Yep. I've said before that I haven't been able to find an earlier example of a group of people able to declare themselves the only thing that matters and being socially applauded for the trouble. Not that men haven't been self-absorbed, self-focused rascals over the ages. But they had to wrap it up in something pretty: God, king, country, providing for the family, helping the village - something.
But with feminism, at some point it stopped being about the right to vote and became 'women should focus on themselves - because, that's why.' Certain things, like sexual liberation, were eagerly welcomed by men who apparently thought this would solidify women as one dimensional sex objects for men's sole consumption. Women played along.
Now, of course, men have been all but emasculated by feminism and what women want. Think on abortion. The current dogma says a birthing person woman gets pregnant and can decide if it's a precious life or a worthless bunch of sludge to be eliminated. Men? What can they do? Not a damn thing, that's what. They stand in the corner wearing a 'castrated dunce' cap and wait for the woman to decide - keep the baby, at which point the man had better fork out the bucks to pay for it, or terminate the baby, sorry about your luck guy.
I've often said it's likely that men of this age will not be the men future generations of men look back to as anything other than a cautionary tale. So beholden to women did men become as sex became the only thing that mattered, they would happily sell their sons down the river in order to get some, no matter what women do, say, or grab for.
Naturally women aren't the only benefactors of this idea. The whole 'it's about me' has poured over into almost everything. So that most young radicals and activists are proud to say it's their world to save and inherit or drop dead. After all, why should women have all the fun?
By the by, if I could add one more thing. The power of this feminist narrative is such that when I bring things like this up, I can almost bet 50% of conservative men and 2/3 of pro-life, traditional Christian women will pounce on me with some version of 'Hey! Women should have rights!' As if raising a question or challenging the narrative in any way is the same as saying women should have no rights.
I know this for a fact. I can't count the times in conversations I've mused on the impact that this approach to feminism has had, and even some of the most down home, stay at home, Ephesians 5 women will fire back that I'm some how suggesting women should be what feminists say men have always wanted them to be.
That's power for a narrative. Beyond proving my axiom that no matter what liberalism hoists on the world, at least 1/3 of conservatives will jump on the bandwagon, it shows just how engrained the world's approach to feminism has become. That' s why most men, no matter how much they lament the state of things, stay quiet, at least in terms of looking deeply into the modern state of women's issues. Sort of like white people questioning not just BLM, but the whole modern culture of modern black Americans. You don't dare. And you can bet if you do, half of everyone who normally agrees with you will turn on you and fire.
Was listening to a discussion yesterday and one of the participants blamed Jon Stewart for this kind of thing. That he had so ingrained in the culture the idea that any position on the right is so illegitimate, the only proper reaction is to mock it. Such that now, so many on the left dread and fear ever being even slightly associated with the right less they end up that ghetto of mockery.
ReplyDeleteIt's why they constantly push that anything old and in the past must be as bad as it possibly could be - no nuance, no other consideration, otherwise you're making excuses for that bad behavior. Every position on the left must be judged by its aspirations, every position on the right must be judged by its worst actors. Like you point out, even many "conservatives" buy into this paradigm without realizing it and will argue just like the left that any deviation from the paradigm means you want to legalize wife-beating.
Yep. It's the same on many levels. When you speak of people leaving the gay lifestyle, how many conservatives will pounce and denounce conversion therapy. When you dare question BLM, or broader Civil Rights agendas, it's many a conservative who will counter with the assumption you're denying the existence of racism in our past. And while you might get a pass if you keep the argument on abortion, any attempt to dabble in questions beyond that one issue will meet with charges that you oppose women's rights. As I say, liberalism doesn't have to fight too hard to win because on any given issue there are usually enough conservatives to fight for the Left.
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ReplyDeleteI spent 24 years teaching at a girls' high school. It seems that the older suffragettes wanted the right to participate in civil society as legal adults (a thing Anglo-American law since the Puritans had often denied them). They wanted their femininity respected as part of their human dignity, and acted as if they respected it themselves. The new feminists seem to want to discard their femininity: to reject fertility (which has consequences for the physical tasks we expect of women), to reject the role of woman as the unique nurturer of new life. The suffragettes felt that rights for women would encourage more responsible manhood. Older suffragettes would complain of men acting like pigs to call them forth from their sty of selfishness; feminists happily jump in the mud with the guys. Feminists treat men they way suffragettes complained men threaten women: as sex objects.
Feminists treat men they way suffragettes complained men threaten women: as sex objects.
DeleteDisagree. The function of the man is to attend to them in various ways and provide them with status through one of two avenues - through his earnings or his submission.
One problem in the world of women generally (not just annoying magazine authors) is that they tend to regard men as pets, ATM machines, employees, or some combination thereof. And they weren't raised to be effectively introspective or to fully understand their own agency. It's all rather demoralizing.
One thing I'll say is that there is some difference between those suffragettes and feminists. But I think that was a long, long time ago. The other day I posted on bigotry as the template for history. I noticed that as early as the late 1800s a feminist was already framing history as the sexists against women narrative associated with feminism today.
DeleteI'll be crass. She fancies she can find someone better. Nine times out of ten she'll discover that that is an illusion. Then, of course, she'll madly rationalize. See Mr. Dalrock's critique of Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love).
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Around about 1996, NPR one morning allocated some time to some man who reminisced about the day his father left his mother in 1969. He actually persuaded his mother and his father to talk and recorded their responses, intersplicing clips of them betwixt and between his own. It was the most affecting thing I'd ever heard on NPR. His father was self-critical and rueful. "You think life's going to be all new and different. Then the dust settles and life's pretty much the same". My mother understood this, and my father learned this and observed the fallout in others. (My mother and father had periods of separation, but stayed married). These understandings were modal in their social circle. A regard for appearances kept people together, who then arrived at a point in their lives when they could appreciate what they had, and what they did not have).
That's an interesting observation. Of course since I've been around, not giving a rip about appearances or what other people think is practically gospel truth. The problem is, we have a society where many define themselves by boldly declaring their unconcern about anything other than themselves. My son observed that this is why so many modern crusades are heavy on heroic self righteousness, and low on actual self sacrifice. How do you turn into zealots a generation weaned on apathy and narcissism?
DeleteI'm convinced feminism is simply the excuse highly educated women, and those women who have to justify to their compromises in life for worldly "success", need to keep their consciences at bay.
ReplyDeleteI feel much of the untruthfulness that drives modernist discourse is based on keeping at bay anything that confronts us with the obvious problems and wrongness of what we embrace.
DeleteWe are definitely surrounded by masses of bad consciences.
DeleteThe irony? Growing up, it was a liberal dogma that judging people and making them feel bad about being sinners was a residue of our old puritanical religious heritage that we are happily being saved from. Now? If you replace accusations like racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe,, etc. with the word 'sinner', it's like living in the stereotype of a nationwide tent revival. Part of the modern progressive arsenal relies on the idea that we whites, men, Christians, Westerners, Americans are reprobates born of a reprobate civilization who should hang our heads in disgrace and shame until we see the liberal light. I fear that the mental health industry has glommed onto this idea.
DeleteFrom the article: “Mowry credits therapy with helping her make this major life change. “I was in therapy, as well. I’m a huge fan of therapy. It was all that together that gave me that 'aha' moment,” she said.” Reason no. 1920383 why I will NEVER go to a secular therapist; they’ve been utterly overrun by this self-love/self actualization garbage.
ReplyDeleteAs a former pastoral counselor, I used to be a big advocate for mental health care and counseling. But I admit the industry has gone off the rails. It has basically said the things that used to need counseling - like believing you're Napoleon - are no big deal. We'll just change the definition of Napoleon. On the other hand, people need serious help to overcome the stress of cooking meals, or cicada season, or buying stamps for mail in ballots. And this is while those issues mental health counseling is supposed to help seem to be getting worse, not better.
DeleteI’m pro-counseling and anti therapy. Therapy might be for young children/adults who need to learn how to process trauma or deal with overwhelming emotions, but there’s something wrong with a process that seeks to perpetuate itself. Counseling implies you need assistance to get over a hump or through a difficulty, but when you do it’s done. There’s value in that for sure.
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