Category Archives: Feminism

The Silly Sex?

Feminism, Gender, Logic, Reason

Barbara’s comments here sent me in search of a priceless excerpt from Norah Vincent’s book. Its title is self explanatory: Self-Made Man: My year Disguised as a Man.

Vincent, a lesbian in her regular life, describes dating women while disguised as Ned:

“I listened to [the women] talk literally for hours about the most minute, mind-numbing details of their personal lives; men they were still in love with; men they had divorced, roommates and co-worker they hated…. Listening to them was like undergoing a slow frontal lobotomy. I sat there stunned by the social ineptitude of people to whom it never seemed to occur that no one, much less a first date, would have any interest in enduring this ordeal …”

Seconded in my VDARE.com article, “The Silly Sex?”:

“The Apprentice candidates constitute a restricted sample, chosen for a combination of looks and status. Despite this, the disparities in character and cerebral agility between the men and the women could not be more glaring. An obviously dé class é act, the women would have been utterly risible if they were not so revolting….”

Question: Vincent had clearly dated women before. Had she always found them generally lacking? If not, what changed once she assumed her fictitious identity? I have an idea, but it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. I’m tired.

Answer: Vincent probably dated lesbians, not straight women. The following are generalizations, but nonetheless valid, I believe: the lesbians I’ve known over the years (my sister, for one) are not as petty and self-absorbed as straight women. My best friend in Cape-Town was a beautiful and feminine gay woman. In addition to her keen intellect, we got on famously because she was without pettiness. There was no rivalry in the relationship just good intellectual rapport. I’d say she combined the emotional intimacy and empathic qualities often associated with women and the rationality and clear thinking identified with men. Although I still think that to make people fairer, kinder, and more compassionate, one has to first teach them to think and reason.

About such generalizations: Individualists, libertarians in particular, think that broad statements about aggregate group characteristics are collectivist, ergo 1) forbidden 2) erroneous. This is a confusion—it demonstrates an inability to jump a level of abstraction. Generalizations, provided they are substantiated by hard evidence not hunches, are not incorrect. Science rests on the ability to generalize to the larger population observations drawn from a representative sample. People make prudent decision in their daily lives based on probabilities and generalities. That one chooses not to live in a particular crime-ridden area, for example, in no way implies that all residents there are criminals.

Men and women do in general display a different emotional and intellectual make-up, but this doesn’t preclude countless individuals from transcending the stereotypes associated with their gender. True, Oprah’s target market is huge—distressingly so. But a lot of women are not prone to becoming addled by Oprah.

Mackinnon the Man-Eater

Feminism

I don’t expect men’s circumstances to move [feminist Catharine] Mackinnon. But is there no significance to the fact that women continue to live longer than men, that many more men commit suicide, that men are more likely to be unemployed and less likely to get another job, and that they are more likely to suffer lethal industrial accidents? Is it of no experiential importance that of the 2,350 soldiers who’ve died so far in Iraq and the 18,000 who’ve been wounded, most are men? Not in Mackinnon’s static and stony universe. Here she is up to her clavicles in self-contradiction, a condition the Greek philosophers deemed “less than human, less than coherent, less than sane.” But then, they were of the patriarchy.

The excerpt is from my latest column, “Mackinnon the Man-Eater,” now on WorldNetDaily.com. (A more extensive review of Catharine Mackinnon’s book, written for The American Conservative is here.)

Feminism and Islam (And a Thought about Jewish Women)

Feminism, Islam

Some feminists have dedicated their lives and work to women and to mending the fractious relationships between the sexes, yet have remained mum on the topic of women under Islam. The analogy of the libertarian writer, who holds free speech and private property rights sacred, yet has refused to weigh in on the Danish cartoon controversy obtains here.

To say something about the plight of women under Islam would require an objective examination of Islam’s teachings about women—they are deemed unclean; contaminants, a source of sin, and worse—without resorting to postmodern, culture-specific constructs. Is this what is being avoided? What a disgrace.

Here’s a hilarious thought about Jewish women: I recall reading one of Kevin MacDonald’s loopy expositions about Jews, in which he asserts seriously that Jewish women are oppressed. It had something to do with the faith’s teachings. He clearly hasn’t met very many Jews. If anything, Jewish women could do with some oppression.

I wonder if he was referring to the after-meal grace Jews say, where a song of adulation is sung especially for the Woman of the House. In it, the family praises her uniqueness and wisdom. Beauty is said to be all nonsense—a woman’s substance is all that matters and for her substance her husband must worship her (if he knows what’s good for him).

How Sexist Are Libertarian Men?

Feminism, IlanaMercer.com

…These puritans are in the habit of deploying the photos on IlanaMercer.com to shame its proprietor. To wit: “Mercer puts up the images; she’s asking for it.” To these solemn commissars, an aesthetic display of the female form signifies that a woman is begging for belittlement. … The austere, Soviet-like stance vis-a -vis the female figure and its commercialization is the trademark of feminists and socialists. They oppose what they term the “objectification” of women, but also object to anything that’s fun, free, appealing, and lucrative. In their prissy, sexual rebukes to me, these phony progressives and pseudo-capitalists have sided with backward elements.

The column, How Sexist Are Libertarian Men?, addresses my travails with libertarian men over the years, and is on the Free-Market News Network. Libertarians, the forum is yours to comment (without demeaning the host, naturally).