I came across a feminist article entitled ‘Feminist bitches – Who needs them?‘ (11 August 2014)
The article itself was codswallop but one thing I saw that’s well worth remarking upon, was a series of comments by a reader named ‘Bowspearer’ (see footnote). I’ll reproduce his opening comment below, and would recommend that you read the entire discussion at http://theaimn.com/feminist-bitches-needs/#comment-168495. This guy has got some great insights to impart. (Update: The discussion thread recommenced on 31 October 2014, and the recent comments are excellent)
“The article is deeply flawed and ironically endemic of the vast multitude of problems which feminism has which in terms of it’s ideological model, make it actually a barrier towards gender equality.
Firstly, the article talks about women in power whilst clearly being oblivious to what real power is in this world. Politicians aren’t powerful by any means- they’re nothing more than puppets. The real power in this world belongs to the Money Power – be it investment bankers, mining magnates or any member of the hegemonic class. This is the class of 0.1%ers who are rarely, if ever, visible and reduce our politicians to nothing more than puppets. Included in that class is the British monarch – who has actually been female for 132 of the past 232 years. The reality is with the exception of Gina Rinehart, such power is rarely, if ever seen – in the case of either hegemonic men or hegemonic women.
Two examples come to mind of this. The first is Melissa Babbage, who until the GFC worked as a majhor derivatives trader for Deutsche Bank and whose investment portfolio was so massive that it’s clear that it is she, rather than Joe Hockey, who is the breadwinner of that family. The second example which comes to mind is an old school friend’s stepmother who again, is a highly wealthy and influential member of the banking class who was even an advisor in the 2nd Bush administration – where the real power lies and this was one of the more powerful advisory positions.
Gina Rinehart has also made their position abundantly clear. Such individuals in the hegemonic class, male or female – care little for plight of the subordinate class and would have us all working for slave wages if they had their way. Any notion which women at the top are “part of the sisterhood” is pure, romanticised drivel. Furthermore, any notion that we are even aware of just what the exact gender breakdown, gendered wealth breakdown and opportunities are for men and women within the hegemonic class – especially when much of that class keep their power and themselves hidden, is misguided.
Secondly, it ignores power dynamics. The fact is that there are a wide raft of factors which determine power in this world of which determine just how powerful or powerless someone is. The fact is that a disabled man will always face greater discrimination in this world than an able-bodied woman, non-caucasian men are more likely to experience discrimination that white women ( especially Middle Eastern men I might add) – in addition to factors such as class, transgender and sexual orientation. Yet feminism discards this complex reality for the theory of “Patriarchy”, whereby all men are falsely elevated to some imagined bourgeois and all women are falsely relegated to some imagined proleteriat. Feminism will certainly claim to acknowledge this inequality, but the cold hard truth is that feminism views it through the lens of “women HAVE problems; men ARE problems”.
Feminists lament their perceived lack of access to the hegemonic class, whilst ignoring that with the way gender dynamics are actually structured in this world, it is men who fare worst in the world. Men make up 95% of workplace fatalities – all so they can be the “good providers [for “women and children”]” which society demands them to be, which in cases of large scale infrastructure involve examples such as the construction of the Panama Canal, where 28,000 men were killed in its construction. Likewise, men make up the primary victims of war, all so they can fulfill the social expectation of being “good protectors [of women and children]” – which results in incidents like the 1 million dead in the battle of the Somme being, all too common in war.
Yet according to the feminist theory of “patriarchy”, men relegated to subordinate masculinities such as this somehow magically oppress women – even hegemonic women like Gina Rinehart who would love nothing more than to use them as slave labour. Furthermore if hegemonic females are just as culpable of this as hegemonic males, then how can a male-power-focused model of patriarchy, even remotely be accurate?
Before I move onto third world issues, let’s take more of a look at first world issues. Feminism perpetuates the myth that when it comes to abuse, “men are [exclusively] perpetrators; women are [exclusively] victims[; anything to the contrary is to be dismissed as a statistical anomaly]“.
In terms of rape, this plays out in the form of the myth that non-consensual sex is only rape when the victim is forcibly penetrated – despite the fact that when studies like the 2010 NIPSVS in the US have kept track of men being forced to penetrate someone against their will, they have found that not only are half of all rape victims men, but that 40% of all rapes are committed by women. Yet this is barely recognised in a society where feminism perpetuates the flawed notion that rape culture is entirely perpetrated upon women by men.
In terms of domestic violence, despite studies having shown for over 4 decades that roughly half of all domestic violence is bi-directional, roughly a quarter is exclusively male-on-female abuse and roughly a quarter is exclusively female-on-male abuse. Yet the collective “[men’s] violence against women” mantra which society dogmatically chants on this issue, results in society treating battered men as urban-myths/perpetual-liars who “had it coming to them” and regards individual victims as effectively being cheap, filthy, worthless sluts”. So vile is this entrenched sexism, that in several states here, police have been trained to automatically view the male as the aggressor on domestic violence call-outs, resulting in many domestic violence victims being arrested, simply because they have a penis between their legs.
In terms of child sex trafficking, it is portrayed in the media as exclusively being men preying on girls. However the reality is, in the US for example, that half of all child sex trafficking victims are boys, 35% of all child sex traffickers are female and studies have found that 40% of boys and 13% of girls service female clients.
In terms of pedophilia in general, society views a boy being raped by an older woman as a “rite of passage” – so much so that laws in the US for example, mandate that a male child rape victim must pay child support to their rapist if a child results from the rape. Furthermore researchers in the UK have found that victims of female child predators, male or female, are far less likely to be believed than victims of male child sex predators when they disclose their abuse – even to police.
This is of course, just a handful of issues in the developed world of many. Then there are problems in the third world faced by men – such as the epidemic of war rape against men in the Congo, to which both women and men are active participants in.
People cite the brutality of women in Shari Law abiding Islamic countries, whilst completely ignoring the plight of homosexual men there being just as brutal.
Then you have India where female violence against men not only gets a free pass, but the victims are mocked if they are witnessed or dare to speak out.
Again, these are just a couple of examples of countless many.
The thing is, if feminism is so concerned with gender equality, then where is it’s genuine recognition of these issues in terms of men HAVING issues, as opposed to men BEING issues?
Where is feminism’s recognition of both subordinate masculinities and hegemonic femininities?
Where is feminism’s recognition of the existence of female privilege (which btw is a significant barrier in addressing female hypoagency) as well as male privilege and the effect that both forms of privilege have in maintaining traditional gender inequalities? For that matter where is feminism’s accurate understanding that “privilege” is nothing more than a conditionally granted set of permissions designed to glorify and maintain traditional gender norms that are revoked the instant an individual deviates too far from acceptable gender norms.
Ms McQuade laments the page she found, yet she is clearly blind to why egalitarian women would have serious concerns over feminism as a movement in an ideological sense or the fact that if feminism cleaned house (beginning with recognising the existence of female privilege and how it has poisoned feminism) it would ironically be well on the way to addressing female hypoagency and therefore achieving genuine gender equality as a foundational level of society – whilst gaining support from egalitarians, who have surpassed feminism’s flawed and superficial gender understandings.
Sadly, much like paleo-masculinists, PUAs and Beta Male Traditionalists are blind to how toxic and self-destructive male privilege is, so too are traditionalist females and feminists blind to how toxic and self-destructive female privilege is. Until such time as that changes, more and more people are going to discard feminism as a toxic and academically superficial gender model.”
Footnote: I subsequent learnt that ‘Bowspearer’ is Andrew Richards (Twitter handle = @bowspearer)
See also: Related reddit mensrights discussion thread
Home Truths: The Costs and Causes of Domestic Violence (March 2015) More great comments contributed by Andrew