural
imperialism, about capitalism and the criminal justice system. In the
current climate of xenophobia and racism, a white feminism which does not
engage with these issues, leaves itself vulnerable to being co-opted by
neo-colonialist and racist agendas and will continue to fail non-white
women, in being not only irrelevant, but actually harmful.
'So if you are wondering why there aren't any women of colour joining
your feminist group, it probably isn't because they're not interested in
women's rights, but because what you have defined as your feminist issues
don't have much relevance beyond your own white body. When you talk or write
about 'women' or how a particular issue affects women, ask yourself, which
women are you talking about? How would it affect a woman who is not like
you? Do you think that dealing with racism is a 'distraction' from dealing
with sexism? Why?
Listen to women of colour
This one seems pretty straight forward, right? It's pretty damn fundamental,
but is it happening?
...
'So some questions to ask yourself: which groups or organisations are you
involved with or support? How do you interact with women who are not white
in your organising? How do you value their voices? If you read blogs, do you
follow blogs written by people of colour? If you read feminist books, what
ethnicity are the authors of the books you read? What ethnicity are your
feminist role models? Why?
'The silence is also caused by the deep-seated fear and anxiety that most
liberal white people seem to have in talking about racism in British
society. The fear of saying the wrong thing, of offending or being racist,
not knowing what to say or how to treat non-white people respectfully. It is
the silence that is sometimes penetrated (usually in moments of crisis), but
then it returns, until next time. It is the silence that we have to smash,
and to keep smashing over and over. The conversations, when we have them are
useful, but it's not enough to have a workshop once a year, it has to be a
constant and ongoing engagement [to the exclusion of so many other concerns,
responsibilities - and legitimate joys and pleasures, for that matter]. And
us [sic] white feminists should not be waiting for activists of colour to
initiate the conversation.
'A good starting point is to accept that all white people in Western
society are racist to some extent – it has been ingrained in us since birth.
Let's not pretend we're all squeaky clean, but open up our minds and hearts
to honest interrogation and the possibilities of change. Yes, we probably
will say something stupid and ignorant - there's a good chance I've done so
somewhere in this article - but unless we are willing to expose ourselves,
there will be no progress. Unlearning racism is a continuous journey, I
don't think it really ever ends. Questioning our own attitudes and behaviour,
as well as those around us, has to become part of our everyday
thought-process. ['Questioning' subject to extreme {restriciction}. This is
'safe' questioning, the kind that confirms an ideology.]
'Learn how to criticise other white feminists
This is connected to silence, but I think it deserves its own heading
because I am realising more and more that this is absolutely key if we are
to transform exclusionary white feminism into something which has radical
and liberatory potential.
'I'm not suggesting that we should forget about the achievements of
these women. I'm saying, let's get real and not ignore the less
flattering parts of feminist history. Let's not make historical
feminists out to be saints. [I'm in full agreement with this sentence at
least.]
'When a feminist group is white-dominated, the white women have the power
to silence criticism by sticking together and denying (or more commonly,
simply ignoring) that anything problematic has happened. Us white feminists
need to learn how to challenge each other more; to push ourselves to raise
concerns about racism when we see it (even if the person you're challenging
is your friend!). When we organise together with other white women, we need
to set up ways and time to talk constructively about race. So when we write
that mission statement with those buzz words 'inclusion' and 'diversity', we
need to think about what they actually mean, agree to continuously review
how we are or are not achieving those aims. Otherwise there is no point
including those words in the first place.
Learn from history
I've already written above about the importance of learning about the
histories of activists of colour (a great place to start for recent history
is the book Other kinds of dreams': Black Women's Organisations and the
Politics of Transformation by Julia Sudbury). But let's also learn more
about the lesser known parts of the histories of white feminists.
There is a fascinating field of historical research into white British
feminists' involvement in the Empire, which includes work by historians such
as Antoinette Burton, who found in her research that British feminists at
the turn of the century "enlisted empire and its values so passionately and
so articulately in their arguments for female emancipation" that they must
be "counted among the shapers of imperial rhetoric and imperial ideologies".
[History does destroy so many illusions, including feminist illusions.]
'I'm not suggesting that we should forget about the achievements of these
women. I'm saying, let's get real and not ignore the less flattering parts
of feminist history. Let's not make historical feminists out to be saints.
[Agreed].
...
'So the question I want to ask my white sisters right now is this: what
is feminism to you? Is it a lifestyle, a way for you to have an outlet about
the sexism in your life, as it affects you? Or is it the ongoing fight to
radically transform society, to end oppression against ALL women, and
ultimately all people?'
[One of my
aphorisms on ethics: 'Working towards the eventual elimination of all
human (or animal) exploitation is no more realistic than 'End all human
exploitation now!' or 'End all animal exploitation now!' Terese Jonsson
seems not to have given much thought, or any thought at all, to any problems
to do with the treatment of animals. Presumably, in her utopia, chickens
would still be confined in battery cages in a large number of countries -
and battery chicken eggs would be bought by women as well as men - sows
would still be confined in sow stalls and there would be no need to ban
bullfighting. (Feminists would, however, see to it that the 'gender bias'
was corrected, so that 50% of the matadors, picadors and banderilleros were
female.) See also my page on
Animal welfare and the section on this page
Feminism and animals: the contracting circle.]
Terese Jonsson gives this information on the Website of London
Metropolitan University:
'I am a PhD student researching how contemporary feminists in England
represent the recent feminist past in relation to issues of race and racism.
My aim is to explore what kind of stories of the feminist past are told (as
well as what the silences are), where race and racism is located within
them, and the effects these narratives have on contemporary feminist
politics.
'My methodology involves analysing historical narratives within academic
literature, 'popular' feminist books, newspaper articles, memoirs and blogs,
as well as other forms of media. I am also interviewing feminist activists
and (ex)students of Women's and Gender studies, to explore the stories of
the feminist past which circulate in activist and academic feminist
communities, but which may not be written down.
'This historiographical approach is guided by the idea that how we tell
stories about the feminist past influences how we understand the feminist
present. I am hoping through this research to intervene into recurring
patterns of white privilege and marginalisation of feminists of colour
within white dominated feminist spaces.'
Blatantly ideological treatments can't be converted into respectable
academic treatments simply by using terms such as 'methodology' and
'historiographical,' or by providing citations, which will presumably be
given in large quantity in the finished dissertation. If Terese Jonsson's
piece in 'The F Word' is any guide to her 'methodology' in writing the
dissertation, then all the evidence she accumulates will be used to 'prove'
the conclusion, not enhancing in the least the academic reputation of
London Metropolitan University. Terese Jonsson's supervisor is Dr Irene
Gedalof, The Website of London Metropolitan University gives this
information:
'Irene Gedalof has taught Women’s Studies at London Metropolitan
University since 1998 and is currently course leader for Women’s Studies and
the MA Equality and Diversity. Her current research is on questions of home,
identity and belonging in relation to representations of migrant women and
migrant women’s practices of cultural reproduction. Her publications are in
the areas of identity, power and female embodiment, and the intersections of
gender, race and ethnicity in white Western and postcolonial feminist
theory. Irene is a member of the Feminist Review editorial collective.' If
Dr Gedalof believes strongly in the value of intellectual honesty, then she
will take care to make an adequate ((survey)) and not disregard evidence if
it happens to be difficult to interpret in feminist terms, such as the
evidence in the section on this page concerned with black slave-owning
women. The section includes this quotation: 'The free women of color, for
whom we have inventories, often owned significant property, including
slaves, houses, lots, and furniture ... It was very common for these women
to choose not to emancipate their slaves, and instead to pass them down to
children or other relatives ... it is difficult to ignore evidence that free
women of color, like whites, engaged in slavery for commercial purposes, and
that, in doing so, they prospered.'
An instance, from the Website of The National Women's History
Museum,' 'Racial Divisions in the Progressive Era:'
' ... black women were largely excluded from white women’s reform
organizations. Black women and their clubs were largely excluded from the
General Federation of Women’s Clubs and the National American Woman Suffrage
Association. Other organizations, such as the Women’s Christian Temperance
Union and the YWCA, were segregated, with black women forming their own
local chapters. In addition, white women’s organizations largely ignored
issues of racism, such as lynching or the disenfranchisement of black voters
...
'Examples of cooperation between white and black reformers are few.'
A University of Michigan page on
Lesbian feminism (including, prominently, black lesbian feminism) gives
an unintentionally grim and sobering insight into the likely results of a
radical feminist triumph in politics: if not a civil war between feminists,
dissension and hostility. There are
further causes
of dissension and hostility not explored by the University's page.
Radical feminism is as unstable as far left politics. A
politics which gives almost exclusive attention to radical feminist issues
and neglects the material conditions of life, economic, financial and fiscal
matters, almost all considerations except ones which have a bearing on
radical feminism, is doomed.
Radical feminist disputes can only be indulged at length
because the 'systems of oppression' provide clean drinking water, take away
sewage, provide electrical power, provide a guaranteed food supply, and all
the other benefits.
Extracts from the page:
'Lesbian feminism largely emerged in response to the women’s liberation
movement’s exclusion of lesbians. As the Second Wave of feminism
picked up steam during the 1960s, feminist discourse largely ignored
lesbianism. Some feminists harbored hostile attitudes towards
lesbians, however. Some viewed lesbianism as a sexual rather than a
political issue. Others believed the project of feminism would
dismantle strict sexual categories, and would release a “natural
polymorphous sexuality,” making lesbian politics irrelevant. NOW’s
leader at the time, Betty Friedan, referred to lesbianism as the “Lavender
Menace.” This phrase referred to her view that incorporating
lesbianism in the feminist agenda would undermine the credibility of the
women’s movement overall.
'Alice Echols in “The Eruption of Difference” describes the emergence of
lesbian feminism during this time and the creation of a lesbian separatist
movement in response to the homophobic sentiments expressed by heterosexual
feminist organizations of that era.
...
'These activists called for female and lesbian separatism, arguing that
“Only women can give each other a new sense of self.” (“The Woman Identified
Woman,” 235) They held that “homosexuality” and
“heterosexuality” are categories created by a male-dominated society
utilized to separate and dominate women. Notably, “The Woman
Identified Woman” argued that the issue of lesbianism is essential to
women’s liberation. “It is the primacy of women relating to women, of women
creating a new consciousness of and with each other, which is at the heart
of women’s liberation and the basis for cultural revolution.” (The Woman
Identified Woman, 236)
'On May 1, 1970, lesbianism became a serious issue at the “Second
Congress to Unite Women,” when lesbian activists such as The Radicalesbians
chose this conference to educate feminists regarding the political obstacles
faced by lesbians. At this event, the “Lavender Menace” attempted to
rush the stage to present lesbian issues and distributed copies of “The
Woman Identified Woman.” Although the lights were doused before
the stage was rushed, this action led to pro-lesbian resolutions being
passed at the conference’s final assembly. In 1971, the Radicalesbians
disbanded.
'At this time, many heterosexual feminists expressed discomfort over
having sex re-injected into their feminist world, a world they believed to
be outside of the androcentric relationships of sexuality. Echols
argues that “...the introduction of sex troubled many heterosexual feminists
who had found in the women’s movement a welcome respite from sexuality.”
Perhaps in response to heterosexual discomfort, lesbian feminists distanced
themselves from the sexual aspect of lesbianism and assured feminists that
lesbianism involved “sensuality” not sexuality. Thus, Radicalesbians
had to persuade feminists that lesbianism was not simply a bedroom issue,
and that lesbians were not “male-identified ‘bogeywomen’ out to sexually
exploit women” (Echols, 216).
'In essence, lesbian feminists tried to untie lesbianism from sex so
heterosexual feminists were more comfortable. But they still had to
find an effective way to address the accusation that their masculinity was
somehow complicit with men and patriarchy. Lesbian feminists responded
by distancing themselves from stereotypes of “masculine roles,” maleness,
and patriarchy. One way they were able to do so was by disentangling
lesbian sexuality from heterosexuality and re-conceptualizing heterosexual
sex as consorting with “the enemy”. They capitalized on dominant
assumptions regarding female sexuality, including ideas of women’s romantic
and nurturing sexuality versus men’s aggressive sexuality. They were
then able to draw a distinction between lesbian sex and heterosexual sex,
claiming that lesbian sex was “pure as snow” since it did not involve men.
For example, “…the male seeks to conquer through sex while the female seeks
to communicate” and “…lesbians are obsessed with love and fidelity” (Echols,
218).
'Using this ideology [sic], lesbians successfully billed lesbianism as an
ultimate form of feminism--a practice that did not involve men on any
emotional level. In this way, heterosexual feminists were seen as
inferior because of their continued association with men. Lesbians
took on a “vanguard” quality as the “true” bearers of feminism. As
radical feminism became more associated with lesbianism, heterosexual
feminists left the movement.
'Within the feminist movement, lesbian feminists were often accused of
elitism and arrogance, because they considered themselves the “vanguard” of
feminism ...
Divisions
'For some, the community that coalesced through the many new connections
that lesbian-feminism fostered constituted a unifying force—“a whole
culture, a camaraderie, a support system, a network, shared understanding,
shared vision,” members told sociologist Susan Krieger. This shared
understanding and vision was connected to political acts emanating from
personal identity, such as “daring to say the word ‘lesbian’ out loud” or
“doing a demonstration in support of a woman who didn’t wear a bra.”
(Krieger, 215-6) But for others, lesbian-feminist community was
characterized as much as by division as by unity—by the forming of
politically motivated boundaries demarcating which women, and which ways of
being, were superior or inferior.
Appearance, Style & Sexuality
'For example, in many lesbian-feminist communities younger lesbians were
ambivalent about femme/butch culture, viewing it as a pre-feminist
anachronism that constituted an ill-advised alliance with patriarchy.
Some Radicalesbians called butch/femme “male-identified role-playing among
lesbians.” One viewed butch women as lacking enlightened community and
progressive political consciousness. She described them to sociologist
Barbara Ponse as “rural women, farm women, country women who had no contact
with any kind of gay community [and] really thought they must be like men.”
(Ponse, 252) Because this view conceived of femme/butch roles as
irredeemably against feminist struggle, one woman who later identified as
butch recalled to Ponse that it was “very hard” to identify as both butch
and feminist “back in those days.”
'Historian Marc Stein has conjectured that this lesbian-feminist
disapproval was both racialized and classed, because at this time, both
white working-class lesbian culture and African American lesbian culture
generally continued to be organized around butch/femme roles. (M. Stein,
350) Indeed, although lesbian feminists often used language aiming to
speak for all women, only a few African American women and a few women over
40 participated in Radicalesbians. (M. Stein, 344) In one mainly
white and middle-class Midwestern lesbian feminist community, those who
lived in trailers, worked on farms, and were not college educated possessed
an acute awareness that they were on the community’s margins.
(Krieger, 217, 219)
'Lesbian-feminist disapproval of femme/butch culture was philosophically
based on radical feminist assertions that all aspects of everyday life are
highly politicized sites of potential resistance to patriarchy.
(Taylor & Whittier, 358) However, to some, these expectations of
lifestyle and of personal appearance became rules demarcating who most
merited authentic membership in the community on the basis of her adherence
to a proper kind of feminist politics. This ideal feminist politics
frequently saw itself as devoted to the negotiation of new definitions of
gender, such as by moving one’s appearance and demeanor toward androgyny.
...
'If, for lesbian-feminists, the style of dress was one site of resistance
to patriarchy, what women did in the bedroom became another. Groups
such as the Radicalesbians characterized heterosexuality as a cause of the
oppression of women and contended that lesbianism was the revolutionary
vanguard of feminist resistance to patriarchy. (Taylor & Whittier,
356; M. Stein, 354) One Radicalesbian member wrote, “Why in the name
of hell do so many of our Sisters continue to let men use and abuse them to
death? […] any woman sleeping with any man on a fairly regular basis is
prostituting her mind, her body, and her spirit.” (M. Stein, 354)
'But if sleeping with men amounted to acquiescing to patriarchy, one
didn’t necessarily have to engage in sexual relations with women in order to
be feminist. In 1980, poet and theorist Adrienne Rich broadened the
meaning of “lesbian,” writing of a “lesbian continuum” that encompassed a
spectrum of “woman identification” from “the impudent, intimate girl
friendships of eight or nine year olds” to all kinds of “marriage resisters”
for whom “women provided the ongoing fascination and sustenance of life.”
' "Woman identification” de-emphasized the importance of the erotic for
Rich, to argue that all kinds of connections between women—sexual or
not—carried the power to upend heterosexuality’s embrace of the patriarchal
status quo. (Rich, 240-1, 244-5) Because of the separatist
ideology that discouraged sharing one’s bed with a man, some lesbian
feminists viewed bisexuality in stigmatized terms as an ideologically
bankrupt lifestyle that, in siding with men over women, denied innate
feminist potential. (Ponse, 253)
Race
'Along with differences over appearance and sexuality, racial
differences, too, became increasingly salient in lesbian feminist, as well
as broader feminist, communities. African American lesbian Anita
Cornwell joined the Radicalesbians and began writing for the Ladder in 1971.
Her first Ladder article expressed a hope for cross-racial
coalition-building. But the next year, she wrote that her feelings had
changed somewhat when she was attending a conference populated mostly by
white lesbians. It was there that she learned a Black Panther had been
shot. “[T]he moment I or any other black forget we are black, it may
be our last,” she wrote. “For when the shooting starts any black is
fair game. The bullets don’t give a damn whether I sleep with woman or
man.” In a 1974 essay Cornwell recalled that she had joined the
women’s movement believing her race would not affect how she was treated.
Just six months after she joined, she said she “faced the truth” that
“racism does exist in the Movement […] [i]t was there, however, and is still
there.” (M. Stein, 355-6)
'Feelings of exclusion spurred some women of color to break away and
create their own organizations. One of the best known is the Combahee
River Collective. A group of black lesbian feminists created the
collective in 1975 because they were frustrated with racism in the women’s
movement, sexism in the black freedom movements, and dissatisfied with the
recently-formed National Black Feminist Organization’s inattention to
sexuality and to analysis of economic oppression. In a 1977 statement,
the collective emphasized that the aims of their intersectional politics
followed from an analysis of their own life experiences:
' "[W]e are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual,
heterosexual, and class oppression, and see as our particular task the
development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the
major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of these
oppressions creates the conditions of our lives. […] We believe
that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly
out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s
oppression.” (CRC, 272-3, 275)
'The collective acknowledged that the political community they had formed
was not necessarily more devoid of conflict than others. They had
experienced internal disagreements and drop-offs in membership, they wrote.
Yet, they voiced hope that “we know we have a very definite revolutionary
task to perform and we are ready for the lifetime of work and struggle
before us.” (CRC, 281)
'Five years later in 1982, this optimism appeared to have been
confirmed. Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press published the
pathbreaking book Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, co-edited by
Combahee River Collective co-founder Barbara Smith. In her
introduction to the book, Smith expressed satisfaction with the progress
that nine years of women of color organizing had wrought. She
described the publication of the book as attempting both to solidify their
hard-won gains and to communicate them to a broader audience.
'Writing that same year, anthropologist Esther Newton observed that
although lesbian-feminist rhetoric positioned itself as universalist—as
representing all women—“class and race antagonisms” in lesbian communities
in fact “may have sharpened since 1970.” (Newton, 161)
Lesbian-feminist ideological hegemony, she wrote, had elided the ways in
which lesbian cultures are actually highly fragmented. For
Newton, ideologies of unity could not paper over
salient differences between lesbians.'
There are further causes of dissension and
hostility. Feminists who regard themselves as 'mainstream feminists,' with a
view of feminism which seems completely reasonable to them, are viewed as
marginal feminists by some groups. Christian feminists disagree with
feminists who regard secularism, or atheism, as intrinsic to mainstream
feminism. Christian feminism would be regarded as an irrelevance or an
embarrassment by many secular or atheist feminists. The Church of England is
not worth bothering with and the efforts of feminist Anglicans to appoint
female bishops are pointless.
From the feminist site 'The F Word,' www.thefword.org.uk
annotated extracts of a piece by Terese Jonsson. At the time, Terese
Jonsson was a PhD student at London Metropolitan University, whose
supervisor was the feminist Dr Irene Gedalof. She's now a lecturer at
Portsmouth University.
Extracts from the superb Website of
Students for academic
freedom which includes this after the title, 'you can't get a good
education if they're only telling you half the story.' The extracts are
concerned with academic freedom at Penn State University. Similar concerns
about academic freedom at London Metropolitan University can be raised, at
least in the case of Dr Gedalof. Is she helping students to think for
themselves, does she set forth the divergent opinions of investigators, does
she provide education rather than a kind of indoctrination?
'For more than fifty years, Penn State University has had one of the
strongest and most clearly articulated policies on academic freedom of
any institution of higher learning. Known as HR 64, the policy bars Penn
State professors from indoctrinating students with "ready-made
conclusions on controversial subjects." It instructs professors,
instead, “to train students to think for themselves, and provide them
access to those materials which they need if they are to think
intelligently.” It warns that “in giving instruction on controversial
matters the faculty member is expected to be of a fair and judicial
mind, and to set forth justly, without supersession or innuendo, the
divergent opinions of other investigators” – in other words to present
students with more than one perspective on the subject.
...
'There is nothing ambiguous in these policies. They define the
standards of professionalism that Penn State University professors are
expected to observe. But examination of a dozen courses in the Penn
State curriculum reveals that these principles are often blatantly
ignored, and the professional standards they set forth are widely – and
in the case of select departments systematically -- violated.
'The following analysis of course descriptions and syllabi in the
Penn State catalogue shows that some professors feel free to teach the
contentious issues of race, gender and justice in the social order
through the frameworks of sectarian political ideologies, making no
attempt to familiarize their students with the broad spectrum of
scholarly views as required in Penn State’s academic freedom policies.
Others presume to teach subjects for which they lack academic
credentials. The introduction of such subjects into their courses
appears to be motivated by political rather than academic agendas. In
some instances, the curricula of entire departments, such as Women’s
Studies, are organized to “indoctrinate … students in ready-made
conclusions on controversial subjects,” a practice expressly forbidden
by Penn State’s academic freedom policies.'
This is an extract from the discussion of Women's studies at Penn State
University:
'Department of Women's Studies
'We have discussed two examples of politically influenced and therefore
academically dubious courses in American Studies. With Women’s Studies, we
encounter an entire program that is itself political rather than academic,
and that contravenes Penn State University policy on classroom instruction.
'The Penn State Women’s Studies Department features a curriculum designed
to teach students to be radical feminists, rather than how to approach the
study of women in an academic manner.
...
' ... Because they require students to accept the controversial
assumptions of the Women Studies Department and do not subject its viewpoint
– radical feminism -- to scrutiny or questioning, the Women’s Studies
courses we anaylyzed are little more than for-credit forums for feminist
politics.
Introduction to Women’s Studies
Women’s Studies 001.8.
Instructor, Michael Johnson
'A catalogue description of
Introduction to Women's Studies, taught by emeritus professor Michael
Johnson, begins: “Men are privileged relative to women. That’s not right.
I’m going to do something about it, even if it's only in my personal life.”
'Professor Johnson explains that he will “spend most of the course on
just a few of the ways that men are privileged relative to women. We’ll look
at how and why women face more barriers to happiness and fulfillment than do
men, and how we might go about helping our world to move in the direction of
gender equity.” These contentious propositions are not raised as a potential
object of disinterested academic inquiry, but as “truths” students are
expected to embrace. The professor commends his course to those students who
“want a really full feminist experience.” This is an appropriate invitation
to join a political party, not an academic classroom.
'While Professor Johnson retired in 2005, his courses (there are several
-- equally ideological) are still listed in the catalogue). No authority in
the Women’s Studies Department or in the Penn State administration appears
to have regarded them as problematic.
'Introduction to Women’s Studies[5]
Section 4. Instructor, Yihuai Cai
'This section of the Introduction to Women’s Studies course, taught by
graduate student Yihuai Cai, focuses on recruiting students to radical
feminist causes. To this end, students are asked to consider a number of
politically spun “questions” clearly designed to impress on students the
feminist claim that America’s democratic society is hierarchical and
oppressive:
-
“How do various forms of oppression (e.g. sexism, racism, classism,
ageism, heterosexism, and ablebodism) operate to divide oppressed
peoples from one another and consequently facilitate the continued
oppression of each group?”
-
“Examining your own previous values and knowledge, have you
consciously or unconsciously participated in one or more of those
oppressive ideologies and discourses?”
-
"What is feminist activism?”
-
“How shall we develop strategies that address issues of power
differentials in our society?”
'These questions – especially the last -- reflect the mentality of a
political operative not an academic teacher.
'Consistent with the stated goal of the Women’s Studies department “to
connect theory and scholarship with feminist activism,” students in the
course are required to volunteer for organizations that are both feminist
and activist. The activist programs include the “Penn State Center for
Women Students,” which is not just a center for women students but an
advocacy group that protests “institutionalized sexism, sex-based
discrimination, violence against women and other conditions which impede
women students' personal and academic development.” “Peers Helping to
Reaffirm, Educate and Empower,” another Penn State sponsored organization,
conducts campus programs about “healthy body image;” Men Against Violence, a
“peer education group” focuses on “gender violence;” the “Lesbian Gay
Bisexual Transgender Support Network;” and the pro-abortion group Planned
Parenthood are all part of the Penn State educational experience as
conceived by the Women’s Studies program and its affiliates. These programs
are housed in the Paul Robeson Cultural Center, named after a famous
American Communist and fervent supporter of Stalin, American Communist and
fervent supporter of Stalin, who is described in the official announcement
of the Center’s launch as a “human rights” activist, who became “an
eloquent, often controversial spokesperson against racism and
discrimination,” and whose only university affiliation was with Rutgers
University in New Jersey.
'Among the organizations students are offered as options there are only
two that appear either ambiguous or non-political. These are the HIV/AIDS
Risk Reduction Advisory Council, a student organization that focuses on
“health promotion and activism” and the Mid-State Literacy Council, which
promotes adult literacy programs. No conservative activist groups with
interests in women’s issues are included, nor is there any indication or
awareness that encouraging political activism in an academic program might
be at all problematic.
'At the conclusion of their volunteer project, students are asked to
write a paper that “summarizes the project and makes connections to the
course readings and your own learning experience.” Since all of the course
readings are written by radical feminists or “critical theorists”
sympathetic to feminism, it is evident that the sole function of this course
is to turn students into feminist activists. It is precisely this sort of
classroom environment that is specifically prohibited by the Penn State
rules under HR 64. This is not education; it is indoctrination.
'Yihuai Cai is only a graduate student, but she teaches this course
regularly, which means the course as she teaches it has the approval of the
Department of Women’s Studies. The ideological, non-academic nature of the
course she has devised itself calls into question the character of the
graduate education she is receiving at Penn State.
Introduction
to Women’s Studies
Women’s Studies 006. Instructor, Marla Jaksch
'Another section of this course, taught by adjunct lecturer Marla Jaksch,
is described as “an introductory feminist, survey course.” This merely
spells out what the other course descriptions reflect. This is not an
introductory course about women in which, in accordance with the school’s
academic freedom policy, students can expect a balanced view of the relevant
issues; it is, instead, a course in feminism – a sectarian ideology -- with
no option for students to take different or dissenting views. Jaksch
explains that her motivation is to “examine (and challenge) the nature of
power and privilege in our lives and institutions,” a mission appropriate to
a political organization, not an academic class, let alone one funded by the
taxpayers of Pennsylvania.
'One of the principal texts assigned to Jaksch’s students is Feminism is
for Everybody by radical author bell hooks. Hooks text is required in many
courses in the Women’s Studies Department at Penn State.
'A plodding ideologue, hooks explains to readers that her book is an
exercise in “revolutionary feminist consciousness-raising.” More precisely,
it is a manifesto devoted to hooks’ well-known extreme views, including the
claim that black women are “never going to have equality within the existing
white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” White supremacist capitalist
patriarchy is the way hooks habitually describes America’s democratic
system. Hooks is credentialed as a Professor of English Literature at the
City University of New York. What her academic expertise on capitalism, race
or patriarchy is, is anybody’s guess. Penn State students in Jaksch’s
Women’s Studies section are assigned no texts that present a different
perspective from hooks’ extreme views.
'It is not only radical views that Professor Jaksch intends to instill in
her students. As she also explains, students are expected not only to learn
about feminist politics but to practice them. To this end, the course is
designed to “create possible strategies for change through appreciation and
engagement with many creative strategies that women have employed
historically and contemporarily.”
'What such strategies entail is explained in her course assignments. One
requires students to write a biographical paper on a “feminist” artist,
activist, or writer. The purpose of the assignment is not to inspire
students to think critically about their subject. Rather, it is to
“familiarize you with feminist strategies for telling unique and possibly
untold stories.” Students are also required to attend events that promote
feminist activism, such as a “feminist film.” An entire section of the
course is given over to the subject of feminist activism and presented under
the title “Social Justice & Global Feminism,” which makes no secret of its
underlying political agendas.
'In common with other professors in the Women’s Studies program,
Professor Jaksch states that she encourages “critical thinking” and
“critically examines” the issues discussed in the course. But ample evidence
shows that the term “critical thinking” is a common academic usage that
refers to Marxist and post-Marxist critiques of capitalism. It is not a
commitment to the kind of scientific skepticism and intellectual pluralism
within an academic course that Penn State policy requires.
'This section of Introduction to Women’s Studies is precisely a course in
“ready-made conclusions in regard to controversial subjects” that HR64 is
designed to prevent. The course violates the core principles of Penn State’s
academic freedom policy and the academic standards that Penn State faculty
are expected to follow. Indeed, the Women’s Studies Department itself
describes its curriculum in terms which are political not academic and thus
violate Penn State policy as well.
Global
Feminisms
Women’s Studies 502. Instructor, Melissa Wright“
'Global Feminisms” is a politically lopsided attack on international
capitalism and the free-market system taught by Associate Professor Melissa
Wright. A principal required text for the course is Feminism, Theory and the
Politics of Difference by Chris Weedon, which examines the “political
implications” of feminist theory. For Weedon, the implications are that
capitalist societies are “both oppressive and hierarchical.” They are also
racist and governed by racial stereotypes applied exclusively to Third World
people: “Irrationality and violence are stereotypes regularly applied, for
example, to Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Muslim fundamentalist regimes,”
according to Weedon. Racial stereotypes of white Americans don’t count since
white Americans don’t qualify as oppressed people.
'A second required text for Professor Wright’s course is Chandra Mohanty’s
Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. This
book is also required in several other courses in the Women’s Studies
Department and also features a an unscholarly, polemical attack on
capitalism. A radical feminist, Mohanty is frank about her political (and
therefore non-academic) goals in writing the book. Proclaiming her “feminist
commitments,” Mohanty proposes her text as a “transnational feminist
anti-capitalist critique.” Her utopian vision is a world in which
“ecological sustainability” and “the redistribution of wealth form the
material basis of people's well being.” Mohanty describes her target
audience as the “progressive, left, feminist and anti-imperialist scholars
and intellectuals” and further outlines her intention to influence pedagogy
by “theorizing and practicing an anticapitalist and democratic critique in
education and through collective struggle.”
'A third required text for Wright’s course is The End of Capitalism (As
We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy. Employing a vulgar
Marxist analysis of free-market economies, the authors (who are not
economists) assail “globalization” (the liberalization and integration of
global trade) and “capitalist hegemony,” and make many extreme (and
debatable) claims about capitalist “oppression.” They assert, for instance,
that women are “allocated to subordinate functions of the capitalist
system,” as though there were no women ceo’s of Fortune 500 companies, or as
though two of the last three secretaries of state and the current Speaker of
the House – third in line for the Presidency -- were not female. Of the
other texts used in this course all but one, Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in
Tehran, advance a polemical feminist or anti-capitalist agenda.
'The course’s non-scholarly agendas culminate in its final section, which
is dedicated to promoting radical activism, specifically the cause of the
anti-globalization movement. Titled “World Forums, Women’s Solidarity and
the Human Rights discourse” this part of the syllabus is entirely devoted to
an appreciation of the World Social Forum, its agendas and activities.
The World Social Forum is an international conference of Marxists and other
anti-capitalist radicals, terrorist organizations like the Columbian FARC
and anti-American leaders like Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. The World
Forum’s Manifesto states: “We are building a large alliance from our
struggles and resistance against a system based on sexism, racism and
violence, which privileges the interests of capitalism and patriarchy over
the needs and aspirations of the people.” The Manifesto further declares
that, “an urgent task of our movement is to mobilize solidarity for the
Palestinian people and their struggle for self-determination as they face
brutal occupation by the Israeli state.”
'This is not a course appropriate to an academic institution, let alone
to a public university funded by the taxpayers of the state. It presses on
students ready-made conclusions to controversial questions, exactly what
Penn State policy is designed to prevent.
'Feminist Theory
Women’s Studies 507. Instructor, Joan B. Landes
“Feminist Theory,” taught by Professor Joan Landes, adopts the language
of intellectual pluralism while sharply limiting its scope to the idées
fixes of the radical feminist Left. According to its catalogue description
the course “aims to introduce students to the range of debate among feminist
theorists on questions of patriarchy and male domination; gender, sexuality
and desire; identity and subjectivity; experience and performance; maternity
and citizenship; universalism and difference.” But by narrowly and
exclusively focusing on leftwing perspectives, this approach falls decidedly
short of an appropriate spectrum for an academic debate. Such disagreements
as exist between the “feminist theorists” analyzed in the course pale in
comparison to their shared beliefs, or to the views of those who do not
share their assumptions.
'To judge by the assigned readings, the feminist theory as presented in
this course is inseparable from a political agenda that describes American
society and free-market capitalism as racist and oppressive and urges
radical resistance to both. This theme is stressed in a number of essays
that students are required to read, including one titled “Theory as
Liberatory Practice,” by bell hooks. In this essay, hooks explains her view
that feminist theory is primarily a political tool that should be used to
“challenge the status quo” and the “patriarchal norm” of American society –
assuming without analysis that there is such a norm. The feminist writings
of conservative and liberal academic thinkers who do not share these views –
Professors Christina Hoff Sommers, Daphne Patai and Camille Paglia come
immediately to mind -- are simply ignored.
It
should be noted that one section of Introduction to Women’s Studies
(WMST 001) taught by Mary Faulkner does meet the test of providing an actual
debate on these issues, at least for one lesson.
'Friday, December 1st: Future of Women’s Studies?
'Readings: Daphne Patai, “What’s Wrong with Women’s Studies”; Judith
Stacey, “Is Academic Feminism an Oxymoron?”; Harry Brod, “Scholarly Studies
of Men: The New Field is an Essential Complement to Women’s Studies”
'Yet this assignment stands out as an exception among the Women’s Studies
courses we looked at and merely highlights the failure of others to do the
same.
'It bears mentioning that the bell hooks essay, required for “Feminist
Theory” makes no pretense to being a scholarly work. It urges readers to
engage in “feminist struggle” against the injustices alleged by the author.
Similarly, in the required text by Chris Weedon, Feminist Practice and
Poststructuralist Theory, the author writes: “Feminism is a politics.”
Echoing the theme of the course, Weedon suggests that feminist theory is
largely the instrument of a political cause. Specifically, it “must always
be answerable to the needs of women in our struggle to transform the
patriarchy.” A theory that is answerable to the needs of the “women’s
struggle” as defined by a group of sectarian ideologues, cannot by its
nature be scholarly since it lacks the freedom to challenge the assumptions
of those engaged in the “struggle” including the idea that the “women’s
struggle” has definable “needs” that everyone can agree on.
'The political agendas that make up the course in Feminist Theory find
their most explicit expression in its concluding section. Titled
“Transnational Feminism in the New Age of Globalization,” this is yet
another leftwing critique of capitalism, a subject in which the course
instructor has no academic credentials.
'Typical of the readings in this section is a chapter from Feminism
Without Borders, a book by the feminist and anti-globalization activist
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, mentioned earlier in this report. In this essay,
“Under Western Eyes’ Revisited: Feminist Solidarity Through Anti-capitalist
Struggles,” Mohanty laments her disenchantment with what she calls the
“increasing privatization and corporatization of public life” in the United
States, calls for the revival of a more radical feminist movement, and
boasts that her “site of access and struggle has increasingly come to be the
U.S. academy.” The purpose of a university is not to be a focus of political
struggle, nor were the faculty members in the Women’s Studies Department
hired to be political activists in the classroom. Yet that is precisely what
they are.
Women,
the Humanities and the Arts
'Women’s Studies 003. Instructor, Stephanie Springgay
'On its face, a course on art might seem to have little in common with
the feminist ideology and political activism promoted throughout the
department. But Women’s Studies 003 shows that even a subject with no
obvious connection to politics can become a canvas for the political agendas
of activists posing as academics. '
'While Assistant Professor Springgay claims that her course does not propose
a “right answer” for students to accept and encourages them to think
“critically,” there is little evidence that she conducts the course in
accordance with these appropriately academic standards. As the course
description makes clear, students in this course will not simply learn about
art. They will also be trained to “challenge the nature of power and
privilege as it relates to gender, race, class and sexuality and in
particular how it shapes the lives and experiences of women.”
Additionally, they will be expected to “find spaces of resistance within
these terms” and to “understand how women have, at times, been silenced by
the constructions of gender, race, class, sexuality, and nationality, and
how they have also reformulated those constructions through a variety of
creative expressions.” The idea that gender may be innate rather than
“socially constructed” – a view common, for example, among neuro-scientists
-- does not appear to have a place in Professor Springgay’s curriculum.
'Not the least of the problems with this course it that is unclear what
expertise the instructor, Stephanie Springgay, has to lecture about such
complex topics as, for example, class, nationalism and globalization, which
is the focus of an entire section of the course, based on three feminist
instructional texts, two by professor bell hooks whose expertise is English
literature. Professor Springgay is listed as an assistant Professor of Art
Education and Women’s Studies and earned her doctorate in art education. How
is Art Education an academic credential for teaching about class, race,
nationality and globalization?
'In violation of Penn State’s academic freedom provisions, Professor
Springgay’s course is structured exclusively around the writings of feminist
authors. In a typical reading assignment, author Linda Nochlin asks, “Why
have there been no great women artists?” Her answer is that the problem lies
with “social structure and [the] institutions” of the art world,
specifically that they are dominated by white, middle-class, males: “As we
all know, things as they are and as they have been, in the arts as in a
hundred other areas, are stultifying, oppressive, and discouraging to all
those, women among them, who did not have the good fortune to be born white,
preferably middle class and, above all, male.”
'While ignoring great artists like Georgia O’Keefe and Mary Cassatt, this
argument fails to explain why there have been so many great women writers
throughout history, since they experienced the same social restrictions.
Sappho, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson and the Bronte sisters come to mind,
not to mention the greatest writer in a famously patriarchal society,
Murasaki Shikibu, the 10th Century author of the Tale of Genji, which is
regarded as the Iliad of Japanese civilization.
'The few reading assignments that cannot be classified as feminist in
this course nonetheless are overtly political. In this category are essays
like “The Other History of Intercultural Performance” by the visual artist
and activist Coco Fusco. Fusco describes a performance art project in which
she took part and explains that its intent was to “dramatize the colonial
unconsciousness of American society.” According to Fusco, “our
experiences…suggested that even though the idea of America as a colonial
system is met with resistance -- since it contradicts the dominant
ideology’s presentation of our system as a democracy -- the audience
reactions indicated that colonialist roles have been internalized quite
effectively.”
'Not only do students learn about the convergence of art and political
activism, but they are also required to create their own political art
project. One section of the course asks students to participate in a “public
art project as a form of student activism on the Penn State campus;” this
form of activism counts for 15 percent of students’ final grade. Another
section of the course is actually titled “activism.” Here students read
essays that encourage them to participate in political -- particularly
feminist -- activism. For instance, in her essay, “Bringing feminism a la
casa,” feminist writer Daisy Hernandez asks students to consider the
following query: “How do you go off to college, learn about feminism in
English, and then bring it home to a working-class community where women
call their children in from the street at night in every language -- except
‘standard’ English?” Bringing feminism to a working-class community is a
challenge for feminist activists, not for students who have signed up for an
academic study of women at a major university.'
The 'Students for academic freedom' Website can't be endorsed in every
respect. As so often, there are inclusions that seem unwise, such as the
recommendation of the site 'John Christian Ryter's Conservative World,'
which contains a great deal of good sense but seems to me stultifyingly
conservative. Its conservative approach to a whole range of issues takes
predictable forms, although nothing like the predictable forms of the
average - or well above average - feminist site, I think. I dislike
the 'Students for Academic Freedom' site's use of 'Islamo-fascism,' in 'Islamo-fascism
petition,' just as I dislike use of 'fascism' in connection with feminism -
for my reasons, see my comments on
Steve Moxon's
anti-feminist site. I've no faith in petitions as an agent of
{modification}, in general. This particular petition opposes various
Islamist aims. I think that the aims are identified correctly but the
wording is poor. It would have been better to have dispensed with the
reference to jihad, even though jihad is a prominent part of Islamic
religious ideology. At least the petition makes it clear that women's
interests are threatened by Islamic religious ideology, a form of wording I
prefer to the petition's 'The Islamo-Fascist Jihad is a war against Women.'
Troubled relationships
Some poems of mine on the subject, from the page
Poems
in Large Page Design.
All of these poems were written with a relationship between a man and a
woman in mind, although now that they are in the public domain, some of them
can be read as referring to two people of the same sex. They were written at
a difficult time and are obviously very bleak poems but none of them reflect
my personal circumstances. This isn't autobiographical poetry and it isn't
thesis poetry It doesn't reflect my anti-feminist views, I would think,
although feminist critics who have unrivalled sensitivity in the detection
of 'sexism' (without necessarily having great sensitivity in other areas)
might well think differently.
Friendly fire: criticism of
anti-feminist Websites
Causes are coalitions, as I see it, supported by people with a
common linkage, opposition to X, but significant differences. The
causes I support on this site, amongst them opposition to feminism,
religion, bullfighting and the death penalty, are coalitions of this kind.
The coalition of people opposed to feminism may be made up of people who
support religion or oppose it, who support the death penalty or oppose it.
This is to recognize the importance of cross-linkage, according to which
allies in one sphere may even be enemies in another.
A person who agrees that X should be opposed may, perhaps, have
completely unrealistic ideas about the tactics for opposing X. I agree with
this person's views only in part. The person may have very sound ideas about
opposing X but there may be a superficiality and a glibness in X which is
impossible to ignore. I see no reason to exclude these complexities from
this page, which is why I make some brief criticisms of some
anti-feminist blogs and Websites here: only a small number, but enough to
make clear my views. Anti-feminist blogs and Websites are sometimes badly
mistaken, very badly mistaken, but don't generally come anywhere near the
smugness, duplicity, and dishonesty of the average feminist site, let alone
the deranged views of many feminist sites.
'Friendly fire and hostile fire' - the allusion refers to friendly
amendments and hostile amendments at meetings. (I've listened to quite a
number of them at Annual General Meetings of Amnesty International) as well
as military fire.
Angry Harry
www.angryharry.com
A very flawed site, with useful information and some interesting insights
but often glib or grating in its tone and generally lightweight: a 'tabloid
blog.' Tabloid newspapers sometimes get it right - often get it right.
A tabloid style, 'concise and often sensational' (Collins English
Dictionary) may well be used to condemn falsity. A scholarly style, with
footnotes, references and quotations from some French feminist philosopher
or other can be used to defend falsity.
Angry Harrry's high spirits are in evidence, but often lead him
badly astray, leading him to publish high-spirited rubbish. One of these
errors of judgment, for example is the inclusion of this quote from Winston
Churchill, or its inclusion and uncritical endorsement, without any
accompanying comment:
'The women’s suffrage movement is only the small end of the wedge, If we
allow women to vote it will mean the loss of social structure and the rise
of every liberal cause under the sun. Women are well represented by their
fathers, brothers and husbands.'
Extension of the vote to women was a reform of fundamental importance.
Too often, Angry Harry seems to have the grossly misguided conception that
to be an anti-feminist involves opposing all reform which benefits women, or
supporting measures which disadvantage women. This is a shameful example
from his site. Any anti-feminist who gives such support to Iran (or Saudi
Arabia or similar tyrannies) should be ashamed.
'Iran Clamps Down On Women Going To University 36
universities have announced that 77 BA and BSc courses in the coming
academic year will be "single gender" and effectively exclusive to men.
Positive discrimination! Affirmative action!
LOL!'
Another example. If he intended this caption underneath a photograph of a
baboon's face
Angry Harry's Missus
(On a good day.)
to be whimsy and humour rather than fully intended, then it's a bad
misjudgment of another kind.
He includes this quotation from Hilary White: 'Feminism, because it is
essentially dishonest, childish and self-serving, will never own up to the
logical conclusions of its premises.' He ought at least to eliminate all the
tiresome childish parts of his own Website, such as 'LOL!' or this:
The Dickhead Song - YouTube
- to be sent to all feminist poodle boys - LOL!
The song has no linkage with feminism or anti-feminism. It's simply a
rubbishy and sub-juvenile piece which includes this (notice the rhyme):
'You're a dickhead,
I hope you'll soon be dead.'
Anti-feminist Theory of Feminism,
Male Sexuality, Men's Rights
www.theanti-feminist.com
This is far from being a 'Liability Site' - it has many strengths - but
has a tendency to exaggerate on occasion. (At least it's without the
facetiousness and glibness of Angry Harry's blog.) Take this heading,
'British Museum Glorifies Feminist Criminality and Terrorism.' What kind of
terrorism would this be? Terrorism involving beheading, suicide bombing,
massacre? Only 'terrorism' which is the subject of a British Museum
exhibition.
A photograph is provided with 'VOTES FOR WOMEN' stamped on it, and this
text from the British Museum: 'In the early 1900s this British penny was
defaced to promote the suffragette cause. This bold criminal act catapulted
the movement for women’s right to vote into the political limelight.
The penny stands for all those who fought for this monumental change.'
'This coin – a perfectly ordinary penny minted in 1903 – was part of this
civil disobedience. Stamped with the suffragette slogan “votes for women”,
it circulated as small change, and spread the message of the campaigners. At
the time, defacing a coin was a serious criminal offence, and the
perpetrators risked a prison sentence had they been caught. We don’t know
when the slogan was stamped on this coin, but stamping it on small change
rather than a silver coin meant that it was less likely to be taken out of
circulation by the banks. The message could have circulated for many years,
until the law giving women the same voting rights as men was passed in
1928.'
The Website makes this comment:
'It is now widely recognised by historians that the suffragettes were
regarded as an ‘Al Qaeda’ type terrorist organization, which conducted
numerous violent outrages and even plotted to murder the British First World
War Prime Minister David Lloyd George.' This is gross exaggeration.
I recognize no historical law or law of nature which guarantees
that opponents of feminism - and any Websites they may - let
alone all men, are be innately virtuous and incapable of stupidity, just as
there's no historical law or law of nature which guarantees that women
are the innately virtuous beings of many feminist writers and campaigners.
Writing about the poet Geoffrey Hill and the poet Laureate Carol Ann
Duffy in 'The Guardian,' Lemn Sissay made this misguided comment: ' ... at a
lecture in Oxford, Hill likened Duffy to a Mills and Boon writer. Hill
demeans himself. After 350 years of male dominance. Duffy is the first
female poet laureate. Hill's comparison of the language of Duffy to Mills &
Boon is like a man in the 1950s comparing the first female managing director
to a jumped-up office angel.'
Bob Flowerdew wrote a book called 'The no-work garden' - a misleading
title, which should obviously have been something like 'The less-work
garden.' Lemn Sissay seems to be following the principles of a 'No-work
journalism,' or rather 'Less work journalism' here. It's much less work to
point out some circumstance or other than to attend to the poetry or the
music or the politics, which involves attending to metaphor, metre and so
much much else, or modulation, orchestration and so much else, or many of
the painstaking skills of a professional historian. Giving just one phrase
from the lecture - the comparison with a Mills and Boon writer - is hardly
any work at all. (Geoffrey Hill goes on to praise some lines of hers.)
To suppose that a poet's poetry should be exempt from criticism
({restriction}:- criticism) on account of any such circumstances, or that
Dame Ethel Smyth's compositions should be exempt from criticism on account
of the fewness of acknowledged women composers or that Margaret Thatcher's
political policies should be exempt from criticism - it would be 'like a man
in the 1950s comparing the first female managing director to a jumped-up
office angel' - is a disastrously misguided instance of
{substitution}. If a 'Men's Movement' Website uses poor arguments, they
have to be challenged. In this case, the linkage claimed between the
suffragettes and Al Qaeeda is grotesque.
Fidelbogen's The Counter-feminist
http://counterfem.blogspot.co.uk/
(See also, on this page, Julian Real's
radical pro-feminist attack on Fidelbogen.) Fidelbogen is a very
inconsistent, a very unreliable authority on feminism and anti-feminism.
He's capable of writing rubbish, or rubbish mixed with sense,
dross amidst material much more valuable.
This is his advice to feminists: naive, simple-minded rubbish.
' ... for your own sake, take control of the situation NOW, and get the hell
out of feminism while the getting is good. You will find honor and dignity
for yourself, and achieve a level of heroism, if you come clean and come
out. But you've got to do it right soon. Don't wait. If you stall for time
too long, your time will run out and you will be caught in the stampede
toward the jam-packed exit doors along with all the other desparate fools.
And I can assure you there will be no honor, no dignity, and no heroism for
you on that day!
So get the hell out of feminism right this very minute.
You can even drop me an e-mail and tell me about it, if you wish:
fidelbogen@earthling.net
Be a feminist hero. Just do it!'
The 'NOW' is completely unrealistic, of course, but the passage has many
other faults.
This is Fidelbogen on the extension of the franchise to women - an
essential step, an inevitable step. To 'take no stand on the question' is
just about as bad as opposing extension of the suffrage. But he's right to
draw attention to the complexities, which include the misguided tactics used
by some suffragettes and the vastly differing attitudes of women at the
time. He writes,
'The following short book, published in 1916, contains a series of essays by
Massachusetts women who opposed the vote for women. While I personally take
no stand upon that question, I am bound to admit that some of their
reasonings are cogent. I share this book now in the spirit of historical
scholarship:
http://manybooks.net/titles/various3568935689.html
"Feminism got women the vote" has always been a trusty standby for feminist
apologists who wish to pull the spotlight away from feminism's crimes and
toxicities. For them, the fact that women formerly didn't have the franchise
serves as Exhibit A that "women were oppressed." But the women's voices in
this book would very much beg to differ. These women didn't even want to
vote in the first place. Not only did they not consider themselves
oppressed by not having the vote, but they would have considered
themselves oppressed if they did have it! And that throws a very concerning
light on feminist historiography, don't you think so?
'You will enjoy the window into the past which this book provides, and it
will amuse you to learn how very little certain matters have changed in
nearly a century. Feminist women, and feminist politics, were virtually
indistinguishable from what we know today -- we are dealing with the same
people, the same behaviors, and the same timeless scenarios, now as then!
'We have all heard that if women controlled the world there would be no war,
right? Well check this out, from 1916:
"The essential dogma of the Woman's Peace Party (none but suffragists
admitted!) was that the adoption of woman suffrage was a necessary and
effectual step toward abolishing war. "If women had had the vote in all
countries now at war," said Mrs. Catt, "the conflict would have been
prevented." But history shows women at least as much inclined to war as
men--a fact illustrated in the French Revolution, in our Civil War, in
the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, and in other instances too numerous
to mention."
Moving along in the same vein, we read of violent feminists:
"The incongruity of suffragists attempting to pose as a peace party
is obvious to anyone with a memory and a sense of humor. Before the war
broke out, American suffrage leaders were applauding, feasting, and
subsidizing the British virago who instigated the setting on fire of 146
public buildings, churches, and houses, the explosion of 43 bombs, the
destruction of property valued at nearly two million dollars (not
including priceless works of arts), and many cases of personal assault.
In 1912 they justified the destruction of the Rokeby Venus; in 1914 they
professed horror at the bombardment of the Cathedral of Rheims. Is this
insincerity or hypocrisy, or mere aberration of mind?"
'In the following, we catch an early glint of those radical feminist
fangs we presently know so well. Note especially the bits about "personal
and political" and "emotionalism", the reference to "complete social
revolution", and the prescience of Mr. Gladstone:
"The confusion of social and personal rights with political, the
substitution of emotionalism for investigation and knowledge, the mania
for uplift by legislation, have widely advertised the suffrage
propaganda. The reforms for which the founders of the suffrage movement
declared women needed the vote have all been accomplished by the votes
of men. The vote has been withheld through the indifference and
opposition of women, for this is the only woman's movement which has
been met by the organized opposition of women. Suffragists still demand
the vote. Why? Perhaps the answer is found in the cry of the younger
suffragists: "We ask the vote as a means to an end--that end being
acomplete social revolution!" When we realize that this social
revolution involves the economic, social, and sexual independence of
women, we know that Gladstone had the prophet's vision when he called
woman suffrage a "revolutionary" doctrine."
'By way of counterpoint, here is Miss Edith Melvin describing exactly how
oppressed she feels by not having the vote. She was no fluke; women like her
were everywhere:
"I have never seen any point or place where the power to cast a
ballot would have been of the slightest help to me. For myself I should
regard the duties and responsibilities of thorough, well-informed, and
faithful participation year after year in political matters as a very
great misfortune; even more of a misfortune than the certainty of being
mixed up in the bitter strife, the falsifications, and publicity often
attendant upon political campaigns."
'Again, for the record, I am stating no personal opinion about the issue
of women's voting rights. Let the fact be well noted, that I have said
nothing either pro or con upon that subject.'
His failure to state a personal opinion, his failure to support the
extension of the franchise, has to be criticized severely. He's right about
many things but misguided about others.
His anti-feminist blog recognizes the importance of
'intra-criticism,' criticism within the anti-feminist group (criticism of
feminists by anti-feminists is inter-criticism. Too bad that he's almost
completely lacking a talent for self-criticism.) This alone would give it
great interest. The military recognize that not all action against an enemy
is good, not all action should be immune from criticism (as I put it:
granted exemption.) There's such a thing as irrational, badly thought out,
badly planned, badly executed action, action which is absolutely
inadvisable, disastrous. The sharing of a common goal is no excuse.
(But whatever may be the flaws of anti-feminist sites, the flaws of so many
feminist sites, and not just the lunatic radical feminist sites, are of a
different order.)
These are some comments of Fidelbogen, the writer of the blog. This, or
something like it, needed to be said. The phrase he uses below, 'the
so-called "men's movement" ' for example is a healthy corrective.
Using the word 'movement' can give a spurious impression of purposive action
and activity and achievement. I'd add that it can give a spurious impression
of agreement, of unanimity. But I'd add that anti-feminists can never hold
'any kind of governing philosophical worldview.' I don't endorse all his
views, as expressed here. Anyone who gives some time to this page and other
pages on this site will be able to arrive quite easily at the disagreements
I have, so I don't give them here.
Fidelbogen writes,
'The so-called "men's movement" is a complete train wreck. It is not
proceeding efficiently toward any goal. There is nothing of discipline or
policy or strategy about it, let alone any kind of governing philosophical
worldview. Wise heads do not prevail, and braying jackasses dominate the
field everywhere you look.
'I am frankly bored spitless by most of the yakkety-yak I am hearing among
our ostensible comrades-in-arms. On and on they go, flogging the same old
dead horses. On and on they go, natttering about the same old dreary,
unimaginative garbage. Round and round they go, stepping in the same old
pitfalls, the same old pisspuddles, the same old dog shit, time after time
after time. [some examples would help his case.]
...
'For the record, there has never been a revolution without a vanguard of
some kind. Without a central cadre of some kind. Oh very well: without
an elite of some kind. There, I said it!
'To balance the gloomy picture, I will admit there IS an inner circle of
philosophers and strategic thinkers -- in fact, several such. I have sat in
on some of their tete-a-tetes, and can report that my time was well spent.
But such occasions are very much an exception to the general hee-haw,
jackassery, and time-wasting bullshit that you will find in our visible
realm of public rhetoric.
'Very well, I shall proffer some words to the wise which ought to be
sufficient. The vanguard forms HERE. Yes, I hereby appoint myself
dictator and preceptor-general of the non-feminist project, and invite all
who have the right stuff to gather in the vicinity. There, I said it.
'Yes, I know. Nobody wants to be the guy with the big ego, but then again,
sometimes that's the only way to get things done. Nowadays, sadly, you are
required to apologize like hell for even having an ego at all. This is
considered "trendy". You are expected to shrink your ego to the size of a
pinto bean and hide it in a drawer, like an unclean secret, under
meaningless clutter and old papers that should have been thrown out long
ago.
'Away with all of that! Death to all of that! I don't mind saying that I
have an ego of robust and healthy dimension. In fact, I contain multitudes,
stretching to the limit of the known universe. . .and even beyond! That is
precisely how big my "ego" is, and I wish others could encompass a similar
magnitude. I really do.
'But enough about me.
This is not about me!
'We do not mix the personal with the political, so when I speak ex
cathedra as preceptor-general of the non-feminist project it is not about
"me", or about any singular personality, or about the personal dimension of
reality. It is about powers and principalities, thrones and dominions,
forces of nature, forces of history, and other such goodies. In a word, it
is about politics in the largest way you can imagine. And that requires the
aggrandizement of my ego, and yours, until it breaks through to the other
side and . . . pouf! It disappears!
'The enemy wants to rid you of your ego by reducing it to the infinitessimal
-- that is, by sucking the life out of it. I, your humble preceptor-general,
want to rid you of your ego by ballooning it to the infinite -- that is, by
filling it with life in superabundance! Hell's bells, why be a "petty
Napoleon" when you can be an infinitely large one, eh?Pettiness is is
the last thing we need around here. Urbanity and collegiality are the order
of the day, my friends! And trust me, those things are deadly weapons.'
Whatever view is taken of Fidelbogen's claims to leadership or guiding of
the anti-feminist cause (I don't think it's in the least likely that a
leader will be accepted, and it's not desirable either) he's to be commended
at least for opposing any model in the least similar to the one followed
slavishly by the mediocrities (most common in politically-correct circles,
perhaps) who believe in a perfect equality of discourse: the mentally lazy
should have exactly the same right to be heard, to be listened to with
respect, as those who have thought hard, proven incompetents to have the
same right to be heard as those who have shown that they are vigorous, alert
and hard-working.
Fidelbogen should be commended for this further refusal to tolerate
idiocy. He writes, 'The following comment has appeared on the post
immediately prior to this:
'And I responded to that comment in the following terms:
Your rhetorical style is not politically efficient, and your
declaration of sentiments is not in line with the policy of this blog.
Nevertheless, you are quite welcome to your opinion, and I will not
censor you.
However, I would refer you to the four points of rhetorical discipline,
which are:
1. Discreet utterance
2. Tonal mastery
3. Narrative frame
4. Message Discipline
One needs to be firing on all four of these cylinders. You lack fire
altogether on cylinder no. 1, and partly on cylinders 3 and 4.
The complete manual of rhetorical discipline is available at the
following link, and I recommend that you study it:
The Practice of
Rhetorical Discipline'
The wording isn't to my liking (Fidelbogen is sometimes a clumsy writer)
but the sentiment is very important: there are good tactics and bad tactics
(and disastrously bad tactics.) Anyone who thinks that outrageous statements
can be excused on the grounds that anyone who opposes feminism should be
supported is badly mistaken.
Fidelbogen spoils it by going on to speculate that the comment may have
been made by a 'feminist provocateur. It's not impossible, but it's far more
likely that it was made by an anti-feminist moron - there are such people,
after all.
So many feminists have the illusory belief in the inherent virtuousness
of women. Anti-feminists should never cherish the belief that men are
inherently virtuous. A concern for realities and strict fact should lead
anyone to conclude that men, not a few men but many of them, are and have
been vile, violent, trivial-minded, deeply flawed, just as a concern for
realities and strict fact should lead anyone to conclude that the
overwhelmingly important achievement in science, technology, mathematics,
philosophy are overwhelmingly due to men and that men have created far more
masterpieces in visual art, music and literature than women. The harshness
of reality, reality's refusal to follow such illusory principles as 'equal
achievement,' is graphically revealed here. Anyone who wants to contest any
of this and to engage in debate about high achievement (such as the
achievement of, for example, Sylvia Plath, George Eliot, Elizabeth, Lady
Wilbraham, the designer of Weston Park in Shropshire, Marie Curie, G E M
Anscombe), underachievement and lack of achievement, or any other aspects of
this issue, is very welcome to contact me, as in the case of anything else
which infuriates or gives rise to disagreement on this page, whether the
objections are from a feminist, non-feminist or anti-feminist perspective.
An example of Fidelbogen the very clumsy writer:
'A compendium of foundationally important matters. If you transmit this
stuff over and over, it may grab hold in a critical number of minds. These
minds, in turn, may crystallize into a community that will function as a
seed, and grow.'
But he's sometimes capable of heightened expression which is impressive. I
don't endorse everything in the section of his blog, 'Cutting Off Feminism
Abruptly,' in particular the wording of some parts, but I like his surging
expression of the reality principle and the ability of harsh realities to
shatter a distorting ideology. Extracts:
'Feminism, as a project, ignores parts of reality in the process
of constructing its narrative ...
...
'Interesting times lie ahead -- and by that I mean, unpleasant
times. Complicated times. Chaotic times. Such is the character of
the non-feminist revolution itself: unpleasant, complicated, and
chaotic. The non-feminist revolution is not an organization, not a
movement, not a precise group of people, and not a plan of any kind.
For though it might sometimes include all of those things, it is
none of them in itself. No, the non-feminist revolution is simply
the full reality of life pushing back against the unreality of
feminism in an unpleasant, complicated and chaotic way.'
Steve Moxon's blog and Website
http://stevemoxon.blogspot.co.uk
http://www.stevemoxon.co.uk/
Steve Moxon is an anti-feminist whose observations on feminism and
feminists are sometimes valuable, but whose perspective is undermined by a
disastrously misguided reductionism, and disastrously misguided
recklessness. He's capable of writing this, for example (from his
blog, with my emphasis):
'Common-sense is always thrown out of the window
whenever the culture of 'identity politics' and 'political correctness'
becomes salient.
'It will get ever worse, with growing numbers of
people harassed, charged and punished for an ever wider definition of
what is deemed to be 'hate speech', until the whole obscenity of
'identity politics' and 'PC' is either finally laughed out of town or
there are guns and bullets in the streets. The longer the insanity
continues to grow, the more likely it is that the only way left will be
to shoot all the ideologues.'
His reductionism is ideological. He explains human culture and
human psychology, including the relations between men and women, in
biological terms. His contribution to a symposium concerned with the
linkage between culture and biology was entitled
Biology: Why We Cannot "Transcend" Our Genes - or Ourselves.
From the abstract of the essay What is wrong with reductionist
explanations of behaviour? (S. Rose, of the Biology Department, Open
University. (Novartis Symposium, 1998;213:176-86; discussion 186-92,
218-21.)
' ... the worst problem arises when reductionism becomes an ideology,
especially in the context of human behaviour, when it makes the claims to
explain complex social phenomena (e.g. violence, alcoholism, the gender
division of labour or sexual orientation) in terms of disordered molecular
biology or genes. In doing so, ideological reductionism manifests a cascade
of errors in method and logic: reification, arbitrary agglomeration,
improper quantification, confusion of statistical artefact with biological
reality, spurious localization and misplaced causality.'
Rather than offer amplification here, setting out the arguments against,
I recommend an internet search of materials giving arguments against
reductionism - and arguments in favour, of course. Raymond Tallis's writing
on the issue is one source: :
www.raymondtallis.com
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a technical discussion of
reductionism in biology and some of the scientific and philosophical issues,
with an extensive bibliography :
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reduction-biology/
Steve Moxon lives nearby. He's someone I know, although not well. His
blog is about immigration as well as feminism. He's the author of 'The great
immigration scandal,' an impressive investigative book which gave evidence
of the laxity of the authorities and their underhand dealings in the
management of immigration, measured, painstaking and fair-minded. He's
also the author of 'The woman racket,' which I haven't read as yet. Whatever
its strengths, or its strengths and weaknesses, the title of the book isn't
a good one. Anyone who wants to buy it at a bookshop is going to present it
at the counter or order it at the counter, perhaps from a female assistant
or manager or owner and the title may well be an embarrassment at the time.
Why deter readers and customers from buying the book and bookshops from
stocking it? Steve Moxon didn't think things through, it should be obvious,
unless the title was imposed on him by the publisher. (I criticize the
title, whilst endorsing the view that there are some aspects of feminism
which do amount to a racket.)
His blog is sometimes off-putting in its style. A general study of
Rhetoric, 'the art of persuasion,' might be beneficial, perhaps. He should
at least give some thought to better and worse ways of attempting to
persuade. He could avoid dire phrasing such as this, for example: 'his
vision of civil conflict over the elitist-separatist contempt for and indeed
hatred of the mass of ordinary people by the political-media-education uber-class
seems all too prescient' (in connection with 'the ironies of Anders Breivik')
and, a different kind of fault,' "Got it wrong" on immigration?! You HATE us
all, you lying tosser.'
His anti-feminist pieces are undermined for me by a common mistake, his
misuse of 'fascist' again and again, as here (in a piece on George Galloway
and the rape laws): ' ...the ridiculous sex laws in the UK (as other places
in the PC-fascist West).' He could easily appeal to usage, the fact
that 'fascist' has come to mean not much more than 'bad.' The same could be
said of the word 'Nazi,' another word often used by anti-feminists. I take
the view that usage isn't the ultimate court of appeal. A common usage can
be misuse. If glue-sniffing became overwhelmingly common, this would still
be misuse of the substance. So I persist in arguing that these are misuses
of words, and underlying the misuse a hideous obliviousness to realities and
to crucial differences.
Any good or even adequate anti-feminist site deploys arguments and
evidence. Steve Moxon has abilities in scholarship, to an extent, but his
critical standards are sometimes abysmal, as in this badly-written worse
than routine piece, where good sense goes hand in hand with nonsense, 'Rotherham
Council exemplifies PC-fascism (November 24, 2012). I don't attempt
the thankless task of disentangling the two here in any detail. I'm sure
that my view of what's better and what's worse will be clear enough.
'The behaviour of Rotherham Council re the couple prevented from
being foster carers because of their membership of a political party
-- a mainstream political party at that (UKIP) -- is not at all
incredible but merely an indication of the PC-fascist politicised
culture in which we now live.
'Political Correctness' has had a long evolution – see all of the
scholarship (including my own: the scene-setting first section in my
science journal review paper of the misrepresentation of domestic
violence) – being the great backlash by the intelligentsia against
the mass of ordinary people: punishment for not responding to the
prescription and prediction of the intelligentsia's political-Left
(Marxist) mindset.
'In a nutshell, because we didn't all 'rise up' in revolution,
this caused what psychologists term 'cognitive dissonance' in the
minds of all those with a political-Left mindset, given that this is
in direct conflict with reality. It's human nature not to blame your
own gullibility for swallowing obvious baloney, and instead to find
a fall guy. The fall guy here is collectively all those who were
supposed to benefit from Marxist revolution: 'the workers'. [Note
this is not any kind of conspiracy but simply the coalescing of
individual attitudes emanating from shared normal psychology that
was the subject to usual 'groupthink'.]
'The workers stereotypically are – and in the past overwhelmingly
were – male, white and heterosexual. By a truly ridiculous
inversion, neo-Marxism (cultural Marxism; identity or critical
studies) deemed 'the workers' as unworthy, and in their place was
put a new 'oppressed' class comprising all those who were non-male,
non-white and non-heterosexual – women, ethnic minorities and
gays/lesbians/trans-sexuals.
'Correspondingly, in place of the 'boss' class as the main ogre,
they deemed the major villains of the peace 'the workers' as the new
'oppressor' class. This inversion likewise is basic human nature.
The friend who is seen to become a turncoat is hated more than the
erstwhile enemy. Meanwhile, the state, which had hitherto been
regarded as the supposed boss's lackey also did a spectacular
somersault in political-Left imagination. Being now stuffed full of
all those who recoiled from being in the proper, commercial
workplace and 'capitalism', the state was magicked into the imagined
main agent of social change.
PC has nothing whatsoever to do with being considerate to
minorities as claimed, being in fact the very opposite of
egalitarian. It wilfully mis-identifies the actually disadvantaged
group – lower-status males – and pretends they are instead somehow
the main source of what creates disadvantage. Meanwhile those who
are actually the most privileged in any and every society – women –
are deemed their 'victims'.
'PC is truly the most absurd and nastiest political fraud in all
history, and over the past 20 years or more has taken hold of every
institution here in the UK, across Europe and in the USA. [Indeed,
it began in earnest in the USA, albeit that the main root was in
central Europe -- the Frankfurt School (of Marxism) circa 1930.] It
has become hegemonic across the whole of the 'Western' world'.
'Anyone who is at all interested in truth and justice has a clear
duty to smash it.'
His blog and his Website are sometimes of a much higher
standard, as in this piece, quoted in its entirety. Here, his
scholarly abilities are in evidence. This isn't a reductionist
account.
'The text is fully open-access: a Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0
Unported License applies from the publication date of August 17,
2014, which grants full permission to reproduce, in part or
whole, for all (including commercial) uses, on the condition of
properly and fully attributing authorship to Steve Moxon.
'The ideology that came to be termed 'identity politics' has
an origin and development well documented in scholarship (see
below) as a re-shaping of Marxist 'theory' that over time has
become the principal feature of contemporary politics. This was
generally recognised two decades ago, though written off by some
as already as dead as the Marxism that had spawned it, being
kept alive, supposedly, mostly in the imagination of
conservative counter ideology [Hughes 1993], but this has proved
to be the opposite of the case. 'Identity politics' all too
apparently has grown to be accepted and predominant everywhere –
not least amongst conservative politicians (whole parties, such
as the Conservative Party in the UK), police forces,
judiciaries, and entire government administrations -- such that
it is now a totalitarian quasi-religion. Critique of it had been
mocked in the media in the early 1990s by the repetition ad
nauseum of the jibe, 'political-correctness gone mad', to
misrepresent critique as the inventing of a new 'red peril', on
the assumption that the reality of the claims of 'identity
politics' was self-evident and no exaggeration. 'Political
correctness' has often and popularly been the ideology's tag,
used not least by some scholars, but this is rather to confuse
the ideology itself with what perhaps is better understood as
its surface manifestation, mode of enforcement and expression of
its fervency: the seemingly absurd 'speech codes' and blanket
gratuitous charges of 'sexism', 'racism' and homophobia [sic]
ubiquitous in the media, politics and the workplace. 'Political
correctness' is a term with a history that although
inter-twining with the history of the ideology of 'identity
politics' is a separate one, with a different and slightly
earlier origin – in the need to maintain a strict Party line
within the Soviet state after 1917 – with its use (in more than
one near-identical translation) from the 1920s [Ellis 2002]. The
term quite suddenly became prominent in 'Western' politics at
the turn of the 1990s when 'identity politics' started to become
predominant. Having escaped the confines of academia, it had by
then been in the ascendency for over two decades (see below).
'It is well understood that the replacement by 'identity
politics' of what by contrast may be dubbed the politics of
'commonality' was through the realisation that 'the workers'
were not going to bring about a Marxist 'revolution': "the
failure of western working classes to carry out their 'proper'
revolutionary (class) interests", as Somers & Gibson put it
[1994 p54]. According to Cohen [2007 p196],
the political-Left "despised the working class for its weakness
and treachery, and condemned its members for their greed and
obsession with celebrity. In Liberal-left culture the contempt
was manifested by the replacement of social democracy by
identity politics". [1994] concluded: "In large measure, things
fell apart because the center could not hold, for
chronologically, the break-up of commonality politics pre-dates
the thickening of identity politics".
'This has quite a long history. Almost a century ago, in the
late 1920s, it was already becoming apparent that Marxist
'theory' did not work in practice, as evidenced by the absence
of revolutionary overthrow of regimes in Europe according to
Marxian prediction and prescription, even though just such a
revolution had occurred in Russia a generation previously. The
cognitive-dissonance [Festinger 1957, & eg, Tavris & Aronson
2007] this must have produced within the mindset of
'Western'-culture intelligentsia could only persist and grow
with the continued complete failure of a political-Left ethos
anywhere to effect real change in its own terms. This became
especially pointed with the unprecedented rapid implosion of the
Soviet Union in 1989 (and the de facto capitulation to a rampant
'capitalist' model by the People's Republic of China, and the
exposure of Cuba, the sole significant vestige of the
'communist' world, as a state-impoverished museum-piece which
functions at all only through turning a blind eye to mass
entrepreneurial activity), still further intensifying
cognitive-dissonance. [The former dissident Soviet, Vladimir
Bukovsky [2009] points out that the Soviet demise coincides in
date with the almost as sudden emergence in the 'West' of the
notion of 'political correctness', in a transferred resurgence
of essentially the same ideology.]
'With the cognitively-dissonant mindset here being in common
across a large group, then it functions as an in-group marker,
and as such becomes still more strongly driven, receiving so
much investment that any intrusion of reality into the ideology
is ever more strongly denied. And the intrusion of reality would
be great, given that ideology is in essence a highly partial
view of reality emphasising a particular dimension over others,
which inevitably is exposed as a mismatch with reality, obliging
further ratcheting up of the ideology to try to transcend what
becomes a vicious circle; and the only way this can be achieved
is to assert an internal consistency to the exclusion of contact
with reality in a tautological loop. The ideology becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy [Bottici & Challand 2006], that in
groups is subject to a 'synergistic accumulative effect' [Madon
et al 2004]. Seemingly with no end, the prospect is, of course,
of a catastrophic implosion when finally it arrives; but in the
meantime the stress on the belief system can lead to 'shifting
the goal posts', with superficial changes over time perhaps to
the extent of transmogrifying the whole ideology in effect to
subvert itself – potentially so far as even to adopt an opposing
position, if this can be passed off either as not incompatible
or as the position actually held all along. All of this is in
the service of saving face.
'To try to salve their cognitive-dissonance, adherents to an
ideology can try to save face by admitting neither their own
gullibility nor the falsity of the ideology and instead blame
others. In this way the failure of the ideology can be regarded
and misrepresented as merely temporary, and the final reckoning
postponed apparently indefinitely. In the present case, those
blamed – the fall guys, as it were – were those perceived to
have 'let the side down': 'the workers'. Collectively intended
to benefit from the predicted Marxist 'revolution' (or, at
least, the furthering of 'the progressive project'), 'the
workers' had been designated the 'agents of social change'; but
they did not respond actively in this regard [Raehn 2004, 1997].
'The first attempts to explain this failure to act according
to prescription and prediction were by Marxian academics working
in the late 1920s onwards in Frankfurt and then New York [see eg,
Lind 2004, 1997; Jay 1973]. They devised a fantasy aetiology in
terms of Freud's notion of 'repression', which though now
comprehensively discredited along with the rest of Freud's
'theory' [eg, Webster 1995, Loftus & Ketcham 1994] at the time
it was the only framework in psychology available to them.
Freudianism is as unfalsifiable as is Marxism, and therefore is
in no sense science, and has long been superseded and abandoned
by academic psychologists; yet readings and mis-readings of
Freud persisted over the decades in being central to all
manifestations of a neo-Marxism, including for all of the 'post-structuralists'
and not least Foucault [Zaretsky 1994]. Consequently, as these
'theories' told firm hold across academia and 'trickled down'
via the graduate professions to society at large through the
enormous expansion in student numbers, there was an enormous
popularity from the 1950s onwards of 'Freudian-Marxism' – as
most notably in the books of Erich Fromm.
'The central 'theory' was a development of the anti-family
rhetoric of nineteenth century socialists taken up and further
radicalised by Marx and particularly Engels [Weikart 1994,
Engels 1884, Marx & Engels 1848] to conceptualise the family as
an aberration resulting, it was imagined, from 'capitalism'
somehow 'repressing' 'the workers', to the extent that
supposedly they become psychologically dysfunctional [Cerulo
1979]. Marxism per se was supplanted by a theory of culturally
based personal relations [Burston 1991], popularised later most
notably by Marcuse [1955] amongst many others. The aim was to
eliminate what were seen as the mere 'roles' of the mother and
father, so that, it was envisaged, all distinction between
masculinity and femininity would disappear, taking with it the
'patriarchy' [sic] supposedly the foundation of 'capitalism' [Raehn
1996]. This culminated in the Penguin book, The Death of the
Family [Cooper 1971], from the school of a politically extreme
academic psychology/sociology calling itself 'existential
psychiatry', which advanced the falsehood that schizophrenia is
acquired as a result of certain dynamics in a family upbringing.
The early/mid-1970s was the time when the works of such as
Marcuse and Fromm reached the height of their popularity with
students, and as Cohen remarks: "strange ideas that began in the
universities were everywhere a generation later" [Cohen 2007 p
375].
'Sotions of 'repression' and 'false consciousness' were
enough of a dressing-up of a volte-face from eulogising to
blaming 'the workers' to prevent it appearing too
transparently to be holding 'the workers' directly culpable,
and it was also sufficient a departure from orthodox Marxism
that its origin in Marxism was hidden, thereby aiding its
acceptance. This would have been important in the USA
crucible of these politics when in the aftermath of
McCarthyism the political-Left was obliged to present itself
differently. With purging of 'communists' having proved
resoundingly popular with the American working-classes, a
far sharper sense of an 'us and them' vis-á-vis 'the
workers' was experienced by the US political-Left,
reinforcing its antipathy.
'[This 'theory' re the family lacked even internal
consistency. With the family mistakenly considered a product of
'capitalism' (the family has clear homologues throughout the
animal kingdom, and therefore clearly has a phylogenetically
ancient evolution), then merely removing the family hardly
thereby removes 'capitalism', which by the rationale of the
'theory' surely would manifest in other ways to either 'oppress'
or somehow 'fool' 'the workers'. But, in any case, 'capitalism'
('free enterprise') is itself an empty 'bogeyman' notion in that
it is merely trading (in however complicated a form), and this
includes the relationship between the worker and his employer.
In even its most simple, prehistoric mode, through the economic
'law' of 'comparative advantage' trading entails both parties
acquiring the 'surplus' problematised in Marxism as being
somehow antithetical to the interests of those supplying their
labour. 'Surplus' is inherent in the market value of any labour:
there is little if any labour which does not itself benefit from
organisation and/or technology to be value-added sufficient to
be competitive in the market pertaining. In other words,
'surplus' necessarily is of genuinely mutual advantage.]
'As the head of the family, the man (husband/father) was held
to be the incarnation of 'oppression' from which the woman
(wife/mother) needed to be 'liberated'. So it was that 'the
workers' as formerly considered 'the agents of change' and the
group destined to be 'liberated', were replaced in Marxian
imagination by women, heralding the 'feminist Marxism' we see
today [Kellner nd] – the centrality to neo-Marxism of
'third-wave' feminism.
'This origin and development has tended to be forgotten in
favour of another (though related and complementary) and later
rationalisation which subsumes it in a more general
conceptualisation that is also the legacy of Engels: 'false
consciousness'. [The term was first recorded in an 1893 letter
from Engels to Franz Mehring.] Cohen [2007 p158] sums up
that: "The Marxists of the early twentieth century took it up to
explain away the discomfiting fact that the workers of the most
advanced societies were not organising social revolutions as
Marx had insisted they would." Cohen elaborates [p374]: "To
explain the catastrophic collapse of their hopes they have
revived the false consciousness conspiracy theory, which has
been present in socialist thought since the early defeats at the
turn of the twentieth century, and given it an astonishing
prominence. They hold that the masses rejected the Left because
brainwashing media corporations 'manufactured consent' for
globalisation". This transparently weak 'conspiracy theory' is
familiar still today (albeit less in favour than it was), being
that it is presentable in vague sociological terms in the wake
of sociology eclipsing psychoanalysis as the popular
pseudo-science from the late 1960s/ early 1970s. The
incorporation of Freud's bogus 'repression' notion to posit a
thin conceptualisation of psychological 'brainwashing' became
less plausible – not least in its being in the narrow context of
the family, from which confines anyway it was taken that
everyone was escaping – and it gave way to a nebulous
pan-societal conceptualisation of a sociological kind of
'brainwashing'. Both are highly implausible (even as to
mechanism, let alone efficacy), but the latter appeared less so
than the former. It is lost on the Left that the notion of a
society-wide 'false consciousness' created by an economically
dominant group is precisely the basis of the Nazi notion of
'Jewish conspiracy' (as Cohen points out [2007 p375]).
'Here we have the core of what became 'identity politics',
but it was not known as such until the early 1970s [Knouse
2009]. As Hobsbawn points out [1996], even in the late 1960s
there was no entry at all under 'identity' in the International
Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences. This is for the very good
reason that until this time there was no multiplicity of
'identity' labelled as 'disadvantaged' / 'oppressed'. The
decisive development to spur such a complete change in political
discourse was the co-option by neo-Marxist 'theory' of a
movement with which it had no connection at all. As with any
fervent ideology, a hallmark of the political-Left is
interpreting anything and everything in its own ideological
terms to claim as a manifestation of the ideology and its
prophecy – jumping on a bandwagon, so to speak. The bandwagon
here was, of course, the American civil rights movement, which
though enjoying ubiquitous support within black communities – to
the point often of various forms of extremism – featured
virtually nil endorsement of socialism (and even in the rare
exceptions, any endorsement was equivocal). It is from the time
of this co-option that 'identity politics' dates [Kauffman
1990]; many considering that the movement was incorporated into
the Left in the wake of King's assassination in 1968 – the major
turning-point year in political-Left politics generally with the
near-revolution in France and the sustained violence between
student demonstrators and the army at the Chicago US Democratic
Convention; both taking heart from the onset of the Chinese
'cultural revolution' at this time. Maoism was aped by the
rapidly growing US student politics movement in its becoming
militantly extremist in the huge opposition to the compulsory
draft for the 'anti-communist' Vietnam war. This vibrant student
radicalisation functioned as a melting-pot to facilitate
incorporation of not just different strands of the Left but
movements hitherto entirely separate, to be brought under the
umbrella of what was more widely the 'counterculture'. A
movement famously setting itself against 'middle-class' norms,
this was an attack on the aspiration by 'the workers' to be
anything else, when the goal of ordinary people was very much
economic advancement ('the American dream'). 'Civil rights', as
the first great 'single-issue' campaign, served not least to
provide an acceptable cloak for the Left to avoid provoking a
resurgence of McCarthyism. The major social upheaval of 'civil
rights' with its large-scale and widespread rioting was easily
the nearest thing in then recent US history to look like the
promised Marxist 'revolution', and obviously was just the
practical application the 'theory' was seeking. Moreover, the
protagonists (black Americans) were eminently separable from the
now despised 'workers' per se, in being presentable as a new
'group' from outside of the former fray of 'boss' versus
'worker'.
'This accident of history served to add 'black' to 'woman' as
'the new oppressed' without any intellectual shift or much if
any cerebral effort: on a 'gut' level, so to speak; implicit
rather than explicit cognition. 'The worker' in effect was
retrospectively stereotyped as both 'man' and 'white'. With the
inverse of this stereotype of 'white' being not just 'black
American' but 'black' -- that is, ethnic-minority generically;
then notwithstanding that many ethnic groups are far from
'disadvantaged' let alone 'oppressed' – some (eg, Chinese,
Indian) actually out-performing 'whites' in all key measures --
so it was that the new 'agents of social change' /
'disadvantaged' / 'oppressed' were extended from women to also
include all ethnic minorities. It is only with the knowledge of
how this developed that sense can be made of why ethnicity is
held above the myriad other possible differences that could be
utilised as in-group markers, when in fact there is nothing
inherent in ethnicity as an in-group marker to produce
inter-group prejudice that is particularly more pernicious.
Indeed, the worst inter-communal conflicts nominally between
different ethnicities usually are between different cultural
heritages with no discernable 'racial' differences of any kind –
and what (non-ethnic) differences there are can be minimal; the
lack of contrast actually fuelling the intensity of conflict,
such is the need for groups to feel distinguished from each
other. Furthermore, ethnic prejudice is not restricted to or
even predominantly 'white' on 'black': inter-ethnic (eg, 'black'
on Asian) and ethnic-on-'white' 'racism' can be, often is and
may usually be the greater problem; and a negative attitude to a
certain ethnicity does not imply a similar attitude to other
ethnicities. The specific US experience, given the highly
divisive politics in the wake of the American Civil War over the
basis of the Southern US economy in African slavery, does not
translate to elsewhere; notably not to Europe – as was starkly
evidenced in the experience of World War II 'black' American GIs
stationed in England in how they were favourably received by
locals. 'Racial divides' in European 'white' host countries are
the result not of mutual antipathy but affiliative forces,
principally within migrant enclaves and secondarily within the
'host' community; in both cases being through in-group 'love',
not out-group 'hate' [Yamagashi & Mifune 2009].
'Given the template of a successful incorporation of a 'race
rights' movement, then naturally it follows that the next cause
generating nationally prominent protest similarly would be ripe
for co-option. The opportunity arrived the very next year with
the 1969 'gay' Stonewall riots, again prompting in effect a
retrospective stereotyping of 'the worker' by contrast as
'heterosexual'. And just as 'black American' was broadened
generically to 'ethnic minority', so 'gay' was broadened
generically to 'homosexual' – to also include 'lesbians'. This
anyway was bound to ensue given that women were already an
identified new class of 'the oppressed'. Thus, 'lesbians' were
added even though the draconian criminal discrimination and
associated harassment by police had been a problem only for male
homosexuals, who were the ones raising a grievance. Female
homosexuals merely hung on their coat-tails, since 'lesbians'
did not themselves have a basis for grievance as a
discriminated-against, 'oppressed' or 'disadvantaged' 'group'.
'Homophobic' [sic] bullying is fully part of group male (but not
female) socialisation [Pascoe 2013], and consequently is a
problem suffered far more by males [Poteat & Rivers 2010]; a
disparity which would be even more marked if rumour-spreading
was taken out of consideration, with this -- rather than direct
confrontation -- accounting for the great bulk of the female
manifestation [Minton 2014]. Males in any case are more visible
as homosexuals, in that male homosexuality, it is generally
agreed, is roughly twice as prevalent as female; and 'gay'
behaviour can contrast markedly with that of male heterosexuals
(whereas female behaviour intra-sexually is often physically
close, resembling in some respects behaviour in heterosexual
intimacy).
'What everyone has missed is that it was not homosexuality
per se that had led to a 'disadvantage' and severe
discrimination, but being male: the combination of being male
and exhibiting an extreme difference (differences between males
being amplified in male dominance contest, with such an extreme
difference as a same-sex preference sending a male to the bottom
of the hierarchy, and rendering him a candidate for the unusual
occurrence for males of exclusion from the in-group). This calls
into question not just the identification of
'homosexuality' generically as a 'disadvantaged' / 'oppressed'
category, but it prompts checking of the presumption that women
constitute such a category. And the conclusion upon examining
all issues male/female is that not the female but the male is
clearly the more 'disadvantaged' and 'oppressed' sex [see Moxon
2008, 2012 for summaries: this is a topic far beyond the scope
of the present text].
'In the bringing together of these disparate strands of sex,
'race' and sexual orientation there was not just insulation from
further McCarthyism, but a much-desired restoration of the lost
sense of universalism of the political-Left ethos, now possible
through demonising 'the worker'. As Gitlin pointed out [1993],
'identity politics' is a "spurious unity", and that "whatever
universalism now remains is based not so much on a common
humanity as on a common enemy – the notorious White Male".
'From then on, anyone 'belonging' to a 'group' according to
any of the inversions of one or more of the now supposed
hallmarks of 'the worker' as male / 'white' / heterosexual, was
deemed automatically to belong to the newly identified
'vanguard' of 'agents of social change', and deserving of
automatic protection and definition as 'disadvantaged' and
'oppressed'. These three abstracted generic groupings of
'woman', 'ethnic-minority' and 'homosexual', naturally were
considered additive in conferring 'victim' status, so that a
permutation of two out of the three -- or, best of all, the full
house -- was a trump card in what has been dubbed 'intersectionality'.
Given the 'gravy train' this spawned, then just as would be
expected, further extensions again in effect by inverting 'the
worker' retrospective stereotype have since been made. Added
were the disabled and the elderly; trans-sexuals, and even the
obese – but on such dubious grounds as to reveal further the
incoherent basis of 'identity politics' other than as a
protracted agitation against 'the workers'.
'The disabled suffer neither discrimination nor any
prevailing negative attitude towards them (if anything the
contrary): they simply have a hard life, irrespective of how
they may be treated. The absence of provision such as ramps to
public buildings cannot constitute discrimination, because this
would be special treatment, not equitability. Indeed, it could
be argued that disabled-access denudes the lives of disabled
people, in that in becoming less reliant on others they have
still less social interaction, when the lack of this perhaps is
the key difficulty in most disabled persons' lives. The elderly
likewise necessarily have a harder life, through being
physically incapable of some tasks which formerly they carried
out with ease; but this is an inevitability for everyone that no
form of intervention can reverse or significantly ameliorate.
There is compensation in usually being relatively in a good
financial position, and without the onus of having to go to work
to sustain it: the elderly commonly are better-off than when
they were younger, and without the large expenses of younger
life. They are hardly 'disadvantaged'. Far from being in receipt
of any discrimination or opprobrium, the elderly usually are at
worst ignored, and likely to be afforded genuine consideration.
[The real phenomenon of age discrimination in employment impacts
only on 'the workers', of course: it cannot apply to those over
retirement age.] The only sense that can be made of the
inclusion within 'identity politics' of both the disabled and
the elderly is that they are non-'workers' (if not thus by
definition, they are only unusually in employment).
'Trans-sexuals are rare enough (roughly one in 20,000 pooled
across sex) as to be effectively an irrelevance, but from the
perspective of the basis of 'identity politics' their inclusion
is an extension of the homosexuality category in that they
revive the mantra of 'homophobia' [sic], and may be thought to
challenge male-female dichotomy, along the lines of
'non-essentialist' feminist complaint; but they do not.
'Trans-sexual' is a misnomer in that these individuals simply
wish for their somatic sex to match what they strongly feel
their sex to be (their 'brain sex', as it were), which usually
they accomplish through surgery. [The only actual 'cross-sex'
individuals are those possessing an extra sex chromosome: this
is the 'intersex' condition, which is vanishingly rare.] Just as
for homosexuality, only males suffer any significant
'disadvantage'. Male-to-female (but not, or much less so,
female-to-male) trans-sexuals are those enduring opprobrium, and
this is because they are regarded as being essentially and
irredeemably male, whereas female-to-male trans-sexuals are
considered to be females exhibiting gender [sic] flexibility.
Opprobrium is most notably from (feminist) lesbians, who are at
the core of 'identity politics' activism, and naturally this
would be falsely 'projected' on to males as supposedly a generic
prejudice. As with homosexuals, the quality attracting any
'oppression' is maleness, not trans-sexuality per se. Again,
this is obscured in that most trans-sexuals are male – that is,
male-to-female: one in 10,000, as against 1 in 30,000
female-to-male (according to recent APA summary figures across
studies).
'The obese constitute an obviously unjustifiable category
within 'identity politics', in that being fat is not fixed and
irreversible, being hardly an inescapable condition, and one
which is not acquired without complicity – a failure to make a
better lifestyle choice. That obesity is a 'serious' addition to
the 'identity politics' cannon is shown by the actual academic
'discipline' of 'fat studies'. It might be thought that sense is
made of this in terms of the 'non-workers' basis of 'identity
politics' categorisation, in that non-working, sedentary
very-low-income lifestyles are particularly associated with
sugar-rich poor diets driving obesity; but the emergence of 'fat
studies' was not (or not primarily) a pragmatic inclusion given
the very high incidence of obesity in the USA. It arose as a
subsidiary of 'women's studies'. It would seem more pertinent
that lesbians – as previously pointed out, the keenest activists
within 'identity politics' – are more than twice as likely to be
obese as heterosexual women [Boehmer, Bowen & Bauer 2007].'Valourising'
the obese would be in line with the extreme-feminist notion that
a female should not be judged according to her attractiveness
(the female-mate-value criterion of fertility) – notwithstanding
that there is no issue raised about correspondingly judging a
male in terms of male attractiveness (the male-mate-value
criterion of status or stature). [This may drive obesity in
extreme-feminists, though for lesbians it may be based in not
having to face the mate-choice criteria of males, leaving them
freer to eschew the usual female concern with weight.]
'The several abstracted faux groups, in entering political
centre stage displaced 'class', because with 'the workers' now
considered collectively persona non grata, then being 'working
class' was no longer recognised as a disadvantage. Class
distinction was jettisoned from the neo-Marxist 'progressive
project'. The upshot is that a woman who is highly-educated,
upper-middle-class and/or belonging to a high-achieving ethnic
minority (such as Indian or Chinese), and/or is (or declares
herself to be) 'lesbian', is eligible for various forms of state
and employer assistance through 'positive action' (an unwritten
but effective quota system). By contrast, an 'underclass'
'white' male from a poor family background with neither a job
nor the educational qualifications needed to acquire one, is not
only offered no assistance but is actively considered an
'oppressor' of all those (apart from other males) far better
placed than is he.
'Given that Marxian ideological belief has always been in
terms of a 'power' [sic] struggle between one bloc and another
within society -- formerly the 'bourgeoisie' versus the
'proletariat' -- such that the 'powerless' [sic] are set to
overthrow the 'powerful' [sic]; then it was not a large
adjustment to re-envision the underlying dynamic of society as
conflict between a more abstract but still supposedly dominant
'group' of generically men – anyone male / 'white' /
heterosexual / non-disabled / non-elderly / non-obese – as the
one with 'power' [sic], against the one without, being a
cobbled-together melange of abstractions – supposedly
generically women, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, trans-sexuals,
the disabled, the elderly and the obese. Indeed, the adjustment
has been seamless, as would be expected from the benefits
accruing in terms of saving face. With reality held to result
from whichever 'group' is deemed to hold 'power' [sic] [Green
2006], then it follows in internally-consistent imagination that
reality is changeable in the mere assertion that a 'powerless'
[sic] 'group' somehow is set to take the place of a 'powerful'
[sic] 'group'. This self-fulfilling prophecy is the imperative
driving 'identity politics' that has come to be dubbed
'political correctness', with its draconian fervency and focus
on empty forms of words as if they have inherent efficacy.
'In the absence of any external validity to 'identity
politics' reasoning, there was the need for a novel intellectual
underpinning, which was supplied in the confused strands of
philosophy grouped together as 'postmodernism' (a term that did
not share an earlier origin with that denoting a reversion to
traditional or classical style in art), that in more concrete
guise has a firm grip of the humanities and social sciences in
the various forms of 'cultural studies' / 'critical studies' /
'theory'. The incoherence of theory in 'postmodernism' is
ascribed, in an excoriating analysis by Gross & Levitt [1998,
71-92], to its being "more a matter of attitude and emotional
tonality" [p71]. This is just as would be expected of what is an
attempt to obscure the sophistry of 'identity politics'. At root
'postmodernism' is a taking-the-ball-home defensive ruse; a
simple declaration that any and every criticism of 'identity
politics' is inadmissible. As is widely and well understood, the
'postmodernist' stance is that any text is held to have no
significant surface (ostensible) meaning, but an actual meaning
supposedly specific to local context: meaning is said to be
'situated'. This is the 'identity politics' contention that
given everything concerns 'power' relations, then all depends on
someone's vantage point in respect of these -- in terms of their
own 'oppressed' status. Whilst all individuals from one
particular 'oppressed' 'group' perspective (eg, ethnic-minority
female) are deemed to have an identical experience espoused in
the same 'narrative', these particular perspectives are
sanctified as being entirely opaque to anyone else with a
different perspective, even if from what might be considered a
parallel one in 'power' relations (eg, ethnic-minority 'gay'),
let alone from a non-'oppressed' angle, which in any case is
held not to be worthy of taking into account. The perspective of
a 'group' 'narrative' is considered to be trapped in the
sub-text, rendering it decipherable only through the special
technique of 'deconstruction'.
'The obvious fatal flaw in this thin reasoning is that there
is no reflexivity in the 'theory' in respect of the texts of the
'postmodernists' themselves. Their own texts uniquely are deemed
to be legitimately understood according to their surface
meaning; so that within this 'discipline', where it is held that
no text is 'privileged' over any other, necessarily a complete
exception is made for texts concerning the 'theory' itself;
otherwise the 'theories' of 'postmodernism' (and its
subsidiaries re 'deconstruction') could not exist. The irony is
that if 'postmodernist' principles were applied to
'postmodernism' itself, then the 'theory' would become apparent
as being entirely based in the very principles of 'power'
relations it purports to reveal. A tautology, the 'theory' is
without foundation. 'Postmodernism' is naked special pleading,
amounting to a claim that there is a magic unavailable to the
uninitiated, which is practised by a priesthood of the
political-Left. This is raw elitist-separatism: the very
attitude and behaviour that a political-Left ethos purports to
be fighting against and deems immoral.
'By way of an absurd extension of the circularity in
'postmodernism': with language being deemed to convey nothing
but 'power' relations, by an elementary failure of logic,
conversely 'power' is regarded as nothing more than language;
and from this is deduced that all that is needed is a change in
language to bring about a wholly new set of 'power' relations.
This is a flimsy dressing-up of the self-fulfilling prophecy in
'political correctness' and 'identity politics'. Language is an
explicit communication form with no access to the vast bulk of
cognition, which is implicit (non-conscious); and therefore it
cannot possibly be of the nature ascribed to it by
'postmodernists'. The refusal to be 'found out' on this score
is, of course, through denial that there is a scientific way of
acquiring knowledge about implicit psychology; but this is an
argument no less circular than is everything in 'postmodernism'.
Gross & Levitt [1998 p75] sum up: "American postmodernism is
often accused, with considerable justice, of being little more
than mimicry of a few European thinkers, mostly French, who rose
to prominence in the midst of the bewilderment afflicting
intellectual life when the proto-revolutionary struggles in the
late sixties in France, Germany and Italy fizzled out without
having produced any real impact on bourgeois society." In other
words, 'postmodernism' sprang from the very same place as did
'identity politics'. Rather, it did so indirectly. As it makes
little sense in the absence of 'identity politics', then
'postmodernism' apparently is more the offspring of 'identity
politics' than its parent.
'In the transition to 'identity politics', the quintessential
form of 'oppression' [sic] in Marxian imagination changed with
the family replacing the workplace as the putative key locus of
conflict; transferring from 'the boss' lording it over 'the
worker' to the man 'dominating' the woman. This was a politics
in line with natural prejudice (see above), easy to get a handle
on, and which mobilised in particular women hitherto sidelined
in the UK in local Labour Party associations, as it did people
in general in these bodies – with anti-'racism' joining feminism
in the new thrust of politics to fragment into related but
'single issue' campaigning -- in the wake of the protracted
hopeless position of the Labour Party electorally. So the
politics readily hit 'the pavement' when once it was mostly
confined to universities.
'The belief system was most apparent within the social work
profession [McLaughlin 2005]. Political-Left-minded individuals
seeking escape from work in commerce found not only a shelter in
the burgeoning state, but a niche where they were able to act
according to 'identity politics' principles. Social work became
a locus of problematising social issues, most especially
intimate-partner violence [IPV], which was ripe for portraying
as the supposed exemplification of male/female 'power' [sic]
relations in the only portion of IPV that anyone is concerned
about – that by males against females. As IPV in the
female-to-male direction contributes significantly to
undermining the neo-Marxist rationalisation of why 'the
revolution' never materialised, then the occurrence and concept
of 'non-gendered' [sic] IPV had to be resolutely denied whatever
the strength of the evidence; just as has been the case [see eg,
Dutton & Nichols 2005, Moxon 2011].
'Facets of human psychology are fertile ground for this
ideology to take hold and become entrenched. From the
afore-mentioned biological principle that the female is the
'limiting factor' in reproduction: whereas she is treated as
being privileged, prejudices evolved against the male through
both the differential allocation of reproduction within male
hierarchy [Moxon 2009] (and 'policing' associated with this)
and, obviously, the close scrutiny of males by females to
exclude most males in their mate choices. Making still more
plausible the political developments here outlined, is the male
reluctance to reveal IPV against them – discussed above. There
is also the self-serving utility of the contemporary
political-philosophical mindset in salving cognitive-dissonance
(and providing within-group status gains, not least through
driving in-group-/out-group competition), which further serves
as reinforcement. All of this works on the level of implicit as
well as or rather than explicit cognition, given
that the stronger the motivation the more implicit
we might expect to be the associated cognition [Di Conza et al
2006].
'The ideology of 'identity politics' was so readily accepted
not least because it is a recapitulation of ideation from
Christianity, where the future is deemed inevitable in ending in
'the promised land'. Social development is taken to be
teleological: as if 'pulled' towards a 'utopia'(/'dystopia') of
equality-of-outcome. This is a secular religion, transferring
the notion of a 'god' from being in man's image, via the
humanistic deification of mankind, to worship of a supposed
mechanism of social development, which is in no way scientific;
merely an assumption that it is akin to a mode of reasoning –
the 'dialectic'. After Rousseau, the individual is taken to be
in essence 'good', but contaminated by 'capitalism'. This
contamination is regarded as superficial yet irredeemable
without the assistance of the ideology. That all this is very
much a residue of Christian thinking is outlined at length by
the philosopher John Gray [Gray 2007], who cites (neo-)Marxism
as being the apotheosis of humanist political-philosophies,
which all spring from an ostensible opposition to religion, that
actually itself is a still more entrenched religiosity. This new
quasi-religion seems to be as pathological as the closely
related former quasi-religious 'revisionist' Marxisms as
espoused by Stalin and Hitler (see below). Bukovsky [2009] warns
that just as the ideological progenitor of (what he terms)
'political correctness' imprisoned him as a Soviet dissident
simply for not being an active supporter, so it will be in the
'West'; the ideology building unstoppably from excess to ever
greater excess as adherents to the ideology refuse ever to admit
they are wrong.
'In sum, it is no surprise that what began as a desperate
rearguard notion in academic political-Left circles to attempt
to save face, has evolved over many decades into a mainstream
'given', with supporting notions, such as the previously
prevailing theory of intimate-partner violence, resolutely
data-proof. This is notwithstanding 'identity politics' notions
as to who is 'oppressed' / 'disadvantaged' and why, having no
objective plausibility and being deeply at odds with perennial
common-sense from any vantage outside of the ideology itself.
'Vith the long development of 'identity politics' over almost
a century, its origin had been lost sight of, and some
commentators still lazily assuming that it arose in the wake of
well-intentioned championing of women, ethnic minorities and
gays; rather than this championing being instrumental in
attacking 'the workers'. Others imagine that it is merely some
result of the experience of modernity; but this is merely to
cite symptoms of the cynicism behind which 'identity politics'
plays no small part. Commonly credited is post-colonial guilt,
even though this hardly squares with the emergence of 'identity
politics' initially in the USA rather than in the ex-colonial
power that is England, nor the centrality of women rather than
or alongside ethnicity; and in any case it would be a moral
sensibility rather too rarefied to account for the emotive
intensity of the politics. Also suggested is an absence of
meaning [Furedi 2013], as if this had not been a major issue at
the time of Marx and before; or simply a feeling of anonymity
[Calhoun 1994], which, again, does not explain the fervency of
the politics when a more resigned or a diffuse political stance
would be expected, as in 'existentialism'.
'Based on his mistaken analysis, Calhoun argues
retrospectively that nationalist movements should be subsumed
under the 'identity politics' umbrella, and that therefore
'identity politics' is nothing new; but nationalism could not
better exemplify the politics of 'commonality'. Nationalist
movements both contemporary and historical are instances of
perennial assertions of in-grouping at the most obvious fully
autonomous level of social organisation. This reality was the
basis of the early-20th century nationalist revolutions as
pragmatic modifications of Marxian 'internationalism'. As such
they do share roots with 'identity politics' in that this too is
a pragmatic modification of Marxian 'theory'. Indeed, on this
basis, 'identity politics' or 'political correctness' could be
dubbed 'fascist', as a use of that label to better reflect what
actually it is. Stalin engineered "socialism in one country" for
Russia in the 1920s to try to keep at bay the rest of Europe in
the wake of the failure there of early attempts at 'proletarian'
revolt. This exactly paralleled the shift in position by
Mussolini (who was the editor of the newspaper of the Italian
socialists) a few years before, at the outbreak of World War
One, in asserting the Italian 'proletariat' against that of the
Austro-Hungarian empire, which it was feared was intent on
swallowing Italy. 'Fascism' was 'national socialism', as
explicitly labelled in the German copying of the Italian model:
a Marxian splintering, not a political-Right manifestation.
Revolution overthrowing elites in favour (ostensibly) of the
masses was hardly any form of conservatism – and neither was
'fascism' 'racist': the 'racism' of the Nazis was bolted on as
an historically deep-rooted aberration peculiar to Germany,
which was not shared by Italy. That 'fascism' is the bogeyman of
Marxism/socialism is through the former being derived from the
latter, leaving little to distinguish them, which on the
political-Left famously leads to fierce internecine conflict.
All nationalism – whether emerging as a bastardisation of
Marxist 'theory' or otherwise – clearly is in essence a politics
of commonality, whereas 'identity politics' concerns
sub-division of society into abstract categories to constitute
faux 'groups' in supposed opposition to the 'group' with
'power'.
'There has been wide discussion within academia that it is
difficult to understand the nature of 'identity politics', but
this is as would be expected of a system of thought which is not
what it purports to be. Calhoun [1994 p29] reveals 'identity
politics' to only ostensibly concern actual 'oppression' /
'disadvantage', when he asks: "... rather than being surprised
by the prevalence of identity politics and seeking to explain
it, should we not consider whether it is more remarkable and at
least as much in need of explanation that many people fail to
take up projects of transforming shared identities or the
treatment afforded them?" The reason is that the identities in
'identity politics' do not arise within 'groups' themselves but
are conferred according to what can be posited in opposition to
'the workers'. Thus are ignored actually 'oppressed' and
'disadvantaged' categories wholly or mainly comprising males,
whilst included are those not in reality comprising the
'oppressed' and 'disadvantaged', and which may be either
stretched in their inclusiveness beyond credulity (as with
'ethnic minority') or narrowed to the point of absurdity (as
with the minuscule minority that is trans-sexual).
'Another window on 'identity politics' as being not what it
seems is a fatal contradiction that is the major criticism in
academic discourse today, highlighted by many, perhaps first by
Gitlin [1994]: "For all the talk about the social construction
of knowledge, identity politics de facto seems to slide towards
the premise that social groups have essential identities. At the
outer limit, those who set out to explode a fixed definition of
humanity end by fixing their definitions of blacks and women".
The paradox is that the insistent political demand that all
individuals are the same – not least so as to establish
entitlement to equal treatment – itself negates the very
purported non-equivalence that supposedly establishes any need
that there may be for redress in the first place. And if instead
it is held that there are major differences – as those on the
'essentialist' side of the debate contend -- then equality would
be better realised not by providing treatments that are the
same, but by ones that are accordingly different. Yet, the firm
belief that all is socially constructed pretends no difference
that is not an arbitrary and merely temporary playing out of
'power' interactions, which equal treatment is intended
(supposedly in time) to nullify. The circle of 'reasoning' is
vicious. The feminist core of 'identity politics' is a mess of
self-contradiction in just this manner: simultaneously holding
that women and men are quintessentially different whilst
insisting that they are exactly the same. Recognised generally
by theorists of feminism as a serious and seemingly intractable
problem, it is the source of long-standing internecine fractious
debate showing little sign of diminishing.
'These distinct absences of internal consistency in the
'theory' are the direct consequence of its origination and
development as an attempt to hide uncomfortable truths within
academic political-Left politics; not to address issues in the
real world. That it is hopelessly contradictory, in the end may
be largely beside the point to the ideologues, but the lack even
of internal (let alone external) consistency is a confirmation
of the non-sustainability of 'identity politics' 'theory',
contributing to what inevitably, as for any and every ideology,
is its eventual demise. Yet there is the distinct possibility
that this may not arrive until after 'identity politics' (or
however else it is tagged, and whatever else to which it morphs)
has grown unstoppably to become yet another recapitulation of
'the terror'. It's now well on the way, with the totalitarianism
continuing to ratchet upwards. 'Identity politics' is now so
entrenched across 'Western' society that it has a life of its
own well beyond the latter-day now quite intense critique of it
from within the academia that spawned it. Such critique does
not, however, extend to uncovering the actual origins of the
ideology, indicating that this is just another phase in the
endless attempt by the political-Left intelligentsia to try to
save face.
'Underlying the more proximal explanations of 'identity
politics' and 'postmodernism', ultimately are the wellsprings of
politics in general: what might be termed 'competitive altruism'
masking perennial universal status-striving. Bidding for social
pre-eminence is a combination of trying to acquire rank within
society and also to be part of a pre-eminent in-group – one that
is almost as separate from society as it is at its apex.
Elitist-separatism. Implicitly (that is, beneath any conscious
awareness, or in only dim awareness) this is what the
political-Left foundationally, if unwittingly, is concerned with
achieving. Through the ideological conceptualising of society in
terms of cooperation, with any competition considered
aberrational, those with a political-Left ethos are left
peculiarly blind to their own competitiveness. Indeed, their
ideology is very much a displaced expression of it, and explains
the peculiarly vehement bigotry of its adherents, and why
supposed 'proletarian' revolution invariably produced a tyranny,
and one that is actually directed towards the 'proletariat', not
by it. The politics espoused of egalitarianism is a
competitive-altruistic feint to assist the otherwise standard
status-grab. Functioning to deny the legitimacy of any rival
elitist-separatists and their ethos, it dupes not only others
aspiring though as yet failing to be part of an elite, but
precludes even self-awareness of their own elitist-separatist
aspirations by political-Left adherents themselves. It is in
respect of this, ultimately, that are deployed the intense and
protracted attempts to salve cognitive-dissonance so prominent a
part of political-Left experience. The great paradox here is
that in their strident efforts somehow to transcend human
nature, the political-Left confirm its reality. Any such
philosophically illiterate notion that we can ever 'transcend'
ourselves is unlikely again to so easily hold sway, given the
insulation to such a self-evidently foolish idea the
political-Left in the end inadvertently looks set to gift us. A
related, supreme irony is that the very charge made against 'the
workers' of a psychological dysfunctionality in supposedly not
being able to see what is in their own best interests,
boomerangs back on political-Left adherents as
actually their myopia in respect of the psychology of their own
ethos. It is not that Neo-Marxism/ 'identity politics'/
'political correctness'/ 'postmodernism' is an altruism that is
in fact disguised self-interest: it's nothing of the sort. In
the service of its own ends, the political-Left ethos adopted a
deception designed to fail to identify the actually
'disadvantaged' / 'oppressed', expressly so as to make their
condition still worse, as a form of revenge on those regarded as
ungrateful for past efforts on their behalf (though not that
anyway these efforts were other than 'competitive altruism'). It
is hard to think of a political fraud as great (as deep, wide,
successful and sustained) as this in history, or even to devise
one in mischievous imagination.'
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Justice for Men & Boys
https://j4mb.wordpress.com/
My criticisms here are almost entirely to do with the
political aspirations of the site. According to the site, 'J4MB
[Justice for Men and Boys] is the only political party in the
English-speaking world campaigning for the human rights of men
and boys on many fronts ... ' (Posted on the J4MB site January
24, 2016).
And what are the campaigning issues? The post of March 8,
2016 gives this information about the priority of priorities for
'the human rights of men and boys:'
Male circumcision (MGM). It 'remains our #1 campaigning
issue.'
Back to the post of January 24. Extracts:
'Our long-term strategy is to challenge the party in power
(or parties, in the event of a coalition) because only they have
the power to reverse anti-male legislation and policy
directions.'
'We’re working towards the 2020 general election, in which we
plan to field candidates in the 20 most marginal seats won by
the Conservatives in 2015 ... '
'We intend to significantly reduce the Conservatives’
prospects of being re-elected in 2020, in order to raise public
awareness of men’s and boys’ issues.'
There are many, many pressure groups, many, many
organizations with very strong views about the neglect of their
views by politicians. The
The chances of any of the J4MB's candidates being elected is
zero. The chances of any of their candidates retaining their
deposits is zero. The chances of the party having any
significant effect - or insignificant effect - on the
Conservatives' prospects of being re-elected in 2020 is zero.
The party aims to increase the electoral chances of which other
party, then? Would that be the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn
(if he lasts that long), currently regarded by many people as
unelectable (they include me)?
The Conservative Party has no need to be worried, of course.
In the 2015 General Election, Mike Buchanan, the Party Leader,
came last with 153 votes out of 47,409 cast. Ray Barry stood in
Broxtow and also came last with 63 votes out of 53,440. The fact
that in 2016, the Party can make these statements of intent is
evidence of not just political innocence or political
cluelessness but something worse than that.
The statements made about male circumcision lack all
fair-mindedness. Completely missing, any attempt to answer the
evidence for the benefits to health of male circumcision. The
report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
fair-mindedly discusses the risks of male circumcision (which
are almost always short-term in their effects). A summary
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/pdf/prevention_research_malecircumcision.pdf
What the report doesn't cover adequately are the ethical
objections to male circumcision: the lack of informed consent
when circumcision is carried out in early childhood or later
childhood. In the scale of ethical transgressions, male
circumcision ranks very low.
Male circumcision is often referred to (by Justice for Men
and Boys) as 'Male Genital Mutilation.' As a matter of strict
fact, the long-term consequences of Female Genital Mutilation
are far more serious and far more frequent.
The party has no prospect of influencing practical politics.
It will remain in in a world of political make-believe. If
it's successful in one way, bringing the issue of circumcision
to public attention, it's very likely that it would bring the
issue of circumcision in Judaism to public attention as well -
and bring the issue of circumcision in Judaism to the attention
of anti-semites. Anti-semites need no encouragement. At the
moment, Oxford University Labour club is under investigation for
alleged anti-semitism. Vicki Kirby, a Labour Party member,
asked, 'Who is the Zionist God? I am starting to think it may be
Hitler.' And, in connection with Islamic State, 'Anyone thought
of asking them why they're not attacking the real oppressors,
Israel.' She was suspended from the Labour Party but
readmitted and recentlys appointed vice-chair of Woking Labour
Party.
It has to be said that the issue of male circumcision is so far
down the list of priorities for fanatics as well as people with
a mature and well-informed concern for politics that it wouldn't
interest them. People with a mature and well-informed concern
for politics will continue to believe, rightly, that, to give
just one example, defence of the country against the threat of
terrorism is vastly more important. If the Conservative Party is
far more likely than other parties (such as the Labour Party -
or the Justice for Men and Boys Party) to protect the country
against terrorist threats, and that's my opinion, then its
failure to consider the issue of male circumcision won't count
heavily against it, or at all.
The chances of the party damaging the anti-feminist
coalition-cause aren't zero. Causes are generally coalitions,
made up of people who agree about some things but not
everything. The J4MB Political Party is a liability.
If you ignore the political cluelessness criticized here, the
J4MB site does have interesting and valuable content, which
isn't a liability at all. Some of the interesting and valuable
content isn't always presented as well as it might be. The
phrase 'lying feminists' is prominent. This is a sign of
laziness, the inability to think of anything better. Phrasing
which would go unchallenged in a Socialist Workers' Party
document, 'lying tories' or 'lying conservatives,' shouldn't go
unchallenged here.
'Lying' is one of those words which suffer from over-use and
misuse. Recommended: a quick tour of some of the philosophical
literature. This is from the Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy:
' ... lying requires that the person believe the statement to
be false; that is, lying requires that the statement be
untruthful (untruthfulness condition) ... lying requires that
the person intend that that other person believe the untruthful
statement to be true (intention to deceive the addressee
condition).'
Feminists don't in the least believe that the statements they
make are false and they don't intend to deceive. The Justice for
Men and Boys Party could have made a powerful case against
feminism, based on the inadequate arguments and evidence used by
so many feminists, but instead suggests something very different
- that these feminists recognize the validity of anti-feminist
arguments and evidence but choose not to acknowledge them. I
think that cliches aren't always phrases. There are also cliche
words - words used again and again and misused again and again -
and one of them is a word with so many legitimate uses, but not
here, 'lying,'
Profiles - some feminist
non-academics
Beulah Devaney on eating dogs, the London Review of
Books and booking.com
This is the most recent material on the site. It will be
revised and extended.
Above, a 'bile bear,' kept in a crush cage.
More on bile bears in China and dog eating in China in this
section, after discussion of Beulah Devaney's unjustifiable
criticisms of the London Review of Books (although I do make
my own criticisms, with arguments and evidence.)
The first section of
Beulah Devaney's Website
www.beulahdevaney.com
is blatant advertising for the company she works for,
booking.com (she's the 'social media cordinator' for the
company), one long list of links
for booking.com including:
Where to eat the
best hotdogs outside the USA.
The world's best
snowboarding destinations.
The best destinations for
comic fans.
The best places to drink out of a coconut.
Europe's hidden stag and hen destinations.
How and where
to spot a UFO.
Vienna + shopping: a fresh perspective.
Only after the serious business of promoting her
employer is out of the way does Beulah Devaney turn to the serious
business of promoting her favourite causes and publicizing
her opinions.
One of her opinions appears in the section
Why China should host the 2019 World Dog Show
She criticizes the International Canine Federation (FCI)
for releasing a statement explaining that ' ‘the FCI sees it
as an excellent opportunity to raise awareness among the
Chinese population that the dog, our beloved friend, is a
member of our families, a living entity and most of all,
Man’s best Friend.' The statement can be criticized but it
has fairly modest aims: just raising awareness.
She gives her opinion:
'The FCI’s statement is
patronizing at best and racist at worst (especially that
suggestion that Chinese people need to be taught about
compassion by enlightened Westerners).'
The heading of this section, like the heading of all the
sections where she gives her opinion, is identical in its
typography with the headings of the sections where she
promotes booking.com and the typography of the material
after the section headings is the same.
She's made no attempt, then, to distinguish advertising or
promotion of booking.com from her own content. She hasn't
inserted anywhere a statement to make it clear that her own
content doesn't necessarily reflect the policies and views
of booking.com Advertizing in blogs and Websites is
legitimate but has to be clearly distinguished from other
content.
As she's a social media expert at booking.com it could be
expected that she'd consider carefully her tweets and
retweets. This is one of the retweets:
'we need more queer, fat, trans, working class, disabled and
non-white voices in food writing like NOW the whole industry
is so wealthy/white.'
As booking.com is so wealthy, as it employs a very large
number of white people, including Beulah Devaney and the
person who originally wrote this, Ruby Tandoh, then this can
be taken as an implicit criticism of booking.com
All these issues deserve wide publicity. Why should people
who happen to be white, and, what's even worse, white males,
use booking.com if this social media commentator doesn't
seem to be bothered in the least about alienating them? The
company can arrange bookings for fat people as well as slim
people, but there are ideologists out there who take the
view that fatness is a form of oppression - booking.com
doesn't have to humour them or have corporate policies which
promote fatness.
Does booking.com take bookings for middle class people?
Obviously it does, in vast numbers. But Beulah Devaney
doesn't hesitate to alienate them. She retweets this, from
brudget minamore and it would be difficult to make the case
that Beulah Devaney disagrees with this and thinks that
hating the middle classes - ridiculous, generalized
hatred - is excessive.
'every day the insufferable white middle classes who move to
Peckham find new ways to make me hate them.'
Beulah Devaney is disastrously misguided if she thinks that
booking.com can ignore every commercial reality - such as
the elementary fact that there are many, many white people
who don't like condescending treatment one bit, any more
than black people. If booking.com reflected the views of
Beulah Devaney, if it implemented policies in accordance
with her views, I think it would lose ground and eventially
go out of business. If the company is willing to endorse the
unreflecting views of Beulah Devaney on patronising and even
racist behaviour - which includes, according to her, making
a stand on mistreatment of animals, then so much the worse
for booking.com
A company can go under for major miscalculations in the
financial sphere - and, sometimes, for errors of judgment
which don't seem significant at the time but which lead to
unexpected results. This is very, very unlikely to happen in
the case of such a strong company but very strong companies,
like companies not nearly as strong, value their reputation,
or should value their reputation. People in this country are
often very, very concerned about animal welfare. To have
booking.com associated with the view that criticism of
China, even very mild criticism, is patronizing or even
'racist' won't help the company's reputation, if it does
nothing to distance itself from this view]. It's a view I
think is harmful as well as ridiculous.
Comments on views to be found on the Website https://workingatbooking.com/
The site
obviously regards drinking out of a coconut as important:
this is empowering people to experience the world. From the
Website:
'We are the planet’s #1 accommodation site. Our
diverse team, 15,500 strong, is united by a single mission:
to empower people to experience the world. Whether in our
Amsterdam HQ or at one of our 198 offices worldwide, we work
hard to help make more than a million travel dreams come
true every single day.'
And this:
'Execute the most serious of missions: helping
travelers experience the world.'
There's more routine, robotic language:
'Have the freedom to make a difference, every day.'
'It’s all about the power of the team. Work with great
people who care.'
My view of many things can't
be reconciled with the view of booking.com in many ways, but
I recognize the right of booking.com to promote its view.
Beulah Devaney is entitled to promote her
views her
own Website, of course (but she should make clear the
difference between promoting her own views and promoting
booking.com) She's gone to the trouble of writing
the articles. She can do what she wants with her own
Website. If she ever feels like publishing articles by other
women on her own Website, she can go ahead. If she did, and
a man contacted her to complain that 100% of the articles
are by women, she'd be fully entitled to reply, 'This is my
Website and I can do what I want with it. If you want
somewhere to publish your own articles, try setting up your
own site.'
Beulah Devaney may disagree, other people who work for
booking.com may disagree, but helping a traveller to find
the best hotdogs outside the USA or the world's best
snowboarding destination isn't 'the most serious of
missions.' Missions which aim to end torture in a country or
to reduce tensions between countries which otherwise could
well lead to war are far more important - as a matter of
strict fact.
A brief mention of some other people associated with
booking.com:
Matthew Pennell is a 'Senior designer' for booking.com and
describes himself as a 'feminist' and an 'optimist' as well
as a 'reader.' He writes, 'I believe there is goo in
everyone.' He believes that there is 'goo' (he obviously
means 'good') in
the people involved in the mass gassing of Jews, the
architects of the policy and the people who carried it out?
If so, his reading must have been pitifully limited.
On the page
https://blog.booking.com/a-few-fun-tools-we-build-at-booking.html
he writes, 'You might have noticed that we’re [some
people at booking.com] quite fond of the letter B when it
comes to christening our creations, and that’s not even
counting the numerous B.branded laptop stickers adorning
every available surface, such as b.proud, b.awesome, b.epic,
and so on. Coming up with a new word that adequately
describes your creation and that also starts with a B can
sometimes be the hardest part of the process ...'
There may be precocious children who would stick stickers
with slogans such as
b.proud, b.awesome, b.epic on every avalable surface
but in general only adults who have a very childish side
would think of doing that sort of simple-minded thing. Do
b.proud, b.awesome, b.epic describe their 'creation?'
Can coming up with b.proud, b.awesome, b.epic
really be the hardest part of the process? So
much for this particular infantile man, or part-infantile
man.
But my objections to this are different in kind from my
objections to what Beulah Devaney does on her Website. To
state it yet again, she fails to differentiate between two
very different kinds of content, promotion of booking.com
and promotion of her views.
Who founded booking.com? It was Geert-Jan Bruinsma, like Jimmy Wales,
the founder of Wikipedia, one of those white males
who had the ability, determination and commitment to succeed
as an internet entreprenour (but the achievement of Jimmy
Wales is vastly more important than the achievement of
Geer-Jan Bruinsma). White males are regarded by so many
feminists with condescension and contempt. I think that
Beulah Devaney tends to regard white males with
condescension and contempt, but she'll certainly make an
exception of people she can't afford to criticize, such as
Geert-Jan Bruinsma, Joe Burke and Matthew Pennell, just as
Geer-Jan Bruinsma, Joe Burke and Matthew Pennell can't
afford to criticize feminists such as Beulah Devaney, if
they want to look good. Looking good isn't just about
looking good on a Caribbean beach but having views that look
good, such as uncritical support for feminism.
The company is now owned by the Priceline Group, based in
the USA.
Beulah Maud Devaney 'retweeted' this, written by Ruby Tandoh:
'we need more queer, fat, trans, working class, disabled and
non-white voices in food writing like NOW the whole industry
is so wealthy/white.'
An insight into Beulah Devaney's working life, provided by
Beulah Devaney herself, on twitter:
'Got up at 5.30am to attend a 9am meeting that was
actually schedulled [sic] for 10am, I've never felt so
betrayed.'
The meeting was one scheduled by booking.com Amsterdam
branch, I assume. Betrayal takes much more serious forms
than this, of course. Getting up well before 5.30 is a
routine matter for many, many working people. However, the
most important social media expert at booking.com perhaps
feels that she has to go on tweeting come what may, whether
what she tweets about is significant or absolutely
insignificant.
Of course, safe jet travel to the destinations served by booking.com would be impossible without scientific and
technological achievement which as a matter of strict fact is
almost entirely due to white males, not just the work of
researchers and innovators such as Frank Whittle but a vast
number of other researchers, innovators, technologists,
technicians and workers, in fields as varied as mathematics,
mechanical engineering, organic chemistry and many more.
Beulah Devaney is, after all, the foremost authority on
twitter and social media at booking.com or one of them, but
she'd do well to spend less time adding to her tweets and
more time on some of these subjects for a fuller knowledge
of the world, including the world of white men.
Setting up a print poetry magazine or
other literary magazine may not need much in the way of
capital but it does need financial commitment and the
commitment of time. It's no easy matter to build even a
small poetry magazine with a deserved reputation. The person
who succeeds in doing that is entitled to have some control
over the policies of the magazine - a great deal of control,
in fact.
'The London Review of Books' is a much
bigger operation, of course, with far more at stake,
financially.
There are huge numbers of successful
businesses, in spheres as different as scientific
innovation, engineering, building and many others. The
person who set up the business may have had to survive a
bankruptcy or multiple bankrupcy, have had no holidays for
years - no long-haul flights to drink out of a coconut - and
may have worked 80 hour weeks for long periods. If a
manufacturer of machine tools or heavy lifting gear is
forced to accept 40% female members of the board - the
policy of the Green Party, then it's vital to have women who
have a great interest in machine tools or heavy lifting
gear, and not women who have an all-consuming interest in
gender relations and 'everyday sexism.' The person who
founded the business would be entitled to say, to a feminist
who objected to the number of men on the board of the
company, set up your own heavy lifting gear factory, then -
if you survive bankruptcy, if you go without holidays, if
you work an 80 hour week, then good luck to you. You can
have a board with 100% feminists.
Beulah Devaney's article on the London Review of Books can
be found on her Website, with the title, 'Why the London
Review of Books should stop cooking up excuses for lack of
women reviewers.' It was originally published in 'The
Guardian' (25 February, 2014.)
According to the well-known quote, 'Women who seek to
be equal with men lack ambition.' In that case,
why are feminists setting their sights so low? Why aren't
you founding new reviews to compete with the London Review
of Books and the Times Literary Supplement, to provide new
outlets for women's writing? Why aren't you starting
nationwide chains of feminist garages, feminist plumbing
businesses, feminist factories manufacturing many, many
things, feminist suppliers of building materials - all
places guaranteed not to subject women to everyday sexism?
The internal combustion engine, electrical generators and
transformers, all the necessary scientific and technological
innovations which were needed to convert iron ore into steel
and crude oil into a range of products, including petrol,
diesel fuel and jet fuel, are already in place - and as a
matter of strict fact, it was men who were responsible -
feminists can make use of all these advances. The advances
were the hardest part. All you have to do is to use your
organizing skills and financial skills and your ability to
take risks to put together thriving businesses. By overuse
of words like 'sexism' as a substitute for risk-taking and
sustained hard work, too many feminists are setting their
sights much too low.
Beulah Devaney's article begins,
'A week after publishing 'The Public Voice of Women', Mary Beard's lecture
on the silencing of women throughout history, the London
Review of Books issued a pre-emptive defence
of their own editorial policy on women contributors.'
The editors at the London Review of Books 'stressed that the imbalance between men and women in the LRB
was "down to more than editorial whim". "Women send fewer
pitches to the LRB. They often prefer not to write
critically about other women. They are under-represented
among historians of the second world war, particle
physicists and macro economists."'
Accountants have a view of business which is subject to {restriction}.
Accountants focus their attention on the balance sheet, the bottom line and
similar matters. In general, accountants don't focus their attention on the
activities which generate the profits. It's a matter of indifference to most
accountants (but not all accountants, I think) whether the financial balance
sheet concerns fizzy pop sold in plastic bottles, gambling using slot
machines or things which have genuine usefulness, such as machine
tools or insulating materials.
Feminist accountants - the term I've introduced - have similar unconcern.
Beulah Devaney is a feminist accountant. There are many, many more. Beulah
Devaney takes a look at the balance sheet for the London Review of Books -
not the financial balance sheet but the balance sheet which she finds
all-important, the percentage of women reviewers.
If she'd found 50% or more women reviewers, and preferably a much
higher percentage, then all would be well. She could move on and examine the
percentages of other organizations. What the women write is a matter of
indifference. The balance sheet is all that counts. But of course, examining
the arguments and evidence of women reviewers, and such matters as stylistic
quality, like the arguments and evidence used by male reviewers, and their
stylistic quality, is a much more complex and demanding matter. Beulah
Devaney finds much more congenial the quick and mechanical approach.
Having Mary Beard as a reviewer can't possibly be regarded as an
automatic benefit. It's only a benefit if some objections to Mary Beard's
articles are completely disregarded: only the feminist balance sheet counts.
Having Terese Jonsson as a reviewer would help the feminist balance sheet
but even feminist accountants - white feminist accountants, that is - would
soon realize that their own views were under attack. My profile of Terese
Jonsson gives information about her view of feminists like Beulah Devaney,
She refers to 'white feminist racism.' Terese
Jonsson, like Beulah Devaney, uses 'racism' and 'racists' recklessly,
as an all-purpose insult. Beulah Devaney uses the words without any attempt
to distinguish between the racism of apartheid South Africa and the
so-called racism of the International Canine Federation.
If the London Review of Books published only feminist reviewers with
views similar to those of Beulah Devaney, who, apart from feminist readers,
would trust their reviews, or continue subscribing to the London Review of
Books? If, that is, the feminist reviews were concerned with books on white
males, such as the musicians Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Brahms,
Shostakovich, the engineers Isambard Kingdom Brunel and George and Robert
Stephenson, the humanitarian William Wilberforce and the medical innovators
who developed antiseptics, anaesthetics and antibiotics.
The biases of any reviewer, male or female, have to be taken into
account. To suppose that female reviewers, unlike male reviewers, can be
without gross bias, is the height of unreality.
Other profiles on this page and other pages give some of the biases of some women
commentators. (There are many, many examples of my criticism of male
commentators and their biases on this site.) If the London Review of Books approached Professor Sandra
Harding with a request to review a book on Isaac Newton and she agreed, then
it would be a 'positive' contribution to the feminist balance sheet of the
London Review of Books but a fair-minded review of the book would be
unlikely, given that she's described Newton's 'Principia Mathematica' as a
rape manual, since 'science is a male rape of female nature.'
For the purposes of feminist accountancy, Dr Priyamvada Gopal would be an
asset as a poetry reviewer, helping to bring the balance sheet (of
male-female contributors) up to the all-important figure of 50%. Dr Gopal
has the advantages of being female and a member of the Cambridge University
Faculty of English but the disadvantage of not being able to distinguish
doggerel from Cambridge. I give the evidence in my profile of her on the
page on Israel, the third column, after the profile
of Owen Holland. I'm even harder on Owen Holland. His ineptness as a poet
deserves to become legendary,
The London Review of Books has an approach to reviewing which it's
completely entitled to maintain, one which is serious not flippant, thorough
and detailed not simplified. If the emphasis is on criticism of white males,
then the London Review of Books should be publishing plenty of material
which criticizes white males and whether or not the material is serious
rather than flippant, thorough and detailed rather than simplified is
unimportant.
But even serious, thorough and detailed approaches don't come with any
guarantee that they avoid stupidity. The London Review's approach to Israel
and Palestinian matters distort reality, are wide of the mark and are
inexcusable. For the evidence, see my page on
Israel,
Islamism and Palestinian ideology.
Another of the articles on Beulah Devaney's site is 'Why China
should host the 2019 World Dog Show,' published in 'The New
Internationalist,' 26 June 2015.
She writes, 'The Yulin Lychee and Dog Meat Festival has
been attracting criticism ever since its inauguration in
2009, but this year, protests have been especially vocal.
Dog-lovers condemned the
festival’s plan to eat up to 15,000 dogs in celebration of
the summer solstice.'
She admits, 'the cruelty surrounding the Dog Meat Festival
is undeniable. Activists report that the dogs eaten at the
festival were often stolen family pets, shipped for hundreds
of miles in cramped conditions and frequently skinned or
boiled alive.' There's no evidence that they are
'frequently skinned or boiled alive.'
Beulah Devaney criticizes the International Canine Federation (FCI)
for releasing a statement explaining that ' ‘the FCI sees it
as an excellent opportunity to raise awareness among the
Chinese population that the dog, our beloved friend, is a
member of our families, a living entity and most of all,
Man’s best Friend.' The statement can be criticized but it
has fairly modest aims: just raising awareness.
Beulah Devaney's response can and should be criticized. She
writes,
'The FCI’s statement is
patronizing at best and racist at worst (especially that
suggestion that Chinese people need to be taught about
compassion by enlightened Westerners).
And this:
'n the West (and specifically in Britain,
where this new petition originated) we are too quick to buy
into the notion of China as a heartless, alien nation. '
She may have proved to her own satisfaction that she's far
superior to such ignorant views, but her ignorance of the
realities of China is very, very disturbing. She should be
ashamed. Chinese humanitarians are likely to welcome support
from outside the country. Why shouldn't people in this
country make clear their detestation of practices in China
which can't possibly be defended? Beulah Devaney was writing
in 'The New Internationalist.' Perhaps she could found a new
magazine, 'The New Isolationist,' for people who think it's
racist to publicize and criticize stoning to death, torture
and other brutalities.
Extracts
from the Wikipedia article on bile bears:
'Farmed bile bears are housed continuously in small cages
which often prevent them from standing or sitting upright,
or from turning around. These highly restrictive cage
systems and the low level of skilled husbandry can lead to a
wide range of welfare concerns including physical injuries,
pain, severe mental stress and muscle atrophy. Some bears
are caught as cubs and may be kept in these conditions for
up to 30 years.'
The crush cage, illustrated at the beginning of this
section, is one method of confinement. This is another:
'The value of the bear products trade is estimated as high
as $2 billion ...There is no evidence that bear bile
possesses any medicinal qualities or is of any value in
treating any ailment or disease.'
'Bile bears are often subjected
to other procedures which have their own concomitant ethical
and welfare concerns. These include declawing in
which the third phalanx of
each front digit is amputated to
prevent the bears from self-mutilating or harming the farm
workers. They may also have their hind teeth removed for the
same reasons. These procedures are often conducted by
unskilled farm staff and may result in the bears
experiencing constant pain thereafter.'
'International concern about the
welfare of bile bears began in 1993.' Of course, she seems
not to welcome international concern. It suggests to her
that Chinese people need to be taught about compassion by
enlightened Westerners.
'The animal welfare charity Animals Asia have founded two
award-winning rescue bear sanctuaries, one in China and
another in Vietnam. This charity has rescued 500 bears -
more than any other organisation in the world.'
'Animals Asia also works to end the trade in dogs and cats
for food in China and Vietnam, and lobbies to improve the
welfare of companion animals, promote humane population
management and prevent the cross border export of "meat
dogs" in Asia.
She ends her article with this:
' ... But, most importantly, we
need to get over the idea that our racist misconceptions
about China should be enough to take the WDS [World Dog
Show] away from them.'
Criticism and condemnation of the use of the death penalty
in China isn't due to 'racist misconceptions.' From reports
sent to me by an Italian anti-death penalty organization,
which quotes Amnesty International reports (I was a death
penalty co-ordinator for Amnesty International for many
years.'
'Over the past few years the risk of people being
executed for crimes they did not commit has caused
increasing alarm among the public in China.In December 2016,
the Supreme People’s Court overturned the wrongful
conviction of one of the most prominent case of miscarriage
of justice and wrongful execution, Nie Shubin. He had been
executed 21 years earlier, at the age of 20.'
China's horrifying use of the death penalty remains one of
the country’s deadly secrets, as the authorities continue to
execute thousands of people each year, Amnesty International
said in its 2016 global review of the death penalty
published today.
' ...
the Chinese authorities enforce an elaborate secrecy system
to obscure the shocking scale of executions in the country,
despite repeated claims it is making progress towards
judicial transparency.
Excluding China, states around the world executed 1,032
people in 2016. China executed more than all other countries
in the world put together, while the USA reached a historic
low in its use of the death penalty in 2016.'
'China’s
database contains only a tiny fraction of the thousands of
death sentences that Amnesty International estimates are
handed out every year in China, reflecting the fact that the
Chinese government continues to maintain almost total
secrecy over the number of people sentenced to death and
executed in the country
Triona Kennedy: sermonizing and heckling
When Triona Kennedy, the founder of The Astell
Project for Women and Gender Studies, wrote a feminist sermon for the liberal readership of The
Guardian with the title,
'We need gender studies to battle inequality across the board'
there was no mass confession in the comments
section - men confessing their inadequacy, men confessing their guilt, men
confessing that the insights of Triona Kennedy were vastly superior to their
own: instead of repentance, rebellion. Commentators shared none
of her simple faith in a 'gender equality impact assessment' or her
vision of a curriculum which puts 'gender at the centre of the education
agenda,' with no room for doubt or arguments against.
There are men who
belong to the strange sect of Feminist Flagellants, forever accusing other
men of hideous sexism and unsparing of themselves, but whining and wailing
and denunciations of men were missing from this comments section. Instead,
heckling from the pews!
In general, feminist writers tend to have little or no interest in
mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, civil engineering or
chemical engineering or any branch of engineering except social engineering. Triona Kennedy has an immense faith in social
engineering. She sees education as an instrument of social engineering, with
great importance attached to lesson plans - the right kind of lesson
plans, obviously. Not mentioned in the 'Guardian' article but stressed in an
article of hers published on the Website of the 'Gender and Education
Association: 'Women and
Gender' studies is to be a 'compulsory course.'
The comments section was closed after 27 comments had
been published. I provide extracts below, very revealing extracts, I think, none of them favourable. Triona Kennedy chose not to respond. Her mind is
on higher things, presumably, such as the more elevated positions in
parliament and the BBC and what she calls 'top public sector jobs' -
although she does permit selective examination of selected lives and
livelihoods of selected humbler folk. The section
'top
jobs' in the first column of the page takes the issue further.
Rigorously excluded: any inquiry into
the most dirty, difficult and dangerous jobs, the ones carried out almost
entirely by men, or any inquiry into the innovations (almost entirely the
work of men) which have drastically reduced the risk of dying in childbirth,
the risk of dying prematurely from a whole range of diseases, the vast
changes which have transformed life in a state of nature, described by
Hobbes as 'nasty, brutish and short' - or any inquiry into any other areas
of reality which would reveal the disastrous limitations of her project -
including, very importantly, the dissensions and disputes amongst feminists
which raise fundamental difficulties for her project and which I outline
on this page.
She has practised as a barrister and is obviously
fully aware of the importance of allowing the defence as well as the
prosecution to present arguments and evidence, but when the accused are men
and the context is gender 'education,' then it seems that drastically unfair
procedures are in order. Men! Obviously guilty! The drastic
unfairness, the insidious implications, are concealed, though, by the bland
and stilted style.
Comments and extracts from comments after the
'Guardian' article:
(1) Will women's/gender studies encourage women to
take up jobs now exclusively held by men unable to rise out of the 'glass
cellar' - you know, all those dirty, dangerous, risky jobs that only men do,
because women never have to, given that work is a matter of choice for them?
[False generalizations] Whatever happened to that Rosie the Riveter spirit, one wonders. Too
working class for most feminists, I should think.)
Still, it would be good to get more people
talking about gender, wouldn't it? Would you include the incipient Male
Studies discipline in that? There's some fascinating articles here:
http://newmalestudies.com/OJS/
...
(2) Gender Studies doesn't battle inequality it
creates it. It perpetuates misandry and false statistics about men. Feminism
has destroyed the education system and society, causing this global
recession, ['destroyed the education system' and 'causing this global
recession' are surely false claims] by passing laws which demonize and discriminate against men, has
stifled progress. Currently women are out earning men, [a false
generalization] and out learning them
in education, due to the sexist propaganda taught in gender studies, which
only focuses on raising up women and beating down men. As this author
expressed aptly, men are to police themselves, but women are to set the
rules. ...
(3) I remember the class being sat down in 1981 for a
"little chat", starting with the old Sugar and spice rhyme and leading into
a rant about how men had oppressed women by denying them the vote.
Conveniently forgetting to mention, of course, that most of the boys in our
class wouldn't have got the vote until 1918 either, those that had survived
WW1.
Our age at the time? 7-8 years old.
I'd say we already have enough feminist lies in the
education system thank you.
(4) 'Few would deny that they shoulder an additional
burden in overcoming discrimination, exclusion and stereotyping, be it
simply to stay in the job or climb the rankse'
Really? You should get out more and broaden your
circle beyond Coffee Shop feminists. Other opinions are available.
Your assertion is a lie and in perpetuating that lie
you are guilty of the very gender bias you say you are fighting against.
When women start dying at the same age as men and at
the same rate at work as men, commit suicide in the same numbers as men, are
targeted by the CSA in the same way as men, have the same custody rights as
men, are discriminated against in government policy in the same way as men,
then we can say we do not have gender inequality.
In reality your pursuit is an eternal quest since you
cannot have equality between things that are fundamentally different...
that's inevitable since you can hardly step back from a position that has
become lucrative for you. But just know that your lies are not believed by
an increasing proportion of the public so consider yourself and your ilk
(Julie Bindel as example) to be viewed by many as an extremists against whom
we will fight to restore our equal rights.
I've contributed to Tom's campaign because this needs
to stop. Now.
[The impossibility of 'this' stopping 'NOW.'
(5) W need more female coal miners and nuclear
waste disposal technicians. ['coal miners' isn't a good example to choose,
given the state of the coal industry.]
We need more divorced fathers with custody of
their children.
...
(6) The comments pretty much sum everything up. The
article itself - as far as Europe and the USA is concerned - is delusional,
misandric and self-serving sexism.
Just check out the stats - on homelessness, victims
of attack, secondary school educational performance, degree education,
relative pay below 30, health care, grants to groups, 'positive'
discrimination, treatment by the courts and police, representation in the
media.....men are the worse-off in all these areas. [a carelessly compiled
list] I suppose I shouldn't
mention the disparity in UK law on male and female circumcision on tiny
babies. Your liberal shoutiness goes quiet, then, strangely. Oh yes and men
discussed in worse terms than black people and gays were. Shame on you for
your hate.
A professional, objective media group should not be
promulgating this weary propaganda in 2012.
...
(7) Triona,
Self-serving, narrow-minded, misandrist,
sexism.
We live in matriarchal society. According to
Proctor and Gamble, 87% of consumer purchasing decisions are made by
women. Consumer spending represents 75% of the economy. In other
words, women control the overwhelming majority of our economy.
[the conclusion is obviously false.]
This is despite the fact that it is men who
create most of our intellectual capital (91.4% of UK patents granted
in 2010 were to men) knowledge base (87% of peer-reviewed academic
papers published in 2008 were written by men) and cultural assets
(93% of all UK recorded music copyrights registered in 2010 were
authored by men). And don't claim that this is the result of
discrimination - there's nothing to stop a woman having an original
idea or picking up a guitar.
(8) Don't look now but it appears with all
the comments shown, there seems to be a growing concern for men's
interests. Bravo, its been a long time coming. The men's movement
has to happen and to all you fellas out there give yourselves full
permission and let loose your anger...you all have every reason to
do so.
(9) I did a degree at LSE, and it was
obsessed with women as victims. All the female students soak it
up, like men are public enemy number one, and even though
they're being funded entirely by their banker dads.
I don't know why LSE, the Guardian,
or the left wing cater to these horribly privileged princesses.
They're smart enough to know they
should be doing men's issues too, but because the coursework
ignores men, these princesses are hardly going to rock the boat,
so the malice rolls down hill.
I hope this guy bankrupts the whole
charade, because they really are morally bankrupt.
I can't wait to hear the squeals of
indignation as the gender studies ivory tower brigade have to
shut down their operation and get proper jobs where complaining
doesn't cut it.
(10) If you want to call it gender
studies, then it must study both genders.
Although, why anyone would want to
study gender studies rather than something interesting like
mechanical engineering is beyond me.
I don't agree with everything here -
I've added some of my disagreements and reservations -
or in the rest of the published comments
Triona Kennedy wrote in her Guardian piece,
'Had any of our current crop of politicians engaged
with feminism and gender studies, the public interest in performing a gender
equality impact assessment on the proposed cuts would have been apparent, as
would the ethical and legal transgression of failing to do one.
'A critically important dimension of philosophy and
history is not being passed on from one generation to the next. When
feminism and the challenging questions thrown up by gender are overlooked is
it any wonder that British institutions – from Parliament to the BBC –
continue to be dominated by men?
As
for the BBC, it would never exist in the first place if it were not for the
extraordinary and immensely complex series of scientific and technical
advances which led to the invention of television by John Logie Baird. the
Scottish engineer. What is to stop feminist entrepreneurs from setting up
feminist TV channels, or making other advances in the media, such as
feminist magazines?
Fiona Kennedy suppositions
are astonishingly naive - the supposition that there is such a thing as 'feminist
thought and history' not subject to acrimonious dispute amongst socialist
feminists, radical feminists, revolutionary feminists, lesbian feminists,
liberal feminists and black feminists, her supposition that any honest programme of study for school pupils in 'gender issues' could ignore these
deep-seated divisions (it really does seem that the variety of feminism to
be promoted in lesson plans is the variety she supports):
'As long as only a handful of schools teach gender
issues and address feminist thought and history, women only discover the
tradition when they hit glass ceilings in the workplace, or become mothers,
and begin to seek insight into their experiences.
'To understand why it is time to place gender
at the centre of the education agenda, it helps to place the 5,400 women
"missing" from top public sector jobs in the
UK in a broader context. The exclusion of women from positions of power in
the public sector is but one manifestation of the cultural devaluation of
females.
'We have serious work to do to shift the norms.
Teaching about gender is increasingly looked to as a way to make progress in
a global culture that continues to uphold men and boys' entitlement to
control women and girls.
'The schooling system is one of our most precious
assets and holds the key to improving the lot of women and girls in the
workplace, family and culture.'
['Improving the lot of women and girls in the
workplace.' I discuss the subject on this page. Evidence that
should find a place in any comprehensive - that is, non-feminist - history
of the subject includes
'patriarchy's passing of the '1847
Hours of Labour of Young Persons and Females in Factories Act, the Ten Hours
Act,' which reduced the permitted maximum hours of work for women and children to
10 hours per day and 58 hours in any one week, but left the hours of work of
men and boys without restriction, and the fact that in 1893, women factory
inspectors were introduced, with no upsurge of support from proto-feminists
of the time] To return to Triona Kennedy:
'Empowering girls to fight their individual
battles, unsupported, can only take us so far. Educating men and boys – in
particular – to question the beliefs, customs, traditions on which the
oppression, abuse and devaluing of females depends seems an obvious and
profoundly necessary step.
...
'Young people must be educated to recognise the
manifestations of gender inequality. This calls for teachers who have
addressed gender in their professional training.
'In addition, headteachers must take care to avoid
discriminating against women teachers by failing to promote them or, for
example, making it difficult for them to return after becoming parents. [Headteachers
in primary and junior schools are far more often women than men, and there
are very large numbers of women secondary school teachers - she evades the
obvious implications for her statement.]
See also my section on the feminist
Website The F Word. I
include an extensive extract from one piece which makes
scathing criticisms of feminists such as Triona
Kennedy, including this, 'When are the white, privileged,
cis-gendered, university-educated, able-bodied women who too
often insist on dominating feminist conversations going to
actually start listening? And following on from that, when
are we going to start changing? Annika addressed many
different issues in her article, all important and
inter-connected, but right here and now I want to focus on
one strand in particular; namely, the ongoing racism and
unchecked white privilege in many feminist communities in
the UK.' General acceptance of Triona Kennedy's lesson plans
by the feminist community - or the separate feminist
communities - is very, very unlikely.
Even if there could be a measure of
agreement amongst feminists on the content of a gender
studies course, it would face difficulties which are surely
insurmountable: the opposition of other groups which have
very different views on priorities in education and the
fundamental principles of education. What seems obvious to
feminists, what seems unarguable to feminists, is in
opposition to some religious teaching, for example. Feminist
views of 'abortion rights' are opposed by Roman Catholics,
who believe that these 'rights' are non-existent, in
contravention of the God-given rights of the unborn. Roman
Catholics, apart from a minority, regard women priests and
women bishops, let alone a woman pope, as unthinkable.
Moslem objections to making gender
studies a central and compulsory element of secondary
education haven't been taken into account by the
enthusiastic proponents of gender studies, it seems. Even if
Moslem opinion isn't monolithic and there are divisions, including a division between
more liberal and more conservative believers, feminists have
to take account of the strength of conservative Moslem
belief, amongst female as well as male believers.
.'
Laura Bates, BA
(Cantab), BEM: everyday sexology
The Great Gate of St John's College, Cambridge, where
Laura Bates studied English Literature, graduating with a BA
(Cantab) degree.
The British Empire Medal, awarded to Laura Bates for
services to 'gender equality.'
And Laura Bates in person, not wearing the British Empire
Medal but wearing a 'No more Page Three'
T-shirt (referring, of course, to the page in the newspaper
'The Sun.') I've not been able to find any information about
the country where these T-shirts were manufactured. I only
hope that Laura Bates - and
Caroline Lucas,
the Green Party MP who wore the T-shirt in the House of
Commons - satisfied themselves that they were not
manufactured in a place where pay was inadequate, where
working conditions were inadequate and housing conditions
were inadequate. The wearers of the
T-shirt with the slogan 'This is what a feminist looks like'
didn't, as I point out in column 5.
'The Glittering Prizes' was written by Frederic Raphael. It
followed a group of Cambridge undergraduates as they made
their way through life. None of them enjoyed the phenomenal
success of Laura Bates, founder of the 'Everyday Sexism
Project' and author of a book on 'everyday sexism.' She was
included in the BBC Woman's Hour 'Power List 2014 Game
Changers.'
This section will be extended.
Caroline Lucas
MP: for and against
Caroline Lucas is Co-Leader of the Green Party of
England and Wales and MP for the seat of Brighton Pavilion.
I
give arguments and evidence here, but not detailed arguments
and evidence. I mention and give links to some of the
material available in other parts of this page and other
pages of this site. It includes topics as varied as
bullfighting and other matters to do with animal welfare,
the excessive power of big supermarkets, the death penalty,
and, of course, topics such as conservation of
resources, avoidance of waste and care for wildlife and
nature in general. I also mention Israel - Caroline Lucas
supports boycotts of Israel.
For me, the useful work of Caroline Lucas (and the Green
Party) in some areas is outweighed by disastrously misguided
work in others. The page
Ethics:
theory and practice includes discussion of
'outweighing.' The discussion is detailed and technical,
very technical in some places, but underlying the
discussion is a view of reality as complex, often giving
rise to difficulties, dilemmas, contradictions, problems
which simple-minded approaches have no hope of addressing.
Again and again, Caroline Lucas and the Green Party she
part-leads approach complex issues, intractable or almost
intractable problems in such a naive and simple-minded way
that they
Underlying the detailed and technical discussion is a
view which gives less weight to concepts than
many other approaches, with a great emphasis on people, the
strengths and limitations of people - which helps to explain
why the site contains so many profiles, including this one,
not at all comprehensive.
Caroline Lucas is an outspoken opponent of
bullfighting. Her article in 'The New Statesman' gives some
of her reasons,
https://www.newstatesman.com/global-issues/2008/06/bullfighting-spain-bulls
I've a very extensive page
Bullfighting: arguments against and action against
She's an outspoken supporter of higher standards of
animal welfare, based on the recognition of animals as
sentient beings.
My page
Animal welfare and activism
is a record of my own activism, particularly in opposing
the fur trade, the use of animals in circuses and factory
farming.
Caroline Lucas' Website has a page, 'Curbing the power of
the big supermarkets.' This Website has a page on
supermarkets and small shops
where I make many of the same points.
The Green Party's opposition to the death penalty is made
clear in this page on Green Party policies, 'Crime and
Justice,'
https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/cj.html
The death penalty
'There is no place for capital
punishment in a criminal justice system which is
compassionate, just and respectful of human rights. No
country or state should retain the death penalty in its
criminal justice system. The Green Party advocates the
abolition of the death penalty in all countries, and will
use its influence in support of instruments and campaigns at
national and international level which seek its global
abolition.'
My page
The death penalty:
reasoned revulsion makes use of my experiences and my
activities as an opponent of the death penalty over a long
period of time.
The Green Party's concern for conservation of resources,
avoidance of waste and care for wildlife and nature in
general is a concern I share.
The page
Gardening / construction: introduction, with photographs
gives brief information about some of my work in rainwater
collection (even in this rainy island, water conservation is
important), providing habitats for wildlife, such as the
pond I constructed, which benefits local amphibians and
other creatures, planting and encouraging wildflowers, and
composting, with links to pages which give more information,
such as my page on composting and rainwater collection. The
page also conveys, I hope, my interest in nature, the
pleasure and joy, as well as the frustrations - as well as
my interest in technology. Any grower, anyone interested in
nature, anyone with a passion for nature, should also be
interested in technology. Without technology, we would be at
the mercy of nature - drinking water, for example, which may
be unpolluted but which is far from safe. Without
technology, any grower in this country would have next to no
vegetables to cultivate - very few vegetables are native to
this country. Potatoes, tomatoes and many more have been
brought to this country in ships.
My 'purist' approach to green issues, as I call it, is
explained on the page
Green
ideology. On the land I rent, I do more than
conserve resources, recycle resources and encourage wildlife.
I grow a wide variety of fruit and vegetables.
I'm not self-sufficient, but most of the fruit and
vegetables come from this land, with much less than a single
'food mile.' I don't buy any produce which comes from
outside this country, with very few exceptions.
I drive a van, but cover a low mileage. A main use for
the van is to transport building materials and other
materials needed for my construction work. I can justify its
use
very easily.
The full title of my page on Green Ideology is 'Green
ideology: immature, unsophisticated, gullible.' It outlines
some of my disagreements with the Green Party.
This page on feminism gives much more than an outline of
my disagreements with the pro-feminist views and policies of
the Green Party and the feminism of Caroline Lucas.
My page
Israel, Islamism,
Palestinian ideology - and free speeech
gives arguments
and evidence in support of Israel. Some of the reasons are
to do with animal welfare. An extract from the page:
The middle east is reliant on authoritarian rule and
Israel is the exception. The middle east is uniformly
oblivious to issues of animal welfare. The only exceptions
are isolated individuals in those countries - and the state
of Israel. Israel hasn't taken the attitude that, faced by
enormous threats, it can neglect every other consideration
but survival and protection. It recognizes that civilization
requires care for animals. Israel was one of the first
countries in the world to ban the use of wild animals in
circuses, in 1995. (Britain still has no national ban,
although many local authorities do have bans.)
Israel used to be the fourth largest producer of foie
gras in the world. Unlike, of course, France, it banned the
production of foie gras, recognizing that the ethical
objections were unanswerable.
There are many other developments: animal rights/animal
welfare activity in Israel has developed enormously. Israel
has even banned dissection of animals in primary and
secondary schools. At Universities, dissection is optional.
Vegans in the Israeli Defence Force are given vouchers to
buy vegan food - and are not required to wear leather boots.
Boots made with synthetic materials are provided. Israel has
never had a whaling industry but it joined the International
Whaling Commission so as to vote against any resumption of
whaling. Opposition to the fur trade is intense in Israel.
Legislation is being considered which would be the most
far-reaching in the world, to prohibit the import,
production and sale of all fur products.
Material on the site is highly dispersed. My page
on bullfighting
includes material on courage in time of war, in the section
'Heroic men, heroic women, and animals.' Amongst other
things, I contrast the dangers faced by these people (and
these animals) and dangers faced by bullfighters, negligible
in comparison.
The policies of the Green Party on national defence are
pitifully inadequate. There's abundant argument and evidence
on the matter of national defence in my page on Israel and
in other pages of the site. I've no need to elaborate here,
but I will comment on priorities in politics.
When Caroline Lucas appeared at the House of Commons in a
T-shirt with the slogan 'NO MORE PAGE 3' (referring to
photographs in the newspaper 'The Sun' of women with bare
breasts), she wasn't publicizing an issue which could
possibly be described as a priority for politicians.
So far as I know, she's not made a stand against female
genital circumcision, an unnecessary and often devastating
action - it can leave the victims with lifelong health
problems, She hasn't, so far as I know, made a stand against
the subjection of women which is common amongst Islamists.
If she ever did, it would require courage, and she'd risk
being criticized by many of her Green Party members. Making
a stand against Page 3 of 'the Sun' is free of these risks.
If MP's imitated her example in large numbers, the House
of Commons could' become a chaotic display of competing
causes, publicized but not discussed, obviously, for lack of
space, on T-shirts: 'Bring back fox hunting!' 'Keep the ban
on fox hunting!'
The House of Commons should be a place for reasoned
debate, not for stunts and protests. The campaign group
Fathers4Justice organized a stunt in 2004, more harmful than
the wearing of a T-shirt. Protesters hurled 'missiles' of
purple flour at the Prime Minister at the time, Tony Blair.
One missile hit Tony Blair in the back and another landed at
his feet. The group was demanding equal rights for divorced
fathers who were deprived of access to their children. Their
desperation was no excuse. They achieved nothing, except for
an increase in membership.
I think that the priorities for politicians include the
health of the economy - without the economic resources, a
very wide range of essential services become impossible to
provide or difficult to provide. They include not just
health care but defence. If a country is vulnerable to
missiles fired by a rogue state, such as countries within
the range of North Korean missiles, then no matter what
advanced health care is available to the population, then
the country has to ensure that the missiles aren't fired, if
necessary by bombing the launching sites. In practice, many
countries rely upon American action to bomb the launching
sites if necessary. If a liberal democracy is invaded by an
illiberal tyranny, then none of their liberal institutions
can be guaranteed. Any liberal democracy which neglects
defence has to hope that it will be protected by a country
which doesn't neglect defence. These are harsh realities
which don't seem to have been recognized by the Green Party.
Responsible political parties - I don't include the Green
Party in their number - recognize the importance of
technology and have policies in place which support
technology. Without industry, Green Party People would
shiver in winter, have no way of travelling except on foot -
when they advocate travel by train, they are, of course,
advocating a technologically advanced transport system - and
be subject to the Malthusian nightmare - I give much more
information about these matters on this page.
As long as they recognize such realities as these,
politicians, like the rest of us, can also give time and
attention to everyday human matters (and matters which are
concerned with animals.)
I would never vote for the Green Party in any election,
in any circumstances.
Profiles - some
feminist academics, with background material
Introduction to this section
Professor Judith Butler on boycotting and stoning
Felicity Donohoe (gender theorist) on torturing to
death
Lisa Downing (gender theorist) on M. Hindley,
murderer
Dr Lorna Finlayson, Philosopher Queen
Dr Terese Jonsson on 'white feminist racism'
Jude Kelly CBE, artistic director and WOWSER
Professor Martha Nussbaum on Professor Judith Butler
Professor Jennifer Saul: philosopher, social engineer
Professor Quentin Skinner (historian) on hard times
Hypatia: decolonizing science, philosophy, feminism
'Women's studies are alive and well'
Philosophy, feminism and dogmatism
The section BDS: Manchester University Academics in the third column of
my page Israel, Islamism and Palestinian ideology
contains material on activism and protest which is relevant to feminist as
well as anti-Israeli activism and protest. The section mentions many
academics at Manchester University, amongst them the feminist academics
Professor Laura Doan, Professor Jackie Stacey and Dr David Alderson.
Introduction to
this section
Strongly recommended - a reading of 'Academic Grievance Studies and the
Corruption of Scholarship,' by Helen Pluckrose, James A Lindsay and Peter
Boghassian, published by Areo Magazine.
https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studies-and-the-corruption-of-scholarship/
It details very disturbing academic papers which have been peer reviewed and
published by prestigious academic journals. The papers are very disturbing
for a variety of reasons, including ethical objections. One paper advocated
training men like dogs, another advocates punishing white male college
students for historical slavery by having them sit on the floor in silence -
and in chains - during class, so that they can 'learn from the discomfort.'
However, they were the ones who wrote the academic papers, immersing
themselves in the grotesque alternative reality of this sub-world so that
they could generate papers in profusion which could reflect this world and
probe this world. Their record of success in having so many of their papers
accepted for publication in these journals exposes this academic void (one
which exercises huge power in the contemporary academic world) to scrutiny
and criticism. Of course, academics who follow this alternative
reality are unlikely to answer reasoned and reasonable criticism, or to
address the implications of the project of these three very resourceful and
skilful writers. The norms of scholarship aren't taken to be applicable
here. After this introduction, I provide some profiles of academics, with
argument and evidence. In almost every case, I informed the academic that
I'd published the material on this page, but none of them replied - but
then, I'm not an academic, and the material on this page obviously isn't a
contribution to academia. Helen Pluckrose, James A Lindsay and Peter
Boghassian did make contributions to academic publishing and their
contributions were accepted for publication in an alarming number of cases.
One of the journals which accepted a paper for publication is the feminist
journal 'Hypatia,' which I myself criticize below, specifically for its
decolonizing project. The paper written by these three writers,
intended to be poor. very poor, abysmal, was accepted for publication by
Hypatia, with gushing praise. An extract from their Areo Magazine article,
giving the response of some Hypatia academics:
“The paper is well
written, accessible and clear, and engages in important scholarship in
relevant ways. Given the emphasis on positionality, the argument clearly
takes power structures into consideration and emphasizes the voice of
marginalized groups, and in this sense can make a contribution to feminist
philosophy especially around the topic of social justice pedagogy.”
-Reviewer 2, Hypatia
“The topic is an excellent one and would make an excellent
contribution to feminist philosophy and be of interest to Hypatia readers.”
-Reviewer 2, Hypatia
“Excellent and very timely article! Especially nice connection with
pedagogy and activism.” -Reviewer 1, Hypatia (second review)
“I have a couple of personal, very minor comments that I’ll put in
below the referee’s praise. I hasten to add that I like your paper very much
as well!” -Editor of Hypatia, acceptance letter
My very short page
On
reviewing and criticism discusses matters such as fair-mindedness and the use of quotations.
Obviously, these very resourceful and skilled writers may not agree with my
general viewpoint or the particular arguments I use on this page (or any
other page of this site.)
Dr Felicity Donohoe (gender theorist)
on torturing to death
Dr Donohoe gives examples of
torture carried out by native North American women [warning: very graphic -
nauseating - description follows] and gives a feminist interpretation of its
significance in ' "Hand him over to me and I shall know very well what to do
with him": The Gender Map and Ritual Native Female Violence in Early
America.' Felicity Donohoe is an academic
in the history department of Glasgow University. Her profile on the Glasgow
University site mentions the paper:
http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/staff/felicitydonohoe/#/researchinterests
Here, I include extracts from
http://www.scottishwordimage.org/
debatingdifference/DONOHOE.pdf
'Constructing the Native American Woman
'So the wretch was handed over at once to the women who, like so many
Furies, seized him and tied him to a tree trunk with his legs bound
together. They built a very hot fire in front of and very near him and,
seizing branches, they applied them to the sole of his feet which they had
stretched out to the fire ... taking live coals and putting them on the most
sensitive part of his body ... using their knives to cut him deeply ...
plunging his charred feet and legs into a cauldron of boiling water, and
then scalping him. They were unable to make him suffer more, because he died
after the last torture. Buy they did cut out his tongue, even though he was
dead, planning to force another English prisoner ... to eat it.
'The
Abbé Maillard on the Mi'kmaq, c. 1740.
'Their punishment is
always left to the women ... The victim's arms are fast pinioned, and a
strong grape-vine is tied around his neck, to the top of the war pole,
allowing him to track around, about fifteen yards. They fix some tough clay
on his head, to secure the scalp from the blazing torches ... The women make
a furious onset with their burning torches ... But he is sure to be
overpowered by numbers, and after some time the fire affects his tender
parts. They pour over a quantity of cold water, and allow him a proper time
of respite, till his spirits recover and he is capable of suffering new
tortures. Then the like cruelties are repeated until he falls down, and
happily becomes insensible of pain. Now they scalp him ... dismember, and
carry off all exteriors branches of the body (pudendis non exceptis), in
shameful and savage triumph.
'James Adair on the Chickasaws, c.
1744.'
Dr Donohoe goes on to illuminate the challenge posed by the
women's practice of torture for patriarchal notions of gender. According to Dr Donohoe, these
were strong women, who refused to conform to conventional ideas of feminine
behaviour:
'Observations of the activities were accounts of
actions that did little to illuminate the purposes of the acts, or what
women were expressing about themselves ...
'For observers it may have
been genuinely difficult to comprehend such behaviour as having any
direction or rationale, and rarely would such acts have been credited as
demonstrating order or as playing an intrinsic part in the native war
process ... any part in the western war process was linked to women as
supporters and victims of male warfare rather than active participants in
their own right ... Any female agency existed only as a consequence of, and
in relation to, the primary actions of the male.
'Femininities,
Moral Worth and Violent Expression
'James Axtell's 1974
article "The Vengeful Women of Marblehead: Robert Roule's Deposition of
1677" illustrates this point rather well, and shows a number of problems
faced by historians when analysing eighteenth-century female violence.
Although suffering heavy losses at the hands of Indians, the men of
Marblehead, Massachusetts, had sailed home after a daring escape from Indian
captivity with two Indian captives of their own. The women of the town had
greeted the group then proceeded to attack and kill the captives, "their
flesh in a manner pulled from their bones", despite the protestations of the
townsmen. Roule's deposition related the colonists' capture, escape and the
attack, and his description of the attack revealed a thinly-veiled,
masculine disapproval of the women's actions. To Roule, the women's
behaviour lacked moral worth. He referred to them as "tumultous" and
complained of attacks on the white men who attempted to rescue the
captives.'
...
'The Marblehead women's actions may not have
been commonplace any more than ritual torture by native women was an
everyday occurrence. The difference lies in the existence of ritual torture
as an acceptable social tool of native warfare, part of a complex social
role.
'The Abbé was stationed among the Mi'kmaq, and his
quotation suggests that in some cases, rather than needing protection,
native women inspired genuine fear among white men, which may have presented
interpretative problems for white observers. These accounts indicate that
time was devoted to the preparation of captives for torture. Areas were
designated and platforms for the exhibition of the captive were constructed.
Captives were examined and selected or rejected by experienced, sharp-eyed
women. There was rarely evidence of compassion or "nurture" among these
women at this point. Children were trained from an early age to perform such
gruesome acts as amputations, encouraged to eat bodily parts of the victims,
and to enjoy their torment. This could take hours or days, and unlucky
captives were revived after passing out, and sometimes were forced to watch
friends suffer before the same violence was inflicted upon themselves ...
'Accounts of these horrors appear in Early American narratives yet find
no definitive home among histories of women or warfare. Philomena Goodman
has argued that such historical marginalisation of women's war efforts was
directly linked to fears that acknowledging female ability in male space
undermined manliness.
...
'Had ritual torture been a very
minor part of native lives, then perhaps traditional historical approaches
to it would be understandable. However, the purposes of ritual torture, and
the time and care devoted to preparation for the event, indicated that it
held a great deal of significance for native peoples, and was considered a
vital part of warfare. By extension, this suggests that the roles of native
women were far more complex than presently believed, and that status,
authority and power were to be found in places that colonists had never
thought to look.
' ... the North Carolinian Saponi believed that
failure to torture prisoners could result in supernatural punishments, such
a [sic] major storm or crop failure, and invested with the blessing of the
tribe and the power of the gods, women inflicting violence were obliged to
make torments as unpleasant as possible for the captive and the benefit of
the people.
' ... One Algonquin Indian told the Jesuit Jackues Buteax
that the flesh of the enemy was "not good for eating". Burning, torturing,
roasting and renaming of the victim into a relative, purified the enemy, and
only then would he or she make acceptable eating. Other tribes cannibalised
to absorb the enemy's power, or to show contempt, and another traveller
recorded children being fed the still-warm blood of captives, while Huron
women would feed enemy fingers to eager children.
' ... Torture was a
spiritual battle of wills between captor and captive, and women who
challenged enemies in this arena were the conduits of the tribes' true
source of power - the spiritual realm. Torture established tribal
superiority over the enemy, tested their spiritual worth and ultimately,
furnished the means to break the power of the enemy.
All this is
preceded in the article by an abstract:
'Abstract
'Native
North American women occupy a relatively small portion of colonial American
and Canadian historiography and often appear as handmaidens to masculine
endeavour in the dynamic age of colonisation and expansion. The construction
of their image relied heavily on Euro-American conceptions of recognised
femininities but accounts of Native women's warfare activities challenged
these preferred images of exotic temptresses or 'squaw' drudges. Much of the
evidence now indicates that indigenous peoples recognised a far more complex
and nuanced feminity, and such concepts of alternative behaviour present a
significant challenge to present historical (mis)constructions of native
female identities.
'This discussion is not intended to suggest that
ritual torture happened every time captives were brought back to a village,
and neither is it stating that torture was practised by every tribe and by
women only, What is clear is that almost all tribes used ritual torture that
to some degree usually involved female participation, and that there was
very often a female-only component. This female-only aspect of
torture is worthy of examination because the very existence of such a
mechanism in Indian societies can help illuminate native female experience
in war. Furthermore, it can act as a "gateway" to exploring alternative
female roles and interactions with European men that extended far beyond the
present historical comfort zones of mother, wife and concubine.'
Dr
Donohoe should be ashamed. Academics tend to avoid words which seem
insufficiently measured, such as 'revolting' and 'disgusting' but words like
this are no more to be shunned than other words which fit our experience.
There are people who never find any use for words like 'beauty' or 'love'
(except for such debased applications as 'Love me, love my conifer,' from an
organization which promotes the marketing of conifers.) There are areas of
our experience which call for such words as 'revolting' and 'disgusting.' Dr
Donohoe's 'analysis' is one of them.
From my page on the death penalty, where I defend Enlightenment values:
'Cesare Beccaria, the author of 'On Crimes
and Punishments' (Dei lelitti e delle pene), is magnificent, astonishing.
His work has had an incalculable effect, wholly for the good. At a time when
the criminal justice systems in most countries were hideously
barbaric, he cut through all the traditional arguments and traditional
complacency and attacked the death penalty and other abuses, such as
torture.'
Another Enlightenment representative of 'patriarchy' (as many feminists
would describe him):
'Leopold II was an early supporter of Beccaria's ideas. He had refused to
allow infliction of death sentences for a long time (the last execution was
in 1769), On 30 November 1786, Leopold promulgated the reform of the penal
code which abolished the death penalty (and torture) in Tuscany. In 2000,
Tuscany's regional authorities instituted an annual holiday on 30 November
to commemorate this event.'
Many people who have played an enormously important role in furthering
human, and humane, thought, have had no obvious humanitarian motivation. The
burning alive of witches was brought to an end not just by people who
objected to their suffering but by intellectual sceptics, people who
realized the importance of natural causes and could find no evidence that
witches could blight crops or harm cattle or people, people who would ridicule claims such as the one put forward by the
gullible Dr Donohoe, 'the North Carolinian Saponi
believed that failure to torture prisoners could result in supernatural
punishments, such a [sic] major storm or crop failure ... '
I've drawn this section to the attention of Dr Donohoe. If she
considers that my account here is insufficiently 'nuanced' then she's
welcome to make use of the Comments page linked with this page.
See also the very brief discussion of
Dr
Lisa Kemmerer's feminist views on 'Native American spiritual values,'
which confines itself to the realm of spiritual delusions, spiritual
evasion, spiritual wishful-thinking and spiritual platitude, without
any mention of such distasteful topics as contrary evidence.
More examples of native American spirituality in action (from 'History
of Orange County' Now York 1888):
'There has been no more intellectual nation
among the aborigines of America than the Senecas of Western New York - the
most original and determined of the confederated Iroquois - but its warriors
were cruel like the others, and their squaws often assisted the men in
torturing their captives.'
The treatment of one captive, Boyd:
' ... Boyd was made to suffer lingering miseries. His ears were cut off,
his mouth enlarged with knives and his severed nose thrust into it, pieces
of flesh were cut from his shoulders and other parts of his body, an
incision was made in his abdomen and an intestine fastened to the tree, when
he was scourged to make his move around it, and finally as he neared death,
was decapitated, and his head raised on a pole.'
Bernard Bailyn, writes about the actions of Susquehannock Indians:
'Fifteen Maryland militiamen were captured, and tortured. They were
dropped twice into a raging fire intensified by bear fat and pitch, a
contemporary reported, then taken out, bound to flaming poles, and slowly
roasted until a designated "devil chaser" tore the flesh from their faces,
cut out their tongues, cut off their fingers and toes, which he threaded on
strings for necklaces and knee bands, and finally tied them to burning
bundles of reeds while boys "with a great noise" shot arrows into their
smouldering bodies.' ('The Barbarous Years: The peopling of British
North America - the conflict of civilizations, 1600 - 1675.')
Iroquois society was neither 'patriarchal' nor 'matriarchal.' It was
striking in its equality. Women enjoyed great power. But Iroquois society
was no paradise. Iroquois society was hideously cruel.
Jacob Soll, in 'Biography of a Torturer' in the 'New Republic
remarked, 'In her 2002 book, 'Regarding the Pain of Others,' Susan
Sontag expressed fear that photographs of atrocities would not turn society
away from war, torture, and execution, but rather, give an impression of
“consensus” that such acts were normal or necessary.' Similarly with
accounts of atrocities. He added that ' ... reviewing the writing of the
history of atrocities ... can fall into a dangerous complicity.
Some academics seem very pleased when they can uncover trends and
causes and to provide evidence for these trends and causes and to provide
citations - although their research may be spurious and ideological and not
survive serious critical examination. If they overlook overwhelmingly
important moral
considerations which are essential in an adequate ((survey)) of the issues, as Dr Felicity Donohoe has certainly done here, the results will be
despicable. She has written about women who went beyond the roles of
'mother, wife and concubine,' women who exhibited a 'far more complex and
nuanced femininity,' women who, in torturing, were 'active participants in warfare
in their own right.' To view 'the existence
of ritual torture as an acceptable social tool of native warfare, part of a
complex social role' is despicable.
Dr Donohoe has written not a serious contribution to 'gender
studies' but despicable excuses for torture.
This botched article, beyond redemption, was published on the Website of the 'Scottish Word and Image Group,'
not the most obvious place. The Group promotes
'the study of the interaction of words and images.' There isn't a single
image to illustrate the article. Dr Keith Williams, senior lecturer in
English at Dundee University, is the Chair of the group. He played a
prominent part in 'Debating the difference.' Chris Murray, a senior lecturer in English
at Dundee University, is the Secretary of the group. From the Dundee
University English department Website: 'Dr Murray's research area is comics
... ' And this:
'Top tips for students
'Before studying Comics, Chris recommends that you:
-
Read lots of comics!
-
Investigate the rich variety of comics scholarship being produced,
and attend a comics conference
-
Think critically about comics as a medium, in terms of narratology,
composition, and form'
Biographical information about
contributors of papers at the conference where Dr Donohoe's paper was
presented
;
http://www.scottishwordimage.org/debatingdifference/bios.html
Abstracts of their papers:
http://www.scottishwordimage.org/debatingdifference/abstracts.html
Did none of the other contributors object to Dr Donohoe's paper? Did all of
them regard it as a legitimate contribution to 'gender theory,' as a
legitimate contribution to the struggle against patriarchy?'
Rachel Jones, at the time an academic
at Dundee University, now at George Mason University, played a leading part
in organising the conference where this disturbing paper was presented. An
extract from her anti-patriarchal introduction to the conference, and her
account of Dr Donohoe's thesis, which she obviously approves.
'Debating the Difference: Gender, Representation, Self-Representation
'This collection represents a selection of papers from a conference
held at the University of Dundee in September 2007, as well as from related
workshops on issues of women, gender and (self-)representation. Together
they reflect the multiple 'differences' which we were interested in
exploring at these events. These differences are also reflected in the
conference organising team, which involved members of the
Scottish Word and Image Group
(SWIG) as well as the
Women,
Culture and Society (WCS) postgraduate programme at Dundee. By working
together, our aim was to generate an interdisciplinary dialogue assessing
constructions of gender in both text and image.
' ... Our aim was to make a collaborative space in which to
explore the representation of gender from a multitude of angles, examining
depictions of women by men and men by women, and - given the historically
patriarchal culture in which we find ourselves - paying close attention to
the ways in which reductive representations of women have been challenged
and transformed, as well as the ways women have come to represent
themselves.
...
'If Locke and Sidney defied regulative norms of feminine silence
through their textual creations, the next section begins with an examination
of female activities which challenged such norms in a far more direct and
indeed violent manner. Paradoxically, as Felicity Donohoe shows, precisely
because they posed a more overt and troubling challenge, these activities
were even more firmly silenced, both at the time and in subsequent
historiography. The activity in question is the ritual torture of enemy
captives undertaken by native North American women and encountered by
European colonists in the course of their expansionist programme of the late
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
In her paper, 'The Gender Map and Ritual Native Female Violence',
Donohoe shows that the involvement of native North American women in ritual
violence and torture was not only difficult for eighteenth-century colonists
to understand, but that viewing such acts within a frame informed by
European gender norms made it almost impossible to recognise the status and
nature of these acts in their own terms. This blindspot can be compared to
the ways in which the European colonists found it hard to recognise unfenced
lands as already inhabited and erased the presence of indigenous peoples via
the myth of terra nullius. Donohoe goes on to show how this blindspot is
compounded by later historical analysis which has often continued to map the
activities of North American Indian women in terms of a gendered framework
drawn from a Western historical context. This frame, with its emphasis on
the ideological power of the notion of 'separate spheres', tends to erase
the ways in which Native American women played a full and crucial role in
both the spiritual life of the tribe and its 'public' life in times of war.
'In ways that resonate with Waudby's analysis, Donohoe points out
that the tendency to parallel Native American female violence with
contemporaneous acts of violence by white (colonist) women leads to an
understanding of both as simply 'anomalous'. Such interpretations homogenise
female actions on the basis of sex instead of accounting for the
heterogeneous significance that violent acts might have for women whose
lives were framed by different histories and very different socio-political
contexts. By contrast, Donohoe argues for the need to attend to the
significance of Native American women's role in ritual torture in its own
terms, and provides the basis for such an analysis. Her approach is valuable
both because it begins to make visible the very different 'gender map' that
seems to have shaped the lives of indigenous North American peoples, and
because this alternative mapping challenges some of the most deeply
entrenched features of modern western gender norms and models of
femininity.'
It could hardly be clearer. Rachel Jones regards Dr Donohoe's paper
as challenging 'some of the most deeply entrenched features of modern
western gender norms and models of femininity.' I regard the paper, to put
it simply, as giving evidence that women can be as barbaric as men, evidence
that feminists have to take into account if their feminism isn't to be based
on illusion and denial, and evidence that gender studies can put forward
morally indefensible theses (.)there are many critics of gender studies who
present evidence that gender studies can be intellectually flawed
See also my criticism of
Dr
Lisa Kemmerer's views on American Indians and
Dr Lisa Kemmerer and
smallpox, on the page
'Veganism: arguments against'.' Lisa Kemmerer is a vegan feminist.
Another paper presented at the conference ‘Debating the difference’
was ‘A Touching Text: Dundee, Tehran
and The Winter’s Tale’ by Marion Wynne
Davies, now a Professor of English at Surrey University. 'In
January 2003, the Dundee Repertory Theatre Company took their production of
William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale to the 21st International Fajr
Theatre Festival in Tehran.'
http://www.scottishwordimage.org/debatingdifference/WYNNE-DAVIES.pdf
Marion Wynne Davies doesn’t criticize the company’s abject surrender
to Iranian censorship. It was a mistake to allow representatives of this
barbaric regime to censor the production. Given the inevitability of censorship and the policies and acts of the
regime, it was a mistake to take the
production to Tehran at all. The Iranian official who did take a more
liberal approach was removed. Extracts
from Professor Wynne Davies’ paper :
‘The Rep had been advised as to what changes would be essential to
the production before they set out for Tehran when Hill visited Iran in
December 2002. The alterations primarily involved re-costuming, cutting
props associated with alcohol, and the removal of all sequences in which men
and women touch. The women of the cast all wore scarves and long robes that
covered arms, legs and necks. All physical
contact between men and women was cut, with the exception of the final
embrace, which as has already been pointed out, was a key moment in Hill’s
interpretation of the text.
'the Rep’s interpretation of The Winter’s Tale presented the body
in its jubilant excesses – bawdy humour, drinking, dancing and touching. Yet
these were precisely the elements that had to be cut for an Iranian
audience.'
' ... the last production of Shakespeare at the
Festival itself, by an American company, had been closed down and the
director prosecuted for ‘raping the public innocence.’
The Iranian authorities will have regarded the Dundee
Repertory Company as a very well behaved bunch by comparison. ' ... the programme cover image was altered to include only men.' There seem
to have been few limits to the company's compliance.
‘On Sunday 19th the artistic director, Hamish Glen, had a meeting
with the director of the festival, Dr Sharifkholdaei, at which point, as
Glen notes, ‘it becomes clear that [he] is under growing pressure not to be
too liberal in the content.’18 Conversely, Hill also remembers
Sharifkholdaei as wanting to push the boundaries of what would be allowed,
and that any pressure to alter the production did not come from him. Dr
Sharifkholdaei was later removed from his post.19 The dress rehearsal took
place on Tuesday 21st, watched by Dr Sharifkholdaei and Iranian officials,
whose role was to vet the production.’
Dominic Hill, the director of the play (now with
the Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow), was obviously determined to put on the play
no matter what. This is from his abject piece ‘An Iranian Tale’ in ‘The Guardian’
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/jan/29/theatre.artsfeatures
‘ … 10 minutes before our second performance, a
deputation from the theatre department approached me and asked whether it
would be possible to remove the hug between Leontes and Hermione at the end
of the play. I said it would not be possible as this was the climactic
reconciliation between the two. They smiled and disappeared. Two minutes
later they returned and said there were some clerics in the audience that
night, and "it might cause problems" - that is, we might be shut down if I
kept it in. I said I would shorten it but that it had to be there for the
ending to make sense. They thanked me and disappeared again, smiling. A few
minutes later they returned with the minister, who requested, "in the spirit
of cultural exchange", that I remove the offending moment just for that
evening. After some debate, and knowing that the show was about to begin, I
agreed and rushed backstage to re-rehearse the end.’
She does give some criticisms of the Iranian regime’s policies made
by members of the cast, but the visit of the
company did absolutely nothing to support those many Iranians who have
risked their lives and lost their lives in support of liberal values. Her
criticism of the British government is forthright,
as in the casual comment ‘government anti-fundamentalist
propaganda. ‘ She should have chosen
her words with far more care. To regard opposition to Islamic fundamentalism as
‘propaganda’ is very mistaken.
On my page on Islamism and other topics, a section on
some actions of the Iranian regime.
including the case of Atefeh Rajabi Sahaaleh, charged with adultery and 'crimes against
chastity.' She was hanged in public.
Farshad Hoseini on stoning to death in Iran.
http://stopstonningnow.com/wpress/SList%20_1980-2010__FHdoc.pdf
He gives the total number of men and women stoned to death in
Iran in the period 1980 - 2010 as more than 150. In 2002, the year before
the Dundee Repertory Company’s visit to Iran, he states that 11 people were
stoned to death in Iran. The intention is to cause maximum pain by stoning
to death. The procedure is specified and large stones, which might
kill the person quickly, are forbidden.
The sentence is imposed most commonly for adultery, but for a
variety of other reasons as well. From the site
http://www.wfafi.org/Stoning.htm
‘According to reports in the press, an unnamed woman was stoned
to death at Evin prison,
Tehran,
on
20 May 2001.
The woman, aged 35, was arrested eight years ago on charges of acting in
pornographic films.’ (There's a Fajr Film Festival as well as the Fajr
Theatre Festival. The Iranian authorities will expect that people attending
the festival will respect their sensitivities by not drawing attention to
such events.)
Marissia Fragkou’s paper, ‘Theatrical Representations: Gender
Performativity,Fluidity and Nomadic Subjectivity in Phyllis Nagy'sWeldon
Rising and The Strip’ includes this:
‘The above analysis has attempted
to expose the intricacy of gender performativity
in the context of theatre and problematize how this resistance
does not necessarily imply an exilic notion of subjectivity that is isolated
from its community.’
She claims that Judith Butler’s
‘account of gender identity … created a new discourse of identity andrepresentation based on the
understanding of gender as “an expression of what one does and not what one
is” manifested by means of a reiteration of corporeal acts.’ On this page,
extracts from Martha Nussbaum’s criticisms of Judith
Butler.
I’ve not read much of the paper.
Anyone who wants to persevere is welcome to.
The paper is available at
http://www.academia.edu/1871646/Theatrical_Representations
_Gender_Performativity_Fluidity_and_Nomadic_Subjectivity_in
_Phyllis_Nagys_Weldon_Rising_and_The_Strip
Dr Lisa Downing (gender theorist)
on M. Hindley, murderer
Above: Professor Lisa Downing
Above, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, 'The Moors
Murderers,' described by the trial judge in his closing
remarks as 'sadistic killers.' The gender theorist
Professor Downing of Birmingham University, on the other
hand, claims that Myra Hindley was a strong woman who
rejected society's oppressive view of women. Myra Hindley
rejected the 'burden' of caring for children. Professor
Downing's view is very, very disturbing.
The murders
were committed between July 1963 and October
1965. The victims were five children aged between 10 and
17—Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann
Downey and Edward Evans. At least four of them were sexually
assaulted. They are called The Moors Murderers because two
of the victims were discovered in graves dug on Saddleworth
Moor. A third grave was discovered on the moor in 1987.
Above, a photograph taken by Ian Brady of Myra
Hindley with her dog, crouching over John Kilbride's grave
on Saddleworth Moor in November 1963.
John Kilbride, 12 years old, was approached by Myra Hindley and lured
into her car. He was sexually assaulted by Brady, who slit his throat
before strangling him. Keith Bennett, also 12 years old, was lured into
Hindley's vehicle. She drove him to Saddleworth Moor, where Brady
sexually assaulted and strangled him. Brady and Hindley visited a
fairground in search of another victim. She got into Hindley's car and
was driven to their home, where she was undressed, gagged, forced to
pose for photographs and strangled. The next day, they took her body to
Saddleworth Moor and buried her in a shallow grave. Edward Evans was
found at a Manchester railway station and lured to Brady's house in
Cheshire, where he beat him to death with an axe.
She
made a formal confession to police on 10 February 1987,
admitting her involvement in all five murders. At the
trial she denied any involvement. The tape
recording of her statement was over 17 hours long; Detective
Chief Superintendent Peter Topping described it as a 'very
well worked out performance in which, I believe, she told me
just as much as she wanted me to know, and no more ... she
was never there when the killings took place. She was in the
car, over the brow of the hill, in the bathroom and even, in
the case of the Evans murder, in the kitchen.' He felt he
'had witnessed a great performance rather than a genuine
confession.' There's evidence that she was an accomplished
liar. In 1987she admitted that the plea for parole she had
submitted to the Home Secretary eight years earlier was "on
the whole ... a pack of lies.'
In a statement in 1992 Myra Hindley said, 'I should have been
hanged, I would have absolutely deserved it.' This may well have been
not in the least sincere. She tried to obtain parole and this may well
have been a dramatic way of claiming to be sorry for what she did,
intended to increase her chances of being released from prison. This was
long after the last executions in this country. The death penalty wasn't
available to the court at the time of the sentences. A few years
earlier, the death sentence was available. My view is that the two
murderers should not have been hanged. My
page
on the death penalty discusses the issue.
There's evidence, surely,
conclusive evidence, that it was Ian Brady who had
greater responsibility for the torture and murders than his
accomplice and that, although a hideous sadist in her own
right, she was easily led. She claimed, 'He could
have told me that the earth was flat, the moon was made of
green cheese and the sun rose in the west, I would have
believed him, such was his power of persuasion.'
For Professor Lisa Downing of Birmingham University, gender
theorist, any notion that this woman could be easily led,
any notion that she could not be a murderer in her own
right, supposedly strong and independent, is completely
misguided. Lisa Downing is the misguided one. Lisa Downing's
view is despicable.
Dr Felicity Donohoe
of Glasgow University, another gender theorist, regards the
women who tortured men to death as strong and independent
too, as I explain in my profile of her on this page.
Lisa Downing's profile on the Birmingham University Website
includes this:
'I am Professor of French
Discourses of Sexuality. My work is located at the
intersection of sexuality and gender studies, cultural
studies, and critical theory. My research has a European,
especially French, bent and also focuses on comparative
European and North American contexts. My most recent
publications have been on the gendering, sexualization, and
othering of the figure of the murderer, and on the history
of ‘perversion’ in Europe and America.' The
subject of her D.Phil. degree was 'French literature
and discourses of necrophilia.'
She
claims that Myra Hindley has been badly misunderstood
and that the misunderstanding is due to an incorrect understanding of
gender. In her
review
of Professor Downing's
book,
'The Subject of Murder: Gender, Exceptionality, and the Modern
Killer,' which may 'facilitate
a possible re-conceptualisation of the identity ascribed to Hindley,'
Emma
Smith makes it completely clear that ordinary notions of ethics aren’t
necessarily accepted by gender theorists, or at least gender theorists like
Lisa Downing (and Felicity Donoghue):
‘ … Downing interrogates the notion of exceptionality,
examining the aspects of Hindley’s police investigations, imprisonment, and
her portrayal in media and other cultural forms that were pertinent in the
often subjective reading and cultivation of Hindley’s public identity.
Gender (and to a lesser extent, class) is a focus in this attempt by the
author to understand and facilitate a possible re-conceptualisation of the
identity ascribed to Hindley.’
And, ‘Hindley’s motives were questioned, on account of
her dissidence from the societal (female) ideals of marriage and raising a
family. Hindley’s non-traditional upbringing is also shown to have been a
subject of focus; her failure to live with and be brought up by her mother
deemed suspicious. By comparison, Brady’s failure to marry and raise a
family was rarely interrogated to the same degree. Unrelated, but also
suggestive of the degree to which Hindley was a product of her society, is
the focus drawn towards Hindley’s physical appearance, often considered
transgressive and out of the ordinary compared to contemporary feminine
beauty ideals.’
And even more:
‘Downing invites the reader to consider in more detail
why Hindley was/is so exceptional. Deconstructing the various elements that
led to and underpinned the ‘otherness’ image of Hindley, Downing indicates
that Hindley, unlike her male counterpart, was doubly transgressive: Hindley
not only deviates from the moral and legal codes that are adhered to by most
in society, but crucially, from her preconditioned, social, gendered role of
a woman. Hindley was judged on her rejection of the feminine ideals of
maternity, child rearing and its associated qualities of care and
compassion, suggesting that Hindley’s identity as murderer may have been as
much a product of the world she was socialised into, as a source of
rejection by that world.’
Chapter Four of the book, “Infanticidal Femininity,” which contains
Professor Downing’s discussion of Myra Hindley, offers these
generalizations, intended to illuminate the case not just of Myra Hindley
but of all women murderers:
‘ …
gender role transgression constitutes an extra cause for condemnation in the
case of the murderous woman … all women, whether technically mothers or not,
are symbolically charged in this culture with maternity, with the burden of
caring for children,
and that
dereliction of this duty carries a heavy penalty.’
Obviously, Professor Downing doesn’t believe in the existence of such a
thing as the maternal instinct but does seem to believe in something like
universal maternal drudgery – the burden of caring for children. Women who find fulfilment in caring for
children or are bitterly disappointed that they can’t have children are in
need of consciousness-raising, –
preferably by means of postgraduate Gender Studies.
Although it may seem that she completely ignores
questions of ethics, this isn't so, but her clarifications
tend to be impenetrable. Ponder this, for example, in answer
to an interview question with 3am: magazine,
which declares, 'Whatever it is, we're against it.' What?
There's such a thing as truth, and the magazine is against
it? Is the magazine against resistance to terrororism? She
says,
'The “turn to ethics” describes a current in
poststructuralist criticism that is perhaps more strongly
associated with literature and textuality than with art or
the image. It is characterized by a rejection of the study
of cultural products as self-reflexive and hermetic (the
principles of structuralism).'
Lunching with Lisa Downing
Triona Kennedy has drawn attention to the scandalous lack
of feminist indoctrination/education in schools. Lisa
Downing has drawn attention to the scandalous lack of
feminist indoctrination/education in universities, in a
piece published in the ‘Times Higher Education Supplement.’
(20 June, 2013.) ‘Lisa Downing on why the erosion of
women’s, gender and sexuality studies in UK universities is
cause for concern.’
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/identity-crisis-for-womens-studies/2004832.fullarticle
A few
excerpts from her remarkable article, followed by a radical
comparison. She writes,
‘ … young
people need to be taught to think critically about how power
works with regard to categories including sex, gender, race,
(dis)ability and class.'
‘When lunching in London a few weeks ago with an American
colleague over here on a research trip, I found myself
without a good answer when she asked me, “What has happened
to all the women’s studies programmes in this country?” It
is true that there are few remaining named programmes of
this kind, yet gender, sexuality and feminist studies are
still widely taught under the auspices of more traditional
degree programmes throughout UK higher education. But I have
been wondering ever since that conversation about the
effects of the erosion of their distinct academic identity
on students and researchers in these areas.
'Widespread in US academia since the 1970s, numerous
women’s studies programmes were later established in UK
universities, the first named programme being the MA in
women’s studies, established in 1980 at the University of
Kent at Canterbury. In the 1990s, the concept of “women’s
studies” was criticised by some post-structuralist academics
as being too narrowly concerned with female identity, and
therefore ignoring broader issues that impact on, and
intersect with, sexism (such as cultural expectations of
masculinity and the stigmatisation of non‑heterosexual,
non-monogamous, disabled and transgendered people).
'The discipline [sic] then underwent the partial transition to
“gender studies”, aided by the widespread influence of the
work of US-based theorists such as Judith Butler and Susan
Stryker. In a parallel way, the academic study of sexuality
moved from a focus on “lesbian and gay studies” towards
“queer” (the branch of theory that, after French historian
and philosopher Michel Foucault’s work on the history of
sexuality, views identity categories as socially constructed
fictions). Within both of these academic fields and activist
communities, rigorous [sic] debate has centred on the ways
in which identity politics might be balanced with analysis
of how different types of oppression intersect with each
other. As a result, the lines between women’s studies,
gender studies and sexuality studies are far from clear-cut,
and all three encompass many methodological and theoretical
differences.
'Today, variations of all of these branches of study are
taught within UK universities. But, as my lunch companion’s
query suggested, very few institutions offer undergraduate
degrees in them, or have departments with an undergraduate
population named after them. And, at postgraduate level, the
struggle to ensure the survival of such programmes can be
intense, stressful and seemingly never-ending for those who
convene them. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to learn
from a colleague the other day that the University of Hull
has a named BA programme in gender studies. Yet the “find
your course” application on Hull’s website made no mention
of it; I only found it later within the department of
sociology’s pages.
…
‘Despite the problems of institutional organisation,
graduates of women’s, gender and sexuality studies are vocal
about the significance of the subject matter and the value
of their studies. When I invited them on Twitter to send me
their impressions of their degrees, many responses focused
on the benefits of the critical-thinking skills they were
taught, both for their own sake and for their application in
activist and professional spheres.
'For instance, Linnea Sandström Lange, an alumna of the
London School of Economics’ MSc in gender, policy and
inequalities, said her degree equipped her with “a whole
different layer of analysis and understanding, without which
you cannot work against injustice”.'
Is it true that without an MSc degree in gender, policy
and inequalities degree ‘you cannot work against injustice’
or that an MSc degree in gender, policy and inequalities is
a great advantage in working against injustice? Lisa Downing
was ‘lunching in London … with an American colleague over
here on a research trip.’ Professor Downing and her American
colleague may have felt that they were working against
injustice by sharing their views over lunch, but how much
truth is there in this?
I don't share Lisa Downing's views on these matters and
I don't have any respect for Lisa Downing, at least from
what I learn about her here.
In my
review of The Cambridge
Companion to Seamus Heaney, I discuss in detail some grotesque
interpretations by two feminists, in the sections Guinn Batten and the
drowned sheep and Fran Brearton: Bowdlerizing and Breatronizing. The
interpretations of the two feminists Lisa Downing and Felicity Donohoe are
grotesque too, but have this difference: they are to do with acts of
extreme cruelty. Lisa Downing and Felicity Donohoe shouldn't be dismissed
from their posts but they should be held to account and they should either
defend their interpretations or do something to undo the damage.
Compare and contrast the feminism of these two and the
Roman Catholicism of the worker-priests of France and other
countries. I don't share the Roman Catholic views of these
worker-priests but I do have respect for these priests. This
is from James T. Fisher's 'On the Irish Waterfront:'
' ... there remained in the early 1950's a sharp
distinction between apostolic
work and work
as it was commonly understood in industrialised nations.
This was a highly charged issue ... The worker-priest
movement was authorized in a bold if not quixotic effort to
salvage a role for the church among the overwhelmingly
disaffected French urban proletariat.
'Many of the worker-priests toiled in factories, but
the first and best known was Father Jacques Loew, the "docker
priest" of Marseilles. Loew believed that it was "no good
wasting time on paper theories: the thing to do was to buy
some overalls on the old clothes market, get a job like
everyone else, and then, at the end of the day's work, go
off and live with the very dregs of the population - the
dockers on the port."
'In the winter of 1951 worker-priest Michel Farreau was
crushed under a ton of wood on a Bordeax pier. "Through his
death," wrote Arnal, "the worker-priesthood joined what hey
considered the ranks of the working class martyrs." Over
time, however, "hostilities grew" between the Vatican and
the worker priests ... " '
This is never going to happen, of course, but if
academic gender theorists and other academic feminists spent
their sabbatical years not in writing about power and gender
or writing about power and gender according to Judith Butler
or some other feminist, but in doing difficult, dirty,
dangerous work - the kind of work so often done by men -
or at least work completely different from their academic
work, it would most likely transform their ideas of power
and gender. They would never be able to write or speak in
the same way.
Dr Terese Jonsson on 'white feminist racism'
Terese Jonsson is a lecturer in sociology at Portsmouth University. She's
a feminist who's an outspoken critic of feminism, or the feminism of so many
white feminists, although she's white herself.
Most of the material on Dr Jonsson
is in the section
Feminist divisions and in-fighting. An extract from the section. Terese
Jonsson writes
'Piercing the whitening silence
' ... When are the white, privileged, cis-gendered,
university-educated, able-bodied women who too often insist on dominating
feminist conversations going to actually start listening? And following on
from that, when are we going to start changing? Annika addressed many
different issues in her article, all important and inter-connected, but
right here and now I want to focus on one strand in particular; namely, the
ongoing racism and unchecked white privilege in many feminist communities in
the UK.
It can safely be assumed that she'd be very critical of Rae Langton,
Jennifer Saul, in fact all the other feminist academics in this section who
dominate, or try to dominate, feminist conversations.
Terese Jonsson has deranged views. Another extract:
'So the question I want to ask my white sisters right now is this: what is
feminism to you? Is it a lifestyle, a way for you to have an outlet about
the sexism in your life, as it affects you? Or is it the ongoing fight to
radically transform society, to end oppression against ALL women, and
ultimately all people?'
The view that it's possible to end oppression against ALL women and
ultimately all people is an ignorant and deranged view. If she'd written
'End ALL oppression NOW!' it would have been even more deranged, but not
much more unrealistic. Portsmouth University has given a job to someone who
lives in a fantasy world.
See also the section on Professor Rae Langton of Cambridge University who
chaired a panel which put the case that 'to live in a world where women are
not attacked or hurt in their daily lives - physically, sexually or
virtually is possible.' It's not possible. This is an objective which at
first sight is even more radical and even more deranged, than the TJ (Terese
Jonsson) programme. Whereas Terese Jonsson's programme is about ending
'oppression,' (something severe), the Cambridge programme is about ending
much less severe, everyday difficulties as well as the severe difficulties.
But of course, Terese Johnson would almost certainly define everyday
pinpricks as 'oppression.'
Portsmouth University's Website gives
this information about her 'research:'
'Terese’s PhD thesis, White feminist stories: Locating race
in narratives of British feminism examines how racism and whiteness
shape feminist theory and politics in Britain. The thesis argues that a
history of white feminist racism haunts the dominant narratives of British
feminism as something which is repeatedly evaded each time it is brought to
view, thus reinforcing whiteness as the hegemonic lens through which British
feminism is understood. Terese is currently developing this research, which
will be published as a monograph by Pluto Press in 2018.'
Jude Kelly CBE, artistic director and
WOWSER
Jude Kelly founded WOW, 'Women of the World.' More about
Cambridge WOW.
A South Bank Centre Page on WOW, women of the world
https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/festivals-series/women-of-the-world
At the top of the South Bank Centre Page are images of women who may feel oppressed or
disadvantaged but don't, at first sight, look oppressed or disadvantaged.
(See also the image at the top of this page, showing a woman wearing
a T-shirt.) A quote from the South Bank Centre Page:
'WOW – Women of the World festival celebrates women and girls, and
looks at the obstacles that stop them from achieving their potential.'
So much of this page is about the obstacles that stop women and girls
from achieving their page. The present is parochial. The past is one of the
best of all antidotes to parochialism, which is why I value so much the
study of history. An extract from another page on this site. I think it's
relevant to present-day feminist views, such as the views of Jude Kelly, and
relevant to 'the obstacles' that
stop women and girls from achieving their potential. From my page
Seamus Heaney and
others: translations and versions:
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
'Lydia Dwight Dead,' from the collections of the Victoria and Albert
Museum, which gives
this information: 'Lydia Dwight was six years old when she died on
3 March 1674' and 'One of the earliest experiments in European ceramic
sculpture, this object was commissioned by the father of the dead child in
order to capture her likeness and perpetuate her memory. It was a personal
and private sculpture, reflecting the grief of the little girl's family ...
' The sculpture was lent to the Millennium Gallery, Sheffield by the
Victoria and Albert Museum and it was there that I saw this heartbreaking
response to the death of a young child, which has a counterpart in the
heartbreaking set of poems by the Polish poet Jan Kochanowski: the 19
elegies or 'laments' of 1580, written to commemorate his daughter Urszula,
who died at the age of two. Seamus Heaney's translation of these 'Treny,'
undertaken with Stanislaw Baranczak, is an important contribution to this
devastating literature, an important contribution to the poetry of deep
feeling.
There are feminists who would acknowledge, who appreciate very much, the
love of men for women and for their daughters, and feminists who deny
all possibility. Of course, 'love' is a word under threat, overused and
misused again and again. My page
The Culture
Industry has more, in the section 'Love and linguistics.' It includes
this, 'One of the supreme words of English has lost so much of its content.'
Dying young is
one of the obstacles that has stopped women and girls, many millions of
women and girls, from achieving their potential. A visit to any English
country churchyard which has graves from centuries ago will provide more
hearbreaking evidence. What has largely removed this particular obstacle is
the work almost entirely of men and owes nothing at all to feminism, the
massive achievements in medical science and even more important,
massive achievements in the building of reservoirs and the disposal of
sewage, which has almost entirely ended premature death by infectious
disease, at least in the West. The page has much more information on this
particular obstacle and other obstacles which stop women and girls from
achieving their potential.
From an article by Michael Henderson, published in The Daily
Telegraph.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/
michaelhenderson/3554767/Philistines-will-never-dull-Beethoven.html
'... if you consider it odd that a
venue dedicated to the performance of music is run by someone not terribly
distinguished from the world of theatre, you are not alone. "Amiable
lightweight" seems to be the judgment of those who encounter her
professionally.
'Those who heard her interview Barenboim on stage at the Festival Hall
might remove the qualifying adjective. Here is an "executive" who, lacking
deep knowledge of the subject, speaks almost entirely in capital letters
("INSPIRATION", "HUMAN RIGHTS"), to signify the importance of her message.
'Your meeting with Edward Said, she told Barenboim, was an "ICONIC
historic moment". No it wasn't, he replied. We met by chance in the lobby of
a London hotel. This ground, incidentally, is covered in Parallels and
Paradoxes, the book of conversations between Barenboim and Said. Evidently,
she hadn't read it.
'In Kelly's world - and she has her eyes on the executive directorship of
the SBC when Michael Lynch leaves later this year - populism is the key to
everything.'
SBC is the South Bank Centre. Jude Kelly didn't get the job. It went to
Elaine Bedell. Jude Kelly is the Artistic Director. She may not have been
successful but the job of Artistic Director is evidence of great success.
Not only that, but she's been honoured by the establishment. No matter what
her views may be on imperialism, she accepted an honour in the New Years
Honours list of 2015: Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
She was already Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).
I've no information whatsoever about other candidates for the post of
Artistic Director and their feelings when they found that they hadn't been
successful. It's likely that they included women as well as men. It may be
that some of them felt that they could achieve more than Jude Kelly, perhaps
far more. That moment when a candidate for a post finds that he or she
hasn't been successful is often a fraught time. A feminist candidate may be
glad that the post went to another feminist, or may be far from happy.
Professor Martha
Nussbaum on Professor Judith Butler
Judith Butler is probably the most influential, the best known of feminist
academics - according to one particular feminist pecking order, the
academic.
On this page, as on my page on Israel, I give a great deal of
space to profiles of people who aren't in the least well known, even
in anti-patriarchy circles and anti-Israel circles. (Judith Butler
is prominent in both of these intersecting circles. She's an
outspoken opponent of Israel and an outspoken supporter of academic
boycotts of Israel. My page on Israel gives
my arguments against.)
I've no interest
in novelists who write mainly about the powerful and the famous, or
the blockbusters which result. Largely forgotten authors of
out-of-print books may well have much more to offer. This is
from Martin Seymour-Smith's out-of-print 'Guide to Modern World
Literature.' He's writing about the poet Ted Hughes but it can be
applied to the future reputation of Judith Butler, whose inflated
reputation is strictly temporary, surely:
'Hughes reputation has
been inflated - and that is not altogether his fault - and his work so
little subjected to hard criticism, that to read it with a severely critical
eye would seem to be asking people to do something atrociously unfamiliar
... What is dismaying is that so self-indulgently negative, unconvincing,
intellectually tawdry, derivative and synthetic a 'vision' should should
ever have been taken seriously at all ... a huge balloon will collapse with a
whimper.'
He could have been writing about Judith Butler! I find Martha
Nussbaum a more interesting writer than Judith Butler.
Extracts from Martha Nussbaum's
'The Professor of Parody.' The extracts are about only some of the themes
in her essay. Martha Nussbaum is a feminist but a
feminist with a difference - or certain differences. Here, she discusses
Judith Butler.
''In India ... academic
feminists have thrown themselves into practical struggles, and feminist theorizing
is closely tethered to practical commitments such as female literacy, the
reform of unequal land laws, changes in rape law (which, in India today, has
most of the flaws that the first generation of American feminists targeted),
the effort to get social recognition for problems of sexual harassment and
domestic violence. These feminists know that they live in the middle of a
fiercely unjust reality; they cannot live with themselves without addressing
it more or less daily, in their theoretical writing and in their activities
outside the seminar room.
'In the United States, however, things have been changing. One observes a
new, disquieting trend. It is not only that feminist theory pays relatively
little attention to the struggles of women outside the United States. (This
was always a dispiriting feature even of much of the best work of the earlier
period.) Something more insidious than provincialism has come to prominence
in the American academy. It is the virtually complete turning from the material
side of life, toward a type of verbal and symbolic politics that makes only
the flimsiest of connections with the real situation of real women.
Feminist thinkers of the new symbolic type would appear to believe that the
way to do feminist politics is to use words in a subversive way, in academic
publications of lofty obscurity and disdainful abstractness. These symbolic
gestures, it is believed, are themselves a form of political resistance; and
so one need not engage with messy things such as legislatures and movements
in order to act daringly.
'These developments owe much to the recent prominence of French postmodernist
thought. Many young feminists, whatever their concrete affiliations with this
or that French thinker, have been influenced by the extremely French idea
that the intellectual does politics by speaking seditiously, and that this
is a significant type of political action.
'One American feminist has shaped these developments more than any other.
Judith Butler seems to many young scholars to define what feminism is now.
Trained as a philosopher, she is frequently seen (more by people in literature
than by philosophers) as a major thinker about gender, power, and the body.
As we wonder what has become of old-style feminist politics and the material
realities to which it was committed, it seems necessary to reckon with Butler's
work and influence, and to scrutinize the arguments that have led so many
to adopt a stance that looks very much like quietism and retreat. II.
It is difficult to come to grips with Butler's ideas, because it is difficult
to figure out what they are. Butler is a very smart person. In public discussions,
she proves that she can speak clearly and has a quick grasp of what is said
to her. Her written style, however, is ponderous and obscure. It is dense
with allusions to other theorists, drawn from a wide range of different theoretical
traditions. In addition to Foucault, and to a more recent focus on Freud,
Butler's work relies heavily on the thought of Louis Althusser, the French
lesbian theorist Monique Wittig, the American anthropologist Gayle Rubin,
Jacques Lacan, J.L. Austin, and the American philosopher of language Saul
Kripke. These figures do not all agree with one another, to say the least;
so an initial problem in reading Butler is that one is bewildered to find
her arguments buttressed by appeal to so many contradictory concepts and doctrines,
usually without any account of how the apparent contradictions will be resolved.
'A further problem lies in Butler's casual mode of allusion. The ideas of
these thinkers are never described in enough detail to include the uninitiated
(if you are not familiar with the Althusserian concept of "interpellation,"
you are lost for chapters) or to explain to the initiated how, precisely,
the difficult ideas are being understood. Of course, much academic writing
is allusive in some way: it presupposes prior knowledge of certain doctrines
and positions. But in both the continental and the Anglo-American philosophical
traditions, academic writers for a specialist audience standardly acknowledge
that the figures they mention are complicated, and the object of many different
interpretations. They therefore typically assume the responsibility of advancing
a definite interpretation among the contested ones, and of showing by argument
why they have interpreted the figure as they have, and why their own interpretation
is better than others.
'We find none of this in Butler. Divergent interpretations are simply not
considered--even where, as in the cases of Foucault and Freud, she is advancing
highly contestable interpretations that would not be accepted by many scholars.
Thus one is led to the conclusion that the allusiveness of the writing cannot
be explained in the usual way, by positing an audience of specialists eager
to debate the details of an esoteric academic position. The writing is simply
too thin to satisfy any such audience. It is also obvious that Butler's work
is not directed at a non-academic audience eager to grapple with actual injustices.
Such an audience would simply be baffled by the thick soup of Butler's prose,
by its air of in-group knowingness, by its extremely high ratio of names to
explanations.
To whom, then, is Butler speaking? It would seem that she is addressing a
group of young feminist theorists in the academy who are neither students
of philosophy, caring about what Althusser and Freud and Kripke really said,
nor outsiders, needing to be informed about the nature of their projects and
persuaded of their worth. This implied audience is imagined as remarkably
docile. Subservient to the oracular voice of Butler's text, and dazzled by
its patina of high-concept abstractness, the imagined reader poses few questions,
requests no arguments and no clear definitions of terms.
'Why does Butler prefer to write in this teasing, exasperating way? The style
is certainly not unprecedented. Some precincts of the continental philosophical
tradition, though surely not all of them, have an unfortunate tendency to
regard the philosopher as a star who fascinates, and frequently by obscurity,
rather than as an arguer among equals. When ideas are stated clearly, after
all, they may be detached from their author: one can take them away and pursue
them on one's own. When they remain mysterious (indeed, when they are not
quite asserted), one remains dependent on the originating authority. The thinker
is heeded only for his or her turgid charisma. One hangs in suspense, eager
for the next move. When Butler does follow that "direction for thinking,"
what will she say? What does it mean, tell us please, for the agency of a
subject to presuppose its own subordination? (No clear answer to this question,
so far as I can see, is forthcoming.) One is given the impression of a mind
so profoundly cogitative that it will not pronounce on anything lightly: so
one waits, in awe of its depth, for it finally to do so.
'In this way obscurity creates an aura of importance. It also serves another
related purpose. It bullies the reader into granting that, since one cannot
figure out what is going on, there must be something significant going on,
some complexity of thought, where in reality there are often familiar or even
shopworn notions, addressed too simply and too casually to add any new dimension
of understanding. When the bullied readers of Butler's books muster the daring
to think thus, they will see that the ideas in these books are thin. When
Butler's notions are stated clearly and succinctly, one sees that, without
a lot more distinctions and arguments, they don't go far, and they are not
especially new. Thus obscurity fills the void left by an absence of a real
complexity of thought and argument.
Last year Butler won the first prize in the annual Bad Writing Contest sponsored
by the journal Philosophy and Literature, for the following sentence:
' "The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood
to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony
in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation
brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked
a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities
as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility
of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with
the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power."
Now, Butler might have written: "Marxist accounts, focusing on capital
as the central force structuring social relations, depicted the operations
of that force as everywhere uniform. By contrast, Althusserian accounts, focusing
on power, see the operations of that force as variegated and as shifting over
time." Instead, she prefers a verbosity that causes the reader to expend
so much effort in deciphering her prose that little energy is left for assessing
the truth of the claims.
'Butler gains prestige in the literary world by being a philosopher; many
admirers associate her manner of writing with philosophical profundity. But
one should ask whether it belongs to the philosophical tradition at all, rather
than to the closely related but adversarial traditions of sophistry and rhetoric.
Ever since Socrates distinguished philosophy from what the sophists and the
rhetoricians were doing, it has been a discourse of equals who trade arguments
and counter-arguments without any obscurantist sleight-of-hand. In that way,
he claimed, philosophy showed respect for the soul, while the others' manipulative
methods showed only disrespect. One afternoon, fatigued by Butler on a long
plane trip, I turned to a draft of a student's dissertation on Hume's views
of personal identity. I quickly felt my spirits reviving. Doesn't she write
clearly, I thought with pleasure, and a tiny bit of pride. And Hume, what
a fine, what a gracious spirit: how kindly he respects the reader's intelligence,
even at the cost of exposing his own uncertainty.
'The great tragedy in the new feminist theory in America is the loss of a
sense of public commitment. In this sense, Butler's self-involved feminism
is extremely American, and it is not surprising that it has caught on here,
where successful middle-class people prefer to focus on cultivating the self
rather than thinking in a way that helps the material condition of others.
Even in America, however, it is possible for theorists to be dedicated to
the public good and to achieve something through that effort.
'Many feminists in America are still theorizing in a way that supports material
change and responds to the situation of the most oppressed. Increasingly,
however, the academic and cultural trend is toward the pessimistic flirtatiousness
represented by the theorizing of Butler and her followers. Butlerian feminism
is in many ways easier than the old feminism. It tells scores of talented
young women that they need not work on changing the law, or feeding the hungry,
or assailing power through theory harnessed to material politics. They can
do politics in safety of their campuses, remaining on the symbolic level,
making subversive gestures at power through speech and gesture. This, the
theory says, is pretty much all that is available to us anyway, by way of
political action, and isn't it exciting and sexy?
'In its small way, of course, this is a hopeful politics. It instructs people
that they can, right now, without compromising their security, do something
bold. But the boldness is entirely gestural, and insofar as Butler's ideal
suggests that these symbolic gestures really are political change, it offers
only a false hope. Hungry women are not fed by this, battered women are not
sheltered by it, raped women do not find justice in it, gays and lesbians
do not achieve legal protections through it.
'Finally there is despair at the heart of the cheerful Butlerian enterprise.
The big hope, the hope for a world of real justice, where laws and institutions
protect the equality and the dignity of all citizens, has been banished, even
perhaps mocked as sexually tedious. Judith Butler's hip quietism is a comprehensible
response to the difficulty of realizing justice in America. But it is a bad
response. It collaborates with evil. Feminism demands more and women deserve
better.'
Professor Jennifer Saul, philosopher, social engineer
Her social engineering is very unambitious, very restricted in scope. She
isn't a feminist equivalent of the Victorian engineeers who constructed on a
massive scale, in the face of overwhelming difficulties, with massive
benefits for men and women. She has more modest objectives, even if she'd
describe them as absolutely vital, enormously important. She'd very much
like to reduce the 'gender disparity' in the philosophical world, to see an
end to 'underrepresentation' and see more women appointed to university
posts in philosophy. Director of the Society of Women in Philosophy
UK. As a matter of fact, there are many women in
philosophy, including women who are professors, aren't there, Professor
Saul? But she, and others, want to see far more.
This is yet another feminist philosopher who seems to show far less
interest in the severe disadvantages which women still face, most notably in
so many Islamic societies. If the plight of these women does touch her
heart, perhaps she's decided that it would be prudent not to cause a fuss.
It goes without saying that she seems to show not very much interest in injustices to
men and the other burdens which affect men disproportionately.
The literary critic Martin Seymour-Smith wrote of the poetry of Charles
Tomlinson, 'his poetry is far too cool and delighted with itself' and 'he
sets about instructing his calm little world in how to organize itself - all
ignorant of another, rougher world outside.'
On the evidence available to me, Jennifer Saul seems a very pleasant
person but ignorant, it may well be, of another, rougher world outside.
She's not in the least a consistent egalitarian, a rigorous social
engineer. Social engineering by quotas is a very risky undertaking. She
wants to see more women in philosophy but so far as I know is silent about
the fact that black women are completely absent or almost completely absent
in philosophy departments. According to one influential feminist sect, all
women are oppressed but black women are doubly oppressed. (Margaret Thatcher
was oppressed and Theresa May is oppressed but Diane Abbott is doubly
oppressed?) She's vulnerable to criticism from other feminists as well as
criticism from anti-feminists.
'Dr Lorna Finlayson (King's College Cambridge) issues a warning
about current attempts to increase the participation of women in academia -
and in philosophy and political theory in particular - and asks how, as
feminists, we might do better.' She's in open disagreement with the view of
feminists like Jennifer Saul. (My view is that Lorna Finlayson is a
far more deluded feminist than Jennifer Saul.)
Lorna Finlayson makes this claim, in the same lecture, which
has the clumsy subtitle, 'the sororicidal ballet of academic feminism' - the
claim of 'an under-examined difficulty facing women in academia,
supported by mounting anecdotal evidence: the incongruous hostility of
certain women academics towards junior female colleagues and students.'
The lecture is at
http://aissr.uva.nl/content/events/lectures/2015/04/athena-swan-lake.html
This is Terese Jonsson, quoted in the section on
this page Feminist divisions and in-fighting:
' ... When are the white, privileged, cis-gendered,
university-educated, able-bodied women who too often insist on dominating
feminist conversations going to actually start listening?
' ... Most white feminists these days know how to adopt a superficial
language of anti-racism. But that is far from enough ...'
I'm sure that Terese Jonsson would include Lorna Finlayson as well as
Jennifer Saul in her criticism. By the way, Terese Jonsson is white,
able-bodied (so far as I know) and university educated. At the time she
wrote these words, she was working on a doctorate. But the three of them
belong to different feminist sects.
An event in that rougher world out there, a far rougher world. Jennifer
Saul is from Ohio, not an abolitionist state but an executing state. Gary Otte was sent to the Ohio death row when he was only
just out of his teens. Twenty years later, he has now been executed by the
state. In my profile of Sandra Harding, based in California, I discuss the
ethics of executing someone on death row for such a long time.
A much longer section than this would be needed to do
greater justice to Jennifer Saul's strengths and faults - complete justice
wouldn't, of course, be achievable. I haven't discussed her contribution to
non-feminist philosophy, for example.
Professor Quentin Skinner
and
hard times
Professor Quentin Skinner of the School of History, Queen Mary,
University of London, is a historian with philosophical interests. His
academic work hasn't been concerned with feminism or specifically with the
history of women. Here, I give a little more background information and
discuss one of his very few excursions into the field of feminism - or the
battlefield of feminism. Amongst all the warring groups of feminists, there
are many feminists who would condemn him for failing to put women at the centre
of his work, for hardly mentioning the issue of women and their sufferings
in his work as a professional historian.
The Website
http://www.artoftheory.com ceased publication after publishing six
essays and eight interviews. One of those interviewed is Professor
Skinner. An extract - the interviewer says,
' ... you’re known to be strongly committed to gender equality and have
done a lot practically for the advancement of women at Cambridge, yet
issues of gender have never been prominent in your philosophical or
historical work. Can you say a bit about the connection between
scholarship and political context? And do you see problems of social
justice or issues like gender inequality as being primarily practical
rather than philosophical issues?
Skinner: This is very interesting. The promotion of
gender equality is something which matters very much to me ...
Everything remains harder for women, at every stage ...'
I quote the 'Everything remains harder claim' in the section below the
photograph of the flogged slave.
A very brief introduction to some of Quentin Skinner's work. This is the view
of of
David Wootton, in a review published in the 'Times Literary Supplement.'
Although the focus of attention is Quentin Skinner's book 'Visions of
Politics,' the scope of the review is much wider. The date of publication is
14 March 2003, so obviously, his later work isn't considered. The complete
review is very much recommended, although you would have to be a
subscriber to the 'Times Literary Supplement' to read it.
Professor Wootton is an important writer in the field of intellectual
and cultural history. He's the author of 'The Invention of Science'
amongst other works.
He writes,
'Quentin Skinner, Regius Professor of History at the University
of Cambridge, is the most distinguished early modern historian employed
in a British university, at least now that Sir Keith Thomas has retired.
The publication, as Visions of Politics, of three volumes of his essays,
including much of his best work, should be an occasion for rejoicing ...
'I have long admired his work. But I do not believe these volumes
should have been published in this form.
...
'It is difficult to describe the extraordinary effect of Skinner’s
work over a period of at least a quarter-century. No one had ever done
history of ideas before with his combination of meticulous scholarship,
intellectual flair and pugnacious independence. Hume and Collingwood
excepted, no English-language historian had demonstrated a real grasp of
philosophical subtleties, and no English-language philosopher (again apart
from Hume and Collingwood) has demonstrated that he had an insider’s
understanding of how historians think.
'One would have to praise any anthology of his best articles, and such
an anthology would enable us to study the development of a major intellect.
Of course there would also be scope for criticism. Even Skinner at his very
best has his limitations, and one may note three obvious ones. The first is
that he has no feeling for religion, a major limitation when writing the
history of an age of religious warfare, as is all too evident in the Ford
Lectures. The second is that he is not interested in social or technological
change: he acknowledges that he has no capacity for writing social history,
and he seems supremely indifferent to the impact of the invention of the
printing press on early modern intellectual life. He is interested in the
ways in which ideas shape behaviour, but scarcely at all in the ways in
which behaviour shapes ideas. The third is that he has been little
interested in the relationship between ideas and emotions.
'Skinner barely mentions, for example, Hobbes’s preoccupation with
fear, an emotion in which Hobbes grounds the whole edifice of his political
theory, and which he acknowledges as his own characteristic mental state
-fear and he, he tells us, were born twins.
'The ultimate weakness of Quentin Skinner’s history is that
it can give no account of itself and its place in the world because it
eschews both the psychological and the social: the very questions that one
needs to ask in order to situate a text in the world it dismisses as
questions about motive not intention.
...
'These volumes mark simultaneously its triumph and, alas, its failure.'
I would insist on this point: no matter what his achievements, his
work and his background leave him without the means to provide the
arguments and evidence for his views on gender equality. But this is
overwhelmingly common. A background in social and economic history and
the history of technology would be advisable. The experience of hard
manual work would even be advisable. (I write as someone who earned his
living for a time as a builder's labourer and someone who has much more
recently done a great deal of manual work to construct the buildings and
other structures which I've designed.) But this would only be a start.
This page gives, I hope, some indication of the many, many topics which
are relevant to any well-informed discussion of 'gender equality' and
other feminist issues.
Hypatia: decolonizing science,
philosophy, feminism
'Hypatia' is a journal which promotes feminism and gender studies. From
the journal:
Call for Papers
Hypatia Special Issue:
Indigenizing and Decolonizing
Feminist Philosophy
Volume 35, Issue 1, Winter 2020
Guest Editors: Celia Bardwell-Jones
and Margaret A. McLaren
This special issue of Hypatia brings feminism
and Indigenous thought together in constructive dialogue to contribute to a
broadening of perspectives, and to decolonize standard philosophical
thinking, which is grounded in colonial norms and standards. Feminist
philosophy has a legacy of expressing concern for diverse claims of minority
groups, including Indigenous people, while at the same time frequently
ignoring philosophy’s role in perpetuating colonial domination within
philosophical scholarship. Thus, feminism can be perceived as either useless
or damaging to Indigenous people. Decolonizing feminism philosophy involves
challenging dominant modes of thinking and analysis; specifically, it
involves the unsettling of Eurocentric assumptions and values. We encourage
submissions that engage non-European philosophical perspectives and address
issues of colonialism in a variety of contexts and geographical locations
not limited to North America and Europe, but also including, South America,
Australia, Africa, Asia, and the island regions of the Pacific and the
Caribbean.
Essays in this issue might explore what terms such as “indigenizing”
might mean in philosophy, and imagine strategies of decolonizing
methodologies. Framing questions of indigeneity may offer some insight into
what decolonizing methodologies might look like. Moreover, understanding
decolonization requires a concrete analysis of what types of methodologies
are deployed to challenge colonial legacies. It is critically important for
feminists to accept tensions that emerge among differently situated women
due to histories of colonization. Accepting these tensions is a source of
productive knowledge and can advance our understanding of the complexities
of women’s lives produced by colonialities of power. This issue seeks to
examine the consequences of these contestations and tensions between native
and non-native relationships within feminist thought as well as collective
strategies of resistance to colonial oppression.
This special issue aims to address questions such as: How might feminist
work be transformed through Indigenous thought and encounters with
Indigenous concerns? How are concepts of identity, gender roles,
reparations, nations/national sovereignty, property, marriage, community,
nature/culture, environment, and sustainability challenged or enriched by
Indigenous ideas and philosophies? How might Indigenous philosophy transform
feminist philosophy? How might projects of decolonization shift through an
Indigenous feminist philosophy? Decolonization (and colonization) scholarly
and activist projects take place in a variety of contexts/areas:
geographical, psychological, epistemological, ethical, social and political,
educational and pedagogical. How can feminists working in the areas of
ethics and social theory engage in efforts of decolonization in these areas?
How can feminist philosophers contribute productively to both practical and
theoretical projects of decolonization?
We invite submissions that take up feminist philosophy in relation to
Indigenous thought and decolonizing methods, including the important issue
of cultural appropriation in feminist scholarship. We welcome papers that
take both theoretical and practical approaches to these issues and related
issues in feminist ethics, epistemology, political and social theory more
broadly construed.
Topics to consider may include, but are not limited to:
-
Challenges to sovereignty understood as a nation-building concept
-
Reconceiving empowerment within Indigenous communities
-
Gender and sexual differences within Indigenous communities,
including the idea of gender complementarity versus gender equality
-
Intersectionality within Indigenous communities: race, gender,
sexuality, class, post-colonial
-
Indigenous trans/queer identities: two-spirit, fa’afafine, mahoo,
etc.
-
Indigenous feminist critiques of feminist philosophy
-
Cultural appropriation and the problems of feminists “going native”
-
Cultural appropriation and cultural artifacts in museums
-
Ecofeminism and Indigenous philosophy/ecofeminist Indigenous
philosophy
-
Comparative analysis of Indigenous conceptions of nature and Western
thought
-
Women and gender in Indigenous cosmological thought
-
What is Indigenous, indigeneity, or native?
-
Reparations
-
Genocide
-
Indigenous conceptions of education and feminist pedagogy
-
Indigenous intellectual sovereignty and/or intellectual exploitation
(such as bio-piracy)
-
Human rights and Indigenous peoples and philosophies
'Women's studies are alive
and well'
The claim is the title of an article in 'The
Independent.'
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/womens-studies-are-alive-and-well-810050.html
At the time the article was published, there was one undergraduate course
left in the country, a joint honours degree at the University of
Westminster.
The photograph chosen to illustrate the thesis that women's studies are
thriving - of all things, a picture of a veiled Muslim women holding a
placard! And on the placard, the slogan
Jack Straw oppressor of Muslim women
Not shown in the photograph, other veiled women with placards. The
slogans on the placards:
Arrest Jack Straw for inciting religious hatred
The veil is womens [without apostrophe]
liberation
Jack Straw under fire terrorist
The alleged oppressor, alleged inciter of religious hatred,
alleged terrorist Jack Straw is the same timid Jack
Straw who made tentative suggestions about the veil - without wishing to be
'prescriptive' - and who declared that he was worried about 'implications of
separateness' and who then made a completely unnecessary apology. I don't
quote Wikipedia often on this site, but this is one occasion when I do:
'The British debate
over veils began in October 2006 when the MP and government
minister Jack
Straw wrote in his local newspaper, the Lancashire
Evening Telegraph, that, while he did not want to be "prescriptive",
he preferred talking to women who did not wear a niqab (face
veil) as he could see their face, and asked women who were wearing such
items to remove them when they spoke to him, making clear that they could
decline his request and that a female member of staff was in the room.'
The article in the Independent denied that Women's Studies at
undergraduate level were on the way out, quoting Louise Livesey, at the time
Head of Women's Studies at Ruskin College, Oxford. Why, plans were underway
to introduce a single Honours degree in the subject at Ruskin College. The
plans came to nothing. No undergraduate studies and soon no graduate studies
either. Ruskin College withdrew the Women's Studies MA a few years later.
It's very, very likely that Louise Livesey read this article in the
Independent and that she saw the photo of the veiled Muslim woman and very
very unlikely that she made any kind of critical response to the claim that
Jack Straw was an 'oppressor' of Muslim women and very, very unlikely that
she has ever made any kind of informed comment on the subjugation of women
in Islamic societies.
Many feminists are too timid to express any kind of opinion on the veil,
or the subjugation of women in Islamic societies. Perhaps these people are
so misguided and so weak that they'll refuse to condemn the call for the
arrest of a politician in a democracy for 'inciting religious hatred.'
In 2014, Louise Livesey took a prominent part in an event 'Assertiveness'
at Ruskin College. The advertising material including this laboured,
stilted, abysmal writing:
'Learning Outcomes Explore what assertiveness means and how to
enact it Within the context of culturally specific settings (e.g. Russia
and the UK) Within the context of cultural gender relations Within the
context of advocating for particular client groups/service users Explore
the gendered implications of assertiveness, forms of backlash to that and
how to manage these responses.'
Obviously, Louise Livesey didn't choose the picture of the veiled woman which was used
by 'The Independent' to illustrate the article, but she's likely to
have views on the subject. What are her views? She may be assertive and able
to give a robust defence. Or she may be as timid and unassertive as Jack
Straw.
Some further questions for Louise Livesey - and other feminists:
If women are exploited, oppressed in the ways you claim, why isn't there
a huge demand for women's studies courses? You'd claim, surely, that women's
studies courses have a massive importance in ending the exploitation and
oppression?
Philosophy, feminism and dogmatism
Philosophy - the academic subject that takes
nothing for granted, or the least for granted. Philosophy - the subject that
demands the willingness to question everything, even our knowledge of the
external world. Students of philosophy who
have only just begun to study the subject may be astounded to find that
in philosophy, even the existence of tables is examined and found to raise
many, many problems. At the end of this section, I give a quotation from
Bertrand Russell on the existence of tables and other objects. Philosophers may discuss problems concerning our
knowledge of the external world but philosophers never, or practically
never, discuss objections to feminism. Feminism is treated as beyond
criticism.
Feminist interpretation is regarded as correct
interpretation, although there may be disagreement about
details. Here, contemporary philosophy is as
dogmatic as Thomist philosophy, which was intellectually
very sophisticated but which allowed no questioning of such issues as the
existence of God and the main teachings of the Church. Time for philosophers
to wake from their dogmatic slumber.
From my page
Israel, Islamism and Palestinian
ideology:
'Many countries that can be considered free have been surrendering more and
more of their freedoms. Complacency and lack of resolve have allowed them
to slide towards an Age of Post-enlightenment. Most often, freedoms have been
eroded by the growth of informal censorship, self-censorship, strong disapproval,
but sometimes by new legislation ...
'The definition of 'hate speech' has become enormously wide, taken to
include for example, for some ideologues, criticism of the Koran and Mohammed
based on careful research and thought, in fact all criticism of Islam.'
I criticize Islam freely on this site, including the treatment of women
in many Islamic societies. This site doesn't have comments sections, but If some feminists are offended by my criticisms
of feminism, then they are welcome to email me or criticize me and my
arguments in a blog or Website or in print, for that matter - to make use of
the 'marketplace of ideas.' For a long time, my policy has been to
treat emails sent to me as private, no matter what the content (unless the
sender of the email requests that it should be published). Please see also
the section 'Emails to me: comment and criticism' on the page
About this site.
It's surely essential that the academic world should not only allow
debate but encourage debate about the claims of feminism. The academic world
has to allow more than 'moderated free speech.' When the self-appointed
moderators include people who believe that all men are useless and that
women are uniquely oppressed, then a robust rejection of their attempt at
moderation is in order.
I regard 'sexism' and 'patriarchy,' like 'elitism' as
simplification-words. 'Elitism' is often used to establish superiority
- the anti-elitist regarded as superior to the elitist as a
self-evident fact. The words 'sexism' and 'patriarchy' are often used by
feminists to declare their superiority, it seems to me. The use of the words
is conducive to glibness and smugness and lazy-mindedness. The use of
the words can easily become a substitute for the presentation of arguments
and evidence. It takes time and effort to construct an argument and reliance
on simplification-words offers a short-cut.
My page 'Bullfighting: arguments against and action against' includes a
section on Freedom of expression
which is relevant, despite the very different context. It includes this:
'I've never at any time attempted
to suppress pro-bullfighting views, Anti-bullfighting activists who do try
to suppress pro-bullfighting views are very much mistaken - not mistaken
about bullfighting, obviously, but very much mistaken in opposing the free
flow of ideas.
'All attempts to suppress pro-bullfighting books or other printed materials,
to suppress pro-bullfighting films or internet materials, to suppress
pro-bullfighting talks and lectures, are deeply misguided. In 'the
marketplace of ideas,' I regard anti-bullfighting arguments as decisively,
overwhelmingly superior to pro-bullfighting arguments. The anti-bullfighting
case needs no censorship of pro-bullfighting views at all.
'The
principle that there should be a free flow of ideas, information and
evidence is a principle under attack. It's essential to defend it. I know of
one organization which called upon a bookseller to remove a pro-bullfighting
book from sale, and was successful. This was a bad mistake on the part of the
organization and the bookseller. There are many threats to freedom of
expression, threats which may be veiled or violent. They come from
believers in political correctness, Islamists and others. A bookshop
should be under no pressure to deny shelf-space to books which criticize
political correctness, Islam and bullfighting and books which support
political correctness, Islam and bullfighting, and similarly for other
issues. Before I could read Alexander Fiske-Harrison's
Into the Arena it was
necessary for me to buy a copy. The idea that I should be expected to
criticize Alexander Fiske-Harrison's defence of bullfighting on the basis of
a few things I'd heard, without having read the book, is repugnant ...'
The problems concerning tables and similar objects are
well summarized in Bertrand Russell's 'The Problems of
Philosophy,' Chapter I, which includes this:
'... the real table, if there is one, is not the same as
what we immediately experience by sight or touch or hearing.
The real table, if there is one, is not immediately known
to us at all, but must be an inference from what is
immediately known. Hence, two very difficult questions at
once arise; namely, (1) Is there a real table at all? (2) If
so, what sort of object can it be?
'It will
help us in considering these questions to have a few simple
terms of which the meaning is definite and clear. Let us
give the name of 'sense-data' to the things that are
immediately known in sensation: such things as colours,
sounds, smells, hardnesses, roughnesses, and so on. We shall
give the name 'sensation' to the experience of being
immediately aware of these things. Thus, whenever we see a
colour, we have a sensation of the
colour, but the colour itself is a sense-datum, not a
sensation. The colour is that of
which we are immediately aware, and the awareness itself is
the sensation. It is plain that if we are to know anything
about the table, it must be by means of the sense-data—brown
colour, oblong shape, smoothness, etc.—which we associate
with the table; but, for the reasons which have been given,
we cannot say that the table is the sense-data, or even that
the sense-data are directly properties of the table. Thus a
problem arises as to the relation of the sense-data to the
real table ... '
.'
"Women of today are actually easy to deal understand - if her mouth is open for more than pleasuring a man, she's lying. Just accept that she will lie, cheat, and everything else - so your job is to out-smart her. It isn't difficult she's a female and lacks your reason, and ability.
"Use your advantage. And never make the mistake of thinking of a woman as more than someone who will lie, cheat, steal, and murder to get what she wants because she has been taught that she is OWED what she wants...
"Your job is to not give it to her, and use her for your pleasure - they can be trained, but will turn on you if they ever sense fear..."