May 11, 2021
Dear Friends and Family,
This is Segment 13 of the Nihilism series, titled “Feminists and Gender Studies.”
My Takeaways:
The first wave of the feminist movement began in the 18th century and continued up to the 1960s. The movement was successful in securing equal legal rights for women, including the right to vote, right to petition for divorce, equal guardianship over children, and equal inheritance of property.
The second wave commenced in the 1960s and lasted until the end of the 20th century. There the movement was successful in addressing unresolved issues underneath the basic rights of the first wave. These included rights for education, maternity leave, childcare support for women of employment, reproductive rights around contraception and abortion, as well as safety of women inside marriages as well as out of them.
Around the turn of the millennium, feminists priorities shifted, reorienting to feminist scholarship and activism by embracing the new Critical Theories. This led to adopting intersectionality with its multiple forms of identity, plus a need to view everything through the lens of potential oppression, bigotry, injustice and grievance. This included a vision where “patriarchal culture and male dominance no longer oppress women on earth.” Men are now often cast by the movement as unnecessary if not downright evil.
The corresponding gender studies are now heavily influenced by intersectional feminism which draws on Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, and Postcolonial Theory.
Next:
In next week’s segment, a basic education will be provided on transgender adults, including: What does it mean to be transgender? What causes an individual to be transgender? What is the neuroscience behind it? What are some common issues for transgender people such as dating and sex? Other items of interest are myths and misconceptions about trans people, gender confirmation surgery, suicide rates, discrimination of trans people, and counterviews.
Happy Learning,
Harley
Dear Friends and Family,
This is Segment 13 of the Nihilism series, titled “Feminists and Gender Studies.”
My Takeaways:
The first wave of the feminist movement began in the 18th century and continued up to the 1960s. The movement was successful in securing equal legal rights for women, including the right to vote, right to petition for divorce, equal guardianship over children, and equal inheritance of property.
The second wave commenced in the 1960s and lasted until the end of the 20th century. There the movement was successful in addressing unresolved issues underneath the basic rights of the first wave. These included rights for education, maternity leave, childcare support for women of employment, reproductive rights around contraception and abortion, as well as safety of women inside marriages as well as out of them.
Around the turn of the millennium, feminists priorities shifted, reorienting to feminist scholarship and activism by embracing the new Critical Theories. This led to adopting intersectionality with its multiple forms of identity, plus a need to view everything through the lens of potential oppression, bigotry, injustice and grievance. This included a vision where “patriarchal culture and male dominance no longer oppress women on earth.” Men are now often cast by the movement as unnecessary if not downright evil.
The corresponding gender studies are now heavily influenced by intersectional feminism which draws on Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, and Postcolonial Theory.
Next:
In next week’s segment, a basic education will be provided on transgender adults, including: What does it mean to be transgender? What causes an individual to be transgender? What is the neuroscience behind it? What are some common issues for transgender people such as dating and sex? Other items of interest are myths and misconceptions about trans people, gender confirmation surgery, suicide rates, discrimination of trans people, and counterviews.
Happy Learning,
Harley
NIHILISM: GOOD OR BAD? – SEGMENT 13
FEMINISTS AND GENDER STUDIES – EXCERPTS
THE FEMINISTS WAVE: It is widely accepted that the first wave of feminism was the one which began in the 18th century and continued in some estimations right up to the 1960s. The claims of first-wave feminism were defined by the demand for equal legal rights. The right to vote. But also, the right to petition for divorce, to have equal guardianship over children and the equal inheritance of property. The fight for these rights was long, but it was achieved.
The wave of feminism which began in the 1960s addressed the priorities that remained unresolved underneath those basic rights. Issues such as the rights of women to pursue their desired careers and to be supported in those aims. In America Betty Friedan and her allies championed the rights not only of women’s education but of maternity leave and childcare support for women in employment. These feminists argued for reproductive rights around contraception and abortion, for the safety of women inside marriages as well as out of them. The aim of these feminists was to help get women to the place where they would have an equal shot in their lives and careers comparable to men.
Source: The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray.
FEMINISM THEN AND NOW: Something changed in feminism around the turn of the millennium. These changes reoriented most feminist scholarship and activism, as a surprising number of activists took up a new, “increasingly sophisticated” approach called “intersectionality,” which combined many forms of identity Theory. The liberal, materialist, and radical approaches that had characterized feminism for much of the previous century were almost wholly displaced by the new intersectional approach. Multiple axes of marginalized identity were Theorized into existence right under the noses of the earlier feminists and, with them, a new need to read everything through the lens that magnifies potential oppression, bigotry, injustice, and grievance – and one’s own complicity in systems of power and privilege. From the outside, the intersectional approach seems grating, fractious, and incomprehensible. It appears to operate like a kind of circular firing squad, continually undermining itself over petty differences and grievances. It is hard to escape the impression, which is accurate, that it isn’t possible to do anything right, perhaps by design.
Feminism research now looks at men and women of many different social groups, not just white women. It is sensitive to multicultural perspectives and tries not to impose Western comparisons in data analysis. It is exploring the intricate and reciprocal interplay of gender, sex, and sexuality. By recognizing the multiplicity of genders, sexes, and sexualities, feminist research is able to go beyond the conventional binaries. The problem they have begun to solve is how to generate categories for comparison, even while critically deconstructing them. Plainly, gender studies are no longer about gender expectations of women as determined by reproductive function, but a sprawling field of study tackling a much more complex and unruly collections of identities – all essentially in the same way, by looking for “problematics” to complain about until they find them.
SUMMARY: The dominant form of feminism within gender studies, then, is intersectional feminism, which draws on Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory and Postcolonial Theory. Following this shift by 2006 feminism within gender studies came to rely on four main tenets: (1) Gender is highly significant to the way power is structured in society, (2) Gender is socially constructed, (3) Gendered power structures privilege men, and (4) Gender is combined with other forms of identity which must be acknowledged, and that knowledge is relative and attached to identity. Finally, the attempt to make all analyses of gender intersectional, to focus relentlessly on a simplistic concept of societal privilege, rooted overwhelmingly in identity (and not in economics) and to incorporate the elements of Critical Race Theory and Queer Theory, results in a highly muddled, Theoretical, and abstract analysis that makes it difficult – if not impossible – to reach any conclusions other than the oversimplification that straight white men are unfairly privileged and need to repent and get out of everyone else’s way.
Source: Cynical Theories by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay (2020)
BREAKING THEIR OWN PROMISE: The National Organization of Women (NOW) as it was in the late 1960s and through the 1970s, was driven by a Statement of Purpose that has actually been disowned by the current gang. Here are the first few lines of the brilliant original document, along with the disclaimers of today’s NOW.
FEMINISTS AND GENDER STUDIES – EXCERPTS
THE FEMINISTS WAVE: It is widely accepted that the first wave of feminism was the one which began in the 18th century and continued in some estimations right up to the 1960s. The claims of first-wave feminism were defined by the demand for equal legal rights. The right to vote. But also, the right to petition for divorce, to have equal guardianship over children and the equal inheritance of property. The fight for these rights was long, but it was achieved.
The wave of feminism which began in the 1960s addressed the priorities that remained unresolved underneath those basic rights. Issues such as the rights of women to pursue their desired careers and to be supported in those aims. In America Betty Friedan and her allies championed the rights not only of women’s education but of maternity leave and childcare support for women in employment. These feminists argued for reproductive rights around contraception and abortion, for the safety of women inside marriages as well as out of them. The aim of these feminists was to help get women to the place where they would have an equal shot in their lives and careers comparable to men.
Source: The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray.
FEMINISM THEN AND NOW: Something changed in feminism around the turn of the millennium. These changes reoriented most feminist scholarship and activism, as a surprising number of activists took up a new, “increasingly sophisticated” approach called “intersectionality,” which combined many forms of identity Theory. The liberal, materialist, and radical approaches that had characterized feminism for much of the previous century were almost wholly displaced by the new intersectional approach. Multiple axes of marginalized identity were Theorized into existence right under the noses of the earlier feminists and, with them, a new need to read everything through the lens that magnifies potential oppression, bigotry, injustice, and grievance – and one’s own complicity in systems of power and privilege. From the outside, the intersectional approach seems grating, fractious, and incomprehensible. It appears to operate like a kind of circular firing squad, continually undermining itself over petty differences and grievances. It is hard to escape the impression, which is accurate, that it isn’t possible to do anything right, perhaps by design.
Feminism research now looks at men and women of many different social groups, not just white women. It is sensitive to multicultural perspectives and tries not to impose Western comparisons in data analysis. It is exploring the intricate and reciprocal interplay of gender, sex, and sexuality. By recognizing the multiplicity of genders, sexes, and sexualities, feminist research is able to go beyond the conventional binaries. The problem they have begun to solve is how to generate categories for comparison, even while critically deconstructing them. Plainly, gender studies are no longer about gender expectations of women as determined by reproductive function, but a sprawling field of study tackling a much more complex and unruly collections of identities – all essentially in the same way, by looking for “problematics” to complain about until they find them.
SUMMARY: The dominant form of feminism within gender studies, then, is intersectional feminism, which draws on Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory and Postcolonial Theory. Following this shift by 2006 feminism within gender studies came to rely on four main tenets: (1) Gender is highly significant to the way power is structured in society, (2) Gender is socially constructed, (3) Gendered power structures privilege men, and (4) Gender is combined with other forms of identity which must be acknowledged, and that knowledge is relative and attached to identity. Finally, the attempt to make all analyses of gender intersectional, to focus relentlessly on a simplistic concept of societal privilege, rooted overwhelmingly in identity (and not in economics) and to incorporate the elements of Critical Race Theory and Queer Theory, results in a highly muddled, Theoretical, and abstract analysis that makes it difficult – if not impossible – to reach any conclusions other than the oversimplification that straight white men are unfairly privileged and need to repent and get out of everyone else’s way.
Source: Cynical Theories by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay (2020)
BREAKING THEIR OWN PROMISE: The National Organization of Women (NOW) as it was in the late 1960s and through the 1970s, was driven by a Statement of Purpose that has actually been disowned by the current gang. Here are the first few lines of the brilliant original document, along with the disclaimers of today’s NOW.
We, men and women who hereby constitute ourselves at the National Organization of Women, believe that the time has come for a new movement toward true equality for all women in America, and toward a fully equal partnership of the sexes as part of the worldwide revolution of human rights now taking place within and beyond our national borders. The Purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men.
In the proposal for a new Statement of Purpose, all positive references to men have been eliminated. This version is openly sexist. The new reference to men is as follows: “We envision a world where patriarchal culture and male dominance no longer oppress us or our earth.” One of the biggest problems with the modern feminist movement is its failure to bring men along with us. By casting men as unnecessary if not downright evil, the Feminist Elite have made it very hard for the average man to accept feminist concerns as legitimate. NOW’s message does seem to be losing some of its power. The organization’s membership is in free fall; current and past national board members have shared with me the desperation at board meetings as they try to figure out how to stave off bankruptcy.
Source: The Death of Right and Wrong by Tammy Bruce.
INTERSECTIONALITY: The fall-out of this and much else is toxic. Most people are not gay. Men and women have to find ways of getting along. And yet the societal self-delusion over biological reality is just one in a whole series of self-delusions that our societies have decided to engage in. Worse is that we have begun trying to reorder our societies not in line with facts we know from science but based on political falsehoods pushed by activists in the social sciences. Of all the things that are deranging our societies, everything to do with sexes – and particularly relations between the sexes – are perhaps the most deranging of all. Because the facts are there all the time, in front of our eyes. It is just that we are not meant to notice them, or if we notice them, we are expected to stay silent.
Source: The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray (2019)
ON FEMINISM: What is feminism? The first answer that seems true is that nobody knows anymore. A movement that was born out of noble and humble beginnings in a search for equality of opportunity between the sexes has now devolved into something quite different and altogether unrecognizable from its nascent form. It is the harbinger term for a witch hunt against all men. This time, though, the witches are doing the hunting. In the last three years, since the #MeToo movement has taken hold and caught fire, leftists have done everything in their power to divide the nation into two groups: feminists and antifeminists. In the process, an effort that was launched to call attention to rampant sexual abuse and harassment in the entertainment industry has somehow devolved into a trend of denigrating any person male or female, who does not blindly support the Left’s modern feminist agenda. I fall into this group because I am an avowed antifeminist, but does that mean that I support the subjugation or harassment of women? Of course not. Nor do I support the subjugation and harassment of men, which is exactly what modern feminism does. Nothing about modern feminism, commonly termed “intersectional feminism,” has anything to do with its original search for equality. Indeed, the founders of the feminist movement, would see none of their original movement in what the word is used to encompass now. Voting rights for women, equal legal standing with men, a recognition of women as equally capable and competent in most workplaces, and the ending of gender-based discrimination – these goals have, for all intents and purposes been achieved. This is not to say that pockets of sexism do not still exist; of course, prejudice in all its forms maintains its hideouts in modern society. But the modern feminist movement works only to exacerbate these issues.
The truth is that as a woman in America today, I am now not only on equal footing, but in fact positively discriminated in favor of, by employers over men. As a woman in 2020, I have a greater life expectancy, a greater probability of receiving a college education, and in many professions a greater likelihood of employment with more years to enjoy my pension and a greater array of benefits available to me than a man. This is why I so proudly declare that I am not a feminist. Rather, I feel positively affirmed in my femininity. With phrases like “toxic masculinity” and coordinated witch hunts at the drop of an allegation, the apparent goal of feminism seems to be to remove the concept of masculinity from the Western World entirely, making all expressions of manhood obsolete, and all expressions of womanhood guiltless. The bigger issue is that if manhood becomes obsolete so too will the family unit. And when our dependency on family decreases, our dependency on government increases tenfold. For black America this hypothesis has been tested affirmatively and conclusively. Truly, no friend of black America is an ally of this perversion of a feminist movement.
Source: Blackout by Candace Owens (2020)
The unabbreviated version of the above can be found in the pdf document below.
Source: The Death of Right and Wrong by Tammy Bruce.
INTERSECTIONALITY: The fall-out of this and much else is toxic. Most people are not gay. Men and women have to find ways of getting along. And yet the societal self-delusion over biological reality is just one in a whole series of self-delusions that our societies have decided to engage in. Worse is that we have begun trying to reorder our societies not in line with facts we know from science but based on political falsehoods pushed by activists in the social sciences. Of all the things that are deranging our societies, everything to do with sexes – and particularly relations between the sexes – are perhaps the most deranging of all. Because the facts are there all the time, in front of our eyes. It is just that we are not meant to notice them, or if we notice them, we are expected to stay silent.
Source: The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray (2019)
ON FEMINISM: What is feminism? The first answer that seems true is that nobody knows anymore. A movement that was born out of noble and humble beginnings in a search for equality of opportunity between the sexes has now devolved into something quite different and altogether unrecognizable from its nascent form. It is the harbinger term for a witch hunt against all men. This time, though, the witches are doing the hunting. In the last three years, since the #MeToo movement has taken hold and caught fire, leftists have done everything in their power to divide the nation into two groups: feminists and antifeminists. In the process, an effort that was launched to call attention to rampant sexual abuse and harassment in the entertainment industry has somehow devolved into a trend of denigrating any person male or female, who does not blindly support the Left’s modern feminist agenda. I fall into this group because I am an avowed antifeminist, but does that mean that I support the subjugation or harassment of women? Of course not. Nor do I support the subjugation and harassment of men, which is exactly what modern feminism does. Nothing about modern feminism, commonly termed “intersectional feminism,” has anything to do with its original search for equality. Indeed, the founders of the feminist movement, would see none of their original movement in what the word is used to encompass now. Voting rights for women, equal legal standing with men, a recognition of women as equally capable and competent in most workplaces, and the ending of gender-based discrimination – these goals have, for all intents and purposes been achieved. This is not to say that pockets of sexism do not still exist; of course, prejudice in all its forms maintains its hideouts in modern society. But the modern feminist movement works only to exacerbate these issues.
The truth is that as a woman in America today, I am now not only on equal footing, but in fact positively discriminated in favor of, by employers over men. As a woman in 2020, I have a greater life expectancy, a greater probability of receiving a college education, and in many professions a greater likelihood of employment with more years to enjoy my pension and a greater array of benefits available to me than a man. This is why I so proudly declare that I am not a feminist. Rather, I feel positively affirmed in my femininity. With phrases like “toxic masculinity” and coordinated witch hunts at the drop of an allegation, the apparent goal of feminism seems to be to remove the concept of masculinity from the Western World entirely, making all expressions of manhood obsolete, and all expressions of womanhood guiltless. The bigger issue is that if manhood becomes obsolete so too will the family unit. And when our dependency on family decreases, our dependency on government increases tenfold. For black America this hypothesis has been tested affirmatively and conclusively. Truly, no friend of black America is an ally of this perversion of a feminist movement.
Source: Blackout by Candace Owens (2020)
The unabbreviated version of the above can be found in the pdf document below.
| 13_nihilism_long_feminism_--_segment_13.pdf |