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Sanctions: 39Sanctions: 39
Phallophobic Feminism: The Sequel
Posted by Alec Mouhibian on 5/05, 1:32pm
My response was published today, and I reproduce it below.
 
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First, I’d like to thank all of you who had the decency to wish me death in the past few weeks. Your restraint was appreciated, in contrast to all those who wished me enrollment in a Women’s Studies course. But given the large number of misinterpretations of my previous column, a few sinuses need to be cleared.    
 
There is a reason I referred to gender feminism, rather than its other forms. Gender feminism is the stark opposite of the authentic feminism that led to equality and suffrage movements in early America. Classical feminism was about equal rights for equal humans; gender feminism (as one of its theorists, Iris Young, has described) is about advocating the demeaning idea that women are inherently unequal, helpless victims of men, who therefore need the protection of the state through special rights.             
 
It was more frightening than surprising to hear so many people uphold the belief that it’s okay to be ignorant and deceitful in the name of a good cause. That’s because gender feminism is a political cause disguised as a therapeutic one. It’s opposed, not to rape, but to what it baselessly considers the cause of rape: “male power,” “rape culture,” individualist politics. Whenever an advocacy group adopts a righteous, no-shit? name like “Men Against Rape,” it’s only a deceptive way of hiding their political agenda and vilifying whoever disagrees with that agenda as “pro-rape” et al.           
 
That’s why not a single work of any dissenting feminist, such as Christina Sommers or Camille Paglia, is to be found in Women’s Studies curricula or the Women’s Center library. That’s also why gender feminists have a record of trying to criminalize free speech—in their evil crusades to ban porn and impose speech codes that classify anything “offensive” as a form of abuse.           
 
Because the gender agenda relies on rape being constant in our society, artificial numbers were combined with looser definitions to support the cause. Every single one of the Women’s Center’s statistics on rape and battery is either entirely refutable or unfounded. By defending this anti-intellectual practice on the basis that one can never “overestimate” violence, feminists are confessing a total lack of interest in actually preventing and understanding rape.           
 
Sexual abuse is a serious problem, and it’s not helped by expanding the definition of violence to include all non-violent expressions of masculinity. Just imagine if the definition of Islamic terrorism was expanded to include all expressions of being a Muslim. That would do nothing to address the true cause of terrorism, just as the anti-masculine agenda does nothing to address the true cause of rape. Both distract from the real problem by persecuting innocent lifestyles.           
 
As a narrow, politically-charged perspective, gender feminism is shallowly premised in society rather than human nature. This leaves it unequipped to handle an issue like rape, which demands a fully deep and honest discussion. Nothing is gained, for example, by claiming a victim’s behavior can never have anything to do with the crime. That’s like saying that a person who leaves his car parked in a bad neighborhood, with the keys in the door, has nothing to do with its being stolen. While sensitivity toward trauma is understandable, preaching such ignorance of reality only serves to increase danger.            
 
But ideology-first gender feminism preaches ignorance of reality and truth whenever they contradict its preconceived notions. No wonder it hasn’t accomplished anything, despite decades of unheralded influence. Rape hasn’t decreased at all—while sexual confusion, insecurity, and false allegations have increased. Having a friend who was continuously raped as a little child, I was particularly disgusted to hear various online stalkers bitch about the horrors of being hit on earlier in the day.          
 
Political agencies have no legitimacy as tax and student-funded institutions, at least if “higher learning” is to ever regain a medicinal connotation.  
           
[Daily Nexus] 
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