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Aug. 27, 2014 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
16:08
Feminism Needs Orthodoxy
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Hello everyone.
So Goodfellow made a video asking feminists how we can tell if they are real feminists and how we can tell which ones aren't real feminists.
Now I'm sure that you've probably had feminists say to you, oh yes, but those people aren't real feminists, because they're doing something that looks morally indefensible and I'm currently the one stepping up to defend feminism.
I don't know who free thought blogs are and now I've got a much lower opinion of them.
And not because they were told dicks about it.
I'm fine with them being told dicks.
I'm more concerned that they were complete morons.
Let's get straight to the first question.
Who is the current leader of the feminist movement?
This article is a reply to a reply to Goodfellow's video, but they're both done by feminists.
And I'm probably going to leave out the first one because they're generally a bit thick.
So, Gloria Steinen was apparently not the uncontested leader of feminism.
She was prominent, sure, still is.
There are a lot of contemporary women who were looked up to.
Jermaine Greer, Bella Abzurg, Betty Friedman, Barbara Jordan, etc.
Even at the turn of the last century when feminists were fighting for the vote, there was a National Women's Suffrage Association, an Every American Woman's Suffrage Association.
As you might expect from a grassroots movement, it has always been diverse.
Bollocks.
I've seen plenty of feminists complaining about the whitewashing of feminism.
But the question is absurd.
Actually, no, it's not.
It's very important, because you and all other feminists seem to have your own definitions of what feminism is, and when it's inconvenient, the other people aren't actually feminists anymore.
So we need to know who this is in advance.
Anyway, who is the current absolute leader of Scotland?
I find it very interesting you would need an absolute leader, or that you think leadership is absolute.
I don't see why feminism has to be a totalitarian dictatorship, but there is something innately totalitarian about the feminist mind.
So I'm not surprised that you went there.
But the current leader of Scotland would be Queen Elizabeth II.
Who can I turn to to determine what the correct answer to the upcoming vote for Scottish independence?
Well, that would be the Scottish people in the referendum they are going to have.
When is feminism going to have a national referendum?
Who is the current pope of atheism?
Missing the point.
Atheism isn't an ideology.
Feminism is an ideology.
In fact, I would say it's a religion.
So, yeah, it might be wise for you to gain some sort of pope-like figure.
Not all religions have to have them, but there usually is a head of the faith.
The British monarch in Anglicanism, the Pope in Catholicism, and it used to be the Caliph in Islam.
And it works really well, because it establishes orthodoxy, you moron.
Anyway, who decrees what atheists believe?
No, the point is they don't believe.
It doesn't matter what they believe outside of the idea of them not believing in deity, because that is what atheism is.
Anything else other than that is some other weird ideology that no one cares about.
Who is the maximum leader of evolution?
Moron.
Who determines all the correct answers are?
Peer review.
But feminism doesn't have peer review.
It's a very authoritarian kind of question, for someone clearly uncomfortable with the idea that there can be an egalitarian movement without a hierarchy and without a person occupying the pinnacle of the pyramid.
Oh my god, you are all anarcho-feminists, aren't you?
What I find authoritarian is when you can't really imagine a hierarchy that isn't authoritarian.
Any kind of hierarchy in your mind appears to be authoritarian.
But what bothers me most about this is that authoritarianism is absolutely something feminism is just fine with.
This is why you need some sort of organisation.
You do appear to need some sort of church.
Question 2.
Where can I go to find an official detailed list of the goals of feminism?
The Wikipedia article isn't a bad start.
It at least makes it clear that there are diverse elements within feminism.
But again, stupid question.
It's like asking for the atheist Bible.
No, it's not.
Because the goals of atheism, even though it doesn't have goals, because it's not a movement, would just be, don't believe in God.
You can't give us the goals of feminism.
They're different for every feminist.
But quit trying to shoehorn ideas into your preconceptions.
Yes, it's a terribly inaccurate preconception to assume that feminism must have a goal.
This is the point, though.
If you don't have goals, if you don't know what you're trying to achieve, how will you know when you have achieved it?
This is why we keep saying feminism is like a religion.
It just seems to be designed to go on and to perpetuate itself.
It doesn't seem to be trying to fix any real problems, because any real problems that it was originally trying to fix appear to have been fixed.
And now, feminists are scrambling desperately for any kind of minor problem they can find in the West, whereas they should actually be going East.
You know, the problems are now in the East.
You can go!
Go!
Go and protest in Saudi Arabia.
Be the martyr you want to be.
Question 3.
What is the difference between a feminist and egalitarian?
Again, an important distinction to make.
Mare.
If ever there was a word that started a sentence that filled me with confidence into reading the next couple of paragraphs written by whoever typed this out into their computer like a spastic chimp, it's the word meh.
I consider myself an egalitarian.
I simply don't accept that we can have privileged classes of people.
Communism is ideally egalitarian, but that doesn't mean the terms are synonymous.
No, it doesn't.
My answer to this one is that feminists are egalitarian, but what they're doing is focusing on one pressing issue.
This is reasonable and necessary.
So while a feminist can be entirely for racial equality, for instance, they can also recognise that women have a unique subset of concerns that differ from the unique subset of concerns that black Americans may have.
It does no one any favours to consolidate their cause under more general umbrella.
It means that their particular concerns get diluted.
Multiple problems, multiple approaches.
I guess another idea authoritarians can't comprehend.
You see, the problem you're having is that that definition makes feminism sexist.
I would actually excuse this if feminists didn't go after MRAs with quite so much vitriolic fear.
You are not a part of egalitarianism.
You are a female supremacist movement and everyone can see it.
4.
What is the difference between a real feminist and someone who is not a real feminist?
This is essentially the problem everyone is currently having.
Anyone can call themselves a feminist.
Fucking brilliant.
If anyone can call themselves a feminist, then feminism isn't really going to get very far, because if we want to defeat you, we will simply call ourselves feminists, and de facto we will all be feminists, and then we can eat your movement from the inside out.
Idiots.
Anyone can call themselves egalitarian too.
White supremacists like to declare that they aren't against black people.
They just want them to live the lives of happiness and contentment to which their brains have been adapted.
Which whatever, I don't care.
My definition of a feminist is someone who recognises the inequities towards women in the present system and argues for the changing of the status quo.
Someone who claims to be a feminist and then denies that there is discrimination or claims the current system gives nothing but advantages to women is not a good feminist.
Right, okay, we're getting somewhere.
What gives you the authority to say this, though?
Where does your definition of a feminist get its legitimacy from?
Don't you understand that all you've done is changed the words you're using?
It's not a real feminist now, it's a good feminist.
The others just can be bad feminists or non-feminists.
It's the same fucking thing.
Who officially speaks for feminism?
Question five.
What have you actively done in the name of feminism?
I don't think this question is entirely necessary, but since you are what you repeatedly do, it does need to be answered.
You do need to act like a feminist if you're going to be a feminist.
But the answer's stupid, so anyway, anti-feminism is a state of mind that implements legal and social challenges to women.
How can a state of mind implement a legal challenge?
Anyway, yeah, I'm sure it is challenges to women.
I think what you mean is challenges to feminists.
And of course, as a feminist, you oppose that.
I try to change people's minds and wake them up to the unfairness of the system.
What unfairness?
What possible unfairness are women experiencing?
Do you think there's unfairness in the divorce cause, perhaps?
I mean, the fact that men commit suicide like six times more frequently than women makes me think that if there's any unfairness, it's probably towards them because I don't think that the oppressors commit suicide more often than the oppressed.
But um, anyway, again, I suspect an authoritarian mindset at work.
We're trying to persuade and educate.
I think that you're projecting.
You're trying to brainwash and browbeat.
Some people seem to think that unless it involves heavy machinery, armoured footwear, and sweat-drenched muscles rippling, it ain't real.
Strawman.
That argument has only ever been made by you.
And I don't know whether you remember, but it was your camp that was saying, hey, let's start banning words.
I suppose we'll be burning books next.
Fucking hell.
I'm afraid to Google feminist witch hunts, just in case I find feminists burning witches as well.
But don't tell me, they weren't real feminists.
Are you starting to see why you might need some kind of hierarchy?
And lastly, question seven.
How come I am nowhere to be found when bad feminists are giving feminism a bad name?
That's a good question.
Why do feminists never stand up to not real feminists when not real feminists are making feminists look like a bunch of cunts?
This was part of the Scottish idiot's rant.
There you go, good fella, you're the Scottish idiot now.
I found most offensive and most revealing.
Oh, that's relevant.
That's really relevant.
How offended you are answers that question.
He gives specific examples of bad feminists.
Those women who participate in slut walks.
His example of bad feminism is a woman who is women who led campaigns that declared rather than telling women how to avoid getting raped, we ought to tell men not to rape.
That is.
It's a presumption of guilt, you moron.
That's offensive, he says.
Yes, he does say that because he finds it offensive.
You don't get to determine that it's not offensive.
Do you understand?
Especially when you started this paragraph saying, oh, what I found most offensive, like a fucking pansy.
Anyway, he wants good feminists to tell those offensive women to shut up.
Not necessarily women.
They could be men.
It's horrible to tell men that they're potential rapists.
It is.
It's utterly fucking disgusting.
It is.
But I know that we should also not feel so bad about telling black people that they're potential thieves.
You know, I mean, uh a black guy stole my bike.
They're all they're all thieves.
I know they're all thieves.
And they're all potential thieves if they haven't actually stolen something yet.
You fucking cunts.
They're just bigoted.
I don't use the word cunt often and because I really think it's got impact and I I think it's justified here.
Anyway, that these not real feminists are walking around with placards telling men to take responsibility for their actions and the actions of other men.
Yet he's going to yell at women that they have to take responsibility for signs that he doesn't like.
They all claim to be part of the same movement.
Men are not part of a movement.
They are individuals.
So your short answer to that is fuck off wanker.
Oh my god, you are just such a raging cocknugger that you have no idea that every fucking thing you've said has been literally the stupidest thing that a human being has ever committed to type.
I can't believe you wrote this yourself.
I think you probably got a ghostwriter to do this.
Because I don't think you're fucking smart enough to master a word processor.
One thing feminism isn't about is pandering to the delusions of anti-feminists.
So I suppose if you are so completely disconnected from reality that these would seem like delusions.
He's dishonest.
No, he's not.
He's not looking to understand feminism.
You're right.
He knows what feminism is about.
The problem is, you don't.
You are such a fucking idiot.
You have no idea what feminism looks like from the outside.
And man, he's chattering a shitload of bigotry.
Hey, he's not the only one.
You're getting right on it.
I took a look at his channel, which is awesome.
You should all take a look at his channel.
Link in the description.
And there's nothing but whining at caricatures of feminists.
Actually, there's some pretty fucking hilarious caricatures of feminists.
And the thing about caricature is that it always strongly resembles the people it's of.
But why is he pretending to ask sincere questions now when he's got at least four years worth of lazy ranting?
You know what, if you commit to something for four years, it's not really very lazy.
But they round out this amazingly well thought out article.
With an amazingly well thought out comic.
I believe men are rational human beings, not mindless beasts enslaved by their own sex drives.
How magnanimous.
I believe men are emotionally mature and compassionate enough to treat all people with respect.
Which is a typical feminist sentiment.
I also know for a fact that men are intelligent and can recognise the benefits of gender equality for society as a whole, which is presumably why women can vote.
In short, I'm a feminist.
A feminist?
So why do you hate men?
Oh, feminists, it must be so frustrating, mustn't it?
How could she think that feminists hate men?
Let's ask some prominent feminist thinkers.
Feminism is built on believing women's accounts of sexual use and abuse by men.
Catherine McKinnon.
Right, that kinda seems anti-male.
All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman.
Catherine McKinnon.
Jesus, she seems to have some issues, doesn't she?
All men are rapists, and that's all they are.
Marilyn French.
All men are rapists, and that's all there are.
Marilyn French, again.
I really hope this one isn't a real feminist because she seems fucking loopy.
Rape is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.
If this were true, would you not think it the most damning indictment against the moral character of any man who's ever looked himself in the mirror and said to himself, I did the best I could for my wife and family today.
Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice.
Rape originally defined as abduction became marriage by capture.
Marriage meant the taking was to extend in time, to be not only use of, but possession of or ownership.
Andrea Dworkin.
Heterosexual intercourse is the pure formalised expression of contempt for women's bodies.
Andrea Dworkin.
In every century, there are a handful of writers who help the human race to evolve.
Andrea is one of them.
Gloria Steinem.
When a woman reaches orgasm with a man, she is only collaborating with the patriarchal system, eroticizing her own oppression.
Sheila Jeffries.
Stop me if any of these aren't actually real feminists.
Who cares how men feel or what they do or what they suffer?
They have had it over 2,000 years to dominate and made a complete hash of it.
Now it is our turn.
My only comment to men is, if you don't like it, bad luck.
And if you get in my way, I'll run you down.
Seriously.
Feminism.
You need some kind of organization.
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