What a stunning article. I really mean it. You have such a brilliant way of exposing all the lies and double-standards that we, as intelligent adult men, are somehow expected to ignore (or applaud!) One recent Wolf moment really stuck out for me: She was on some podcast gushing over her husband's protective, masculine qualities (I believe she literally married her bodyguard! ) but in the next breath was saying how "difficult" this was for her "as a feminist" because it's still her belief that women should be able to protect themselves. I have to admit, I kinda switched off right there and then, but my only thought after that was that her husband is definitely a braver man than me. Except not in the way most people would think! 😂
Thank you for the kind words. I had a sentence in an earlier version of the article about the somersault logic required by feminist ideology, but I took it out as gratuitously snide. I suspect that a majority of the intrepid researchers combing through the Pfizer documents are male; I know one of the men who is on the team. I'm not sure if Wolf exhorts these guys to vote, or do anything else, 'like a woman,' but I hope not!
Nov 20, 2022·edited Nov 20, 2022Liked by Janice Fiamengo
Ah! Naomi Wolfe, one of those feminists that really grind my gears. I remember watching a Youtube video of a debate between her and Karen Straughan, Wolfe failed to addressed any of Karen's arguments and points, everything was just either ignored or deflected. She insisted on having equality, but still demanded men to help women where they were lacking whilst ignoring all the disadvantages men faced.
From what I've observed, she can't seem to stand that women have views and opinions contrary to her own.
In a lot of ways, she reminds me of Emma Watson's 'heforher' campaign, demanding similar things.
Great stuff Janice. So many excellent points. Loved this
"women seem hard-wired to seek a “safe” rather than a free world,"
That has surely been my experience. The dismantling of masculinity is starting to make more sense. Without men having the cultural mandate to aggressively stand up for what they know is right, and instead being called toxic if they do, we are left with women who are more interested in safety than freedom. Easy prey. If this was a planned effort it certainly was an effective plan.
The last paragraph should be etched in stone! Many thanks.
Yes, that last paragraph may be one of the most incisive paragraphs ever written about feminism. I would like to have it printed on a plaque to hang on my wall.
Dr Mike Yeadon (former Pfizer VP and head of Global respiratory research) was desperately trying to get hold of Dr Jordan Peterson a few months ago as he believes far worse is to come but no luck. I'm out of the loop but I'm guessing contact has failed. Think this needs to happen! On a more positive note, I have been following your work for a while now, love your efforts Janice Fiamengo!
This brilliant article proves once again that Janice is the clearest, most insightful, and most eloquent writer on feminism and the relations between the (two and only two) sexes. She always goes to the heart of the matter, to the most basic issues underlying. She deserves a prize for her contributions.
Great article, exposing the 'intolerable narcissism' which has made much of feminism insufferable. Feminists have about as much acquaintance with empathy as Meghan Markle does with humility.
Haven't even read it, since I too am a former feminist who thinks that women's influence on our polity and policy has been disastrous in many respects. My unpopular opinion: The 19th Amendment was a mistake.
It's a hot button for sure, but I've realized that so much of what was passed in the regressive "Progressive" Era was incredibly damaging:
- 16th Amendment, 1913, income tax
- 17th Amendment, 1913, popular election of Senators, instead of by state legislators
- 18th Amendment, 1919, Prohibition
- 19th Amendment, 1920, women's suffrage
- National Firearms Act of 1934, first infringement of many
Listening to the lectures in the free online Hillsdale College course called Constitution 101 helped me put this cluster of terrible policy and law into context.
The best response to Dr. Wolf was embodied in her interview with Ali G (Sasha Barron Cohen) where he asked his requisite dumb questions, that she would expect from her cartoonish image of men, and then Cohen would make fun of this. Her epistemology? ... she finds a personal problem, comes to a conclusion, and then makes a rule for all women. She fluctuates between regarding women as all-powerful sorceresses and dependent victims.
She thinks of herself as a part of something bigger than just working with data that can be checked out in the real world. Wolf and her ilk, view themselves as emissaries of great stories—suppressed stories. If they take liberties or ignore careful research, as Wolf has done on numerous occasions, it is because they believe they have a right to do so and that the story, or the cause, somehow validates it. I just find her exasperating.
Nov 24, 2022·edited Nov 24, 2022Liked by Janice Fiamengo
Some scattered reflections, if I may
I thought i had unsubscribed from Naomi Wolf's blog here on substack. but I got a notification of the latest post of hers. So I read it.
It is a rapturous encomium to values which are in fact conservative, or at least spiritual values (I tend to pedantry on these matters) but which the left have totally rejected
So Ireplied and said so, and that if she were to put this in her calculations she might discover something. IOW I all but invited her to leave the left as I did now 5 years ago.
To my surpise some readers of that blog have already liked it. But whether the author does is another matter
. . . .
it just occured to me that feminism is in fact a conspiracy theory.
Now i do not reject all conspiracy theories out of hand, neither do i embrace all of them. both extremes are lazy thinking IMO. After all conspiraces do exist. the Catiline in Republican Rome; the Babington Plot; the gunpowder plot of Guy Fawkes; even the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, these were real conspiiracies
and if two men meeet at a coffee bar to plot a robbery that is by definiton a conspiracy.
Put it his way , feminism maintains that all men are conspiring at all times to oppress women , also at all times.
this is a conspiracy theory.
but also one of the wackiest on record
Now if The Patriarchy really were a plot of moustachioed villains with secret hand shakes and membership cards I would like one, but alas the privilege feminists allege are simply not real
. . . . . .
Once, in my foolish youth, i did vote "like a woman" i dutifully voted, in full gynocentrism and naivete, for every woman candidate on the voting paper for my towns local body (as we call them ) elections, regardless of affiliaton or professed political stance.
This was if aging memory recalls aright, in the 1990's
I told a friend who duly handed me my ass on a plate for my folly
But i did learn something even though it was another 25 years before i finally saw through feminism for what it is.
. . . . . .
I read Wolf's The Beauty Myth i in the 1990s for i was madly in love with a feminist lady and i duly read every feminist book I could get my hand on. I did not realize how useful this would be, but not as pro femimist research, but anti feminist evidence
I was naive enough to believe all of Wolf's book at the time, but one thing did stick in my memory and i never forgot it.
I was deeply touched by her description of how a womans beauty does not fade with age, it merely changes. And now at age 64 and totally in love with a lady a little older than me, I see this with perfect clarity.
For all the misandry and paranoia of this book this was one good services Wolf did for me
Your comments about being madly in love reminds of a book "The Rantings of a Single Male" by Thomas Ellis. He was also in love a feminist woman who would reward him with heaps of affection when got it.
Love the article and yes, you are right on. There is much to admire about Dr. Naomi Wolf (namely her tenacity and chutzpah) but also much to be desired. She seems to be undergoing a transformation, so here's hoping she sees the flaws in her argument.
It is so strange to me that "strong, independent women" who talk alot about being and encouraging "strong, independent women" want...the government to tell them what to do and yearn for the state to manage their lives. As with many feminist positions, this one requires some skillful mental gymnastics/denial to reconcile.
Anyway, love your YouTube appearances! I've learned so much valuable information on the history of feminism...thank you!
Thank you, Janice. Another thing about Wolf is that she admits that she selected her husband, a former elite military member, for the protection he offers her. It will be interesting to see what she has to say if he gets prostate cancer, then learns that her fellow feminists made sure that breast cancer gets many times more taxpayer funding than prostate cancer gets.
Having read "Spin Sisters; How women of the Media sell liberalism and unhappiness" by Myrna Blyth, I am not surprised by Wolf's belief that women should all support each other and vote the same way. Women like her can not comprehend that other members of her gender will have different thoughts, ideas and experiences.
She may believe that she is slaying dragons, but she and her supporters are tilting lances at windmills.
," I’ll always owe The Beauty Myth a large part of my own feminist identity. But it’s not a fairy tale I’ll be handing to my own daughter." Its almost funny that Rebecca Onion turns on her idol and takes apart her book by pointing out its "evidence" is derived from works of fiction and individual stories. But of course though she admits that Naomi Wolf's ideological book brought comfort to her angsty teenage self, she cannot face the fact that this was building her "feminist identity" out of something which made all her problems the fault of a conspiracy in a fairy story. I wonder if she reads this back Rebecca might just start to see how pulling apart Naomi's books actually pulls apart her feminist identity. I guess she still has the fairy tale blinkers on.
Well said. And I'll bet my last dollar that Rebecca Onion would never have re-read The Beauty Myth with a skeptical eye if she hadn't already decided that Wolf was no longer a feminist champion to be applauded. Most of her criticisms of the book related to its failures of left-feminist orthodoxy.
“ Feminism has for far too long told women to think mainly of themselves, with self-pity for their alleged victimization and self-love for their courage; the result has been an intolerable narcissism evident all around us“.
Wolf is a poster gal for feminist narcissism. She is an opportunist of the highest order. Always late to the ( progressive or fashionable ) party and always entirely too eager to capitalize on it for personal brand promotion.
What a stunning article. I really mean it. You have such a brilliant way of exposing all the lies and double-standards that we, as intelligent adult men, are somehow expected to ignore (or applaud!) One recent Wolf moment really stuck out for me: She was on some podcast gushing over her husband's protective, masculine qualities (I believe she literally married her bodyguard! ) but in the next breath was saying how "difficult" this was for her "as a feminist" because it's still her belief that women should be able to protect themselves. I have to admit, I kinda switched off right there and then, but my only thought after that was that her husband is definitely a braver man than me. Except not in the way most people would think! 😂
Thank you for the kind words. I had a sentence in an earlier version of the article about the somersault logic required by feminist ideology, but I took it out as gratuitously snide. I suspect that a majority of the intrepid researchers combing through the Pfizer documents are male; I know one of the men who is on the team. I'm not sure if Wolf exhorts these guys to vote, or do anything else, 'like a woman,' but I hope not!
You should have kept it. I love gratuitous snide remarks. Like seasoning, they can really spice up a dish quite nicely.
Ah! Naomi Wolfe, one of those feminists that really grind my gears. I remember watching a Youtube video of a debate between her and Karen Straughan, Wolfe failed to addressed any of Karen's arguments and points, everything was just either ignored or deflected. She insisted on having equality, but still demanded men to help women where they were lacking whilst ignoring all the disadvantages men faced.
From what I've observed, she can't seem to stand that women have views and opinions contrary to her own.
In a lot of ways, she reminds me of Emma Watson's 'heforher' campaign, demanding similar things.
Totally forgot about that debate!!! Karen is the best! I do give Wolf major kudos for courage and chutzpah.
"Heforher" is quite a gross concept once I managed to parse what it says. At first glance, though, I pronounced it "heifer."
I strongly dislike comments like this.
"she can't seem to stand that women have views and opinions contrary to her own."
How goofy a criticism.
So gynocentric and cliched.
"Feminists are the real woman haters!"
Great stuff Janice. So many excellent points. Loved this
"women seem hard-wired to seek a “safe” rather than a free world,"
That has surely been my experience. The dismantling of masculinity is starting to make more sense. Without men having the cultural mandate to aggressively stand up for what they know is right, and instead being called toxic if they do, we are left with women who are more interested in safety than freedom. Easy prey. If this was a planned effort it certainly was an effective plan.
The last paragraph should be etched in stone! Many thanks.
Yes, that last paragraph may be one of the most incisive paragraphs ever written about feminism. I would like to have it printed on a plaque to hang on my wall.
Dr Mike Yeadon (former Pfizer VP and head of Global respiratory research) was desperately trying to get hold of Dr Jordan Peterson a few months ago as he believes far worse is to come but no luck. I'm out of the loop but I'm guessing contact has failed. Think this needs to happen! On a more positive note, I have been following your work for a while now, love your efforts Janice Fiamengo!
This brilliant article proves once again that Janice is the clearest, most insightful, and most eloquent writer on feminism and the relations between the (two and only two) sexes. She always goes to the heart of the matter, to the most basic issues underlying. She deserves a prize for her contributions.
Great article, exposing the 'intolerable narcissism' which has made much of feminism insufferable. Feminists have about as much acquaintance with empathy as Meghan Markle does with humility.
Feminists have a whole lot of empathy... for themselves.
Haha! So true.
Yes!
I saw Naomi Wolf's aricle and really wanted to comment on it everything you've said!
She makes the claim that women and children were the most affected by COVID with cherry picked stats.
It was really disappointing to see.
A complete ignorance of men in her writing as you've stated.
Wow, thank you for writing this up so I didn't have to!
I'm glad I'm subscribed to you!
Thank you!
Thank you, I'm chuffed!
I hope Naomi sees your article.
That'd be grand.
She's probably extremely busy!!!
It's amazing that it's "ignorance" and not "hatred".
A little more rhetorical ferocity would do anti feminists some good.
Haven't even read it, since I too am a former feminist who thinks that women's influence on our polity and policy has been disastrous in many respects. My unpopular opinion: The 19th Amendment was a mistake.
Fascinating. I've come around to thinking that personally but it is not an opinion I am yet ready to try to defend publicly.
It's a hot button for sure, but I've realized that so much of what was passed in the regressive "Progressive" Era was incredibly damaging:
- 16th Amendment, 1913, income tax
- 17th Amendment, 1913, popular election of Senators, instead of by state legislators
- 18th Amendment, 1919, Prohibition
- 19th Amendment, 1920, women's suffrage
- National Firearms Act of 1934, first infringement of many
Listening to the lectures in the free online Hillsdale College course called Constitution 101 helped me put this cluster of terrible policy and law into context.
I share your opinion. I'm not sure it's unpopular as much as it is forbidden to reveal it.
The best response to Dr. Wolf was embodied in her interview with Ali G (Sasha Barron Cohen) where he asked his requisite dumb questions, that she would expect from her cartoonish image of men, and then Cohen would make fun of this. Her epistemology? ... she finds a personal problem, comes to a conclusion, and then makes a rule for all women. She fluctuates between regarding women as all-powerful sorceresses and dependent victims.
She thinks of herself as a part of something bigger than just working with data that can be checked out in the real world. Wolf and her ilk, view themselves as emissaries of great stories—suppressed stories. If they take liberties or ignore careful research, as Wolf has done on numerous occasions, it is because they believe they have a right to do so and that the story, or the cause, somehow validates it. I just find her exasperating.
Some scattered reflections, if I may
I thought i had unsubscribed from Naomi Wolf's blog here on substack. but I got a notification of the latest post of hers. So I read it.
It is a rapturous encomium to values which are in fact conservative, or at least spiritual values (I tend to pedantry on these matters) but which the left have totally rejected
So Ireplied and said so, and that if she were to put this in her calculations she might discover something. IOW I all but invited her to leave the left as I did now 5 years ago.
To my surpise some readers of that blog have already liked it. But whether the author does is another matter
. . . .
it just occured to me that feminism is in fact a conspiracy theory.
Now i do not reject all conspiracy theories out of hand, neither do i embrace all of them. both extremes are lazy thinking IMO. After all conspiraces do exist. the Catiline in Republican Rome; the Babington Plot; the gunpowder plot of Guy Fawkes; even the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, these were real conspiiracies
and if two men meeet at a coffee bar to plot a robbery that is by definiton a conspiracy.
Put it his way , feminism maintains that all men are conspiring at all times to oppress women , also at all times.
this is a conspiracy theory.
but also one of the wackiest on record
Now if The Patriarchy really were a plot of moustachioed villains with secret hand shakes and membership cards I would like one, but alas the privilege feminists allege are simply not real
. . . . . .
Once, in my foolish youth, i did vote "like a woman" i dutifully voted, in full gynocentrism and naivete, for every woman candidate on the voting paper for my towns local body (as we call them ) elections, regardless of affiliaton or professed political stance.
This was if aging memory recalls aright, in the 1990's
I told a friend who duly handed me my ass on a plate for my folly
But i did learn something even though it was another 25 years before i finally saw through feminism for what it is.
. . . . . .
I read Wolf's The Beauty Myth i in the 1990s for i was madly in love with a feminist lady and i duly read every feminist book I could get my hand on. I did not realize how useful this would be, but not as pro femimist research, but anti feminist evidence
I was naive enough to believe all of Wolf's book at the time, but one thing did stick in my memory and i never forgot it.
I was deeply touched by her description of how a womans beauty does not fade with age, it merely changes. And now at age 64 and totally in love with a lady a little older than me, I see this with perfect clarity.
For all the misandry and paranoia of this book this was one good services Wolf did for me
here endeth today's ramble
Your comments about being madly in love reminds of a book "The Rantings of a Single Male" by Thomas Ellis. He was also in love a feminist woman who would reward him with heaps of affection when got it.
Love the article and yes, you are right on. There is much to admire about Dr. Naomi Wolf (namely her tenacity and chutzpah) but also much to be desired. She seems to be undergoing a transformation, so here's hoping she sees the flaws in her argument.
It is so strange to me that "strong, independent women" who talk alot about being and encouraging "strong, independent women" want...the government to tell them what to do and yearn for the state to manage their lives. As with many feminist positions, this one requires some skillful mental gymnastics/denial to reconcile.
Anyway, love your YouTube appearances! I've learned so much valuable information on the history of feminism...thank you!
Thank you for the generous praise! Much appreciated.
There is absolutely nothing to admire about Naomi.
She is a raving lunatic who hates men's guts and only thinks they exist for what they can provide for women.
She disagrees with the covid vaccine? What a sorry excuse for a transformation.
She's still filled with neurosis and misandry.
Imagine admiring a serial killer for the supposed tenacity and chutzpah involved in the acts.
She's still an old hag who wants to suck men dry and make their existence revolve around women.
It's amazing the softness with which anti feminists will critique the worst of feminists.
It's not surprising you're subscribed to Mary Harrington.
I still consider yourself a feminist.
I didn't know she admired a serial killer.
Hyperbolic analogy.
I can't see how anyone can admire Naomi wolf just because of some Vaccine related things.
Thank you, Janice. Another thing about Wolf is that she admits that she selected her husband, a former elite military member, for the protection he offers her. It will be interesting to see what she has to say if he gets prostate cancer, then learns that her fellow feminists made sure that breast cancer gets many times more taxpayer funding than prostate cancer gets.
Well said.
Having read "Spin Sisters; How women of the Media sell liberalism and unhappiness" by Myrna Blyth, I am not surprised by Wolf's belief that women should all support each other and vote the same way. Women like her can not comprehend that other members of her gender will have different thoughts, ideas and experiences.
She may believe that she is slaying dragons, but she and her supporters are tilting lances at windmills.
," I’ll always owe The Beauty Myth a large part of my own feminist identity. But it’s not a fairy tale I’ll be handing to my own daughter." Its almost funny that Rebecca Onion turns on her idol and takes apart her book by pointing out its "evidence" is derived from works of fiction and individual stories. But of course though she admits that Naomi Wolf's ideological book brought comfort to her angsty teenage self, she cannot face the fact that this was building her "feminist identity" out of something which made all her problems the fault of a conspiracy in a fairy story. I wonder if she reads this back Rebecca might just start to see how pulling apart Naomi's books actually pulls apart her feminist identity. I guess she still has the fairy tale blinkers on.
Well said. And I'll bet my last dollar that Rebecca Onion would never have re-read The Beauty Myth with a skeptical eye if she hadn't already decided that Wolf was no longer a feminist champion to be applauded. Most of her criticisms of the book related to its failures of left-feminist orthodoxy.
I found reading the Beauty Myth to be obtuse and convoluted as well as extremely verbose. The twisted logic I found extremely difficult to comprehend.
Honestly, Josh, sometimes I wish I were gay, because modern American women are simply intolerable.
They are raised to be the absolute most demonic versions of themselves.
Nailed it -
“ Feminism has for far too long told women to think mainly of themselves, with self-pity for their alleged victimization and self-love for their courage; the result has been an intolerable narcissism evident all around us“.
Wolf is a poster gal for feminist narcissism. She is an opportunist of the highest order. Always late to the ( progressive or fashionable ) party and always entirely too eager to capitalize on it for personal brand promotion.
Agreed