That’s Entertainment
Mr. Stephen Guess has posted – nay, diarrhea of the keyboard is more like it – a few rebuttals, a “Case for Feminism” and all manner of reply to comments on his posts.
Many electrons have been spent replying to him. The buzz upon the internet has woken me o’ nights. I have read with interest, amusement, and bemusement. Mr. Guess’s postings have been erudite, and his naysayers have been succinct, and lethal in their – dare I say it? – deconstruction of him.
Overly verbose as well. The answer is simple: Feminism stands or falls on a single premise. That premise being that “Women are Oppressed.”
Mark the words carefully. Women. A class of people. Are. As in “Now.” Oppressed. A conscious act. It is the conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories; the most propeller headed notion I have ever heard, fodder for paranoiacs everywhere. It is bunk. Hookum. Poppycock. Balderdash. Baloney.
Two years ago a challenge was issued on a high-profile discussion list. It has yet to be met. I will repeat it here; however, the original may be found HERE.Â
 Name one way that western society oppresses women that abides by the following rule:
1. It has to be socially condoned.
To be socially condoned a oppressive meme, law or social bias has to be one of several things:
1. Invisible with no high profile, government funded groups educating the public about it.
2. Visible but socially acceptable with no high profile government funded groups or enforced laws attempting to eliminate it.
3. Visible and socially promoted with high profile government funded groups or enforced laws upholding it.
Conditions1. Which gender enforces the meme, law or social bias has no bearing. (If it did then female genital mutilation would not be oppression suffered by women in developing countries since it is mandated and carried out most often by other women.)
2. To be oppressive the meme, law or social bias merely has to restrict the choices and freedoms of one gender without corresponding restriction on the other. (For instance citing the restriction of females to certain roles would not count if males are likewise restricted to certain roles.)
It is that simple. And two years later it has yet to be answered.
This is because “opression” (Read carefully folks – as Rush Limbaugh likes to say, “Words mean things”) is an intentional thing, whether by thought, word, deed, or omission. This is different from “Consequence.” If I set out to go to the store, and turn left at the stop sign down the road, I am not going to get there, at least by the most direct route. That is a consequence of my error, or of my choice. Life is made of choices, and full of missteps. When one suffers a consequence of something, it is not oppression. Sometimes, too, those consequences are good – put a mitt on before you grab the frying pan, and you don’t get burned.
One does not need to go any further. Once the premise test is failed, it’s bad logic, plain and simple. If anything “right” about the theory is further postulated, it is coincidence, a case of a broken clock being right twice a day. It doesn’t validate it. Until the broken premise is fixed, any discussion of it is unnecessary.
Just stay on point.
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Stumble It!
January 31st, 2007 at 8:38 am
I’ll tell you what oppression is. Oppression is when radical feminists claim that any discussion of men’s issues is unimportant (and may be silenced from without) until all violence against women as initiated by men is first curtailed. This links men as a class with batterers as a class. The discussion of any issue of import to males is subdued until men first join together and act in the protector role en masse. To conceal, cover up, delegitimize, mock, belittle, ignore, and generally demote the concerns of men to a pro-feminist political agenda is, in my opinion, a textbook example of oppression.
When will these oppressors acknowledge the silent hell that men have been living in? As men embrace the provider/protector role, they put their lives and safety on the line as protectors. At the same time, such “protector” men have been concealing any indication that they have been attacked, impaled with an object, struck by a flying object, hit, kicked, scratched, stabbed, or otherwise assaulted by their female intimate partners. Men fail to report such assaults against them — research shows — because of the shame they feel about their manliness, about their lack of effectiveness as protectors of women. Men are raised (by women, no less) to embrace the idea that they must provide and protect for the benefit of women and to never complain about the burdens they bear, less they betray a sense of vulnerability and weakness (traits that are not compatible with a protector role).
Men are being victimized. They are shamed into hiding this fact. The shame imposed on them is oppression — a mental form of it that is communicated pervasively through upbringing and culture in subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways. Men’s issues will continue to be ignored — and men shamed into the protector role by the assertion that men are not protecting women “well enough — until men learn to express their grievances without shame. Woman hitting you? Report her. Woman exploiting you (as a sugar daddy, or as her personal security guard) for her own benefit? Drop her, with no remorse. Radical feminists oppressing you by shaming you into silence? Refute her by highlighting research on female-initiated abuse.
“A man is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others.” — Ayn Rand That’s a quote we should all embrace, ironically from a woman.
John Dias