Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - Feminism, Chivalry and the Civil War in the Left

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March 12, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

23:53

Feminism, Chivalry and the Civil War in the Left

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	So in 2011, a group of feminist psychologists decided that chivalry is actually benevolent sexism.
	Continuing feminism's storied history of complaining about first world problems, these researchers created a list of damaging acts, such as helping a woman to choose the right computer, calling a group of both men and women guys, or offering to do the driving on a long distance journey.
	Other transgressions included calling a woman chick, showering her with unwanted affection, or saying that you cannot live without her, could also be sexist.
	The core premise of all of this is essentially, women don't need no man, as there are apparently many acts of unnoticed sexism taking place every day through acts or comments that suggest women could not cope without men's help.
	They said that the victims might be unaware of the damage, but the acts were helping to create a culture of women being seen as the vulnerable sex and encouraging inequality and injustice.
	And the study apparently concluded that men and women were just unaware of just how sexist everyone in the world is.
	But not only that, women are also guilty of sexism.
	Against women.
	Apparently, women endorse sexist beliefs in part because they do not attend to the subtle aggregate forms of sexism in their personal lives.
	They said making people aware of the sexism would help change attitudes and help men feel empathy for the women who are the victims, the victims, of benevolent sexism.
	I think by benevolent sexism they actually mean female privilege.
	Of course, if they started saying that, it makes it rather difficult to paint women as an oppressed minority.
	But one thing it also does is make modern day chivalry transgressive to feminism.
	But is it actually sexism?
	Well, yes, yes it is.
	It absolutely is sexist.
	It absolutely does reflect attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of gender roles.
	The problem is that feminists have spent so long in their echo chambers they've convinced themselves beyond all reason that the only effects of gender roles were negative for women.
	They focused entirely on those parts of gender roles that they personally didn't like and completely ignored the benefits of gender roles.
	It is absolutely logical that feminists would come to the conclusion that chivalry is a bad thing, a transgressive thing for women and feminism.
	Just look at this picture.
	There is no way in hell a man would be doing this for another man.
	As you can imagine, there are quite a few women who want to consider themselves as strong empowered feminists but are also comfortable enough with gender roles that they don't want to lose their female privilege.
	Usually this is because gender roles are working for them.
	One of these people is Emma Watson, our he for she hashtag advocate and enemy of gender roles everywhere.
	Kind of.
	Except Emma is an attractive woman and like other attractive women they are benefiting from gender roles.
	They are benefiting directly from the patriarchy.
	So naturally they are actually going to defend the concept of being discriminated against based on their sex and say that it is in fact compatible with feminism.
	Emma recently spoke about the intersection of chivalry and feminism, which is a lot like talking about the intersection of oil and water.
	She says, I love having the door open for me.
	I love being taken to dinner.
	But I think the key is, would you mind if I open the door for you?
	Needless to say, this is tantamount to Emma saying, well, instead of you letting me go first, why don't we both go first?
	Both Watson and the author of this article are about to engage in some convenient double think that basically involves ignoring the definition of words.
	She goes on to say that chivalry and feminism are not mutually exclusive.
	I am a feminist, I believe in the social, economic and political equality of both and every gender.
	Two sentences which are self-evidently oxymoronic.
	Modern chivalry is a code of conduct that gives women a privileged status in society, and modern feminism is arguing specifically that women should not be discriminated against based on their gender.
	This is of course a case of wanting to have one's cake and eat it too.
	Watson stresses that her own version of feminist chivalry is very awkward and uncomfortable and it apparently did not go down well with her date.
	Watson goes on to praise this though by saying, The cool thing about it is that we were both willing to have the conversation about why it was awkward or why it was uncomfortable.
	We were able to have this dialogue, which is just cringeworthy.
	I mean, Watson, it makes you sound like a fruitcake.
	I know we're supposed to be here on a date and see if we're interested in each other romantically, but I'd like to have a dialogue about gender roles and feminism if you don't mind.
	Our self-professed feminist author continues by saying, like Watson, I believe in chivalry.
	I love being taken out on dates, being bought a drink, a meal, or better still, a dessert.
	I appreciate doors being held open, car doors being opened, and being asked to order first in a restaurant.
	Well, of course you do.
	Of course you would like these things.
	These are all very nice things.
	These are all the perks of being a woman in a society that has a code of conduct towards women.
	I'm sure you've got no desire to give them up, but when you say that doesn't make me a hypocrite, you are wrong.
	So you can be tired of being told that it does all you want.
	But you are a hypocrite.
	Proudly proclaiming that you enjoy the benefits of being discriminated in favour of, while saying that you don't want to be discriminated against because of your gender, is hypocritical.
	Our author says that she grew up in Texas, where southern geniality reigned supreme and feminism was a label akin to a scarlet letter.
	And the author gives an example of her friend, who was born and raised in Texas and who is not only not a feminist, but is, by all accounts, an anti-feminist.
	And she compares this with a New York friend of hers who very much understands why feminists can't be the recipient of chivalry.
	She says, I don't feel comfortable with a guy buying my drinks or waiting for me to get out of the elevator first.
	Why?
	Because I'm a feminist.
	The author says that the supposed tension between chivalry and feminism was brought into sharpest relief when I left Texas for college in the northeast.
	For the first time, men didn't hold doors open, they didn't automatically offer to pick up the tab, and they didn't offer their coat.
	You're a feminist, aren't you?
	Wouldn't you be offended if they did do those things, people would ask, because obviously they understand that chivalry is discriminatory in favour of women, and feminists have been asking not to be discriminated against.
	She says, I don't believe for a second that being a feminist and wanting to be treated with equal respect and dignity means that I want to have my cake and eat it too.
	It is not asking to be treated with equal respect and dignity, because if that's what you were asking for, you would be asking to be treated like a man.
	And you'll notice that men aren't chivalrous to each other.
	She then goes on to argue that feminism cannot place itself at odds with human decency and kindness.
	Chivalry is not human decency and kindness.
	Chivalry, modern chivalry, is specifically a method of privileging women at the expense of men.
	She then goes on to hilariously say we as women cannot deny ourselves simple pleasures in life.
	Simple pleasures of being chivalrously served by men.
	Because this author realises that she is losing privileges.
	And she's losing them due to feminism.
	But the thing is, there's no getting around it.
	Because this article wasn't written in response to the 2011 article.
	This article was written three days ago in response to brand new feminist research that indeed reveals that chivalry could indicate hidden sexism.
	Men who demonstrate well-intentioned sexism are said to see women as warm and pure, yet helpless and incompetent.
	This study is basically the same as the 2011 one.
	Men who open doors for women are as guilty of sexism as those who are rude to them, according to new study.
	Which is true.
	That is absolutely categorically true.
	Psychologist Jin Go of Northeastern University Boston said, while many people are sensitive to sexist verbal offenses, they may not readily associate sexism with warmth and friendliness.
	Unless sexism is understood as having both hostile and benevolent properties, the insidious nature of benevolent sexism will continue to be one of the driving forces behind gender inequality in our society.
	The reason that people don't often associate sexism with warmth and friendliness, and therefore chivalry, is because feminists have been using it wrong.
	All these years when you'd hear a feminist say, that's sexist, what they actually meant to say is that's chauvinist.
	It's important to note the difference.
	Chauvinism is the denigration or disparagement or patronisation of either sex based on the belief that one sex is inferior to the other and thus deserving less than equal treatment or benefit.
	And sexism is attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of gender roles.
	This in itself is not inherently pejorative, unless, of course, you hate traditional gender roles.
	Which is why when feminists use it, they use it as a pejorative insult.
	But those women enjoying such benefits, such as Rebecca Watson and the author of the Bustle article, they are also sexists.
	They are also advocating for those traditional stereotypes based on gender roles that they were enjoying the privileges of so much.
	Professor Judith Hall really sums up everything that needs to be said about this.
	Benevolent sexism is like a wolf in sheep's clothing that perpetuates support for gender inequality amongst women at an interpersonal level.
	That's true.
	That is absolutely true.
	Women being given privileges above men is not gender equality.
	Therefore, it needs to be stopped.
	She's absolutely bang on the money.
	And it's at this point that what people want feminism to be and the actual logical reality of what feminism is part ways.
	For example, here is an article from the Telegraph of a man complaining that because being chivalrous towards women, as in discriminating in favour of women, is sexist, which it absolutely is, he is now complaining that he is a sexist.
	Basically, this man wants to enjoy a world where there are clearly defined gender roles, but he doesn't want it said that there are clearly defined gender roles.
	He says, so it's official.
	Holding a door open for a woman is as sexist as shouting obscenities at her.
	That's correct, my friend.
	Oh, and smiling at a woman while playing a board game means you're a sexist pig too.
	Yes, seriously.
	Yes, indeed.
	It's not wrong to be sexist if you are in favour of gender roles.
	And it's not wrong to be in favour of gender roles.
	The people who are not in favour of gender roles are radical feminists who do university studies to confirm that in fact yes, men and women discriminate based on gender.
	As with the previous article written by the female writer analysing Emma Watson's words.
	This man is not happy in any way about being called a sexist, even though that is exactly what he is doing.
	He says the men were being scrutinized through the jaundiced lens of feminist science for subtle sexist traits.
	Think about that.
	How 54 American undergraduates interacted while playing trivial pursuit allows us to condemn 50% of humanity as secret sexists.
	It's not just 50%.
	It's almost all of humanity is sexist.
	Almost all of humanity differentiates between men and women, discriminates based on traditional stereotypes of gender roles.
	So our white knight here sums up the study as such.
	The study concluded that nice guys are actually the most sexist guys.
	And he's right.
	White knights are absolutely the most sexist guys.
	People don't white knight for men.
	But people absolutely do harass both men and women on the internet.
	While the writers of both of these articles are ostensibly feminists, they are both moderates who don't really want to stray too far from the status quo.
	They would probably fall somewhere within the red circle on a political compass.
	And what they are seeing is research and attitudes done by people who fall into the extreme radical reformist fringe that wants to see, at least in this case, gender roles completely abolished because, technically, they are a form of sexism.
	The issue really is that the left wing doesn't really seem to understand that it is currently engaged in a civil war with its own most extreme elements.
	Which is why someone from The Guardian is writing, if left wingers like me are condemned as right wing, then what's left?
	You probably already know, but this is what's been happening in Gamergate as well.
	Gamergate being condemned as a right-wing mob, because the opponents of Gamergate are so left-wing, anything else is to the right.
	So our poor beleaguered Guardian writer says, I am a lefty.
	I've voted Labour all my life.
	I believe in the abolition of public schools and the inviolability of the NHS, and that the renewal of Trident is a vanity project.
	I believe the state must work to ensure the equality of opportunity for all.
	Women, the LGBT community, those with disabilities, those of minority cultures and ethnicities, and the working class.
	The Guardian has been my newspaper forever.
	I was glad to see the back of The Sun's page 3, and I believe there should be more all-women shortlists for parliamentary seats.
	I believe immigration is a more positive force than a negative one.
	However, you might be less certain about my status when I finish laying out my stall, because I find myself holding a transgressive body of beliefs and doubts alongside my blue-chip left-wing ones, that are liable to get me branded a misogynist, an Islamophobe, and a Little Englander, at least by people on my Twitter feed and others of my peer group.
	I'm sure you can already see where this is going, but for the sake of completeness, I'm just going to finish off exactly what he's saying.
	He says, these beliefs are more like questions, largely about identity politics, those deep and dangerous rift valleys of the left.
	I believe the jury is still out on whether the gender identity is entirely constructed.
	I question whether the gender pay gap in Britain is as large as sometimes suggested, and wonder whether it may have as much to do with the way it's calculated and with the choices women make after having children, as much as it does with patriarchy and prejudice.
	I am not convinced that jihadists have nothing to do with Islam, although this strikes me as largely a theological and semantic point.
	I'm even wary of moderate Islam for the same reason I'm wary of moderate Christianity.
	To acknowledge that grooming gangs and female genital mutilation and tendencies towards homophobia and gender oppression have arisen out of some of the matrices of Muslim practices and belief systems adds to my unease.
	I believe more in free speech than I do in safe spaces in universities.
	I do not think people with unpleasant opinions should be prosecuted or even denied a platform unless they directly threaten to incite violence or lawbreaking.
	I do not think political correctness is a myth, although I prefer the term groupthink.
	But that is a system of thought that has a real impact on public policy and institutional behaviour.
	Regular viewers of my channel might be thinking that this all sounds remarkably familiar.
	Returning to our author, he says, My stance on these issues makes many people in my tribe very angry.
	It is the anger of the pure believer towards the apostate.
	However, I can find echoes of my own populist worldview in one strand of the left, that represented by the Spiked Webb magazine, which grew out of the ashes of living Marxism and the Revolutionary Communist Party, once known as the libertarian or anti-Stalinist left.
	Describing their philosophy as radical humanism, they poke and prod at the sacred cows of the left, but from a socialist rather than a right-wing populist position.
	I know I'm reading a lot here and I'm not really commentating, but there's very little I need to say in addition to this.
	I mean, he says, one very key element of the liberal left that's long been under threat, it's liberalism.
	That is, it's willingness to debate with anything outside the narrow range of opinions, within its own walls.
	And that, the more scary and incomprehensible the world becomes, the more the debate is replaced by edict and prejudice, literally pre-judging.
	I completely agree with this statement.
	This is entirely the problem with the left at the moment.
	The radicals have taken over, and these radicals wield identity politics as their weapon.
	I mean, the author even says, identity politics is one of the most significant developments of the last 50 years, but it's led to nerves being exposed in a way that they rarely were by economic issues, because identity is less about politics and more about the most sensitive of human constructions, the protection of the self.
	This is a great point, and it's exactly the method by which the extreme radical feminists have co-opted the entire left through shame, through public shaming using labels.
	I will determine your identity for you.
	I will call you a racist, a homophobe, an Islamophobe, whatever kind of label you want.
	They are going to try and determine your identity so other people will have preconceived notions about you.
	Which is a method of control that, as our author points out, it causes people to self-censor, because they know they are going to get rocks thrown at them.
	Not by their enemies, but by their friends.
	I'm sure that you can think of times when this has happened.
	When someone, instead of tolerating a different opinion, the ideological echo chamber has descended on the one dissenter like a hate mob to punish them for their transgression.
	I'd like to give you an example of this in action, where the extreme radical fringe is trying to drum up support against the moderates who helped it achieve power.
	Anti-gay bigotry is still a problem we need to radicalize again.
	A call for radicalization in a left-wing publication.
	As if the author is just unaware that radicalization is in itself one of the great evils of the modern era.
	She says, despite the advent of gay marriage and public support for it, attitudes towards homosexuality show our work is not done.
	So our author, Julie Bindle, starts by saying, nowadays we, homosexuals, enjoy full legal equality with heterosexuals, and fewer of us are in the closet.
	We have so-called national treasures who are lesbian and gay, and we can even be represented in a Tory party cabinet.
	So you might be thinking to yourself, well, what is the need for this article then?
	The gay and straight survey results show that both groups are overwhelmingly in support of legal equality, with 88.7% and 85.8% respectively agreeing that they support the legislation.
	However, when the author asked, have you experienced anti-lesbian slash gay prejudice, a shocking 78.1% said yes, which included 26.8% describing physical assault and 60% of straight respondents had directly witnessed at least one incident of anti-gay bigotry or prejudice.
	So what needs to happen next?
	There is no doubt that cultural and social attitudes are miles behind legislation.
	And for this reason, we must somehow find a way to become a radical political movement again.
	That is indeed radical.
	That is insanely radical.
	The public completely supports equality for homosexuals under the law.
	However, that's not good enough.
	Now we need to pursue some absurd utopian plot that will involve Orwellianly controlling people, not just ensuring equality under the law, but instead policing what people think and feel and how they behave in social settings.
	She says, whatever our differences are, we need to support each other to eradicate every last bit of prejudice in the hope that one day we can perhaps do away with the labels lesbian and gay altogether.
	What an absurd statement.
	What an absurdly radical statement.
	The pursuit of this lesbian and gay utopia would be transgressive to the principles of personal and individual liberty.
	Julie Bindle probably falls around where the blue circle is on this political compass.
	The person who wrote the previous article complaining about the radicalization of the left probably falls into the red circle on the political compass.
	And herein lies the problem.
	These people, while they might have some shared principles, need to find a way of differentiating themselves politically.
	Because otherwise, when you get articles like this, Everyday Sexism, What It Really Looks Like for Women, a 23-year-old photographer has created a series of photographs showing how male entitlement and sexism affect women in the workplace, at home and in daily life, the points they make will be equally applicable to moderate, temperate, reasonable, middle-left people who agree with traditional gender roles and chivalry to a degree,
	as they do with women molesting chauvinists.
	For example, I was particularly determined to express the idea that the oppression of women does not occur in extreme isolated incidents, violent rape and physical abuse, but can also be felt in lesser forms during the day-to-day.
	And the concept of male entitlement is represented by male arms and hands performing a variety of actions that are overwhelmingly intrusive on her body and her life.
	Yet in each situation she maintains a blank expression, a visual choice that demonstrates how conditioned we as women have become to accept this atmosphere as excusable and even normal.
	In their minds, sexism, the expression of gender roles in society, is oppressive.
	They say as much in the beginning of the article.
	And chivalrous expressions of sexism, such as holding the door, pulling out a lady's chair, opening the car door for her, paying for the bills, these are all intrusive in her life.
	And they will, of course, be represented by male arms and hands performing a variety of actions.
	As necessary as it is that the left divorces itself from its most radical elements that are calling the shots, they do make this blog post by Greg Kostykian highly, highly entertaining, as if it wasn't already.
	This blog was deleted from Gama Sutra with good reason.
	He starts by saying, what the fuck is wrong with you people?
	And he finishes by calling out all of Gaminggate to a duel, a literal duel, to defend the honour of Anita Serkeesian, Zoe Quinn, Leia Alexander, or yes, Anna Anthropy.
	He says, I will be willing to meet any of you, on horse or afoot, with sword or pistol, at the time and place of your choosing.
	Well I'm sorry to say it Greg you giant white knight faggot, but that is fucking transgressive.

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