Feminism: The Demonization of Males

Posted on | March 2, 2017 | 1 Comment

She is a 28-year-old feminist witch with a Tumblr blog, and she also has another Tumblr blog in Swedish, from which I quote:

When women are exposed to sexual violence and exploitation [and] are encouraged to not call themselves “victims” or talk about their vulnerability, [it] becomes clear how a stigma around being just a victim . . . [is] cemented. But it is when misogynistic men say women who talk about men’s violence and patriarchal structures “just put on their victims cardigan” it becomes quite clear how this performance is a tool for the patriarchal forces to silence women, and to prevent us from [naming offenses] against us and who the perpetrators are.

The cardigan of victimhood is a term I’ve never encountered, but maybe the Google translation from Swedish was a bit sketchy. She says her witchcraft is “the opposition, a force to thwart the current system, the oppressing power,” yada yada yada. And oh, she’s got her theory:

To its nature, patriarchy is such that it normalizes, renders invisible like a chameleon the ways in which it is upheld, and the ways in which misogyny and male exploitation of women and male domination is reinforced. It renders invisible that certain things are expressions of male supremacy and misogyny, so that people won’t question it. It makes misogyny and male domination the default. That is its nature.
Prostitution (specifically, the act of buying sex) exists because male exploitation of women and men’s imagined entitlement to sex is normalized by patriarchy, to such an extent that many people can’t even see it for what it really is.
Porn exists because male objectification of women and male violence (both physical, mental and existential) is normalized by patriarchy, to such an extent that people can’t see that it isn’t a healthy and equal expression of sexuality and don’t care that women are exploited and hurt in the making of porn.
Femininity exists because female subordination and women’s submission to men is normalized by patriarchy to such an extent that people turn it into norms and ideals and believe this is what makes “a real woman” or makes a woman pleasing and gives her value.
Many norms and acts surrounding sex exist because male control over female bodies and the degradation of women is normalized by patriarchy, to such an extent that many people believe it to be nothing but their free choices, their own preferences unaffected by the surrounding environment — even when men themselves express how they see these norms and acts as ways of humiliating women.
The list of examples could go on. Maybe it should: because we need to put it into words, what the things we do and the norms we follow really stem from, how they have their roots in patriarchy, and how they reinforce female subordination and male domination. Questions need to be asked, questions such as “why?” and “who gains from this?”. Patriarchal forces want us to believe things must be as they are. We must show that they really mustn’t.

The point I wish to make here is not that this woman is crazy — although, obviously, she is — but rather that this kind of paranoid madness is a logical consequence of the core beliefs of feminism.

Most people in this world are just doing whatever it takes to survive. Get up in the morning, go to work, come home at the end of the day, eat supper, watch TV a while and go to sleep, then get up the next morning and do it again. Our lives are basically about paying the bills. Do men exploit, dominate, objectify and degrade women? Perhaps some do, but most guys are just working and paying bills. They don’t have spare time to do all that patriarchal oppression stuff. So what is she complaining about?

Consider, for example, the feminist witch’s denunciation of “norms and ideals” about what “makes a woman pleasing and gives her value.” While she is not specific as to what she means by this, we may assume that she is referring to “norms and ideals” of female appearance and behavior, especially as they are esteemed by men. In other words, what kind of women do men generally like best? It is ordinary male preferences which are being denounced in this diatribe about objectification, etc.

This demonization of males — the claim that women are victims of “mental and existential” violence, simply as a consequence of living in the same world with men — is inherent to feminist theory. This isn’t just what some random Tumblrina is spewing on the Internet, it’s what is being taught in university Women’s Studies courses. If any man objects to this insulting rhetoric, he is accused of being a misogynist. The only enlightened men, according to feminists, are men who hate themselves, who enthusiastically agree with this anti-male ideology. If men say that feminists are engaged in exaggeration when they “talk about men’s violence and patriarchal structures,” this criticism is rejected as a “tool for the patriarchal forces to silence women.” Far from seeking to “silence” feminists, of course, my purpose is to quote them at length, so that everybody can see how crazy they are. The craziness is self-evident.

Furthermore, as I say, this craziness isn’t just the province of a few fringe kooks, but is the essential core of feminist belief. Here, let me quote an eminent academic feminist:

Lesbian feminist politics is a political critique of the institution and ideology of heterosexuality as a cornerstone of male supremacy. . . .
Therefore, women interested in destroying male supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism must, equally with lesbians, fight heterosexual domination — or we will never end female oppression. . . .
We need to discover what lesbian consciousness means for any woman, just as we struggle to understand what class or race consciousness means for women of any race or class. And we must develop strategies that will destroy the political institutions that oppress us.
It is particularly important for those at this conference to understand that heterosexuality — as an ideology and an institution — upholds all those aspects of female oppression discussed here.

So said Charlotte Bunch in a 1975 speech at the Socialist Feminist Conference at Antioch College in Ohio. Professor Bunch is not a marginal “fringe” figure in the history of feminism. That speech was included in a 1981 anthology Building Feminist Theory, a collection of essays from Quest, a feminist journal founded by Professor Bunch, and the foreword to that book was written by none other than Gloria Steinem. Notice that the goal of Professor Bunch’s movement is “destroying male supremacy” by the destruction of heterosexuality “as an ideology and an institution.”

Charlotte Bunch speaks at Antioch College, July 1975.

The first paragraph of Charlotte Bunch’s 1972 manifesto, ‘Lesbians in Revolt.’

Notice again Professor Bunch’s destructive goal — “destroying our sexist, racist, capitalist, imperialist system.” Was the “system” of American society in 1971 so atrocious that it deserved destruction? Whether you think so or not, the point is that the entire feminist movement agreed with this assessment. This was why Gloria Steinem wrote the foreword of that 1981 anthology, as an endorsement of these beliefs.

 

Charlotte Bunch became one of the most influential feminists in America. She is the founding director and senior scholar at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University, where she is a distinguished professor in Women’s and Gender Studies. Professor Bunch has many powerful admirers. In 2013, at a sold-out New York gala for the Global Women’s Fund, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton introduced Professor Bunch, who was the guest of honor at the event.

 

In her introductory speech, Secretary Clinton praised Professor Bunch as an “activist and organizer” and an “extraordinary leader” whose “tireless work and her brilliant vision” placed this radical lesbian on “the front lines of the struggle” to promote feminism internationally.

 

Professor Bunch “was one of a small group of women” chosen by Secretary Clinton to direct the State Department’s feminist agenda, she told the audience at the April 2013 gala. While Secretary Clinton did not mention Professor Bunch’s decades-long commitment “to destroying our sexist, racist, capitalist, imperialist system,” certainly her praise for the world-famous lesbian feminist leader could be considered an endorsement of Professor Bunch’s anti-heterosexual ideology.

When we encounter a self-described feminist witch on Tumblr ranting about “men’s violence and patriarchal structures,” you see, we cannot dismiss such a woman as a lone kook, because the feminist movement’s most eminent intellectuals share the same basic beliefs as the kook.

Now consider the fact that Hillary Clinton, who offered such effusive praise for Charlotte Bunch, came within about 70,000 votes of becoming President of the United State. Doesn’t this suggest that our society is teetering on the brink of utter madness? And shouldn’t we do all we can to alert Americans to this threat? March is Women’s History Month, and maybe it’s time to wake people up to the real history of feminism.

The logic of feminism. https://t.co/1cEJIWE01W pic.twitter.com/TBYmc0HaIW

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) February 27, 2017

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

 

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