Excellent piece, Janice. It is intriguing trying to understand why so many men have been willing to endorse policies and documents denigrating men, particularly when you look back to the time the Declaration of Sentiments was signed, when most men would have been happy to speak out against this type of nonsense. It is more difficult in our feminist-controlled culture where there are very real negative consequences for males who attract the ire of feminists by being honest about such matters. You make a good point that we have to stop excusing feminism by simply suggesting it has gone off the rails. As your videos are exposing, the vicious anti-male bias and deceptive lies being promoted by feminism were there from the start. They've just done a great job in whitewashing their own history.
I feel like the main purpose of 20th century feminism, state feminism, was to cure 'female' as tho it were a disease. I'll post a statement on that view below, which I wrote as a comment to some other related article a year ago.
Feminism is guided by the belief that 'women', as they are, have been developmentally insulted by the patriarchal imposition of a socialized gender. Women as they are, the adult women we see around us, are not 'whole' in that they were molded, guided in such a way throughout their development that they would flow like water into the roles that were prepared for them, actually shaping themselves or being shaped by unconscious processes to fully conform to expectations.
All that Feminist thought regarding development is strongly behaviorist in nature. Behaviorism has a long history and some of the first large scale projects to attempt to modify the beliefs and attitudes of the public were focused on women. In essence, behaviorism can be thought of as an extreme 'nurture' position on the 'nature vs nurture' question, full scale as such behaviorism holds that all development outside the womb is fully mediated by social factors.
You will recall that Dr Money who infamously experimented on a boys gender development was a behaviorist who believed that gender was fully learned by children, and that a child who was apparently 'male' (in todays language 'assigned male at birth') would fully develop into a typical girl if that child were 'socialized' in typical way girls were.
Feminism concerns itself with managing 'influences' which it believes will have effects on girls (and in some cases on boys) removing representations of subservient women, fronting representations of empowered women, from the 'beach body' incident to female Thor, feminist activism in regard to the representation of women and girls as presented to girls is strongly behaviorist. The mechanism whereby these images are expected to effect the development of girls is the behaviorist expectation that children will develop in such a way as to fill the adult roles that they observe around them, forming themselves like water to fill out expectations as nearly as can be achieved.
So the expectation all along has been that when patriarchal norms have been sufficiently abolished and feminist ones implemented, the result would be fully realized women, who would be IRL stand alone versions of the largely propped up or completely fictitious 'strong empowered women' role models that had been presented to them as children.
'Women' as they are, are what the patriarchy shaped them into, and yes, they were made to require a great deal of support, they were made to focus on home activities and neglect economic participation, they are very emotional in general and they have a strong tendency to pair bond with their oppressors - the promise of feminism has always been to fix all that. To prevent girls from developing in this way and cause them instead to develop into the equals of men.
This is the view that sees women as both helpless and all powerful. Women are not responsible for their own actions because they are nothing more than 'patriarchy robots' who can do nothing other than react to their environment in the ways they have been trained. Helpless because they were socialized to be, they require a great deal of support since they effectively suffer from a developmental disorder, but the need for this support must be presented as being caused by existing sexism while at the same time the image of strong unstoppable women is maintained to guide the development of girls, and roles prepared for them to form themselves into.
So, in this view feminism has always been motivated by jealousy. More than any desire for rights, deeper than any idea of patriarchy or any hatred of men. It sees feminism as presented to girls as nothing more than a big ‘skinner box’ where girls are trained to become men. And now they’re actually doing it. Since feminism has been in place for so long there are feminists in every field, in every institution, and medicine has come up with the answer – hormones and surgeries for every unfortunate victim of the crippling disease called Female.
The reason men have acquiesced to feminist demands is simple - we live because of and for the sake of women and all that they are, including the babies they alone can birth. Starts with Mom, extends to sisters we learn to protect and on to women we love and our daughters we cherish. With each we recognize a softness and frailty or delicacy that is connected to beauty and comfort, an ability to listen and sympathize - such qualities we must learn which are not intrinsic to our bodies or our minds, nothing quite to the degree of a woman (I could go off on the tacit Gnosticism of feminism but not here. At the risk of oversimplifying, I’ll only say that women ARE their bodies. So are men, but in different ways. We know this not as an idea or construct, but as the way things actually are.). If we have these feminine qualities/soft virtues ourselves as men we learned them from women. Men innately want to live to serve all these things because they humanize us as men qua men. Men will die to be near women and what they have to give in this regard. Otherwise, we are lost and might as well be dead. Since we know this about ourselves we also know we must protect women from such lost boys. So ultimately, we do whatever women want. If they tell us men are harming them we believe them, even if doing what they ask of us leads to our own destruction. Our value as men comes to us externally and primarily from how we relate to women.
Feminism is the emotional manipulation of men cast as a high-minded critique. Janice’s essay gets to the heart of the cruelty being meted out. The source is envy. Funny they don’t seem to envy the physical self-sacrifice, only the perceived glory. Willing to sacrifice men’s bodies for their security, not to mention the bodies of their babies if it means some exalted position or personal gratification. The self-congratulating over this is nauseating.
Thank God not all women are like this. Still waiting for the “Young Women’s Guide to Feminist History” by Janice Fiamengo!
I think feminism had an easy time gaining acceptance and avoiding questions and criticism, is because men actually love women a lot, and it's their nature to want to do the things that women say will make women happy. Men didn't just build civilization, they built in many comforts for women: sex segregated restrooms, department stores with sex segregated fitting rooms, WNBA & women's soccer teams, and inventing time-saving household appliances.
Women were easy for feminists to persuade for different reasons. Young women, historically, tend to move into the husband's family/turf, and ability to fit in with the group is useful. Young women don't like to question what their friend group is doing, as it's too easy to face social isolation. Once appearances in the media of feminists became common, I think a lot of women got the impression feminist ideas were popular, and kept quiet out, feeling themselves to be in the minority.
Aug 11, 2022·edited Aug 11, 2022Liked by Janice Fiamengo
From women who comment unashamedly about every aspect of a man's body (good or bad), who drop misandrist comments at any opportunity to anyone who will listen, to demands to be allowed to enter hitherto exclusively male clubs and other spaces feminists have well and truly taken over just about every aspect of life. Look at the hooha last week when the English womens' football team won the European championship. It is only because of the mens' game and the club structure built up over a century that the womens' game, piggy backing on the efforts of the men that they so despise that they achieved their success. Women have infiltrated just about every male space and yet, and yet, when a few - admittedly confused - men posing as women dare to take part in womens' sports (and win) the hounds of hell are unleashed. Hypocrisy thy name is feminism.
Great article. Thanks for providing citation links for examples of "pre-feminist" era women who ran businesses, were authors, etc. I am still interested as to why feminism got off the ground in the first place, why women weren't happy with some small percentage of them doing traditionally male jobs, why they wanted a mass movement. I suspect some of it was because the history books are mostly about the deeds of men, so jealousy. Another factor I think is because the inventions of men have pushed harsh nature far enough away from everyday living that women could do a lot of men's jobs because they were no longer so dangerous. And some of it is probably just women's love of drama, creating a narratives for themselves in which they get to play heroines without any real risk of loss and humiliation. You stated in one of your vids that Elizabeth Cady Stanton "liked the idea of women's oppression" more than what the actual facts were.
Janice, thanks for another great article! I've been a huge admirer of your work for many years, and look forward to having you as our keynote speaker at the International Conference on Men's Issues in Budapest, Hungary, in the summer of 2024.
We have the GB News discussion on a couple of YouTube channels including Paul Elam's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5IkcpDGws where it's led to almost 300 comments so far.
For anyone who isn't aware, we launched the British political party Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them) http://j4mb.org.uk in 2013, and from then until today we've been the only party in the English-speaking world which (a) campaigns for the human rights of men and boys, and (b) challenges the toxic ideology of feminism. Four months ago we changed the party name.
Too many Brits cower before the truly leftist assault on practically everything one can name. Only when normal people understand (It may, however be too late.) that leftists never let fact, reason, logic, nor law interfere with ideology (Evidence of this truth abounds in every fascist, racist, misogynist, and on, and on, ad hominem screamed at anyone who dares challenge leftist ideology.) will there be any hope for a return to human sanity in the West. Why do so many cowards abound in the modern world?
The document Janice references was informed primarily by Quaker idealists. Some Quakers rejected sex altogether though they married. Needless to say those orders eventually died out. But Quakers were the original conscientious objectors to war and inequality and their services have always allowed everyone women included to speak. Frankly, they are just about the only people calling themselves Christians I can stomach. Their services basically involve respectful listening and meditation.
Here's a simpler view. Feminists deeply, deeply resent their biological role in life, which society could not afford until advances in modern civilization allowed it to emerge. This combined with Quaker utopianism produced the "detached from reality" positions of ideological feminists, and help explain the cult-like devotion behavior of its adherents.
In regards to school being bias against boys, my theory is that what if one of the contributing factor that there are few male teachers simply because it's a low paying job. Most jobs dealing with people are relatively low paying: nursing, speech therapy and teaching, which are typically dominated by women. With the influx of women entering the work force, men will move into higher paying jobs to rise up to the demand of women wanting providers. As the result, boys suffer because of this. Back in the day, when there plenty of housewives, it might not have mattered too much, male teachers can still be successful as providers while at same time it acted as a natural barrier to prevent too many women entering teaching.
as a teen in the 1970's I was told that all men are rapists and i believed them.
the result was guilt depression and breakdown (though it was also caused by other factors)
it is the essence of the hate movement that feminism is that it destroys lives.
My feminism only dissolved in August 2017 not long before my 59th birthday, when i decided to revisit the logic of feminism.
This time i paid attention and when i saw what irrational petulance it is it fell apart, as did my Leftism, both of which i had had as core beliefs for 40 years.
and my leftism was deep for i was an active canvassing member of the NZ Labour Party in the 1990's .
the damage wrought by feminism continues however with self esteem too low for any woman to ever be interested in me. This last is not a cry for sympathy. simply a piece of data supporting a thesis, namely that feminism abuses males
Excellence as always Janice, from a long time fan. Thanks also Bettina good comment. Here's some perspective from a guy. I've had the humble opportunity to intervene in over a dozen suicides, yet I know of many that went through with it, most suicides are unreported. Both male and female lives are so much worse with feminism and the correlation to suicide has to be huge. Feminism and this socialism push is so evil that if we could be band them from the world. I believe Satan would nash his teeth and claim to God unfair and go home and not return until his favorite "isms" were brought back.
When I describe my workplace dynamics, my ex-marriage and my ex-relationships to friends and family, the word which seems to spring up the most is "humiliating". It's so inspiring to read these articles and to see that there are at least a few women who understand how damaging feminism has been for men. It is not surprising that so many of us men will literally move heaven and earth to create futures for ourselves (however bleak and stoic!) free from these humiliations. Thanks for all you do.
... lots of convincing | enlightening (history-wise) points well made and expressed, many thanks indeed. well, one might wonder if any of these gyn.fasc mongers ever expect steady drops to eventually over-fill the barrel ?! i.e. beyond mere indifference | avoidance | rejection as observable LTR-wise already ?! obviously not - maybe the loudest haters had to lose anything only if their hateful dedications were to get somewhat solved | pacified - which they sabotage wherever possible, of course. and yes, xx.ism as totalitarian (see karl popper 'open society... ') fascistoid plague needs to be called out | countered fundamentally for reasons of socio-cultural as well as (in particular gents') individual self-defence. hannah arendt had it after 1945 with regard to 3rd reich bystanders 'there is no 'right' life within 'wrong' one (my paraphrase).
Excellent piece, Janice. It is intriguing trying to understand why so many men have been willing to endorse policies and documents denigrating men, particularly when you look back to the time the Declaration of Sentiments was signed, when most men would have been happy to speak out against this type of nonsense. It is more difficult in our feminist-controlled culture where there are very real negative consequences for males who attract the ire of feminists by being honest about such matters. You make a good point that we have to stop excusing feminism by simply suggesting it has gone off the rails. As your videos are exposing, the vicious anti-male bias and deceptive lies being promoted by feminism were there from the start. They've just done a great job in whitewashing their own history.
I feel like the main purpose of 20th century feminism, state feminism, was to cure 'female' as tho it were a disease. I'll post a statement on that view below, which I wrote as a comment to some other related article a year ago.
Feminism is guided by the belief that 'women', as they are, have been developmentally insulted by the patriarchal imposition of a socialized gender. Women as they are, the adult women we see around us, are not 'whole' in that they were molded, guided in such a way throughout their development that they would flow like water into the roles that were prepared for them, actually shaping themselves or being shaped by unconscious processes to fully conform to expectations.
All that Feminist thought regarding development is strongly behaviorist in nature. Behaviorism has a long history and some of the first large scale projects to attempt to modify the beliefs and attitudes of the public were focused on women. In essence, behaviorism can be thought of as an extreme 'nurture' position on the 'nature vs nurture' question, full scale as such behaviorism holds that all development outside the womb is fully mediated by social factors.
You will recall that Dr Money who infamously experimented on a boys gender development was a behaviorist who believed that gender was fully learned by children, and that a child who was apparently 'male' (in todays language 'assigned male at birth') would fully develop into a typical girl if that child were 'socialized' in typical way girls were.
Feminism concerns itself with managing 'influences' which it believes will have effects on girls (and in some cases on boys) removing representations of subservient women, fronting representations of empowered women, from the 'beach body' incident to female Thor, feminist activism in regard to the representation of women and girls as presented to girls is strongly behaviorist. The mechanism whereby these images are expected to effect the development of girls is the behaviorist expectation that children will develop in such a way as to fill the adult roles that they observe around them, forming themselves like water to fill out expectations as nearly as can be achieved.
So the expectation all along has been that when patriarchal norms have been sufficiently abolished and feminist ones implemented, the result would be fully realized women, who would be IRL stand alone versions of the largely propped up or completely fictitious 'strong empowered women' role models that had been presented to them as children.
'Women' as they are, are what the patriarchy shaped them into, and yes, they were made to require a great deal of support, they were made to focus on home activities and neglect economic participation, they are very emotional in general and they have a strong tendency to pair bond with their oppressors - the promise of feminism has always been to fix all that. To prevent girls from developing in this way and cause them instead to develop into the equals of men.
This is the view that sees women as both helpless and all powerful. Women are not responsible for their own actions because they are nothing more than 'patriarchy robots' who can do nothing other than react to their environment in the ways they have been trained. Helpless because they were socialized to be, they require a great deal of support since they effectively suffer from a developmental disorder, but the need for this support must be presented as being caused by existing sexism while at the same time the image of strong unstoppable women is maintained to guide the development of girls, and roles prepared for them to form themselves into.
So, in this view feminism has always been motivated by jealousy. More than any desire for rights, deeper than any idea of patriarchy or any hatred of men. It sees feminism as presented to girls as nothing more than a big ‘skinner box’ where girls are trained to become men. And now they’re actually doing it. Since feminism has been in place for so long there are feminists in every field, in every institution, and medicine has come up with the answer – hormones and surgeries for every unfortunate victim of the crippling disease called Female.
Tell us how you really feel Janice.😄
The reason men have acquiesced to feminist demands is simple - we live because of and for the sake of women and all that they are, including the babies they alone can birth. Starts with Mom, extends to sisters we learn to protect and on to women we love and our daughters we cherish. With each we recognize a softness and frailty or delicacy that is connected to beauty and comfort, an ability to listen and sympathize - such qualities we must learn which are not intrinsic to our bodies or our minds, nothing quite to the degree of a woman (I could go off on the tacit Gnosticism of feminism but not here. At the risk of oversimplifying, I’ll only say that women ARE their bodies. So are men, but in different ways. We know this not as an idea or construct, but as the way things actually are.). If we have these feminine qualities/soft virtues ourselves as men we learned them from women. Men innately want to live to serve all these things because they humanize us as men qua men. Men will die to be near women and what they have to give in this regard. Otherwise, we are lost and might as well be dead. Since we know this about ourselves we also know we must protect women from such lost boys. So ultimately, we do whatever women want. If they tell us men are harming them we believe them, even if doing what they ask of us leads to our own destruction. Our value as men comes to us externally and primarily from how we relate to women.
Feminism is the emotional manipulation of men cast as a high-minded critique. Janice’s essay gets to the heart of the cruelty being meted out. The source is envy. Funny they don’t seem to envy the physical self-sacrifice, only the perceived glory. Willing to sacrifice men’s bodies for their security, not to mention the bodies of their babies if it means some exalted position or personal gratification. The self-congratulating over this is nauseating.
Thank God not all women are like this. Still waiting for the “Young Women’s Guide to Feminist History” by Janice Fiamengo!
I think feminism had an easy time gaining acceptance and avoiding questions and criticism, is because men actually love women a lot, and it's their nature to want to do the things that women say will make women happy. Men didn't just build civilization, they built in many comforts for women: sex segregated restrooms, department stores with sex segregated fitting rooms, WNBA & women's soccer teams, and inventing time-saving household appliances.
Women were easy for feminists to persuade for different reasons. Young women, historically, tend to move into the husband's family/turf, and ability to fit in with the group is useful. Young women don't like to question what their friend group is doing, as it's too easy to face social isolation. Once appearances in the media of feminists became common, I think a lot of women got the impression feminist ideas were popular, and kept quiet out, feeling themselves to be in the minority.
From women who comment unashamedly about every aspect of a man's body (good or bad), who drop misandrist comments at any opportunity to anyone who will listen, to demands to be allowed to enter hitherto exclusively male clubs and other spaces feminists have well and truly taken over just about every aspect of life. Look at the hooha last week when the English womens' football team won the European championship. It is only because of the mens' game and the club structure built up over a century that the womens' game, piggy backing on the efforts of the men that they so despise that they achieved their success. Women have infiltrated just about every male space and yet, and yet, when a few - admittedly confused - men posing as women dare to take part in womens' sports (and win) the hounds of hell are unleashed. Hypocrisy thy name is feminism.
I couldn't agree more. Thanks for sharing your critical mind and your compelling voice.
Great article. Thanks for providing citation links for examples of "pre-feminist" era women who ran businesses, were authors, etc. I am still interested as to why feminism got off the ground in the first place, why women weren't happy with some small percentage of them doing traditionally male jobs, why they wanted a mass movement. I suspect some of it was because the history books are mostly about the deeds of men, so jealousy. Another factor I think is because the inventions of men have pushed harsh nature far enough away from everyday living that women could do a lot of men's jobs because they were no longer so dangerous. And some of it is probably just women's love of drama, creating a narratives for themselves in which they get to play heroines without any real risk of loss and humiliation. You stated in one of your vids that Elizabeth Cady Stanton "liked the idea of women's oppression" more than what the actual facts were.
Janice, thanks for another great article! I've been a huge admirer of your work for many years, and look forward to having you as our keynote speaker at the International Conference on Men's Issues in Budapest, Hungary, in the summer of 2024.
We have the GB News discussion on a couple of YouTube channels including Paul Elam's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja5IkcpDGws where it's led to almost 300 comments so far.
For anyone who isn't aware, we launched the British political party Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them) http://j4mb.org.uk in 2013, and from then until today we've been the only party in the English-speaking world which (a) campaigns for the human rights of men and boys, and (b) challenges the toxic ideology of feminism. Four months ago we changed the party name.
Mike Buchanan
Leader
CHILDREN & FAMILY PARTY
http://cafp/uk
Too many Brits cower before the truly leftist assault on practically everything one can name. Only when normal people understand (It may, however be too late.) that leftists never let fact, reason, logic, nor law interfere with ideology (Evidence of this truth abounds in every fascist, racist, misogynist, and on, and on, ad hominem screamed at anyone who dares challenge leftist ideology.) will there be any hope for a return to human sanity in the West. Why do so many cowards abound in the modern world?
The document Janice references was informed primarily by Quaker idealists. Some Quakers rejected sex altogether though they married. Needless to say those orders eventually died out. But Quakers were the original conscientious objectors to war and inequality and their services have always allowed everyone women included to speak. Frankly, they are just about the only people calling themselves Christians I can stomach. Their services basically involve respectful listening and meditation.
Here's a simpler view. Feminists deeply, deeply resent their biological role in life, which society could not afford until advances in modern civilization allowed it to emerge. This combined with Quaker utopianism produced the "detached from reality" positions of ideological feminists, and help explain the cult-like devotion behavior of its adherents.
In regards to school being bias against boys, my theory is that what if one of the contributing factor that there are few male teachers simply because it's a low paying job. Most jobs dealing with people are relatively low paying: nursing, speech therapy and teaching, which are typically dominated by women. With the influx of women entering the work force, men will move into higher paying jobs to rise up to the demand of women wanting providers. As the result, boys suffer because of this. Back in the day, when there plenty of housewives, it might not have mattered too much, male teachers can still be successful as providers while at same time it acted as a natural barrier to prevent too many women entering teaching.
Just a thought I had.
one woman friend of mine, though self styling as a feminist, told me that she use to get catcalls until the age of 44. She was 48 when i met her
she also told me she was disappointed when they stopped coming .
what presumption for radical feminist to dare speak for all women when the do not even speak for all who call themselves feminist!!
men abused for decades?
indeed!!
as a teen in the 1970's I was told that all men are rapists and i believed them.
the result was guilt depression and breakdown (though it was also caused by other factors)
it is the essence of the hate movement that feminism is that it destroys lives.
My feminism only dissolved in August 2017 not long before my 59th birthday, when i decided to revisit the logic of feminism.
This time i paid attention and when i saw what irrational petulance it is it fell apart, as did my Leftism, both of which i had had as core beliefs for 40 years.
and my leftism was deep for i was an active canvassing member of the NZ Labour Party in the 1990's .
the damage wrought by feminism continues however with self esteem too low for any woman to ever be interested in me. This last is not a cry for sympathy. simply a piece of data supporting a thesis, namely that feminism abuses males
Excellence as always Janice, from a long time fan. Thanks also Bettina good comment. Here's some perspective from a guy. I've had the humble opportunity to intervene in over a dozen suicides, yet I know of many that went through with it, most suicides are unreported. Both male and female lives are so much worse with feminism and the correlation to suicide has to be huge. Feminism and this socialism push is so evil that if we could be band them from the world. I believe Satan would nash his teeth and claim to God unfair and go home and not return until his favorite "isms" were brought back.
When I describe my workplace dynamics, my ex-marriage and my ex-relationships to friends and family, the word which seems to spring up the most is "humiliating". It's so inspiring to read these articles and to see that there are at least a few women who understand how damaging feminism has been for men. It is not surprising that so many of us men will literally move heaven and earth to create futures for ourselves (however bleak and stoic!) free from these humiliations. Thanks for all you do.
... lots of convincing | enlightening (history-wise) points well made and expressed, many thanks indeed. well, one might wonder if any of these gyn.fasc mongers ever expect steady drops to eventually over-fill the barrel ?! i.e. beyond mere indifference | avoidance | rejection as observable LTR-wise already ?! obviously not - maybe the loudest haters had to lose anything only if their hateful dedications were to get somewhat solved | pacified - which they sabotage wherever possible, of course. and yes, xx.ism as totalitarian (see karl popper 'open society... ') fascistoid plague needs to be called out | countered fundamentally for reasons of socio-cultural as well as (in particular gents') individual self-defence. hannah arendt had it after 1945 with regard to 3rd reich bystanders 'there is no 'right' life within 'wrong' one (my paraphrase).