Thursday, January 11, 2007

Feminism, the Noble Lie, Robert Sheaffer

"The world as depicted by contemporary feminist scholarship is a peculiar one. It teaches a history that is at variance with that taught in history departments, a view of science incorporating only selectively that taught in science departments, and a paradoxical, illiberal approach to morality in which the correctness of an action depends to a large extent on who is performing it... Indeed, it is difficult to quell the suspicion that the reason feminists have always insisted on a separate department for their "Womens Studies" program is because they require exemption from the peer review and critical scrutiny that their material would otherwise receive were it taught as history, philosophy, or science.

Feminists have largely gotten away with these deceptions because the widespread and highly-successful inculcation of male guilt allows feminists to claim that any critical scrutiny of their dubious claims amounts to "blaming the victim." Additionally, chivalrous feelings make most men feel it is somehow unfair to "attack women," even if those same women are spouting bizarre nonsense in the process of vigorously attacking men...

The proponents of the Idyllic Goddess theory of history teach a variant of the "lost Garden of Eden" myth. In this new version the human race was ejected from a paradise because of the sins of men, but not those of women; in the Genesis version, the woman may have sinned first but both committed the offense. Note that in the feminist fable, men alone are responsible for evil, and women represent everything good. This sentiment is encountered again and again in feminist thought, clearly implying the moral superiority of women. Other feminists claim to find gender-reversed or gender-equal societies in other always-inaccessible places. Alleged matriarchies., like alleged occurrences of psychic powers, exhibit a "shyness effect," and can never be observed directly. Some claim the existence of actual contemporary "matriarchies." in a remote place in Africa, Asia, Madagascar, or wherever, but when pressed for substantiation invariably there is none...

Margaret Mead's somewhat disingenuous description of Tchambuli men as "effete," claiming that this demonstrates a society in which the usual sex roles have been reversed. This conveniently ignores the fact that the Tchambuli men were literally headhunters, who kept as trophies the severed heads of enemies. To call such fierce warriors "effete" is to misuse the word. Mead herself repeatedly denied ever having discovered any sex-role reversed society. Yet sociologist Steven Goldberg found that 36 of 38 new introductory textbooks of sociology cited Mead's supposed discovery of the "role-reversed" Tchambuli as "proof" that sex-roles are environmentally determined. Such are the lies that are being fed to students today in the pious name of feminism...

Those who argue that "socialization" must somehow explain sex roles find themselves unable to explain why socialization always proceeds in a uniform direction, when according to their assumptions it ought to proceed randomly, resulting in a patchwork of matriarchies. interspersed with patriarchies. Why does every society, without exception, socialize men for leadership, and women for domestic tasks? Why not the reverse?... societies observe the patterns of behavior that biology seems to render inevitable, then attempt to socialize women and men into roles that it is expected they will be able to fulfill...

Contemporary Politically Correct feminists, like Marxists, feel obligated to postulate a purely environmental explanation for all sex-related differences in behavior, because as soon as biological differences are admitted as relevant factors, the presumption that women are "victims of discrimination" cannot be supported. Should any male/female differences in behavior and career choices be admitted as innate and real, then the "null hypothesis" - the assumption that in the absence of discrimination, no differences in the two groups would be observed - is no longer tenable...

Philosopher Michael Levin wryly describes feminist theory as a form of "Creationism," which he defines as

"any refusal to apply evolutionary theory to man. It is irrelevant whether this refusal is sustained by a literal reading of scripture or commitment to a secular ideology."


... That men predominate in higher-paying positions is itself seen as evidence of a vast conspiracy to keep women out of better jobs, in spite of the fact that when we correct for factors such as the number of hours worked, the number of years of education and in the position, etc., the differences all but vanish. That women spend far more money on themselves - money presumably earned for them by the exertions of men - is never even considered. If it were really true that women were being paid 59 cents (or whatever number you choose to believe) for every dollar that men make, for doing the same work at the same level of skill, then no business could possibly be competitive if it employed any men...

Contemporary Politically Correct feminism with its emphasis on group rights and group offenses is fundamentally illiberal, a dramatic break from the long humanistic tradition which emphasizes individual rights, rewards and punishments. It attacks free speech wherever freedom is used in ways it does not approve; feminists have recently joined forces with the Religious Right to attack so-called "pornography"...

It is invariably objected that the kinds of positions and doctrines objected to above are those of "the extremists", and that "reasonable" feminists and feminist organizations do not hold them. The critics of feminism are accused of concentrating their attacks on so-called "extremists" such as Catherine Mackinnon and Andrea Dworkin. But Mackinnon is the inventor of the legal concept of "sexual harassment"; do "reasonable feminists" reject that concept as 'extremism? Of course not; this line of argument enables them to "savor the fruit" of Mackinnonism while "cursing the vine." If Andrea Dworkin is such an "extremist," why has she been praised so lavishly by Gloria Steinem? (And if Gloria Steinem is not 'representative of feminists', then who is?)...

The rhetoric of the feminist movement portrays history as a dismal scenario of the unending oppression and subjugation of women, for the selfish benefit of men. (That men might themselves be a "victim" class, given that men have made up 100% of the cannon fodder of every battle in history, is not worthy of consideration.) But the depiction of woman as Perpetual Victim does not survive critical scrutiny, most especially not today. Whatever rights women may not have had at various points in history, such as the right to vote, had typically only been won by men a short time earlier. Throughout most of history, nobody had any rights, outside the ruling elite!...

If convicted of a felony, a man serves out a sentence averaging more than 50% longer than a woman convicted of the same crime, and a man in prison is more than ten times as likely to die there than is a woman. Mens' suicide rate is four times that of women. Twenty-four out of the twenty-five jobs ranked "worst" in terms of pay and working conditions by the Jobs Related Almanac have one thing in common: they are all 95%-100% male. Of those killed in work-related accidents, 94% are men, as were 96% of those killed in the Gulf War. If men have supposedly arranged everything to be so wonderful for themselves, then why are they dying, being mutilated, murdered, or killing themselves at rates vastly higher than those of women, who end up with more money in spite of having worked less?...

The world-view erected by contemporary Politically Correct feminism, the only kind that plays any role in shaping public policy, is a house of cards. It requires its adherent to jump from one unsteady limb to another, never quite sure whether sex differences in behavior are illusory, or very real but ex cathedra insignificant; uncertain whether women behave exactly the same as men, or are emotionally and morally superior, oriented toward life (unlike men, who love death); switching from "absolute egalite" to "special provisions," depending on which confers greater advantage in the circumstance. Women are simultaneously strong and independent, fully prepared to prevail in the hell of combat, yet at the same time so weak as to need special rules under which they receive compensatory advantages to assist them in competition with men; they also need legal protection against unwanted sexual advances and dirty jokes. This is much like a magician's silk that appears to have a different color each time it is revealed. Experience has shown that these objections to feminist absurdities are answered far more with ad hominem insults and expressions of moral outrage than with reasoned argument; such are the defenses employed by illusionists who are infuriated when their deceptions are revealed."