Feminism: not a cult

Blue forest by M.K. Hajdin

Feminism, radical or otherwise, is not a cult that brainwashes women into thinking misogyny is everywhere any more than the civil rights movement was a cult that brainwashed nonwhite people into believing that racism was everywhere.

Misogyny and racism are both everywhere.   They don’t happen to white men, though, and so those white men get to pretend that they don’t exist and that human rights movements are some sort of conspiracy.

Accusing people of being brainwashed is a huge insult to their intelligence, and says more about the accuser than the accused.

Femicide: what about the men?

“When men kill women,” [Karen Ingala Smith] wants to stress, “they are doing so in the context of a society in which men’s violence against women is entrenched and systemic. When misogyny, sexism and the objectification of women are so pervasive that they are all but inescapable, can a man killing a women ever not be a sexist act?”

…Since the launch, reports of the census have inevitably been pissed on with the question: “What about the men?” Like the commenter’s cliché “Not all men”, it’s a question noisily applied to derail feminist arguments, and sometimes it is worth answering and sometimes, well, no. This time, the what-about-the-menners are claiming that in concentrating solely on female victims the census is itself sexist. But when men kill their partners they have usually been abusing them for years. When women kill, they themselves have usually been abused. In the decade up to 2012, 93.9% of adults who were convicted of murder were men.

— Eva Wiseman, Why femicide won’t end until we have a truly equal society

The what-about-the-menners pretend that women can be “sexist against men”.  They can’t, because women lack the institutional power and privilege necessary to discriminate against men.  Criticizing men is not sexism.  Saying unflattering things about men is not sexism.  Pointing out the power, privilege and abusiveness of men is not sexism.

Chomsky on pornography

Noam Chomsky. (source)

The fact that people agreed to it and are paid is about as convincing (an argument) as we should be in favor of sweatshops where women are locked into a factory, working 15 hours a day.

The factory burns down and they all die and yeah they were paid and consented doesn’t make me in favor of it.

And as to the fact that it’s some people’s erotica, well that’s their problem, doesn’t mean I have to contribute to it.

If they get enjoyment out of the humiliation of women, they have a problem.

— Noam Chomsky  (via Lily Monroe)