The anti-feminist feminist harpy. From Salon:
As I see it, the Palin Effect is a double-headed hydra. On one side you have Todd Palin, who is clearly a vibrant, macho force in his family’s life. Just as clearly, he has effectively embraced the role as a primary caregiver. What does it say that he and Sarah have a mutually aggrandizing partnership/marriage? A successful professional woman who embraces a masculine male rather than castrate him? Heaven forfend! Personally I see it as the benign (and noble) conclusion of the feminist movement. I guess fish don’t need bicycles, but some of them want one. And they’d rather it come with some cojones.
Discussing the Sarah Palin effect is quickly becoming a national psychosis, to which I doubt I could add much. The only thing I haven’t seen discussed is a comparison between her popularity and what Rush Limbaugh hilariously and intuitively called Bill Clinton’s “Arousal Gap.” I think we’re seeing that Todd Palin isn’t the only man’s man out there who has a healthy appreciation for a strong member of the opposite sex. Here is another benign and admirable consequence of the feminist movement.
Steve Gurney
Niceville, FloridaYes, both Todd and Sarah Palin, whom most people in the U.S. and abroad had never even heard of until six weeks ago, have emerged as powerful new symbols of a revived contemporary feminism. That the macho Todd, with his champion athleticism and working-class cred, can so amiably cradle babies and care for children is a huge step forward in American sexual symbolism.
Although nothing will sway my vote for Obama, I continue to enjoy Sarah Palin’s performance on the national stage. During her vice-presidential debate last week with Joe Biden (whose conspiratorial smiles with moderator Gwen Ifill were outrageous and condescending toward his opponent), I laughed heartily at Palin’s digs and slams and marveled at the way she slowly took over the entire event. I was sorry when it ended! But Biden wasn’t — judging by his Gore-like sighs and his slow sinking like a punctured blimp. Of course Biden won on points, but TV (a visual medium) never cares about that.
The mountain of rubbish poured out about Palin over the past month would rival Everest. What a disgrace for our jabbering army of liberal journalists and commentators, too many of whom behaved like snippy jackasses. The bourgeois conventionalism and rank snobbery of these alleged humanitarians stank up the place. As for Palin’s brutally edited interviews with Charlie Gibson and that viper, Katie Couric, don’t we all know that the best bits ended up on the cutting-room floor? Something has gone seriously wrong with Democratic ideology, which seems to have become a candied set of holier-than-thou bromides attached like tutti-frutti to a quivering green Jell-O mold of adolescent sentimentality.
And where is all that lurid sexual fantasy coming from? When I watch Sarah Palin, I don’t think sex — I think Amazon warrior! I admire her competitive spirit and her exuberant vitality, which borders on the supernormal. The question that keeps popping up for me is whether Palin, who was born in Idaho, could possibly be part Native American (as we know her husband is), which sometimes seems suggested by her strong facial contours. I have felt that same extraordinary energy and hyper-alertness billowing out from other women with Native American ancestry — including two overpowering celebrity icons with whom I have worked.
One of the most idiotic allegations batting around out there among urban media insiders is that Palin is “dumb.” Are they kidding? What level of stupidity is now par for the course in those musty circles? (The value of Ivy League degrees, like sub-prime mortgages, has certainly been plummeting. As a Yale Ph.D., I have a perfect right to my scorn.) People who can’t see how smart Palin is are trapped in their own narrow parochialism — the tedious, hackneyed forms of their upper-middle-class syntax and vocabulary.
As someone whose first seven years were spent among Italian-American immigrants (I never met an elderly person who spoke English until we moved from Endicott to rural Oxford, New York, when I was in first grade), I am very used to understanding meaning through what might seem to others to be outlandish or fractured variations on standard English. Furthermore, I have spent virtually my entire teaching career (nearly four decades) in arts colleges, where the expressiveness of highly talented students in dance, music and the visual arts takes a hundred different forms. Finally, as a lover of poetry (my last book was about that), I savor every kind of experimentation with standard English — beginning with Shakespeare, who was the greatest improviser of them all at a time when there were no grammar rules.
Many others listening to Sarah Palin at her debate went into conniptions about what they assailed as her incoherence or incompetence. But I was never in doubt about what she intended at any given moment. On the contrary, I was admiring not only her always shapely and syncopated syllables but the innate structures of her discourse — which did seem to fly by in fragments at times but are plainly ready to be filled with deeper policy knowledge, as she gains it (hopefully over the next eight years of the Obama presidencies). This is a tremendously talented politician whose moment has not yet come. That she holds views completely opposed to mine is irrelevant.
Even if she disappears from the scene forever after a McCain defeat, Palin will still have made an enormous and lasting contribution to feminism. As I said in my last column, Palin has made the biggest step forward in reshaping the persona of female authority since Madonna danced her dominatrix way through the shattered puritan barricades of the feminist establishment. In 1990, in a highly controversial New York Times op-ed that attacked old-guard feminist ideology, I declared that “Madonna is the future of feminism” — a prophecy that was ridiculed at the time but that turned out to be quite true. Madonna put pro-sex feminism on the international map.
But it is now 18 years later — the span of an entire generation. The instabilities and diminishments for young women raised in an increasingly shallow media environment have become all too obvious. I had grown up in a vibrant pop culture with glorious women stars of voluptuous sensuality — above all Elizabeth Taylor, sewn into that silky white slip as the vixen Manhattan call girl of “Butterfield 8.” In college, I feasted on foreign films starring sexual sophisticates like Jeanne Moreau, Anouk Aimée and Catherine Deneuve. Sex today, however, has become brittle and superficial. Except for the occasional diverting flash of Lindsay Lohan’s borrowed bosom, I see nothing whatever that is worth a second glance. Pro-sex feminism has worked itself out and, like all movements, has degenerated into clichés. And even Madonna, with her skeletal megalomania, looks like a refugee from a horror movie.
The next phase of feminism must circle back and reappropriate the ancient persona of the mother — without losing career ambition or power of assertion. Betty Friedan, who had first attacked the cult of postwar domesticity, had long warned second-wave feminists such as Gloria Steinem about the damaging exclusion of homemakers from their value system. The animus of liberal feminists toward religion must also end (I am speaking as an atheist). Feminism must reexamine all of its assumptions, including its death grip on abortion, if it wishes to survive.
The hysterical emotionalism and eruptions of amoral malice at the arrival of Sarah Palin exposed the weaknesses and limitations of current feminism. But I am convinced that Palin’s bracing mix of male and female voices, as well as her grounding in frontier grit and audacity, will prove to be a galvanizing influence on aspiring Democratic women politicians too, from the municipal level on up. Palin has shown a brand-new way of defining female ambition — without losing femininity, spontaneity or humor. She’s no pre-programmed wonk of the backstage Hillary Clinton school; she’s pugnacious and self-created, the product of no educational or political elite — which is why her outsider style has been so hard for media lemmings to comprehend. And by the way, I think Tina Fey’s witty impersonations of Palin have been fabulous. But while Fey has nailed Palin’s cadences and charm, she can’t capture the energy, which is a force of nature.
As I have long argued on this site, I am — simply by virtue of being a classical liberal — a necessary adherent of feminism, though not in the sense of second-wave or establishment feminism, which is more about female advocacy (adopting any “principle” at any time to achieve a desired end — and as such, egalitarian and pragmatic rather than intellectually consistent and idealistic). Which is to say, inasmuch as promoting merit and equality of opportunity are guiding classical liberal principles, “feminism” is a default state of political being for the classical liberal or legal conservative; establishment feminism, on the other hand, relies specifically on a convoluted blend of female exceptionalism and female oppression to agitate for certain policy prescriptions, and in so doing it operates on the “progressive” model of identity politics — which privileges above all else a purported “authenticity” that one can only claim once one has accepted certain basic tenets of the “movement” and agreed to adhere to the basic outline of the movement’s officially-sanctioned group narrative.
As such, progressive or second wave establishment feminism is less about gender solidarity than it is about political solidarity. To be an authentic woman, one must believe what it is the leaders of the feminist movement believe — if not in every specific instance, than at least on the level of grounding ideology. It is no coincidence that feminists who break from the establishment mold are instantly labeled “conservative” and, once branded, dismissed as “anti-feminists.” That they are strong, successful women who can forcefully argue their beliefs — and are insistent upon their right to do so — is bracketed in favor of the beliefs themselves that, through the years, have come to carry specific political freight. As Paglia notes, the issue of abortion is definitive for establishment feminism — so much so that simply being anti-abortion (that is, questioning, from a libertarian perspective, the notion of hierarchy of rights when the raw material for debate is a biological imperative creating friction between life and liberty), one is necessarily “anti-feminist”; which, given that it is quite possible to be anti-abortion but entirely dedicated to the idea of equality of opportunity, etc., makes little sense, unless we concede that feminism is about something else entirely — namely, lobbying on behalf of women as a grievance group, one with a union-like charter.
Sarah Palin, for her part, represents feminism as it should be, and it’s refreshing that an academic feminist like Paglia is so comfortable in her own skin that she is willing not only to admit as much, but to literally praise it. Palin is comfortable in her role as politician and mother. She is unafraid to speak her mind and demand to be taken seriously. In fact, she truly believes that she should be taken seriously on the basis of her ideas, not merely as a concession to her sex.
She is an individual who happens to be a woman; her beliefs are her own, and — far than suffering from “false consciousness” — she is settled in her convictions, as they are formed in equal parts by her sex, her faith, her upbringing, her political ideology, and her own thinking on issues. In short, she is the perfect feminist because she is the perfect individual — one who sees her sex neither as a stumbling block nor a card to be played when the game needs leveraging.
As Paglia rightly notes, establishment feminism must reexamine all its assumptions. Should it refuse to do so, the dusty movement risks finding itself treated as the fringe movement it truly is, rather than as a movement that has for too long been allowed to speak on behalf of a group of disparate individuals who make up more than half the population.
And that’s a whole lot of political clout to surrender.
(h/t Cowboy)
Some of the old-school feminists may come to see feminism from a classical liberal perspective, but most never will. Like most proponents of tired ideas, the people how espouse gender feminism will eventually have to be marginalized and allowed to die off. The problem is, as long as proponents of tired ideas are able to recruit new believers, the ideas cannot be relegated to the past in which they belong, if they indeed ever belonged anywhere.
Palin’s ideas about energy are very important. It’s really frightening to see Baracky’s media and especially his Associated Press go after her with a venom they’ve never exhibited for a Hugo Chavez or an Ahmadinejad or even Osama bin Laden. To savage your own countrymen in the name of Baracky is not right on the face of it, but women I think especially should note how fragile and arbitrary their validity as participants in the political process has become under His regime.
I don’t think my wife will let me buy a snowmachine.
Yeah. I’m an Aryanist by philosophical necessity, because I think us Jews are people too. And that’s what it really means.
I can’t help but think though there’s lots of folks that will be hurt a lot worse than me by a Baracky ascendancy. A lot of them are people I probably wouldn’t much like anyway, but it sucks for the rest and I feel quite badly for them.
The California head of NOW endorsed Governor Palin and the harpy brigade freaked out, but she was right: this is a feminist (the real kind), regardless of her political positions. She’s everything the original feminists dreamed of and fought for.
I think Pagilia’s nailed it and its why there is so much enthusiasm for Palin on the right. If you think about it, Right wing moms (especially homemakers, soccer moms) have endured years of disparging remarks, for the crime of choosing to be a mother first. However, most of these woman understood they COULD work if they wanted to and COULD be successful but they made a choice to stay home and raise the kids (liberals are all for pro-choice unless its something they don’t like). Palin demonstrates a couple of things. First, its possible for a woman to be a mom and successful business person (or politician). Second, an intelligent strong woman can still be attractive and personable. Third, that the Right finally found a woman who qualified for the VP slot who was such an amazing example of what conservative woman are becoming in these days and times- independent enough to make their own choices, whether about work or homemaking and knowing they can be successful at doing either.
Palin’s very important as a politician. Condi Rice was a pioneer but she fit more in with the feminist mold- unmarried, no kids. Palin shows the opposite of that life philisophy but like Condi, she made it work.
Also, not in this lifetime am I guy who writes letters to Camille Paglia. If anyone were needing a mote of constancy to cling to in turbulent times, they can have that for what it’s worth.
She’ll buy it for you if you ask nice.
Paglia is refreshingly honest, intellectually speaking. As you mentioned she seems to recognize that Femenism, at it’s root, necessarily is a ideology steeped in the notion of classical liberalism.
I’m not exactly sure when it happened, but at some point the femenists became simply another flavor in the left’s identity politics brew. Since then, the movement has been fundamentally divided into it’s left and right factions, and that’s why it can’t hope to represent women as a whole.
So, as with many of the identity politics factions, the highest visibility and most vocal members have tried to define what it is to be a true femenist. Generally, these same folks are the ones that are appalled by Palin.
Paglia is also right about another point. Until feminism stops trying to make women into men, and is once again defined by universal rights that we all share instead of bulleted, left wing, issue talking points it’s fate will be tied to that same group’s political power.
ooops, typo; femenist=fminist, femenism=feminism
sorry
I have grown tired and weary of being told of what “feminism” is. I know what it is, and Sarah Palin pretty much nails it on the head.
Sharp, ambitious, self-made, and able to stand on her own, but also able to work with her husband like partners should. I’m so proud to see this new dawn of feminism and horrified to see the matrons of old feminism attack so viciously.
The whole four-page Paglia Q&A column is gold, btw. She even puts forward a defensible, non-insane case for trusting O! on foreign policy on the first page. The trolls here could learn from her, if they actually cared about anything other than gaining power as an end in itself.
Good catch, mgl. Very defensible. Without any of the BDS bullshit.
Accusing a bunch of libertarians of caring about gaining power as an end in itself?
That’s some pretty strong weed you’ve been smoking there.
Modern “womyns studies” style feminism has always been well beyond Progressivism in its cultural assault. It is neo-Marxist in its revolutionary call to battle the white male oppressor.
That’s some pretty strong weed you’ve been smoking there.
Yeah, sorry. What was I thinking?
I’m not exactly sure when it happened, but at some point the femenists became simply another flavor in the left’s identity politics brew.
As a woman who grew up in the same time as Paglia, let’s just say the poisonous seeds were there from the beginning. It started with that ol’ “Free love,” movement, and left a lot of us conflicted between traditional values (my family were also immigrants, but English-speaking ones), and some vague, angry standard that demanded gender self-assertion, but didn’t lay out many “danger” signs along the way. As a result, a whole lot of life-crashes occurred.
Paglia’s views on Palin — and Palin herself — reflect the hopes of many women of our era — what we wished we could have been, if we only had something other than half-assed tools and angry ideologies to guide us.
[…] Update:  Jeff at Protein Wisdom agrees. […]
It identity movement, with the exception of Christian and white identities (against which all the other align), has always been a stalking horse for leftism. Unless one holds to collectivist politics, you can forget about getting an invitation to join no matter how black/Latino/lesbian/gay/native American/etc. you are.
Paglia’s quirky, abrasive, iconoclastic and solipsistic at times, but I’ll be damned if I ever find her uninteresting.
Yep. Lefties reserve a special venom for members of their collectivist victims groups who wander off the ideological plantation.
What irony in the femminist movement’s reaction to Palin. They’re righteously offended that she’s ungrateful for the progress they’ve made and that she pays no homage to either their accomplishments or their dogmas, but isn’t Palin what they’ve been fighting for. Now that she’s arrived, she’s a bit different than they imagined.
I’ve often said that debating the efficacy of the different waves of feminism is like debating the flavors of dog shit from different breeds of dog.
I generally know of three kinds of women – women who matured before Betty Friedan and are happy being women, even after younger feminists told them they shouldn’t be; women who ape feminist jargon but by their late twenties come to value a career in the same way that men do (a source of income, if necessary); and the third kind, who need feminism to take the place that in normal women is occupied by a personality and sense of humor.
There is something truly pathetic about a mean, feminist woman of the third iteration. A man who is that mean and petty and obnoxious doesn’t exist, because he’s been knocked on his ass enough to straighten up and fly right. The committed, personality-type feminist needs to divide the world into feminist and antifeminist in order to preserve the purity and perceived integrity of her “self.â€Â
Instapundit linked a column by a Ms. Granju, who said that what many feminist women hate about Gov. Palin is her smugness. The column is instructive, I think for what it explicitly says and what it implies. Gov. Palin is satisifed with her life and her success, and doesn’t give proper deference to the ’50 and 60 year old’ feminists. She doesn’t know what it was like back then – of course not, I should hope not. That was the entire point, wasn’t it? That the next generation wouldn’t have to know of those things, that the world would change so that all became ancient history. That women wouldn’t have to demand respect and equality, but just expect it.
What Ms. Paglia understands, and what Ms. Granju does not, is that Gov. Palin was the goal, and it has been reached. Victory! Rather than complaining how she does not have to fight like they did, they should be rejoicing that she does not have to.
Flavors of dog shit?
But if they did that, no one would have to genuflect to them. Can’t have that.
What’s all this talk about Fremenism? Are we on Planet Barrakis?
Never mind.
The Hope™ and Change™ must flow!
I think Matt, Esq., has it in #7. Gov. Palin has been afforded choices, and she made the wrong choices!
She is now an apostate to many traditional feminists. She is successful, and has done so without the Ivy League, or family influence (either her family or her husband’s family). What was that old perfume jingle? “I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let you forget that you are a man.”
She has it all – and she doesn’t bow down to them. The ingrate.
Speaking of narcissistic…
At some point you have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Say for instance, the baby and bathwater are radioactive. This good feminism / bad feminism stuff went on forever in SOC MEN back in the 90s. IMO: Feminism was rotten from inception. Any good that ever came from it was accidental.
Lady Astor famously told Winston Churchill that if she was his wife she would poison his tea (he famously replied that if she were his wife, he would drink it). Her comment was in response to his opposition to women’s suffrage. Churchill believed women were natural socialists. His belief has been borne out by the increasing size of government since the 19th amendment. Some large percentage of women, especially divorced or single women, are a reliable vote for the nanny state.
One of the principles of conservatism (classical liberalism) is a belief in personal responsibility. We no longer allow 14 year olds to drive (I got my license at 14). Some 14yros are probably OK drivers, maybe better than some 21yros. But most aren’t. The same principle applies to women’s suffrage. If an unaccepably high percentage of women vote irresponsibly, democracy can not work.
Women are not and will not ever be held directly responsible for their irresponsibility. Society will not accept treating them the same as men. Men pay the price directly for their mistakes, and alter their behavior to correspond with reality. This is reflected in the different voting patterns for men & women.
Since women do not receive direct feedback for their actions; a large percentage of women will always be irresponsible.
Sorry for the bad news, feminists. Someone had to tell you.
Since women do not receive direct feedback for their actions
Said by someone who has never been a mother.
Growing up, there were plenty of smart, savvy, and tough Mom’s in the neighborhood. They’d make you a tuna melt with tomato soup, or kick your ass if you needed it. And God forbid, after they kicked your ass, that they told your Mom, because then you’d get two more ass whuppins–one from Mom, and another from the First Dude. As a result, we grew up respecting women–call us feminists.
When politics hit my radar screen, I was confused by the Women’s Movement. Apparently some, perhaps many, men discriminated against women. My thought was, “God Almighty, don’t you know they’ll kick your ass?” And so forth.
Sara Palin is an ass kicker, and she’s beautiful, and I bet she makes a damned fine tuna melt. But she’s like lots of small town folks that I have known–male and female. They don’t talk like Harvard, but they are so wicked smart that they can (and will) cut your liver out and hand it to you before you die, and do it with a smile.
Don’t ever underestimate the Sara Palins of the world, or the First Dudes–they work together. And if you pick a fight, pack a lunch!
Hey, cool. I just got to TrollHammer datadave posting under his real name.
Time to paint another dead cockroach on the side of my monitor.
“A successful professional woman who embraces a masculine male rather than castrate him?”
Castrate? Where’s the equity in that?
“In short, she is the perfect feminist because she is the perfect individual  one who sees her sex neither as a stumbling block nor a card to be played when the game needs leveraging.”
She hasn’t winked at you yet, has she?
Every time I see meya’s name pop up in the sidebar, I just know we are about to be treating to some quality inanity. Meya never disappoints.
McGehee, at least someone laughed.
Comment by Darleen on 10/8 @ 6:50 pm #
Since women do not receive direct feedback for their actions
Said by someone who has never been a mother.
Custodial father of three.
The Hopeâ„¢ and Changeâ„¢ must flow!
He who controls the narrative controls the universe!
…okay, that wasn’t funny at all. :(
Cheborneck!
They’d make you a tuna melt with tomato soup
This tuna melt. What is it, and can I make one for myself? Is there website? Can it be eaten with chips?
a
flan, your position on woman suffrage is scary… though I can see how you come to hold it. A Palin-style feminist, however, does take responsibility – sole responsibility, without recourse to her “movement” or some BS historical imperative a la Ms. Granju, and boy was her column a laff – for her vote. (And men aren’t immune from the disease you’re talking about.) So the trick is to get American women, who by and large (ISTM) do actually live lives closely resembling Palin feminism even if they talk a “second wave” feminist talk, to employ some internal consistency. In the direction of their actions, not their words, of course.
Too, too many women take it as read that I, like they, will vote Democrat – on every issue, in every election. Within minutes of meeting me, they actually say things like, “I assume you’re a progressive…” and then continue without waiting for a response. Most of the time I don’t disabuse them, which might be cowardly but which I think of as “choosing my battles”: my vote doesn’t change based on their “feelings” or how they express them, and my presence in the discussion allows me (a) to interject a point here or there that doesn’t necessarily damage my cred with them but might (you never know) get them thinking with their brains instead of their vaginas, and (b) to continue to see into their side, which I find very useful. Not telling them I vote R is also, of course, more comfortable for me, and that’s perfectly consistent with my being an individualist rather than a collectivist. So I embrace the collective – or at least don’t buck the collective – in social discourse with women who seem to need “consensus” in order to function, stand away from it when I know the social group can accept an outlier and still retain friendliness, and reject it utterly as public policy. You gonna take MY vote away? (Just try it, mister! ;-) )
al, the way my husband makes a tuna melt is to mix up a good tuna salad, starting if possible with some home-canned tuna (which we don’t make but we have an occasional source – YUM!) and using lots of garlic because that’s his SOP, spread it thickly on good bread (I prefer sourdough but he doesn’t like it, so only sometimes do I get my wish), open-face, and broil it with Monterey jack cheese until the cheese is bubbly and browning. Yes indeed, you can serve it with chips.
Thank you Jamie. Something tells me that you’ve just improved the quality of my life a little.
Of course, that’s until I eat 4 tuna melts and a whole bag of chips every day for a month. Then the returns will have dimished.
dimished is a culinary term for diminished.
Sarah Palin is a gutless, sheltered coward who’d be spittin’ out her fuckin smile if she opened her mouth in the real world.
Hicks are ignorant. Trash gets buried at the dump. To the curb with Sarah Palin.
yeoman’s work thor. Buddy Ryan-like.
He is a poet, al.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE2_uqLpBXU
[…] at it again, and it’s a fun read as […]
Charles, I may not look like it or always act like it, but deep down, I am a geek.
And frankly, the parallels to that book do be much scary, sometimes.
Wait, “Biden won on points”?
How many points was he granted per obvious lie that the MSM hasn’t bothered to cover? How many points was he spotted for being a leftie?
Biden’s debate performance was like that old 3 Stooges show about “the Liar’s Club.”
“He is a poet, al.”
A shitty one at that, too. Does he do anything well?
Palin is not a progressive feminist. The progressive program seeks to ensure circumstantial equality in the face of manifest physical inequality. Progressive feminism requires political-economic orthodoxy because this circumstantial equality can only be obtained by redistributing wealth from some citizens to to others. This is a political act requiring party unity.
There does exist an individualist version of feminism. It recognizes that circumstantial equality is neither possible nor desirable, for the same reasons that Madison cites against eradicating the problem of faction in Federalist #10. Since circumstantial equality will exist, the notion of social equality must not rest on equivalence but rather on a notion of overall equality of responsibility. For example, women may not be drafted, they do not have a legal responsibility to defend the state, so presumably they will have some compensatory responsibilities that men do not have. I have yet to encounter an explanation of how that would work. In the wider sense, what different but equal responsibilities do men and women have in this brave new world?
I think such an account is necessary to social harmony.
I should like it, pace thor, that instead of Sarah Palin, feminism gets kicked to the curb. Why should any movement exist that extols a half of the species and condemns the other half?
Feminism has never appealed to me, for the good and simple reason that I am male. It has nothing to offer me, and indeed prefers to see me as part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
Now a good academic feminist will counter that actually, when the patriarchy is washed away, men will gain true freedom as well, and individualism will reign. But this is bunk. Feminism champions a certain hyper-redacted ideal of femininity (defined as intellectual inwardness and self-abnegation) and spits at the sight of masculinity, whosoever should display it.
Anything smacking of masculine heroics or self-containement is “questioned” “re-examined” “subject to ‘Critical Thinking'” or in other words, drowned in a sea of dull hair-splitting verbiage. Genuflection towards collective understanding and interdependence and self-criticism are the shibboleths that must be mouthed before any statement may be uttered. It’s religion without the metaphysics, and thus, as hateful to the human spirit and the human condition as the worst of religious bigotry. It is anti-human.
Let has have not feminism, nor masculinism (“patriarchy” which really did have its really bad points), but humanism. Any purported humanism which despises half the human race is nothing of the sort.