The Absence of Empathy: Understanding the Psychology of Sociopathic Feminism
Posted on | March 26, 2016 | 45 Comments
Not every narcissist is a sociopath, but all sociopaths are narcissists. Like every other manifestation of identity politics, feminism is ultimately about narcissism, a celebration of selfishness masquerading as “social justice” in which identifying yourself as suffering from oppression serves not only as a rationalization of one’s personal failures, but also as a justification for antisocial attitudes and behaviors.
My encounter with the notorious “Speedway Bomber” Brett Kimberlin was an extraordinary educational experience in this regard. Kimberlin and his associate Neal Rauhauser both exhibited sociopathic personality traits and, as my friend Ladd Ehlinger noted, the key to understanding the sociopath’s behavior is his lack of empathy for others. Selfish, dishonest and cruel, the sociopath is unable to feel remorse for his wrongdoing because his extreme narcissism stems from an inability to imagine others as fully equal to himself. He exploits and manipulates others and, when apprehended, the sociopath lashes out at those who would hold him accountable for his wrongdoing, while imagining himself to be (and trying to persuade others to see him as) a sympathetic victim. Psychologists have labeled this deceptive method “DARVO” (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) or, as I have called it, “Accuse the Accusers.”
DARVO tactics are quite maddening to anyone who has ever been in such an encounter, and this is a problem highly relevant to dealing with feminists, whose ideology is all about portraying themselves as victims while accusing others of various forms of wrongdoing. Disagreeing with a feminist will inevitably result in accusations that you are a “sexist,” a “rape apologist,” etc. Feminists routinely make false claims (e.g., the bogus “1-in-5” statistic) and then use smear tactics and name-calling in an effort to discredit anyone who tries to expose their lies. The shocking dishonesty of feminists and other “social justice warriors” during the #GamerGate controversy prompted Vox Day to write SJWs Always Lie, the title of which concisely summarizes the problem. Warped personalities like Brianna Wu and Sarah Nyberg, devoid of moral principle, love nothing better than to jump aboard a “progressive” bandwagon, which provides such monsters an opportunity to cloak themselves in the mantle of Crusader for the Righteous Cause.
All of that is preamble to the case study in feminist psychology I wish to bring to your attention today. Feminist Tumblr is full of angry weirdos trying to one-up each other in The Great Man-Hater Sweepstakes. Where do these kooks come from? How do they get so crazy? Let us examine one Tumblrina’s tale, “My Feminist Journey”:
I’ve personally fought against gender norms since I learned to dress myself. I have always thought that femininity was something that limited my potential, abilities, personality, and interests. I have always thought that it essentially hurts women, or hurts me, in any case. At a very young age I considered myself to be more like the boys, ‘one of the guys’ and wanted their approval and respect.
Later in life, middle school and high school, when I learned what feminism was, what mainstream feminism was, I learned that calling myself ‘one of the guys’ and putting down women that conformed to femininity was my own internalized misogyny. I was also told that not wearing dresses, skirts, and not liking anything pink or ‘girly’ was my internalized misogyny. . . .
(You see how the Internet helps disseminate feminist ideology and rhetoric, so that, by the time she finished high school, this tomboy had learned to call her aversion to femininity “internalized misogyny.”)
I actively worked on unlearning my internalized misogyny. I made more female friends, I learned to listen to them, and I learned to think critically about what my male friends said. I began learning how to prioritize women. I am not done unlearning the sexist socialization I have, but I like to think I’ve made a lot of progress. In high school I also learned to be feminine, for real. I learned to sew, I wore skirts (that I had sewn!) and eventually dresses, for really the first time since my parents dressed me. I wore makeup once in a while, but I hated it. I am currently trying to re-unlearn femininity. It’s going ok.
End of high school, beginning of college I sought out more feminist literature. Mostly through social media, I learned about reproductive rights (particularly when I started on birth control) the wage gap, I learned about rape culture. At 17 I had to ask a counselor how I could best help and support one of my best friends, a survivor of rape. I confronted the rape culture I internalized. I am still learning about all of these things, but I have come a long enough way to wish I had known then what I know now.
College- I began learning about feminist issues I never was exposed to before. I learned about the different tools of oppression that the patriarchy uses to oppress women (including but not limited to): religion, capitalism, socialization, (the act of) sex, race, gender.
This is like reading the diary of a German boy from the 1930s, describing how he joined the Hitlerjugend, marched in the torchlight parade, tuned into Der Führer‘s speech on the radio, and so forth. Any sensible adult understands that a jargon phrase like “gender norms” is just a rhetorical trick, a way of making normal life seem oppressive, so that the maladjusted misfit’s unhappiness is converted from a personal problem to a political cause. (“The personal is political.”) By convincing her to see herself as a victim of collective oppression, feminist ideology invites the misfit to turn her self-pity into a rage against the ubiquitous power of “patriarchy,” which uses so many “different tools . . . to oppress women.”
This paranoid conspiracy theory exacerbates the underlying narcissistic tendencies of the disgruntled misfit. It is an appeal to self-pity, expressing “the worldview of every worthless punk who ever lived”:
Duke: The lights are growing dim, Otto. I know a life of crime has led me to this sorry fate, and yet, I blame society. Society made me what I am.
Otto: That’s bulls–t. You’re a white suburban punk just like me.
Duke: Yeah, but it still hurts.
Ah, but these kids never watched Repo Man, and nobody ever bothered to teach them this great lesson: Don’t be a punk. Nobody likes a punk, and blaming “society” for your sorry fate is a punk’s game.
“Reproductive rights!” “Wage gap!” “Rape culture!”
Repeating slogans is no substitute for facts or logic. Whoever raped your friend, the perpetrator was not a “culture,” and accusing yourself of having previously internalized “rape culture” is just a way for you to brag about how much more enlightened you are now.
Feminism’s hegemonic control of higher education means that the Tumblrina never hears any articulate and well-informed criticism of the irrational beliefs of the feminist cult. There were probably followers of Charles Manson, Jim Jones and David Koresh who were not as completely brainwashed as the typical Tumblr feminist. Every cult requires an Enemy to fear and hate, and feminism’s enemy is that foul, loathsome and altogether contemptible creature, The Heterosexual Male.
Permit me here to play Rhetorical Tutor for any young men who may be reading this, because some of you guys really are hopelessly stupid.
NEVER ACCEPT THE PREMISE
OF YOUR ANTAGONIST’S ARGUMENT!
Carve that into your cerebral cortex, young men. One of the tricks by which liberals succeed is by smuggling into the argument some dubious premise that they don’t expect you to question. Take for example, “equality.” Exactly what do we mean by “equality”? Where in human history can we locate this “equality” of which the liberal speaks?
A couple of books worth reading — The Mirage of Social Justice by Friedrich Hayek and The Vision of the Anointed by Thomas Sowell — will do wonders for helping you see why liberal ideas about “equality” should always be viewed with skepticism. Most people, however, never think seriously about glittering generalities like “equality,” “progress,” “rights,” etc., and are therefore apt to let the liberal get away with smuggling an unexamined premise into the argument. The result is that the liberal easily forces his antagonist into a defensive “me, too” position where, having tacitly accepted the unexamined premise, the conservative cannot avoid certain logical conclusions based on this idea.
In regard to feminism, we find that men are too ready to cede the claim that “equality” between men and women is possible or desirable, without ever bothering to ask questions like, “What do you mean by equality?” Or, “Why is equality such a necessity that we must pass new laws or enact new policies in order to have more equality than currently exists?” Or, “Exactly how will the problem at hand be solved by more equality?”
There are all kinds of questions that could be asked along this line, but instead a young man will often simply accept the premise of “equality” without question, and then finds himself trying to win an unwinnable argument — and making a fool of himself in the process.
We return, then, to the same Tumblrina whose “Feminist Journey” we examined earlier. Her devotion to feminism (i.e., her sense of herself as a victim of patriarchal society) permits her to justify her sociopathic absence of empathy toward males. Now she lashes out:
seriously why people always wanna talk about how patriarchy affects men
like how do you hear something like “you throw like a girl!” and not realize that while one boy is being teased, literally the entire female sex is being told they suck at physical activity.
how can you look at that and just want to say “see! patriarchy hurts boys!!” No it doesn’t, not systemically. It tries to train them into actually being stronger than women, meaner to women. It teaches them that weak, and stupid are Girl things, and therefore all things girls do are stupid, inferior to things Boys do. How you want to look at that and say “yes, and look how that can hurt boys’ feelings!!” ???
Like no. i don’t wanna talk about boys. I don’t want to hear how their feelings got hurt when they got called a girl, as if their feelings getting hurt somehow overshadows the fact that being female is a shame, an insult, a curse. And I don’t understand why someone would want to make a boy’s feelings a priority in feminism. It’s a side effect, one that can be easily fixed if men wanted to fix it. They could start standing up for women, the women and girls in their life, they could teach their sons that women are not inferior, that the people who use ‘girl’ as an insult are in the wrong.
But for some reason it has become feminism’s job, women’s job, to take care of boys’ and men’s feelings and comfort them. Just like always. Color me shocked.
What has happened here? The Tumblrina has encountered someone trying to make a “me, too” argument that “patriarchy affects men.” Yet such a claim rests upon the idea that (a) “patriarchy” exists in the sense that feminist rhetoric implies; and (b) feminists care about men.
WAKE UP, GUYS! FEMINISTS HATE YOU!
As soon as a woman describes herself as a “feminist,” the only smart thing any man can do is to avoid her as much as possible. No feminist actually believes in equality, because the hidden premise of feminist ideology is that males are inherently inferior to women. If men and women were equal, after all, then men would not need all these “different tools of oppression that the patriarchy uses to oppress women,” would they?
The Secret Ingredient of Feminist Ideology is Daddy’s Money. One cannot help but notice that it is usually a quite privileged woman — college-educated, from an above-average socio-economic background — who seizes hold of feminist ideology as a weapon, lashing out at men who don’t treat her with the deference to which she feels entitled.
She is a punk, like Duke in Repo Man, rationalizing her unhappiness by blaming “society,” and she never would have bought into the cult mentality of feminism if she had been psychologically healthy. Self-pity and scapegoating are two sides of the same coin. People who feel sorry for themselves, worshiping at the Blessed Temple of Perpetual Victimhood, are always looking for someone to blame for their unhappiness. This is why you should avoid feminists, or anyone else with that kind of punk attitude. You don’t want to be available as their next scapegoat.
People who lack empathy are selfish, dishonest and cruel. Woe unto anyone who is so foolish as to associate with such people.
Comments
45 Responses to “The Absence of Empathy: Understanding the Psychology of Sociopathic Feminism”
March 26th, 2016 @ 9:44 pm
. . .like how do you hear something like “you throw like a girl!” and not realize that while one boy is being teased, literally the entire female sex is being told they suck at physical activity.
Newsflash: Every lesbian softball second infielder has heard the same thing and will undoubtedly yell it at you, too, if you can’t throw from third to first without bouncing it. Get over it, toots.
March 26th, 2016 @ 10:04 pm
All Feminists are narcissists
March 26th, 2016 @ 10:06 pm
Here’s the thing: PITY IS POISON!
Pity is not mercy. Pity is not kindness or generosity. Indulging a child’s tendency toward self-pity is never a good idea. You don’t teach a child to be a winner by constantly indulging weakness.
Why do boys get taunted for “throwing like a girl” or some other imputation of effeminacy? Because men are only admired insofar as they are competent and successful. In adult life, men must compete against men. A successful man must be acceptable to other men as a teammate, a comrade, someone skilled, trustworthy and valuable to the team.
MEN DON’T HAVE A FALLBACK OPTION. Any shrewd young woman who is reasonably attractive can always find some man to take care of her, one way or another. But go to any city and look at the homeless population — males, males, males, overwhelmingly so. Guys who somehow failed in life and nobody — NOBODY — will take care of them when they hit rock bottom. This is not to say that their ruin was the fault of “society,” but rather to say THIS IS HOW LIFE IS. Get used to it. Grow up.
Oh, and guess what? Feminists have absolutely zero mercy toward any guy who “throws like a girl” or otherwise exhibits weakness. Guys who think they can do the Beta game and expect feminists to treat them kindly are apt to be shocked at how unspeakably merciless these advocates of “equality” actually are.
March 26th, 2016 @ 10:39 pm
Weird. I have always thought that femininity was something that was a privilege; something that shaped my potential, abilities, personality, and interests, such that I was different from, but equal to, men.
But then again, I’m not insane.
March 26th, 2016 @ 10:41 pm
Bald-faced, pants-on-fire lie.
March 26th, 2016 @ 11:29 pm
This post is actually subtley brilliant. I recall being taught in school about the concept of “glittering generalities” and that we ought to beware of such things. But try to find a warning against this in today’s skools…good luck there. Try to find a parent who warns against it…good luck there.
Welcome to Rome, right before the fall.
March 26th, 2016 @ 11:36 pm
This right here completely sums up the stupidity of the Tumblrina’s argument. She might as well have admitted outright that she has no brain cell activity.
March 26th, 2016 @ 11:42 pm
Man, that’s the truth. I played softball back in the day when girl softball players were hetero. I promise that I could kill a man with a softball, which is not very soft when it is hitting you upside the head.
March 27th, 2016 @ 3:20 am
“Sweden: The Feminist Gender Madness”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBmeOffXxkA
March 27th, 2016 @ 4:28 am
Girls don’t throw a ball, they push it. I coached coed softball and didn’t realize what the problem was until I read some thing about it. The article also has a way to train a girl to throw instead. You took a rope, tied a knot at one end, then went through the motion of trying to throw the ball. If she is pushing the ball, the knot will hit her in the back. You tell her to work at it until the knot isn’t hitting her in the back any more. It worked every time I tried it.
March 27th, 2016 @ 5:19 am
[…] useful advice on how to deal with the left from Stacy McCain that comes in large […]
March 27th, 2016 @ 6:06 am
They lead and plant with the wrong foot. Plant with the foot of your throwing hand and lead with the opposite. I taught my daughter how to do it in 2 minutes when she was six.
March 27th, 2016 @ 6:19 am
“I recall being taught in school about the concept of ‘glittering generalities’ …”
Eighth grade, as I recall. It was a lesson about consumer economics, where we were being taught the tricks of advertising to watch out for. And the phrase “glittering generalities” was explained quite well. Heck, we read Orwell’s Animal Farm in fifth grade, and our teacher explained everything about Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin — fifth grade.
The Dumbing-Down of America over the past 40 or 50 years is a needless tragedy.
March 27th, 2016 @ 7:12 am
[…] Robert Stacey Stacy McCain on The Other McCain: The Absence of Empathy: Understanding the Psychology of Sociopathic Feminism […]
March 27th, 2016 @ 7:50 am
You’re right, good observation. Girls’ arm/shoulder/elbow muscles/bones differ from boys’. Impossible for a girl to throw a sidearm baseball the same way a boy does.
March 27th, 2016 @ 8:27 am
Whereas being about a decade younger than you, I had to find and read Animal Farm on my own, which I was inspired to do after reading 1984 in December 1983. (Got a souvenir 1984 calendar with the book, too.)
March 27th, 2016 @ 8:40 am
[…] The Other McCain covers sociopathic feminism […]
March 27th, 2016 @ 10:41 am
Another insightful piece. I’m still mystified by other journalists ignoring this story. It is one of the most important in the last half-century in America. I’m guessing it’s a lack of research and self-education.
This isn’t just politics as usual. There is massive evidence of a cult openly colluding in incitement to hate men and racial incitement through a tightly knit culture of women in academia. This cult colludes to diminish the footprint of white males in every aspect of culture it can influence using outright lies and bizarre anti-science. Were this done to gays, blacks or women it would be news. And there’s the irony; it is being sold as if it IS being done to gays, blacks and women.
Third Wave Feminism is a pitch perfect analogy to a type of anti-Semitism and blood libels which work to diminish the footprint of Jews in every aspect of culture it can reach. Journalism in America is a lazy disgrace.
March 27th, 2016 @ 11:40 am
I never saw that. Soundmind has the right of it. A girl can be trained, however, to throw right. I never saw the problem you point out. If you throw right, you naturally lead with your left for reasons of balance. You can train out the pushing motion by doing what i point out above.
March 27th, 2016 @ 11:43 am
I never bothered with a batting helmet in slow pitch. Never went without one in fast pitch. I played slow pitch many times with a glove. Never fast pitch.
Loved fast pitch. It’s actually more of a challenge than baseball. There’s no such thing as a straight fastball in fast pitch. because of the larger wetted area, the ball always moves. That’s the major reason why fast pitch tends to be a pitching duel.
March 27th, 2016 @ 1:22 pm
From what I understand, in at least some fast pitch softball, after two extra innings are played, each subsequent inning starts with the batter that made the 3rd out in the previous inning on second base.
March 27th, 2016 @ 2:33 pm
Coincidentally (or not), lack of empathy is also associated with atheism.
March 27th, 2016 @ 3:28 pm
[…] Other McCain: Feminists be Sociopaths! And impossible to […]
March 27th, 2016 @ 4:50 pm
The thing I love about the anti-white lesbian feminism also known as Third Wave Feminism is how often the people who most promote it like to pretend to the outside world it doesn’t even exist. That leaves two sorts: liars and people unaware of what the origins of the cult they promote come from.
Sure, to a cult member, terms like “white cishetero patriarchy” may seem as normal as mom and apple pie. I’m not a bit surprised TWFs consider us normal people as mad.
March 27th, 2016 @ 5:50 pm
Growing up in the UK, I can remember when the preferred pejorative was that “you throw like a spaz” – where ‘spaz’ was short for ‘spastic.’ It disappeared with PC concern about being unkind. Not unkind to the target, of course, but unkind about a (genuinely) disadvantaged group.
Even there, giving in to that PC urge was I think a mistake, as I don’t believe it had any effect on actual spastics but certainly helped nudge things further away from the wedge’s thin end.
March 27th, 2016 @ 6:40 pm
What about the fact some “spaz” curse uncontrollably due to Turret’s. Is that one of those Mobius paradox thingies? If a spaz calls me a retard before I even say anything, can I call him a spaz? Did George Orwell write an essay which can guide me on these matters?
March 27th, 2016 @ 6:46 pm
Why not just demonstrate how to throw a ball?
March 27th, 2016 @ 6:49 pm
Exactly. Watch any baseball pitcher and do a milder version of that. Hold the ball with two fingers over the top, plant the back foot and throw over your shoulder while planting the throwing foot and whipsawing the back leg. Two minutes. It’s about body-confidence, body posture and correct form. Tell them they own that ball and then show them how.
March 27th, 2016 @ 7:01 pm
I really sucked at softball as a kid but when in HS and we played field hockey I was fearless. (OK I learn to play in Canada).
March 27th, 2016 @ 7:04 pm
I am writing an exciting new feminist essay, “We Have Always Never Fought.” It is about the history of women in military campaigns I wrote with a magic marker on my thumbnail.
March 27th, 2016 @ 7:05 pm
LOL That is struck me as a lie as well, I grew up in the 50’s and hated dresses no one ever said something that that stupid to me. Now I always wear dresses. I just hated uncomfortable clothes.
March 27th, 2016 @ 7:08 pm
Keep in mind that calling a ‘spaz’ a spaz is not actually an insult to a spaz.
Only to an SJW self-tasked with harassing all things including accurate use of the language.
March 27th, 2016 @ 7:08 pm
I remember in the 10th grade being taught how to spot propaganda as well.
March 27th, 2016 @ 7:09 pm
… for example, that some males throw a ball like most females 😉
March 27th, 2016 @ 7:23 pm
The pushing effect comes from leading with the foot of your throwing hand. If you try it, you see what I mean. You have to consciously do it wrong, because its so unnatural and you can’t get any “oomph” on the ball.
March 27th, 2016 @ 7:30 pm
I told my daughter to “point” her non-throwing shoulder at the target. When you do that, it’s virtually impossible to plant with the wrong foot and/or “push” the ball as QM describes.
March 27th, 2016 @ 7:32 pm
The Other McCain: Come for the critique of Feminism; Stay for Spring Training.
March 27th, 2016 @ 7:55 pm
Robert – on your excellent point regarding the importance of spotting (false) hidden premises, it’s also helpful to spot hidden unintended admissions and projections like the one your tumbrlina made in stating: “..how do you hear something like “you throw like a girl!” and not realize that …literally the entire female sex is being told they suck at physical activity.”
After all, why does she automatically presume that throwing ‘like a girl’ is necessarily an insult?
March 27th, 2016 @ 8:02 pm
The team I played on, we played softball together from early childhood, and we always stuck together. We made sure we got on the same team every year, namely because one of the parents drove us all together in a big van. By the time we got to HS, we were unbeatable, because we knew each other so well. It was like choreography. We played fast pitch in a local league, and the little blonde girl who was our pitcher, man, she was like a pitching machine, and nobody expected it. It was weird too, because I’m a rightie who played first base, and our third baseman was a leftie, but it worked for us.
Later, I coached a kid’s softball team for a while, and I loved it, and I made it fun for the kids, “mistakenly” thinking that that was the point. But the parents became so obnoxious, and even violent, so I gave it up, more’s the pity.
March 27th, 2016 @ 8:09 pm
My daughter’s basketball team was like that. They started playing in the parochial leagues when they were in fourth grade, because our school didn’t have enough 7th and 8th graders. Of course they got trounced for two years. But by the time they were in 6th grade they one the first of an unprecedented three city championships and state final four appearance. (She played in H.S., but with different girls and it wasn’t nearly as much fun for her.)
My daughter now coaches U16 in Germany. Her first speech to the team was, “we’re going to kick butt because we’re going to have fun and we’re going to play like Americans.” So far, so good.
March 27th, 2016 @ 8:14 pm
Spaztastic!
March 27th, 2016 @ 10:21 pm
Heh – your daughter’s pretty cool…
March 28th, 2016 @ 6:57 am
Never worked. It’s hard to see what they are doing unless you are very practiced and know what you are looking at. It appeared they simply didn’t have any strength. The knotted rope is dispositive, even if you’re not sure what you are seeing, and with some the motion appears very close to a proper stroke. One girl had been playing for quite a while and had built her strength to the point she could throw fairly well. I used the rope and her and when she got past pushing, she could throw a rocket from 3rd to 1st with little effort.
March 28th, 2016 @ 6:59 am
But, like the girl I mentioned above, who didn’t lead with the wrong foot, could throw fairly well, but was still pushing.
April 1st, 2016 @ 9:46 am
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