Robert Stacy McCain on feminism’s mainstreaming of extremists:
Any honest person who undertakes an in-depth study of modern feminism, from its inception inside the 1960s New Left to its institutionalisation within Women’s Studies departments at universities, will understand that without the influence of radicals — militant haters of capitalism and Christianity, angry lesbians who view all males as a sort of malignant disease, deranged women who can’t distinguish between political grievances and their own mental illnesses — there probably never would have been a feminist movement at all…
Once we go beyond simplistic sloganeering about “equality” and “choice” to examine feminism as political philosophy — the theoretical understanding to which Ph.Ds devote their academic careers — we discover a worldview in which men and women are assumed to be implacable antagonists, where males are oppressors and women are their victims, and where heterosexuality is specifically condemned as the means by which this male-dominated system operates.
As noted previously, when it comes to identity politics, the boundaries between mainstream and delusional aren’t as clear as one might wish.
And Thomas Sowell on cultural inequalities:
While cultural leadership has changed hands many times, that leadership has been real at given times, and much of what was achieved in the process has contributed enormously to our well-being and opportunities today. Cultural competition is not a zero-sum game. It is what advances the human race. Cultures are living, changing ways of doing all the things that have to be done in life. Every culture discards over time the things which no longer do the job or which don’t do the job as well as things borrowed from other cultures… Spanish as spoken in Spain includes words taken from Arabic, and Spanish as spoken in Argentina has Italian words taken from the large Italian immigrant population there. People eat Kentucky Fried Chicken in Singapore and stay in Hilton hotels in Cairo.
This is not what some of the advocates of “diversity” have in mind. They seem to want to preserve cultures in their purity, almost like butterflies preserved in amber. Decisions about change, if any, seem to be regarded as collective decisions, political decisions. But that is not how any cultures have arrived where they are… No culture has grown great in isolation — but a number of cultures have made historic and even astonishing advances when their isolation was ended, usually by events beyond their control.
At which point readers may recall the Guardian’s Emer O’Toole, a “postcolonial theorist” and assistant professor of Irish Performance Studies, for whom all cultures past and present are equally vibrant and noble, except of course the culture in which she currently flourishes, on which opprobrium must be heaped ostentatiously and often. Ms O’Toole famously bemoaned the colonial propagation of Shakespeare, whose works she denounced as “full of classism, sexism, racism and defunct social mores.” And worse, “a powerful tool of empire, transported to foreign climes along with the doctrine of European cultural superiority.” The possibility that at any given time one set of values and insights might be preferable to another, even objectively better, bothers her quite a bit.
Her article was accompanied by a photograph of New Zealand’s Ngakau Toa theatre company performing Troilus and Cressida in a distinctively Maori style. To me, it looked fun and worth the price of a ticket. But this cross-cultural fusion saddened Ms O’Toole, who dismissed notions of the Bard’s universality as “uncomfortably colonial.” She then presumed to take umbrage on behalf of all past colonial subjects, whose own views on Shakespeare and literature she chose not to relate. She did, however, get quite upset about “our sense of cultural superiority” – a sense of superiority that, she insisted, has long been “disavowed by all but the crazies.”
It may be a tad indelicate, even improper, but I can’t help wondering how Ms O’Toole might have felt had she been among the 19th century English colonists who encountered a Maori culture that was all but prehistoric, with no discernible literature or science, in which the average lifespan was about thirty years or so, and where cannibalism was not unknown. Faced with such things, I’m sure Ms O’Toole would have resisted the wicked urge to think herself a little more culturally advanced.
When not romanticising the cultural purity of others from a safe distance, Ms O’Toole prides herself on denouncing those more primitive than herself – say, women who choose to shave their armpits. In Ms O’Toole’s moral universe, cultivating armpit hair is “the necessary and important work of challenging stupid, arbitrary, gendered bullshit.” And our right-thinking Guardianista tells us, several times, that her boyfriends have thought her “brave” for daring not to shave.
As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments.
“Brave”, they said – in their best Humphrey Appleby voice I imagine.
When confronted with the extremist rhetoric of feminists — vehement denunciation of males, condemnation of heterosexuality, claims that men (collectively) oppress and victimize women (collectively) in ways comparable to the Holocaust — the average woman is understandably startled
The worst adverts for feminism are feminists.
The worst adverts for feminism are feminists.
Like Christians. But it was interesting watching Jacobson’s recent BBC4 prog about the Australians and seeing all that footage of Germaine Greer from the 60s and 70s. She was always being presented then as an exotic of one kind or another, sometimes a splendidly strange creature but just as often as dangerous and/or absurd. But now she would seem entirely ordinary. Every woman talks and acts like that and it just doesn’t seem exotic any more.
Every woman talks and acts like that and it just doesn’t seem exotic any more.
Every woman talks and acts like radfem lesbians denouncing ‘PIV’ sex? Okay…
She has boyfriends?
Every woman talks and acts like that and it just doesn’t seem exotic any more.
Germaine Greer, 1968.
The worst adverts for feminism are feminists.
I think that’s probably true (and yes, for a lot of things). And while all kinds of political movements attract nutters, some seem to attract nutterdom more than others. Among some, there’s a particularly acute in-group dynamic, in which competitive extremism establishes one’s credentials as “radical” and “authentic.” The more gaspworthy and counterfactual one’s pronouncements, the more status points accrue. An obvious modern example being Ms Laurie Penny and her tens of thousands of followers, few of whom seem troubled by her standard of argument.
If, for instance, you look at the key figures of British feminism during the 1970s and early 80s, they’re an odd bunch, to say the least. There’s the slavishly Marxoid Sheila Jeffreys, who appears to think only in terms of competing “classes” and churns out reams of bald assertion. Things like, “Male supremacy is centred on the act of sexual intercourse, justified by heterosexual practice.” Or, “Feminists who sleep with men are collaborating with the enemy.” Or, “All feminists can and should be lesbians. We define a political lesbian is a woman-identified woman who does not fuck men. It does not mean compulsory sexual activity with women.”
Her output has changed little over the decades and seems laughably antiquated, as if she and we still lived in the 1950s. And despite a changed world, and despite a lack of supporting argument, her output is still quite shrill and relentlessly adamant. And this chronically unhappy woman, to whom logic is apparently a stranger, nonetheless found employment at the University of Melbourne, teaching “political science.” Those lucky, lucky kids.
The sour and fanciful dogmatism of Julie Bindel will be familiar to regular readers, though it’s worth remembering that Linda Bellos, mentioned here, was so enlightened by feminism that she abandoned her own children to “be political” in a separatist lesbian commune, as one does, before rising to prominence as the Big Feminist Cheese of Lambeth Council.
Colourful, yes. But they’re not exactly representative of any women I know.
You shouldn’t ask them to be representative of women. That is sort of the point about feminism, that women should be able to be individuals in the same way that men are, that they need not represent their whole sex every time they succeed or fail. It is that old joke of the two-frame cartoon that shows a teacher talking to a boy student in the first frame: ‘My god but you are bad at maths’, and to a girl student in the second frame: ‘My god but women are bad at maths’.
You shouldn’t ask them to be representative of women.
The point being that the figures above repeatedly claimed that their own, somewhat unusual perspectives were – or should be – those of “women” – as a “class.”
David – welcome back!
Emer O’Toole’s thoughts still fascinate and tantalise me, like the plastic flowers my cat keeps trying to stalk and eat.
Her stance isn’t particularly original though, it’s standard stuff in anthropology courses apparently. About 15 years ago I was at dinner with a couple of young executives from a major oil company which I shall not name, but whose initials spell Bum Pasta. During the small talk, I found that one of them had studied anthropology at Oxbridge or UCL (I forget which, but it was one of the “good” universities).
So I said something like “well, that’s an interesting background for an oil industry guy, but I suppose an oil company is basically just like an advanced tribe.”
I’m something of an expert on faux pas and this, apparently, was a significant one.
“Oh no!”, my dining companion exclaimed, with an aggrieved tone as if I had suggested a threesome with him and Wee Jimmy Krankie “you can’t say that! There’s no such thing as one culture being more advanced than any other!”
Well, he knew his colleagues best, so if he thought they were no more advanced than a tribe of cannibals or Geordies, who was I to argue?
Anyway, Emer comes from the same sort of attitude factory:
She is scholar of theatre, film and performance, whose research examines the various influences – in terms of economics, politics, history, race, gender and class – that inform performances of Irishness in a globalized and globalizing world.
I bet she’s hilarious at parties.
But, not to be credentialist or anything, but I wonder what qualifies Ms O’Toole to examine anything in terms of economics or history, never mind the other stuff? Could it be her undergraduate course in Marxism 101?
Using postcolonial and Bourdieusian theory, her research asks questions about power, privilege, identity and culture.
Ah, yes. Always asking questions, but – Spoiler Alert! – already knowing the answer, which is that “neoliberalism” is bad, and we really ought to try Marxism for a change.
Dr. O’Toole teaches courses in the areas of Irish Theatre, Irish Film, and Irish Performance Studies. She is interested in working with graduate students who approach Irish cultural and political phenomena through the lens of performance
Down with this sort of thing!
Class theory means that there are certain structures in society that systematically benefit or disbenefit groups of individuals, not that individuals in the groups are necessarily alike in other ways. Linda Bellos, for example, understood that she and Thatcher had certain class similarities as women, but did not make the mistake of thinking that they were otherwise alike or that Bellos ‘represented’ Thatcher as a personality type. It’s fun making fun, and Bellos is a good target quite often but you might as well aim at the real think and not the convenient caricature. The real Bellos is daft enough.
You lot might be interested in this research, by the way.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2457000
You’re welcome.
Minnow,
One more time: The point being that the figures above repeatedly claimed that their own, somewhat unusual perspectives were – or should be – those of “women” – as a “class.” They, not I, made claims of their being representative, either of feminists as a group or all womankind. Hence the scepticism.
[ Added: ]
If, for instance, Julie Bindel had said that she, as an individual, or as a lesbian, was aggrieved or oppressed because of this, that and the other, she might have attracted slightly less ridicule. But she didn’t. Instead, she presumed to speak for all womankind, claiming that every woman’s sexuality could be reversed by political decree. Ditto Sheila Jeffreys of “all feminists can and should be lesbians” fame.
Steve,
I’m going to have to borrow the term attitude factory.
David, you misunderstood them. They argued that women suffered certain systematic abuses, not that woman should or would like the same sorts of things. Their preferred policies for putting the abuses right weren’t everybody’s cup of tea, but they didn’t expect they would be. They didn’t even expect they would be every woman’s cup of tea (see Thatcher above).
Mind you, Bellos often claims that most of her way-out Lambeth policies are pretty mainstream now, and I think she may be right.
Minnow – “That is sort of the point about feminism, that women should be able to be individuals in the same way that men are”
Heh.
They don’t have much time for individual women – feminists, even – who wander off the Marxoid reservation.
Like Margaret Thatcher – roundly hated by feminists, many of whom denied that she was a Real Woman at all.
Or Sarah Palin. Or Christina Hoff Sommers. Or any woman who chooses to be a housewife.
They don’t have much time for individual women – feminists, even – who wander off the Marxoid reservation.
It is a weird misunderstanding of feminism that it commits women to liking all women equally. It doesn’t. It is after political, economic, and social equality and equivalent freedoms with men. of course some women will use those freedoms in ways that other women think are wrong. That is how freedom goes. It is like racial equality, you can be entirely for it as a black person, without thinking you must therefore vote Obama. This stuff isn’t really that hard if you give it the mental effort. I am sure you believe that all men of all races deserve the same freedoms and should be equal before the law etc, etc. But you still think that some men are arseholes, right?
David, you misunderstood them.
No, I don’t think I did. You may want to watch Vanessa Engle’s excellent Angry Wimmin documentary, linked here, in which the ladies in question, and others, recount their own words and what they believed. And in some cases still do.
This stuff isn’t really that hard if you give it the mental effort.
Minnow The Lying Liar just can’t help himself, can he?
I saw and enjoyed the documentary and I remember them too. But they did not claim to represent all women in the way you imply. In fact, they spent most of their energies attacking other feminist groups it seems to me.
Hello, Anna. Another subtle and penetrating point. But perhaps I am being unfair and you have just expended too much of your energy defending Jimmy Savile to find any for here.
‘Well, he knew his colleagues best, so if he thought they were no more advanced than a tribe of cannibals or Geordies…’
Erm, Steve – I’m a Geordie. I’ll just leave that hanging there for a moment to make you feel bad. You HATER!
But perhaps I am being unfair and you have just expended too much of your energy defending Jimmy Savile to find any for here.
Minnow, I should point out that comments like that – lies, as Anna (rightly) puts it – aren’t doing you any favours. Bear in mind you’re here at my indulgence.
David, I understand that this is your gaff, your rules. But Anna’s accusation of lying referred to my comments about Linda Bellos, not Jimmy Savile. I don’t think she will contradict me on that score.
Minnow The Lying Liar,
But Anna’s accusation of lying referred to my comments about Linda Bellos, not Jimmy Savile.
Another lie.
A few threads ago you lied about me and what I’d said, remember? Then you lied about what other commenters said or meant. You didn’t take any of it back, did you?
Liar.
A few threads ago you lied about me and what I’d said, remember? Then you lied about what other commenters said or meant. You didn’t take any of it back, did you?
No, I didn’t tell any lies. And your comment appeared before I made any reference to Jimmy Savile, so that could not have been a lie. This is not the p[lace for a personal spat, if you say that you now accept that Jimmy Savile was a vicious sex offender, I will accept that you are no longer a defender of his (we all make mistakes) and apologise.
Minnow,
No, I didn’t tell any lies.
I think this was the example of dishonesty that annoyed Anna, and I can see why. And you’ve done much the same thing to someone, at least once, on just about every long thread you’ve taken part in.
I don’t have the time or inclination to play referee, so I suggest you try quoting what people here actually say, rather than paraphrasing them wildly, in the most perverse and self-serving way possible. Trust me, you’ll get along much better with the locals, and with your glorious host.
David – 🙂
Minnow – I’m less interested in what people say they believe than what their behaviour indicates they actually believe.
Cos if you ask them, everybody believes in Good and Righteousness and Fairness and Justice and all that. Even jihadis and Stasi informants and the cast of Hollyoaks.
So, feminists. The boilerplate is all about equality and fluffy kittens. The reality is savage, festering hatred, widespread mental illness, and suffocating conformity. Which is not surprising given that their ideology is a ramshackle cut-and-shut of Marxism and Daddy Issues.
If you claim to believe that “women should be able to be individuals in the same way that men are”, then shriek like Donald Sutherland in that remake of Body Snatchers when you come across a woman exercising her individuality in a way you ideologically disapprove of, then your stated belief is dishonest.
The entire premise of feminism is wrong, based as it is on a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature, of biology, and of economics. It’s why they so often find themselves wandering up intellectual blind alleys, like claiming we have a terrible “rape culture” when the facts explain otherwise. Or claiming the reason men are physically stronger than women is down to sexism and not biology. Or claiming that women are brainwashed into desiring sex with men.
The “you go, girl!” equality stuff is for external consumption only. Womens Studies degree programmes are not spending three years telling impressionable young women that they’re equal to men.
Tom Foster – I don’t hate Geordies! Some of my best friends are Geordie and P.J. and Duncan from Byker Grove are a credit to your race.
David, I try to paraphrase honestly and you really can’t argue the toss without interpreting what your opponents are arguing, but, again, I try to do it honestly. What I don’t do is lie. I think Anna’s accusation of lying is the worst dishonesty, to be honest. I note her silence on Savile’s criminal past, en passant, and I think others will too.
I don’t want to prolong it though, it is just provoking when you are insulted to your cyber-face.
I note her silence on Savile’s criminal past,
How criminal was it exactly ? We don’t know, he was never brought to trial and every accusation since is just that, an accusation, not a conviction. Some of the claims are quite obviously fantasy and you are in no better a position than anyone else to say how much of a criminal he really was.
I note her silence on Savile’s criminal past, en passant, and I think others will too.
You’re doing it again, Minnow.
Minnow – I’m less interested in what people say they believe than what their behaviour indicates they actually believe.
This is what some Marxists characterise as false consciousness versus real consciousness.
So, feminists. The boilerplate is all about equality and fluffy kittens. The reality is savage, festering hatred…
But who really wants to wind back the clock to the pre-feminist age? I don’t think you do. So in this case your revealed preference undermines your stated beliefs, no?
If you claim to believe that “women should be able to be individuals in the same way that men are”, then shriek like Donald Sutherland in that remake of Body Snatchers when you come across a woman exercising her individuality in a way you ideologically disapprove of, then your stated belief is dishonest.
No, there is absolutely no contradiction. I genuinely think that everybody should be equal and free top express whatever views they hold, etc, etc, but still think that the world is a much a sadder place for having James Delingpole in it and will happily denounce him at every opportunity.
like claiming we have a terrible “rape culture” when the facts explain otherwise.
There is something like a rape culture, or has been. I watched a Spanish TV show from the 70s just the other day (Curro Jimenez, since you asked) in which a woman is taught a lesson by being raped. She was provoking it of course, then she learned she wanted it and married her rapist (actually, it is pretty clear that she had manipulated him into it so that she could marry him). The show cut short of the actual event, obviously, but there was no doubt what was going on. First she had to say ‘sorry’ to him in an appropriately contrite way, unlearning her haughtiness. This sort of thing was quite common when I was growing up. I don’t think it is beyond belief that it lingers on.
How criminal was it exactly ? We don’t know, he was never brought to trial and every accusation since is just that, an accusation, not a conviction.
To my mind it is beyond a doubt that Savile was a criminal and that he attacked and exploited many people, but we can disagree. Anna does, for example, and I think her extensive writings on it are defences of Savile. What else should they be if they are defending him from his accusers? If Anna wants to disagree with that she can (she may have changed her mind or may claim that she is just sitting on the fence). But I don’t think it can be called a ‘lie’.
No, there is absolutely no contradiction. I genuinely think that everybody should be equal and free top express whatever views they hold, etc, etc, but still think that the world is a much a sadder place for having James Delingpole in it and will happily denounce him at every opportunity.
Well now since you mention the great Dellers let’s take a look at the way a hegemonic ideology, in this case CAGW has captured the narrative and seeks to exclude all dissenting, sorry ‘denialist’, voices. The role of our own dear BBC in this process should certainly not be overlooked, as a prime example of an organisation which has been completely captured by people who make proud boasts about free expression and behave entirely differently.
Anna does, for example, and I think her extensive writings on it are defences of Savile.
I never said anything about Savile. I’ve never mentioned him. Are you (a) dim and confused, (b) a troll, or (c) a liar?
I never said anything about Savile. I’ve never mentioned him. Are you (a) dim and confused, (b) a troll, or (c) a liar?
I may be confused. I thought you were Anna raccoon of the blog of that name because I had thought you had linked to your blog from here. Are you a different Anna?
Well now since you mention the great Dellers let’s take a look at the way a hegemonic ideology, in this case CAGW has captured the narrative and seeks to exclude all dissenting, sorry ‘denialist’, voices.
You think that’s bad! Look at how the hegemonic ideology of evolution through natural selection has captured the narrative and sought to exclude all ‘denialist’ voices. These days you can hardly hold public office if you stand against it. A scandal.
To my mind it is beyond a doubt that Savile was a criminal and that he attacked and exploited many people, but we can disagree.
There you go again, sounding all reasonable and tolerant and managing to subtly suggest that I think Saville was probably OK. Still I expect you are only paraphrasing so that’s fine really, to your mind.
Are you a different Anna?
Yes, you dickhead. I’m the one you lied about.
If anyone wants to gauge Delingpole’s grasp of science, here is talking to an actual scientist. It is fun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuQLvK6kxeU
Yes, you dickhead. I’m the one you lied about.
No, Anna, if you are not Anna Raccoon (of the blog), you are the one I mad a mistake about. Apologies for which. (But really, learn the difference.)
There you go again, sounding all reasonable and tolerant and managing to subtly suggest that I think Saville was probably OK.
Wha …? I just said that we could disagree. I didn’t say we did, just that we could, reasonably, since you raised the question of Savile’s criminality. If we don’t disagree, well, good.
But this subject is getting out of hand, I think I will drop it.
Hullo Minnow –
This is what some Marxists characterise as false consciousness versus real consciousness.
I think “revealed preferences” is a closer fit. False consciousness implies the proles have been tricked or brainwashed.
But who really wants to wind back the clock to the pre-feminist age? I don’t think you do.
Why would you think that? I *like* Mad Men. Come to think of it, my household is what you might call traditional, I work and pay the bills, my wife looks after the kids and irons my shirts and makes me food. It works for us, and there’s not a copy of The Female Eunuch in sight.
Would she be happier following the usual feminist advice and going out to work and putting the kiddies in a nursery? She doesn’t think so.
the world is a much a sadder place for having James Delingpole in it
JD is totes amazeballs, I like him a lot. He’s the Elvis of environmental journalism.
There is something like a rape culture, or has been. I watched a Spanish TV show from the 70s just the other day
So “never mind the crime stats, look at this here Dago TV show from 40 years ago?”, eh? 🙂
I saw a programme where a boy had to put on a strange helmet and be guided around a bizarre fantasy world by a sketchy older man called Treguard.
So I can safely say we have a magic culture in this country.
I think “revealed preferences” is a closer fit. False consciousness implies the proles have been tricked or brainwashed.
No, it doesn’t, or shouldn’t. It just implies that our picture of the world may disguise from us the realities off our existence in ways that are very emotionally powerful. It isn’t far from ‘revealed preference’ but that has generally had the suggestion of semi-conscious dishonesty about it.
Why would you think that? I *like* Mad Men.
Me too, but given the chance you would not reproduce those social conditions would you?
Would she be happier following the usual feminist advice and going out to work and putting the kiddies in a nursery? She doesn’t think so.
Is she pleased to have the choice? Have you asked her? Would she prefer you to make these choices for her?
JD is totes amazeballs, I like him a lot. He’s the Elvis of environmental journalism.
You mean moribund?
So “never mind the crime stats, look at this here Dago TV show from 40 years ago?”, eh? 🙂
‘Rape culture’ is not about crime statistics. It is a different thing. You may disagree with the theories, but it you might as well know what they mean first. We could have a rape free society but a persistent rape culture, in theory.
Ha ha ha. Rape culture in a rape free society. It’s not really much of a culture then really?
If anyone wants to gauge Delingpole’s grasp of science, here is talking to an actual scientist. It is fun.
I made no mention of science, my point was about the CAGW narrative, essentially leftist in its anti consumerist pro Green position. It is entirely political and has little to do with science. What are Al Gore’s qualifications to pontificate on climate science if it comes to that. By seeking to draw an analogy, something I expected, with creationism you show that you have absolutely no interest in or undestanding of the sceptical position.
They don’t have much time for individual women – feminists, even – who wander off the Marxoid reservation.
Like Margaret Thatcher – roundly hated by feminists, many of whom denied that she was a Real Woman at all.
This. So much this. So much of not only feminism, but the rest of the “diversity” ideology, seems strongly infused by identity politics in that you’re supposed to act a certain way based on which genetic group you’re a member of, and woe betide anybody who doesn’t act that way, such as Thatcher of Clarence Thomas.
The “Not a Real Woman” stuff is not just vile, it’s immoral in that it’d deliberately designed to deny people their individuality.
Wha …? I just said that we could disagree. I didn’t say we did, just that we could, reasonably, since you raised the question of Savile’s criminality.
You said this;
To my mind it is beyond a doubt that Savile was a criminal and that he attacked and exploited many people, but we can disagree.
I don’t think it was unreasonable of me to infer that you were suggesting that I didn’t think Saville had abused people, when my whole point was that neither of us know and yet you claim that it is beyond a doubt, thus occupying the moral highground, which is what makes you so bloody irritating. Your carelessness with language and the cavalier manner in which you pass off your own assumptions as the opinions of others is what has led you to drop a clanger with Anna, I don’t suppose it will stop you though.
Christopher Snowden on the BBC and its funding:
when my whole point was that neither of us know and yet you claim that it is beyond a doubt
Exactly, I said that to my mind is was beyond a doubt, but we can disagree. Which we seem to.
By seeking to draw an analogy, something I expected, with creationism you show that you have absolutely no interest in or understanding of the sceptical position.
I do understand the ‘sceptical’ position but it has nothing to do with science. All the science claims have been thoroughly refuted. Over and again. Global Warming science is every bit as robust as evolutionary science. That is why the analogy is apt.
Ha ha ha. Rape culture in a rape free society. It’s not really much of a culture then really?
Well, no, it’s not much of a culture. But sadly we don’t live in a rape free country, and my point was a theoretical one.
Actually there’s a difference between the climate science and the computer modelling that is used to predict future temperatures. Fair enough to make predictions, but the models output statistical distributions. When compared against real world data it becomes extremely difficult to falsify the model, because you don’t get to re-run the world’s climate 100,000 times, so we have little/no idea what the distribution of actual temperatures looks like. I suspect this is one of the reasons that so many dispute many of the GW arguments.
I suspect this is one of the reasons that so many dispute many of the GW arguments.
So many non-scientists, at any rate.
You could just as easily say “we live in an culture”, but if the evidence doesn’t back it up then it’s nonsense.
You could just as easily say “we live in an culture”, but if the evidence doesn’t back it up then it’s nonsense.
Which is why we are better off discussingthe evidence than making Aunt Sally versions of the theory.
But that’s the point. The computer modelling is not science. It is not testable. If in 50 years time we were to find that the global temperature has ended up wildly away from the predictions then people could simply say, well, it was at the 99.5th percentile (or whatever) of our predicted outcomes.
Bloody html…
You could just as easily say “we live in an xxxxx culture”, but if the evidence doesn’t back it up then it’s nonsense.
I’m talkin’ to the man in the Minnow – so you’re saying feminists suffer from false consciousness? OK.
Me too, but given the chance you would not reproduce those social conditions would you?
Which ones?
Is she pleased to have the choice?
God, no. She was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar when I found her. Well, not really a cocktail bar, it was marketing, but she hated her job. I was a handsome older divorced man with a lot of disposable income and high functioning alcoholism.
So she was pleased to retire from the workforce at the age of 20, and I was pleased to have a pretty young wife to make a home for me and give me a reason to stop drinking.
Have you asked her?
Yes.
Would she prefer you to make these choices for her?
In general, yes. She loves me being the man of the house so she’s free to be a woman.
She’s not a Stepford Wife either, she’s a fiery redhead and politically she’s much more right wing than I am. Ocassionally she’ll throw a tantrum about something, but half the time that’s just because she wants to blow off some steam and the rest of the time it’s because she wants to test my masculinity and be reassured I haven’t gone all wobbly on her.
A lot of men make the mistake of thinking (a) that women’s complaints are always about the thing they’re talking about and (b) they want you to “fix” it. Usually, neither is the case.
Hence the failure of feminism. More than 40 years on from Women’s Lib, are women happier and less neurotic than their oppressed mothers and grandmothers were? I really don’t think so. I think feminism can be viewed as a test of our collective masculinity and women in general are disappointed when we keep apologising and retreating in the face of feminism’s escalating nonsense.
Steveo40 – Stop raping us with your patriarchal logic!
In general, yes. She loves me being the man of the house so she’s free to be a woman.
So she likes to choose when to relinquish power? She would not prefer it she was rendered powerless legally as in the recent past? I think she is a feminist.
Hence the failure of feminism. More than 40 years on from Women’s Lib, are women happier and less neurotic than their oppressed mothers and grandmothers were? I really don’t think so.
The point is that they don’t have to care whether you think they are happier or less neurotic. They don’t have to pay you the slightest notice. They have robbed you of your power over them. That is the achievement of feminism. And why some men find it so aggravating.
You have a submissive wife and you both like that arrangement, but she needn’t submit if she changes her mind. And that is making life better for her whether you or she know it or not.
Ha.
Must stop commenting here and get back to my day job of computer modelling
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/192045/
“The way feminists treat the women who disagree with them proves feminism is not as ‘pro-women’ as they would like to believe.”
Yehudi Minnowin – So she likes to choose when to relinquish power? She would not prefer it she was rendered powerless legally as in the recent past? I think she is a feminist.
It takes a cock-eyed reading of history to think Western women were ever powerless. The reality of marriage in Christendom has rarely fit that stereotype. As for whether Mrs Steve is a feminist, well, she says she isn’t, so who are we to tell her otherwise?
The point is that they don’t have to care whether you think they are happier or less neurotic. They don’t have to pay you the slightest notice. They have robbed you of your power over them. That is the achievement of feminism. And why some men find it so aggravating.
Well, damn. There was me lusting after power over neurotic women I don’t know…
Has feminism robbed men of power over women? Seems sort of the other way around to me. Lots and lots of women find themselves unhappy and alone in their 30’s onwards now, with little prospect of getting commitment a decent man. Turns out that free sex, ubiquitous contraception, and no social expectation that you should marry the bird you’re shagging has created a generation of miserable spinsters.
Thank God for cats.
You have a submissive wife and you both like that arrangement, but she needn’t submit if she changes her mind. And that is making life better for her whether you or she know it or not
Submissive? Oh dear. You have a lot to learn about women, laddie! That lady has me wrapped around one of her pretty fingers. I may be the king of the castle, but that just means I work harder so my lady can have Nice Things.
Remember Steve Martin’s epic rant about the “weaker sex” in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels? That.
And she didn’t need a bunch of frustrated harpies screetching about imaginary rape culture or encouraging her to cultivate armpit hair to get the things she wants in life.
“…not that woman should or would like the same sorts of things.”
Bullshit.
It takes a cock-eyed reading of history to think Western women were ever powerless
Before 1882 married women in Britain were not permitted to own property. Until 1991 rape was legal so long as the rapist was married to his victim.
Submissive? Oh dear. You have a lot to learn about women, laddie! That lady has me wrapped around one of her pretty fingers.
Then you are the submissive partner. I am not very interested in the details, my point is that your wife has legal powers that protect her from you and that makes her life better even if she does not have to deploy them.
Women, it seems, value opportunity. Place and the leverage to gain it. Lifestyle and social setting. What in the Darwinian sense and in enlightened contemporary academic rhetoric would be deemed the veritable sacredness of protecting the fragile womb, hearth, and home.
In this same deconstructed milieu men are naturally a cabal of latent criminal keepers, seed-spraying jailors tacitly incapable of the higher mindedness of, oh say, love. Fidelity. Honor. Principle. Integrity. Justice, kindness, any ability to cherish, respect, and even hold in awe.
To idealize. To paint, sculpt, compose, write, or regard in any way the spirit, soul, or form of the female animal (where animal borrows the contemporary vernacular, just to keep things pertinent and balanced).
It’s as if men have been crammed into that institutionalized, academic container to languish there, apes unique in the human species; these automatically illiterate thugs and primitives.
It’s almost like the dictionary itself were a artificial gender construct designed to merely offer them, as a show, the theoretical markers of unattainable actual humanity when they have little or none, and thus to privilege women with what are to men the merely linguisti-
Oh, wait.
Yet realistically, men, frequently being the idealists they have been known to be throughout history, individually value her and do so at times to elaborate extremes: Idealizing a relationship is the cornerstone of actually having one, of course, and virtually every unattached male I know laments the extinction of a comparable idealism in his female companions, if he cares to hazard knowing them in the day and age where he is held in such cultural disregard and consequent legal limbo.
One tends to value an arrangement less, unless one only can value an arrangement – rank, status, influence, and the constructed, political, opportunistic “feminist” externalities – which is where the telling word power comes in. And where they who use it to short-sheet the higher context of the higher functions of mind and love come in too.
I thus admit – your having proposed it in this context – to finding arbitraryness, irrationality, variable ethics, rank materialism, and generally being used because I’m a guy … aggravating.
Does that count?
I am sorry, Ten, I would like to answer your question but I literally have no idea what you are on about.
Liza Minnowli –Before 1882 married women in Britain were not permitted to own property.
But who benefitted from the property? Who was legally obliged to aliment whom? Who got to spend the money? Who was forced to pay taxes, or expected to fight in wars? It’s not as black and white as the law would suggest.
Society is a complex and constantly changing network of relationships and obligations. I can see the appeal to children and Aspergers-type personalities to try to reduce everything to class conflict, but it doesn’t help us understand the world.
Until 1991 rape was legal so long as the rapist was married to his victim.
Eh, not quite. Until R v R a man who raped his wife would most likely be up on charges of assault. Certainly, men weren’t running about raping their spouses with impunity.
Then you are the submissive partner.
Well, polish my ball gag!
This is very revealing of your mindset. Somebody’s always got to be dominated or the dominator. You’re either an exploiter or exploited. Well, normal human relationships aren’t like that my fishy friend. And if anybody insists you dress up as a naughty air hostess when you don’t want to, just say no!
David, glad you’re back and thanks for reminding me of Emer O’Toole. It’s not every day you find a lefty who’s so right-on she doesn’t think brown people should be performing Shakespeare at a World Shakespeare Festival.
But who benefitted from the property? Who was legally obliged to aliment whom? Who got to spend the money? Who was forced to pay taxes, or expected to fight in wars? It’s not as black and white as the law would suggest.
Since women were not permitted to own property they could hardly pay the bills. But they could work and they could earn. Only everything they earned belonged to their husband. So, I suppose, from your point of view, in that scenario he is still the one burdened with the hardships of paying taxes and putting the food on the table (although, of course, she would be the one whoo literally did that, spending his money that she had earned). And in many circumstances she would have come to the marriage with some property which then became his. I think it is as black and white as it comes.
Society is a complex and constantly changing network of relationships and obligations.
And one or two laws. Like the one that forbade married women from owning property.
This is very revealing of your mindset. Somebody’s always got to be dominated or the dominator.
No, they don’t. But you have described your marriage in those terms whenever you have mentioned it.
Well, polish my ball gag!
Nearly spat my water out
I wasn’t asking you anything, minnow – other than one rhetorical question in order to make an obvious point – but your bewilderment could lend credence to the increasingly prevalent view that radical feminists evidently find normal human relations entirely alien.
Alien to the point that they insist that all relationships simply must be alien, that largely being the contested point in conversations like this one: Abnormal confronts normal and finds it cannot grasp it.
That’s generally the case, minnow, and it’s more than a little sad.
Nope, sorry Ten, I have genuinely tried, but still not a clue.
I don’t doubt that, minnow, as I said. It’s quite okay.
So try this: Define a functional relationship … and do it without becoming typically materialistic, political, or competitive.
It’s not every day you find a lefty who’s so right-on she doesn’t think brown people should be performing Shakespeare at a World Shakespeare Festival.
Oh, she’s a character. By which I mean, eerily similar in her contrivance to any of the other “postcolonial theorists” mentioned here over the years. The obligatory affectation of moral sophistication doesn’t sit well with the actual clunkiness and generalisations of her position. As the commenter Georges Delatour, once a regular of this parish, noted,
But I don’t think Ms O’Toole would find such details interesting or digestible. She seems much more interested in badmouthing whitey in front of her peers, and thereby securing her own status as a right-thinking person. Which is to say, a left-thinking person. Hence a willingness to denounce the “classism, sexism, racism and defunct social mores” of Shakespearean drama while carefully avoiding any such chastisement regarding other, browner cultures.
See also the rhetorical contortions of fellow “postcolonial theorist” Priyamvada Gopal. And the ludicrous and craven Jakob Illeborg.
Ten, even if what you asked were possible, we would have to start by defining ‘functional’, ‘relationship’, ‘typically’, ‘materialistic’, and ‘competitive’. I haven’t got the energy.
a willingness to denounce the “classism, sexism, racism and defunct social mores” of Shakespearean drama
By the way, the best discussion of this trend in Shakespearean criticism that I know is in Jonathan Bates’s Shakespeare’s Genius (horrible title but fine book). I recommend it.
A functional relationship, minnow, can reasonably be said to hold mutual spiritual actualization in prime regard. Relationships constructed for money, office, status, power, and even family tend to fail, visibly or invisibly, when the underlying motive for the alliance fails.
Only one cannot fail, and that is the ideal within the properly idealized relationship. It’s simple when you consider it. Conversely, when you deal the power card you have already exposed the chink in radical feminism’s armor.
If this is the case, then situations – I used “arrangements” before – where political power or influence or status or any of the many competitive and rather base projections, assumptions, slanders and principles of what is a grievance-minded, power-dealing political institution, can naturally be expected to lock it at that base level.
-which is also where you can expect to see pushback.
—
I don’t know what dimension goes lacking in the progressive mindset, but it hews remarkably close to the familiar apathy of the narcissist.
OK, thanks, I think, Ten for the explanation (is it an explanation), but the interference is too great and I just can’t get the hang. I think you will have to take it up with someone in your own language.
Minnowmoreheroesanymore – as always, it’s worth backtracking a little as you do tend to wander off course.
Your original question was:
She would not prefer it she was rendered powerless legally as in the recent past?
Then it turned out your idea of the “recent past” was 1882!
And while it’s clear we don’t agree on whether or not women were, in fact powerless in 1882, I think we can both agree that, unless you are a character from an H.G. Wells novel, it is very silly to use 1882 as an example of the recent past.
Ergo, you are wrong.
But you have described your marriage in those terms whenever you have mentioned it.
To a man with a little pink fluffy social justice hammer, everything looks like a big rapey patriarchal nail.
But to the rest of us, we men and women who live and laugh and love without trigger warnings or safe spaces or anxiety about imaginary climate gods punishing our wicked consumer lifestyles, we look and smile at all that. 🙂
“To a man with a little pink fluffy social justice hammer, everything looks like a big rapey patriarchal nail.”
🙂
But inside that little pink fluffy hammer is a little Trotsky waiting for the right time to pop out and begin the killing.
Then it turned out your idea of the “recent past” was 1882!
I tend to take an historical view, but institutional limits on women’s power did not end in 1882 by any means, as the facts that married men were entitled to rape their wives until 1991 (which I also mentioned but which presumably slipped your mind) and employers could discriminate against women until 1975 etc etc, proves.
Ergo, I am right.
But to the rest of us, we men and women who live and laugh and love without trigger warnings or safe spaces or anxiety about imaginary climate gods punishing our wicked consumer lifestyles, we look and smile at all that. 🙂
Well good. Happy marriages can be made in all sorts of ways. But it is interesting that you have only just noticed that you always discuss your marriage in terms of domination and control. Our motives are not always clearly visible to us.
could lend credence to the… view that radical feminists… find normal human relations entirely alien.
I was reminded of Amanda Marcotte, an extraordinarily callous and obnoxious woman who seems unable to conceive of a heterosexual relationship, or any male-female relationship, in anything other than tactical, combative terms. In her often bizarre tirades about abortion, there’s a conspicuous absence of any reference to love – of partner or child-to-be. Coupling and reproduction are, for her, reduced to an ideological board game in which rivals vie for power and men only feel hurt when losing their dominion over someone else’s organs.
As a worldview, it’s somewhat two-dimensional and cartoonish.
As a worldview, it’s somewhat two-dimensional and cartoonish.
Much like the resident pigeon.
But inside that little pink fluffy hammer is a little Trotsky waiting for the right time to pop out and begin the killing.
That’s right. Give the women a vote and the next step is … gulag!
Except that the radical feminist can’t imagine any.
Asked to define a functional relationship without becoming typically materialistic, political, or competitive even you said:
-which is like my begging off on definitions of ‘happy’, ‘marriage’, ‘made’, ‘all sorts’, and ‘ways’, before being invariably shuffled off to the margins because not only am I unqualified, I’m incomprehensible when using common language.
—
And this, folks, has them invoking equality, tolerance, rights, and the like, all the while denying how they’ve co-opted the entire conversation for fifty years.
Poor Minnow is so lacking in self-awareness that he doesn’t notice that he and his ilk are the little Trotskys. Not that there aren’t lots of feminazis would leap at the opportunity to run a gulag.
minnow
So climate science is yet another of the things that you are able to pronounce on with certainty, you’re quite the polymath aren’t you, from wimmin to wasps you have all the facts at your fingertips. Unless you are actually a climate scientist yourself I suggest that your position is no more than an appeal to authority.
You might do well to read Ben Pile’s Climate Resistance blog, he doesn’t concern himself with the science but with the politics of the science.
Not that there aren’t lots of feminazis would leap at the opportunity to run a gulag.
And yet everywhere we look we see murder and misery, prisons, camps, and torture chambers, and no feminists to be seen running any of it. Funny world.
“You might do well to read Ben Pile’s Climate Resistance blog, he doesn’t concern himself with the science but with the politics of the science.”
It’s amazing how much a non-scientist can figure out by scrutinizing the behavior of these ‘climate experts’. All sorts of behaviors characteristic of dishonesty and ulterior motives.
But it is interesting that you have only just noticed that you always discuss your marriage in terms of domination and control. Our motives are not always clearly visible to us.
Minnow,
he’s called Steve2, not Slave2
But it is interesting that you have only just noticed that you always discuss your marriage in terms of domination and control. Our motives are not always clearly visible to us.
This thread is rich with total irony failure.
Minnow,
‘By the way, the best discussion of this trend in Shakespearean criticism that I know is in Jonathan Bates’s Shakespeare’s Genius (horrible title but fine book). I recommend it.’
The man’s name is Bate, not Bates, and – the ‘horrible’ title of the book is ‘The Genius of Shakespeare’, not ‘Shakespeare’s Genius’.
It is a fine book (though I don’t remember there being much in it about Emer-style ‘defunct social mores’).
‘The Genius of Shakespeare’, not ‘Shakespeare’s Genius’.
Would ‘Shakespeare’s Genius’ be a book about how Shakespeare’s plays were all written by a brilliant man kept prisoner in the basement of Shakespeare’s house? 🙂
‘Would ‘Shakespeare’s Genius’ be a book about how Shakespeare’s plays were all written by a brilliant man kept prisoner in the basement of Shakespeare’s house? :-)’
Man? PERSON – you horrible sexist you.
“Man? PERSON – you horrible sexist you.”
I await instructions on when to report to the punishment booth. 😀
Ted S. – The “Not a Real Woman” stuff is not just vile, it’s immoral in that it’d deliberately designed to deny people their individuality.
Absolutely. The feminist hatred of Margaret Thatcher – and it was pure, dripping hatred, not just criticism or disagreement – seemed to be amplified because she was a woman.
Just as Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell are targets for racist abuse from the Left that would make a Klansman blush because they’re black conservatives.
The Left can tolerate anything except dissent, particularly if it comes from someone who they think is their political property based on their pigmentation or genitalia.
They want to be judged by their often high-minded rhetoric, but their actions reveal the true nature of the Left. They give less money to charity, are lousy tippers, and smell like wee. Like the Grinch, their hearts seem two sizes too small.
Steveo40 – 🙂
pst314 – But inside that little pink fluffy hammer is a little Trotsky waiting for the right time to pop out and begin the killing.
Oh yes, at least sometimes. I’ve spoken to Socialist Worker types and many of them have a sort of flatness in their eyes that makes me thankful they don’t have any power in our society. I’ve heard them speak about “direct action” and what they want to do to “the bosses” and am glad we have Special Branch to keep an eye on them.
The attraction that leftist ideas hold for antisocial personalities is well documented, but I don’t think Minnow would fall into the killing-people-if-he-had-half-a-chance category.
Putting my amateur head-shrinker hat on for a moment, I could see Our Hero running the most passive aggressive vegan whole foods shop ever, or preening himself in the Question Time audience, but doing a murder? He’d have to be a shark or a piranha instead of a humble minnow.
present & correct – Thank you! I prefer the term “indentured servant”.
Minnow Cheddar – you always discuss your marriage in terms of domination and control.
This is the sort of flamboyant fibbing that made Anna lose patience with you. I deal with dedicated dissimulators every day though, so I’m like:
http://cdn.meme.li/instances/300×300/52812066.jpg
Steveageddon “Oh yes, at least sometimes.”
I think it’s more than sometimes–that many are only posing as ‘moderate’ and ‘reasonable’ and would happily support the next thug.
“This is the sort of flamboyant fibbing that made Anna lose patience with you.”
Remember Minnow’s recent nonsense “The car really doesn’t care who owns it or if nobody does at all, it will still go”?
1882 seems positively recent compared to the origins of the minnow worldview.
Few things are more galling than listening to tenured female Ivy-League professors bitch and moan about how badly they are oppressed by Teh Patriarchy.
They defend their bitching by saying that their personal gains benefit Teh Sisterhood, but they won’t even rhetorically defend women who are physically mutilated, raped, and humiliated by hyper-patriarchal beasts whose savage misogyny goes back millennia and for which they apologize not at all.
Those savages, you see, are Exotic and Authentic and We Mustn’t Judge.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali was disinvited from speaking at Brandeis University because of the objections of WOMEN’S STUDIES PROFESSORS.
Ali is a freaking superhero of a woman who endured Genuine Patriarchal Oppression, escaped it, and became a member of parliament in a western nation.
How do you find a more vivid exemplar of Female Empowerment without writing fiction and passing it off as autobiography?
You don’t.
Ali makes those spoiled, feeble-minded moral degenerates in academia look pathetic indeed, and They Can’t Have That.
Spare me your defenses of radical feminism. Those women are Exhibit A for why God’s Own Merciful Meteor of Death needs to strike us post haste.
“but I don’t think Minnow would fall into the killing-people-if-he-had-half-a-chance category.”
To clarify: I don’t know if Minnow would fall into that category, but I do think it is extremely likely that Minnow would happily vote for someone who would. I have known a lot of supposedly gentle peaceful leftists who spent their entire lives excusing and justifying and supporting bad people. #BecauseEquality or something.