War on (love is the) drugs.

DISCUSSION FORUM:
feminism and its influence on the portrayal of sexual power

This is an archive page for September 99.
Where reader comments are of interest or where they raise significant points I will publish my response in dialogue pages such as this one. Reader comment excerpts are in black and my replies in red.
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From: Tuatoo TuatooE@ELMENDORF.af.mil
Subject: Equal Opportunity
Date: Mon, Sep 13, 1999

I am 21 years of age and have currently served 3 years in the military. During the first year of my 4 year enlistment I had the good fortune of working with a female Airman 1st Class. She was a self proclaimed feminist and spent every single day announcing her fine ideas of the benefits of sisterhood and the misfortunes of women at the hands of men. Being the quiet Island girl that I am I merely kept quiet, meanwhile noticing that though her mouth could surely chatter a mile a minute spouting feminist notions, her dainty little hands could not lift a 45 lb box. This was because, in her words, "Women aren't meant to do the dirty work." Needless to say, that friendship did not last very long.

In the three years I have been here, the men have treated me with enough respect to drown me. The poor dears, I understand this had something to do with the overprotective men in them. A few of the women on the other hand, I could have strangled with my bare hands, such was my frustration with them.

Many thought that because they were women that they should be granted every respect automatically. Equal opportunity means equal work. Many women are defeated by themselves. There is always that little voice in their heads, "I can't do this because I'm a woman. They'll hold me back." For every defeat the excuse is "Because I'm a woman." I know that there are women that are battered and really do not receive equal opportunities. But for those of you who abuse the freedom that so many true feminists fought for, you may wage your battle, but you will always lose. For the battle you are fighting is against yourself. Enough preaching already....This topic is long overdue and overdone. Hasta Luego.

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Accounts such as yours are valuable in fleshing out the real experiences that people make.

Feminism has encouraged women to aspire to do a greater variety of jobs previously occupied traditionally by men. At the same time, and in perhaps greater degree, it has encouraged women to see themselves as victims.

Contrary to feminist notions we do not live in a society in which men rampantly oppress women, most men have a special respect and deference for women. This is part of the long-held system of chivalry. There are times when chivalry can be oppressive to women, when it is designed to shield them from all dangers or discomforts. In turn it can then make women uncomfortable in an environment where they actually want and need equal treatment. I am wondering whether the males in your military company should not start to think of female soldiers (airpersons?) more as fellow soldiers, rather than as ladies.

Society pervasively accepts that women deserve special consideration (in certain areas) even while it is also accepting them as deserving equal treatment. The special treatment is something encouraged by feminists, though publicly denied. In addition it exists in individual women as a sublimated awareness. It is something she can resort to as part of the tradition of being a woman. Many women have a sensual power over men which they are forced to abandon if they want completer equality.

My understanding is that the women you refer to have been brainwashed with their feminist (fully hypocritical) ideology and they cannot help but constantly spout it as a defence, even when it does not meet with reality.

Having said all the above there is something admirable in you and the other women for engaging in a field that is in a sense revolutionary for your sex. You have broken into new roles in which sexual interaction custom is not fully established.

From: Anders eki7064@hgo.se
Date: Thu, Sep 9, 1999

Your piece on the net on feminism's villification of males is good.

I live in Sweden and we have a minister of equality (Margareta Winberg) who last fall argued that all males had to accept their collective guilt and address it to protect all the women victims. This kind of attitude permeates Swedish society and this week Margareta Winberg hinted that women will be placed on all major private corporation boards by quotas in five years unless they get voted in now. In Sweden approximately 62% of babies born are males (i.e. xy as the last set of chromosomes), with a policy aiming at a 50-50 quota quite a few thousand males have no place in society.

Your writing is clear and consistent, and you use words which carry negative connotation of people who suck up. It is wise to call a spade a spade. There is no point in assisting a person who has a goal to destroy you. Keep the clear and good writing going.

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The Left has looked for a long time to Sweden and other Scandinavian countries for all that is progressive. I have read several journal articles indicating also that Swedish policies on women are the most advanced in the world. It should be no surprise therefore to see current social policy here modeled on the Swedish example. However things move slowly because the population must first be softened up to accept what now still seems extreme policies. People are still often under the impression that no such thing as quotas exist.

In politics there are several pressure groups, one of which wants to make sure women are one-third of candidates for Parliamentary seats in the Labor Party, very soon. There is nothing wrong with that. But there may be something wrong with being forced to vote for a particular female. In this state NSW (Australia) there was recently an election in which the liberal party suddenly put a female at the head of the party. It was the biggest election loss they had ever made. This was not because they chose a female, but because they were so desperate to have a female as head of state. She did not have the experience and credibility required to win, but no one ever admitted that the agenda had been a feminist one. Just incidentally, in Australia you may be aware of a problem with the Aboriginal people. There is a very vigorous public campaign to make the government say sorry for all the injustices committed against the Aboriginal people. The campaign is relentless and is constantly reviewed in newspapers. It demands that the government apologise to black people on behalf of the country for 200 years of alleged genocide, etc. The reason I mention this is because I began to think, mischievously, why not have the same thing between men and women: a big sorry day by men. Now you mention that something similar may occur in Sweden. Truth is stranger than fiction.

From: CatPoopJB@aol.com
Date: Fri, Sep 3, 1999

Anti-Feminist websites are as powerless against the *FEMINAZIS* as pro-drug websites are against the War on Drugs (and if you think these two are unrelated, just remember Carrie Nation, who was also a feminazi). Both are dictated by coporate interests to which *ALL* must bow. It is they who are right and we who are wrong. i will explain this in more detail:

As Cynthia pointed out below, feminaziism allows corporate Amerikkka to raise prices; more precisely if asserts strong downward pressure on wages as the size of the labour force doubles. This in turn causes profits to skyrocket, and puts the bosses in a position to buy political favours from government, which of course cuts off the personal freedoms of everyone -- black, white, male, and female -- that are not members of the tiny power-elite clique. Free market competition and consumer choice also disappear accordingly, as larger firms with more money buy out the government against their competitors.

Feminazis also benefit from this increase in power, since they require a social structure to dominate in order to take out their revenge against men for crimes that were never committed.

As such, feminaziism is intimately woven into the global-corporate movement, in which 'the people' by definition have no choice, and that guarentees its success. Fortunately(?) however, men need not worry about the feminazis prosecuting all-out genocide against them (at least not in the near future), since the corporations require a surplus labour market to maintain their dominant position. This may explain why feminaziism has not prevented children from being born, as some had assumed it would, but has merely accelerated the growth of single-mother families.

I hope that i have demonstrated that feminaziism and global fascism are two trends that fuel each other. The global-corporate movement in fact consists of many such synergisms: the loss of freedom increases the prison slave-labour population, which lowers wages and increases profits and power; the disappearence of competing firms not only increases profits from cannibalizing market share but also from generating unemployment. The existence of these and other synergisms makes the global-corporate movement the absolute truth that nobody is in a position to question. After all, any deviation from this logic would be a concession to the working class, which by global-corporate logic would mean giving away the whole shop for free. (And this same logic dictates that it is we who owe them the whole shop).

For this reason, we must surrender and accept our fate at their hands, which means that feminazi bigotry will be the ideology for womyn and that men must be more or less willing targets of it. And for anyone, male or female, that dares to challenge them it may mean death in a privately owned commercial gulag. No, the future is not at all bright; but what can you do about it? [Jer. 5:31]

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You have painted a picture that is unremmitingly bleak. You portray the corporate world as completely closed and so powerful that it cannot nor need not make concessions to what you describe as feminazism. However, there are times when under a particular constellation of historical social forces a movement gains an ability to affect social agendas. This may be due to the rationality of its social arguments, its economic viability, its ability to play on populist emotional sentiment, its ability to disrupt social reproduction, its usefulness to other political strategists or even the crisis that it signifies to society that must be addressed. Interestingly, just as one example, over the last few years there has been a movement among senior male executives to attend group counselling and to review their attitude to masculinity. These powerful men are admitting to a sense of inadequacy and despite being powerful economically feel emotionally or mentally weak next to their wives. I am not suggesting that these men should be candidates for an antifeminist (or feminazi) movement but rather that they can contribute to counterveiling representation being given to men's interests and development. It is just one example in which power need not all go one way. Your economic theory of corporate America is difficult to tackle. I have a reasonable experience of economics and I am familiar with both corporate apologetics and its main dissident theories, including Marxism, neomarxism and free wheeling anarchism. Your theory of corporate America draws from a mixture of genuine analysis and conspiracy theory, mixed up with a liberal use of inappropriate descriptors that are used as abuse rather than as revealing insight. Some of what you say about the operation of the corporate system has some basis in truth but some of the rest is conspiratorial which makes me wonder simply about the stability of your whole outlook. Remember that this all relates to the subject of feminism and its alliance with the corporate monopoly fascist capitalism that you describe. To say that women entering the workforce puts downward pressure on wages is true, but it does not intrinsically reduce wages, nor do I believe it has done historically! Secondly, to say that feminism allows prices to rise is also false. Women entering the workforce would tend to balance rising consumer demand (based on their wages) with rising productivity. You make precise assumptions about the effect of social changes that need to be verified with detailed proofs. Economics is a complex field. I do not want to exclude people from putting forward theories but the subject deserves more than just such a cursory conclusion. There is some truth to what you say and I think it would be worthwhile exploring the subject further, precisely because you have not developed your thoughts on the subject sufficiently. I cannot go into my whole theory of corporate motivation and dynamics but let me say that it is both more organised and less organised at times than people think. Conspiracies happen in different places to what people think. Some corporate policies and actions are beneficial in the long run to society even thought they are cruel and harsh to people in the short term. Feminism has many negative impacts on men and women but it also presents challenges. It is implicitly defying people to stand up and assert their rights and interests. One last thing, related to the above. Carrie Nation, according to my limited knowledge was an anti booze vigilante who went around busting up bars with a sledgehammer. While she may have been a fanatic (temperance leaguer) something about what she did had a progressive social agenda. Alcohol is one of the drugs which in effect oppresses millions of men. It keeps them drunk and in a stupor when they should be doing something more useful. Many men have historically spent every cent of their pay packet on booze while leaving their wife and children with nothing to eat. Everything from wife bashing to a substantial percentage of road accidents is linked to booze and male consumption of this DRUG. Why would you not expect a militant attitude to develop against such degeneracy? Unfortunately the biggest problem with resisting feminism for men is that they need to be able to achieve a moral high ground rather than to sink to the very behaviour that women (usually) have always deplored. This makes the resistance to feminist ideology and legislation a very difficult challenge requiring a very focused outlook and coordinated sensible action. It requires men in particular to look to their own improvement.

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