Category: Feminism

The real reasons that women are oppressed by patriarchy

Men don’t oppress women because they think they are stupid, incompetent, weak or incapable – they oppress women because they know that we aren’t any of those things. They know that given the chance, we will change the world in several ways which will permanently dismantle male supremacy. And they don’t want that.

The control of female sexuality

Patriarchal control has achieved this by ensuring that women and girls self-sexualise from 7 years old (according to APA, 2007), that women and girls believe and employ rape myths towards themselves and other women, blame themselves (and blame other women and girls) for the sexual and domestic violence of men (Taylor, 2020).

No one has to work very hard to control or manipulate women and girls who already view themselves as sex objects to be used, abused, controlled or enjoyed by men.

The control of female fertility

The patriarchy has long sought to control the reproductive power of women. They understand that they are not capable of the reproductive process without female bodies, hence why there is more and more experimental medical research exploring how to create wombs to gestate human babies in. And more and more fetishisation of female reproductive systems, periods, pregnancy, birth and motherhood.

[W]e have an entire industry of surrogacy which literally sells access to wombs for wealthy people – in which the majority of surrogates are women in less economically developed countries, being exploited for very little in poor conditions, to have babies for someone else who cannot or does not want to. Women’s fertility is not only controlled, but it has been commodified to the point that women are being used as paid-for containers, gestators and womb-havers.

The control of women in government

In general, women are not in control of the world at any significant level, despite making up 51% of the global population. At least, we should expect to be half of all world power. The reality is much less equal. Women make up 8% of national leaders, and within that, 2% of world presidents. Women only make up around 4% of the Fortune 500 CEOs. In the UK in 2020, women make up 5% of the FTSE 100. That’s 5 female CEOs.

The control of women in justice and justice for women

In a world in which 97% of crime is committed by men (according to international statistics collected by the FBI in 2017), it seems odd that men also make up the majority of lawmakers, judges, police chiefs, police commissioners, legislators and senators.

Women are hugely underrepresented in crime. Women make up just over half of the world population but commit 3% of the crime. When women are imprisoned, it is largely due to non-violent offences such as possession of drugs, non-payment of council tax and financial fraud.

However, more and more data is showing that crimes committed against women are going unpunished. We know that the current conviction rate of rape is just 0.2% in the UK, leading to the current inquiries lobbied for by the Centre for Women’s Justice.

So why the disparity here? What would happen if women were more in control of the justice systems? The pattern should be becoming clear by now, that keeping women out of power and influence is important for the upkeep of the patriarchy.

The control of women’s language and spaces

One of the most effective ways of stopping women and girls from taking control of their lives is to limit their language and spaces to do so. If women cannot talk about female oppression anymore, they cannot challenge it or protest. If women cannot define themselves as class of humans that need rights, support and protection, then they will not be able to secure these things. This movement is deliberate. If the word ‘woman’ begins to mean nothing (anyone can define themselves into and out of it) then the laws, legislation and policies pertaining to the advancement and equality of women will mean nothing.

Source: The real reasons that women are oppressed by patriarchy

Exploring Gender Roles in Vintage Advertising

A look back at the portrayal of women and men as homemakers and breadwinners in cinema advertising from the 1940s.

The pressure on women to be perfect in everything they did was intense during this era and present at every stage in life. Household products were pitched directly at women, rather than men, and the marketing message was clear – ‘Brand X’ will help you win over that man and guarantee you’ll keep him.

The period of the late-1950s going into the 1960s saw a recovering economy, greater availability of ‘luxury’ items, the introduction of television, widespread migration and a growing women’s movement. There was a shift in culture and more relaxed social attitudes but the advertising industry continued to employ strictly defined gender roles whenever it thought they might be helpful in targeting different demographics.

Source: Exploring Gender Roles in Vintage Advertising | NFSA

The Better Half by Sharon Moalem review – on the genetic superiority of women

After decades, if not centuries, of bad press for women and their vulnerable biology, this book argues that in fact “almost everything that is biologically difficult to do in life … is done better by females”.

Moalem, a Canadian-born physician, is a research geneticist who has identified two new rare genetic conditions. He has worked across the world in paediatric medicine, including clinics for HIV-infected infants and is also a biotechnology entrepreneur and bestselling author. The Better Half is his latest foray into the field of popular science, and presents a general argument for the superiority of women’s biology to men’s.

Source: The Better Half by Sharon Moalem review – on the genetic superiority of women | Science and nature books | The Guardian

Transgenderism: The Latest Anti-Feminist Wedge of the Left

At least since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, Lefties have been rankled by the presence of feminists among their ranks.

But purging these uppity women presents a challenge. Overtly denigrating feminists is risky: it can be perceived as misogynistic, and cedes too much political ground on issues lefties like to call their own – such as abortion rights.

So the Left is stuck with having to marginalise through covert means the political movement organised to resist male supremacy and its violent war against women and children.

An effective covert tactic has been to play wedge politics.

The Left’s first victory came in the 1980s. Throughout this decade, feminist opposition to pornography was beginning to gain traction as a wedge issue. As a result, an entire generation of feminists was driven from the Left for refusing to adhere to the newly minted idea of the sexual revolution that pornography was an expression of women’s political freedom.

A subsequent generation of feminists in the 1990s was defeated, again by a Leftist wedge tactic, but this time the long history of feminist abolitionist campaigning against prostitution was the core demand turned upside down. Instead of sexual slavery, the Left reconceptualised prostitution as a form of work for women, and a consumer service activity for “clients.” Feminists who failed to parrot this newly conceived idea of “sex work” were chased out, and women got rewards for doing the chasing.

The Left today is nonetheless achieving a purge of feminists from its ranks unrivalled by their previous successes of the 1980s and 1990s. Playing wedge politics is still the tactic of choice, but the issue requiring women’s pledge of allegiance is brand new.

Transgenderism bastardises the core feminist insight that “woman” is a politically defined social category generated by male violence and the exclusion, expropriation and colonisation of female human beings. Rendered as a Leftist wedge issue, this insight becomes the distorted proposition that “woman” is a flexible human “identity” with which any individual might associate themselves – even fully-grown rational male human beings.

Transgenderism is not a political movement motivated by progressive concerns – it’s just the latest weapon in the Left’s covert battle against feminism.

Source: Transgenderism: The Latest Anti-Feminist Wedge of the Left – ABC Religion & Ethics

What Was Happening Before ‘Just Be Nice Feminism’? Part I: Early Rumblings, 1970 – 1971

From early on there were attempts to use both the Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation movements as a shield to push for the legitimation of male sexual fetishes.

The feminist response to males claiming to be female was quick to develop. The radical feminist newspaper It Ain’t Me, Babe started by the Berkeley Women’s Liberation group in 1970 were clear that transsexualism was antithetical to feminism and female liberation.

Angela Douglas claimed that ‘there have been and may be male transvestites and transsexuals active in Women’s Liberation, usually unknown to the other females’. There are many reasons for deceiving women to enter the Women’s Liberation Movement according to Douglas: ‘some [transsexuals]seek to perfect their feminine role as much as possible; some are sexually attracted to aggressive females; others may be intelligence agents’.

The clash between feminists and transsexuals became so great that it caught the attention of the Los Angeles Free Press, a widely circulated alternative newspaper established in the 1960s. Also known as ‘The Freep’, it reported in December 1970 that ‘Some feminists accused male transvestites and male transsexuals of being “super-male chauvinists.”

[T]here was an analysis in the Free Press of how transsexualism was a form of male supremacy.  . . . It was publicly discussed how transsexualism relied on sexism and sexist stereotypes. The author proposed that ‘sexist oppression will not end for many, many years and transsexualism will probably greatly increase’. The author speculated on the future and warned that ‘the pool of medically indigent transsexuals in the preoperative phase is rapidly growing…. There exists a possibility of extremely militant (to the point of violence, etc.) groups of transvestites developing on a national scale within the very near future. Such a development merits close scrutiny’.

Source: What Was Happening Before ‘Just Be Nice Feminism’? Part I: Early Rumblings, 1970 – 1971

Harry Potter and the Reverse Voltaire

[A]pparently what had prompted my colleague’s enthusiastic denunciation of J. K. Rowling’s statement of the political importance of the concept of sex was not so much any disagreement with the essence of what was said, but the thought that it may or may not be hateful to say so.

“I agree completely with what you say, but I’ll fight to the death to prevent you from saying it.”

If we are denied the language and resources to recognise, record, and respond to the facts of female oppression, we will not be able to ameliorate these harms. That is why, despite the many efforts made to prevent us from doing so, so many of us continue to speak.

The ‘Reverse Voltaire’ is of course a nod to its more famous cousin, the quote so-often attributed to Voltaire in defence of free speech:

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

The words were not actually Voltaire’s, but those of his biographer, one S. G. Tallentyre. Stephen G. Tallentyre was itself a pseudonym, of one Evelyn Beatrice Hall. Writing in 1906, the female Evelyn chose a male pseudonym to increase her chances of being listened to. And her words certainly were heard, though their true attribution is more often forgotten.

Source: Harry Potter and the Reverse Voltaire | by Mary Leng | Jul, 2020 | Medium

Reclaiming femininity, crippling feminism

Women in the second wave considered ditching femininity key in charting the course to women’s liberation.

Fast-forward to the so-called feminism of today, which does not concern itself so much with women’s liberation as did the feminism of females now too old to take seriously. We’ve worked out a thrilling new spin on femininity: Today, critical analysis of femininity is derided as simple-minded or trivial — “basic.” It is more complex (and more fun, duh) to do what men wanted us to do all along.

If we continue to celebrate femininity, we will remain bound — decoratively stooping, in the cage, daubing on lip gloss, taking a selfie. In solidarity with femininity, we stand with the oppressor. Or, more precisely, we’re sitting at his feet.

Source: Reclaiming femininity, crippling feminism

Every Mother is a Working Mother Network 

We are a national multi-racial grassroots network of mothers, other carers and supporters campaigning to establish that raising children is work and that caring work has economic value, entitling us to welfare and other resources.

Source: Every Mother is a Working Mother Network

Trans men are men (but transwomen are not women)

Men have had little opportunity historically, and still have little opportunity, really, to gain any real insight into women’s lives, women’s stories, women’s pain, women’s fears, or women’s view of men. Most of what men are exposed to when it comes to women is men’s view of women. This bears repeating. As long as our world is androcentric, men are likely to have a poor understanding of women and women’s lives.

All of this has serious implications for the claim we started off with, which was the adult human male’s claim that he feels like a woman. For him to know that what he feels like is how being a woman feels, he has to have some idea of how being a woman feels. Given the overwhelming androcentrism of our culture, it is highly unlikely that he has any such idea.

Trans men, on the other hand, are in the same position as the woman writers of male characters, whose success rate seems to be noteworthy. Trans men, being steeped in androcentric culture like all the rest of us, have ample knowledge of what being a man feels like (or at least, as good as it gets without literally crawling inside someone else’s brain).

Source: Trans men are men (but transwomen are not women) – Holly Lawford-Smith – Medium