Interesting article. I remember reading a book by a lesbian woman who pretended to be a man for a year and joined men’s groups, bowling teams and salesmen. Even went to bars to pick up women. Her conclusion at the end, men were actually pretty damn decent (except for salesmen), the women she encountered not so much’. I guess what I’m saying is that we have to move away from generalization like all women are bitches, all men are bastards. There are toxic men and toxic women but many more decent ones as well.
That book is called "Self Made Man," by Norah Vincent. The empathy she developed for men was impressive (It's hard to know where she started, as it was only her journey into male life and the aftermath that were documented in any detail). As another commenter notes, she went to her death at a Swiss suicide facility. I read that her last words were, "What time is it?" The nurse told her that she didn't have to worry about that any more. I worry that she asked because she was having second thoughts. Hers was a intellect that we could use more of.
As I recall in her book she had two brothers. Both married with children. In an interview she mentioned them fondly. Perhaps this influenced her more "nuanced" view.
Thanks for pointing that out. I'm sure that her affection for her brothers contributed to the mindset that led to her book and her growth in empathy. She herself describes her empathy increasing, so there was clearly some change there.
I watched her video and found it to be great but sad at the end as she was totally unhappy with the situation with what was happening to men.
I wonder if she was confronted with the images she had of herself as a woman and that was confronted with the Reality she had experienced in her research and it became to much of a burden and/or to much to change within herself.
If you search for her on Google, you’ll find a serious effort to define her as “trans” in order to deny her argument. I.E. she was defending her identity rather than investigating the behavior of men through participant observation. That put-down is rather like saying that anthropologists are really wannabes.
"Her conclusion at the end, men were actually pretty damn decent (except for salesmen), .."
Interesting about the salesman, could it be because lying to customers regularly adds up, darkening the Intellect, judgement, other faculties, and self-loathing with lose of belief that others and himself were soulless Meat-Machines from the soul-body created in the [Holy] image of God?
It could be the kind of psychological soul-crippling mind-damaging that increases in many women and men that carry the insanities that baby-murder and other things are 'normal'.
I read it along time back but from memory she found the salesmen to be hyper competitive, egotistical, ready to shaft each other to climb to the top and lacked any ethical sense. But that doesn’t apply to all salesman. I think she was doing door to door on a commission type selling but I don’t remember the exact details
Yes it was commission only sales. And she was actually sympathetic to many of the men she encountered who were desperate to make a living and therefore had to adopt a "red bull," hyper confident attitude. She seemed to have a fondness for her two brothers and so appeared willing to empathise ( in the true sense of the word ) with many men she encountered, and express sympathy for them..Though always in the context of a feminist analysis, believing that men needed a "liberation" movement that unshakled them from gender roles. Actually not unlike Warren Farrell's view in the Myth of Male Power.
To me the striking thing is how rare it is that feminists such as Norah Vincent actuallytake time and effort to actually research men in anyway at all.
It's also rare for feminists to actually research women. Of course they reject evolutionary biology, tradition, history and the necessary functions of life known as "women"s work." For an example of how little feminists care about what most women think or want, look at how they react to conservative women -- they're the enemy.
After dismissing biology, tradition and the real lives most women have led, there's not much to look into except for what the other feminists have to say.
I probably mentioned it in a previous post but as an evolutionary anthropologist who spent ten years researching human beauty and human attraction for ten years as a personal interest I remember reading one of Naomi Wolf’s books and in the first three pages she made three statements about men and women (I forget what they were now) and I knew the evolutionary research proved each of them wrong. And I was amazed that she wasn’t aware of it.
I didn’t see your post about being an evolutionary biologist, researching beauty and attraction. (I find it difficult to keep track of all the comments in these long threads). Why am I not surprised you found three disproven statements in the first 3 pages of a Naomi Wolf book?
There is a ritual that happens every couple of years here, There will be a report from the Social Attitudes Survey or from one of the feminist Quangos or lobby groups. It will find that the majority of women have traditional aspirations of findinding a partner, pairing, forming a family and living good a comfortable life into old age and grandparent hood. These findings will occasion the Quangos and lobby groups and media feminists demand girls and women are "educated" out of such archaic aspirations. Much the same thing has been going on for at least 40 years. I suppose these days the "education" is in place, with "relationship" education in schools declaring boys toxic and ever ready to sexually assault and abuse their partners. However as yet this has only dented % of young women aspiring to family formation.
The Quangos and lobby groups of course only ask females. But the ignored data for males from more general surveys such as the social attitudes survey is not that different, they too aspire to form a family. Of particular annoyance to the media feminists is the consistent finding that once there are children women expect to be less work oriented while both sexes still agree that the primary earner is the man.
Now the fact that so many don't achieve their aspirations in a society with such a high divorce rate, fatherlessness and fleeting relationships doesn't bother the feminists one bit and family formation, already a challenge, is actively discouraged by the actions of so many organs of our rather encompassing state. It is remarkable that is still the case that the majority of folk do still live their aspirations despite all the hurdles.
It’s quite sad that there are women who organize in opposition to women’s natural and useful desires. But it’s hopeful that the young, men and women, still aspire to family. The funny thing is, these omen who encourage women to career aspirations often are still quite hypergamous in terms of whom they find to be suitable partners for themselves. I was watching a You Tube video of a woman writer whose work on crime nonfiction I quite enjoy. She mentioned the joy of nursing her baby on a mattress on the floor when she was a young wife. But describing her lack of a partner since her midlife divorce, she didn’t rule out the idea, but he had this idea the guy had to be succesful and interested in her work. (She didn’t express any expectation that she’d be interested in his work, mind you.) Instincts run deep, even in those who pretend they don’t exist.
There is a sort of ritual here. The periodical "social attitudes" survey reports or some research from the many feminist Quangos or lobby groups will show the majority of women at all ages aspire to find a partner, form a family and live a comfortable ordinary life. This will immediately cause the feminist Quangos and lobby groups to say that this is proof "mere education is needed" clearly on the grounds that this heterosexual family aspiration
Hi CA. After living as a man the woman - I can't recall her name offhand, but the book was fascinating - spent time in mental health institutions. A year or two ago she underwent assisted suicide in a Swiss clinic.
there are lessons to be learned about how disturbing it is to have your comforting religion shaken beneath the foundations by real life personal experience,
I wouldn't wish mental illness leading to suicide on anyone, but the cognitive dissonance of discovering that your feminist religion is 100% reliant on perversion of the truth, and denial of facts - that I do wish on every active Feminist on the planet.
When I was a young and silly man, I joined up with Scientology. Largely as a result of being easily led by a friend. I was only in for a couple of years and my life was really becoming quite derailed and I ended up in a pretty dark place.
Long story short, I ran out of employment options and money and took a leave of absence to take on a job some 200kms away. That is what saved me. I met mostly ordinary people living ordinary lives with all sorts of life history and events which helped me to rejoin the real world again.
I never went back again.
I witnessed first hand how people's minds are taken over by silly ideologies and just how invested they become in their chain of "religious" thinking and the person that they once were fades away into the hive mind. Until some event happens that forces them to wake up and re-evaluate their position. They often end up leaving and that in itself can be either immediate or a long process of reflection leading to walking away. If they have loves and family in the cult, that really can complicate things as well.
I see feminism as a dangerous cult like Scientology. All made up by a mentally ill science fiction writer who dabbled in Satanism beforehand, writing up nonsense facts and stories that the faithful swallowed eagerly and unquestioningly. Then watch everyone scramble to defend it to the death without ever asking a question to verify its validity.
L Ron Hubbard had a mantra that all followers had to take in to their core: Always attack, never defend.
It really amazes me to see just how similar Scientology is to feminism. Not the teachings, but the attitudes, methods and almost suicidal defence of their chosen philosophy. Not just Scientology, but I have come to realise just how all cults operate under the same methods.
Steve Hassan, a former Moonie and now a psychiatrist, has written a book called Combatting Cult Mind Control which outlines exactly how cults operate and keep their flocks under control.
Us ex-culties use a phrase with pretty well sums up most things people get involved in. We call it the prison of belief. No bars or restraining devices are needed.
Steve Hassan also said the richest recruiting grounds for new converts were the University Campuses. People there were young and smart, but otherwise pretty clueless. Their prefrontal cortexes that lead to better critical thinking and decision making is still a long way of being fully developed which makes it fairly easy for them to be led down a series of rabbit holes and many Academic teachers know this and exploit it mercilessly.
I agree that the cult like status of the two religious groups you compare is appropriate.
the main difference being that Feminism has been adopted to the tune of £millions in tax payer funding and the takeover of virtually every academic institution in the UK - and a huge range across the USA too.
Scientology is far easier to dismiss, due to being an undisguised religion.
we must expose the lies of Feminism to the people in positions of power - somehow. this has been one of my attempts:-
Absolutely agree. I’ve read comments elsewhere saying “she did it because she couldn’t handle being a man”, which I think misses the point. She did say she was amazed at the vitriol thrown at men by women, and her ultimate take was something along the lines of ‘men need each other and in male spaces’.
Unfortunately she was an unwell woman with a history of depression already. But as has been said, if your entire life, every waking moment, is seen through a lens that 30 years later is found to be false? And your incorrect decisions and beliefs made public? I’d have been more surprised if she hadn’t killed herself.
Thanks Patrick. Of course a major issue is that feminists live in an echo chamber, which reinforces their delusions. And we saw in "The Red Pill" the stress Cassie Jaye went through when challenging her cherished feminist beliefs. Very few women will willingly put themselves through that process, being so stress-averse.
exactly so - I suspect Nora Vincent had a bigger and longer internal upset having not adequately dealt with that year as a man - and the discoveries of just how hard it is to be a man attacked by women for merely existing -
she had to comforting place to return to.
Whereas Cassie has been staunchly supported by men's rights advocates for the champion she became.
I still get a horrible sense of being a target walking the top of the dividing fence when members of my family and friends groups utterly fail to understand what going through police prosecution for faked sex crime accusations leads to... and I speak about it.
I guess most men (inculcated as they are into the myths of women as innocent victims) find their way back to a comfort zone by dismissing their horrific experience as a one-off - just the result of one mad woman going off the rails...
Less than half of all those featured in "We Believe You" saw past their own case to perceive the perverse doctrines of the Feminist religion - so they relax into their comfort zone/old world - one that just carries on promoting the ongoing insanity
A noted scholar on Substack put it in pretty basic underlying terms of human nature, “women, girls and sissy’s form cliques, men, boys and Tom-boys form teams, you can see the dynamic on any playground.” Female sociopathy also expresses itself in the form of gossip, innuendo and character assassination to destroy one’s “enemies” or those that present a challenge to her selfish interests, it is one of the reasons why so many women these days are not trustworthy.
Of course anyone who brings up these points will be hung from the nearest tree, it is never ok to criticize a woman or to hold her feet to the fire. When you allow a whole class of human beings to get away with this type of Narcissistic behavior it should not be surprising that Feminism is the result. At this point it is so out of control that it is destroying the Culture as well as human relationships. This has also become true of race and the worship of Blackness and Brownness.
Your comment made me ponder some things. The normal pattern for a primate female is to leave her family and go live with her mate's family. She would have to learn humility, and how to fit in, and deal with new people and new ways. This biological/social scenario makes girls susceptible to social contagion, as they need to be adaptable to begin adult life. As women get older, there's a phase of getting set in our ways. But we used to finish our growing up in a pair bond with a male, in a new social group. Women who didn't pair up early enough were known to have difficulty pairing up later.
These days, a lot of women, especially those who grew up with no father in the home, never face the reality of having to learn to fit in with a new family. That means never having to learn humility or that other people have a valid way of doing things. Those who marry but stay close to their mothers create less-than-ideal situations for their husbands, themselves and their families.
There's probably a force-multiplier effect going on. Like if all the girls are being raised by "heroic" single moms, it's probably a lot worse.
Women rely on covert competition for obvious reasons. A wife brought to her husband’s house cannot overpower her enemies. So she relies on gossip, reputation destruction, and the like.
But most affluent educated women today have never been hit in their lives. Not even a quick tap on the ass from grandpa when they run into the busy street as a toddler. And they never expect to be, no matter how often they are caught on TikTok being physically aggressive Karens in public to strangers. A man knows if he is too aggressive on the street he had better be ready to bring it. Women, especially young “activists” and fat old boomers, really do not understand this and think they are protected by a magical force field.
This protection from reality unhinges people. It makes them susceptible to delusional beliefs about their own power, and complete ignorance about what will happen if they push it too far.
You may be referring to Lorenzo Warby and Helen Dale who have a series of essays on Substack that explain in detail the power dynamics at play in todays society.
Another parallel is their attitude towards 'apostasy', that is, believers who leave the cult. Apostates are not well regarded. Cassie Jaye is one example.
Feminists should try a separatist type community like some of the Amish do. That would surely allow a return to the spiritual matriarchies of pre-history.
That's a brilliant idea, but I notice something about feminists, which is a tendency to not disconnect from male sources of money, status and power. For example, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama were big time feminist mouthpieces. Both had law degrees. There was no reason they couldn't be good examples of female independence, and continue their own careers. But both jumped full force into being "first lady," riding their husbands' coattails to real fame, status, power and money. A lot of feminists and feminist causes were fully funded, and often steered politically, by men. For example, even though feminists decried Hugh Hefner for using women, he still gave money to feminist causes like child care facilities. Helen Ready, who sang , "I am Woman" had a male manager, who was her husband (and also did most of his work repping male athletes like wrestlers).
Emmaline Pankhurst was of course a "Mrs." . Now long forgotten her Barrister Husband was in fact as prominent local and national politician who co founded the Labour Party and founded the original women's suffrage league. Emmaline was almost half his age when they married, from a relatively modest family. Mr. Pankhurst died and it was the still relatively young Mrs Pankhurst who went on to make the women's suffrage league politically important, using all her husbands political connections. Ironically she was a Tory candidate for elections when she died. One reading of her life was that she was tutored by he husband and simply continued a lot of his work and connections, despite being rather conservative herself. Certainly she was not happy about voting at the same time as her servants
It's interesting how the men behind the famous feminists fade into the background. One would think a culture completely steeped in male supremacy would raise men who, even if they had sympathy for the "plight" of women would have difficulty inhabiting the background while their women got all the attention.
I have to say how much I love the unintended consequences you report in your final sentence.
Helen Reddy's "I am Woman" was before my time, and I knew it only by reputation. Once these things all became easily accessible online, I decided to give it a chance. The music is formulaic at the beginning of the verse, but it soon takes off, and is really quite listenable. She also has a strong voice.
The lyrics didn't age well, as you know, but there's one surprising image late in the song (starting around 02:12):
I am just an embryo, with a long, long way to go.
Roe v. Wade was still two years away when the song was released, but the choice of metaphor seems tin-eared (I see that some feminists objected to the line). I'm glad she included it, though, whatever her intentions (or lack of any).
Amusingly, Alice Cooper dubbed her "the queen of housewife rock", and this became established. She took it in good humour. It seems that her husband and manager couldn't stay on in the US (he wasn't a citizen), so he missed out on the income and fame. Reddy took issue with his claim that he had made a substantial contribution to the lyrics and music of the song, but when he fell on hard times a couple of decades later, she decided to write him into the royalties (whether out of pure charity or a guilty conscience, I don't know, but she wasn't legally forced to do this).
All in all, she seems llike a woman with a life-long enthusiasm, with various blindspots, but she wasn't at all a hard-driven ideologist. I was sorry to see that she died in 2020. RIP.
[By the way, your "Push Down & Turn" avatar is hilarious]
I finally had a similar idea with Hillary Clinton. That Bill had his non sexual relationship and Hillary chose to stay with him and she is entitled to do what the hell she wants; but, I saw it as bad role modelling for other women. I don't want to pass judgment to much if at all.. life can be difficult.. Maybe my own mother would have permanently left my father if she was not a Housewife or had money or she was stronger.. but she stayed, after a 14 month separation.. but Hillary was rich and could have survived quite well, monetarily, without Bill and possibly become the President if she had really wanted to rather than hang onto him... I'm just saying....
that of all the possible couplings, lesbians have the highest rate of inter-partner violence and gay men the lowest, is a strong indicator of just how and why they fail...
I have never been, am not now, and never will be a feminist. I loathe feminism with a passion. Feminism has taken away the power women used to have. I have the empathy and compassion of a rock. I think more like a man than a woman and I can think of nothing worse that a group of women together demonising men, complaining about life in general (even though they don't live in a country where women are less than the average dog, so they don't have any idea of real hardship, and real patriarchy) and carrying on about women's medical issues etc. I hate romantic chick flicks - give me a movie with violence and justice and lots of testosterone. How feminists can think that the world would be better if there was a matriarchy and women ruled is beyond my comprehension. Hell hath no fury etc. and if they ever dared to cross one of their fellow feminists, they would soon find out how true that statement is. I am a traditional conservative - a woman should be able to do any job she is capable of, without any dropping of standards that men have to pass. If she can be equal to a man in a job, then she should be able to do it. However, a mother's place is in the home caring for her children and family, and it should be against the law for any mother with children who are not in high school to work outside the home. If she can work in a job at home, so that she is there to care for her family, and be there when the kids come home from school and look after the household and the family at the same time, then, okay. But a mother's priority should be her kids and family.
Matriarchy: All societies are experimental, but some work more reliably or durably than others. There have been a few gynocentric societies--more specifically (a) those in which property or privileges are inherited through the female line (matrilinial); (b) those in which husbands live with the families or clans of their wives (matrilocal); or (c) those in which the wife's brother does for her children what the father would do in other societies (matrifocal). But these societies--especially those that are truly matriarchal (in which women wield political power over men) have been unstable and therefore both historically and cross-culturally rare.
And intriguingly in most the actual roles done by the sexes are remarkably consistent, there being a difference in the importance applied and most consistently the distance from "home". Way back in the 70s I read a book of 12 societies researched by anthropologists. The thesis of the book was the interchangeability of roles. Potting, farming, weaving, teaching, etc. But what struck me at the time was the authors had missed the obvious point that in each case the men did the activity if it required distance or time away from the village while the women did the role of it was in the home or village. It was very clear that the males did the things that took them away from home and were perceived as having Greater risk. Also a number of "matriarchal" Indian communities were in fact warrior castes/ classes where most adult men were away serving the sultan, Maharaja etc. leaving the women to run the family estate etc. Of course these "gentry" were served by a peasantry who were patrilineal.
Janice, thanks for another terrific article. Two observations:
- you write, "Some, though not all, feminist theories also posit an ancient matriarchy, a nurturing, egalitarian, and non-exploitative society that predated patriarchy, in which human beings lived in harmony with one another and with nature." I'm not an expert on feminist history but wasn't the "ancient matriarchy" a complete invention of Friedrich Engels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Engels, Karl Marx's partner-in-crime?
- having been a f/t MRA for 15+ years I can confidently state (and often do) that every feminist narrative is one or more of the following - a baseless conspiracy theory, a fantasy, a lie, a delusion or a myth.
I suspect that the notion of a primeval matriarchy originated long before Engels, because the notion of an inverted social order has always been very common (and often enacted ritually, though briefly, at carnival time). People everywhere and everywhen tend to ask why things are the way that they are and not some other way. That kind of question is what leads to myths or philosophies of collective origin and destiny.
In any case, the feminist version of primeval paradise is a precise (and hardly coincidental) inversion of the biblical story that begins in paradise (Eden) under the benign aegis of a loving God, continues with a fall from divine grace and expulsion into the chaotic world that we know in everyday life, and concludes back again in paradise (Eden, the Kingdom of God, the Heavenly City, the Messianic Age and so on). The feminist inversion replaces God with a Great Goddess. Moreover, sin, or evil, is now exemplified collectively only by the sons of Adam, not the daughters of Eve (although the biblical text itself, unlike later commentaries, does not make that contrast). And salvation in the feminist paradise (or terrestrial utopia) will not be accessible to men per se (unless, in some versions, they are converts to the true religion of feminism and therefore honorary women).
By the way, feminists have never answered an important question about their primeval paradise. If everyone lived in such peace and harmony due to egalitarianism and ecological awareness under a Great Goddess, after all, then why would men have rebelled? According to the biblical version, a temptation to rebel is inherent in human nature as we know it; no one is without sin, no one is without the need for salvation and no one is cut off from salvation. This answer to the prevalence of evil or chaos in daily life is universalistic but not very satisfying (although the story's redemptive conclusion is). But feminist "archaeologians" and "thealogians" resort to two far less satisfying answers: (a) men are innately or even metaphysically evil; or (b) the primeval feminist paradise was not universal in the first place; it was conquered by alien (patriarchal) tribes, who replaced the Great Goddess with their own brutal hierarchies of gods and goddesses (usually described as Indo-European or Semitic). This turns their version of paradise-yet-to-come into a kind of revenge.
In the feminist Garden of Eden, the tree of forbidden knowledge was the pussy willow. Eve ate of it first, but liked it so much she wouldn't let Adam partake of it. When God found out, he was furious at Eve for her disobedience, but also for her covetousness. Eve's punishment was that she couldn't have any more and had to give it all to Adam. That was the birth of the Patriarchy.
There's some truth to your metaphors. I believe the forbidden fruit could have been the sexual act itself. Even more profound, is my observation that w0e-MEN are in love with their own beauty more so than MEN and are quite aware of the power therein. Furthermore, anything MEN fetishize about w0e-MEN have already fetishized it first!
'A mystical element is often part of the feminist story. Feminist theories almost always associate femininity with spiritual power'
Yes. Even from its organizational founding in 1848, feminism was deeply intertwined with the Spiritualist Movement of the Nineteenth Century, which focused largely on various forms of occult practice. The Spiritualist Movement eventually morphed into the New Age scam.
Early feminists were also members of the free love movement that promoted sexual immorality just does today's feminism is entwined with sexual immorality.
In an unpublished speech, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (author of the 1848 Declaration of Sentiments and significant leader of the U.S. feminist movement) advocated for free love. It is fascinating how naive and indifferent she was about the welfare of children born into these 'free unions.' If you're interested, I made a video on the subject:
Thank you Janice I just finished listening to the video you shared with me. My knowledge of Early Feminism and the Free Love Movement dates back to when I attended a Seventh-day Adventist college in my early twenties. The SDA church was around forty years old when it's leaders were confronted with these two immoral movements.
And for some, becoming impregnated by our sons, brothers, uncles, .. is a bonus - as they wait the directed time for baby development then sell your grandson or daughter, etc, tortured to death silently screaming corpse to Planned Parenthood or some other Satanic sacrificing organization.
Remember that Democratic Abortion Bill they tried to pass? There was a loophole that allowed the mothers of your unborn kin to be in the middle of birth and Planned Parenthood could murder them and the mother of the dead baby gets extra, and if corpse cannot be sold, then a tender baked baby dinner shared with her coven.
The more sexually liberal a society, the more it is ruled by females. . . whether overtly or covertly. The masculine then exists in a weakened condition, which very much is in the interest of oligarchic elites. Their power is not threatened by collective women, but by brotherhood and the masculine.
This is why the intel agencies promoted 'free love', as their machinations were central to the beginning of the hippie movement in the late Fifties and early Sixties, first in Greenwich Village and then in Los Angeles, particularly Laurel Canyon. David McGowan wrote perceptively about this.
Right wing fake/CHRISTIAN/ w0e-MEN are worse as they want MEN to be innocent while they themselves are NOT. Tommi Lahren? Remember when she made that viral video complaining about her past SEVEN lovers?
There is an excellent (very scholarly, dense) book called *Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Women in 19th century Culture.* The author is quite objective and his intention is not to condemn the women who adopted Satan as their guide (!!!). I have to admit that I didn't read it all, but the parts I did read were certainly interesting.
Rachel Wilson is a contemporary YouTuber who has written a book called *Occult Feminism: The Secret History of Women's Liberation.* I ordered the book a long time ago and it never came. Perhaps I should try again. She also has at least one video interview about her research, and a Substack newsletter. She seems like a lovely woman and I deeply appreciate her perspective though I was not entirely convinced by everything I heard in the interview:
Assuredly, feminism is a religion, and an ancient one at that. It is the latest incarnation of the goddess and mother-son/mother-daughter cults that were ubiquitous in the ancient world, across continents. (See, e.g., James Frazer's 'The Golden Bough')
To take merely one example, the Eleusinian Mysteries (Demeter and Persephone) lasted over a millennium in Western Civilization. It is hardly surprising that the U.S. would be at the center of promoting, funding, and enforcing feminism, as a careful study of the layout of Washington D.C. reveals a huge shrine to the 'goddess' of the mystery religions, which have not disappeared, not at all. Take a look at the Rotunda of the Capitol. Washington is not called the District of Columbia for nothing.
and of course one aspect of this religion that keeps the Feminist doctrine mainstream and dominant is "The money"
Feminist groups and academics are some of the biggest recipients of taxpayers money and they need to trample on the facts and preach male violence in order to keep that river of cash flowing their way...
"A young woman can write about her horror at discovering that she is pregnant with a male child." Imagine the horror of the young boy whose mother hates him for what he is.
I'm 67. I am a man. I have never been invited to a single meeting of the patriarchy where all the devious plots are (I suppose) cooked up. I'm starting to suspect it's made up!
Good stuff, Janice, as usual. So much of what you say reminds me of, for want of a better term, wokeism and, not for the first time, makes me wonder if feminism provided the fertile ground in which wokeism could grow and flourish. Almost everything you say has an analog among woke nonsense.
Indeed. For example, feminists long denied (and to some extent still do) most sex differences, claiming they were the result of nurture with boy children being treated differently and subjected to different expectations than girl children. Neither basic observation of reality nor copious research demonstrating the role of genetics in physical development and behaviour made any impact on those feminist claims. If only boys weren't dressed in blue and girls in pink then girls would grow to be as physically strong as men and would win gold medals against men in the most physical sports. Such falsehood formed the foundation for transgender ideology which is only a small step further, that male and female can be interchangeable on the basis of subjective sense of identity and some cosmetic alteration.
One might notice also that women seem to lead most of the woke causes, shouting shallow slogans in support of Islamic terrorism, critical race theory, me-too, climate activism, transgender ideology (yes, despite some feminists objecting) and more. Regardless of one's beliefs about such matters, a level of irrationality and emotive extremism comes largely from the female zealots with obedient male supporters in behind.
I support freedom of religion - in general. The problem is with State religions. The risk is too great that competing beliefs will be discouraged or silenced; non-believers will be sanctioned and the state religion will permeate society.
The notion that feminism has become our unofficial State religion seems self-evidently true although I hadn’t thought of feminism in those terms until you stated it that way, and your equation of feminism with Islam—supreme irony!—is original (as far as I know) and brilliant:
“Feminism thus encourages all the negative aspects of fervent religious beliefs—irrational passions, a worldview that refuses other perspectives, the demonization of non-believers—and none of the benevolence and self-sacrificing love that characterize true religions at their best. In its supremacism and justification of violence against non-believers (and ‘dhimmi’ status for male feminists), it perhaps most closely resembles Islam.”
I'm not sure about the grammar on the sign that says, 'The Future is Still Female'? Is 'the future' a regular noun? Perhaps a certain ex-English professor could correct me.
Anyway, as I've said before on this Substack, that sign is out of date by a good 30 years. It's been female for a long time. Indeed feminists have no shame in openly advocating for an apartheid state where all branches of law and government favour women and give nothing to men. And politicians, knowing that it is men who finance the state, still go along with it. Absolutely incredible. With more men removing themselves from the state the future looks like it was be a bankrupt shit-hole where all the gratitude that is needed to support happiness will be eradicated.
For a while, there was a technology promo line, "The future is friendly." I think that started the string of "The future is ... " statements. But I think "the future" has conventionally been used as a regular noun, as in "A bright future awaits someone with your work ethic."
Indeed, males have always been chivalrously invested in female wellbeing, usually more so than male wellbeing. Male leadership ensures female protection and provision. But I shudder to think how males would fare in a true Matriarchy.
Well, that is the self-correcting flaw in the feminist drive to destroy the 'western patriarchy'! I mean, who is more supportive of these 'poor, downtrodden refugees'? Men or women?
Yes but even then there was an emphasis on the hardships women in poor countries experienced which was exploited by feminists within the church. So the day was taken over by them.
Feminism more closely resembles ancient religious cults that practiced "Child Sacrifice" just as feminists promote abortion.
X =female Chromosome
Y = male Chromosome
X +X = girl
X+Y = boy
Women always carry the X Chromosome while men carry either the X or Y Chromosomes. Making men the final arbiters as to whether a child will be male or female.
Also note that men and woman share the same feminine nature because each has an X Chromosome.
This means that while men do indeed biologically have a feminine side. Women on the other hand do not biologically have a masculine side.
This makes men half male and half female Chromosomily speaking whie woman are all - 100% - female.
Hence since both men and women choose to become toxic men are merely expressing their feminine side. While women have no excuse because they do not have a masculine side to blame their toxicity on.
The Y chromosome triggers male development in humans. The absence of the Y chromosome leads to female development by default.
Some women have chromosomal abnormalities, with only one X chromosome (resulting in Turner Syndrome), or three X chromosomes (simply called Triple-X Syndrome, a little more serious than the single-X syndrome). Neither abnormality prevents such women from leading quite normal lives.
In the case of a Y chromosome(s) without an X chromosome, development and survival are impossible.
You're turning the X and Y chromosomes into metaphors for male and female behavioral patterns, but they don't work that way. Being a male human is simply to possess the XY combination of sex chromosomes.
Thank you for sparing me the effort to correct the record. Funny how human beings seem always to be searching for metaphors, some of which are helpful and others not so much. But that is part of our nature; to try to understand the mysteries of life in a way that is more amenable to comprehension, constantly trying to make the inexplicable more readily understood, but always falling short. Sometimes the result is helpful, other times not so and often, unfortunately, either misleading or simply inadequate.
They are not metaphores. What i described is the actual science of biological reproduction. Those who deliberately reject the nature science of biological sexual reproduction are at best misinformed.
Though I personally believe they are intellectually dishonest and are deliberately obfuscating and undermining the science of biological reproduction. In order to prove that homosexuality is natural normal when it isn't and never will be.
When it comes to evolution homosexuality is a reproductive dead-end making those who practice it unable to reproduce naturally in a monogamous relationship.
You're assuming monogamous relationships are the human norm, rather than a cultural ideal, and that homosexuality prevents people from breeding. Both are demonstrably false.
Yes. And to be more precise, Rocio, a male of any species is one whose genes (on xy chromosomes in every cell) direct the production of male gametes (sperm); a female of any species is one whose genes (on xx chromosomes in every cell) direct the production of female gametes (ova). Not every man or woman needs to participate in reproduction (and many do not for various reasons), but every man or woman, by definition, can do so (barring accident or disease).
He didn't say they were the norm at all. He said that having one X chromosome or three X chromosomes are "abnormalities" causing two different diseases but neither kept women from leading "quite normal lives," meaning the diseases aren't especially debilitating.. He also said that without an X chromosome, "development and survival are impossible." None of it had anything to do with "straight heterosexuals," which is redundant by the way.
You should make a little for effort to understand what someone is actually saying before you call them "intellectually dishonest" in the future.
You made some interesting points, previously. I've looked a little into environmental substances that can alter hormone balances, particularly atrazine, which is the herbicide of which Alex Jones famously said was "turning the frickin' frogs gay!" I'm confident these are at least a significant part of the tranny phenomenon, because where the Hell were all these gender confused people before?
I appreciate the underlying point of your comment, Dabir, about feminist opportunism. But I think that you need to make a distinction between nature (maleness or femaleness) and culture (masculinity or femininity). There are some links, it's true, between the former (male or female chrosmosomes) and the latter (gendered interpretations of, or elaborations on, genetically transmitted characteristics.) But it's a significant exaggeration to say either that maleness and masculinity are synonymous or that femaleness and femininity are synonymous. No one comes into this world with a fixed "masculine side" and/or a fixed "feminine side." At best, that's an interesting theory that works in the symbolic context of Jungian analysis.
You are 100% wrong in your erroneous assumptions. The X chromosome activates the female sex hormone estrogen while the Y chromosome activates the male sex hormone testosterone.
Male and Female nature are built into the building blocks of human beings by the X and Y chromosomes.
The only thing that can interfere in the natural development of a child in the womb and flip its sexual orientation. Is the over abundance of of either testosterone or estrogen hormones.
Girls with gender dysphoria were bathed with unnatural high levels of testosterone when their brain was forming causing it to form in the male pattern.
On the other hand boys with gender dysphoria were bathed in extremely high levels of estrogen that caused their brains to form into the female pattern.
DDT breaks down into estrogen like compounds and enters the food chain. While meat producers feed higher than normal amounts of estrogen to cattle and chickens they sell on the market.
There are/were estrogen like compounds in plastics that leached into the food stored in them and these compounds were also sprayed underneath the lids if metal cans containing food.
Those estrogen compounds do not filp the sexual orientation of those who eat them. However those compounds end up in the reproductive system of the female and do indeed flip the sexual orientation of the fetus in the womb during gestation.
What assumptions did I make about testosterone or estrogen? Those hormones are indeed, as you say, generated by male or female chromosomes. Genetic anomalies do occur now and then. So do varying levels of either sex hormone in utero. But neither scenario turns males into females or females into males. Gay men are still men, for example, no matter how we think of ourselves or behave in relation to conventional notions of masculinity. Trans women are still men, moreover, even if they believe otherwise.
Good point. Sort of explains why most men went along with the feminist narrative early on, in the interest of 'equality' - only to find out later on that equality was defined purely in terms of how many X-chromosomes one possessed. Having two Xs therefore rendered you twice as equal. To paraphrase Orwell, 2X good/1X bad.
It makes more sense to say it this way: Y is a strictly male chromosome and X is a neutral chromosome. If you have a Y chromosome, you're a male--period. If you have an X chromosome, you are a human being. No human being doesn't have at least one X chromosome.
Thank for that very lucid note. And to define the matter even more closely, it is not even the Y chromosome per se that makes the difference. It is a specific group of genes that ride on the Y chromosome that does the trick. There are rare cases in which the Y and X chromosomes cross over and swap that set of genes. When that happens, that X chromosome will cause the baby to be male, and the Y chromosome lacking it will leave the baby female.
I am not an expert but I am pretty sure that X or Y chromosome's sole function is to determine a person's sex and has little to no impact on a person's behaviour outside of that.
Ironically I would say that your line of reasoning sounds very feminist, mixing science with personal theory and stating it as fact in order to justify demonization of the opposite gender.
On a side note I have noticed a concerning online trend of people using a poor understanding of genetics in an attempt to justify flawed and often bigotted claims. Eugenics especially seems to be on the rise in online rhetoric.
Janice, growing up in old USSR, we did not have a Valentine Day, and March 8th was playing that role - gifting flowers to your sweetheart, etc.
Interestingly, perhaps because everyone was (almost) equally downtrodden, as communism always succeeds in achieving, there was not a feminist undertone to it - it was essentially an appreciation of all women day. We had no idea that in Western World the International Women's Day was a Day of Scorn and Men Hating.
Interesting article. I remember reading a book by a lesbian woman who pretended to be a man for a year and joined men’s groups, bowling teams and salesmen. Even went to bars to pick up women. Her conclusion at the end, men were actually pretty damn decent (except for salesmen), the women she encountered not so much’. I guess what I’m saying is that we have to move away from generalization like all women are bitches, all men are bastards. There are toxic men and toxic women but many more decent ones as well.
That book is called "Self Made Man," by Norah Vincent. The empathy she developed for men was impressive (It's hard to know where she started, as it was only her journey into male life and the aftermath that were documented in any detail). As another commenter notes, she went to her death at a Swiss suicide facility. I read that her last words were, "What time is it?" The nurse told her that she didn't have to worry about that any more. I worry that she asked because she was having second thoughts. Hers was a intellect that we could use more of.
As I recall in her book she had two brothers. Both married with children. In an interview she mentioned them fondly. Perhaps this influenced her more "nuanced" view.
Thanks for pointing that out. I'm sure that her affection for her brothers contributed to the mindset that led to her book and her growth in empathy. She herself describes her empathy increasing, so there was clearly some change there.
I watched her video and found it to be great but sad at the end as she was totally unhappy with the situation with what was happening to men.
I wonder if she was confronted with the images she had of herself as a woman and that was confronted with the Reality she had experienced in her research and it became to much of a burden and/or to much to change within herself.
If you search for her on Google, you’ll find a serious effort to define her as “trans” in order to deny her argument. I.E. she was defending her identity rather than investigating the behavior of men through participant observation. That put-down is rather like saying that anthropologists are really wannabes.
George, thanks. I did google search and found one article and that was enough.
Yes gone too soon
"Her conclusion at the end, men were actually pretty damn decent (except for salesmen), .."
Interesting about the salesman, could it be because lying to customers regularly adds up, darkening the Intellect, judgement, other faculties, and self-loathing with lose of belief that others and himself were soulless Meat-Machines from the soul-body created in the [Holy] image of God?
It could be the kind of psychological soul-crippling mind-damaging that increases in many women and men that carry the insanities that baby-murder and other things are 'normal'.
I read it along time back but from memory she found the salesmen to be hyper competitive, egotistical, ready to shaft each other to climb to the top and lacked any ethical sense. But that doesn’t apply to all salesman. I think she was doing door to door on a commission type selling but I don’t remember the exact details
Yes it was commission only sales. And she was actually sympathetic to many of the men she encountered who were desperate to make a living and therefore had to adopt a "red bull," hyper confident attitude. She seemed to have a fondness for her two brothers and so appeared willing to empathise ( in the true sense of the word ) with many men she encountered, and express sympathy for them..Though always in the context of a feminist analysis, believing that men needed a "liberation" movement that unshakled them from gender roles. Actually not unlike Warren Farrell's view in the Myth of Male Power.
To me the striking thing is how rare it is that feminists such as Norah Vincent actuallytake time and effort to actually research men in anyway at all.
It's also rare for feminists to actually research women. Of course they reject evolutionary biology, tradition, history and the necessary functions of life known as "women"s work." For an example of how little feminists care about what most women think or want, look at how they react to conservative women -- they're the enemy.
After dismissing biology, tradition and the real lives most women have led, there's not much to look into except for what the other feminists have to say.
I probably mentioned it in a previous post but as an evolutionary anthropologist who spent ten years researching human beauty and human attraction for ten years as a personal interest I remember reading one of Naomi Wolf’s books and in the first three pages she made three statements about men and women (I forget what they were now) and I knew the evolutionary research proved each of them wrong. And I was amazed that she wasn’t aware of it.
I didn’t see your post about being an evolutionary biologist, researching beauty and attraction. (I find it difficult to keep track of all the comments in these long threads). Why am I not surprised you found three disproven statements in the first 3 pages of a Naomi Wolf book?
There is a ritual that happens every couple of years here, There will be a report from the Social Attitudes Survey or from one of the feminist Quangos or lobby groups. It will find that the majority of women have traditional aspirations of findinding a partner, pairing, forming a family and living good a comfortable life into old age and grandparent hood. These findings will occasion the Quangos and lobby groups and media feminists demand girls and women are "educated" out of such archaic aspirations. Much the same thing has been going on for at least 40 years. I suppose these days the "education" is in place, with "relationship" education in schools declaring boys toxic and ever ready to sexually assault and abuse their partners. However as yet this has only dented % of young women aspiring to family formation.
The Quangos and lobby groups of course only ask females. But the ignored data for males from more general surveys such as the social attitudes survey is not that different, they too aspire to form a family. Of particular annoyance to the media feminists is the consistent finding that once there are children women expect to be less work oriented while both sexes still agree that the primary earner is the man.
Now the fact that so many don't achieve their aspirations in a society with such a high divorce rate, fatherlessness and fleeting relationships doesn't bother the feminists one bit and family formation, already a challenge, is actively discouraged by the actions of so many organs of our rather encompassing state. It is remarkable that is still the case that the majority of folk do still live their aspirations despite all the hurdles.
It’s quite sad that there are women who organize in opposition to women’s natural and useful desires. But it’s hopeful that the young, men and women, still aspire to family. The funny thing is, these omen who encourage women to career aspirations often are still quite hypergamous in terms of whom they find to be suitable partners for themselves. I was watching a You Tube video of a woman writer whose work on crime nonfiction I quite enjoy. She mentioned the joy of nursing her baby on a mattress on the floor when she was a young wife. But describing her lack of a partner since her midlife divorce, she didn’t rule out the idea, but he had this idea the guy had to be succesful and interested in her work. (She didn’t express any expectation that she’d be interested in his work, mind you.) Instincts run deep, even in those who pretend they don’t exist.
There is a sort of ritual here. The periodical "social attitudes" survey reports or some research from the many feminist Quangos or lobby groups will show the majority of women at all ages aspire to find a partner, form a family and live a comfortable ordinary life. This will immediately cause the feminist Quangos and lobby groups to say that this is proof "mere education is needed" clearly on the grounds that this heterosexual family aspiration
Hi CA. After living as a man the woman - I can't recall her name offhand, but the book was fascinating - spent time in mental health institutions. A year or two ago she underwent assisted suicide in a Swiss clinic.
JUSTICE FOR MEN & BOYS http://j4mb.org.uk
CAMPAIGN FOR MERIT IN BUSINESS http://c4mb.uk
LAUGHING AT FEMINISTS http://laughingatfeminists.com
Oh no. That’s so sad. She was a great writer. I’m so sorry to hear.
Thanks. I think the world is worse off for not having her in it. Depression is a curse and all those times in institutions never helped her.
Just checked, it was Norah Vincent. A NYT piece after her death, in 2022:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/obituaries/norah-vincent-dead.html
there are lessons to be learned about how disturbing it is to have your comforting religion shaken beneath the foundations by real life personal experience,
I wouldn't wish mental illness leading to suicide on anyone, but the cognitive dissonance of discovering that your feminist religion is 100% reliant on perversion of the truth, and denial of facts - that I do wish on every active Feminist on the planet.
When I was a young and silly man, I joined up with Scientology. Largely as a result of being easily led by a friend. I was only in for a couple of years and my life was really becoming quite derailed and I ended up in a pretty dark place.
Long story short, I ran out of employment options and money and took a leave of absence to take on a job some 200kms away. That is what saved me. I met mostly ordinary people living ordinary lives with all sorts of life history and events which helped me to rejoin the real world again.
I never went back again.
I witnessed first hand how people's minds are taken over by silly ideologies and just how invested they become in their chain of "religious" thinking and the person that they once were fades away into the hive mind. Until some event happens that forces them to wake up and re-evaluate their position. They often end up leaving and that in itself can be either immediate or a long process of reflection leading to walking away. If they have loves and family in the cult, that really can complicate things as well.
I see feminism as a dangerous cult like Scientology. All made up by a mentally ill science fiction writer who dabbled in Satanism beforehand, writing up nonsense facts and stories that the faithful swallowed eagerly and unquestioningly. Then watch everyone scramble to defend it to the death without ever asking a question to verify its validity.
L Ron Hubbard had a mantra that all followers had to take in to their core: Always attack, never defend.
It really amazes me to see just how similar Scientology is to feminism. Not the teachings, but the attitudes, methods and almost suicidal defence of their chosen philosophy. Not just Scientology, but I have come to realise just how all cults operate under the same methods.
Steve Hassan, a former Moonie and now a psychiatrist, has written a book called Combatting Cult Mind Control which outlines exactly how cults operate and keep their flocks under control.
Us ex-culties use a phrase with pretty well sums up most things people get involved in. We call it the prison of belief. No bars or restraining devices are needed.
Steve Hassan also said the richest recruiting grounds for new converts were the University Campuses. People there were young and smart, but otherwise pretty clueless. Their prefrontal cortexes that lead to better critical thinking and decision making is still a long way of being fully developed which makes it fairly easy for them to be led down a series of rabbit holes and many Academic teachers know this and exploit it mercilessly.
I agree that the cult like status of the two religious groups you compare is appropriate.
the main difference being that Feminism has been adopted to the tune of £millions in tax payer funding and the takeover of virtually every academic institution in the UK - and a huge range across the USA too.
Scientology is far easier to dismiss, due to being an undisguised religion.
we must expose the lies of Feminism to the people in positions of power - somehow. this has been one of my attempts:-
https://open.substack.com/pub/patrickcgraham/p/dear-feminist-men?r=1r8o50&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Absolutely agree. I’ve read comments elsewhere saying “she did it because she couldn’t handle being a man”, which I think misses the point. She did say she was amazed at the vitriol thrown at men by women, and her ultimate take was something along the lines of ‘men need each other and in male spaces’.
Unfortunately she was an unwell woman with a history of depression already. But as has been said, if your entire life, every waking moment, is seen through a lens that 30 years later is found to be false? And your incorrect decisions and beliefs made public? I’d have been more surprised if she hadn’t killed herself.
Thanks Patrick. Of course a major issue is that feminists live in an echo chamber, which reinforces their delusions. And we saw in "The Red Pill" the stress Cassie Jaye went through when challenging her cherished feminist beliefs. Very few women will willingly put themselves through that process, being so stress-averse.
exactly so - I suspect Nora Vincent had a bigger and longer internal upset having not adequately dealt with that year as a man - and the discoveries of just how hard it is to be a man attacked by women for merely existing -
she had to comforting place to return to.
Whereas Cassie has been staunchly supported by men's rights advocates for the champion she became.
I still get a horrible sense of being a target walking the top of the dividing fence when members of my family and friends groups utterly fail to understand what going through police prosecution for faked sex crime accusations leads to... and I speak about it.
I guess most men (inculcated as they are into the myths of women as innocent victims) find their way back to a comfort zone by dismissing their horrific experience as a one-off - just the result of one mad woman going off the rails...
Less than half of all those featured in "We Believe You" saw past their own case to perceive the perverse doctrines of the Feminist religion - so they relax into their comfort zone/old world - one that just carries on promoting the ongoing insanity
A noted scholar on Substack put it in pretty basic underlying terms of human nature, “women, girls and sissy’s form cliques, men, boys and Tom-boys form teams, you can see the dynamic on any playground.” Female sociopathy also expresses itself in the form of gossip, innuendo and character assassination to destroy one’s “enemies” or those that present a challenge to her selfish interests, it is one of the reasons why so many women these days are not trustworthy.
Of course anyone who brings up these points will be hung from the nearest tree, it is never ok to criticize a woman or to hold her feet to the fire. When you allow a whole class of human beings to get away with this type of Narcissistic behavior it should not be surprising that Feminism is the result. At this point it is so out of control that it is destroying the Culture as well as human relationships. This has also become true of race and the worship of Blackness and Brownness.
Your comment made me ponder some things. The normal pattern for a primate female is to leave her family and go live with her mate's family. She would have to learn humility, and how to fit in, and deal with new people and new ways. This biological/social scenario makes girls susceptible to social contagion, as they need to be adaptable to begin adult life. As women get older, there's a phase of getting set in our ways. But we used to finish our growing up in a pair bond with a male, in a new social group. Women who didn't pair up early enough were known to have difficulty pairing up later.
These days, a lot of women, especially those who grew up with no father in the home, never face the reality of having to learn to fit in with a new family. That means never having to learn humility or that other people have a valid way of doing things. Those who marry but stay close to their mothers create less-than-ideal situations for their husbands, themselves and their families.
There's probably a force-multiplier effect going on. Like if all the girls are being raised by "heroic" single moms, it's probably a lot worse.
Women rely on covert competition for obvious reasons. A wife brought to her husband’s house cannot overpower her enemies. So she relies on gossip, reputation destruction, and the like.
But most affluent educated women today have never been hit in their lives. Not even a quick tap on the ass from grandpa when they run into the busy street as a toddler. And they never expect to be, no matter how often they are caught on TikTok being physically aggressive Karens in public to strangers. A man knows if he is too aggressive on the street he had better be ready to bring it. Women, especially young “activists” and fat old boomers, really do not understand this and think they are protected by a magical force field.
This protection from reality unhinges people. It makes them susceptible to delusional beliefs about their own power, and complete ignorance about what will happen if they push it too far.
Blowback is gonna be a bitch.
You may be referring to Lorenzo Warby and Helen Dale who have a series of essays on Substack that explain in detail the power dynamics at play in todays society.
Another parallel is their attitude towards 'apostasy', that is, believers who leave the cult. Apostates are not well regarded. Cassie Jaye is one example.
Feminists should try a separatist type community like some of the Amish do. That would surely allow a return to the spiritual matriarchies of pre-history.
That's a brilliant idea, but I notice something about feminists, which is a tendency to not disconnect from male sources of money, status and power. For example, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama were big time feminist mouthpieces. Both had law degrees. There was no reason they couldn't be good examples of female independence, and continue their own careers. But both jumped full force into being "first lady," riding their husbands' coattails to real fame, status, power and money. A lot of feminists and feminist causes were fully funded, and often steered politically, by men. For example, even though feminists decried Hugh Hefner for using women, he still gave money to feminist causes like child care facilities. Helen Ready, who sang , "I am Woman" had a male manager, who was her husband (and also did most of his work repping male athletes like wrestlers).
Emmaline Pankhurst was of course a "Mrs." . Now long forgotten her Barrister Husband was in fact as prominent local and national politician who co founded the Labour Party and founded the original women's suffrage league. Emmaline was almost half his age when they married, from a relatively modest family. Mr. Pankhurst died and it was the still relatively young Mrs Pankhurst who went on to make the women's suffrage league politically important, using all her husbands political connections. Ironically she was a Tory candidate for elections when she died. One reading of her life was that she was tutored by he husband and simply continued a lot of his work and connections, despite being rather conservative herself. Certainly she was not happy about voting at the same time as her servants
It's interesting how the men behind the famous feminists fade into the background. One would think a culture completely steeped in male supremacy would raise men who, even if they had sympathy for the "plight" of women would have difficulty inhabiting the background while their women got all the attention.
I have to say how much I love the unintended consequences you report in your final sentence.
Helen Reddy's "I am Woman" was before my time, and I knew it only by reputation. Once these things all became easily accessible online, I decided to give it a chance. The music is formulaic at the beginning of the verse, but it soon takes off, and is really quite listenable. She also has a strong voice.
The lyrics didn't age well, as you know, but there's one surprising image late in the song (starting around 02:12):
I am just an embryo, with a long, long way to go.
Roe v. Wade was still two years away when the song was released, but the choice of metaphor seems tin-eared (I see that some feminists objected to the line). I'm glad she included it, though, whatever her intentions (or lack of any).
Amusingly, Alice Cooper dubbed her "the queen of housewife rock", and this became established. She took it in good humour. It seems that her husband and manager couldn't stay on in the US (he wasn't a citizen), so he missed out on the income and fame. Reddy took issue with his claim that he had made a substantial contribution to the lyrics and music of the song, but when he fell on hard times a couple of decades later, she decided to write him into the royalties (whether out of pure charity or a guilty conscience, I don't know, but she wasn't legally forced to do this).
All in all, she seems llike a woman with a life-long enthusiasm, with various blindspots, but she wasn't at all a hard-driven ideologist. I was sorry to see that she died in 2020. RIP.
[By the way, your "Push Down & Turn" avatar is hilarious]
She also sang a song called, "That's No Way to Treat a Lady," so . . .
As I recall, her husband wrote the song. She did have a good voice. It would have been nice to have heard her do more songs.
I finally had a similar idea with Hillary Clinton. That Bill had his non sexual relationship and Hillary chose to stay with him and she is entitled to do what the hell she wants; but, I saw it as bad role modelling for other women. I don't want to pass judgment to much if at all.. life can be difficult.. Maybe my own mother would have permanently left my father if she was not a Housewife or had money or she was stronger.. but she stayed, after a 14 month separation.. but Hillary was rich and could have survived quite well, monetarily, without Bill and possibly become the President if she had really wanted to rather than hang onto him... I'm just saying....
They did try - and still keep on doing so.
funnily enough they never last beyond the lives of the founding priestesses...
see here for some examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womyn%27s_land#Defunct_communities
that of all the possible couplings, lesbians have the highest rate of inter-partner violence and gay men the lowest, is a strong indicator of just how and why they fail...
I have never been, am not now, and never will be a feminist. I loathe feminism with a passion. Feminism has taken away the power women used to have. I have the empathy and compassion of a rock. I think more like a man than a woman and I can think of nothing worse that a group of women together demonising men, complaining about life in general (even though they don't live in a country where women are less than the average dog, so they don't have any idea of real hardship, and real patriarchy) and carrying on about women's medical issues etc. I hate romantic chick flicks - give me a movie with violence and justice and lots of testosterone. How feminists can think that the world would be better if there was a matriarchy and women ruled is beyond my comprehension. Hell hath no fury etc. and if they ever dared to cross one of their fellow feminists, they would soon find out how true that statement is. I am a traditional conservative - a woman should be able to do any job she is capable of, without any dropping of standards that men have to pass. If she can be equal to a man in a job, then she should be able to do it. However, a mother's place is in the home caring for her children and family, and it should be against the law for any mother with children who are not in high school to work outside the home. If she can work in a job at home, so that she is there to care for her family, and be there when the kids come home from school and look after the household and the family at the same time, then, okay. But a mother's priority should be her kids and family.
Matriarchy: All societies are experimental, but some work more reliably or durably than others. There have been a few gynocentric societies--more specifically (a) those in which property or privileges are inherited through the female line (matrilinial); (b) those in which husbands live with the families or clans of their wives (matrilocal); or (c) those in which the wife's brother does for her children what the father would do in other societies (matrifocal). But these societies--especially those that are truly matriarchal (in which women wield political power over men) have been unstable and therefore both historically and cross-culturally rare.
And intriguingly in most the actual roles done by the sexes are remarkably consistent, there being a difference in the importance applied and most consistently the distance from "home". Way back in the 70s I read a book of 12 societies researched by anthropologists. The thesis of the book was the interchangeability of roles. Potting, farming, weaving, teaching, etc. But what struck me at the time was the authors had missed the obvious point that in each case the men did the activity if it required distance or time away from the village while the women did the role of it was in the home or village. It was very clear that the males did the things that took them away from home and were perceived as having Greater risk. Also a number of "matriarchal" Indian communities were in fact warrior castes/ classes where most adult men were away serving the sultan, Maharaja etc. leaving the women to run the family estate etc. Of course these "gentry" were served by a peasantry who were patrilineal.
'But what struck me at the time was the authors had missed the obvious point ... '
Missed or ignored?
I suspect missed; because they were so busy trying to things fit their thesis. Ideological blindness.
Aaah.
Janice, thanks for another terrific article. Two observations:
- you write, "Some, though not all, feminist theories also posit an ancient matriarchy, a nurturing, egalitarian, and non-exploitative society that predated patriarchy, in which human beings lived in harmony with one another and with nature." I'm not an expert on feminist history but wasn't the "ancient matriarchy" a complete invention of Friedrich Engels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Engels, Karl Marx's partner-in-crime?
- having been a f/t MRA for 15+ years I can confidently state (and often do) that every feminist narrative is one or more of the following - a baseless conspiracy theory, a fantasy, a lie, a delusion or a myth.
JUSTICE FOR MEN & BOYS http://j4mb.org.uk
CAMPAIGN FOR MERIT IN BUSINESS http://c4mb.uk
LAUGHING AT FEMINISTS http://laughingatfeminists.com
I suspect that the notion of a primeval matriarchy originated long before Engels, because the notion of an inverted social order has always been very common (and often enacted ritually, though briefly, at carnival time). People everywhere and everywhen tend to ask why things are the way that they are and not some other way. That kind of question is what leads to myths or philosophies of collective origin and destiny.
In any case, the feminist version of primeval paradise is a precise (and hardly coincidental) inversion of the biblical story that begins in paradise (Eden) under the benign aegis of a loving God, continues with a fall from divine grace and expulsion into the chaotic world that we know in everyday life, and concludes back again in paradise (Eden, the Kingdom of God, the Heavenly City, the Messianic Age and so on). The feminist inversion replaces God with a Great Goddess. Moreover, sin, or evil, is now exemplified collectively only by the sons of Adam, not the daughters of Eve (although the biblical text itself, unlike later commentaries, does not make that contrast). And salvation in the feminist paradise (or terrestrial utopia) will not be accessible to men per se (unless, in some versions, they are converts to the true religion of feminism and therefore honorary women).
By the way, feminists have never answered an important question about their primeval paradise. If everyone lived in such peace and harmony due to egalitarianism and ecological awareness under a Great Goddess, after all, then why would men have rebelled? According to the biblical version, a temptation to rebel is inherent in human nature as we know it; no one is without sin, no one is without the need for salvation and no one is cut off from salvation. This answer to the prevalence of evil or chaos in daily life is universalistic but not very satisfying (although the story's redemptive conclusion is). But feminist "archaeologians" and "thealogians" resort to two far less satisfying answers: (a) men are innately or even metaphysically evil; or (b) the primeval feminist paradise was not universal in the first place; it was conquered by alien (patriarchal) tribes, who replaced the Great Goddess with their own brutal hierarchies of gods and goddesses (usually described as Indo-European or Semitic). This turns their version of paradise-yet-to-come into a kind of revenge.
Thank you, Paul! I love your book on the subject, *Sanctifying Misandry. Goddess Religion and the Fall of Man.* A true page-turner.
I just have to say, as a woman, I cannot imagine a more unappealing candidate for a husband than an "honorary woman."
In the feminist Garden of Eden, the tree of forbidden knowledge was the pussy willow. Eve ate of it first, but liked it so much she wouldn't let Adam partake of it. When God found out, he was furious at Eve for her disobedience, but also for her covetousness. Eve's punishment was that she couldn't have any more and had to give it all to Adam. That was the birth of the Patriarchy.
There's some truth to your metaphors. I believe the forbidden fruit could have been the sexual act itself. Even more profound, is my observation that w0e-MEN are in love with their own beauty more so than MEN and are quite aware of the power therein. Furthermore, anything MEN fetishize about w0e-MEN have already fetishized it first!
Thanks for sharing those links with all of here at Janice's article.
You're welcome!
'A mystical element is often part of the feminist story. Feminist theories almost always associate femininity with spiritual power'
Yes. Even from its organizational founding in 1848, feminism was deeply intertwined with the Spiritualist Movement of the Nineteenth Century, which focused largely on various forms of occult practice. The Spiritualist Movement eventually morphed into the New Age scam.
Early feminists were also members of the free love movement that promoted sexual immorality just does today's feminism is entwined with sexual immorality.
In an unpublished speech, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (author of the 1848 Declaration of Sentiments and significant leader of the U.S. feminist movement) advocated for free love. It is fascinating how naive and indifferent she was about the welfare of children born into these 'free unions.' If you're interested, I made a video on the subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hM010Lhg70
Thank you Janice I just finished listening to the video you shared with me. My knowledge of Early Feminism and the Free Love Movement dates back to when I attended a Seventh-day Adventist college in my early twenties. The SDA church was around forty years old when it's leaders were confronted with these two immoral movements.
And for some, becoming impregnated by our sons, brothers, uncles, .. is a bonus - as they wait the directed time for baby development then sell your grandson or daughter, etc, tortured to death silently screaming corpse to Planned Parenthood or some other Satanic sacrificing organization.
Remember that Democratic Abortion Bill they tried to pass? There was a loophole that allowed the mothers of your unborn kin to be in the middle of birth and Planned Parenthood could murder them and the mother of the dead baby gets extra, and if corpse cannot be sold, then a tender baked baby dinner shared with her coven.
Correct Dabir.
The more sexually liberal a society, the more it is ruled by females. . . whether overtly or covertly. The masculine then exists in a weakened condition, which very much is in the interest of oligarchic elites. Their power is not threatened by collective women, but by brotherhood and the masculine.
This is why the intel agencies promoted 'free love', as their machinations were central to the beginning of the hippie movement in the late Fifties and early Sixties, first in Greenwich Village and then in Los Angeles, particularly Laurel Canyon. David McGowan wrote perceptively about this.
Right wing fake/CHRISTIAN/ w0e-MEN are worse as they want MEN to be innocent while they themselves are NOT. Tommi Lahren? Remember when she made that viral video complaining about her past SEVEN lovers?
I recall a YT video looking at the occult origins of feminism
There is an excellent (very scholarly, dense) book called *Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Women in 19th century Culture.* The author is quite objective and his intention is not to condemn the women who adopted Satan as their guide (!!!). I have to admit that I didn't read it all, but the parts I did read were certainly interesting.
Rachel Wilson is a contemporary YouTuber who has written a book called *Occult Feminism: The Secret History of Women's Liberation.* I ordered the book a long time ago and it never came. Perhaps I should try again. She also has at least one video interview about her research, and a Substack newsletter. She seems like a lovely woman and I deeply appreciate her perspective though I was not entirely convinced by everything I heard in the interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_ZUDubTbAw
Assuredly, feminism is a religion, and an ancient one at that. It is the latest incarnation of the goddess and mother-son/mother-daughter cults that were ubiquitous in the ancient world, across continents. (See, e.g., James Frazer's 'The Golden Bough')
To take merely one example, the Eleusinian Mysteries (Demeter and Persephone) lasted over a millennium in Western Civilization. It is hardly surprising that the U.S. would be at the center of promoting, funding, and enforcing feminism, as a careful study of the layout of Washington D.C. reveals a huge shrine to the 'goddess' of the mystery religions, which have not disappeared, not at all. Take a look at the Rotunda of the Capitol. Washington is not called the District of Columbia for nothing.
Thanks for the fine article, Janice.
Yes women are the HR department of the not so new world order..
right on the money again, Janice,
and of course one aspect of this religion that keeps the Feminist doctrine mainstream and dominant is "The money"
Feminist groups and academics are some of the biggest recipients of taxpayers money and they need to trample on the facts and preach male violence in order to keep that river of cash flowing their way...
Yes feminism is a VERY important part of the control of the masses by the world dictatorship.
"A young woman can write about her horror at discovering that she is pregnant with a male child." Imagine the horror of the young boy whose mother hates him for what he is.
I'm 67. I am a man. I have never been invited to a single meeting of the patriarchy where all the devious plots are (I suppose) cooked up. I'm starting to suspect it's made up!
Neither have I been invited to patriarchy meetings. Why have some of us men been left out of this?
My friend Steve Brule sold patriarchy cards a few years back. He sent one to me. Perhaps you missed out?
I've never been invited to these meetings either.
You were born just a bit too late. We had it all planned and implemented around the time of the big bang.
Good stuff, Janice, as usual. So much of what you say reminds me of, for want of a better term, wokeism and, not for the first time, makes me wonder if feminism provided the fertile ground in which wokeism could grow and flourish. Almost everything you say has an analog among woke nonsense.
Indeed. For example, feminists long denied (and to some extent still do) most sex differences, claiming they were the result of nurture with boy children being treated differently and subjected to different expectations than girl children. Neither basic observation of reality nor copious research demonstrating the role of genetics in physical development and behaviour made any impact on those feminist claims. If only boys weren't dressed in blue and girls in pink then girls would grow to be as physically strong as men and would win gold medals against men in the most physical sports. Such falsehood formed the foundation for transgender ideology which is only a small step further, that male and female can be interchangeable on the basis of subjective sense of identity and some cosmetic alteration.
One might notice also that women seem to lead most of the woke causes, shouting shallow slogans in support of Islamic terrorism, critical race theory, me-too, climate activism, transgender ideology (yes, despite some feminists objecting) and more. Regardless of one's beliefs about such matters, a level of irrationality and emotive extremism comes largely from the female zealots with obedient male supporters in behind.
I was thinking the same thing...
I support freedom of religion - in general. The problem is with State religions. The risk is too great that competing beliefs will be discouraged or silenced; non-believers will be sanctioned and the state religion will permeate society.
Sound familiar?
The notion that feminism has become our unofficial State religion seems self-evidently true although I hadn’t thought of feminism in those terms until you stated it that way, and your equation of feminism with Islam—supreme irony!—is original (as far as I know) and brilliant:
“Feminism thus encourages all the negative aspects of fervent religious beliefs—irrational passions, a worldview that refuses other perspectives, the demonization of non-believers—and none of the benevolence and self-sacrificing love that characterize true religions at their best. In its supremacism and justification of violence against non-believers (and ‘dhimmi’ status for male feminists), it perhaps most closely resembles Islam.”
I'm not sure about the grammar on the sign that says, 'The Future is Still Female'? Is 'the future' a regular noun? Perhaps a certain ex-English professor could correct me.
Anyway, as I've said before on this Substack, that sign is out of date by a good 30 years. It's been female for a long time. Indeed feminists have no shame in openly advocating for an apartheid state where all branches of law and government favour women and give nothing to men. And politicians, knowing that it is men who finance the state, still go along with it. Absolutely incredible. With more men removing themselves from the state the future looks like it was be a bankrupt shit-hole where all the gratitude that is needed to support happiness will be eradicated.
For a while, there was a technology promo line, "The future is friendly." I think that started the string of "The future is ... " statements. But I think "the future" has conventionally been used as a regular noun, as in "A bright future awaits someone with your work ethic."
A female future terrifies me.
Indeed, males have always been chivalrously invested in female wellbeing, usually more so than male wellbeing. Male leadership ensures female protection and provision. But I shudder to think how males would fare in a true Matriarchy.
The future is still female?
Tell that to the ultra-violent islamist "migrants" who have taken over so much of Europe.
Well, that is the self-correcting flaw in the feminist drive to destroy the 'western patriarchy'! I mean, who is more supportive of these 'poor, downtrodden refugees'? Men or women?
This date used to be The International Womens Day of prayer. I remember attending it with my late mother over 50 years ago.
How fascinating. What a different world, different emphasis. Thank you.
Yes but even then there was an emphasis on the hardships women in poor countries experienced which was exploited by feminists within the church. So the day was taken over by them.
Feminism more closely resembles ancient religious cults that practiced "Child Sacrifice" just as feminists promote abortion.
X =female Chromosome
Y = male Chromosome
X +X = girl
X+Y = boy
Women always carry the X Chromosome while men carry either the X or Y Chromosomes. Making men the final arbiters as to whether a child will be male or female.
Also note that men and woman share the same feminine nature because each has an X Chromosome.
This means that while men do indeed biologically have a feminine side. Women on the other hand do not biologically have a masculine side.
This makes men half male and half female Chromosomily speaking whie woman are all - 100% - female.
Hence since both men and women choose to become toxic men are merely expressing their feminine side. While women have no excuse because they do not have a masculine side to blame their toxicity on.
The Y chromosome triggers male development in humans. The absence of the Y chromosome leads to female development by default.
Some women have chromosomal abnormalities, with only one X chromosome (resulting in Turner Syndrome), or three X chromosomes (simply called Triple-X Syndrome, a little more serious than the single-X syndrome). Neither abnormality prevents such women from leading quite normal lives.
In the case of a Y chromosome(s) without an X chromosome, development and survival are impossible.
You're turning the X and Y chromosomes into metaphors for male and female behavioral patterns, but they don't work that way. Being a male human is simply to possess the XY combination of sex chromosomes.
Thank you for sparing me the effort to correct the record. Funny how human beings seem always to be searching for metaphors, some of which are helpful and others not so much. But that is part of our nature; to try to understand the mysteries of life in a way that is more amenable to comprehension, constantly trying to make the inexplicable more readily understood, but always falling short. Sometimes the result is helpful, other times not so and often, unfortunately, either misleading or simply inadequate.
They are not metaphores. What i described is the actual science of biological reproduction. Those who deliberately reject the nature science of biological sexual reproduction are at best misinformed.
Though I personally believe they are intellectually dishonest and are deliberately obfuscating and undermining the science of biological reproduction. In order to prove that homosexuality is natural normal when it isn't and never will be.
When it comes to evolution homosexuality is a reproductive dead-end making those who practice it unable to reproduce naturally in a monogamous relationship.
You're assuming monogamous relationships are the human norm, rather than a cultural ideal, and that homosexuality prevents people from breeding. Both are demonstrably false.
Yes. And to be more precise, Rocio, a male of any species is one whose genes (on xy chromosomes in every cell) direct the production of male gametes (sperm); a female of any species is one whose genes (on xx chromosomes in every cell) direct the production of female gametes (ova). Not every man or woman needs to participate in reproduction (and many do not for various reasons), but every man or woman, by definition, can do so (barring accident or disease).
The error you are making is to take a tiny number of individuals with extremely rare genetic disorders as the norm.
This is not just misleading but intellectually dishonest!
If the cases you site were the actual norm they would be present in overwhelming numbers in the population making straight heterosexuals an oddity.
He didn't say they were the norm at all. He said that having one X chromosome or three X chromosomes are "abnormalities" causing two different diseases but neither kept women from leading "quite normal lives," meaning the diseases aren't especially debilitating.. He also said that without an X chromosome, "development and survival are impossible." None of it had anything to do with "straight heterosexuals," which is redundant by the way.
You should make a little for effort to understand what someone is actually saying before you call them "intellectually dishonest" in the future.
You made some interesting points, previously. I've looked a little into environmental substances that can alter hormone balances, particularly atrazine, which is the herbicide of which Alex Jones famously said was "turning the frickin' frogs gay!" I'm confident these are at least a significant part of the tranny phenomenon, because where the Hell were all these gender confused people before?
I appreciate the underlying point of your comment, Dabir, about feminist opportunism. But I think that you need to make a distinction between nature (maleness or femaleness) and culture (masculinity or femininity). There are some links, it's true, between the former (male or female chrosmosomes) and the latter (gendered interpretations of, or elaborations on, genetically transmitted characteristics.) But it's a significant exaggeration to say either that maleness and masculinity are synonymous or that femaleness and femininity are synonymous. No one comes into this world with a fixed "masculine side" and/or a fixed "feminine side." At best, that's an interesting theory that works in the symbolic context of Jungian analysis.
You are 100% wrong in your erroneous assumptions. The X chromosome activates the female sex hormone estrogen while the Y chromosome activates the male sex hormone testosterone.
Male and Female nature are built into the building blocks of human beings by the X and Y chromosomes.
The only thing that can interfere in the natural development of a child in the womb and flip its sexual orientation. Is the over abundance of of either testosterone or estrogen hormones.
Girls with gender dysphoria were bathed with unnatural high levels of testosterone when their brain was forming causing it to form in the male pattern.
On the other hand boys with gender dysphoria were bathed in extremely high levels of estrogen that caused their brains to form into the female pattern.
DDT breaks down into estrogen like compounds and enters the food chain. While meat producers feed higher than normal amounts of estrogen to cattle and chickens they sell on the market.
There are/were estrogen like compounds in plastics that leached into the food stored in them and these compounds were also sprayed underneath the lids if metal cans containing food.
Those estrogen compounds do not filp the sexual orientation of those who eat them. However those compounds end up in the reproductive system of the female and do indeed flip the sexual orientation of the fetus in the womb during gestation.
What assumptions did I make about testosterone or estrogen? Those hormones are indeed, as you say, generated by male or female chromosomes. Genetic anomalies do occur now and then. So do varying levels of either sex hormone in utero. But neither scenario turns males into females or females into males. Gay men are still men, for example, no matter how we think of ourselves or behave in relation to conventional notions of masculinity. Trans women are still men, moreover, even if they believe otherwise.
Good point. Sort of explains why most men went along with the feminist narrative early on, in the interest of 'equality' - only to find out later on that equality was defined purely in terms of how many X-chromosomes one possessed. Having two Xs therefore rendered you twice as equal. To paraphrase Orwell, 2X good/1X bad.
It makes more sense to say it this way: Y is a strictly male chromosome and X is a neutral chromosome. If you have a Y chromosome, you're a male--period. If you have an X chromosome, you are a human being. No human being doesn't have at least one X chromosome.
Thank for that very lucid note. And to define the matter even more closely, it is not even the Y chromosome per se that makes the difference. It is a specific group of genes that ride on the Y chromosome that does the trick. There are rare cases in which the Y and X chromosomes cross over and swap that set of genes. When that happens, that X chromosome will cause the baby to be male, and the Y chromosome lacking it will leave the baby female.
I am not an expert but I am pretty sure that X or Y chromosome's sole function is to determine a person's sex and has little to no impact on a person's behaviour outside of that.
Ironically I would say that your line of reasoning sounds very feminist, mixing science with personal theory and stating it as fact in order to justify demonization of the opposite gender.
On a side note I have noticed a concerning online trend of people using a poor understanding of genetics in an attempt to justify flawed and often bigotted claims. Eugenics especially seems to be on the rise in online rhetoric.
Janice, growing up in old USSR, we did not have a Valentine Day, and March 8th was playing that role - gifting flowers to your sweetheart, etc.
Interestingly, perhaps because everyone was (almost) equally downtrodden, as communism always succeeds in achieving, there was not a feminist undertone to it - it was essentially an appreciation of all women day. We had no idea that in Western World the International Women's Day was a Day of Scorn and Men Hating.