Modern Feminism's The Problem, With Its Ugly, Bullying Authoritarianism
Feminism has become ugly, bullying, authoritarianism, with feminists demanding special rights under the guise of equal rights.
Emily Hill writes at The Spectator:
It would be easy to believe from the papers these days that women have never been more oppressed. From the columnist Caitlin Moran to the comedian Bridget Christie, a new creed is preached: that we are the victims, not the victors, of the sex war. Feminists claim we are objectified by the builder's whistle, that a strange man attempting to flirt with us is tantamount to sexual assault. Suddenly, just as it seemed we women were about to have it all, a new wave of feminists has begun to portray us as feeble-minded -- unable to withstand a bad date, let alone negotiate a pay rise.Worse still, they are ditching what was best about the feminist tradition: solidarity with the sisterhood and the freedom of every woman to do as she pleased. Feminism 4.0 consists of freely attacking other women over, erm, crucial issues such as bikini waxing, wearing stilettos and page three of the Sun. Moran writes that it is childbirth that 'turns you from a girl into a woman' (causing every woman in my office to snort involuntarily) and that feminism will only triumph 'when a woman goes up to collect the Oscar for Best Actress in shoes that aren't killing her'. The revolution will be televised, with 'Nicole Kidman in flip-flops'.
Well, if this is feminism, then feminism is dead, and the triviality of the fights feminists pick is the surest proof of its demise. What started as a genuine crusade against genuine prejudice has become a form of pointless attention-seeking.
...So the next generation have everything to play for -- if only they aren't encouraged to view themselves as helpless victims at the mercy of an insuperable patriarchy. Only 19 per cent identify as feminist nowadays, which perhaps isn't surprising since it's become so dull. In the 1970s, feminists were ball-breaking, ass-kicking, devil-may-care thinkers -- the likes of Greer, Gloria Steinem and Susan Sontag. Now the 'voice of a generation' is Harry Potter star Emma Watson, who delivered a highly praised speech to the UN, lamenting that her girlfriends had given up competitive sport because they were worried it might make their arms look 'muscly'.
But while Watson frets about the tyranny of the male gaze, it's being eyeballed by a feminist which is truly terrifying. These middle-class aesthetes love to boss other -- particularly working-class -- women around, sneering at how they dress and behave. They disapprove of Beyoncé and Rihanna flaunting their beautiful -bodies in pop videos with a vehemence you might expect from the Taleban. In April, an advert featuring a busty model appeared on the Tube, with the tagline: 'Are you beach body ready?' Within hours it had been defaced; within days 44,000 signatures had been appended to a petition demanding it be removed. Making sure women are covered up in public, so their bare flesh doesn't offend anyone, is something you'd expect in Saudi Arabia, not here, where we should be free to dress as provocatively as we please.
Every word of this is true. Enough.
Exhausted of it all at October 23, 2015 10:08 PM
Modern feminism is totalitarian and expansionist, albeit the latter not in the typical sense one thinks of when discussing political ideologies. Instead, its adherents seek ever-smaller microaggressions to police (nanoaggressions? picoaggressions?). There's some evidence that self-described feminists are in numerical decline, perhaps a consequence of the cognitive dissonance that exists in the gap of defining feminism as simple equality between the sexes, and real-world proposals offered up by its adherents (e.g. affirmative consent laws, bogus rape statistics, wooly-headed wage gaps, and the conspiracy theories of "rape culture" and "patriarchy").
Such a feminism seems so obviously idiotic it should be self-extinguishing within a generation or so; it's hard to imagine a majority of women are that dumb. Yet Jezebel and other smaller feminist media outlets steam on. My theory, untroubled by data or research in the matter, is that modern feminism draws from two reservoirs of support, one small, one large:
1) Lesbian separatists, who staff the academic walls of womens' studies departments and provide the bulk of feminist theory. They are, necessarily, a small subgroup.
2) Only children, daughters of comparative privilege who had little intimate contact with boys as peers (or near peers) at a young age, and thus lack empathy for them.
The historical contributions of the former group (think Andrea Dworkin, but there are many others) are incontestable. The latter is my own conception of young feminists' background today, informed only by anecdote. A fuller investigation into the demographics of modern feminism would prove fascinating, yet no one seems willing to fund such an excursion.
Rob McMillin at October 24, 2015 7:27 AM
This Emily Hill can really write. Smooth and focused.
Canvasback at October 24, 2015 11:24 AM
Really,really good. Today's feminists are harsh, belligerent and refuse to acknowledge ongoing abuse of girls and women in the Middle East, and now, in Europe.
Another Amy at October 24, 2015 3:28 PM
"...Only children, daughters of comparative privilege who had little intimate contact with boys as peers (or near peers) at a young age, and thus lack empathy for them."
I think it's a bigger group than just that. Consider that although there is a much larger group who did have contact with boys as young girls, they have been taught since toddler-age that boys are inferior and that the "cool girl" does not associate with them. Teenagehood and hormonal drives comes along, and that gets them confused, which just makes them more angry at the world: why should she have desires for entities who are clearly not worth her presence? It's nonsensical. Best thing to do in order to avoid wrongthought is to retreat to the safety of the tribe.
Cousin Dave at October 24, 2015 5:17 PM
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