The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Feminism’s Rhetorical Abracadabra

Posted on | February 15, 2017 | 2 Comments

You have to study rhetoric and logic and the techniques of propaganda if you are to understand how feminism succeeds. Having read all the major works of feminist theory, and having also read many other lesser-known but influential works (including popular Women’s Studies textbooks), I am not deceived by their obfuscation. “Oh, we don’t hate men,” the feminists will protest, when called out for their anti-male rhetoric, insisting that it is only “misogyny” or “patriarchy” or “rape culture” that is the object of their criticism. Yet all of these jargon phrases are merely synonyms for male evil. The very foundation of feminist theory is that males are perpetrators and beneficiaries of an unjust system of oppression of which all women are victims. The male is to feminism what the Jew is to anti-Semitism and, like the Jew-hater who recycles Hamas propaganda about the plight of Palestinians while pretending not to endorse Islamic terrorism, the feminist promotes atrocity narratives that demonize males, while pretending not to be a man-hater.

We must consider the effect of political rhetoric as indicative of intent. Was it merely a coincidence that the “Black Lives Matter” movement inspired race riots and the assassination of police officers? And was it merely a coincidence that feminist “rape culture” rhetoric inspired Rolling Stone‘s infamous University of Virginia rape hoax story?

The Left is very quick to blame “hate crimes” (e.g., Elliot Rodger and Dylan Roof) on “right-wing” rhetoric, even though many law-abiding Americans are “right-wing” (e.g., 63 million voted for Donald Trump) and utterly abhor such insane acts of lawless violence. If guilt-by-association smears are considered fair tactics by the Left, why shouldn’t the Right be allowed to turn around and play the same game? Insofar as the Left’s rhetoric incites hatred  — against men, against white people, against Christians, etc. — is it not fair to seek out incidents that illustrate the evil effects of this politically correct hate propaganda?

“One dishonest rhetorical trick feminists use is modifying an extreme statement by a phrase like ‘in Western society’ or ‘in our culture,’ as if there were some other society or culture that is violence-free and egalitarian. No, ma’am, there isn’t, but hey, good luck in your search for it.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, Feb. 14, 2017

What offends me about this kind of dishonest rhetoric, as it should offend every intelligent and literate reader, is the insulting presumption that we are too stupid to see through such abracadabra tricks.

Professor Carrie Jenkins and her new anti-monogamy book.

As I pointed out in my American Spectator column yesterday, feminist Professor Carrie Jenkins has published a book attacking “traditional, heteronormative, monogamous, pair-bonded, procreative, romantic love.” Professor Jenkins is a practitioner of “polyamory” who is against romantic love and against monogamy. Those of us who do not share her perverse habits have every right to voice our objections to her claims. Yesterday, I showed up unannounced at my wife’s workplace singing “My Girl” by the Temptations, and presenting her with roses, a heart-shaped box of candy and a greeting card. According to feminists, however, it is wrong for me to love my wife of nearly three decades, because traditional pair-bonded heteronormative monogamy is oppressive to women.

Should I ignore such insults? Am I to permit perverted Professor Jenkins to defame my wife? And should taxpayers fund the propagation of Professor Jenkins’ deviant doctrines without anyone taking offense?

Like other soi-disant “progressives,” feminists employ a simple method of propaganda — cite a series of anecdotes, and add in some statistical “studies” and tendentious social-science “research” all of which are selected to demonize some aspect of contemporary society. Of course, anyone can play this game to “prove” just about anything. Historically, we can furnish examples of how disastrous policies were supported by this kind of propaganda, e.g., Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union. Progressives alway envisions a utopian future where conditions of equality and “social justice” prevail, and the first step toward achieving this vision is to destroy the hated status quo. Progressive ideologies are always essentially destructive in this way, thus Friedrich Engels invoked a quote from Goethe’s Faust: “All that exists deserves to perish.”

Professor Jenkins, of course, does not intend to destroy the university that pays her salary, nor to destroy the company that published her book. The progressive takes for granted the continued existence of whatever parts of the status quo benefit them directly. Rather, they single out for criticism some aspect of “society” or “culture” that they dislike (e.g., Christian morality or Anglo-American common law tradition) and claim that by destroying this scapegoated enemy, they will bring about a better world. However, our civilization is composed of interlocking components, and it is foolish to imagine that we can tamper with one aspect of culture without risk of unintended consequences. For more than half a century, Americans have been desperately trying to undo the damage done by the demonic forces unleashed by the Left in the 1960s, and yet the Left continues proposing new “reforms” as if this damage is not enough to satisfy their appetite for destruction. Thus do we find Marshall University’s Department of Sexuality Studies hosting UC-Riverside Professor Jane Ward to give a lecture called “The Tragedy of Heterosexuality.” Certainly, if you contacted officials at Marshall — by calling (304) 696-5034 or emailing Director of Public Affairs Leah Payne (edwardl@marshall.edu) — they would deny being opposed to heterosexuality, per se, but only a fool would accept such an evasion.

You see, not all men are as stupid as feminists think we are, and I can show you Professor Ward’s class syllabus.

“Critical Approaches to Heterosexuality” Syllabus (UC-Riverside) by Robert Stacy McCain on Scribd

 

Glancing through that syllabus, you will find many names — Karin Martin, Gayle Rubin, Eve Sedgwick, Adrienne Rich, et al. — whose works I have discussed here and, if you think that any of these authors ever said anything in favor of heterosexuality, good luck finding those quotes. Yet if you read on, you will find Professor Ward concluded her course by proposing as “hope,” the alternatives of “Heterosexuality’s Feminist Future” and/or “Heterosexuality’s Queer Future.” Yes, and the Soviets promised Russians the bounty of a Lysenkoist harvest.

Let us ask, why should a lesbian feminist like Professor Ward be accorded the authority to dictate the “reform” of heterosexuality? Isn’t this rather like letting Hamas tell us how to deal with Jews? Isn’t Professor Ward claiming to be the lunatic best qualified to run the asylum?

Professor Jane Ward and her book, ‘Respectably Queer.’

If heterosexuals are expected to let Professor Ward tutor them in this manner, are we not permitted to offer our own theories? My suggestion is that Professor Ward, like other lesbians, is psychologically incapable of normal female emotional and sexual responses. We need not speculate about the etiology of Professor Ward’s psychosexual abnormality to say that she lacks the ability to experience the kind of arousal that most women feel toward males. Professor Ward does not experience erotic attraction toward men, and like every other lesbian, she would be insulted if anyone suggested to her that she could ever be happy in a relationship with a man. Therefore, if Professor Ward proposes any “reforms” to heterosexual behavior, it is not an ad hominem argument to note that these proposals are being offered by a woman who lacks the feelings of romantic admiration and desire toward men that are prerequisite to female heterosexuality. Would anyone take my advice seriously if I were to tell gay men or lesbians how to conduct their relationships? Would any publisher be interested in a book called Butch It Up, Buttercup: An Old Heterosexual Guy’s Advice to Lovelorn Queers?

Perhaps some publisher should offer Augustin Bizimana a contract for Die, Tutsi, Die: A Rwandan Hutu’s Guide to Achieving Ethnic Harmony. Lesbian feminists like Jane Ward may be slightly less anti-male than the leaders of Rwandan genocide were anti-Tutsi, but not by much.

Really, should we seek advice from successful people or failures? While I have difficulty listening to lectures on YouTube, this lecture by Professor Ward begins with her telling the story of how she “declared myself bisexual” circa 1995 after the end of a relationship with an ex-boyfriend she had dated for seven years. I repeat: SEVEN YEARS.

Ma’am, you are disqualified from offering relationship advice to anyone. To let a boyfriend string you along for seven years is utter folly, and the fact that you wasted your youth on a guy who played you for a chump does not commend you as an expert on anything except failure.

Why is it always the failures who want to tell the rest of us we’re doing everything wrong with our traditional heteronormativity?

Feminism is the blind leading the blind toward the proverbial ditch. Professor Ward is now an expert on genderqueer parenting. She and her partner Kat Ross are raising a child named Yarrow, about whom Professor Ward wrote in 2013: “As a parent of a 2 yr old with a penis, I can say that I just don’t know anything yet about Yarrow’s gender.” The lesbian parents were so fanatically devoted to this androgynous ideal that they never “used the words ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ to refer to Yarrow, or to anyone else’s children. This, and other genderqueer parenting practices, reflect our commitment to the movement for children’s gender self-determination.” While it’s too soon to speculate exactly how this feminist experiment will turn out, I’d bet $20 that Yarrow won’t be an all-state linebacker in high school. The rhetorical abracadabra of “genderqueer,” deployed in the context of parenting, functions to redefine the parameters of “success.” Who is to say what success or failure looks like, by genderqueer standards? Most parents would be proud of a son who became an all-state linebacker, but no lesbian feminist would judge her son by such traditional standards of masculinity, would she?

No, feminist parenting is about destroying the hated status quo, and feminists never want boys to succeed in any traditional way. Feminists are against male success, because feminism is a radical egalitarian doctrine based on a zero-sum-game mentality. Feminists believe male success is only achieved through the oppression of women, so that feminist “empowerment” of women requires a commitment to male failure. Of course, Professor Ward would deny this, but we can no more expect honesty from a feminist than we can expect her son to play football.

What feminists are good at (beyond sabotaging everything decent and wholesome in society) is playing intellectual word-games to obscure the destructive purposes of their movement. If you are a taxpayer in West Virginia, you might be wondering why a public university like Marshall would invite Professor Ward to promote her weird ideology there. You could call (304) 696-5034 or email Director of Public Affairs Leah Payne (edwardl@marshall.edu) to ask for an explanation, but don’t expect them to tell you the truth. Like every other university in America, the administration at Marshall is no longer in the truth business.



 

Category: Education, Gays, Sex Trouble

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2 Responses to “Feminism’s Rhetorical Abracadabra”

  1. Social Justice vs. Heterosexuality (and the Problem With ‘Male Feminists’) : The Other McCain
    February 18th, 2017 @ 8:34 pm

    […] Feb. 15: Feminism’s Rhetorical Abracadabra […]

  2. News of the Week (February 19th, 2017) | The Political Hat
    February 19th, 2017 @ 4:33 pm

    […] Feminism’s Rhetorical Abracadabra You have to study rhetoric and logic and the techniques of propaganda if you are to understand how feminism succeeds. […]