In a comment on yesterday’s post, Jeff JP (who remains convinced that I am sonehow filled with self-loathing) does manage to ask a good question that deserves a thoughtful response. I wrote:
It wasn’t until I started to do men’s work with other
pro-feminist men that I began to feel sufficiently empowered to start
calling guys on their (sometimes) unintentional miosgyny.
Jeff JP replied:
Thanks for proving that "misogyny" is one of those words–just like
"patriarchy"–that feminists have abused and misused so extensively
that it’s nearly devoid of meaning. I just checked several current
dictionaries of Standard English, and they define "misogyny" as "hatred
of women." Please explain how "hatred" can be unintentional.
On reflection, I should have used the word "unthinking" instead of "unintentional"; a small distinction that seems to capture my point a bit better.
I’d suggest that the parallel to "misogyny" is "bigotry." When it comes to racial issues, are there not many different types of bigots? Not every bigot wanders around in a white sheet, aware of and proud of their race hatreds. Some bigots deny that they are bigots: "Oh, some of my best friends are black, but in general…" Hatred is a powerful word, and it would be too simplistic to believe that it always manifests itself in violent, obvious ways.
To hate someone, feminists suggest, is to see them as less than fully human. Hatred is far more than an emotion of intense, conscious dislike. Hatred is the absence of compassion, the absence of imagination, the absence of a recognition of a common humanity. Rape is a profound expression of hatred, because it is misogyny expressed in brutal physical terms. But just as misogyny has defining actions (rape and assault), it also has defining language. The language of misogyny can range from vicious verbal abuse that reduces a woman to an object (c*nt, the primary example in American English) to blanket statements about women’s abilities (women can’t drive as well as men.)
Much of the misogyny of the men’s rights movement is directed towards feminists. Just as racists in the Old South divided blacks into "good negroes" and "uppity troublemakers", so misogynists create a dichotomy of "good women" (submissive, eager to please, able to "take a joke", uncritical of bad male behavior) and "feminazis" (women who demand accountability from men and who ask to be taken seriously as human beings.) To say one likes individual women, therefore, is no defense against the charge of misogyny. Plenty of racists like individual members of other ethnic groups. To be hostile to the movement that seeks to liberate women is enough, in my book, to merit the charge of misogyny.
Misogyny is also institutionalized in our society. Perhaps it is my Christian faith informing my feminism, but I am convinced that pornography is the representative art form of a woman-hating culture. In porn, women exist to fulfill men’s desires — they have no real agency of their own. To see anyone as existing only to serve you and to fulfill you is, feminists have argued, a practical form of hatred. Relatively few men who use porn are conscious of hating women. But regular use of porn inevitably desensitizes the viewer to the humanity and dignity of all of the women with whom he interacts. It defies all we know about human psychology to say that a fellow can go from masturbating to images on his TV or computer screen into interactions with real women without objectifiying them.
Let’s be clear here. Most folks, if they are really honest about it,
go through periods of their lives where they experience (with varying
degrees of intensity) authentic dislike for the other sex. Many will
go through periods where they also dislike their own. ( Self-loathing
among young women is famous — if I had a dollar for every young woman
I’ve worked with who’s said "All my good friends are guys" or "Girls
are too competitive, I don’t like them" I’d have enough money to pay
for a sweet honeymoon!) Most of us take our own personal negative
experiences and, at least for a while, allow them to make us
fundamentally suspicious of (and perhaps openly hostile to) the other
sex. This is one form of genuine misogyny — or, yes, misandry.
We are eager to evade personal responsibility. An anti-Semite can comfort herself by saying, "Oh, I don’t hate Jews — Hitler hated Jews. I just think that they have too much influence in our culture." A racist can say: "Oh, I don’t agree with the Klan. But if my daughter brought home a black man, well, I’d be pretty unhappy about that." Surely we’d all agree that these are examples of bigotry? Similarly, a man can say "I don’t hate women. I love women. But I think that feminists are out to control and manipulate us."
That’s misogyny too, Jeff.
Brilliant post, Hugo. I shall have to link to it for posterity.
This backpedaling from words like misogyny, racism, and homophobia strikes me as part and parcel of the “no responsibility” culture, like if we restrict the scope of words enough, we won’t be responsible for the things we know in our heart we’ve done to others, because it won’t fall under any of the big, bad words others use for that kind of behavior.
Wasn’t it Amanda who commented here once about it being considered ruder to call someone out on their racism than to be a racist? Same applies with misogyny. If you point it out, it’s you that has the problem, apparently.
On reflection, I should have used the word “unthinking” instead of “unintentional”; a small distinction that seems to capture my point a bit better.
Actually, you ought to have used a different word than “misogyny.” I think you’re trying to say that some men evince a general disregard or cluelessness about women and their concerns and sensibilities that I would call “ignorance.”
I’d suggest that the parallel to “misogyny” is “bigotry.”
I disagree because the underlying sense of “bigotry” focuses on the inner experiences of prejudices and narrowmindedness of a bigot. By contrast, “misogyny” is directed outward toward one identifiable group–toward women–and is a specific kind of attitude toward that group, i.e., hatred.
When it comes to racial issues, are there not many different types of bigots? Not every bigot wanders around in a white sheet, aware of and proud of their race hatreds. Some bigots deny that they are bigots: “Oh, some of my best friends are black, but in general…”
The comparison of “bigotry” to “misogyny” is neither accurate nor helpful because “bigotry” refers to an attitude toward a theoretically infinite number of persons and non-person objects. By contrast, the definition of “misogyny” is quite clear; it means “hatred of women.”
Hatred is a powerful word, and it would be too simplistic to believe that it always manifests itself in violent, obvious ways.
“Hatred” is indeed a powerful word and, in my opinion, a loaded one. Accusing a person or a group of “hatred” will very often, if not always, trigger a powerful response from that person.
Of course, you can use a lot of weasel words, as you do below, to avoid the main issue here: the meaning of “misogyny.”
To hate someone, feminists suggest, is to see them as less than fully human. Hatred is far more than an emotion of intense, conscious dislike. Hatred is the absence of compassion, the absence of imagination, the absence of a recognition of a common humanity. Rape is a profound expression of hatred, because it is misogyny expressed in brutal physical terms. But just as misogyny has defining actions (rape and assault), it also has defining language. The language of misogyny can range from vicious verbal abuse that reduces a woman to an object (c*nt, the primary example in American English) to blanket statements about women’s abilities (women can’t drive as well as men.)
You’ve done it again. Instead of responding directly to my criticism of the misuse and abuse of “misogyny,” you’ve obfuscated the matter by expanding “hatred” to include a whole array of things that are not hatred.
I understand quite well that words often have nuances and subtleties that we must consider if we are to use them artfully. I respectfully suggest that what you really mean is a form of “ignorance” rather than “hatred of women.”
That distinction is important for several reasons. First, it’s a more clear expression of reality. One may be “ignorant” of the problems of women and women’s concerns, and thus be insensitive to them and act accordingly. However, to equate that ignorance with “hatred” does not seem to do much beyond provoking angry responses from those of us who are falsely and recklessly accused of “misogyny.” (Yes, Hugo, you accused me of “misogyny” in an earlier thread, an accusation I categorically reject as false as well as wholly unsubstantiated.)
Second, our responses to ignorance tend to differ markedly from our responses to hatred. When we encounter hatred, it’s far too easy to respond with hatred of our own, with self-righteousness, and with ostracism. On the other hand, when we encounter ignorance, we are more likely–though certainly not sure–to respond with love and compassion. We are often inclined to educate, to increase awareness, and to help the ignorant than we are to do those things for people we deem “hateful.”
Third, a practical reason to distinguish “ignorance” and “hatred” is that the former term will be more palatable, not to mention accurate, to the men you want to persuade to your pro-feminist viewpoint. By contrast, if you begin by accusing them of “hatred”–or even by looking down at them because of your perception of their supposed “hatred,” then it’s probably going to be much harder to have a meaningful and productive dialogue with them.
Much of the misogyny of the men’s rights movement is directed towards feminists. Just as racists in the Old South divided blacks into “good negroes” and “uppity troublemakers”, so misogynists create a dichotomy of “good women” (submissive, eager to please, able to “take a joke”, uncritical of bad male behavior) and “feminazis” (women who demand accountability from men and who ask to be taken seriously as human beings.) To say one likes individual women, therefore, is no defense against the charge of misogyny.
Do you say this about feminists who hate men? If so, I’ve yet to see it posted here. When feminists are accused of hating men, they often say that they love their husbands, fathers, brothers, etc. To say one likes individual men, therefore, is no defense against the charge of misandry, right?
Plenty of racists like individual members of other ethnic groups. To be hostile to the movement that seeks to liberate women is enough, in my book, to merit the charge of misogyny.
By your own words and reasoning, then, women (and men, for that matter) who oppose the men’s rights movement are misandrists. Thanks for proving one of my more general criticisms of feminism by your own admission.
Misogyny is also institutionalized in our society. Perhaps it is my Christian faith informing my feminism, but I am convinced that pornography is the representative art form of a woman-hating culture. In porn, women exist to fulfill men’s desires — they have no real agency of their own. To see anyone as existing only to serve you and to fulfill you is, feminists have argued, a practical form of hatred. Relatively few men who use porn are conscious of hating women.
Perhaps that’s because they don’t hate women. “Ignorance”? Maybe. “Hatred”? No way.
Expanding terms like “misogyny” and one of its roots, “hatred,” so broadly effectively renders them meaningless. That’s a common debate tactic of feminists, but I don’t buy it.
But regular use of porn inevitably desensitizes the viewer to the humanity and dignity of all of the women with whom he interacts. It defies all we know about human psychology to say that a fellow can go from masturbating to images on his TV or computer screen into interactions with real women without objectifiying them.
This is taken from the Feminist Propaganda 101 course. I have yet to see any proof for these claims. Note, too, the inherent misandry in making such claims.
Let’s be clear here. Most folks, if they are really honest about it, go through periods of their lives where they experience (with varying degrees of intensity) authentic dislike for the other sex. Many will go through periods where they also dislike their own. ( Self-loathing among young women is famous — if I had a dollar for every young woman I’ve worked with who’s said “All my good friends are guys” or “Girls are too competitive, I don’t like them” I’d have enough money to pay for a sweet honeymoon!) Most of us take our own personal negative experiences and, at least for a while, allow them to make us fundamentally suspicious of (and perhaps openly hostile to) the other sex. This is one form of genuine misogyny — or, yes, misandry.
Again, this is more evidence of expansive definitions. This time, you’re including “dislike” and “suspicion” in terms that, at their very roots, mean “hatred.” Your equivocations are demonstrating exactly what I’ve asserted: feminists abuse and misuse the term “misogyny.” Thanks!
We are eager to evade personal responsibility. An anti-Semite can comfort herself by saying, “Oh, I don’t hate Jews — Hitler hated Jews. I just think that they have too much influence in our culture.” A racist can say: “Oh, I don’t agree with the Klan. But if my daughter brought home a black man, well, I’d be pretty unhappy about that.” Surely we’d all agree that these are examples of bigotry?
You’re lumping together many examples that relate, at the very most, only tangentially to the word “misogyny.” You’re also engaging in a very common, and intelluctually dishonest, tactic that ideologues use to try to silence debate. For example, when one cries, “anti-Semitism,” “racism,” or “misogyny,” one uses such loaded words that we’re all supposed to shut up and go home, right?
Citing more examples of recklessly misused terms does not prove that “misogyny” is not also recklessly misused.
Similarly, a man can say “I don’t hate women. I love women. But I think that feminists are out to control and manipulate us.”
That’s misogyny too, Jeff.
Again, by your own choice of words and reasoning, feminists are necessarily misandrists.
Jeff JP
Hugo: Plenty of racists like individual members of other ethnic groups. To be hostile to the movement that seeks to liberate women is enough, in my book, to merit the charge of misogyny.
Jeff JP: By your own words and reasoning, then, women (and men, for that matter) who oppose the men’s rights movement are misandrists. Thanks for proving one of my more general criticisms of feminism by your own admission.
Women (feminists) who oppose the men’s rights movement (as opposed to the men’s movement) are hostile to the movement precisely because they (we) don’t accept it as seeking to liberate men, but to resubjugate women. See the various threads here on it for evidence. Your criticism of Hugo therefore doesn’t stand up.
Gosh, Jeff, where to start?
I would accept the charge that those who oppose the Men’s Rights Movement are misandrists if I thought that the Men’s Rights Movement actually was interested in genuine liberation and transformation. The MRM represents only one small strand of the men’s movement. (A blessing indeed.)
The Men’s Rights Movement is a backlash against specific gains achieved by the feminist movement, especially in the areas of divorce, child custody and sexual harassment. Its rhetoric (of the kind seen at the Manpower blog to which I linked last month) is hostile and rage-filled.
I have no trouble labelling these fellows misogynistic. As for you, Jeff, I am sure that there are individual women whom you love and respect very much. I’m sure you’re a heckuva guy. But the positions you’ve taken place make you a defender of institutionalized misogyny.
“Ignorance” doesn’t work for me. “Ignorance” has no emotion attached to it — hatred does.
One manifestation of “hatred” is loathing and/or utter revulsion. But there are less extreme manifestations of hatred…disrespect, for example.
I get so tired of anti-feminists who get hung up on the term “misogyny”, and point to some dictionary definition that mentions “hatred.” Those same anti-feminists would never assert the same misgivings about someone who said “oh, I hate mayonnaise!” if the subject was food.
I hate mayonnaise. The taste of it makes me puke. I don’t, however, go through the grocery store with a ballbat, gleefully smashing mayonnaise jars as I cruise through the aisle. And so it is with misogynists, who (for the most part) abstain from rampages of killing and/or mutilating women, instead preferring to manifest their hate by thinking of us as lesser beings—less intelligent, less capable, less moral, less spiritual, less trustworthy, etc.
Hatred does not just refer to uncontrollable rage. It also refers to everyday, run-of-the-mill dislike. That’s hate, too Jeff. And if you had ever been the target of it, you would know that.
It’s not just ignorance - ignorance would imply that the men we call misogynists simply don’t know much about women. In fact, what they display is a casual (or, in some cases, less than casual) belief that women are less worthy, less able, and generally inferior to men. That is a very important distinction. I perhaps wouldn’t go so far as to call the entire spectrum “hatred”. But it’s certainly a better word than “ignorance”. It’s on the right track.
I would accept the charge that those who oppose the Men’s Rights Movement are misandrists if I thought that the Men’s Rights Movement actually was interested in genuine liberation and transformation.
Many men feel the same way about feminism. To many men, feminism is a movement that demands female supremacy, special protections, and special privileges. Of course, since you support feminism and basically loathe men and boys, I don’t expect you to understand that.
The Men’s Rights Movement is a backlash against specific gains achieved by the feminist movement, especially in the areas of divorce, child custody and sexual harassment.
Ah, unable to deal with my demand for a precise, useful definition of “misogyny,” you trot out the old “backlash” nonsense.
Its rhetoric (of the kind seen at the Manpower blog to which I linked last month) is hostile and rage-filled.
Wow. Just a week ago, you lectured your readers thusly:
“But newsflash, people: Andrea Dworkin is not a mainstream feminist, and Warren Farrell does not speak for the entire men’s movement! So please, spare us absurd quotations out of context from the likes of these.” (emphasis in original)
However, today you cite the Manpower blog as the example of the rhetoric of the men’s rights movement. What is one to make of these incongruous statements, made only a week apart?
Here’s what I make of it. You hold men’s activists to a much higher standard than you demand of women’s activists. Based on the incredibly loose definitions you advocate for both “misogyny” and “hatred,” one could well call you a misogynist. After all, if you’re going to demand a higher standard of conduct from men, that demand must be rooted in some implicit–probably unconscious–sense of male superiority. Most likely, you despise women; you’re just not aware of that.
I have no trouble labelling these fellows misogynistic. As for you, Jeff, I am sure that there are individual women whom you love and respect very much. I’m sure you’re a heckuva guy. But the positions you’ve taken place make you a defender of institutionalized misogyny.
If that’s so, then the positions you’ve taken make you a self-loathing misandrist.
“Ignorance” doesn’t work for me. “Ignorance” has no emotion attached to it — hatred does.
Of course “ignorance” doesn’t work for you. You want to label men as “hateful” rather than “ignorant.” Your appeals are indeed playing to emotion rather than reason. You use words recklessly imprecisely, and then you retreat into an attempt to defend that imprecision by an appeal to emotion. Since you chose to ignore my reasons for using “ignorance,” there isn’t really much point in my saying more about this.
Thanks for giving me yet another example of a feminist who cannot support his or her claims with evidence, the most elementary reasoned discourse, or anything but mindless ideology and dogma.
Jeff JP
“Hatred” may not necessarily be at issue in misogyny. Same can be said about racism. The better term is “disrespect”, and that applies to kinfolk as well as strangers. Equality is at issue. Many racists (white supremacists) and many misogynists (male supremacists) may truly “love” their nannies/maids and their mothers, wives, and daughters. However, their love is based on the services delivered to and deference shown to them. Cessation of services and deference turns these relationships sour, because “they have no right to do that!”. Furthermore, women outside of the family deserve no respect if they presume to use resources “only men deserve” (jobs, school slots, etc). Ditto for those of other races, who are not seen as valid competitors.
Some feminists may be trapped in the late 1960s-early 1970s separatist time warp that anti-feminists love to portray as The Feminism - but if so, I haven’t met any of these trapped-in-amber fossils. I suspect anti-feminists love these separatist tracts from 40 years ago, since they get to prove their points without actually having to talk with live feminists with the modicum of human decency and respect that it takes to qualify as an immediately discredited asshat. Not unlike David Horowitz bragging about his Black Panther days - he doesn’t have to talk with real live blacks in 2005, he already knows how bad they are.
I would say that the negative emotion expressed by real live feminists towards “men in general” is distrust. Check the guy out - he may be a good guy, he may be a bully, he may be honest, he may be trying to scam you if a politician or a car mechanic. Funny, I get the impression that most blacks operate the same way towards whites - wary at first. In general, those who are not members of the societal category “in power” know more about the folks in power than the powerholders know about the “out” folks. It’s called survival skills.
oops, “to NOT qualify as an immediately discredited asshat”
“Many men feel the same way about feminism. To many men, feminism is a movement that demands female supremacy, special protections, and special privileges.”
Well, they’re wrong. I feel the moon is made of green cheese, but I’m wrong. The very fact that you expect us to capitulate to these men because they are men is indicative of your thinking.
I don’t think men are inferior to me. But I don’t think they are superior. I know. It’s hard to understand. I think we are EQUALS.
But talking to MRA dudes, you get the distinct impression they think equality is impossible and if women gain, men must by definition lose. So wanting equality is defined as “man-hating”. But wishing doesn’t make it so, Jeff.
I mean, men do stand to lose things under feminism–supremacy, ownership of female bodies, the right to watch TV while their wife cleans up around them, whatever. But these were not men’s to begin with, but are in fact stolen goods.
Hugo, I agree that most porn is anti-female, but I would say no more really than most entertainment products dehumanize and objectify women. I deliberately avoid criticizing porn on my blog because the stereotypes are obvious, and too quickly it becomes this debate about whether or not showing sex in and of itself is bad for women, which I admantly refuse to believe. Masturbation products aimed at men are offensive because entertainment products as a whole aimed at men define themselves through this homosocial anti-female theme you elaborate on below. Ever watch “The Man Show”? Much worse than any Jenna Jameson film I’ve seen.
Hatred doesn’t have to be white-hot or all-consuming to be damaging. Prejudice can be held out of ignorance, fear, rage, hatred or just never really thinking about received information, but when it turns into discrimination, that’s a problem. And one way it turns into discrimination is when prejudice is shared and reinforced among the in-group, because it leads to exclusion of those in the out-group.
Men may perceive feminism as man-hating because in order for women to make gains against discrimination, men have had to let go of some of the privileges they’ve been granted by virtue of their sex. Now, certain things can be gained by women without affecting men, such as the right to enter into contracts and own their own property. The gaining of other rights, such as the right to enter into certain jobs previously reserved for men, necessarily entails the letting go of the privilege of men to hold those jobs exclusively.
Some men see that as a welcome change, the free market at work and all that, but others see that as a threat. The MRA’s seem to see changes in the family court system giving greater rights to women in divorce and child custody (as opposed to the prior system, where men were automatically granted custody) as a threat, instead of a more equitable distribution. So they look to set back the gains women have made to level the playing field.
I hate mayonnaise. The taste of it makes me puke. I don’t, however, go through the grocery store with a ballbat, gleefully smashing mayonnaise jars as I cruise through the aisle.
Oh, please don’t — I’d fly into shrieking fits. That stuff is the snot of the Devil.
I’d call the most common form of negative attitudes about women contempt rather than outright hatred, though haters exist, too.
It is this contempt which causes anger when women are seen as somehow overstepping the boundaries that the contempt defines them by. That’s why a woman behaving submissively and quietly tends not to elicit negative reactions, and that’s why women like Hilary Clinton cause a lot of people dyspepsia.
Much to which to respond.
Jeff:
I said Warren Farrell wasn’t representative of the men’s movement. But Manpower, as best as I can tell, is fairly representative of the men’s RIGHTS movement (MRM). There’s a world of difference there — the MRM (the anti-feminists) are one small constituency in a much larger men’s movement, which includes pro-feminists, the mytho-poetic men’s movement, groups like Promise Keepers, and gay men’s groups. You deliberately ignore a huge distinction.
Amanda, you’re right. But my oppposition to porn is rooted (as I’ve written before) both in its impact on its consumers and its impact on its producers, particularly its young female workers.
I like the phrase “masturbation products.” I’m not anti-masturbation. But folks shouldn’t need a “product” to be aroused. The problem with pornography is that it associates a perrectly healthy thing (sexual desire and masturbation) with specific images which have no emotional or relational context. Porn shapes and informs male sexual desire — and I would argue, distorts it along anti-female lines.
I’d agree that “disrespect” and “contempt” are better words to describe the attitudes of many men than “hate”. But I’m not so concerned with the private attitudes of individual men as I am with the general positions of the movement to which they adhere and the wider culture in which they operate. And given the level of emotional, physical, and verbal violence against women in this culture, I don’t think it’s rhetorical overkill to say that we live in a profoundly misogynistic society.
Of course, since you … basically loathe men and boys …
Speaking of people who don’t support their claims with evidence …
I guess I like the term “masturbation products” because I put porn into a larger category of things like sex toys, romance novels, and erotica, some of which reinforces negative attitudes and some of which are pretty neutral products.
It seems to me that protesting the term “misogyny” is a red herring. The point of the label, especially when it comes to unexamined misogynistic attitudes, is that many, if not most, men (and not a few women) hold biases reinforced by our culture that somehow women are not entitled to certain things and men are entitled to certain things — based simply upon gender.
Case in point: When the man assumes the role of judge in any conversation. That some men would attempt to define what misogyny is or isn’t is a reflection of that attitude of male privilege. If the woman disagrees, then she is “wrong.” If she refuses to submit to his judgment, then she’s a “man hater” (or worse names).
Yet I see it as a cultural thing, not necessarily out of malice. That’s why these are considered unexamined attitudes. They are so unexamined that it does not seem to be affected at all by political persuasion. Conservatives and liberals both can be very much alike in so many ways. I feel the main difference there is that the conservative men are much more brazen about how they express it.
Personally I don’t feel threatened by the so-called men’s movement. I read Iron John and thought it made a lot of sense — especially when he described how men don’t know how to be strong without being stupid, childish, malicious. (I’m paraphrasing.) But there are factions of this movement who use it to tap into institutionalized patriarchal attitudes, and that is sooooo distasteful.
Then there are people like Jeff here, who seem to be so insecure that when a woman declares the radical notion that she’s a human being entitled to equal rights, she’s a “man hater” and wanting “special rights.” Losing that male privilege can be so scary to some. Ironically, I would suggest Jeff and like-minded feminist-phobes read Iron John. The whole notion that men are oppressed by feminists is so ludicrous it’s laughable.
Media Girl, I agree that for all its faults, Iron John is more profound and useful than its critics acknowledge. But Robert Bly writes from the mytho-poetic wing of the men’s movement, which has little truck with the men’s rights activists of whom Jeff JP is an example.
The thing about the MRA guys who automatically assume that feminism means women out to crush and rule over men is that they are absolutely incapable of conceiving of gender relations that aren’t based on dominance. One side MUST rule over the other. So, if a woman says she doesn’t want to be dominated by men, the only possible alternative is that she wants to dominate men herself.
In porn, women exist to fulfill men’s desires — they have no real agency of their own.
Even in lesbian pornography? (And I mean intended for a lesbian audience, not girl-girl pictorals in Penthouse.)
Mythago, point taken. But the lesbian community has long been divided over porn, with some seeing it sa replciating het norms and others seeing it as subverting and revisioning those norms along more egalitarian, loving lines.
I, too, am a men’s-rights activist. I am also a women’s-rights activist. The two are not antonymous; in fact, they practically need each other.
I respectfully submit that you have misdiagnosed men’s-rights activists as a band of woman-hating ogres. Are there those who post on such blogs who can fairly be described as misogynistic? You bet. But it’s grossly unfair to take that small sampling as an example, just as it would for me to visit All Men Must Die and dismiss feminists based on that alone.
I don’t dislike women or women achieving equality. I don’t dislike feminism, either, in its purest practice. If anything, I dislike its name, because it suggests that equality is somehow a feminine want and inequality a masculine one. For this reason I prefer the word “egalitarian.”
Men (and the women who support them) have a lot to be upset about. For just a few examples:
–Men are approximately half of all victims of domestic abuse, but receive almost none of the positive attention. Instead, the image of a woman slapping/punching/sexually assaulting a man is a staple of comedy in our entertainment media.
–Only men are required to sign of for so-called “selective service.”
–Countless fathers have had their children taken away from them by a court system that sees them as secondary parents, at best.
–Countless males have also been wrongly accused — and then arrested — for domestic abuse, sexual harassment and rape — and will have their names splashed throughout the news, while the women who accused them enjoy complete anonymity.
–The friendliest, most innocuous joke made toward women will bring hellfire upon the speaker, while there is no limit to the hateful messages that can be delivered about men — on greeting cards, in television commercials, on bumper stickers and even children’s t-shirts. The largest example involves the recent controversy about shirts that read, “Boys are stupid; throw rocks at them.” Men (and women) who complained about the message were told to “lighten up.” It’s unlikely, though, that a similar shirt about girls would ever be marketed to boys.
It isn’t feminism or women in general to blame for this; rather, it’s the social ill known as misandry (just as misogyny is equally a social ill). Men and women alike are banding together because they cannot bear to see this systematic hatred of boys and men go unchecked any longer.
Amanda wrote: “Well, they’re wrong. I feel the moon is made of green cheese, but I’m wrong. The very fact that you expect us to capitulate to these men because they are men is indicative of your thinking.”
I’ll admit that I haven’t read every post in the history of this site, but from what I have seen Jeff doesn’t want women to “capitulate to” men.
“I don’t think men are inferior to me. But I don’t think they are superior. I know. It’s hard to understand. I think we are EQUALS.”
Great! That’s my position, too! It’s not hard to understand at all…
“But talking to MRA dudes, you get the distinct impression they think equality is impossible and if women gain, men must by definition lose. So wanting equality is defined as ‘man-hating’. But wishing doesn’t make it so, Jeff.”
In actuality, it’s the belief of SOME (not all) feminists who believe that women can’t gain without men losing. SOME believe, for example, that we can’t raise the self-esteem of girls without lowering that of boys. This is why a (female) teacher who made “BOYS ARE GOOD” t-shirts for her male students was castigated by all ten female student teachers in her school, even though one of those student teachers wore a button that read, “So many men, so little intelligence.” *I*, on the other hand, believe that men’s rights and women’s rights don’t add up to a zero-sum game.
“I mean, men do stand to lose things under feminism–supremacy, ownership of female bodies, the right to watch TV while their wife cleans up around them, whatever. But these were not men’s to begin with, but are in fact stolen goods.”
I don’t want any of those things. It seems you’re relying on a stereotype. I, too, despise THE MAN SHOW because of its portrayal of women AND for its indirect portrayal of men, as belching neanderthals who only care about sex. Stereotypes hurt EVERYBODY.
I love (he said sarcastically) how in the above posts, anytime someone espouses men’s rights, those persons who subscribe to the religion of feminism automatically assume that it stems from some sort of fear of “losing privilege” or out of an inability to conceive of non-dominant gender relations.
Talk about misandry and sexism! It is clear that those knee-jerk responses buy completely into the stereotype of maleness and masculinity which pervades our society - man as controlling, antagonistic, aggressive abuser.
The real problem I have with masculism vs. feminism is that feminism is a self-perpetuating meme. Masculists look at the facts and the statistics and then, in a typically cool, rational manner proceed logically to conclusions. Feminists look at the facts, then deny them, as they are products of the patriarchal power system that we live in, and therefore cannot be trusted. Instead, one must operate on what you “feel” to be true, since one can’t trust the cold hard facts.
Science vs. faith in a nutshell.
Then there are people like Jeff here, who seem to be so insecure that when a woman declares the radical notion that she’s a human being entitled to equal rights, she’s a “man hater” and wanting “special rights.” Losing that male privilege can be so scary to some. Ironically, I would suggest Jeff and like-minded feminist-phobes read Iron John. The whole notion that men are oppressed by feminists is so ludicrous it’s laughable.
If you want to see insecurity, look at yourself.
Next!
Oh, honestly, the MRA folks who say domestic violence is just as prevalent against adult men as against adult women have no experience in emergency medicine, law enforcement/criminology, or social work. Talk about faith, believing a few MRA authors versus looking at crime statistics, rates of serious injuries, etc.
Nancy wrote: “Oh, honestly, the MRA folks who say domestic violence is just as prevalent against adult men as against adult women have no experience in emergency medicine, law enforcement/criminology, or social work. Talk about faith, believing a few MRA authors versus looking at crime statistics, rates of serious injuries, etc.”
Statistics? Here are MORE THAN 100 studies explaining that, around the world, women initiate domestic violence against men approximately as often as the reverse:
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
That ain’t just a bunch of “men’s rights authors.”
Emergency rooms? Do you not realize that men are FAR LESS LIKELY to seek medical attention when they are injured during DV, because society tells them they should always “take it like a man”? And if they DO go to an emergency room, they more often than not pass their injuries off as coming from somewhere else, making up an implausible story because they know that abused men are so often ridiculed/ignored/laughed at/accused of violence themselves.
Police statistics? Far too many police departments are instructed to “arrest the man” during any domestic dispute, no matter who says what or who wears the bruises. If you define anything a man does as domestic abuse, and nothing a woman does as domestic abuse, then what do you EXPECT to find in the arrest statistics? Please…
Serious injuries? Men make up more than a third of serious injuries as a result of domestic abuse:
http://www.mediaradar.org/ja_sex_differences.php
Furthermore, one need not be seriously injured in order to be a victim of domestic abuse. If a man slaps his wife’s face without seriously injuring her, has he still committed abuse? Of course he has. And it’s no different when the reverse happens.
bmmg39
Stop Abuse For EVERYONE
http://www.safe4all.org
Well it seems to me that the only person making any real sense is Jeff JP.
America is the most anti-male country on the planet, and you keep banging on about male privilege.
Well its not men who have the right NOT TO BE CIRCUMCISED………. its women, unless you see being circumcised as a privilege, imagine the uproar if it were 70% of girls who were circumcised as infants. In the UK, and I presume in most post industrial countries, men are still waiting for EQUAL STATUS on this one. Maybe you could find a way of twisting your doctrine to prove that wanting equal status to women in the right to bodily integrity is a form of misogyny.
It’s not men who have reproductive rights, its women, men simply have to deal with reproductive obligations via a woman’s autonomous decisions, and at times fund their little single parent fantasy through the child support industry. Maybe you see that burden as another male privilege.
The myth of the wage gap, the myth of domestic violence only being perpetrated by men, the one in four women will be raped myth, the big deal made about the glass ceiling but nothing mentioned about the glass cellar, the multi-billion Dollar VAWA act, Title IX, the imbalance of funding into gender specific illness.
AND THE BIGGEST FORM OF BIGOTRY! The teaching of feminist DOGMA under the euphemistic title of “women’s studiesâ€, what a joke. This is nothing more than anti-male demagoguery, a little like this website to be honest.
You label me with your term misogynist all you want, I accept that some feminists may be interested in true gender equality but unfortunately most feminist concepts are the (outrageously wrong assumptions stacked on top of other wrong assumptions as listed above by your brainwashed selves) propagated by feminazis, waving Marxist flags of ideology.
Misandry is the cornerstone of modern feminism.
Men are not wanting to take away the rights that women have “gained†THEY WANT THE SAME GOD DAMN RIGHTS THEMSELVES (EQUALITY REMEMBER).
Emma,
(assuming you to be female) - you gorgeous thing. I couldn’t have said it better myself. If I wasn’t married, I’d come a courtin’.
God bless.
Hugo S. said (1/12/05):
“In porn, women exist to fulfill men’s desires — they have no real agency of their own. To see anyone as existing only to serve you and to fulfill you is, feminists have argued, a practical form of hatred. Relatively few men who use porn are conscious of hating women.”
Hugo doesn’t say how he is understanding ‘pornography’. Most of us who have followed the debates over pornography - at least the ones that include feminist critics and defenders of whatever pornography turns out to be - know that this is a controversial issue. Some feminists define ‘pornography’ as something like sexually explicit representations that are degrading or debasing to women. If this is the very definition of pornography, then it looks as if we have a short argumentative route to the sort of conclusion that Hugo is endorsing here. We have secured that result almost directly by the definition of ‘pornography’. But, of course, then all the controversy is over whether a particular item is pornography. What one person sees as being debasing, demeaning, dehumanizing and objectifying, another sees as being harmless fun. I think most feminist academics insist that the meanings of representations are socially constructed and vary from person to person. I think that is right.
I prefer to use ‘pornography’ in its more commonly accepted sense. I don’t want to argue over the precise wording but here are some standard definitions that capture the sense pretty closely:
“the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement” Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary
“pictures, movies, or writing that show or describe sexual acts or naked people for the purpose of exciting people sexually, and usually for no other purpose” Cambridge Dictionary of American English
Now, in this sense, Hugo’s claim is a substantive claim and not a mere definitional one. But I think, as a substantive claim, it is surely false.
In the first place, those how believe that the depiction of erotic behavior for the purpose of exciting people sexually, is a form of hatred to women because it is demeaning, degrading, debasing or otherwise dehumanizing, have some difficulty explaining the range of pornography. In addition to such depictions that are designed to arouse heterosexual men - the sort of pornography that Hugo has in mind, I suspect - there is pornography designed by and for gay man. There is pornography designed by and for lesbians. (And, no, I don’t mean the depictions of “lesbians” that are designed for the sexual excitement of men.) There is pornography that is designed for couples. And, there is pornography that is designed for hetrosexual women. (Not every woman’s cup of tea, but certainly there are women who are sexually aroused by visual and textual depictions of explicit sexual relations.)
Attempts to respond to the “variety of porn” objection go in one of two routes. Some argue that all of these other forms of porn are non-offensive; it is only heterosexual pornography that is debasing, demeaning, dehumanizing, etc. Others argue that all of this pornography degrades women; regardless of the apparent representations, women are always the victim. The first seems implausible. If it is not demeaning to gay men to portray one of them on his knees performing fellatio on another man, why is the depiction of this very same act essentially demeaning to women when it is a woman portrayed in this role. If it is not demeaning to portray one lesbian using a dildo on another, why is it essentially demeaning to a woman to portray a man using a dildo on a woman. The second strategy is strained, to say the least. How is a representation of two gay men doing “69″ demeaning to women? I’ve heard some feminists (I think it might have been Mary Daley or Catherine MacKinnon but I’m not sure) argue in discussing prison rape that in any sexual act, there is always a woman “whether it is a woman permanently or only for the moment.” Now, as a young woman, I really resent the depiction of women as “whomever something is done to.” Women are active in sex. We both both give and receive pleasure and we both initiate action have have actions initiated by our partners. But, if one accepted this idea that there is always a “woman” in any sexual act, then one might handle the “variety of porn” objection by saying that pornographic depictions of gay sex demean women because one of the people involved is in a “woman’s role.” (I don’t know how you’d do it in the case I gave of two men performing mutual fellatio.) When I told a gay friend of mine about this theory that, in any sexual act, there is always a woman, he cracked up. “I can tell you one thing, in my bedroom, there are no women - not literally, not symbolically, not metaphorically.”
So, I think the “pornography demeans women” position just can’t handle the variety of pornography. This is not to say that there isn’t pornography that is demeaning to women. It’s just to say that there is nothing essential to pornography that demeans women.
Now it is true that in pornography designed for heterosexual men, women exist to fulfill men’s desires. In one sense it is, I suspect, the nature of sexual fantasy, that the objects of sexual fantasy are pawns of our imagination–have, in Hugo’s words, “no real agency of their own.” Sexual fantasies, like all fantasies are stories we tell ourselves. Since we are the narrators, we (as narrators) control the action. However, it is not essential to sexual fantasy that the character we cast ourselves in is “in control” and the other characters. So, there is heterosexual pornography designed for men that portrays men in roles where they are controlled by women. And, of course, women often fantasize about being “forced” to have sex. There is nothing wrong with any of this as far as I’m concerned. Fantasy may not be a “no holds barred zone” as far as I’m concerned, but is pretty close to that. In any case, if I want to fantasize about tying up an attractive man and teasing him until he can’t control his desire for me and finally begs to satisfy me sexually, I’m imagining a man designed to fulfill my desires with no real agency of his own. I don’t think I thereby demean men. Why should I view it as demeaning to me if men have similar fantasies in reverse. Imaginary characters are one thing; real people are another. Which brings me to what Hugo says next.
“But regular use of porn inevitably desensitizes the viewer to the humanity and dignity of all of the women with whom he interacts. It defies all we know about human psychology to say that a fellow can go from masturbating to images on his TV or computer screen into interactions with real women without objectifiying them.”
To this, I would say, “not in my experience.” I’ve been involved with men who are fascinated with pornography and men who are very opposed to it. I don’t think you can generalize at all about attitudes toward women. One of the men I was most seriously involved with treated me with great respect for my intellect and my accomplishments despite having an enormous (and eclectic) appetite for pornography. Of course, it is well known that some of the most violently anti-porn men are extremely conservative and hold strongly patriarchial views. I haven’t ever been involved with such a man. But I was involved with a guy who thought of himself as a “profeminist” man. This guy was nice enough but he couldn’t get past his gender issues to see me as a person. This guy believed that pornography was demeaning to women and did not, so far as I knew, view it. But everything was seen through the lens of gender. I wasn’t, first and foremost, Claire; I was, first and foremost, a woman. He was, first and foremost, a man. The first guy treated me far more like a person, like an individual, than did the “pro-feminist” guy.
So, in my experience, the “regular use of porn” does not inevitably desensitize “the viewer to the humanity and dignity of all of the women with whom he interacts. And it certainly does not defy all I know about human psychology to say that a fellow can go from masturbating to images on his TV or computer into interactions with real women without objectifying them.”
As they say, “your mileage may vary.” But don’t make blanket statements. Your experience is not universal.
Claire H.
“But just as misogyny has defining actions (rape and assault), it also has defining language. The language of misogyny can range from vicious verbal abuse that reduces a woman to an object (c*nt, the primary example in American English) to blanket statements about women’s abilities (women can’t drive as well as men.)”
And, just as women can rape/sexually abuse, physically abuse men, they also use such dehumanizing words, such as “d–k”, “c–k”, and “p—k”, to describe men. I’ve also heard women use the word “d—o” (literally) to describe men, suggesting that men are nothing more than a marital aid with an annoying oaf attached to the end of it. And if it’s wrong to use the word “c–t” to describe a woman’s anatomy (and it is), then it’s equally wrong to use objectifying words such as “n–s” and “ba–s” to describe a man’s anatomy.
Regarding blanket insults, how many times have we heard all of the things that men supposedly cannot do?
We are each all these things. To suggest that time will make them change is to deny any knowledge of history. No matter how much we discuss them or no matter how many laws we create to counter them, they endure. That is not to say that some of those laws are not necessary.
Every difference of opinion we have does not create a new or enforce an old stereotype of what we are. I will never become pregnant. Does that mean I cannot have an opinion about abortion? And if that opinion differs from a women am I misogynistic or insensitive? Should I be allowed to have a say in the laws concerning abortion? You can come up with your own answers to these questions because in the end it doesn’t make a bit of difference what you think, just as it makes no difference what I think. I am not going to change anyone’s mind and vice versa. Let’s set up two scenario’s, one for the Feminists and one for the anti-feminists.
We have a women, she is submissive, caters to her husband, cooks, cleans and cares for the children, no career outside the home. He goes to work, mows the lawn, watches TV and drinks beer. Typically the response by the Feminists is , “I hate that pig of a man” and “I can’t believe that woman would allow herself the indignation, she is setting our movement back generations.” But generally you hate the man more (in fact it usually equates to hatred of men in general), even if the women contends she is perfectly happy with her arrangement and her life. It is your contention that you know better than her what is best for her.
Now let’s look at a liberated woman in a relationship. They both have careers, both are engaged in the home duties and share the responsibilities of decision making. The anti-feminist will say, “He doesn’t wear the pants in his family, he ain’t a man”, or worse yet they will refer to the woman as a “Bitch” or some other equally degrading term. But in the end they will equate this relationship with a general disdain for women and the man they consider a wimp.
Personally I prefer the second scenario. Not because I am in favor of the so-called Feminist movement, but because my wife and I are partners, not opponents, not master and slave. We, not I, decided early on that she would be a stay at home Mom and not allow someone else to instill values contrary to ours in our children. But simply because I went to work all day did not relieve me of any household chores or duties. I will admit I did not do a lot of cooking, but I don’t think she minded that since about all I was good at was hamburgers and pancakes. She happeneded to be an excellent cook, but I was pretty good at cleaning up after the meal. However, I am not opposed to scenario one if that is what they want. Their breakup or changing them would not be my goal. I do not envy him nor do I despise her or vice versa. My wife feels torn about the Feminist movement. While she is a strong willed person and she believes some aspects of the movement have been good for women in general she also has a problem with what she sees as the overall agenda of the organizations, as do I. I will interject here that we are both conservative. Whenever we assemble as a group with a common interest and goal we have in effect created a PAC (Political Action Committee). No matter how pure our intent some will try to hijack the organization for their own political agenda. Most of these women’s orgs want more than to change the relational playing field but in fact they want to change the entire political structure of this or any other country they are involved in. They are usually liberal, which I don’t have a big problem with, except that their liberalism has morphed into progressivism and socialism. I will not judge what is best for anyone, but my concern is that as we progress on the current path someone is going to decide for me as is the general rule with socialists. Their G_d is government and therefore government will decide for you what is best. Make no mistake about it, socialists are very religious when it comes to their G_d. No different than any other religious group.
Now, at this point there are probably a group of you raising your brows and dismissing my political references as just another conservative trying to spread ill content with made up McCartheyistic statements about a group he doesn’t agree with. Just because I am paranoid does not mean you are not out to get me!
Most of the comments made here are very good. One could argue both sides of these issues based on the content taken from here. But who is really right. Before you answer I’ll say me. Of course, I know that some or many of you will disagree. So we are all the way back to my first paragraph. We can’t change this stuff, we can only compromise, which when you get right down to it is what conservatives have always had to do. Socialists do not want to compromise, they want to control and dictate to all. Hopefully, my wife and I have taught our children well!
Feminism is about womens problems and about bettering the situation for women. Fine. But what about boys and men? It is only natural that somebody is looking out for them too. Feminism shows no signs of universal empathy, but rather a restricted one. I will continue to see to it that also boys voices are heard.
Thank you very much
Feminism is about womens problems and about bettering the situation for women.
Nope. Try again.
Feminism is about fairness and eliminating sexism. That means breaking down the barriers that wall in men, too. It doesn’t, though, mean pretending that sexism affects men and women JUST THE SAME, or pretending that the benefits of sexism accrue equally to men and women.
I mean, if you’re opposed to racism, only wackaloons would insist that racism hurts whites as much as blacks.
“Feminism is about fairness and eliminating sexism. That means breaking down the barriers that wall in men, too. It doesn’t, though, mean pretending that sexism affects men and women JUST THE SAME, or pretending that the benefits of sexism accrue equally to men and women.”
And I must point out again that society is much more tuned to notice sexism against women, while the many ways that men are unfairly impacted often fly under the radar.
BaldEagle wrote:
“Now let’s look at a liberated woman in a relationship. They both have careers, both are engaged in the home duties and share the responsibilities of decision making. The anti-feminist will say, “He doesn’t wear the pants in his family, he ain’t a man”, or worse yet they will refer to the woman as a “Bitch” or some other equally degrading term. But in the end they will equate this relationship with a general disdain for women and the man they consider a wimp.”
This is a nonsense view of anti-feminism, I am totally anti-feminist (not anti-woman however you paint your little pictures) and i would choose his “second scenario” every time.
Most theories here are rather like saying that being anti-nazi is being anti-German.
So, on your definition of “misogyny,” Wendy McElroy and Christina Hoff Summers are misogynists? Like the “institutional” definition of “racism,” this definition stretches the meaning of the word beyond all sense and turns it into nothing but an ideological hammer to silence criticism without having to defend and take responsibility for one’s views. One could discuss all of the above issues more clearly and more effectively with the use of meaningful sentences in place of sound bites and tautologies.
Jeff JP wrote with reference to Dr Hugo Schwyzer:
>>>>Of course “ignorance” doesn’t work for you. You want to label men as “hateful” rather than “ignorant.” Your appeals are indeed playing to emotion rather than reason. You use words recklessly imprecisely, and then you retreat into an attempt to defend that imprecision by an appeal to emotion. Since you chose to ignore my reasons for using “ignorance,” there isn’t really much point in my saying more about this.
“”Feminism is about womens problems and about bettering the situation for women.”"
“Nope. Try again.
Feminism is about fairness and eliminating sexism. That means breaking down the barriers that wall in men, too. It doesn’t, though, mean pretending that sexism affects men and women JUST THE SAME, or pretending that the benefits of sexism accrue equally to men and women.”
Maybe you should consider what feminists do. Not just what they _say_ they do. They always say they help all children, but in reality they have done nothing to help boys, quite to the contrary.
For example they have helped to build the myth that only females can be victims. Thus, taking away the prospect of abused boys getting help. This I KNOW to be true by personal experience.
So Mythago, you TRY AGAIN
So feminism is about getting rid of sexism, ehem, take a look at this, femininsts, MRA, and manginas.
“Women have their faults / men have only two: / everything they say / everything they do.”
Popular Feminist Graffiti -
“The institution of sexual intercourse is anti-feminist”
Amazon Odyssey (p. 86) - Ti-Grace Atkinson
“(Rape) is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear”
Against Our Will p.6. - Susan Brownmiller
“We are taught, encouraged, moulded by and lulled into accepting a range of false notions about the family. As a source of some of our most profound experiences, it continues to be such an integral part of our emotional lives that it appears beyond criticism. Yet hiding from the truth of family life leaves women and children vulnerable.”
- Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women
“Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometimes gain from the experience.”
Vassar College. Assistant Dean of Students - Catherine Comin
“The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness…can be trained to do most things.”
SCUM (Society For Cutting Up Men.) - Jilly Cooper
” How will the family unit be destroyed? …[T]he demand alone will throw the whole ideology of the family into question, so that women can begin establishing a community of work with each other and we can fight collectively. Women will feel freer to leave their husbands and become economically independent, either through a job or welfare.”
In “Female Liberation” - Roxanne Dunbarr
“Men are rapists, batterers, plunderers, killers; these same men are religious prophets, poets, heroes, figures of romance, adventure, accomplishment, figures ennobled by tragedy and defeat. Men have claimed the earth, called it “Her”. Men ruin Her. Men have airplanes, guns, bombs, poisonous gases, weapons so perverse and deadly that they defy any authentically human imagination.”
Pornography: Men Possessing Women - Andrea Dworkin
“The traditional flowers of courtship are the traditional flowers of the grave, delivered to the victim before the kill. The cadaver is dressed up and made up and laid down and ritually violated and consecrated to an eternity of being used.”
- Andrea Dworkin
“Men renounce whatever they have in common with women so as to experience no commonality with women; and what is left…is one piece of flesh a few inches long, the penis. The penis is the man; the man is human; the penis signifies humanity.”
- Andrea Dworkin
“I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig.”
Ice And Fire - Andrea Dworkin
“On the Left, on the Right, in the Middle; Authors, statesmen, thieves; so-called humanists and self-declared fascists; the adventurous and the contemplative, in every realm of male expression and action, violence is experienced and articulated as love and freedom.”
Pornography: Men Possessing Women - Andrea Dworkin
“Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women’s bodies.”
- Andrea Dworkin
“The cultural institutions which embody and enforce those interlocked aberrations - for instance, law, art, religion, nation-states, the family, tribe, or commune based on father-right - these institutions are real and they must be destroyed.”
- Andrea Dworkin
“Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice. Rape, originally defined as abduction, became marriage by capture. Marriage meant the taking was to extend in time, to be not only use of but possession of, or ownership.”
- Andrea Dworkin
“Ninety-five percent of women’s experiences are about being a victim. Or about being an underdog, or having to survive… women didn’t go to Vietnam and blow things up. They are not Rambo.”
in The New York Times Magazine - Jodie Foster
“I was, in reality, bred by my parents as my father’s concubine…What we take for granted as the stability of family life may well depend on the sexual slavery of our children. What’s more, this is a cynical arrangement our institutions have colluded to conceal.”
- Sylvia Fraser
“My feelings about men are the result of my experience. I have little sympathy for them. Like a Jew just released from Dachau, I watch the handsome young Nazi soldier fall writhing to the ground with a bullet in his stomach and I look briefly and walk on. I don’t even need to shrug. I simply don’t care. What he was, as a person, I mean, what his shames and yearnings were, simply don’t matter.”
The Woman’s Room - Marilyn French
“All patriarchists exalt the home and family as sacred, demanding it remain inviolate from prying eyes. Men want privacy for their violations of women… All women learn in childhood that women as a sex are men’s prey.”
The Woman’s Room - Marilyn French
“All men are rapists and that’s all they are.”
Author; (later, advisor to Al Gore’s Presidential Campaign.) - Marilyn French
“As long as some men use physical force to subjugate females, all men need not. The knowledge that some men do suffices to threaten all women. He can beat or kill the woman he claims to love; he can rape women…he can sexually molest his daughters… THE VAST MAJORITY OF MEN IN THE WORLD DO ONE OR MORE OF THE ABOVE.”
(Her emphasis) - Marilyn French
“The media treat male assaults on women like rape, beating, and murder of wives and female lovers, or male incest with children, as individual aberrations…obscuring the fact that all male violence toward women is part of a concerted campaign.”
- Marilyn French
“The nuclear family must be destroyed, and people must find better ways of living together…. Whatever its ultimate meaning, the breakup of families now is an objectively revolutionary process…. No woman should have to deny herself any opportunities because of her special responsibilities to her children….”
“Functions of the Family,” WOMEN: A Journal of Liberation, Fall, 1969 - Linda Gordon
“Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.”
- Germaine Greer
“And if the professional rapist is to be separated from the average dominant heterosexual (male), it may be mainly a quantitative difference.”
Rape: The All-American Crime - Susan Griffin
“When a woman reaches orgasm with a man she is only collaborating with the patriarchal system, eroticizing her own oppression…”
- Sheila Jeffrys
“I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which man structurally does not have, does not have it because he cannot have it. He’s just incapable of it.”
Former Congresswoman - Barbara Jordan
Catharine MacKinnon (…) maintains that “the private is a sphere of battery, marital rape and women’s exploited labor.” In this way, privacy and family are reduced to nothing more than aspects of the master plan, which is male domination. Democratic freedoms and the need to keep the state’s nose out of our personal affairs are rendered meaningless. The real reason our society cherishes privacy is because men have invented it as an excuse to conceal their criminality. If people still insist that the traditional family is about love and mutual aid — ideals which, admittedly, are sometimes betrayed — they’re “hiding from the truth.” The family isn’t a place where battery and marital rape sometimes happen but where little else apparently does. Sick men don’t simply molest their daughters, they operate in league with their wives to “breed” them for that purpose.
The Princess at the Window; (in a critical explication of the Catharine MacKinnon, Gloria Steinhem et al tenets of misandric belief.) - Donna Laframboise
“There are no boundaries between affectionate sex and slavery in (the male) world. Distinctions between pleasure and danger are academic; the dirty-laundrylist of ’sex acts’…includes rape, foot binding, fellatio, intercourse, auto eroticism, incest, anal intercourse, use and production of pornography, cunnilingus, sexual harassment, and murder.”
summarizing comment on the WAS document,
(A southern Women’s Writing Collective: Women Against Sex.) - J.Levine
“Man-hating is everywhere, but everywhere it is twisted and transformed, disguised, tranquilized, and qualified. It coexists, never peacefully, with the love, desire, respect, and need women also feel for men. Always man-hating is shadowed by its milder, more diplomatic and doubtful twin, ambivalence.”
- Judith Levine
“Men’s sexuality is mean and violent, and men so powerful that they can ‘reach WITHIN women to fuck/construct us from the inside out.’ Satan-like, men possess women, making their wicked fantasies and desires women’s own. A woman who has sex with a man, therefore, does so against her will, ‘even if she does not feel forced.’”
(explicating comment profiling prevailing misandry.) - Judith Levine
“I feel what they feel: man-hating, that volatile admixture of pity, contempt, disgust, envy, alienation, fear, and rage at men. It is hatred not only for the anonymous man who makes sucking noises on the street, not only for the rapist or the judge who acquits him, but for what the Greeks called philo-aphilos, ‘hate in love,’ for the men women share their lives with — husbands, lovers, friends, fathers, brothers, sons, coworkers.”
My Enemy, My Love - Judith Levine
“You grow up with your father holding you down and covering your mouth so another man can make a horrible searing pain between your legs.”
(Prominent legal feminist scholar; University of Michigan, & Yale.) - Catherine MacKinnon
“In a patriarchal society, all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent.”
quoted in Professing Feminism:
Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women’s Studies - Catherine MacKinnon
“All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman.”
- Catherine MacKinnon
“We can’t destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage.”
From Sisterhood Is Powerful, (ed), 1970, p. 537 - Robin Morgan
“I feel that ‘man-hating’ is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them.”
Ms. Magazine Editor. - Robin Morgan
“I claim that rape exists any time sexual intercourse occurs when it has not been initiated by the woman, out of her own genuine affection and desire.”
Ms. Magazine Editor. - Robin Morgan
“And let’s put one lie to rest for all time: the lie that men are oppressed, too, by sexism — the lie that there can be such a thing as ‘men’s liberation groups.’ Oppression is something that one group of people commits against another group, specifically because of a ‘threatening’ characteristic shared by the latter group — skin, color, sex or age, etc. The oppressors are indeed FUCKED UP by being masters, but those masters are not OPPRESSED. Any master has the alternative of divesting himself of sexism or racism — the oppressed have no alternative — for they have no power but to fight. In the long run, Women’s Liberation will of course free men — but in the short run it’s going to cost men a lot of privilege, which no one gives up willingly or easily. Sexism is NOT the fault of women — kill your fathers, not your mothers”
Ms. Magazine Editor. - Robin Morgan
“We live, I am trying to say, in an epidemic of male violence against women.”
- Katha Pollitt
“Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex.”
SCUM Manifesto (Society for Cutting Up Men.) - Valerie Solana
“‘To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he’s a machine, a walking dildo.”
Scum Manifesto - Valerie Solanas
“We are, as a sex, infinitely superior to men…”
One Woman, One Vote, Wheeler, p. 58 - Elizabeth Stanton
“All men are good for is fucking, and running over with a truck”
Statement made by A University of Maine Feminist Administrator, quoted by Richard Dinsmore, who brought a successful civil suit against the University in the amount of $600,000. - Unknown
http://www.razberry.com/raz/
Verlch, You have posted this list many times on many blogs. Have you found it to be effective? Have any feminists reponded with an “Oh, I see that feminists are bad. I won’t be one any more”? Actually, this comes across like an assault, and does our cause no good. As an MRA, I recommend addressing issues, not persons. Of course, at times, the issue IS a person, as with the late Ms. Dworkin a few weeks ago, and then quotes of the person involved are apropos. Otherwise, out-of-context quotes need to be used sparingly if they are to be of any use.
Intelligent discussions are the only means to progress, and this does not fit into that category. And yes, there are feminists who are not interested in intelligent discussions, just as there are MRAs of that sort. These types are coming from a place of anger, not reason. Both sides need more of the reasoning type. Would you care to try it?
One more note: I know that there are many feminist apologists participating in these blogs who will respond to an attempt at discussion with sarcasm and ridicule. This behavior dominates at Pandagon, for example, and is a large element at Alas as well (from many of the same posters as at Pandagon), and I know you have seen it in action. My personal opinion is that this attitude comes from a certain moral arrogance, which is the eternal pratfall of the religiously convinced (credit to Joe Klein). The more intelligent MRAs who choose adult behavior and leave that childishness to the other side the more likely the truth will become apparent. (And that truth will certainly be that EACH side has plenty to learn from the other.)
Have you found it to be effective?
It’s very effective, but not in the way he means it to be.
I fail to see how quoting women with obvious childhood abuse issues does anything other than HURT your cause, Verlch. If anything, the women who made the statements you quoted (with the possible exception of Jodie Foster, whose quote wasn’t all that far off, IME) should receive sympathy for the obvious hurt they’ve experienced in their lives.
Wow, Caitrona! Have 95% (or some other high number) of your experiences been about being a victim? That is really sad.
Stanton,
Let’s see. There’s my bio-father, my 1st step-father, kids I went to school with (they didn’t know how to pigeon-hole me ), the guy who let it be known what he was going to do to me “next time he got me alone” (thank goodness for caring friends!!), my 1st husband, the guy I nearly decked at the bowling alley back in ‘96, …
In the last 6 years, I’ve spent a good portion of my time working through not only my own abuse issues, but helping my husband and children work through their own, as well as helping the young man who came to spend the night a year-and-a-half ago work through his and a friend of our 17yo’s who suffers from PTSD due to his father’s abuse. During my working career, I’ve taught in a govt-sponsored program for high school students who were categorized as “at risk,” in a Christian correctional facility with mostly inner-city Chicago street kids, and an Arizona school that seemed to be a magnet for kids who were kicked out of ever school on the California side of the state line. I’ve also worked as a Abuse Administrator, investigating internet abuse.
The experiences I lived through seem to have come in handy in helping others (mostly teens) work through their own abuse issues. Instead of seeing *everyone* of a particular class as an “abuser,” though, I’ve found that it’s helpful to determine why people do the things they do and work toward healing from a base of knowledge. Most abusers I’ve known learned from those who abused them. Those I know who’ve become aware that what they are doing is harmful have worked to learn better ways of dealing with people and with their old baggage.
Anything else you’d like to know about me?
Did my question offend you? No offense meant. I seem to be all about pising people off lately. Maybe it’s time for me to just keep quiet for a while.
I’m not offended, Stanton. I just think a lot of people don’t see all the abuse going on around them in the world. It’s there, in so many different interactions, each and every day. It’s not just in the things we do, it’s also in the words we speak, in the tones of voice we use, in our attitudes. We are all guilty, to one extent or another. It only gets better by people becoming aware and working to change their own input.
I fail to see how quoting women with obvious childhood abuse issues
Wow, talk about dismissive.
I find it more revealing that we don’t have sources for most of those quotes. As well, citing Valarie Solanas as a ‘feminist’ is a bit like saying Mark Lepine was a MRA.
It’s dismissive to say that I don’t see how that particular action does anything other than keep him from achieving whatever goal it is he is striving to achieve?
BTW, I don’t know who Valarie Solanas is, but it’s obvious that most of those quotes were taken out of context. Many of them could have been from journals of people I know who’ve experienced severe abuse at the hands of others.
Caitrona: I guess you could say that we are all abusers and all victims, and I applaud your efforts to reduce the suffering of as many as you can. I cannot accept, however, that life is all about being a victim - for women, or anyone else - which is what Jody F. is saying if she really means that 95% figure. That just gives away too much power.
I read my wife the Foster quote, and asked her what percentage of her experience is about being a victim. She said “Zero percent. I am NOT a victim.” This from a woman who spent her entire childhood walking on eggshells in fear of setting off a rageaholic father, and who lived for years, as an adult, in abusive “spiritual communities” (with charismatic but sociopathic male leaders) recreating her childhood drama - trying to “get it right”. Now she is a psycho-therapist who works with cancer patients one day each week, another day at hospice. She sees abused women and teenaged offenders with horrible family situations. She does not ignore the abuse that goes on, but she views herself as empowered with a mission to empower others, and does not identify with the victim label in any sense. I guess it’s just a matter of how one chooses to view ones experiences.
Stanton,
Choosing to not take on a victim mentality does not negate the fact that one has been a victim to abuse. Acknowledging that one has been a victim doesn’t mean giving up and living in victim-hood. It is simply being honest about things that have gone on in one’s life. The difference between what you wrote about your wife’s perspective and my perspective, I’d wager, is simply symantics, different personal definitions.
I’ve found that acknowleging where one has been hurt (been a victim) can be empowering and strengthening, because it gives one a basis upon which to rebuild one’s life. When you have a house that is starting to sag, you have to find where the weaknesses are in the beams and/or foundation before you can completely repair the house. Same goes with one’s life. You can’t make those repairs if you choose to negate the fact that injury happened. IME, anyway.
The Valerie Solanas quote in it’s complete and correct context:
Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.
It is now technically possible to reproduce without the aid of males (or, for that matter, females) and to produce only females. We must begin immediately to do so. The male is a biological accident: the y (male) gene is an incomplete x (female) gene, that is, has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion, aborted at the gene stage. To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples.
The male is completely egocentric, trapped inside himself, incapable of empathizing or identifying with others, of love, friendship, affection or tenderness. He is a completely isolated unit, incapable of rapport with anyone. His responses are entirely visceral, not cerebral; his intelligence is a mere tool in the service of his drives and needs; he is incapable of mental passion, mental interaction; he can’t relate to anything other than his own physical sensations. He is a half dead, unresponsive lump, incapable of giving or receiving pleasure or happiness; consequently, he is at best an utter bore, an inoffensive blob, since only those capable of absorption in others can be charming. He is trapped in a twilight zone halfway between humans and apes, and is far worse off than the apes because, unlike the apes, he is capable of a large array of negative feelings–hate, jealousy, contempt, disgust, guilt, shame, doubt–and moreover he is aware or what he is or isn’t.
Although completely physical, the male is unfit even for stud service. Even assuming mechanical proficiency, which few men have, he is, first of all, incapable of zestfully, lustfully, tearing off a piece, but is instead eaten up with guilt, shame, fear and insecurity, feelings rooted in male nature, which the most enlightened training can only minimize; second, the physical feeling he attains is next to nothing; and, third, he is not empathizing with his partner, but is obsessed with how he’s doing, turning in an A performance, doing a good plumbing job. To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he’s a machine, a walking dildo. It’s often said that men use women. Use them for what? Surely not pleasure.
Eaten up with guilt, shame, fears and insecurities and obtaining, if he’s lucky, a barely perceptible physical feeling, the male is, nonetheless, obsessed with screwing; he’ll swim a river of snot, wade nostril-deep through a mile of vomit, if he thinks there’ll be a friendly pussy awaiting him. He’ll screw a woman he despises, any snaggle-toothed hag, and, furthermore, pay for the opportunity. Why? Relieving physical tension isn’t the answer, as masturbation suffices for that. It’s not ego satisfaction; that doesn’t explain screwing corpses and babies.
Completely egocentric, unable to relate, empathize or identify, and filled with a vast, pervasive, diffuse sexuality, the male is psychically passive. He hates his passivity, so he projects it onto women, defines the male as active, then sets out to prove that he is (”prove he’s a Man”). His main means of attempting to prove it is screwing (Big Man with a Big Dick tearing off a Big Piece). Since he’s attempting to prove an error, he must “prove” it again and again. Screwing, then, is a desperate, compulsive attempt to prove he’s not passive, not a woman; but he is passive and does want to be a woman.
Being an incomplete female, the male spends his life attempting to complete himself, to become female. He attempts to do this by constantly seeking out, fraternizing with and trying to live through and fuse with the female, and by claiming as his own all female characteristics–emotional strength and independence, forcefulness, dynamism, decisiveness, coolness, objectivity, assertiveness, courage, integrity, vitality, intensity, depth of character, grooviness, etc. –and projecting onto women all male traits–vanity, frivolity, triviality, weakness, etc. It should be said, though, that the male has one glaring area of superiority over the female–public relations. (He has done a brilliant job of convincing millions of women that men are women and women are men.) The male claim that females find fulfillment through motherhood and sexuality reflects what males think they’d find fulfilling if they were female.
Women, in other words, don’t have penis envy; men have pussy envy. When the male accepts his passivity, defines himself as a woman (males as well as females think men are women and women are men), and becomes a transvestite he loses his desire to screw (or to do anything else, for that matter; he fulfills himself as a drag queen) and gets his cock chopped off. He then achieves a continuous diffuse sexual feeling from “being a woman”. Screwing is, for a man, a defense against his desire to be female. Sex is itself a sublimation.
The male, because of his obsession to compensate for not being female combined with his inability to relate and to feel compassion, has made of the world a shitpile. He is responsible for:
War: The male’s normal method of compensation for not being female, namely, getting his Big Gun off, is grossly inadequate, as he can get it off only a very limited number of times; so he gets it off on a really massive scale, and proves to the entire world that he’s a “Man”. Since he has no compassion or ability to empathize or identify, proving his manhood is worth an endless number of lives, including his own–his own life being worthless, he would rather go out in a blaze of glory than plod grimly on for fifty more years.
Niceness, Politeness and “Dignity”: Every man, deep down, knows he’s a worthless piece of shit. Overwhelmed by a sense of animalism and deeply ashamed of it; wanting, not to express himself, but to hide from others his total physicality, total egocentricity, the hate and contempt he feels for other men, and to hide from himself the hate and contempt he suspects other men feel for him; having a crudely constructed nervous system that is easily upset by the least display of emotion or feeling, the male tries to enforce a “social” code that ensures a perfect blandness, unsullied by the slightest trace of feeling or upsetting opinion. He uses terms like “copulate”, “sexual congress”, “have relations with” (to men, “sexual relations” is a redundancy), overlaid with stilted manners; the suit on the chimp.
Money, Marriage and Prostitution, Work and Prevention of an Automated Society: There is no human reason for money or for anyone to work more than two or three hours a week at the very most. All non-creative jobs (practically all jobs now being done) could have been automated long ago, and in a moneyless society everyone can have as much of the best of everything as she wants. But there are non-human, male reasons for maintaining the money-work system:
1. Pussy. Despising his highly inadequate self, overcome with intense anxiety and a deep, profound loneliness when by his empty self, desperate to attach himself to any female in dim hopes of completing himself, in the mystical belief that by touching gold he’ll turn to gold, the male craves the continuous companionship of women. The company of the lowest female is preferable to his own or that of other men, who serve only to remind him of his repulsiveness. But females, unless very young or very sick, must be coerced or bribed into male company.
2. Supply the non-relating male with the delusion of usefulness, and enable him to try to justify his existence by digging holes and filling them up. Leisure time horrifies the male, who will have nothing to do but contemplate his grotesque self. Unable to relate or to love, the male must work. Females crave absorbing, emotionally satisfying, meaningful activity, but lacking the opportunity or ability for this, they prefer to idle and waste away their time in ways of their own choosing–sleeping, shopping, bowling, shooting pool, playing cards and other games, breeding, reading, walking around, daydreaming, eating, playing with themselves, popping pills, going to the movies, getting analyzed, traveling, raising dogs and cats, lolling on the beach, swimming, watching T.V., listening to music, decorating their houses, gardening, sewing, nightclubbing, dancing, visiting, “improving their minds” (taking courses), and absorbing “culture” (lectures, plays, concerts, “arty” movies). Therefore, many females would, even assuming complete economic equality between the sexes, prefer living with males or peddling their asses on the street, thus having most of their time for themselves, to spending many hours of their days doing boring, stultifying, non-creative work for somebody else, functioning as less than animals, as machines, or, at best,–if able to get a “good” job–co-managing the shitpile. What will liberate women, therefore, from male control is the total elimination of the money-work system, not the attainment of economic equality with men within it.
3. Power and control. Unmasterful in his personal relations with women, the male attains to general masterfulness by the manipulation of money and of everything and everybody controlled by money, in other words, of everything and everybody.
4. Love substitute. Unable to give love or affection, the male gives money. It makes him feel motherly. The mother gives milk; he gives bread. He is the Breadwinner.
5. Provides the male with a goal. Incapable of enjoying the moment, the male needs something to look forward to, and money provides him with an eternal, never-ending goal: Just think what you could do with 80 trillion dollars–Invest it! And in three years time you’d have 300 trillion dollars!!!
6. Provides the basis for the male’s major opportunity to control and manipulate–fatherhood.
Fatherhood and Mental Illness (fear, cowardice, timidity, humility, insecurity, passivity): Mother wants what’s best for her kids; Daddy only wants what’s best for Daddy, that is peace and quiet, pandering to his delusion of dignity (”respect”), a good reflection on himself (status) and the opportunity to control and manipulate, or, if he’s an “enlightened” father, to “give guidance”. His daughter, in addition, he wants sexually–he gives her hand in marriage; the other part is for him. Daddy, unlike Mother, can never give in to his kids, as he must, at all costs, preserve his delusion of decisiveness, forcefulness, always-rightness and strength. Never getting one’s way leads to lack of self-confidence in one’s ability to cope with the world and to a passive acceptance of the status quo. Mother loves her kids, although she sometimes gets angry, but anger blows over quickly and even while it exists, doesn’t preclude love and basic acceptance. Emotionally diseased Daddy doesn’t love his kids; he approves of them–if they’re “good”, that is, if they’re nice, “respectful”, obedient, subservient to his will, quiet and not given to unseemly displays of temper that would be most upsetting to Daddy’s easily disturbed male nervous system–in other words, if they’re passive vegetables. If they’re not “good”, he doesn’t get angry–not if he’s a modern, “civilized” father (the old-fashioned ranting, raving brute is preferable, as he is so ridiculous he can be easily despised)–but rather expresses disapproval, a state that, unlike anger, endures and precludes a basic acceptance, leaving the kid with a feeling of worthlessness and a lifelong obsession with being approved of; the result is fear of independent thought, as this leads to unconventional, disapproved of opinions and way of life.
For the kid to want Daddy’s approval it must respect Daddy, and, being garbage, Daddy can make sure that he is respected only by remaining aloof, by distantness, by acting on the precept “familiarity breeds contempt”, which is, of course, true, if one is contemptible. By being distant and aloof, he is able to remain unknown, mysterious, and, thereby, to inspire fear (”respect”).
Disapproval of emotional “scenes” leads to fear of strong emotion, fear of one’s own anger and hatred, and to a fear of facing reality, as facing it leads at first to anger and hatred. Fear of anger and hatred combined with a lack of self-confidence in one’s ability to cope with and change the world, or even to affect in the slightest way one’s own destiny, leads to a mindless belief that the world and most people in it are nice and that the most banal, trivial amusements are great fun and deeply pleasurable.
The effect of fatherhood on males, specifically, is to make them “Men”, that is, highly defensive of all impulses to passivity, faggotry, and of desires to be female. Every boy wants to imitate his mother, be her, fuse with her, but Daddy forbids this; he is the mother; he gets to fuse with her. So he tells the boy, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, to not be a sissy, to act like a “Man”. The boy, scared shitless of and “respecting” his father, complies, and becomes just like Daddy, that model of “Man”-hood, the all-American ideal–the well-behaved heterosexual dullard.
The effect of fatherhood on females is to make them male–dependent, passive, domestic, animalistic, nice, insecure, approval and security seekers, cowardly, humble, “respectful” of authorities and men, closed, not fully responsive, half dead, trivial, dull, conventional, flattened out and thoroughly contemptible. Daddy’s Girl, always tense and fearful, uncool, unanalytical, lacking objectivity, appraises Daddy, and thereafter, other men, against a background of fear (”respect”) and is not only unable to see the empty shell behind the aloof facade, but accepts the male definition of himself as superior, as a female, and of herself, as inferior, as a male, which, thanks to Daddy, she really is.
It is the increase of fatherhood, resulting from the increased and widespread affluence that fatherhood needs in order to thrive, that has caused the general increase of mindlessness and the decline of women in the United States since the 1920s. The close association of affluence with fatherhood has led, for the most part, to only the wrong girls, namely, the “privileged” middle-class girls, getting “educated”.
The effect of fathers, in sum, has been to corrode the world with maleness. The male has a negative Midas touch–everything he touches turns to shit.
Suppression of Individuality, Animalism (domesticity and motherhood) and Functionalism: The male is just a bundle of conditioned reflexes, incapable of a mentally free response; he is tied to his early conditioning, determined completely by his past experiences. His earliest experiences are with his mother, and he is throughout his life tied to her. It never becomes completely clear to the male that he is not part of his mother, that he is he and she is she.
His greatest need is to be guided, sheltered, protected and admired by Mama (men expect women to adore what men shrink from in horror–themselves) and, being completely physical, he yearns to spend his time (that’s not spent “out in the world” grimly defending against his passivity) wallowing in basic animal activities–eating, sleeping, shitting, relaxing and being soothed by Mama. Passive, rattle-headed Daddy’s Girl, ever eager for approval, for a pat on the head, for the “respect” of any passing piece of garbage, is easily reduced to Mama, mindless ministrator to physical needs, soother of the weary, apey brow, booster of the puny ego, appreciator of the contemptible, a hot water bottle with tits.
The reduction to animals of the women of the most backward segment of society–the “privileged, educated” middle-class, the backwash of humanity–where Daddy reigns supreme, has been so thorough that they try to groove on labor pains and lie around in the most advanced nation in the world in the middle of the twentieth century with babies chomping away on their tits. It’s not for the kids’ sake, though, that the “experts” tell women that Mama should stay home and grovel in animalism, but for Daddy’s; the tit’s for Daddy to hang onto; the labor pains for Daddy to vicariously groove on (half dead, he needs awfully strong stimuli to make him respond).
Reducing the female to an animal, to Mama, to a male, is necessary for psychological as well as practical reasons: the male is a mere member of the species, interchangeable with every other male. He has no deep-seated individuality, which stems from what intrigues you, what outside yourself absorbs you, what you’re in relation to. Completely self-absorbed, capable of being in relation only to their bodies and physical sensations, males differ from each other only to the degree and in the ways they attempt to defend against their passivity and against their desire to be female.
The female’s individuality, which he is acutely aware of, but which he doesn’t comprehend and isn’t capable of relating to or grasping emotionally, frightens and upsets him and fills him with envy. So he denies it in her and proceeds to define everyone in terms of his or her function or use, assigning to himself, of course, the most important functions–doctor, president, scientist–thereby providing himself with an identity, if not individuality, and tries to convince himself and women (he’s succeeded best at convincing women) that the female function is to bear and raise children and to relax, comfort and boost the ego of the male; that her function is such as to make her interchangeable with every other female. In actual fact, the female function is to relate, groove, love and be herself, irreplaceable by anyone else; the male function is to produce sperm. We now have sperm banks.
Prevention of Privacy: Although the male, being ashamed of what he is and of almost everything he does, insists on privacy and secrecy in all aspects of his life, he has no real regard for privacy. Being empty, not being a complete, separate being, having no self to groove on and needing to be constantly in female company, he sees nothing at all wrong in intruding himself on any woman’s thoughts, even a total stranger’s, anywhere at any time, but rather feels indignant and insulted when put down for doing so, as well as confused–he can’t, for the life of him, understand why anyone would prefer so much as one minute of solitude to the company of any creep around. Wanting to become a woman, he strives to be constantly around females, which is the closest he can get to becoming one, so he created a “society” based on the family–a male-female couple and their kids (the excuse for the family’s existence), who live virtually on top of one another, unscrupulously violating the females’ rights, privacy and sanity.
Isolation, Suburbs and Prevention of Community: Our society is not a community, but merely a collection of isolated family units. Desperately insecure, fearing his woman will leave him if she is exposed to other men or to anything remotely resembling life, the male seeks to isolate her from other men and from what little civilization there is, so he moves her out to the suburbs, a collection of self-absorbed couples and their kids. Isolation enables him to try to maintain his pretense of being an individual by becoming a “rugged individualist”, a loner, equating non-co-operation and solitariness with individuality.
There is yet another reason for the male to isolate himself: every man is an island. Trapped inside himself, emotionally isolated, unable to relate, the male has a horror of civilization, people, cities, situations requiring an ability to understand and relate to people. So, like a scared rabbit, he scurries off, dragging Daddy’s little asshole along with him to the wilderness, the suburbs, or, in the case of the “hippie”–he’s way out, Man! –all the way out to the cow pasture where he can fuck and breed undisturbed and mess around with his beads and flute.
The “hippie”, whose desire to be a “Man”, a “rugged individualist”, isn’t quite as strong as the average man’s, and who, in addition, is excited by the thought of having lots of women accessible to him, rebels against the harshness of a Breadwinner’s life and the monotony of one woman. In the name of sharing and co-operation, he forms the commune or tribe, which, for all its togetherness and partly because of it (the commune, being an extended family, is an extended violation of the females’ rights, privacy and sanity) is no more a community than normal “society”.
A true community consists of individuals–not mere species members, not couples–respecting each other’s individuality and privacy, at the same time interacting with each other mentally and emotionally–free spirits in free relation to each other-and co-operating with each other to achieve common ends. Traditionalists say the basic unit of “society” is the family; “hippies” say the tribe; no one says the individual.
The “hippie” babbles on about individuality, but has no more conception of it than any other man. He desires to get back to Nature, back to the wilderness, back to the home of the furry animals that he’s one of, away from the city, where there is at least a trace, a bare beginning of civilization, to live at the species level, his time taken up with simple, non-intellectual activities–farming, fucking, bead stringing. The most important activity of the commune, the one on which it is based, is gangbanging. The “hippie” is enticed to the commune mainly by the prospect of all the free pussy–the main commodity to be shared, to be had just for the asking but, blinded by greed, he fails to anticipate all the other men he has to share with, or the jealousies and possessiveness of the pussies themselves.
Men cannot co-operate to achieve a common end, because each man’s end is all the pussy for himself. The commune, therefore, is doomed to failure: each “hippie” will, in panic, grab the first simpleton who digs him and whisk her off to the suburbs as fast as he can. The male cannot progress socially, but merely swings back and forth from isolation to gangbanging.
Conformity: Although he wants to be an individual, the male is scared of anything in himself that is the slightest bit different from other men; it causes him to suspect that he’s not really a “Man”, that he’s passive and totally sexual, a highly upsetting suspicion. If other men are A and he’s not, he must not be a man; he must be a fag. So he tries to affirm his “Manhood” by being like all the other men. Differentness in other men, as well as in himself, threatens him; it means they’re fags whom he must at all costs avoid, so he tries to make sure that all other men conform.
The male dares to be different to the degree that he accepts his passivity and his desire to be female, his fagginess. The farthest out male is the drag queen, but he, although different from most men, is exactly like all other drag queens; like the functionalist, he has an identity–he is a female. He tries to define all his troubles away–but still no individuality. Not completely convinced that he’s a woman, highly insecure about being sufficiently female, he conforms compulsively to the man-made feminine stereotype, ending up as nothing but a bundle of stilted mannerisms.
To be sure he’s a “Man”, the male must see to it that the female be clearly a “Woman”, the opposite of a “Man”, that is, the female must act like a faggot. And Daddy’s Girl, all of whose female instincts were wrenched out of her when little, easily and obligingly adapts herself to the role.
Authority and Government: Having no sense of right or wrong, no conscience, which can only stem from an ability to empathize with others…having no faith in his non-existent self, being necessarily competitive and, by nature, unable to co-operate, the male feels a need for external guidance and control. So he created authorities–priests, experts, bosses, leaders, etc. –and government. Wanting the female (Mama) to guide him, but unable to accept this fact (he is, after all, a MAN), wanting to play Woman, to usurp her function as Guider and Protector, he sees to it that all authorities are male.
There’s no reason why a society consisting of rational beings capable of empathizing with each other, complete and having no natural reason to compete, should have a government, laws or leaders.
Philosophy, Religion and Morality Based on Sex: The male’s inability to relate to anybody or anything makes his life pointless and meaningless (the ultimate male insight is that life is absurd), so he invented philosophy and religion. Being empty, he looks outward, not only for guidance and control, but for salvation and for the meaning of life. Happiness being for him impossible on this earth, he invented Heaven.
For a man, having no ability to empathize with others and being totally sexual, “wrong” is sexual “license” and engaging in “deviant” (”unmanly”) sexual practices, that is, not defending against his passivity and total sexuality which, if indulged, would destroy “civilization”, since “civilization” is based entirely on the male need to defend himself against these characteristics. For a woman (according to men), “wrong” is any behavior that would entice men into sexual “license”–that is, not placing male needs above her own and not being a faggot.
Religion not only provides the male with a goal (Heaven) and helps keep women tied to men, but offers rituals through which he can try to expiate the guilt and shame he feels at not defending himself enough against his sexual impulses; in essence, that guilt and shame he feels at being a male.
Most men, utterly cowardly, project their inherent weaknesses onto women, label them female weaknesses and believe themselves to have female strengths; most philosophers, not quite so cowardly, face the fact that male lacks exist in men, but still can’t face the fact that they exist in men only. So they label the male condition the Human Condition, pose their nothingness problem, which horrifies them, as a philosophical dilemma, thereby giving stature to their animalism, grandiloquently label their nothingness their “Identity Problem”, and proceed to prattle on pompously about the “Crisis of the Individual”, the “Essence of Being”, “Existence preceding Essence”, “Existential Modes of Being”, etc., etc.
A woman not only takes her identity and individuality for granted, but knows instinctively that the only wrong is to hurt others, and that the meaning of life is love.
Prejudice (racial, ethnic, religious, etc.): The male needs scapegoats onto whom he can project his failings and inadequacies and upon whom he can vent his frustration at not being female.
Competition, Prestige, Status, Formal Education, Ignorance and Social and Economic Classes: Having an obsessive desire to be admired by women, but no intrinsic worth, the male constructs a highly artificial society enabling him to appropriate the appearance of worth through money, prestige, “high” social class, degrees, professional position and knowledge and, by pushing as many other men as possible down professionally, socially, economically, and educationally.
The purpose of “higher” education is not to educate but to exclude as many as possible from the various professions.
The male, totally physical, incapable of mental rapport, although able to understand and use knowledge and ideas, is unable to relate to them, to grasp them emotionally; he does not value knowledge and ideas for their own sake (they’re just means to ends) and, consequently, feels no need for mental companions, no need to cultivate the intellectual potentialities of others. On the contrary, the male has a vested interest in ignorance; he knows that an enlightened, aware female population will mean the end of him. The healthy, conceited female wants the company of equals whom she can respect and groove on; the male and the sick, insecure, unself-confident male female crave the company of worms.
No genuine social revolution can be accomplished by the male, as the male on top wants the status quo, and all the male on the bottom wants is to be the male on top. The male “rebel” is a farce; this is the male’s “society”, made by him to satisfy his needs. He’s never satisfied, because he’s not capable of being satisfied. Ultimately, what the male “rebel” is rebelling against is being male. The male changes only when forced to do so by technology, when he has no choice, when “society” reaches the stage where he must change or die. We’re at that stage now; if women don’t get their asses in gear fast, we may very well all die.
Prevention of Conversation: Being completely self-centered and unable to relate to anything outside himself, the male’s “conversation”, when not about himself, is an impersonal droning on, removed from anything of human value. Male “intellectual conversation” is a strained, compulsive attempt to impress the female.
Daddy’s Girl, passive, adaptable, respectful of and in awe of the male, allows him to impose his hideously dull chatter on her. This is not too difficult for her, as the tension and anxiety, the lack of cool, the insecurity and self-doubt, the unsureness of her own feelings and sensations that Daddy instilled in her make her perceptions superficial and render her unable to see that the male’s babble is a babble; like the aesthete “appreciating” the blob that’s labeled “Great Art”, she believes she’s grooving on what bores the shit out of her. Not only does she permit his babble to dominate, she adapts her own “conversation” accordingly.
Trained from early childhood in niceness, politeness and “dignity”, in pandering to the male need to disguise his animalism, she obligingly reduces her “conversation” to small talk, a bland insipid avoidance of any topic beyond the utterly trivial–or, if “educated”, to “intellectual” discussion, that is, impersonal discoursing on irrelevant abstractions–the Gross National Product, the Common Market, the influence of Rimbaud on symbolist painting. So adept is she at pandering that it eventually becomes second nature and she continues to pander to men even when in the company of other females only.
Apart from pandering, her “conversation” is further limited by her insecurity about expressing deviant, original opinions and the self-absorption based on insecurity and that prevents her conversation from being charming. Niceness, politeness, “dignity”, insecurity and self-absorption are hardly conducive to intensity and wit, qualities a conversation must have to be worthy of the name. Such conversation is hardly rampant, as only completely self-confident, arrogant, outgoing, proud, tough-minded females are capable of intense, bitchy, witty conversation.
Prevention of Friendship (Love): Men have contempt for themselves, for all other men, and for all women who respect and pander to them; the insecure, approval-seeking, pandering male females have contempt for themselves and for all women like them; the self-confident, swinging, thrill-seeking female females have contempt for men and for the pandering male females. In short, contempt is the order of the day.
Love is not dependency or sex, but friendship, and, therefore, love can’t exist between two males, between a male and a female or between two females, one or both of whom is a mindless, insecure, pandering male; like conversation, love can exist only between two secure, free-wheeling, independent, groovy female females, since friendship is based on respect, not contempt.
Even among groovy females deep friendships seldom occur in adulthood, as almost all of them are either tied up with men in order to survive economically, or bogged down in hacking their way through the jungle and in trying to keep their heads above the amorphous mass. Love can’t flourish in a society based on money and meaningless work; it requires complete economic as well as personal freedom, leisure time and the opportunity to engage in intensely absorbing, emotionally satisfying activities which, when shared with those you respect, lead to deep friendship. Our “society” provides practically no opportunity to engage in such activities.
Having stripped the world of conversation, friendship and love, the male offers us these paltry substitutes:
“Great Art” and “Culture”: The male “artist” attempts to solve his dilemma of not being able to live, of not being female, by constructing a highly artificial world in which the male is heroized, that is, displays female traits, and the female is reduced to highly limited, insipid subordinate roles, that is, to being male.
The male “artistic” aim being, not to communicate (having nothing inside him, he has nothing to say), but to disguise his animalism, he resorts to symbolism and obscurity (”deep” stuff). The vast majority of people, particularly the “educated” ones, lacking faith in their own judgment, humble, respectful of authority (”Daddy knows best” is translated into adult language as “Critic knows best”, “Writer knows best”, “Ph.D knows best”), are easily conned into believing that obscurity, evasiveness, incomprehensibility, indirectness, ambiguity and boredom are marks of depth and brilliance.
“Great Art” proves that men are superior to women, that men are women, being labeled “Great Art”, almost all of which, as the anti-feminists are fond of reminding us, was created by men. We know that “Great Art” is great because male authorities have told us so, and we can’t claim otherwise, as only those with exquisite sensitivities far superior to ours can perceive and appreciate the greatness, the proof of their superior sensitivity being that they appreciate the slop that they appreciate.
Appreciating is the sole diversion of the “cultivated”; passive and incompetent, lacking imagination and wit, they must try to make do with that; unable to create their own diversions, to create a little world of their own, to affect in the smallest way their environments, they must accept what’s given; unable to create or relate, they spectate. Absorbing “culture” is a desperate, frantic attempt to groove in an ungroovy world, to escape the horror of a sterile, mindless existence. “Culture” provides a sop to the egos of the incompetent, a means of rationalizing passive spectating; they can pride themselves on their ability to appreciate the “finer” things, to see a jewel where there is only a turd (they want to be admired for admiring). Lacking faith in their ability to change anything, resigned to the status quo, they have to see beauty in turds because, so far as they can see, turds are all they’ll ever have.
The veneration of “Art” and “Culture”–besides leading many women into boring, passive activity that distracts from more important and rewarding activities, from cultivating active abilities–allows the “artist” to be set up as one possessing superior feelings, perceptions, insights and judgments, thereby undermining the faith of insecure women in the value and validity of their own feelings, perceptions, insights and judgments.
The male, having a very limited range of feelings and, consequently, very limited perceptions, insights and judgments, needs the “artist” to guide him, to tell him what life is all about. But the male “artist”, being totally sexual, unable to relate to anything beyond his own physical sensations, having nothing to express beyond the insight that for the male life is meaningless and absurd, cannot be an artist. How can he who is not capable of life tell us what life is all about? A “male artist” is a contradiction in terms. A degenerate can only produce degenerate “art”. The true artist is every self-confident, healthy female, and in a female society the only Art, the only Culture, will be conceited, kookie, funky females grooving on each other and on everything else in the universe.
Sexuality: Sex is not part of a relationship; on the contrary, it is a solitary experience, non-creative, a gross waste of time. The female can easily–far more easily than she may think–condition away her sex drive, leaving her completely cool and cerebral and free to pursue truly worthy relationships and activities; but the male, who seems to dig women sexually and who seeks constantly to arouse them, stimulates the highly-sexed female to frenzies of lust, throwing her into a sex bag from which few women ever escape. The lecherous male excited the lustful female; he has to–when the female transcends her body, rises above animalism, the male, whose ego consists of his cock, will disappear.
Sex is the refuge of the mindless. And the more mindless the woman, the more deeply embedded in the male “culture”, in short, the nicer she is, the more sexual she is. The nicest women in our “society” are raving sex maniacs. But, being just awfully, awfully nice they don’t, of course, descend to fucking–that’s uncouth–rather they make love, commune by means of their bodies and establish sensual rapport; the literary ones are attuned to the throb of Eros and attain a clutch upon the Universe; the religious have spiritual communion with the Divine Sensualism; the mystics merge with the Erotic Principle and blend with the Cosmos, and the acid heads contact their erotic cells.
On the other hand, those females least embedded in the male “Culture”, the least nice, those crass and simple souls who reduce fucking to fucking, who are too childish for the grown-up world of suburbs, mortgages, mops and baby shit, too selfish to raise kids and husbands, too uncivilized to give a shit for anyone’s opinion of them, too arrogant to respect Daddy, the “Greats” or the deep wisdom of the Ancients, who trust only their own animal, gutter instincts, who equate Culture with chicks, whose sole diversion is prowling for emotional thrills and excitement, who are given to disgusting, nasty, upsetting “scenes”, hateful, violent bitches given to slamming those who unduly irritate them in the teeth, who’d sink a shiv into a man’s chest or ram an icepick up his asshole as soon as look at him, if they knew they could get away with it, in short, those who, by the standards of our “culture” are SCUM…these females are cool and relatively cerebral and skirting asexuality.
Unhampered by propriety, niceness, discretion, public opinion, “morals”, the “respect” of assholes, always funky, dirty, low-down SCUM gets around…and around and around…they’ve seen the whole show–every bit of it-the fucking scene, the sucking scene, the dyke scene–they’ve covered the whole waterfront, been under every dock and pier–the peter pier, the pussy pier…you’ve got to go through a lot of sex to get to anti-sex, and SCUM’s been through it all, and they’re now ready for a new show; they want to crawl out from under the dock, move, take off, sink out. But SCUM doesn’t yet prevail; SCUM’s still in the gutter of our “society”, which, if it’s not deflected from its present course and if the Bomb doesn’t drop on it, will hump itself to death.
Boredom: Life in a “society” made by and for creatures who, when they are not grim and depressing are utter bores, can only be, when not grim and depressing, an utter bore.
Secrecy, Censorship, Suppression of Knowledge and Ideas, and Exposes: Every male’s deep-seated, secret, most hideous fear is the fear of being discovered to be not a female, but a male, a subhuman animal. Although niceness, politeness and “dignity” suffice to prevent his exposure on a personal level, in order to prevent the general exposure of the male sex as a whole and to maintain his unnatural dominant position in “society”, the male must resort to:
1. Censorship. Responding reflexively to isolated words and phrases rather than cerebrally to overall meanings, the male attempts to prevent the arousal and discovery of his animalism by censoring not only “pornography”, but any work containing “dirty” words, no matter in what context they are used.
2. Suppression of all ideas and knowledge that might expose him or threaten his dominant position in “society”. Much biological and psychological data is suppressed, because it is proof of the male’s gross inferiority to the female. Also, the problem of mental illness will never be solved while the male maintains control, because first, men have a vested interest in it–only females who have very few of their marbles will allow males the slightest bit of control over anything, and second, the male cannot admit to the role that fatherhood plays in causing mental illness.
3. Exposes. The male’s chief delight in life–insofar as the dense, grim male can ever be said to delight in anything–is in exposing others. It doesn’t much matter what they’re exposed as, so long as they’re exposed; it distracts attention from himself. Exposing others as enemy agents (Communists and Socialists) is one of his favorite pastimes, as it removes the source of the threat to him not only from himself, but from the country and the Western world. The bugs up his ass aren’t in him; they’re in Russia.
Distrust: Unable to empathize or feel affection or loyalty, being exclusively out for himself, the male has no sense of fair play; cowardly, needing constantly to pander to the female to win her approval, that he is helpless without, always on edge lest his animalism, his maleness be discovered, always needing to cover up, he must lie constantly; being empty, he has no honor or integrity–he doesn’t know what those words mean. The male, in short, is treacherous, and the only appropriate attitude in a male “society” is cynicism and distrust.
Ugliness: Being totally sexual, incapable of cerebral or aesthetic responses, totally materialistic and greedy, the male, besides inflicting on the world “Great Art”, has decorated his unlandscaped cities with ugly buildings (both inside and out), ugly decors, billboards, highways, cars, garbage trucks and, most notably, his own putrid self.
Hate and Violence: The male is eaten up with tension, with frustration at not being female, at not being capable of ever achieving satisfaction or pleasure of any kind; eaten up with hate–not rational hate that is directed against those who abuse or insult you–but irrational, indiscriminate hate…hatred, at bottom, of his own worthless self.
Violence serves as an outlet for his hate and, in addition–the male being capable only of sexual responses and needing very strong stimuli to stimulate his half-dead self–provides him with a little sexual thrill.
Disease and Death: All diseases are curable, and the aging process and death are due to disease; it is possible, therefore, never to age and to live forever. In fact, the problems of aging and death could be solved within a few years, if an all-out, massive scientific assault were made on the problem. This, however, will not occur within the male establishment, because:
1. The many male scientists who shy away from biological research, terrified of the discovery that males are females, and show marked preference for virile, “manly” war and death programs.
2. The discouragement of many potential scientists from scientific careers by the rigidity, boringness, expensiveness, time-consumingness and unfair exclusivity of our “higher” educational system.
3. Propaganda disseminated by insecure male professionals, who jealously guard their positions, so that only a highly select few can comprehend abstract scientific concepts.
4. Widespread lack of self-confidence brought about by the father system that discourages many talented girls from becoming scientists.
5. Lack of automation. There now exists a wealth of data which, if sorted out and correlated, would reveal the cure for cancer and several other diseases and possibly the key to life itself. But the data is so massive it requires high speed computers to correlate it all. The institution of computers will be delayed interminably under the male control system, since the male has a horror of being replaced by machines.
6. The money system’s insatiable need for new products. Most of the few scientists around who aren’t working on death programs are tied up doing research for corporations.
7. The male likes death–it excites him sexually and, already dead inside, he wants to die.
Incapable of a positive state of happiness, which is the only thing that can justify one’s existence, the male is, at best, relaxed, comfortable, neutral, and this condition is extremely short-lived, as boredom, a negative state, soon sets in; he is, therefore, doomed to an existence of suffering relieved only by occasional, fleeting stretches of restfulness, which state he can achieve only at the expense of some female. The male is, by his very nature, a leech, an emotional parasite and, therefore, not ethically entitled to live, as no one has the right to live at someone else’s expense.
Just as humans have a prior right to existence over dogs by virtue of being more highly evolved and having a superior consciousness, so women have a prior right to existence over men. The elimination of any male is, therefore, a righteous and good act, an act highly beneficial to women as well as an act of mercy.
However, this moral issue will eventually be rendered academic by the fact that the male is gradually eliminating himself. In addition to engaging in the time-honored and classical wars and race riots, men are more and more either becoming fags or are obliterating themselves through drugs. The female, whether she likes it or not, will eventually take complete charge, if for no other reason than that she will have to–the male, for practical purposes, won’t exist.
Accelerating this trend is the fact that more and more males are acquiring enlightened self-interest; they’re realizing more and more that the female interest is their interest, that they can live only through the female and that the more the female is encouraged to live, to fulfill herself, to be a female and not a male, the more nearly he lives; he’s coming to see that it’s easier and more satisfactory to live through her than to try to become her and usurp her qualities, claim them as his own, push the female down and claim she’s a male. The fag, who accepts his maleness, that is, his passivity and total sexuality, his femininity, is also best served by women being truly female, as it would then be easier for him to be male, feminine. If men were wise they would seek to become really female, would do intensive biological research that would lead to men, by means of operations on the brain and nervous system, being able to be transformed in psyche, as well as body, into women.
Whether to continue to use females for reproduction or to reproduce in the laboratory will also become academic: what will happen when every female, twelve and over, is routinely taking the Pill and there are no longer any accidents? How many women will deliberately get or (if an accident) remain pregnant? No, Virginia, women don’t just adore being brood mares, despite what the mass of robot, brainwashed women will say. When society consists of only the fully conscious the answer will be none. Should a certain percentage of women be set aside by force to serve as brood mares for the species? Obviously this will not do. The answer is laboratory reproduction of babies.
As for the issue of whether or not to continue to reproduce males, it doesn’t follow that because the male, like disease, has always existed among us that he should continue to exist. When genetic control is possible–and it soon will be–it goes without saying that we should produce only whole, complete beings, not physical defects or deficiencies, including emotional deficiencies, such as maleness. Just as the deliberate production of blind people would be highly immoral, so would be the deliberate production of emotional cripples.
Why produce even females? Why should there be future generations? What is their purpose? When aging and death are eliminated, why continue to reproduce? Why should we care what happens when we’re dead? Why should we care that there is no younger generation to succeed us?
Eventually the natural course of events, of social evolution, will lead to total female control of the world and, subsequently, to the cessation of the production of males and, ultimately, to the cessation of the production of females.
But SCUM is impatient; SCUM is not consoled by the thought that future generations will thrive; SCUM wants to grab some thrilling living for itself. And, if a large majority of women were SCUM, they could acquire complete control of this country within a few weeks simply by withdrawing from the labor force, thereby paralyzing the entire nation. Additional measures, any one of which would be sufficient to completely disrupt the economy and everything else, would be for women to declare themselves off the money system, stop buying, just loot and simply refuse to obey all laws they don’t care to obey. The police force, National Guard, Army, Navy and Marines combined couldn’t squelch a rebellion of over half the population, particularly when it’s made up of people they are utterly helpless without.
If all women simply left men, refused to have anything to do with any of them–ever, all men, the government, and the national economy would collapse completely. Even without leaving men, women who are aware of the extent of their superiority to and power over men, could acquire complete control over everything within a few weeks, could effect a total submission of males to females. In a sane society the male would trot along obediently after the female. The male is docile and easily led, easily subjected to the domination of any female who cares to dominate him. The male, in fact, wants desperately to be led by females, wants Mama in charge, wants to abandon himself to her care. But this is not a sane society, and most women are not even dimly aware of where they’re at in relation to men.
The conflict, therefore, is not between females and males, but between SCUM–dominant, secure, self-confident, nasty, violent, selfish, independent, proud, thrill-seeking, free-wheeling, arrogant females, who consider themselves fit to rule the universe, who have free-wheeled to the limits of this “society” and are ready to wheel on to something far beyond what it has to offer–and nice, passive, accepting, “cultivated”, polite, dignified, subdued, dependent, scared, mindless, insecure, approval-seeking Daddy’s Girls, who can’t cope with the unknown, who want to continue to wallow in the sewer that is, at least, familiar, who want to hang back with the apes, who feel secure only with Big Daddy standing by, with a big, strong man to lean on and with a fat, hairy face in the White House, who are too cowardly to face up to the hideous reality of what a man is, what Daddy is, who have cast their lot with the swine, who have adapted themselves to animalism, feel superficially comfortable with it and know no other way of “life”, who have reduced their minds, thoughts and sights to the male level, who, lacking sense, imagination and wit can have value only in a male “society”, who can have a place in the sun, or, rather, in the slime, only as soothers, ego boosters, relaxers and breeders, who are dismissed as inconsequents by other females, who project their deficiencies, their maleness, onto all females and see the female as a worm.
But SCUM is too impatient to hope and wait for the de-brainwashing of millions of assholes. Why should the swinging females continue to plod dismally along with the dull male ones? Why should the fates of the groovy and the creepy be intertwined? Why should the active and imaginative consult the passive and dull on social policy? Why should the independent be confined to the sewer along with the dependent who need Daddy to cling to?
A small handful of SCUM can take over the country within a year by systematically fucking up the system, selectively destroying property, and murder:
SCUM will become members of the unwork force, the fuck-up force; they will get jobs of various kinds and unwork. For example, SCUM salesgirls will not charge for merchandise; SCUM telephone operators will not charge for calls; SCUM office and factory workers, in addition to fucking up their work, will secretly destroy equipment. SCUM will unwork at a job until fired, then get a new job to unwork at.
SCUM will forcibly relieve bus drivers, cab drivers and subway token sellers of their jobs and run buses and cabs and dispense free tokens to the public.
SCUM will destroy all useless and harmful objects–cars, store windows, “Great Art”, etc.
Eventually SCUM will take over the airwaves–radio and TV networks–by forcibly relieving of their jobs all radio and TV employees who would impede SCUM’s entry into the broadcasting studios.
SCUM will couple-bust–barge into mixed (male-female) couples, wherever they are, and bust them up.
SCUM will kill all men who are not in the Men’s Auxiliary of SCUM. Men in the Men’s Auxiliary are those men who are working diligently to eliminate themselves, men who, regardless of their motives, do good, men who are playing ball with SCUM. A few examples of the men in the Men’s Auxiliary are: men who kill men; biological scientists who are working on constructive programs, as opposed to biological warfare; journalists, writers, editors, publishers and producers who disseminate and promote ideas that will lead to the achievement of SCUM’s goals; faggots who, by their shimmering, flaming example, encourage other men to de-man themselves and thereby make themselves relatively inoffensive; men who consistently give things away–money, things, services; men who tell it like it is (so far not one ever has), who put women straight, who reveal the truth about themselves, who give the mindless male females correct sentences to parrot, who tell them a woman’s primary goal in life should be to squash the male sex (to aid men in this endeavor SCUM will conduct Turd Sessions, at which every male present will give a speech beginning with the sentence: “I am a turd, a lowly, abject turd,” then proceed to list all the ways in which he is. His reward for so doing will be the opportunity to fraternize after the session for a whole, solid hour with the SCUM who will be present. Nice, clean-living male women will be invited to the sessions to help clarify any doubts and misunderstandings they may have about the male sex); makers and promoters of sex books and movies, etc., who are hastening the day when all that will be shown on the screen will be Suck and Fuck (males, like the rats following the Pied Piper, will be lured by Pussy to their doom, will be overcome and submerged by and will eventually drown in the passive flesh that they are); drug pushers and advocates, who are hastening the dropping out of men.
Being in the Men’s Auxiliary is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for making SCUM’s escape list; it’s not enough to do good; to save their worthless asses men must also avoid evil. A few examples of the most obnoxious or harmful types are: rapists, politicians and all who are in their service (campaigners, members of political parties, etc.); lousy singers and musicians; Chairmen of Boards; Breadwinners; landlords; owners of greasy spoons and restaurants that play Musak; “Great Artists”; cheap pikers and welchers; cops; tycoons; scientists working on death and destruction programs or for private industry (practically all scientists); liars and phonies; disc jockeys; men who intrude themselves in the slightest way on any strange female; real estate men; stock brokers; men who speak when they have nothing to say; men who loiter idly on the street and mar the landscape with their presence; double dealers; flim-flam artists; litterbugs; plagiarizers; men who in the slightest way harm any female; all men in the advertising industry; psychiatrists and clinical psychologists; dishonest writers, journalists, editors, publishers, etc.; censors on both the public and private levels; all members of the armed forces, including draftees (LBJ and McNamara give orders, but servicemen carry them out) and particularly pilots (if the bomb drops, LBJ won’t drop it; a pilot will). In the case of a man whose behavior falls into both the good and bad categories, an overall subjective evaluation of him will be made to determine if his behavior is, in the balance, good or bad.
It is most tempting to pick off the female “Great Artists”, double dealers, etc. along with the men, but that would be impractical, as there would be no one left; all women have a fink streak in them, to a great or lesser degree, but it stems from a lifetime of living among men. Eliminate men and women will shape up. Women are improvable; men are not, although their behavior is. When SCUM gets hot on their asses it’ll shape up fast.
Simultaneously with the fucking-up, looting, couple-busting, destroying and killing, SCUM will recruit. SCUM, then, will consist of recruiters; the elite corps–the hard core activists (the fuck-ups, looters and destroyers) and the elite of the elite–the killers.
Dropping out is not the answer; fucking-up is. Most women are already dropped out; they were never in. Dropping out gives control to those few who don’t drop out; dropping out is exactly what the establishment leaders want; it plays into the hands of the enemy; it strengthens the system instead of undermining it, since it is based entirely on the non-participation, passivity, apathy and non-involvement of the mass of women. Dropping out, however, is an excellent policy for men and SCUM will enthusiastically encourage it.
Looking inside yourself for salvation, contemplating your navel, is not, as the Drop Out people would have you believe, the answer. Happiness lies outside yourself, is achieved through interacting with others. Self-forgetfulness should be one’s goal, not self-absorption. The male, capable of only the latter, makes a virtue of an irremediable fault and sets up self-absorption, not only as a good but as a Philosophical Good, and thus gets credit for being deep.
SCUM will not picket, demonstrate, march or strike to attempt to achieve its ends. Such tactics are for nice, genteel ladies who scrupulously take only such action as is guaranteed to be ineffective. In addition, only decent, clean-living, male women, highly trained in submerging themselves in the species, act on a mob basis. SCUM consists of individuals; SCUM is not a mob, a blob. Only as many SCUM will do a job as are needed for the job. Also, SCUM, being cool and selfish, will not subject itself to getting rapped on the head with billy clubs; that’s for the nice, “privileged, educated”, middle-class ladies with a high regard for the touching faith in the essential goodness of Daddy and policemen. If SCUM ever marches, it will be over the President’s stupid, sickening face; if SCUM ever strikes, it will be in the dark with a six-inch blade.
SCUM will always operate on a criminal as opposed to a civil disobedience basis, that is, as opposed to openly violating the law and going to jail in order to draw attention to an injustice. Such tactics acknowledge the rightness of the overall system and are used only to modify it slightly, change specific laws. SCUM is against the entire system, the very idea of law and government. SCUM is out to destroy the system, not attain certain rights within it. Also, SCUM–always selfish, always cool–will always aim to avoid detection and punishment. SCUM will always be furtive, sneaky, underhanded (although SCUM murders will always be known to be such).
Both destruction and killing will be selective and discriminate. SCUM is against half-crazed, indiscriminate riots, with no clear objective in mind, and in which many of your own kind are picked off. SCUM will never instigate, encourage or participate in riots of any kind or any other form of indiscriminate destruction. SCUM will coolly, furtively, stalk its prey and quietly move in for the kill. Destruction will never be such as to block off routes needed for the transportation of food and other essential supplies, contaminate or cut off the water supply, block streets and traffic to the extent that ambulances can’t get through or impede the functioning of hospitals.
SCUM will keep on destroying, looting, fucking-up and killing until the money-work system no longer exists and automation is completely instituted or until enough women co-operate with SCUM to make violence unnecessary to achieve these goals, that is, until enough women either unwork or quit work, start looting, leave men and refuse to obey all laws inappropriate to a truly civilized society. Many women will fall into line, but many others, who surrendered long ago to the enemy, who are so adapted to animalism, to maleness, that they like restrictions and restraints, don’t know what to do with freedom, will continue to be toadies and doormats, just as peasants in rice paddies remain peasants in rice paddies as one regime topples another. A few of the more volatile will whimper and sulk and throw their toys and dishrags on the floor, but SCUM will continue to steamroller over them.
A completely automated society can be accomplished very simply and quickly once there is a public demand for it. The blueprints for it are already in existence, and its construction will only take a few weeks with millions of people working at it. Even though off the money system, everyone will be most happy to pitch in and get the automated society built; it will mark the beginning of a fantastic new era, and there will be a celebration atmosphere accompanying the construction.
The elimination of money and the complete institution of automation are basic to all other SCUM reforms; without these two the others can’t take place; with them the others will take place very rapidly. The government will automatically collapse. With complete automation it will be possible for every woman to vote directly on every issue by means of an electronic voting machine in her house. Since the government is occupied almost entirely with regulating economic affairs and legislating against purely private matters, the elimination of money and with it the elimination of males who wish to legislate “morality” will mean that there will be practically no issues to vote on.
After the elimination of money there will be no further need to kill men; they will be stripped of the only power they have over psychologically independent females. They will be able to impose themselves only on the doormats, who like to be imposed on. The rest of the women will be busy solving the few remaining unsolved problems before planning their agenda for eternity and Utopia–completely revamping educational programs so that millions of women can be trained within a few months for high level intellectual work that now requires years of training (this can be done very easily once our educational goal is to educate and not to perpetuate an academic and intellectual elite); solving the problems of disease and old age and death and completely redesigning our cities and living quarters. Many women will for a while continue to think they dig men, but as they become accustomed to female society and as they become absorbed in their projects, they will eventually come to see the utter uselessness and banality of the male.
The few remaining men can exist out their puny days dropped out on drugs or strutting around in drag or passively watching the high-powered female in action, fulfilling themselves as spectators, vicarious livers* or breeding in the cow pasture with the toadies, or they can go off to the nearest friendly suicide center where they will be quietly, quickly and painlessly gassed to death.
Prior to the institution of automation, to the replacement of males by machines, the male should be of use to the female, wait on her, cater to her slightest whim, obey her every command, be totally subservient to her, exist in perfect obedience to her will, as opposed to the completely warped, degenerate situation we have now of men, not only not existing at all, cluttering up the world with their ignominious presence, but being pandered to and groveled before by the mass of females, millions of women piously worshipping before the Golden Calf, the dog leading the master on the leash, when in fact the male, short of being a drag queen, is least miserable when abjectly prostrate before the female, a complete slave. Rational men want to be squashed, stepped on, crushed and crunched, treated as the curs, the filth that they are, have their repulsiveness confirmed.
The sick, irrational men, those who attempt to defend themselves against their disgustingness, when they see SCUM barreling down on them, will cling in terror to Big Mama with her Big Bouncy Boobies, but Boobies won’t protect them against SCUM; Big Mama will be clinging to Big Daddy, who will be in the corner shitting in his forceful, dynamic pants. Men who are rational, however, won’t kick or struggle or raise a distressing fuss, but will just sit back, relax, enjoy the show and ride the wave
Verlch, You have posted this list many times on many blogs. Have you found it to be effective? Have any feminists reponded with an “Oh, I see that feminists are bad. I won’t be one any more”? Actually, this comes across like an assault, and does our cause no good. As an MRA, I recommend addressing issues, not persons. Of course, at times, the issue IS a person, as with the late Ms. Dworkin a few weeks ago, and then quotes of the person involved are apropos. Otherwise, out-of-context quotes need to be used sparingly if they are to be of any use.
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Remember women think with emotions not reason. So no amount of reason will get in their heads. I’ve battled with my feminist mother and a wife on these issuses and I get labeled the misogynist of the group and I also hate women at the same time. So showing them who the real hate mongers are with their own words does have an impact.
Also the fact that the backbone of our homes(women/mothers) is too busy working, paying taxes and ignoring the needs of the family for their own selfish needs should be addressed. Not only do these women want out of fulfilling homes they abort their fetuses with reckless abandon in the name of equality with men. They seem to loath the fact they have children and are born to be soft and sweet. They have turned into hard, weak men with the only sense of direction is “if a man has it I can get it want it too.”
I’m studying misogyny for my English class paper, and I have found it very interesting. I didn’t even know what the word meant until last week, and now I am fascinated by the whole concept. I never noticed how much hate there is for the female gender. But something that I am comfused about is how porn is a form of hating a woman. I am a female and I sometimes look at female porn. Does that mean I hate women as well? And If I look at male porn do I hate men?
I’m studying misogyny for my English class paper, and I have found it very interesting. I didn’t even know what the word meant until last week, and now I am fascinated by the whole concept. I never noticed how much hate there is for the female gender. But something that I am comfused about is how porn is a form of hating a woman. I am a female and I sometimes look at female porn. Does that mean I hate women as well? And If I look at male porn do I hate men?
” I didn’t even know what the word meant until last week, and now I am fascinated by the whole concept.”
misogyny — hatred of women
misandry — hatred of men
misanthropy — hatred of humankind
Vilmaril,
You will find major disagreement on the issue of porn in every camp. There are feminists who defend it and feminists who condemn it. Likewise with conservatives and liberals, Men’s Rights Advocates, and others. You can take any view you wish on porn and still have plenty of company in your ideological group of choice. I personally do not believe that hatred, per se, is a big factor in the production or consumption of most porn.
I would also caution you about what you label as hatred. It is an widely used term in western society now, because it is convenient for promoting causes. Hatred is not at all subtle, so it should not be difficult to observe where it exists. Yet “never noticed” it until someone pointed it out to you, right?
For example, sexism does not necessarily imply misogyny or misandry. Likewise, nationalism does not imply hatred of other nations, nor racism imply hatred of other races. There are many who refuse to acknowledge the difference. I hope you can look deeply into things to see what underlies each situaion, rather than take up the one-size-fits-all label of misogyny. Look for the actual hate itself. Can you identify the persons who are doing the hating? Who exactly actively hates women in the examples that you have seen thus far? Maybe it is an acknowledged hate. But then, perhaps it require some psychological gymnastics to identify it - some deeply sublimated hatred that comes forth unconsciously in given situations. If so, then be suspicious.
Was there any level of analysis done on the matter to determine causes and motivations, resulting in the conslusion that actual hatred of women is the underlying cause? If so, would you trust the methodologies to identify misandry as well if it were present? (I suspect there was no such study done. Generally, there is only a description of a situation where women seem disadvantaged, and the label of misogyny is slapped on. What other explanation could there be, after all? Right?)
When my daughter was growing up, I used to tell her that everyone is entitled to their opinions in America - but you only really EARN the right to yours when you can make a credible and forceful argument in favor of the other side. Then you know that you have come to your opinion with understanding of the issues, and not from blind belief. I would encourage you to do the same.
One caveat here: I am referring to Occidental society here. It may not hold true for other cultures with which I am not familiar.
So good luck with your studies. And for the record, I, for one, am quite certain that you hate neither men nor women, and any viewing of porn that you do will not change that.
Hugo you still act like a chick
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“After all, if you’re going to demand a higher standard of conduct from men, that demand must be rooted in some implicit–probably unconscious–sense of male superiority. Most likely, you despise women; you’re just not aware of that.”
So Hugo despises women? That’s one of the funniest things I’ve read in ages. Delusional, party of one, your table is ready…
And I see that we’re quoting the SCUM manifesto too. Sigh. Valerie Solanos was a deranged wacko. Implying that all feminists think the same way she did is rather like implying that all people who are anti-abortion are big fans of the Nuremburg Files site and just itching to shoot doctors. Rather than proving the point you’re trying to make, it just makes it impossible for anyone to take you seriously.
Also…Jilly Cooper did not write the SCUM Manifesto. Jilly Cooper is a mildly entertaining but very silly British novelist who writes about upper class Brits drinking and shagging, usually with some kind of horse-related theme (showjumping, polo etc) as a backdrop. Basically she writes romance novels with some very explicit sex thrown in (and thrown up against the tack room door…ahem). Valerie Solanos wrote the SCUM Manifesto (and shot Andy Warhol). There isn’t really any connection between the two, other that they’re both female and both wrote books. Mixing up those two doesn’t do much for the credibility of the guy who posted the quote…
i like ur information about misogynist