The Lie That’s Killing Feminism

Internalized misogyny runs deep. Even insightful women may find themselves suspicious of women-lead movements.

Van Badham writes for Guardian Australia. In addition to the coolest name in journalism, this week she has some sharp words about the current state of the Battle of the Sexes.

Pink Couch Convo

Boys are yucky, and you’re just as good as they are!

She trumpets the results of a new study from the University of Bath: Married mothers who earn more than their husbands take on an even greater share of the housework, a study from the University of Bath in the UK has found – the more they earned over their partner, the more housework they did.

“Women who earn more than men do more household labour, it concludes, because the situation implies a gender norm variation for which women feel obliged to compensate.”

She’s playing his role, and centuries of debasement mean he can’t bring himself to adopt hers. But the laundry ain’t gonna do itself.

“Why obliged? The study says conceptions of masculinity are near inextricable from the ancient ‘male breadwinner’ role.

Oh, come now! Can men really be expected to adjust? Those creatures who forged civilization and colonized the planet navigating by the stars – Can we really expect them to behave intelligently?

Sarcasm aside, Van makes a very important point – “I’ll say what the study can’t: Women learn, as girls, there is no greater danger than a man who perceives his masculinity is threatened by them.”

Here she pokes the doughy center of every heterosexual relationship – A man’s greatest fear is a woman laughing at him, while a woman’s greatest fear is that a man will kill her. When your potential partners are also your biggest potential threat, not all the tension is sexual. You don’t need to shoot a gun to know it’s best to treat them all as if they’re loaded.

But, rather than dig into this power imbalance and why it lingers despite economic changes, Van blurs micro and macro to basically blame ‘society’: “Straight domestic relationships are where the deeply ingrained gender stereotypes go, like vampires, to feed on women’s blood and maintain eternal life.”

Rising From The Grave

No! My instincts died with my innocence!

Why are these gender stereotypes so ingrained?? Could it have anything to do with the inevitable interactions of mechanistic material dynamics? Making six figures won’t make you stronger than him. The sweetest man in the world cannot gestate your child for you. If we’re talking about the mundane frustrations of family life, we must acknowledge the whole, gritty picture. Otherwise we’re just feeling sorry for ourselves.

Alas, Van’s deep digs at Liberal Feminism belie her ignorance of anything happening outside of it – A mutant alliance of conservative radicals and biologically-determinist feminist separatists…”

Wow, you sure got my number there, Van. My husband will be very interested to know I’m not speaking to him anymore, right after you finish explaining what ‘biologically-determinist’ actually means.

“…are out to insist that the greatest threat to women is not the intimate partner violence of fact, but the swim-champ trans women of fiction.”

A link takes us to a denial of Lia Thomas’ physical advantages. Here we have an explicit demonstration of the limits of LibFem analysis – Van can’t address the physical, material  factors that shape women’s domestic lives because she’d have to admit that we are different from men, after all.

Liberal Feminism long ago gave away the Different But Equal card in exchange for entrance to the Cool Boys Club. To highlight the distinction of femaleness is to admit we don’t belong.

And while chiding LibFems, Van is singing the same song, “An avalanche of actively anti-trans legislation in the United States” Pause for the obligatory reminder that outlawing the mutilation of healthy children is pro-children, not anti-trans. 

“…is not an ‘over there’ problem when its scare-campaign talking points – always directed at women – are echoed both by Australia’s conservative MPs and the ambitious boys of its liberal Greens.” Leaving aside Aussie politics, it’s pretty rich to complain about scare-campaign talking points right after regurgitating one!

In The Backyard

All this feels strangely familiar!

Perhaps these campaigns are aimed at women because there’s a movement afoot, Van. And there’s always room for a smart woman like you.

“Dare I suggest that the aggressive scapegoating of transgender women by an invested, patriarchal hierarchy is a cunning misdirection, given that more money and more power for the lucky few has still not provided women with gender equality in the home?”

Observations this astute tend to get a person labeled a conspiracy theorist. But who put the transwomen there, Van? After so many feminist gains, why are we defending the very definition of the word ‘woman’ in public discourse and law?

“’Woman’ is a problematised term not because of any transgender activism.” Really? Because ‘inclusive language’ is kinda their thing. “It’s because the modern expectations of what it means to be a “woman” are so demanding, contradictory and structurally unsatisfying, they are impossible for everyone.”

That’s why the gates are left undefended – We’ve gotten so busy pushing ourselves and hating ourselves and dumping our negativity onto other women that we’ve forgotten what it’s all for.

And Van points this out- It’s really nice to finally see someone else bringing this up. She describes how we’re immersed in a “culturally mainstreamed, ‘go girl’ liberal feminism that has massaged ‘girls can do anything’ to mean ‘girls should do everything, all the time’. 

“You must have #nolimits – especially when it comes to sexual experimentation – and yet confidently enforce boundaries, ‘dump the motherfucker already’ but have #couplegoals!” Yep, those double standards are a bitch. But when even adult human females struggle to be women, the temptation for fellas to show us girls how it’s done must be overwhelming!

Bandaged

Oh, you’re definitely a better shot than me – I don’t even know how you did that!

Van tears into Liberal Feminist messaging with a vengeance that feels personal, “The most important job in the world is still being a mother, so be an active parent, but not a helicopter parent. You should pursue your own dreams, but think outside the box, achieve a work-life balance but also lean in, ask for that raise, #BelieveAchieve and smash the glass ceiling. With your perfect face.

A line truly worthy of a cathartic spit-take.

“It’s the old paradox that insists the apex of womanhood is to be simultaneously virgin, mother and whore – except also now do this backwards in heels, making six figures on a keto diet at yoga while vacuuming and everything’s live on Instagram.”

Just reading that leaves me breathless – And she didn’t even mention the kids! The relentless spinning of the modern woman, our perpetual multitasking, keeps us drained and preoccupied. Which suits those who benefit from our current system just fine.

Culture is not encouraging this because it reflects any aspiration of the modern woman to be exhausted, strung out and burdened by feelings of performance failure. It’s because the patriarchy has realised Liberal Feminism’s potential to leave women so individually overburdened, stressed and anxious they don’t revolt against the vampiric masculinities in their lives.”

Vampire Standing Victim Kneeling

Holy shit, Gary! Close the door, it’s freezing!

That, and we all have a vampire we know and love. Tearing down the patriarchy cannot begin with tearing down our homes.

Working with men to end patriarchy may seem like a paradox, but I’m starting to think it’s the only way. No one said marriage was easy. Straight women are down in the trenches on the front lines of the Battle of the Sexes, with no clear strategy and no reinforcements. If we coordinate, we can push for the basic equality we all want – Freedom from fear.

Van is good at identifying problems. Resisting the urge to put the onus on individuals, she waves instead toward the nebulous evil of ‘patriarchy.’ Because patriarchy makes women more detail-oriented and gives men a narrow pelvis… They never quite think it through, do they?

Because to do that would be to admit defeat in Liberal Feminism’s most precious skirmish – That men and women are exactly the same (aside from the obvious external differences). That femaleness is so insignificant, it has no material impact on us whatsoever.

This is the blatant lie that’s killing feminism. Adhering to this lie makes any real analysis of our lives impossible.

It blinds us to our situation. It keeps us from seeing our shared problems. Giving in to this unearned ancient shame keeps us isolated and trapped in a man’s world.

Go Make Sammiches

I told you, babydoll, this is a business meeting! Go and fetch me and the guys some drinks!

Sure, a lot of the crap between women and men is cultural static. But a lot of that static emanates from hard realities of material existence that no amount of Leaning In will change.

Tuning out that static is important. But those of us on the front lines have a duty to trace it to its source, to stop allowing ourselves to be distracted from what our instincts are telling us.

This vital discussion can’t be had while smart women like Van Badham are still willfully ignoring the obvious. Collective amnesia will continue to ensure life’s traps ensnare all of us, one by one. 

Unless we can forgive ourselves for being female, feminism is doomed.

Exulansic And The CAIS Of The Phantom Censor

Recently, the Gender Critical community was rocked by the sudden removal of a prominent voice from a prominent platform.

Stalker

Can’t you just leave us alone??

“I do plan to keep making this content, because it’s more important now than ever to keep speaking out.” 

The Case Against The Case Against CAIS

Exulansic made her well-considered views known regarding whether individuals born with the anomaly of sexual development known as Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome should be counted as women. There was some passionate disagreement, but she stood her ground and even won over a few people.

Debate sputtered when a newcomer to the fray stepped in and dragged it to a grinding halt – Someone who had to make sure everyone knew the Intersex Truth.

His response video makes up fifty percent of the content on Intersex Truther’s brand-new channel. Blowing through the studies Exulansic cited with, “Gish gallop!” guarantees him a spot in the Mansplaining Hall of Fame. Still insecure in his infamy, he also commissioned a rap song calling her a bigot. And an unflattering caricature. Just normal Alpha Male stuff, you know.

Exulansic responded promptly with an analysis of the caricature, tracing echoes of classic anti-Semitic propaganda. YouTube shut her down a few hours later, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

Personal Bias And Image Management

Don’t worry, I’m not going to offer my personal opinion on the intersex debacle. I believe it’s a distraction that’s taken time and airspace away from our real fight. It adds nothing to the immediate debate surrounding women’s rights, and has the Gender Critical community taking sides over something irrelevant to most of us. It has served as cover for the sabotage of our movement, and I am not going to add fuel to the pyre in the form of my two cents.

Private Letter

My personal feelings are beside the point!

I won’t be naming the highest-profile person involved, either. Whether you agree he has the kind of clout to take down entire channels, this person has absolutely zero flotsam online. None. I’ve been researching all kinds of people for these posts for years, and everyone over 30 with any clout has some random articles from ten years ago. A couple awkward photographs. At least one snarky, dissenting op-ed.

Not this guy – I searched through eleven pages of Google results. Make of this what you will, but I’ll be referring to him as Benedict Arnold in the hopes of avoiding digital oblivion.

But the basis for Exulansic’s video – The one that triggered Intersex Truther and sparked the whole chain of events – was a Benedict Arnold interview featuring an intersex individual.

He threw some strong words at anyone stepping up to support Exulansic, and she has said she felt threatened with cancelation. But he’s also been known to sling slurs, then laugh off anyone reacting seriously. Karen Davis over at You’re Kidding, Right? has provided receipts for his free-wheeling language. However interesting his interview choices, I don’t think Old Benny is a friend to women’s liberation.

But I don’t think he’s responsible for the demise of Ex’s channel. For one thing, he’s interviewed her more than once and they seemed to get along. Karen Davis is a big proponent of this idea but, if Benedict could do such a thing, seems to me she would have been first in line during the Great Whore Debacle of Summer 2021. Mr. Arnold seems to roll on from our criticism just fine.

Rise Of The Machines

YouTube, on the other hand, will censor certain words without notifying anyone not to use them. One of my first videos – A takedown of medical professionals attempting to discuss the affect of COVID vaccines on menstrual cycles without saying the word ‘woman’ – was itself taken down. The V-word keyword has become common knowledge, but how many words do you suppose we don’t know about?

Chloroform

Some people are just ruthless!

The increased prominence of extreme right-wing groups has reminded us that anti-Semitism never really died, and I suspect YouTube (among others) has set up bots to squelch any mention of it outside official sources.

Ex is a rabble rouser, her channel ruffled many delicate feathers. Before her Patreon was also taken down, she told her patrons YouTube removed her for ‘inciting violence.’ I must have missed that bit listening to her caricature video while making dinner that night. But the invocation of anti-Jewish hatred – and actual Nazi propaganda – may have just been the massive final straw.

The case for a political hit job is compelling – Karen and Ex discussed it explicitly. Karen has stated many times she believes Benedict Arnold is responsible for the whole mess, and Exulansic supplied incriminating details. Cluniac makes his own argument for sabotage, pointing the finger at Intersex Truther. Both assume an organized team of trolls behind the scenes, and it’s not hard to imagine in our age of the Twitter Mob.

But it’s too easy to explain too much using only YouTube’s mindless self-interest. Association with Nazis is bad for market share, and my embarrassing depth of experience tells me this topic is essentially absent from the platform.

That Feeling Of Being Watched

But can so many intelligent women be seeing a phantom? Why does Exulansic’s cancelation feel so targeted?

The online world can be a tricky thing; Digital engineers have spent the past decade completely remaking the back end, meanwhile the interface remains largely unchanged. Your old friends look the same, but they’ve all defected to the other side. It sounded paranoid 20 years ago, but everything we do is tracked and logged in some massive mainframe… for some reason. Uses for this level of information and technology are limited only by the imagination.

More mundanely, the Trans Femme are extremely over-represented in tech. Even I have a former in-law who fits this trope perfectly. It’s not hard to believe they would rig their own platforms in their favor, just like they try to tilt everything else.

Vampires

Can we just get this over with, Gary?? You look absolutely ridiculous!

I’m not a programmer, but I know enough about computers to know I don’t know that much. Most of us don’t really know how all this shiny shit works, but we shouldn’t have to – Modern society encourages individuals to specialize, reaching new depths in a narrow field of focus. A high population ensures a cornucopia of topics in development. I don’t know how to fly an airplane, either, and I shouldn’t be expected to.

I may not be a pilot, but I can recognize a dangerous trajectory. Ignorance of flight protocol doesn’t mean I can’t see a crash coming.

Haters Gonna Hate

Just a few years ago, with #MeToo in full swing, even the passing thought that women were being targeted and censored for stating banal facts would have felt absurd. Now, we have Slightly Twisted Female and others pleading for the community not to fracture further, as we frantically hunt down the source of our anxiety.

Supporting Exulansic and anyone like her is important enough to venture into new platforms, but I worry about stretching ourselves too thin. I can hardly keep track of things as it is, and I don’t even have an Instagram!

Seems to me that any organization of any decent size is bound to have a mole. I’m not ruling out Benedict Arnold and his freaky-clean vibe, but I’m content to leave him to his trolling. Focusing on supporting those whose work I do admire and appreciate will help build momentum towards the liberation of women from the rule of men, and anyone who joins me is welcome.

Presenting a united front on this point is absolutely vital, because there does appear to be a guided effort to fracture and discredit Gender Criticism through stoking in-fighting and paranoia. Just like so many radical and leftist groups before us. But women know who we are.

And we know that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. But if they’re coming for us, let them find us hard at work.

 

Carrie Bradshaw Regrets

Two very interesting creators sat down to have a conversation. Well over an hour long, I was prepared to settle in for a while.

But 20 minutes in, one of them takes a tangent from their discussion of male and female archetypes, “The girl who wrote ‘Sex and the City’ is now like 50, and she’s alone. And she writes that she actually regrets being alone and not having kids.”

Brb

I’ll be right back – I need to go check this out!

Naturally, I had to go find out if this were true. Reading while listening to Jungian theory being too much for me, I had to dip out of the video before it really got going.

Ms. Bushnell Regrets

Searching for ‘Candace Bushnell regrets’ took me straight to her Twitter. Dated 29 July, 2019, Candace responds, “Hahaha! The opposite is true: I’ve never regretted not having children and I’ve felt compelled to have a career since I was a child.” Not slowing down enough to examine this, she goes on to plug her latest book, Is There Still Sex in the City?

Her tweet quotes an American journalist sharing The Daily Mail, itself a description of a London Times article hidden behind a paywall. As fortune would have it, this is the only subscription I have bothered to keep up with. Lucky us, right?

So, does the woman who singlehandedly made single life aspirational regret her choices?

The Daily Mail sure thinks so. Their headline – Sex and the City Writer Regrets Choosing A Career Over Having Children, is downright blunt.

But did she really say that? The issue lies in the characterization of Bushnell’s responses in the Times interview.

London Times Fangirling

2019 feels very distant now, but even before lockdowns and mask mandates Bushnell’s attitude had aged about as well as her fictional avatar. The write-up by Laura Pullman is glowing – They sent a fan, lest the Times have to edit out any critical thought regarding Bushnell’s cultural legacy. Despite this, her negativity and entitlement leap off the page.

The evident push to make her likeable is undercut by her obvious, fairly generic Boomer privilege: “Bushnell enjoyed a comfortable, horsey upbringing in Connecticut with her two younger sisters and her rocket scientist father and travel agent mother. Aged 19, she dropped out of university and escaped to New York – More specifically Studio 54, the city’s most notorious nightclub.”

A ‘horsey’ upbringing? A literal rocket scientist? But she had to ‘escape’ to the New York party scene, because… college? How edgy!

Trench Coat

I just know there’s a meaning for my life out here somewhere!

“Sitting on the sunny balcony sipping San Pellegrino, she talks about coming of age in a ‘free love kind of way’ before the AIDS crisis hit. ‘People were so interesting. The sex was good. The men made an effort. Why was it that in 1980 the men seemed really focused on making sure the woman had an orgasm?’”

I can’t say, but this didn’t die with disco. I have to wonder if it had anything to do with finding some success in the New York professional world. A drug-fueled fling is there in the moment with you, but a professional is probably looking for someone to further his own reputation. Different pools, different fish.

The Heroic Victim

Candace describes the environment she found herself in, but only has analysis for how it affected her: “She recalls how, when she was on the lower rungs of the career ladder, senior men would constantly try to coax her into sleeping her way to the top. ‘I don’t want to name every publication in New York, but every newspaper and publication had men who made it clear that that’s how they helped women get ahead.’

“It’s the reason why she worked for women’s magazines, such as the now defunct Condé Nast titles Mademoiselle and Self, instead. She laments that this meant that she wasn’t taken seriously as a writer ‘for a very long time’”.

It might have something to do with being known as a sex columnist, too. Sex makes people giggle, it might not be the best topic for someone wanting to be seen as a Serious Writer.

Teenage Party

I feel so grown up right now!

But, never fear! Candace slogged through – “Her hard work and shrewd observations have afforded her a luxurious life divided between her home in the Hamptons and her apartment on the Upper East Side, a few blocks away from her boyfriend’s penthouse.

“Now 60, Bushnell has amassed a reported $22m fortune of her own.”

Because, as we all know, sex sells.

But that victim card is too valuable to let go of – “’I often think, what would my life be like if I hadn’t had to run the gauntlet of so much sexism? How much more successful would I be? Probably a lot.’”

I imagine we all ponder this once in a while but, if you’re Candace Bushnell, you can laugh remembering how you left a Carrie Bradshaw-sized dent in the end of the 20th century, and go back to sipping your vino.

Having It All

But her lack of impact on a part of culture she totally rejected and has built a career on vilifying really gets under Candace’s skin. “Does it frustrate her that when it comes to female success, society still emphasises marriage and children?

“‘Society definitely does do that, but we all have the right to think for ourselves. We don’t have to buy that value system.’”

Speaking for myself, I got the impression growing up that women who had kids were deluded losers with no ambition. I stumbled into it and am as surprised as anyone to find myself defending it.

Refusing to roll with life’s punches leaves little room to learn from them: “Just like high-flying PR executive Samantha in Sex and the City, Bushnell has always been vocal about not wanting children. ‘I don’t want to be shot down, but now I do see that people with children have an anchor in a way that people who have no kids don’t.’” 

Our choice to take part in a whole aspect of life from which you abstain is not a static thing. There are ripple effects that creep into places you’d never imagine.

Mother With Children

Holy shit, am I… happy??

“She also writes persuasively about how, for single women with no children, there’s no set life script to follow, no comfort of knowing what’s supposed to be happening and when.” So, no expiration date, when you’re expected to just fade into the background and let the young turks get on with saving the world?

Turn And Face The Strange

“’When I was in my thirties and forties, I didn’t think about it. Then when I got divorced [from ballet dancer Charles Askegard in 2012] and I was in my fifties, I started to see the impact of not having children and of truly being alone.’”

I think this is what The Daily Mail is referring to. Candace never comes right out and says, “Wow, I sure do regret my decision to not have children!” She simply expresses that regret, in the past tense. She was going through a divorce. Framing it as if she’s desperate and lonely forever is disingenuous – She’s back in New York now and dating again.

However, it’s fair to say that’s what she’s expressing here – During and after her divorce, she really felt that silence where the voices of their children would have been. Our genes don’t just color our skin and limit our wardrobe choices – Humans have instincts just as much as any creature, and it’s much harder to ignore them in times of crisis.

And I can’t be the only one who’s interacted with some ‘childfree’ women and wanted to ask them just who they were trying to convince.

Candace is as out of touch with the zeitgeist as she is with herself, and asking about it is taken personally: “In 2019, writing a book about relationship dynamics and sex with no mention of the #MeToo movement seems unusual. Was the omission a conscious decision?

“’Well, where would I put it?’ fires back Bushnell, defensively.” Ever image-conscious, Candace catches herself, “She changes tack: ‘You have to remember that [I am part of] a generation of women who’ve dealt with so much of that.'”

Overshadowed

Oh Bob, you’re such a flirt!

And you totally bought into the idea of male sexuality as default, leaving any uniquely female needs or instincts completely unheeded. “In the book she also delves into what she calls ‘middle-aged sadness.’

“After one close friend takes her own life, she touches on the issue of suicide among women in their fifties – ‘If your life unravels in earlier decades, you can see a future. But in your fifties, if you’re suddenly single, you’ve not worked for years and your children have left home, then a crisis of identity hits.'”

Change Vs. Abandonment

This does sound like regret to me. Candace goes on to tell us how it’s passed now, that she’s back and better than ever. Admittedly, she doesn’t name the feeling she’s describing. And she has no real analysis of why she felt that way, or why she feels better after turning 60.

Running with the comparison she made, a mother knows before her children even exist that, someday, they will leave her. That’s the idea, really – You teach them how to live, then let them get on with it. A mother can plan for this inevitability, some of us even occasionally yearn for a day without interruptions.

Divorce is different – Your husband makes a vow, possibly in front of all your family and friends, to be with you through thick and thin, till the end. Marriage has become big business, but anyone who’s had one can tell you it’s impossible not to get a little swept up in the whole thing. We still do these ceremonies for a reason, after all.

Shock is understandable when a marriage ends. It’s not the same as spending a couple decades raising up children, who naturally look after themselves more and more.

Candace may not see the personal injustice in her situation but, as always, she’s more than ready to make it about sexual politics – “‘What is hardest about it is that when a woman, especially a woman over 50, has a hard time or things don’t go right for her, everyone blames her. It’s her fault. You didn’t do something right,’ she says, raising her voice.” 

Yep, it’s called being a woman in a male-centric social system. Making a small fortune reinforcing it all these years gives her complaints a ring of petulance, and it’s easy to see why people jumped on that Mail headline.

Glamourous Passivity

Candace Bushnell has lead a generation of women down the primrose path to loneliness, and she has not learned a damn thing.

Martini

This must be where all those cocktails figure in!

She obviously absorbed some poisonous ideas in her youth, unwittingly demonstrating why her approach is a mistake: “Plus, she adds, youth and attractiveness can often get you what you want, and now those tools are waning – ‘So you feel like you no longer have agency in the world and can no longer be effective.'” 

Candace literally measures her effectiveness in life by the response of men! Filtering it through Personal Empowerment branding only creates a Trojan Horse for patriarchy.

“‘But the interesting thing is almost everybody seems to get out of [the middle-aged sadness stage].”

‘I was sad and lonely – But it’s not because of my choices! And anyway, I’m fine now, also for no apparent reason!’ Her interpretation is very passive, especially for someone claiming to represent female liberation.

But she’s still so glamourous! “While in town she still goes out five nights a week – to parties, dinners, premieres.”

And maybe hipper, even – Get ready for Hipster Candace! “But New York is not what it was: ‘It’s a thousand times less fun.’ At the parties hardly anyone drinks, no one smokes, the people are no longer outrageous and everything has become corporate, she complains. ‘Everybody’s being watched.'”

Yeah, that’s not creepy at all. Can we stop and address this apparent mass surveillance? Didn’t think so.

I Hope I Die Before I Get Old

Far more urgent to mourn the loss of Boomer idealism for the thousandth time, “‘Manhattan was a place where you came to be free,’ she says. ‘Everybody who did not fit in was here. People with dreams. And it wasn’t about money, it was about passion.'”

We’d all like make our passion our job, but most of us can’t pretend making a living isn’t about money, honey.

Demons

I feel this weight pressing down on me!

But rather than bite into any of the these meaty offerings, Ms. Pullman brings us the juicy deets of Candace’s new love life – “So what makes it work with her and Coleman?

“‘At this age you want someone to be nice, you don’t want someone who’s critical or demeaning.'” I have felt this way at every age!

But to avoid reflecting on whether this approach has anything to do with finding herself middle-aged and alone, these toxic ideas are framed as just the natural order of things: “‘It feels like when one is younger there can be this competition between partners. Maybe that’s part of the sexual attraction, but that kind of stuff just doesn’t work when you get older.’”

When does this stuff ever work?? Maturity brings the understanding that competing for dominance is not how you build a lasting relationship. Maybe that’s what she’s talking about.

Second Verse, Same As The First

The Times is no help here, that preppy aesthetic is just so shiny and distracting! “He has a home near hers in the Hamptons, where they spend their days playing tennis and going on long walks.” Sounds pretty good to me, but I’m sure Candace will find a way to reframe this to her disadvantage someday.

“’I think romance is something where you’re not in a rush to get to the end. It’s just about enjoying each other’s company. It’s doing things together.’” This may be the most constructive thing I’ve ever encountered from Candace. For the first and probably only time, I completely agree.

“Would she get married again? ‘I haven’t ruled it out. It’s funny that it’s somewhere in the back of your brain. It never goes away,’ says Bushnell, basking in the sunshine.”

Ginger Tabby

It’s the simple things in life, don’t you think, Pussy?

It’s very like the urge to bask in the sunlight, to pause as we go about our lives and steal a moment of simple warmth. We can laugh at ourselves, remind ourselves of our dawn jog and regimen of vitamins, and go back inside. But the instinct remains, and the simple joy of a sunny day is so elemental it doubles as a universal artistic symbol.

Parenthood is similar. Existing independent of the sexual politics we pile on top of it, creating the next generation evokes deep instincts that our culture has no notion of. It’s safe to assume that not doing so eventually does, too.

Female Conditioning, Rebranded

I do feel a little sorry for Candace. Not only is there no social network to support her in anything other than enthusiastic rejection of maternity, there’s really no cultural framework in which to understand her struggle. If she did come right out and name her feelings, the shame would rain down from all sides.

Regret in general is frowned upon – We’re all living our best lives! Unless you’re caught up in a public shaming, expressing regret is seen as admitting defeat.

And Candace Bushnell admitting defeat would be news. It would be red meat for the culture vultures who circle feminism, plucking off the weak-minded. Because we have no way to understand the complex lives of older women other than to judge them.

Candace painted herself into a corner, but she’s made it so glamourous that other women still want to follow. She could be a strong voice for the truth about women’s lives, but she’s too dependent on her brand to ever admit she might have been wrong.

Candace’s shame reflects her female conditioning, and we must be unashamed. She will never learn anything, but we can begin the work of narrative-building. The current climate of clamping down only makes this more urgent!

Defy Your Conditioning

We’ve all used the anonymity of the online world to disguise our most distinguishing feature sometime, but one great thing we could do for ourselves is to just lay it out there. When participating in the public forum, don’t downplay your experience as a woman.

Let Your Light Shine

You mean I shouldn’t hide this??

Not to make everything about our sex, but the impulse is to downplay, disguise, disregard our thoughts or experience when they mark us out explicitly as female. There used to be an exception for Lady Things – Women’s Issues were thoroughly cordoned off from Serious Culture – And we don’t even get that anymore!

But maybe we could turn this to our advantage – Lacking any specialized spaces or resources doesn’t mean we don’t need to take care of business. We’re just gonna have to do it out in the open. And we’re gonna have to support each other.

I’m afraid Candace Bushnell can’t be helped. But women like her can serve as a good example of a bad approach. What I learned from this Times article is that it’s more important than ever not to let them dominate the conversation.

Witches: The Heroine’s Journey

“Magic is a female fantasy and a male nightmare.”

Witch 1

Did you know witches are human Rorschach tests??

The Witch has endured for millennia as a symbolic challenge to male supremacy. She represents our innate understanding of the power structure we live in, her different forms expressing our shifting feelings about Woman regaining her place on even footing with Man.

Magic was traditionally Woman’s purview – Our friends the Ancient Greeks, founders of Western civilization, worshipped a Goddess of Magic called Hecate. Hecate’s three faces are reminiscent of the traditional phases of a woman’s life – Maiden, Mother and Crone.

Kristen Leo rambles pleasantly for over 15 minutes before making the interesting observation that men and women tend to portray magic differently. She says of magical stories written by women, “magic is a medium through which characters can empower themselves and help others.”

Kristen points out that men’s depictions of magic focus on revenge and curses – “It’s really fascinating how often we see female empowerment, when it’s expressed symbolically through witchcraft, being perceived as a threat by the male psyche.” The evil witches of so many fairy tales show us men’s perception of women’s challenge to their authority. 

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind

Joseph Campbell famously distilled all of Myth and Legend into one storyline: The Hero’s Journey. In collating so many ancient tales, he managed to leave the female perspective out of his sweeping synopsis of symbolism entirely. 

He did eventually realize he’d forgotten half of humanity, describing Her importance, “If the male is on top, and the female subordinate all the way, you have a totally different system from that when the two are facing each other.” 

He wades into some pretty deep mystical waters, describing how we made sense of ourselves in the early days through symbolism: “Everything in the field of Time is dual – Past and future, dead and alive. They always come in pairs.

“Most of us put our minds on the side of the ‘good’ against what we think of as ‘evil.’ Put your mind in the middle. That’s to say, ‘I know the center, and I know that ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are temporal apparitions.'”

Devil Girl

It’s all relative, darling!

That is to say, on a deep level, we understand that our perception is not reality. But our perception is all we have to go on, so we struggle to express concepts that lay beyond it. Larger patterns and systems are described in broad strokes, the meaning lost as cultural understandings shift.

This is the crack that allowed male supremacy to creep in. Traditional philosophy tainted the ancient symbol of Woman as Lifegiver by declaring all Life sinful. You make life? Who wants that?? If I weren’t alive I’d be with God right now!

Woman’s embodiment of natural forces, her evident closeness to the life-giving Earth, was defanged for the purpose of harnessing and taming it. 

“When A Woman Thinks Alone, She Thinks Evil.”

During the surge of development known as The Enlightenment, the infamous Witch Trials were a violent but symbolic reinforcement of Patriarchy. The power structure resorted to blood sacrifice to reestablish itself amid the chaos.

But that overcorrection was itself an admission of insecurity.

It took them quite a lot of effort to push us down, you see. Brutality is the classic method, but progressive civilization demands increasing decorum. Violent coercion is so barbaric! The assault became psychological – Every idea must be made consumable by Patriarchy or snuffed out.

Wit And Folly uses Star Wars as the standard modern telling of The Hero’s Journey. We’re reminded that Luke’s final act against his enemy is not revenge, but compassion for his dying father. 

Joseph Campbell tries, in his own way, to impart that the two Journeys need each other, because their balance is the resolution of the human story. 

But lately, most prominent women display a single-minded assertiveness traditionally used as shorthand for masculine greatness. We are told this is progress – The Witches are all good now, nothing to see here!

The Hero’s Journey wears a feminine mask, but the destination of the Hero’s Journey is compassion and deference – For Woman, this is a road to nowhere.

Finding Woman’s Road

Building on Campbell’s work, Maureen Murdock gave us The Heroine’s Journey –  “Today’s heroine must utilize the sword of discernment to cut away the ego bonds that hold her to the past, and to find out what services her soul’s purpose.

“She must realize resentment toward the mother, put aside blame and idolization of the father, and find courage to face her own darkness.

“Her shadow is hers to name and embrace”

Witchy Bath

I just gotta be me!

In rejecting the passive role of subordinate, she learns to be assertive. Suppression of the Witch is to deny Woman her own Journey. 

With And Folly also pulls from Navajo legend, where Woman (the Earth) speaks to the Sun, her lover: “Remember – as different as we are, you and I, we are of one spirit.

“As dissimilar as we are, you and I, we are of equal worth. As unlike as you and I are, there must always be solidarity between us. Unlike each other as you and I are, there can be no harmony in the universe as long as there is no harmony between us.

Our society is in a death spiral because, in his lust for power, Man villainized Woman and all she stands for – Even Life itself. 

Dr. Campbell tells the story, “Whenever one moves out of the Transcendent, one comes into a field of opposites.” Woman, giver of Life, brings us into this world of duality, where we experience isolation and suffering.

But Old Joe is optimistic, “I think it’s a really childish attitude to say ‘No’ to life, with all its pain. To say, ‘this is something that should not have been.'” 

Man remains a petulant child so long as he refuses to accept his own suffering. For most of history, he’s been determined to distract himself instead, through conquest or inebriation. Whatever he couldn’t forget, he blamed on Mommy.

Mommy

You’ll always be my little boy…

The Witch Within

I recently asserted that the female mind does, in fact, exist. We tend to be caring, but sad. To me, this looks like the legacy of civilization strapping us to the birthing bed. But life in a female body creates a different perspective that’s sorely missed. Universal rejection of that perspective makes civilization into a death cult.

We need to recognize that Woman is not lesser. Women are not weak, and feminine traits don’t indicate weakness. The Hero’s Journey demonstrates over and over and over that compassion demands strength.

But he will never reach his destination until he accepts that the Heroine waiting there can’t be his subordinate. She is the Witch in all her liberated glory, enduring her own adventure to face him. She is the giver of Life, the inspiration of all his striving. And no amount of sky scrapers or oil rigs will change that.

The Witch is just Woman, the real one outside of Man’s head. If we are brave enough to sharpen our sword of discernment – our critical thinking – we can begin adding the Heroine’s Journey back into the human story. If each of us embarks on her own adventure, we can begin to regain some collective balance.

Summon your inner Witch – The world is counting on it!

The Veil: Civilization Isn’t For Us

We are taught that Ancient Greece is the foundation of modern civilization.

Greek 1

All you other civilizations are just imitating!

Politics, Philosophy, Law – even Democracy itself was supposedly invented there, and we are still living in the paradigm created by the likes of Aristotle. We still discuss the Great Thinkers, offering reverential deference to the first glimmer of our present culture.

Enter: The Veil

Thing is, this seminal societal flowering was misogynist as all hell! These precious pillars developed during the first methodical clamping-down on the agency of women.

That’s right – Ancient Greece invented the Burqa.

They called it the Tegidion, meaning ‘little roof.’ In her BBC program The Ascent of Woman, Dr. Amanda Foreman describes how it served as a symbolic extension of a father’s or husband’s house, which gave women official protection.

From other men, presumably.

Veils were first popular in Assyria as ancient virtue-signaling among upper-class women. The Greeks adopted and adapted them in reaction to, as Dr. Foreman says, “a deep phobia of the female body.” 

This profound revulsion came from, “the idea that women’s inferiority wasn’t Man-made, but rooted in Nature.” As the lesser human, Woman had to be controlled. 

Aristotle, as the Father of Philosophy, saw women as just another topic for his intellect. Dr. Foreman has Dr. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones of Edinburgh University summarize Aristotle’s foundational sexism – “Basically, women are imperfect men, they haven’t quite reached perfection, because they haven’t had semen to create what is the essence of Man.”

Leave it to a man to figure his ejaculation as the source of rational thought!

The thinking goes that, since women only grow life with the addition of semen, semen is the source of life. Woman is just the vessel.

By about 500 BC, veiling was common practice for women in Athens – The cradle of modern civilization.

White Veil

Does this make you feel like a Big Man??

They were the ones who codified the idea that women are inferior, and wove it into the foundation of our society. And for them, the veil symbolized that Woman was never really allowed out of her husband’s house.

Reflecting on a collection of small votive statues draped in various styles, Dr. Llewellyn-Jones is moved to say, “Women’s lot in Ancient Athens was closer to a woman’s lot in Afghanistan under the height of Taliban rule than anything else.”

How Far Have We Really Come?

Broadcast in 2015, the title of Dr. Foreman’s miniseries is bittersweet. According to both Vogue and many recollections, 2015 was also The Year of Trans Visibility. It was the year Jenner became Caitlyn, Laverne Cox was People’s Most Beautiful Woman, and TLC introduced us to Jazz.

In the few years since, it’s been tempting to think Woman’s ascent has ended. But, contrary to her pithy television header, Dr. Foreman stresses the point, “The simple truth is, our story has never followed a straight line from darkness to light.

“The real history of women is full of swings and reversions, with liberties gained and lost from one era to the next. 

“You can judge a civilization by the way it treats its women.”

Add this to the list of tests our society is badly failing. But the misogyny we’re fighting is nothing new. Its littermates are important things we now see as neutral, such as Politics and Art. The same men who decided women were lesser beings also bequeathed to History stuff like Democracy and Theater. 

But it’s been demonstrated many times over that these things are not inherently misogynist. Men and women are not so different that a system created by one can’t be mastered by the other.

Cleo

And never forget, that goes both ways!

Compare Greece to Egypt, where a parallel framework developed emphasizing equality for the masses – Even the occasional female Pharaoh! Dr. Foreman cheerfully describes Egyptian art, “replete with couples lovingly holding hands, even wearing the same clothes. Ancient Egypt embraced both the masculine and the feminine. 

“A shared life, rather than reproduction, was the purpose of marriage.”

These two interpretations of relations between the sexes have existed in tandem forever. One reliable signal of how things are going is how free women are with their clothes.

Clothes Express The Woman

I wrote this Summer how clothing has long been a source of power, authority and even income for women. The Industrial Revolution took this out of our hands, imposing a sort of postmodern conformity and creating a paradox of choice – Too many options make deciding on one impossible, so we stop trying. We think about other things.

Like new social media, which is training young women to hunt down and eradicate whichever part of them doesn’t look like a Kardashian.

Then there’s the makeup all serious women are expected to wear, to the point we don’t even know what a natural woman’s face looks like. We laugh when men are clueless or surprised by our body hair, but we can’t lay all the blame on media. Too many of us are following these practices if these men don’t know better from their mothers, sisters, aunts and friends. 

Patriarchy has continued to evolve as its defenses have been torn down. These days we’re playing Chess, not Checkers. I don’t expect Western policy to insist on anything so obvious and easily-resisted as the Burqa any time soon.

Ankle

Y’all just love getting a peak so much!

But as we have gained hard autonomy, soft power has congealed to control us in other ways. Our apparent freedom disguises the box we still live in, our private lives shrinking more and more as we come to understand that we aren’t really allowed to leave Big Brother’s house.

We know in our gut that none of us is really safe. We see the Taliban reigning terror on the women of Afghanistan and feel it deeply, viscerally, perhaps in the quiver of the source of all this insanity.

Pandora’s Jar

Despite their obsession with male honor, Ancient Greek myth features many powerful goddesses. Pandora, famous for her box, was their First Woman. In her curiosity, she couldn’t help but open the box, unleashing all pain and suffering onto the world. 

Dr. Llewellyn-Jones, reading from Greek, tells us, “What she comes with is a ‘pithos’ – the Greek word for a jar. 

“The Greeks had a thought that a woman’s womb was shaped like a pithos. So, really, Pandora, being made the first woman, comes with the first womb.

“And when, inevitably, that womb gets opened, what flows out is all the evils of the world.”

These men always tell on themselves, don’t they? They created the Polis – the State – for themselves and put women in charge of the Oikos – the Homestead. The Greeks drew a hard line between women and the world, which they insisted was their domain.

So, Pandora unleashed all the evils of the world – The men of the Polis!

The heaping of blame for all the ills of the world – that men themselves were perpetrating – continues today. Don’t forget, Dear Reader, that four months ago we all had to sit through the ‘If-you-don’t-like-it-don’t-look’ defense of a sexual predator! If you didn’t want to be part of some man’s fetish, you should have just stayed home.

Pandora

Hey, this isn’t what I ordered!

We feel our sisters’ struggle because, on some level, we understand that civilization as we know it was explicitly not made for us! It was made by the flourish of Man ascendant, standing on Woman’s back even as he denigrated her.

And the old No Girls Allowed! sign is still on the wall!

We are all victims of this system, in one way or another. Vengeance is not the answer, or we risk becoming what we hate. But the urge many of us get to just walk away is probably based in something more than apathy.

We should be shouting our story through a bullhorn! Feminism must be the custodian of women’s history, and Dr. Foreman has done us all a great service.

I look forward to a time when all veils come down, and we can go back to sharing life instead of fighting over it.

 

Not Like Other Feminists

The Internet can be a dangerous place, but the rabbit hole I fell down this week goes much deeper than I anticipated.

It all started with Abby Cox. She’s one of my favorite YouTubers, and she put the brakes on her whole video concept this week to address a glaring issue she found in her research.

You Won't Believe This

You won’t believe this – Women are being undermined in media!

Girlhood As Internalized Misogyny

Abby is an historical costumer with several years in a living history museum under her belt. In comparing recent remakes of classic historical fiction to older productions, she noticed an uncomfortable trend: “I’m frustrated,” she tells us, “by the reliance on ‘Girly-Bad, Boy-Good’ clothing defaults that our feminist characters are shoved into!”

Abby focuses on Little Women and Anne of Green Gables, showing clips illustrating the recent masculinization of Jo and Anne. “In the 2019 version, we have Jo looking like she slept in a barn! And [she] is wearing distinctly masculine clothing on top, with just a skirt on the bottom.”

At first glance, this looks like historical costumers in film have lost the thread. 2019 Jo wouldn’t look out of place on a modern college campus, which a real Victorian lady certainly would!

But Abby’s impassioned pleas rang in my ears for days after I watched her video, bringing me back to a fight I’ve had with myself as long as I can remember.

I think we do a disservice to ourselves and everyone else who grows up female if we write off the Othered Girl without taking a long, hard look at her, and why she has been with us for long.

I’m Not Like The Other Girls

There’s something thrilling about boldly doing things women were forbidden from for centuries. For too many during Jo’s time, being Not Like The Other Girls got you committed. In later decades, there was a good chance you’d be lobotomized, too. The infamous case of Rosemary Kennedy is a late entry in a long tradition of ruthlessly crushing women who were just a little too smart.

It all starts to add up when you learn that ‘schizophrenia’ was once a catch-all for difficult patients.

This history may not play a direct role, but I think most young women go through this to some degree – The urge to hide your ‘girly’ hobbies or inclinations in order to be taken seriously. And, later, just to avoid being seen as an object.

I don’t think that we have come out on the other side of this yet, collectively. That we are still using masculine as shorthand for intelligent after 200 years shows just how suppressed women truly still are. And it’s also kind of embarrassing.

Embarrassing

Can you still respect me, now that you know my shameful secret??

Other Girls Are Dumb

All things feminine are still routinely rejected and put down in our culture. Powerful female politicians cut their hair short and wear boxy pant suits – Like they’re admitting they don’t belong, and are trying to blend in! 

Visual media has been flirting with pornography for ages, only recently making some self-conscious adjustments. So, instead of the Damsel In Distress, we see her reciting the Hero’s lines. As if there are only two options.

Music and fashion are even worse, the role of sex icon is assumed for women there. To challenge this is to play Russian Roulette with your career.

The overall message is very clear: Girly = Bad, Boyish = Good. The term ‘girly’ often just means ‘frivolous.’ ‘Girly girls’ are seen as shallow and vain, sometimes even evil!

If this tainted messaging were limited to high heels and tight skirts, there’d be nothing to talk about. But the ‘girly’ label extends to lots of things, many of them skills with roots in women’s history. Certain personality traits, even entire categories of emotion, have all been tagged ‘feminine’ and shunted to the margins of our culture.

Basically, anything patriarchy can’t use to generate wealth for itself is classified as a potential threat and squashed.

Even the lovely Miss Abby Cox – Who devotes the first three minutes of this video to Woke disclaimers – can feel the cringe: “As much as I love and appreciate the resurgence of historic costume dramas, I just want to beg the writers and designers to stop playing into this ‘Not Like Other Girls’ trope for the progressive female protagonist. 

“It’s lazy! And harmful storytelling, with its implication that other girls are inherently not feminist.”

Here, Abby names the first problem with not being like other girls – It’s putting down others to lift yourself up.

Learned From The Best

What can I say? I learned from the best!

Women Are Men, And We’ve Always Been At War With Femininity

Little Women is about 40 years older than Anne of Green Gables, Louisa May Alcott publishing its first edition in 1868. In Alcott’s depiction of her era, Jo’s pursuit of an education and career made her Not Like Other Girls. We tend to see this as positive, because education is the great leveler.

Education enables you to see yourself as an authority in the world, and to question that of others. Male-oriented establishments of all stripes resist the education of girls to this day, sometimes with lethal force.

Abby tells us how the historical costume dramas she is upset about actually create many of our ideas about the past. Redressing the female heroines of the period as butches (Transmen??) projects our rejection of girly things backward onto them, creating the illusion of tradition. A false history.

And clothes are a really great example of how the subversion of women plays out. Fiber Arts Expert is a role women share across many times and places. We have often used this necessary, practical skill to our advantage. Our clothes are a means of self-expression, communication and advertisement. Even a lucrative career!

The advent of machine manufacturing in the 19th century enabled the male-oriented establishment to take this from us. More than that, we were enticed to give it up willingly with the promise of free time and effortless chic. The shift of mentality to the ‘modern’ lifestyle clinched the deal.

Sewing is frivolous now, too – Why spend time making something when you can just go to the store? Time is money, you know. Don’t you wanna get you some??

And another corner of women’s culture dies.

Just One Of The Guys

The second problem with Not Like Other Girls is that, yes, inevitably you are like other girls in some ways. Instead of just rejecting what we recognize as bullshit, we project these negative stereotypes onto other women.

It’s another indirect admission – Sure, women are shit. But I’m the exception!

Bararella 1

Do you love me yet, Daddy??

Competition for men’s attention gets a lot of ink, but we ignore that men have the Home Court Advantage! Kissing their collective ass gets us access to the status they hoard. Taking on masculine social signals is the tip of the hat that says, ‘No challenge here!’ 

Everyone behaves as if it’s assumed that Woman Bad. This consistent drip-drip-drip demonization of the feminine plants a feeling of alienation in us when we engage in anything inherently female-oriented, sending us crawling out of our skins to avoid guilt-by-association. We feel relief when our femaleness is less highlighted, and powerful in men’s clothes. 

But we can’t be men, and their methods don’t always work for us. And just as we began to ask, ‘What were our methods again?’, it became transphobic to talk about. 

The stress seems to be getting to us, every forum I frequent is rife with paranoia. Rigidity is setting in, and factions are forming. Which is a damn shame, because I know I’m still working on my own self-loathing and internalized misogyny. Dealing with this shit alone is getting really old.

Occasionally, someone – Usually someone on her way out – will proclaim exasperation with the whole situation. She will marvel at how women turn on each other, ‘It’s almost like they don’t want to be liberated!’

But not me, I’m not like the other feminists!

Woops! Internalized misogyny strikes again. It’s really a pity no one is keeping score, because we’re gunning for the all-time record.

Bitch Fight

Holy shit Karen, I just wanted to borrow them!

It’s the ultimate divide-&-conquer strategy – Implanted in our own worldview, Woman Bad keeps us in line from within by keeping us insecure in ourselves and isolated from one another.

Life Finds A Way

There’s some life left in us – Our survival instinct has drawn us to gather, chipping at the edges with things like Believe All Women! But it’s going to take time to undo centuries of self-loathing. Small, stable communities are forming here and there, but we need a rallying point.

To achieve the liberation of women, we have to know who we’re talking about. Some women excel in the kind of achievements men are so fond of, but many of our talents lie elsewhere. Progress for feminism will begin with an honest re-assessment of who and what we are.

We are different from men. Denial of this simple fact has cost us dearly – So much that the male-oriented organizations of the world have finally deemed us irrelevant. Outdated. Woman Classic is out of production, and Woman 2.0 is already rolling off the assembly line.

We have enabled all of this by refusing to take ownership of own definition. If none of us is like the other girls, then who are girls, anyway? Patriarchy has lots of ideas.

Only we can speak up for us. If we’re not sure what to say, approaching each other with forgiveness would be a good place to start.

Two Vital GC Arguments From An Unlikely Source

It’s not every day I find something I think everyone needs to hear.

Today was one of those days. These are the moments that still fill me with hope.

Dreamy Seamstress

Maybe someday, we’ll get to be people after all!

Two Truth Bombs And A New Subscription

Michael Browne has been feministing about as long as I have, with even less exposure. 

I assumed YouTube’s algorithm made the introduction but, retracing my steps, I found his video on Ovarit. He appears to have uploaded it himself.

Michael has been taking on the big boys for a while, releasing long, detailed responses to the likes of Riley J Dennis and Contrapoints. More recently, he commented on Philosphy Tube’s transformation and even Lindsay Ellis. 

Which is great, but I guess podcasts are what the cool kids are listening to while they clean house. This guy’s saying things I haven’t heard from anyone else.

Which is a damn shame. In his quest to leave no stone unturned, he’s sharpened a point or two I think could really leave a mark.

Countering Contrapoints

Contrapoints’ persona is generally outside my tolerance for counterintelligence research. That is to say, I have never sat through one of his videos. I prefer my YouTube dry and educational, or frivolous and weird.

Michael’s style makes watching pointless anyway, stopping every sentence to slice and dissect.

In this way, he manages to sift out the kernel of conflict at the center of modern feminist politics.

Contrapoints: “We’re using a cultural language of feminine signifiers to prompt others to see us for what we are. 

But also, if one person calls me ‘sir,’ that’s gonna ruin my day. So I’m desperately throwing glitter spaghetti at the wall in hopes the light catches some glimmer of womanhood.”

Michael: “You are dressing more feminine than you want to in order for society to accept you as a woman, while at the same time complaining that gender critical feminists are the ones constricting your gender expression. 

It seems to me like you’re much more constrained having to present an overly-feminine image to appease a society that does not largely accept gender-nonconforming people.

Getting The Answer

I think we’ve really got something here!

You don’t want to be misgendered. You’re basically forced to present yourself as hyper-feminine.

[This] totally contradicts the end goals of gender critical feminists. [They] want a world of total gender-nonconformity. 

However, in that situation, you’d be fucked – You cling to gender signifiers as a means to ensure that people refer to you by the gender you consider yourself to be.

Brushing aside the blatant admission of narcissism from Contra here, Michael has got him dead-to-rights and I can’t believe everyone isn’t repeating this everywhere!

This is that contradiction everyone keeps telling us doesn’t exist, spelled out in all its shimmering glory!

The only way they can be women is by wearing a mask of femininity. If we succeed in breaking that mask, they can’t be women. If women are recognized as full human beings and not a set of behaviors and body parts, their charade becomes a lot more difficult.

But we have nothing to lose but our chains.

We are directly opposed to each other in our goals. The amount of energy and rhetoric that goes into obscuring this is truly a wonder to behold, ain’t it?

Trans Kids of History…?

In his most recent upload, Michael credits Alex Aaron of Gender Mapper fame with another keystone insight. 

She said, ‘Thank goodness we don’t have this legacy going back of children killing themselves because of gender dysphoria!

“This phenomenon of children coming out as transgender and killing themselves is a recent phenomenon. We know that because we don’t have stories of people going, ‘Oh, all of these children are killing themselves and we’ve got no explanation for it.

All of this said over the frozen smirk of Philosophy Tube’s resident transwoman, as Michael picked apart every sentence of his coming out video. 

The preoccupation with trans kids strikes many as related to pedophilia, and this may be true. But there’s a strong, simple motivator for every trans person and every ally – Legitimacy. 

Trans adults generously share their formative experiences. The somatic obsesses them as much as it confuses them, and they have plenty to say about it.

Bored Reader

The plot’s getting a bit predictable, don’t you think??

The narrative is the key. Humans have always made sense of ourselves and our world through stories. Without that backstory, all you have is an adult who decided to switch teams.

Someone old enough to know better. Someone who might be interrogated about the crap they’re saying.

By projecting these ideas backward and linking them with trauma, it makes them unquestionable in the individual. And if there were trans kids 30 years ago, there must be trans kids now, out there suffering the same fate!

That’s the difference between memories and dreams – Memories can be double-checked outside our heads. If there are no trans kids, there are no trans adults. This is why the children had to be sacrificed to the Gender Gods. 

I’m glad someone gave this man an Ovarit invite. We need this kind of sharp analysis if we’re going to cut through the Woo, and I love seeing younger people who make so much sense.

Michael’s channel is small, but I encourage everyone to go and listen to him articulate gender critical arguments with true British precision.

Moms and Feminism Need Each Other

I think men convinced themselves women were just a little too stupid for all those centuries, so they wouldn’t have to face what they had done to us.

Pinned

Thanks for bringing me to this swell movie, Gary!

Exploiting a natural weakness to strip an intelligent, self-aware person of their individuality, and put them to work for the benefit of others – Well, that would be pretty evil. One might be tempted to empathize with such a person, to imagine what it’s like to let go of any thought of personal achievement.

To have no dreams, plans, or hobbies of your own. That’s a miserable existence for any mildly intelligent person, without some serious brainwashing.

But, then, those women were always told they’d never amount to much. Women’s Liberation came about after Enlightenment thinkers (Read: Men) decided an educated mother was a better mother. Suddenly young women got to dream, but only for a few years. Marriage was still the only serious goal.

My generation? We were told we could Have It All – A kickass career, a loving husband, smart kids, a beautiful home and a tight ass – We just had to work a little harder. Never mind that at least two of these are full-time jobs. You’re gonna need at least two jobs to keep that house, anyway…

My daughters are being told that womanhood is a feeling.

The dirty truth, of course, is that a woman birthed every person on Earth. Many of them died in the process. Most of them bear physical scars, and psychological ones are common. All of them were extremely uncomfortable or seriously inconvenienced at least once.

All so humanity could carry on. A job so vital, no able-bodied woman is truly eligible for anything else!

If Only

Sorry, I can’t learn to fly today, I have too much work to do!

But to keep us all there, we had to be held down. Mothers are simultaneously the most important and the least important people in the world. Both a precious resource and totally ordinary, whichever undermines us more effectively.

And it doesn’t really matter, because we don’t have much to say. We’re too busy juggling hats. When women do speak, it’s seldom as A Mother – We have been taught not to identify with that aspect of ourselves, or risk being disqualified from life.

Ironic, since mothers give life.

This is our biggest mistake – Motherhood is both our greatest power and our moment of weakness. The modern, rational mind isn’t interested in mystical contradictions, but we ignore this at our peril.

And children are not just babies. That moment of weakness is followed by at least a decade of preoccupation. Of living two lives simultaneously. Of knowing that, when that cry goes up, your feet better hit the floor because you’re the one on-call 24/7.

Of missed deadlines and internal conflict. Of dumping energy into running two minds – Mommy and Boss Bitch. There’s not as much overlap as you might think.

And moms will never unite and rise up, because we don’t see ourselves as a group. To stand up and be counted is to admit we ought to be at home. And women will never be free.

We may be freed from motherhood, as artificial wombs become a reality. But if freedom hinges on giving up mothering, we will have paid with a precious piece of ourselves. We will have admitted that being free means being like men.

With the majority of women isolated, the only route to liberation will continue to be rejection of men altogether. Straight women cast as sleeping with the enemy, rather than those with the most at stake in the battle of the sexes.

Each of us sits in a corner of her kitchen wiping lonely tears, because she doesn’t know she is legion. We struggle to be Secretary and Cheerleader and Sex Goddess and Boss Bitch and Housekeeper and Cook, never mind who we are!

Vacation

When does my vacation start?

We grope for the support no one can give us. The support that should be there – The network of mothers that raised our ancestors for thousands of years. 

The network that has been destroyed by centuries of putting women In Our Place – A case of slander so intense, the insecurity driving it is obvious.

Men of influence fear women’s power because their precious dominance depends on installing a worthy heir. We are the doorway to the future.  We are the biggest, most influential group in the world.

But not if we don’t know it.

Motherhood is the doorway all of us pass through, in one direction or the other. We don’t need to agree on parenting styles, we just need to stand up and be counted. The strength in our numbers will shake the world.

 

 

Why Do Men Run the World?

The film begins with a man in a kitchen. It’s the scene of a revolution, he says, where men and women are renegotiating the human power balance.

By The Wrists

This isn’t what I meant by ‘holding hands’!

When you don’t get much time to sit and read, a good documentary can be the greatest thing.

I found one that really pulls it all together. And it’s over 25 years old!

Dr. Gwynne Dyer is another new name to me. He’s getting up there these days but still maintains an active publishing and speaking career. He even has a Twitter.

He’s a journalist and historian who’s taken his education and experience and synthesized a unique perspective. He uses it to spell out the origins of Patriarchy.

He explains why it first emerged and how it’s become an outdated handicap.

Filmed in 1992, the backdrop of the inaugural festivities of President Bill Clinton provides its starting example of The State. Militarized, hierarchical.

Then he takes us all the way back to the cave times. Hunter-gatherer societies were different depending on their circumstances. Some were warlike boys’ clubs, but others were egalitarian.

Dr. Dyer tells us that, before agriculture, there is little evidence of one sex being considered superior. Then with the advent of farming – “probably invented by a woman” – men suddenly lost their role.

A Men’s Revolution

During the village time, the members of the village discussed things and came to a consensus of how things would be. But women oversaw the homestead.

Hilda Reaps

What can I say? I make things grow!

Fertility goddesses reigned supreme. Hunting was no longer necessary, and men took a back seat. He tells us archeologists find 100 female fertility figures for every one male figure from this period.

But perhaps most gut-wrenching of all was that, at the birth of the concept of Wealth, a man’s property was passed to his sister’s child when he died, not his own.

You might not know who a child’s father is, but you always know who the mother is.

Dr. Dyer tells us about “the makings of a revolution, ….so old it’s not in the history books.” Men took over and spent thousands of years taming the power of female sexuality.

As agricultural villages coalesced into nation-states, a full quarter of the early Mesopotamian laws were restricting what women could do.

Huda Lutfi taught history at the American University of Cairo in 1992. She had many amazing things to say in this film. She was studying women in Medieval Islam, which meant reading between the lines.

Women in Medieval Islam are invisible. They wrote nothing and left no records. She says she knows what they were doing by what the scholars wanted them to stop doing.

Why Would Our Men Do This to Us?

Why did men, who basically cared about their mothers and wives and sisters and daughters, cooperate in such a scheme?

As civilization became bigger and more complex, tyranny was the only way to keep everyone together. Ruling by terror was the only way to communicate to the masses.

Dr. Dyer shows us how the great pharaohs’ tombs are surrounded by hundreds of other graves belonging to servants and slaves. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Welcome to civilization.”

Despair

How could you do this to me, Babe??

Defending Their Country Gave Men Status.

These men who stepped up to fight other aggressive men offered men in general a much-needed status boost.

“Sure,” says Dr. Dyer, “you’ll have to obey us but you’ll have control over your women. And your property will go to your sons when you die.”

And Patriarchal religions tied it all together, the Universe a perfect hierarchy with God at the top. Then man, then woman.

The tyranny necessary to create and defend a nation is fueled by soldiers. If women have freedom, the birth rate drops because babies are a lot of work. And women develop other interests.

Reducing women so our only place in society is childbearing is how you get enough soldiers to win.

“Men Were Never Oppressed.”

Dr. Dyer tells us how global mass communication is chipping away at “the old ways.” Global culture is, by its very nature, more cooperative. More feminine, I suppose, if only by virtue of women participating at all.

One thing that hits me that Dr. Dyer doesn’t really dwell on is, “men were never oppressed.” When women have freedom we don’t use it to lock men away. A woman-lead society is a more equal society.

I believe part of this is because of innate differences in perspective. The interconnectedness of people can be a brutal force in your life when you make people with your body.

And when that body and the world remind you of this possibility incessantly.Film Capture

Patriarchy Will Fall

A record number of women were elected to Congress in 1992. One of them was Elizabeth Furse from Oregon. She tells the story of taking the group picture on the steps, she was at the top, in the back.

Just in time, two white men stepped in front of her. “There’s no me, it’s almost like I’m not there.”

Above the pageantry of the 1992 inaugural parades, Dr. Dyer tells us that Patriarchy is slowly collapsing.

After 5,000 years, Patriarchy is not just in our institutions, it’s in our heads. But it is not in our genes.

“The problem is not ‘human nature,’ it’s that mass societies are still trapped inside the ancient machine they built thousands of years ago, to deal with the problems of thousands of years ago.

Lifeguard

Just stay right there, okay, cutie? You know, forever.

“The machine called Patriarchy was the only way to run an early mass society. It was refined into both a killing machine and a breeding machine as the early mass civilizations started fighting one another. And we conquered the whole planet with it.

But now, our weapons have become so destructive that we can no longer afford to fight major wars. And we don’t actually have to live in patriarchal dictatorships anymore. Mass communication means that we can be democratic.

“Patriarchy no longer makes sense as an institution.”

From Soldier To… Daddy?

As a white man and military historian, he has no ax to grind here. I think this makes his words that much more insightful.

He leaves us in the kitchen where we began, saying men and women are renegotiating the most fundamental human partnership. He offers this as reason for hope.

He doesn’t specify what partnership he means but, as he shares a bite with a little girl in the final shot, the meaning is clear.

Reproduction and raising the next generation is both the biggest burden and the biggest opportunity we have to impact the future. In modern times, women have asserted our rightful place of power in the system.

We don’t want to enslave men. We want our reproductive capacity to not be weaponized against us.

Dr. Dyer’s hopeful tone stands out to me because many of us are good at pointing out where Patriarchy fails us, but so few have an inkling where we are going from here.

He leans into snark a few times, making his own feelings clear: Patriarchy is on the way out, and everyone will benefit. Just as a natural result of the evolution of society.

This information should be everywhere. It should be in children’s books and kitchen conversations.

Understanding our past will enable us to consciously create a better future. So few of us have any real understanding of the causes or the effects of the societal structure we live in. We tend to take it for granted (or even claim it doesn’t exist!)

We can’t afford to go stumbling into the future without a strong understanding of ourselves.

Watch the movie, it’s less than an hour long. It explains everything.