Notes for a talk at ICMI with the following title: Feminism: Not “progressive”. Not “egalitarian”. Not “liberal”. Not “left-wing”.
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Feminism is not “progressive”: It’s regressive; it is based on misandry, sexist discrimination, hate & bias; it suppresses science (esp. on domestic violence, on female violence and on criminology in general); it is conspiracist; it asserts the existence of a non-existent entity “Patriarchy”; it is ultra-conservative, in its treating women as helpless infants. Infantilism about women is conservative, not progressive.
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Feminism is not “egalitarian”: It demands, and achieves, preferential treatment for a privileged group (women). By definition, this is anti-egalitarian.
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Feminism is not “liberal”: To the contrary, it is socially conservative—women are infants, without agency; it is illiberal & authoritarian; it demands increasing state power; it uses the police and institutional power as a tool of social control; it is moralistic & Puritan. More or less by definition, these are central principle of state-enforced illiberalism, social illiberalism and social conservatism.
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Feminism is not “left-wing”: It has no interest in economic fairness (esp. those at the bottom of society); it is openly anti-working-class. Marxism and socialism are, by definition, left-wing because their primary concern is with economic exploitation, wage slavery, alienation of the worker, co-erced theft of their labour, and so on. Feminism is, in no way, “left-wing”. Feminism is a form of Identity Politics. This, in general, is an anti-left-wing position. Furthermore, it is a form of Identity Politics closely aligned with the State, policing, punishment and incarceration (so-called carceral feminism). Again, these are not “left-wing”. They have been traditionally right-wing positions for centuries.
The ICMI20 talk is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZQf1JDa28Y&list=PLOXfnai0-o0I8BtOpmjbn_3FGYBHiV64S
Whenever you have new people in the audience, you have people unfamiliar with the foundations, the history, and the progress. That’s just life. If you want to attract people to your way of thinking and grow the movement, you are going to have to find a way to welcome newcomers and bring them up to speed, not turn them away.
Unless you are content to just beaver away on your research, revelling in all the progress you are making and making pronouncements from on high, you will have to test your theories in the real world. That means engaging with critics, those with other theories, especially incompatible theories, and being open to learning new things, even things that might force you to change your mind.
Most importantly, you have to acknowledge that not every person who disagrees with you or questions your thesis is a bad actor. There are plenty of people who just want to learn and grow and addressing what they see as weak arguments both guides them on their journey and strengthens any arguments that withstand the test.
You are correct.
Especially in this case I probably judged GravyMan prematurely. He’s using detailed definitions and explanations which I usually attribute to “Academic types” who have years of in depth experience in the topic and can’t possibly be completely blind to the double standards present within feminism. But looking back, his statements are more like feministm 101 type statements, so it’s actually believable that he just doesn’t have any in depth understanding of what he’s talking about.
So I definitely should have taken a far more charitable approach.
I’m not sure what to say beyond that I feel this kind of response to criticism deserves more than a mere upvote. My expectation was to be ignored or to see pushback, because that seems to be one of the more common forms of “discussion” these days.
Thanks for showing me that my own preconceptions could stand a few adjustments. :)
Getting frustrated and blunt with having to keep pointing out the blatant sexism, bigotry, and hatred in a gender supremacy group is very different from an “i’m right all the time fuck you” attitude.
Even if they look the same to the average feminist, @Dienervent’s response didn’t surprise me at all.