Greer is not a person I respect. While I never read her books I did read interviews with her and discussions of her outlook and it is she I have foremost in mind when I write about the disintegration of feminism into just another resentment cult. At its beginning the inequality of women in society was stark. For a woman to have a job was…
Greer is not a person I respect. While I never read her books I did read interviews with her and discussions of her outlook and it is she I have foremost in mind when I write about the disintegration of feminism into just another resentment cult.
At its beginning the inequality of women in society was stark. For a woman to have a job was regarded as emasculation of her husband and she was paid barely over half what a man was paid for the same work. Feminism's original goals were focused on equality. Women should be able to have careers if they wanted (though many who preferred a more traditional role were looked down upon) and wages should be the same irrespective of gender. Feminism was anger. It was anger at the inequality.
What happened? Wages converged. Not all the way; instead of 50% women started getting 75% or so. Not ideal, but progress, and progress is good. It didn't mean to stop fighting for equality, but it was satisfying, and this led to the rage softening.
Catastrophe.
Maybe lecture attendance dropped off, maybe the rhetoric got a little milder, but the reaction in feminist circles was uniform: SHIFT THE FOCUS. Wages are measurable, progress could be quantified. This was intolerable. Without maximum rage there would not be maximum lecture fees nor maximum book sales.
Almost overnight feminism turned from an equality movement to a hate cult. This is when we started getting "womon" and "womyn" and "a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle." This is when women were encouraged to leave their boyfriends and husbands and become lesbians. Wages are measurable; "patriarchal attitudes" are not. Strident feminists could always say that The Patriarchy was becoming ever more oppressive, and they did, and they still do.
And for some, decades later, the bitterness has never died down. These feminists don't want male allies; men "can't possibly understand" and in making an attempt we are regarded as ppressive and condescending.
And this is when Greer and MacKinnon and the rest went from equality to liberation. They have done all they can to make men and women into enemies.
"Greer is not a person I respect. While I never read her books I did read interviews with her and discussions of her outlook and it is she I have foremost in mind when I write about the disintegration of feminism into just another resentment cult."
I'll admit to only having read a small selection of her work, as well as a number of interviews, but I feel broadly the same way. But she absolutely nailed the sex vs gender issue in the clip.
But as I've said before, an element always seems to arise in social justice movements that becomes more concerned with tearing down members the oppressor group than lifting up the members of the oppressed group. And therefore, they have to insist that all members of the oppressor group are the same and complicit in the oppression. Otherwise this position makes no sense.
Sadly, I think it's pretty much inevitable that once you've been in the trenches for a certain amount of time you become less nuanced. Anger and weariness take over unless you're paying very close attention.
"I think it's pretty much inevitable that once you've been in the trenches for a certain amount of time you become less nuanced. "
I think this is what happens to cops.
And it's obvious that people who think about gender issues too much, any of them, lose contact with reality because it's hard to accept a lot of what they claim to believe.
I could name more. A lot of chess players go insane in a particular way.
And, most interesting to me given my love of number theory ... mathematicians who deal with infinity almost always go nuts.
There was one idea that I think I got from PK Dick's Valis, first book of the trilogy, that I could not think long about without feeling I was losing my marbles. It was not a pleasant feeling. And, despite a memory like a steel trap, I've forgotten it. Something to do with the duality of Parmenides, but it's gone. Probably to my benefit.
Thanks for this. Since I grew up in a household with my mother as the head of the family in the 50s/early 60s, I understand the harm caused by underpaying women. That should make me a natural feminist, and with regard fair treatment of people regardless of sex or race I am fully on board with feminism and anti-racism in that realm.
But I don't call myself that and you just provided clarity as to why. I see them as people with a chip on their shoulder who promote divisiveness and demonization. Things that I oppose. I don't discard friends over differences of opinion, but I definitely discard venomous ideologies and organizations.
For much of my life I have been relatively apolitical and quite honestly gave little thought to it. My attitude towards feminists was more of a feel than something based in serious analysis. I've always been someone who easily made friends because I am inclined to like people. Then I started reading Medium and its extremist writers. It is changing me in ways I don't like. Or perhaps America has changed in unanticipated ways.
It's hard to wrap my mind around now but I was an *ardent* feminist of the equality variant. I tried to be a part of it. But by this time the "womon" thing was in vogue and the glares of smoldering hatred sorta turned me off. I volunteered as a cashier at a food bank and a lot of the lesbians with their chin beards would not look me in the eye, just glared at the counter and I had to put their change on it so our hands would not touch.
And you are probably familiar with the online forum phenomenon, present company excepted, of women who treat even the most polite disagreement as personal attack. I think this attitude came out of misandric feminism.
I wrote before about how the law must lead. Pay women the same as men.
"Then I started reading Medium and its extremist writers. It is changing me in ways I don't like. Or perhaps America has changed in unanticipated ways."
The "trans" writers on Medium, TaraElla excepted, are violently sick people. A lot of the "queer" men are likewise. To point out that a "trans" woman is biologically male means a full ban, not a warning, not a temporary, you are off the platform and lose any money you had coming. They've swallowed the whole fishing pole.
Greer is not a person I respect. While I never read her books I did read interviews with her and discussions of her outlook and it is she I have foremost in mind when I write about the disintegration of feminism into just another resentment cult.
At its beginning the inequality of women in society was stark. For a woman to have a job was regarded as emasculation of her husband and she was paid barely over half what a man was paid for the same work. Feminism's original goals were focused on equality. Women should be able to have careers if they wanted (though many who preferred a more traditional role were looked down upon) and wages should be the same irrespective of gender. Feminism was anger. It was anger at the inequality.
What happened? Wages converged. Not all the way; instead of 50% women started getting 75% or so. Not ideal, but progress, and progress is good. It didn't mean to stop fighting for equality, but it was satisfying, and this led to the rage softening.
Catastrophe.
Maybe lecture attendance dropped off, maybe the rhetoric got a little milder, but the reaction in feminist circles was uniform: SHIFT THE FOCUS. Wages are measurable, progress could be quantified. This was intolerable. Without maximum rage there would not be maximum lecture fees nor maximum book sales.
Almost overnight feminism turned from an equality movement to a hate cult. This is when we started getting "womon" and "womyn" and "a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle." This is when women were encouraged to leave their boyfriends and husbands and become lesbians. Wages are measurable; "patriarchal attitudes" are not. Strident feminists could always say that The Patriarchy was becoming ever more oppressive, and they did, and they still do.
And for some, decades later, the bitterness has never died down. These feminists don't want male allies; men "can't possibly understand" and in making an attempt we are regarded as ppressive and condescending.
And this is when Greer and MacKinnon and the rest went from equality to liberation. They have done all they can to make men and women into enemies.
To hell with them.
"Greer is not a person I respect. While I never read her books I did read interviews with her and discussions of her outlook and it is she I have foremost in mind when I write about the disintegration of feminism into just another resentment cult."
I'll admit to only having read a small selection of her work, as well as a number of interviews, but I feel broadly the same way. But she absolutely nailed the sex vs gender issue in the clip.
But as I've said before, an element always seems to arise in social justice movements that becomes more concerned with tearing down members the oppressor group than lifting up the members of the oppressed group. And therefore, they have to insist that all members of the oppressor group are the same and complicit in the oppression. Otherwise this position makes no sense.
Sadly, I think it's pretty much inevitable that once you've been in the trenches for a certain amount of time you become less nuanced. Anger and weariness take over unless you're paying very close attention.
"I think it's pretty much inevitable that once you've been in the trenches for a certain amount of time you become less nuanced. "
I think this is what happens to cops.
And it's obvious that people who think about gender issues too much, any of them, lose contact with reality because it's hard to accept a lot of what they claim to believe.
I could name more. A lot of chess players go insane in a particular way.
And, most interesting to me given my love of number theory ... mathematicians who deal with infinity almost always go nuts.
There was one idea that I think I got from PK Dick's Valis, first book of the trilogy, that I could not think long about without feeling I was losing my marbles. It was not a pleasant feeling. And, despite a memory like a steel trap, I've forgotten it. Something to do with the duality of Parmenides, but it's gone. Probably to my benefit.
Thanks for this. Since I grew up in a household with my mother as the head of the family in the 50s/early 60s, I understand the harm caused by underpaying women. That should make me a natural feminist, and with regard fair treatment of people regardless of sex or race I am fully on board with feminism and anti-racism in that realm.
But I don't call myself that and you just provided clarity as to why. I see them as people with a chip on their shoulder who promote divisiveness and demonization. Things that I oppose. I don't discard friends over differences of opinion, but I definitely discard venomous ideologies and organizations.
For much of my life I have been relatively apolitical and quite honestly gave little thought to it. My attitude towards feminists was more of a feel than something based in serious analysis. I've always been someone who easily made friends because I am inclined to like people. Then I started reading Medium and its extremist writers. It is changing me in ways I don't like. Or perhaps America has changed in unanticipated ways.
I don't know if you must be a subscriber to read this, but it is a generally thoughtful article on "woke" and how it matters. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/upshot/woke-meaning-democrats-republicans.html
It's hard to wrap my mind around now but I was an *ardent* feminist of the equality variant. I tried to be a part of it. But by this time the "womon" thing was in vogue and the glares of smoldering hatred sorta turned me off. I volunteered as a cashier at a food bank and a lot of the lesbians with their chin beards would not look me in the eye, just glared at the counter and I had to put their change on it so our hands would not touch.
And you are probably familiar with the online forum phenomenon, present company excepted, of women who treat even the most polite disagreement as personal attack. I think this attitude came out of misandric feminism.
I wrote before about how the law must lead. Pay women the same as men.
"Then I started reading Medium and its extremist writers. It is changing me in ways I don't like. Or perhaps America has changed in unanticipated ways."
The "trans" writers on Medium, TaraElla excepted, are violently sick people. A lot of the "queer" men are likewise. To point out that a "trans" woman is biologically male means a full ban, not a warning, not a temporary, you are off the platform and lose any money you had coming. They've swallowed the whole fishing pole.
But, sorry, America itself has changed.