Hi BoundlessEyes, thanks for the video response. For those who don’t know, I contacted BoundlessEyes in the first place to see if she wanted to make a response to my video “what is feminism”. I did so because she seemed to engage in discourse to a greater degree than many other YouTube feminists, which is not difficult seeing as no other group seems as reticent to explain and defend their views.
There is a talk show host I admire called Dennis Prager who has a saying that goes “I prefer clarity to agreement” and that is what I thought we could do here. Clarify where we differ as opposed to just battling it out to win. To do that effectively we I want to address the most important points where we differ. These topics will be on patriarchy, on gender differences and on Harriett Harman.
On patriarchy: I do feel that your video lacked clarity as it seemed like you were less interested in explaining your position and more interested merely reciting dogma.
[see video]
Answering questions in this way will get your fellow feminists nodding in agreement but I fear it has less effect on the rest of us who haven’t swallowed that blue pill. Far be it for me to get in the way of your intellectual masturbation but could you please define your terms more clearly. Patriarchy would be rule by males, at least according to the dictionary that I know you like to use. How can a democracy be a patriarchy? We have had a female prime minister and we have women in government. Iran and the Catholic Church are patriarchal systems. Western democracies are not.
Far from being a solid concept the term seems to encapsulate whatever feminists want it to, and yes I have read a number of opinions on the subject and in doing so I have encountered raises the bar for decedent writing quite a bit. Take one particular view
Feminist writer Marilyn French, in her seminal work Beyond Power, defines patriarchy as a system that values power over life, control over pleasure, and dominance over happiness.[1]
This is not a rational argument. It is an emotional and religious one. And, to be quite honest, it reeks of conspiracy theory.
On gender differences: I believe that we should all examine the things we believe to honestly assess whether they are true or not.
Take for example the common claim that women use more words per day then men do. The numbers you will hear cited differ in each case but they always cite that women use more words than men do.
As a man I am not insulted by this claim, it is either true or it is not.
If we take these studies and add on top our understanding from other research [3] that different areas of the male and female brain are used in sounding out words along with our plain and common sense observations of our sisters and mothers and female friends talking more on the phone and in the office.
Given thus fact it is not a huge leap to posit that the actions and careers that men and women take could be influenced by our differences. I see an obvious nurturing advantage in women, evolutionarily programmed to aid in the protection of young no doubt. Would this have any effect on more women wanting to be nurses for example? It might not but as us scientific sceptics like to say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Could we have the evidence that this is societally constructed and by whom and to what ends?
What evidence you have presented would get you a failing grade in any science class for lack of proper isolation of variables. Yes a girl who was raised by dogs, as some sort of proof that humans are a tabula rasa to be scribbled upon by a conspiracy of white males intent upon god knows what. Are you familiar with the phrase “non sequitur”.
You can’t shame me with such dishonest tactics. I have always held that humans are the product of a mixture of nature and nurture as I specifically said in the original video. It surprises me not that being raised by dogs will be a profound effect on a developing child’s behaviour. The difference between the sexes is a fact and if humans can be manipulated so easily then the question of David Reimer still stands? Let’s see the intellectual honesty with which you approach this issue.
That. Was particularly loathsome. Let me read to you how David Reimer described his experience.
"It was like brainwashing. I'd give just about anything to go to a hypnotist to black out my whole past. Because it's torture. What they did to you in the body is sometimes not near as bad as what they did to you in the mind - with the psychological warfare in your head." [4]
David Reimer is now dead, he committed suicide.
I think your supercilious little dismissal about being teased on the playground is a sham. And you need to be honest with yourself about how easily you grasped onto any little scrap of information that you could use as a plausible deniability mechanism to not have to deal with the obvious black eye that the David Reimer case gives to feminism. If you ever want to know why people like myself get angry at feminists then just think about what you just did.
On Harriett Harman:
Remember at the beginning when I mentioned clarity instead of agreement? Well this is the perfect example of a clarifying moment. I don’t need you to explain how the things that Harriett Harman believes leads to her actions. I know how she thinks and why she is doing what she is doing. People who commit bigoted actions frequently do so on twisted belief systems and believe themselves to be in the right. If I may quote Mr. Prager again.
Victimhood. A lifelong study of good and evil has led to me conclude that the greatest single cause of evil is people perceiving of themselves or their group as victims. Nazism arose from Germans' sense of victimhood — as a result of the Versailles Treaty, of the "stab in the back" that led to Germany's loss in World War I and of a world Jewish conspiracy. Communism was predicated on workers regarding themselves as victims of the bourgeoisie. Much of Islamic evil today emanates from a belief that the Muslim world has been victimized by Christians and Jews. Many prisoners, including those imprisoned for horrible crimes, regard themselves as victims of society or of their upbringing. The list of those attributing their evil acts to their being victims is as long as the list of evildoers. [4]
And to that list we can add you and Harriett Harman.
A woman whose mind has become so twisted as to act like women are oppressed by some nebulous patriarchal force whilst occupying a position of immense power and using that power to actively give a governmentally mandated superior status to women.
You have no excuse, from now on, whenever you open that dictionary and say that feminism about equality know that you are participating in a massive lie. For what you actually come to support in reality is sexism and oppression by the very definition of those words that you’ll find in that same dictionary. For in Harriett Harman’s own words:
'It is about saying, "because you are a woman I'm going to put you in this promotion".' [6]
If you read that and like what it says then you can pat yourself on the back and join a very select club of totalitarians who use their grievances to push for tyranny over liberty. Who masquerade under the banners of changing for the better but who in turn bring more misery onto earth. Who push their small minded dogma onto all.
The “What is Feminism” video encapsulated all of what modern feminism means today and the Pièce de résistance is you, a young feminist coming along and proving everything that I’ve said:
Feminism is a movement with a gendered name that claims to stand for gender equality but really is an activist political movement and sexist belief system which, in its worse forms, denies reality, suppresses women’s choice, tramples liberty, hurts men, infantilises women and fosters animosity between the sexes.
Sources
[1] Patriarchy: Encyclopedia II - Patriarchy - Feminist view
http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Patriarchy_-_Feminist_view/id/5367497
What is patriarchy?
http://www.essortment.com/all/whatispatriarc_rhsf.htm
[3] Men and Women Use Brain Differently, Study Discovers
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/16/us/men-and-women-use-brain-differently-study-discovers.html
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/09/24/sex_on_the_brain/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-419040/Women-talk-times-men-says-study.html
[4] The true story of John/Joan
by John Colapinto
Rolling Stone December 11, 1997
http://www.healthyplace.com/gender/inside-intersexuality/the-true-story-of-john-joan/menu-id-1427/
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl, Glenn Sacks
http://www.hisside.com/6_6_04.htm
Death by Theory? Wendy McElroy
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120914,00.html
Told to Act Like a Girl, Carey Roberts
http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2004/0519roberts.html
[5] Why Do People Do Evil?
http://www.creators.com/opinion/dennis-prager/why-do-people-do-evil.html
[6] I'll put women in charge of banks: Harriet Harman's plans to use equality laws to challenge macho City culture
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1178140/Ill-women-charge-banks-Harriet-Harmans-plans-use-equality-laws-challenge-macho-City-culture.html
Posted on: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 12:20 AM