Observers Debate Feminism’s Impact

Oh goodie, you and I are mixing it up!

So, according to the DOJ statistics cited in the March, 2011 Women in America Report of the White House Council on Women and Girls, women suffer from Intimate Partner Violence at a rate of 4.3 per 1,000, a rate of 0.43%. If 50% of all marriages end in divorce, and 75% of all divorces are initiated by women (both numbers pretty widely reported and accepted), then any given marriage faces a rate of being terminated by the woman of 37.5%. Assuming that ALL women who experience Intimate Partner Violence have the good sense to ditch the bastard, and that ALL batterers of women in the statistics are ONLY men (i.e., assuming, contrary to the statistics, that there is NO woman-on-woman IPV), I subtract 0.43% from 37.5% and come up with a whopping 37.07% rate of any given marriage being terminated by the woman without any “kicking” of the “metaphorical dog” (well, at least of the female sex) involved whatsoever.

But worry not, if your dog leaves you, you can always kick a man. Men, as you may have heard, are arrested if they kick back.

I do think you are correct that shame (indeed any weakness or vulnerability) is a real issue for guys. We are much more emotionally sensitive than women want us to be, and we spend a lot of extra time at work (which, by the way, accounts for 2/3 of the remaining 20% male-female “pay gap” when you dig into the March, 2001 White House Council data), and a little more time getting aerobic exercise, or a lot more time drinking, to make up for it. The fact that the male suicide rate (which so far as I can tell, doesn’t really bother anybody, at least before a given man is dead) is about 5x greater than that for women when people are in their 20s and zooms up to about 13x greater than female suicide after age 65, suggests to me that men are at pretty serious emotional risk and likely are not being well served by the health care system. Again as noted in the March, 2011 White House report, men are significantly more likely to be uninsured, although as I would have expected, the report continues to focus on improving women’s access to health insurance and health care.

The suicide spike among divorced men may well relate to the persistent, self-reported data that men get more emotionally out of marriage than women do. My suspicion is this arises from the pressures on men (from a variety of sources, including their mothers and wives, not just other men) to be tough, to not seek emotional support from friendships with other men or women, but rather to put all their emotional eggs in their wife’s basket.

Of course, it might also arise from the continuing bias of family courts to give physical custody to mothers and to limit non-abusive fathers to 2 weekends a month a 2 weeks in the summer, or about 21% of the non-working, waking hours, when all the meta-studies I have seen have concluded that the parent-child relationship goes to hell when time together dips below 35%. Or that we have a wonderfully developed enforcement system for child support payments that put unemployed men in jail merely for being unemployed, but no child visitation enforcement system whatsoever, other than a judge telling a custodial parent “pretty-please, won’t you make better karma for yourself and let your ex husband see his kids even though you haven’t chosen to do so for the past five years.”

It’s too bad the popular culture conversations about feminism are so often framed in these contrived controversies (“Feminism: good or bad?” or “feminism vs. the family” or “Feminism v.s. Men’s Rights”), instead of being about the genuine problems you raise here. It often forces the feminist side of the debate to smooth over these issues instead of directing attention to them.

OK, talking about what is FALSE and VALID. That’s good. I like where you’re going with this.

Now, you really like talking about what “feminists” think, do, say, etc. You don’t say “some feminists” or “all feminists”, or even the vaguer terms “most feminists” or “feminists in general.” If two or three–or two or three thousand–feminists “have proven themselves to be moral imbeciles,” you might be inclined to say, “Feminists . . . have proven themselves to be moral imbeciles . . .” And, under one interpretation, that’s true. At the same time, it would not validly follow that feminists in general are moral imbeciles. At the very least, you’d need to have some kind of credible sampling scheme to make that inference. So, unless you have some such methodology, you would be in no position to validly justify the consequent, “. . . so I don’t even consider paying attention to them” unless the “them” in question is precisely the individual feminists you’ve already examined. Even if you are in a position to make a statistical generalization, though, such that you could presume individual feminists are moral imbeciles (in absence of evidence to the contrary), your policy seems to insulate you from the possibility of encountering relevant new data, which would make your statistical generalization all the less trustworthy.

So, may I suggest framing your claims in less vague fashion, in the interests of the validity we both so respect? Because, as is, you seem to be setting a very low bar. By your logic, we could infer the following:
Sees is shrill and doesn’t reason well.
Sees is a man.
Chris Key is also a man.
Chris Key is shrill and doesn’t reason well.
So, men are shrill and don’t reason well.
So, any given man is shrill and doesn’t reason well.

I think we all can agree this argument form isn’t valid. So, for the sake of not making our gender look like it is easily upset, and loses its grasp on logic when feeling huffy, why not take the argumentative high ground? You know, lest we license someone to pronounce “Men have proven themselves to be logical imbeciles so I don’t even consider paying attention to them.”

Wow, really? Personal attacks? Frank’s questions were serious.

Thanks for your question, Frank. I believe that there are many forms of injustice that affect boys and men. Some of the injustice comes from their membership in other social groups (class, race, sexuality, disability), but I also think that there are ways to understand the current gender structures as seriously limiting both boys/men and girls/women in ways that are harmful and unjust. As you point out, some of the roles and expectations that men face are as ridiculous and inconsistent as some of those women face. We are in this mess together.

Feminists have a variety of strategies for thinking about this. Some, for example, think that social roles/expectations should not be gendered at all and that we should formulate a set of values/virtues that all humans should aim for. These will include some combination of values/virtues that have been historically divided amongst men and women. For example, all humans should be caring and nurturing (in appropriate contexts); all humans should be assertive and competitive (in appropriate contexts). And social roles should be open to all, regardless of sex. On this view, sex would not play a significant role in determining how one lived one’s life. Others, however, think that there are and should continue to be important differences between the sexes, but the roles that women occupy should be revalued and appreciated for what they contribute to society. On this view, for example, it might be that women should play a more substantial role in child rearing, but child rearing should be more valued than it currently is, and the virtues of those who are caring and nurturing should be more valued society-wide. For example, the values of care could play a greater role in our relationship to the environment and to global politics. (So feminists who support this view are apt to think that women should play an important role in environmentalism and the peace movement.)

I know this all sounds very abstract, but I hope it gives you a sense that the questions you raise are not irrelevant and feminists care about them. I’d be happy to continue this thread, if you are interested.

Thank you for your response, Dr. Haslanger, and your viewpoints as well, FeministSmithie and Sees62.

I should probably confess at this point that I come at this from the perspective of a lawyer, policy wonk and man (not necessarily in that order). So, I have a tendency to see individual, or middle-sized-group problems and desire practical solutions for them, rather than to come at it from a philosophical framework. That, by the by, is at least as much a weakness as a strength for me.

Let’s take, for example, this morning’s argument in the US Supreme Court, which I am dying to hear when scotus posts the audio to the web, concerning whether a man who is under a child support order, but unemployed (in the case of that particular fellow near-unemployable), is entitled to an attorney before he is packed off to jail for being unable to pay child support. All of (a) State and Federal beancounters, (b) Newt Gingrich and his band, (c) Bill Clinton, and (d) well-known national women’s rights groups, helped produce a situation where tens of thousands of unemployed, non-custodial parents, usually fathers, find they cannot pay child support and go to civil jail for up to a year at a time, with repeat visits possible. I get how this system helps upper middle class white women whose hubbies leave them for the trophy wife. Guys like me do find our minds are concentrated by a possible stretch in the pokey, and will do right by our kids. But men who were in construction and are likely to be unemployed for the next 5 years? Young unmarried dads with no particular skill set? Wouldn’t we be better off forgiving the child support for such men if they take parenting classes and take on the burden of caring for their own kids while the mothers who are employed go to work and the mothers will have the benefit of relief from third party child care?

It sounds from your description that less-gender-based feminism might be amenable to discussing such a subject. Gender-based feminism, not so much.

Another example (and one on which you commented somewhere else in a discussion above) involves domestic violence. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but quite a number of men in Massachusetts who have approached the police or domestic violence shelters as a victim report being arrested. The cops and DV shelters have a bias toward seeing men as abusers only. Indeed, there are websites for domestic violence shelters that say that their experience is any man who calls looking for help is really a batterer who is just trying to muddy the waters. In fact, to my knowledge, the only DV shelter in the state that takes in men is the Gay Men’s Domestic Violence Project in Cambridge. Their Education Director has been quoted as saying that they take in straight men as well because “heterosexual men are the bottom of the barrel” when it comes to DV victim assistance, and no one else will take them in if GMDVP doesn’t. But the 2008-ish Harvard U / Clark U study showing that an average of 1 in 3 domestic violence victims is, in fact, an adult man. Same data result from Australian studies. And since 2006 VAWA supposedly requires gender-neutral services (and California DV and West Virginia DV shelters have lost cases for refusing to treat male victims and women abusers). But a lot of men’s lives and the lives of their children have been damaged in the meantime, and at least in Massachusetts we appear to be seriously behind the curve.

By the way, I could not disagree more with your advice to another poster here that a male victim of domestic violence should defend himself. That would be a disaster for the man, and would almost certainly cause him to be viewed as the presumptive batterer by the police.

I applaud you for sharing your own experience and the trauma of having been raped. I am very sorry you experienced that and I hope the bastard went away for a long, long time. Myself, I had a childhood of physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of my mother, but I also have a long-term wife I love and daughers I love and I do think we are all in this together.

Finally, since this is turning out to be a rather long posting, at some point in our conversation I would like to turn to the subject of how male studies, or at least a male-derived perspective, can be brought to bear in research as well as theory.

http://www.amazon.com/Dismembering-Male-Bodies-Britain-Great/dp/0226067467

I just wanted to jump in and ask everyone in this discussion to honor Professor Haslanger’s experiences by refraining from analyzing, explaining or theorizing about the events she shared here. I’m sure no disrespect was intended, and I don’t want to start a debate about this, but I did want to make a (strong) suggestion.

Since the top of the federal government is now run by feminists hacks (Obama, Biden, Clinton) who destroy the rights of men to push politically correct entitlements for women, there is every reason to believe that the Justice department is controlled by feminists too. This article shows how the Attorney General participates in the racket: http://www.avoiceformen.com/2011/02/21/attorney-general-holder-loses-his-grip-on-the-truth/ As for the Justice Dept’s VAWA office even the website is full of feminist propaganda. RADAR (online) has been waging a battle to curb the totalitarian reverses sexist abuses of that loathsome feminist-sponsored law for years now. VAWA is reverses sexist to the core, it doesn’t address violence against MEN, it empowers women who make false accusations of domestic violence, it deprives men of their Constitutional right to due process under the law, and it funnels billions of tax payer dollars to fraudulent and bigoted feminist-run organizations. Distorted facts used to create laws that do great damage to men does tend to create legitimate anger and frustration with the frauds who create the propaganda in the first place.

I’m not saying that you, personally, created the fraudulent propaganda that underlies VAWA. What I am saying is that you have a responsibility to confront such widespread abuses of academic privilege. Otherwise, you have no right to hold your head high as a director of MIT’s Women’s Studies program.

SH: “I’m also puzzled by your claim that “there is absolutely nowhere for men and boys to go for shelter from female domestic vilence/vice, from female rape, from female forms of psycho-social aggression.” Do men not go to the police? Do they not fight back if approached by a female sexual aggressor? Why aren’t more men reporting the crimes?”

There is nowhere to go for many reasons. First, VAWA, the domestic violence shelter industry, the rape crisis industry, and the child abuse industry are funded (by taxpayer dollars) for and run by bigoted feminists who adhere to the Party Line lie that ALL women are victims of ‘patriarchal oppressors’. The entire racket is reverse sexist to the core. There is no room at the inn for men and boys because men and boys are scapegoated as part of the ‘oppressor’ subset. The absurd dogmas used to treat the problem (by making all males the scapegoated aggressors and accusatory women the totally blameless victims) have nothing whatsoever to do with the complicated realities of domestic violence, rape, and child abuse. (Note: the primary from of female domestic aggression: domestic vice, isn’t even acknowledged AT ALL in the equation despite that fact that many women have addressed this factor anecdotally.) Statistics on these phenomena are grossly distorted to condemn men for all abuse and to absolve women from all abuse. When men and boys abused by women do try to go to feminist run care centers they are most often met with a wall of totalitarian feminist tripe which tends to rape them twice…once by the female perp and twice by the totalitarian feminist system. There in no out reach to men and boys abused by women despite the fact that women commit at least 25% of serious domestic violence, significant sex and child sex crime, and the majority of child abuse.

We don’t go to the police for many reasons. One is that the police are forced by reverse sexist feminist policies to blame us first. Another is that women can and all-to-commonly do make false accusations of rape, domestic violence, child abuse with perfect impunity Thanks normal male propensities toward chivalrous behavior (to impress women) and thanks to widespread feminist propaganda, even male officers tend to believe the woman first. Feminists collude together to be sure men and boys are never seen as victims because that would tend to destroy the very falsehood that feminism is based on which is that men and boys are part of the ‘oppressor’ class. It would also force the reallocation of resources away from feminist controlled care rackets into those that better serve males or those that better serve both sexes holistically.

We do fight back where possible. However, since we are socialized NOT to abuse women, to take gratuitous abuse from women (particularly from fascist feminists) and because women tend to fight in ways that are very covert and/or difficult for us to cope with we do not always KNOW HOW to even detect that abuse at first, much less fight back. WOMEN’s Studies is, of course, of no help here because Women’s Studies refuses to acknowledge that women even CAN be oppressors.

Why aren’t we reporting the crimes? Because NO ONE LISTENS to us, because no one cares, because we are considered the oppressors rather than victims, because we are already the disposable sex and therefore not worth caring for, and because we are often willing to die rather than lose our dignity…something that many women sell for pennies on the dollar…as evidenced by the willingness to proudly perpetrate blatant feminist fraud decade after decade.

There is one tiny little light at the end of a long dark totalitarian tunnel. That is Male Studies. Sooner or later, there will be truth brought back to the table…no thanks to Women’s Studies or Men’s Studies.

SH: “The website you link does provide data to show that rape is not the most common violent crime and that most violent crimes occur between males. I think that is well-documented. However, the author seems to jump from that data to the claim that rape isn’t as significant as feminists suggest. I’m not sure I understand the inference. Violence is a terrible thing against anyone. And I sincerely believe we should work to create a world where men are neither the victims or perpetrators of violence.”

I offered that link to put rape into perspective. The data shows, conclusively, that we have a Murder Culture rather than a Rape Culture. Murder is always far more serious than rape because there is no coming back for a ‘fulfilling life” as a murder victim. Feminists who demean murder victims by constantly screaming ‘rape’ or ‘rape culture’, notwithstanding the facts, need to have their heads examined. Infantile feminist entitlements are not justice. Justice involves following the facts to do first things first. Genocide comes before war, war comes before domestic disturbances, murder comes before rape, rape comes before burglary and so on.

Vice is a terrible thing against anyone too. If you look closely, behind every truly evil man there is always an equally evil woman. Serbia’s genocidal ‘SLOBO’ comes to mind right of the bat but in Rhwanda, the Hutu women ‘rewarded’ their machete-wielding husbands with hot sex after a ‘good day’s work’ whacking Tutus. The Hutu women also were the primary plunderers of the slaughtered Tutus’ property.

Women also commit many serious forms of direct/indirect violence including physical, psycho-social, political, legal, and relational forms. To ignore female forms of aggression in favor of an absurd ‘patriarchal oppression’ model tends to make THINKING men enraged. We don’t like to be scapegoated for all the evil in the world from the beginning of history to the present.

Let’s cease and desist with the bigoted ideological violence that is gender-feminism so that we can truly work together on all forms of human-human aggression by BOTH sexes and BOTH genders.

Men have nowhere to go because: http://www.avoiceformen.com/2011/03/25/lessons-for-parents-and-their-sons/

Sees62,
If I referred you to an article from Ms or Bitch, would you believe what you read there? Would it have any potential to change your opinion?

Is feminist research JUST? http://toysoldier.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/cherry-picking-victims/

I suspect that Women’s Studies is neither held in highest regard *nor* scorned. My point was simply that I can make hyperbolic statements just as well as you, and that the value we attach is meaningless. At my university (2nd ranked in the UK for Philosophy), the gender studies program is very well respected. The faculty is esteemed, the students are respected, and members of other departments are honored by invitations to speak and collaborate with the Gender program. If Gender Studies (etc) were not viewed as a reputable academic field, then it would not be ever more successful, with increasing rates of publications, programs expanding and opening, and more and more students choosing to study gender. If Gender Studies were not so highly esteemed, then Judith Butler, Susan Faludi, Germaine Greer, Shere Hite, Fatema Mernissi, Onora O’Neill, Pragna Patel, Nawal El Saadawi, Alice Walker & Mary Warnock would not have been on the Guardian’s List of the Top most Inspiring Women this year! (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/top-100-women)

My propositions are empirical, based on verifiable observation rather than mere assertion. Rather than bandying about catchphrases, would you like to offer evidence that Gender Studies is in disrepute?

How about, for the main tenet of Feminism: justice? Do any feminists want to disagree with that? “So many authors” also show that feminism is about justice, equality, ethics, fairness, progress, tolerance, peace, love and so many wonderful ideals that we should all be able to get behind!

Yesterday I tried to explicate what I took Venker’s definition of feminism to be, based on her attribution of a definition to Valenti that she took as her target. I suggested that the meaning of “oppression” and “patriarchy” in Valenti’s definition wasn’t about victimhood or scapegoating, and I was using the definition given to me. Do you have thoughts about that?

But maybe we are not really disagreeing after all. I don’t support a version of feminism that scapegoats men and defines male oppression as an intentional victimizing of women. I do support, however, a view that says that sexism is one form of injustice (among many) in our society. Suppose for the purposes of our discussion, I give you the word ‘feminism’ and I call my view ‘anti-sexism’ where ‘sexism’ is defined as injustice that affects women as women. Do you support anti-sexism? Of course it is an open question at this point what sorts of injustices affect women as women (or men as men, etc.). Those are questions that take further investigation. But I’m just wondering if we have any common ground.

If you are unwilling (due to lack of time or perceived eloquence) to represent your views here, then why are you posting inflammatory messages? Your posts are full of incendiary language (“bigotry…feminist cultural propaganda…fantasies…pretty feminist falsehood…absurd feminist dogma…ridiculous slogans…feminist indoctrination” just in these three short paragraphs), yet you are unwilling to back up your claims with any ideas. Are you using your head or merely “repeat[ing] ridiculous slogans that make no sense?”

I–and presumably most feminists–would agree with you that gender is not the same as sex: that is an important tenet of gender discourse. However, those ‘biological differences’ to which you refer are based neither on gender (a social construct) nor sex, which is non-dichotomous, and far more complex than a question of chromosomes. There are biological differences between all of us, but there seems no reason to believe that they are anymore sex-based than blood-type based or otherwise hereditary. Further, no one perfectly expresses their sex: we do not manifest characteristics of our chromosomes or hormones or general biological structure independent of social influences.

If anything, isn’t your example of Hillary Clinton’s role in the Libyan war further evidence that women can make the same decisions and act the same way and hold the same beliefs as men?

Please don’t confuse equality for identity: feminism is not saying that all men and all women are exactly the same. Feminism recognizes the gross inequality based on discrimination (sexual, racial, class-based, religious, etc.), and seeks to right that inequality by offering equal rights to all.

Oh by the way, you are very welcome to throw some (CREDIBLE) names right back. To silence slanderous nonsense with credible criticisms is one thing but I am always open to feminist refutations. That’s how open societies (read non feminist) are SUPPOSED to work.

Books please that tend to refute or supplement those I offered you please.

Hi m1101,

Here’s a link to Dr. Hakim’s report:
http://www.cps.org.uk/cps_catalog/Feminist%20Myths%20and%20Magic%20Medicine.pdf

Feminism’s effect on children is covered in depth in chapters 5 and 6. I strongly suggest commenters read the book before continuing with this discussion. It would help enormously in making your arguments. You can’t debate a book you haven’t read.

The broadcasts are about her book. One thing I’ve noticed is that you seem to have an antipathy to reading ANYTHING. That makes you the perfect disciple for feminists and other Progressive totalitarians who prefer to brainwashing to braining.

Conservatives deserve to be read just as much as Progressives do. Both sides love to manipulate but there is also truth buried beneath both sides’ propaganda platforms. For instance, I amused and disgusted that Uncle Newt believes men are better pigs than women for combat in dirty ditches but there is also truth in that statement too.

And I believe that *you* have been brainwashed by clever bigots. At least my brainwashers have taught me to respect and support people, seek morality and justice, and fight for those who need help. What have your brainwashers taught you?

What I, as a feminist, want is justice for all (regardless of gender, race, creed, etc.): human rights, recognition of dignity, and for people to have the capacity to flourish!

What do you want?

How is your generalization that because a few people who identify as feminists are anti-male, feminism is anti-male any different from someone (ridiculously) generalizing that because some men are rapists, masculinity is rape (or male culture is rape culture)?

also zenmind……would you have closely examined a book that supports your world view and meticulously reviewed all the points and research?

Hi IY,

The focus of the author regarding children’s well being centers around the toddler years and the study you cite seems to be an overall range of years. Have you even bothered to read the book (with an open mind)? There certainly seems to be an overblown reaction to evidence/citations that can easily be produced by the authors (from the chatter there was only one or two instances and those can be proven). Besides, the authors openly discuss where the basis for their intrepretation comes from in the book. That hardly warrents a claim of mis-representation etc. Should someone cite the meaning of every sentance based on studies, readings etc. That seems a bit unrealistic. I am sure they are not “hiding” anything as you claim nor are they being manipulative.

I’m going with troll. You are just too offensive to be real.

You give yourself too much credit, Sees. You have yet to offer any arguments that would lead me to question my reasoned understanding of the world. (difference from religion: my views are premised in reason rather than faith)

I am not choosing ignorance over information, because I do not find the ‘information’ you offer to be credible. The sources you throw down do not meet the academic standards that I hold, and your assertions are not (so far as I have seen) rational arguments, but rather emotional conjecture and hyperbolic, supercilious ad hominem attacks.

Let’s see some support for your claims grounded in premises upon which we can all agree, appealing to ‘authorities’ we can all respect, and please hold the value-laden language and personal affronts.

What academic standards DO you hold, pray tell? What INDEPENDENT authorities do YOU appeal to in Idiot America (http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0207GREETINGS) What premises do YOU believe we can all agree on?

Why should I/we take you seriously (much less as someone who is even remotely equal) if you can’t even be bothered to BECOME INFORMED.

I’m going to go out on a limb here: you probably haven’t read _The Second Sex_.

I’m drawing that conclusion because you talk quite a bit about the power women wield because of their beauty, and claim, “to say that women are more powerful than men in ANY way, is feminist heresy, one that tends to destroy the false ‘oppression’ superstition that feminism is founded on.” But de Beauvoir talks quite a bit about how women exercise superior power to men in certain ways and situations. She also argues that those sorts of power are all part of a system in which women are generally oppressed. You could certainly argue she’s wrong–but you haven’t. You seem to take her position to be “heresy” to feminists–which is odd, considering how influential her work is. (You also seem to conflate the claim that “women are more powerful than men in ANY way” with the claim that women are not oppressed, which would be fallacious; but perhaps I misinterpret.)

I see two possibilities here. One is that I’m wrong, you have read _the Second Sex_, and when you speak about feminists, you have particular ones in mind, ones that reject, for instance, de Beauvoir’s views on this point. There are some that do. But, if you are speaking only about that segment… well, that’s a lot of feminists left out, and it becomes unclear you are talking about feminists in general at all. Perhaps you are speaking about a much narrower segment of feminists than most people here assume–and have no complaint about most feminists at all.

But perhaps I’m right. If I am, then I have to wonder whether you have grounds for claiming to be better informed than FeministSmithie, or the others you engage with here. I have no doubt that you have read books they haven’t, and I’d bet they’ve read books you haven’t. It’s an interesting question who, if anyone, has bothered to “become informed”.

But–given that you seem to characterize one of the most influential feminist positions of the 20th century as “heresy”–might I ask how you have gone about informing yourself about what most feminists believe? One gets the impression that you take the typical feminist to hold all of the more extreme views we sometimes hear attributed to feminists, which is a bit like saying that typical Christians think more soldiers should die because there are gays in the military; or that typical liberals want to abolish private property; or that typical conservatives think every poor person deserves to be enslaved by big business.

Or are you just throwing a hissy fit? Seriously dude. Take a few deep breaths, dab your tears, and see if you can’t keep your inferences plausible. I know “polarization” sounds manly, but it’s actually kind of irrational.

“I believe that both sexes are able to choose whether to be ‘oppressed’ or not…other than in situations where overwhelming vice or violence precludes free choice.”
–Perhaps there is a merely verbal understanding between you and most feminists then. Many people would probably say that a situation can count as “oppressive” if one group, by virtue of group membership, was systematically denied various opportunities, or even just systematically made to face extra obstacles in achieving various opportunities. And, of course, the systematic disadvantages need not be something anyone intends–they could be “invisible hand”-type effects. If there is, in fact, a persisting wage gap (though, I’m told, a shrinking wage gap), and it has something to do with the fact that many employers suspect women in their 20s or 30s are apt to quit to raise children, many people would count that as (unplanned) oppression. (Much like we’d count it as oppression if employers, even those that were not racist, generally avoided hiring black people, for fear of losing racist clientele.) If you don’t want to call that “oppression”, you could suggest an alternative term; meanwhile, that’s all a lot of people mean by “oppression”–not some totalitarian conspiracy.

I won’t necessarily recommend _The Second Sex_ in particular. Beauvoir is a pretty good reasoner, but there’s plenty of continental metaphysics and psychoanalytic theory in it that’s probably wrong, and, as you say, it’s a bit dated. (Friedan’s _Feminine Mystique_ might be even more on topic, though also very dated.) Perhaps more to the point, though, I don’t think I’ve ever read a piece of feminist literature that denied women had ANY power AT ALL. (Maybe Dworkin or MacKinnon say something that far out?) What I would recommend is reading some piece of carefully reasoned feminist thinking–preferably something widely respected. You say, “I’d far rather read what non-feminists or anti-feminists have to say about feminism because that allows me to stay on the outside of the totalitarian racket looking in rather than vice versa.” That’s not really a very good strategy for avoiding misinterpretation. If nothing, else, each side will be biased in such a way that it is better at finding info that confirms its own commitments, and worse at noticing its own blind spots, so you are apt to be missing out on some of the relevant info. I guess you are worried about reading propaganda, but it looks like you’ve adopted a pretty aggressive program of self-administered propaganda. If the feminists’ arguments are bad, find the errors. I don’t think they’re apt to hypnotize you.

“rape is a crime of power but not sex”
–I’ll grant you this is a pretty unclear claim, and the source of a lot of confusion. If we take it to mean “rapists are not interested in sex”, it’s probably wrong in a whole lot of cases. (I would think it’s true in some cases. Consider prison rape; would the rapist generally have been just as happy sodomizing a consensual partner? Probably not–there, it’s largely about humiliation. It’s not a big stretch to imagine that SOME heterosexual rape is also motivated by a desire to humiliate, and not a desire for sex.) I think at least some date rape, for instance, involves guys really just going for sex, and paying far too little attention to what their partners are saying.
–But, of course, what MAKES it a crime–what makes someone a victim–is that someone is exerting power, and taking advantage of a less powerful party. And, aside from some misunderstandings, a pretty typical rape situation probably involves a man desiring sex, and being frustrated that someone else has the power to deny it to him, and so overpowering that person and taking it. Most feminists, I’d imagine, are not complaining that sex happened, but that a man used his physical power, perhaps in conjunction with his situational advantages, to take by force what would not be given willingly. When the motivation involves humiliating someone, or asserting dominance, enforcing an imagined claim, or “showing them who’s boss”, it’s pretty plausible to say it’s a crime of power. I’d imagine there are relatively few cases in which a guy is just so worked up he can’t help himself–feminists are probably in the right if what they mean is that most rapes are probably not motivated by the thought “I really need some sex” so much as the thought “How dare she deny me sex!” (Again, I’d figure there are exceptions, especially in date rape scenarios.)
–But, to state the obvious, it’s a crime of power from the perspective of the victim–whose lack of consent is what defines it as a crime. (This difference of perspective may be why you are not so warmly greeted by the rape crisis center. Even if it is a “crime of sex” from the perpetrator’s perspective, that perspective is sort of irrelevant to their work.)

I’m not at all sure who counts as “mainstream” feminists, or the “PRIMARY” feminist constituency. I suspect you’re right that a lot of the LOUDEST feminists are pretty silly. (Are Tea Partiers and Fox News commentators mainstream Republicans? ) You do seem to want a single ideological framework to account for all Feminist thinking, which may be a dead-end; feminism may be more clearly defined by its aims and concerns than by its theoretical underpinnings. I myself have often wondered just how to define the movement (as one is asked, now and again, whether one is a feminist)–and the best I’ve found recently comes from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (in an entry co-written by Doc Haslanger, who’s in this thread):
1. (Descriptive claim) Women, and those who appear to be women, are subjected to wrongs and/or injustice at least in part because they are or appear to be women.
2. (Normative claim) The wrongs/injustices in question in (i) ought not to occur and should be stopped when and where they do.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-topics/
That seems pretty cogent, covers most of the movement I know of, and leaves open most of the questions feminists disagree about. Since this definition made it onto a reference page for the premier academic philosophy reference, and was co-written by an MIT prof, I’m tempted to call this mainstream. Though I’ll grant you, it’s not what people are likely to chant as a slogan; the people chanting slogans often are not the ones most able to give you a clear account of their position.

“just as men are 100% responsible for the (male-female) rape women are no less responsible for what they do with their sexual ‘assets”"
–Actually, if by “assets” you mean something like “beauty” or “sexual attractiveness,” this is probably literally false. Women–no, let me put this generally. Any person can be relatively unaware of the affect his or her sexual appeal has on others. People can be unaware that they are especially appealing. People can be aware they have some effect, but little idea what, or how much. And it’s not necessarily possible to turn off. I’ve certainly developed crushes on women who were not trying to look especially sexy, and I know I’m not the only guy this happens to. And if they don’t return my interest, I sometimes have feelings of hostility towards them. All without them trying to have any effect on me at all. (So, of course, I work at not acting on that hostility. That’d be pretty unfair of me.) The gist is (rare date-rape misunderstandings aside) a guy can pretty much never rape a person without meaning to, whereas women can definitely use their “sexual assets” while only intending to dress according to fashions and expectations, while trying to be friendly, or just happening to be attractive.

“As for FeministSmithie, did you bother to READ what I said above. My problem with her is that she refuses to BOTHER TO BECOME informed. Feminists are infamous for screaming nonsense but they are rarely willing to become informed. Independent information tends to destroy totalitarians rackets.”
–Yeah, she says, “The sources you throw down do not meet the academic standards that I hold” and you asked her about what academic standards she holds in “Idiot America”. I’m guessing the standards in question have to do with peer review, the sort of oversight one would expect of a university press, and/or the pressures associated with conventional journalism. (The link you posted to “Idiot America” is no longer working, but when I looked at first, it didn’t seem like it would be directed towards academics at Smith.) I’m also not familiar with the books you mention, but I share her aversion to reading any old book someone says is right–it’s somewhat easier to get away with sophistry, misuse of statistics, and even outright falsehood in books that lack the aforementioned critical filters. (Which isn’t to say plenty of junk doesn’t get through those filters.) I’d imagine you are prepared to claim that feminist activism and bias ensure that these sorts of sources won’t print the truth, if the truth challenges feminist views. I wouldn’t be so sure–the nice thing about feminism being a bunch of different views, instead of one cohesive ideology, is that feminists spend plenty of time challenging each other’s claims. But even if you were right that a single ideological view kept the truth out of print, don’t you put yourself in a similar position by deciding to read only what non-feminists say about feminists?

If you think some of the sources you recommend are well-researched (that is–sources cited throughout) and carefully argued, that would be interesting. The titles alone, though, make them sound like the sort of ideologically driven popular sensationalism that tends to be a headache to read, because they so consistently fail to address questions that arise if the reader is predisposed to agree with the author.

But really, since I’m not sure what you attack is a position anyone really holds, as opposed to a straw-woman position, its’ hard to know whether these books would really present new and interesting information…

Reply to paragraph beginning: “rape is a crime of power but not sex”

This is a FALSE (and ugly anti-male) claim popularized by the infamous feminist fraud Susan (Against Our Will) Brownmiller. It fits ever so neatly into the false feminist ‘oppression’ ideology. No independent research (that I know of) has ever validated this preposterous politically motivated falsehood…which has been repeated so many time that it has become ‘truth’.

Of course rape is a crime (unless we are FEMINISTS talking about the rape of boys or girls by filthy older women that is). It is a sex crime that often involves vice (see The Reader) or violence as a means to an end…the robbery of non-consensual sex. Just as with any other robbery, the motivations can be myriad but the theft is the theft of sexual privileges. The criminal (rapist in this case) is always 100% responsible for the crime.

That said, women are also 100% for the vice that sometimes but not always occurs before the rape. Female vice is no less vicious than male violence is vile. However in Western cultures, female vice is so common that we take it totally for granted whereas we rightly criminalize most forms of male violence.

No one is saying that men aren’t 100% responsible for suffering that rape causes women (minus all the false oppression racket related suffering that is). What feminists say is that women are NEVER responsible for the common everyday cock-teasing or worse that women do to men with perfect impunity. To have women become responsible for the common everyday erotic aggressions they commit would also tend to destroy the totalitarian oppression racket that feminists love to rape men as an entire sex with.

The perspective of the rape victim is NOT determinant or even relevant for rape causality. That kind of reasoning is precisely what is wrong with feminist ‘reasoning’ in general. They project their subjective ‘feelings’ onto the rapist and then create grossly absurd cause and effect relationships which make no sense whatsoever…other than as perverted political ploys to steal female-supremacist entitlements.

The perp’s are the PEOPLE who best know WHY they choose to perpetrate the sex crimes. However, since feminists tend to forbid talking to rapists about such loaded topics such research is hard to come by. Interestingly however, one female rapist who raped a boy and tried to murder him to conceal the crime was very clear that she raped the boy to satisfy her sexual (rather than power) needs). In addition, most men could easily commit direct power crimes against women such as murder or non-sexual assault (as they already do on other males) were they purely power motivated. Although some sadistical rapists (female and male) do follow SEX crimes with gratuitous power ‘plays’, I suspect that most rapists use just enough power to steal the sex or conceal the crime…just as the female rapist above did.

The real reason rape crisis centers are so hostile to any genuine science on rape causality is because sexuality is THE primary form of female power. By totally denying that female sexual power has any influence whatsoever in (male-on female) SEX crimes they can rightly blame men for rape but absolve women for ALL responsibility for female use/abuse/misuse of sexual power. That is the perfect foundation for the double-bind blame racket that underlies feminism in general. It is also the perfect recipe for infantile entitlements intended to please female supremacist bigots…read feminists. Worse it is a recipe for creating perfect female prey for male predators.

As you can see from the article on the politics of rape that I offered Prof. Haslanger below, rape crisis centers are playing politics with rape. Genuine public service agencies prefer to use science rather than perverted political propaganda to serve the public. Rape crisis centers, like domestic violence shelters, will become increasingly irrelevant to anyone unless they cease playing hot, fast, and loose with rape science as so many of their feminist-empowered clients do with sex.

“I’m not at all sure who counts as “mainstream” feminists, or the “PRIMARY” feminist constituency”

With all due respect, that Stanford link on feminism is full of standard boilerplate nonsense written for and by feminists. To believe what notorious totalitarians say about them-sex (or is that ‘gender’) is like listening to the Maoists talk about Communist Chinese. The best sources I’ve found so far for classifying mainstream feminists is in Spreading Misandry or Legalizing Misandry by Nathanson and Young. The breakdown is by ideology. By their definition, your Stanford gals and guys would fit mainstream feminism fairly well I believe…that is were they to truly define what they believe feminism is rather than use the politically correct but false versions. You can see from Prof. Haslanger’s posts here that she is attached to the patriarchal oppression (read victimhood) version of feminism) which forms the foundation for modern institutional forms of misandry according to N & Y.

I also love to read Camille Paglia’s confrontations with feminist in Vamps and Tramps. Jessica Valenti or hateful Hanna Rosin would be just as likely to suffer from Paglia’s scorn as were her targets decades ago. The close-minded cult of MS or Bitch feminists seems to have changed little since then.

In the end, I classify by what they believe or what they do (Hoff Sommers) not by official misinformation from the very people who have the most to gain by concealing the true nature of the racket.

“People, men and women, CAN be relatively unaware of various forms of power over other people. However, they remain 100% responsible for that power and for what they do with that power. Women (particularly ‘oppression’ brainwashed feminists) can be unaware of the effects of their erotic power too
but that doesn’t make em any less responsible for their erotic power than some male rapist who believes he has the right to rape women with his physical power.”
–They are distinctly less responsible, if they make no choice to use their power, or are even aware they are having an effect. A woman who knowingly uses her power, and thinks she is right to do so, is as responsible for the use of that power as a male rapist who thinks he is right to use his power. But a woman who is not aware she is having an effect on others is like a man who (somehow) accidentally penetrates a woman who does not want to be penetrated–which might plausibly be called not a case of rape.

“I happen to be fortunate enough to observe hundreds of ‘hot’ young women every week. Most are very aware of the erotic power they have. You can see that first and foremost in their eyes, in their attitudes and especially in the way they spend large amounts of money to package (or unpack) their ‘killer curves”. They certainly work very hard to have an effect on mankind whether they are trying to have an effect on you personally or not. This effect IS very possible to turn off too. Beautiful Albanian women in Kosovo during Slobo’s genocide were as imaginative in turning off female erotic power as are the common everyday whores I see on the street today imaginative in the the turn ons.”
–Sure, can be done. (Of course, only those who are aware of the effect they have can choose to turn it off…)

“To deliberately and intentionally turn men on by shamelessly sexualizing ever single erotic asset in public, and then rejecting, or worse, double bind-blaming men for responding from our natural instincts, is indeed likely to generate male hostility.”
–Well, yes… but by the time I was 18, I realized (a) how to tell when people were flirting with me, rather than just dressing sexy, and (b) asked myself whether I preferred a world in which some women dress sexy, even if I don’t get to have sex with them, and decided, yes I would. At which point my hostility largely dissipated. Now there are really angry, petty, resentful people out there, and, yes, women who display themselves in an erotic fashion do risk upsetting those hypersensitive few…
“Unlike you, I rarely develop crushes on hot women anymore because my target rich environment has helped me rapidly see through the games that women play with their killer “assets”. I also pay very close attention to the hostility I feel because that is usually some signal that I am being fucked with erotically. A little work is all that is needed to transform the hostility into empowered responses. Once I transform the feelings I have, the hostility or loathsomeness in the ‘beautiful’ woman’s eyes or attitude tends to become ready apparent…and the evil spell is broken forever.”
–Huh. I guess that is one approach. I went rather with the theory that most women who mean to flirt with me are interested. And, going with that hypothesis, I tried to distinguish real flirting from misunderstandings. And it’s worked pretty well. I have had women flirt with me in a manipulative way, but the vast majority of flirting I encounter is genuine. And enjoyable. And I found that really took an edge off.
“Man to man, I’d urge you to throw away feminist nonsense so that you can pull carefully on the threads of your hostility. You’ll likely find that there is far more there than meets the eye. As you become more aware you will begin to realize that damn well are trying to have an effect but you but that they will adamantly deny Victoria’s Secret till the cows come home. The trouble (for them) is that Victoria’s Secret is hardly secret anymore in the Girls Gone Wild age. To infantilize women by allowing them to have their cake and eat it to with respect to the even the most abusive deployments of their erotic power while we blame men scornfully for (my eyes are up here) staring is most assuredly going to induce hostility in all but the dumbest or proudest of feminist-’brained’ men.”
–I’m less than fully persuaded, partly because both men and women have developed crushes on me, when I didn’t intend to attract them, and were upset when they found out I wasn’t interested. If I can accidentally attract people, and accidentally hurt their feelings, so can women. Some women are manipulative. Some are not. Of course, I know you like the inference, “Some women are manipulative, ergo women are manipulative,” but it’s still invalid.

“Some sort of genuine Women’s Studies program would be addressing rather than apologizing for the kinds of stupid abuses of female erotic power that the NYT times addressed this past Sunday’s front page article on sexting. Instead all we hear is absurd nonsense about ‘a women’s body is a women’s right’. That needs to change because ALL bodies come with responsibilities too…something that erotically aggressive women who cannot depend on patriarchal protections tend to discover right away.”
–I can only speak for some men, but some of us do not mind the status quo in this respect, are happy to respect women’s right to decide, and do not mind flirtation and erotic display, nor do we mistake it for any sort of promise. I don’t really find it that hard to maintain equanimity when women dress in suggestive or revealing ways. I’m sorry to hear that you do. I would really rather you get it under control than demand that women try to be less sexually appealing.

“Re: “But really, since I’m not sure what you attack is a position anyone really holds, as opposed to a straw-woman position, its’ hard to know whether these books would really present new and interesting information… show less”"

“Do me a favor. No male cunt cutenesses please. Going round and round with FeministeSmithie was tedious beyond belief but since she is young brainwashed feminist and an obviously unequal woman I took some pity on her. I tend to be far less tolerant of males who do ‘cute’ so please be very careful to play this straight.”

Straight as you like: I apparently made you very upset by using the term “straw woman” instead of “straw man”. This was not intended to be cute, particularly, but just seemed apt, since your target is distinctly female. I wouldn’t want to hurt your extraordinarily tender feelings.

Now, everything you say about the phrase “straw woman” leads me to believe I was talking over your head, using a logical term you don’t know. A straw man fallacy, is an argument which purports to attack a real position, but instead attacks an implausible caricature of that position. I was not kidding when I suggested you were doing so; when you describe feminism, I have serious doubts about whether anyone actually holds the view you criticize.

And here is why I think you didn’t understand what a straw man is; you say,
“Whether anyone else holds a position is totally irrelevant. Truth is not a popularity contest. ONE solid person’s position is enough to take down an entire totalitarian racket.”
Quite right. But I never asked whether anyone shares your view, or the view you defend. I asked whether anyone actually holds the view you attack. Since you, by your own admission, avoid reading what feminists actually say, preferring to read what others tell you feminists say, I remain unconvinced that anyone hold the whole view you take to be the feminist view. The truth is true even if it believed by just one person, or by no one at all. But to spend your time debunking a falsehood no one believes is a waste.

Nah, I just don’t see the point: we don’t share the requisite common language to discuss these ideas. I want concepts while you want citations. That, and being accepted to do a masters at Oxford has made me too elated to talk to people like you. :)

The Oxford link referenced above: http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/122813/20110315/what-every-man-thinks-about-apart-from-sex-sheridan-simove-psychology-harry-potter-da-vinci-code-ama.htm

You might also enjoy An Empty Room of One’s Own:

http://www.johnlocke.org/acrobat/pope_articles/inquiry22-womensstudies.pdf

That said I will be glad to consider solid research which portends to show the opposite.

One final note:

I take no personal pleasure in ridiculing you (personally), in offending you (personally) or in affronting you (personally) but your “the personal is political’ religion is ever so PERSONAL to me. Since like all totalitarians you believe in your ‘religion’ fervently and ever so personally, I have no option BUT to take you personally too. That is unfortunate, because I don’t like to hammer hard on YOU personally for what I hate about the POLITICAL bill of goods you have been sold.

Nor do I enjoy condescending to you even though the anger you en-gender, by insisting on an equality you haven’t even begun to TRY to earn, is intense. Had you even tried once to do some homework, I would have been far more gentle with you. I might even have offered you MORE chivalry even as a feminist (a suicidal option for males in a false ‘equality’ age) because I would have had reason for hope for some sanity from you in the future.

Unfortunately, for both of us, you stuck to your ‘religion’ stubbornly against all respect/reason. Since your ‘religion’ is idiotic, objectively oppressive to males and insane, I had no good options with which to handle your persistent personification of said ‘religion’ other than to personify you back. That’s never something I like to do because I suspect that beneath every passionate feminist bigot lurks a humanistic idealist I do respect.

You might also enjoy Higher Superstition: http://www.amazon.com/Higher-Superstition-Academic-Quarrels-Science/dp/0801857074/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303677110&sr=1-1 . I will enjoy the coming collapse of colleges as predicted by the National Inflation Association. There are some serious financial catastrophes coming which will pare perverted pretenders from colleges nationwide, be they professors, students, or entire departments.