Gender and privilege
On the myopic hypocrisy of feminism and how the movement threatens both genders
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First, there were the suffragettes
Suffragettes were members of women’s organization movements in the late 19th and early 20th century, particularly in the United Kingdom and United States. They focused on one specific issue: suffrage for women. “Suffrage” is a term that was used in reference to the right participate in the democratic process through voting.
While one may argue that the suffragettes represented an underprivileged group, suffragettes were mostly women from upper and middle-class backgrounds. Compared with the general population, these women were already quite privileged.
In early-19th-century Britain very few people had the right to vote. In 1780 revealed that the electorate in England and Wales consisted of just 214,000 people — less than 3% of the total population of approximately 8 million. In Scotland the electorate was even smaller: in 1831 a mere 4,500 men, out of a population of more than 2.6 million people, were entitled to vote in parliamentary elections.
The three parliamentary reform Acts introduced in 19th-century Britain (in 1832, 1867 and 1884 respectively) satisfied moderate reformers rather than radicals. The Prime Minister, Lord Grey, supported reform to ‘prevent the necessity of revolution’ and was responsible for the first Reform Act of 1832. However, the Act gave the vote in towns only to men who occupied property with an annual value of £10, which excluded six adult males out of seven from the voting process.
For many people, 19th-century parliamentary reform was a disappointment because political power was still left in the hands of the aristocracy and the middle classes. Universal suffrage did not arrive in Britain until February 1918. This included voting rights for women.
Meanwhile, in the US several states passed legislation to impose literacy tests, poll taxes, property-ownership requirements, moral character tests or other criteria to prevent certain sections of society from voting. As in Britain, these laws prevented poor people from participating in the democratic process and it wasn’t until the ‘60s that this injustice was undone, within the context of the Civil Rights movement at that time. Here also, suffragists ignored the plight of the poor.
So what we see here, is that the suffragists were not a civil rights movement in the traditional sense of the word. They were a group of selfish privileged women who cared only to obtain one specific privilege for themselves that was denied to them, while ignoring the plight of millions of poor men and women who were denied that very same privilege.
The Second wave of feminism
Second-wave feminism is a period of feminist activity that first began in the early 1960s in the United States, and eventually spread throughout the Western world. In the United States the movement lasted through the early 1980s.
The second wave of feminism in North America came as a delayed reaction against the renewed domesticity of women after World War II: the late 1940s post-war boom, which was an era characterized by an unprecedented economic growth, a baby boom, a move to family-oriented suburbs, and the ideal of companionate marriages.
Men were generally expected to start their own business or work for a wage at another man’s business, whereas women were generally expected to stay at home any manage the household. Second-wave feminists considered this expectation too restrictive. They considered managing the household a position inferior to that of a man’s career.
As such, second wave feminism focused on destroying the very notion of gender roles. They did not only want to open up many traditionally male professions to women, but basically wanted men and women to be regarded as equal in every way.
On to the 21st century
By the beginning of the 21st century, their goals have been achieved. Today, more than 70% of all women have a job. More women graduate from college than men. And while women in general still earn about 25% less than men, the gap narrows significantly for women with a college degree and is caused largely by men and women choosing different career paths.
The number of female leaders in business and politics has been rising steadily as well. Consider the following examples :
- Countries as diverse as Brazil, Argentina, Chile, South-Korea and Malawi have a female president.
- The IMF and World Bank have a female managing director
- The World Health Organization has a female Director-General.
- The US Commissioner of Food and Drugs (head of the FDA) is a woman.
- General Motors, IBM, Youtube, PepsiCo, Mondelēz International, Petrobras, Yahoo, Hewlett-Packard, Lockheed Martin, Xerox, DuPont, General Dynamics, J.P. Morgan Asset Management and Sam’s Club are all corporate giants with a female CEO
As the stats below illustrate, the number of public officials rose significantly as well.
Some women would argue that there’s still much left to fight for in the context of women’s rights, but is there? While it’s true that the total number of men in eg. technical professions or politics still far outweighs that of women, can one truly claim that as evidence for sexism?
We also have professions where the total number of women far outweighs that of men. Think of nurses for example. Would you argue that the low number of male nurses is a consequence of sexism? Are men hindered in some way to enter the profession of nursing? Do men have less chances than women to become a nurse if they really wanted to?
Most people would argue that there simply are fewer male nurses than male technicians, because men are more inclined to seek a profession that involves taking care of machines than a profession that involves taking care of other humans. This is a gender difference that goes beyond cultural gender roles. It is a cross-cultural phenomenon that can be traced back to genetic differences, hormonal differences and differences between how male and female brains are wired.
Some people would argue, however, that it’s different somehow with regards to women in technical professions. The limited number of women in technological professions is blamed on some kind of phantom conspiracy commonly refered to as “the patriarchy”.
Some women seem to hold the idea that men in technological professions have some kind of privilege that women in IT are lacking. Some women seem to hold the idea that male gender stereotypes somehow still favor males in achieving success in technological professions, however they fail to provide any arguments besides the limited number of women in those fields.
Also, consider that companies like General Motors, IBM, Youtube, Yahoo, Hewlett-Packard, Lockheed Martin and Xerox are all corporate giants in highly technical fields headed by a woman. And like these, there are many smaller ones. If there truly was some secretive patriarch conspiring against womanhood to keep women out of tech, one would expect at least these companies to stand out and do it better. They don’t.
Also, consider that HR personnel is mostly female. And while these women do not always have a definite say in who is hired for which job, they play a huge role in the selection process for corporations. If there is truly some sort of bias against women in technical professions, then it’s clearly not a male-vs-female issue as all these women play along nicely and don’t seem to question any immorality from their side.
Side-effects
Second wave feminists also wanted the end of the family as a protected sacred institution, by making it easier or more socially acceptable to divorce, to abort the unborn, to have a child outside of marriage or to enter in a relationship with someone of their own gender. The individual right to do with one’s own female body and mind to do what one wanted stood central.
As a consequence of this trend, traditional marriage successfully was destroyed as a pillar of society. Marriage rates and overall fertility rate among women plummeted while divorce rates and fertility rate among unmarried women skyrocketed.
But does all that even matter if people are happier today? Isn’t the decline of the family as cornerstone of society totally unimportant if the gained freedom makes us all happier? This position is most definitely worth considering, but are people really happier? Is it really better to live today than it was in the 50s?
There’s a lot of data to suggest the opposite. Everyone complains about being too pressured by their environment. Social isolation has become increasingly common. Substance abuse has become increasingly common. Violent crime has become increasingly common. Hedonism reigns more than ever. And while all this obviously can’t all be blamed on feminism, it’s unclear whether feminism’s contribution can be considered as anything but negative.
The coming collapse of the middle class
Even though families used to have only one income, the living standard of the middle class was higher than the living standard of the middle class today. In fact, the middle class is heading towards collapse.
Meanwhile, the rich are only getting richer. For example, the wealth of Britain’s richest 1,000 people recently hit a new high of £519bn, which is a rise of 15.4% from last year’s total of £450bn. The wealth of the top 1,000 even doubled since the financial crisis, rising from £258bn in 2009. Britain’s richest 1% had accumulated as much wealth as the poorest 55% put together.
Income gaps also remain large when comparing different countries. This is nevertheless a global problem, as these gaps are created and maintained by multinational corporations that offshore their production facilities to countries with much lower wages than their head offices. Not only does it perpetuate poverty in poor countries, but it also generates povery in “rich” countries by dramatically reducing the availability of blue collar jobs.
Gender roles gone haywire
Gender differences are at least partially biological, beyond mere physical differences. This is shown study after study. This means that gender is more than just cultural and that trying to make culture gender neutral is counter-productive.
Society is neutering boys of their maleness at a young age. Even lesbian feminist Camille Paglia pointed out what’s been obvious to many men for quite a long time. Manliness has become a caricature of itself. The obsession with gender neutrality is not only confusing women about their own identity, but effectively destroying masculinity at the same time.And in this age of gender confusion and empty hedonism, sexual degradation rules.
Mainstream culture is increasingly filled with sexual imagery and hedonism has become the norm. As a consequence, pornography is no longer taboo, but it even has become mainstream. This distorts both sexual urges and expectations of what’s normal behavior for the other gender, encouraging women to behave like sluts and men to behave like sexual predators.
To make things even worse, women unknowingly encourage men to be pricks. While men put more focus on physical attraction, women put more focus on personality. Now, it happens to be the case that women instinctively fall for “bad guys”. As a consequence, most women prefer men who are confident, manipulative assholes to men who are insecure and genuinely nice. This is especially true for young women.
While some women learn to adjust their taste as they get older, others develop a dislike of anything male. Similarly, many genuinely nice men develop a dislike for women. As such, many individuals of both genders learn to distrust people of the other gender up to the point of hatred. In the long run, male sexual predators with strong manipulation skills and female sluts are the only ones who benefit from this trend, further increasing their number and influence.
In some cases, the hatred of the other gender is combined with years of social isolation and mocking. When this isn’t countered by enough positive human interaction, such treatment can lead to the development of psychopathic tendencies as in the case of men like Elliot Rodger.
His manifesto and video testament have stirred an outrage with regards to their hateful tone towards women, but no one seems to ask the question how this hatred and psychopathic rage developed. No one seems to consider him being mocked and rejected for years by especially the females in his environment as relevant at all, yet it doesn’t take a genius to understand that this is how psychopaths are created.
If we look at the statements made by eg. Kimveer Gill, a Canadian high school shooter, we see a striking resemblance.
Quote 1:
I hate this world, I hate the people in it, I hate the way people live, I hate God, I hate the deceivers, I hate betrayers, I hate religious zealots, I hate everything… I hate so much… (I could write 1,000 more lines like these, but does it really matter, does anyone even care).
Quote 2:
People kill each other
Rape women
Molest children
Deceive and betray
Destroy lives
Bullying and torturing each other at school
What kind of world is this? What the fuck is wrong with people. This world….this life, is worst than hell.
You see
You see what kind of world we live in
No
No, I don’t think you see
You still don’t
Quote 3:
I’m so sick of hearing about jocks and preps making life hard for the goths and others who look different, or are different.
The other day on T.V. they were talking about this 15 year old kid that was killed by the cops, cuz’ he took a fake gun to school. Then they said he was emotionally disturbed and suicidal. Aaaaa, Duh!! If people were making your life a living hell wouldn’t you be hurt emotionally.
How come no one ever talkes about those MOTHER FUCKING JOCKS AND PREPS who’s fault it is. Oh no. Heaven forbid. We couldn’t possibly say that. Why does society applaude jocks? I don’t understand. They are the worse kind of people on earth. And the preps are no better, they think they’re better than others… but they’re not.
And all of society applaudes the jocks and preps. As if we are all supposed to be like them. Newsflash motherfuckers:
We will never be like them. NEVER.
Quote 4:
Stop Bullying
It’s not only the bully’s fault you know!!
It’s the teachers and principals fault for turning a blind eye, just cuz it’s not their job. You fuckers are pathetic.
It’s the police’s fault for not doing anything when people complain (oops, my mistake, the cops are corrupt sons of whores, so it’s not like they can do anything about it.)
FUCK THE POLICE
It’s society’s fault for acting like it’s normal for people to be assholes to each other. Society disgusts me.
It’s everyone’s fault for being so apathetic towards fucking everything that doesn’t affect them personally. FUCK YOU SOCIETY.
Both shooters make no secret of why they engaged in a massacre. In both cases, it’s crystal clear how their environment turned them into psychopathic killers. Yet, the cause is consistently ignored. For most people, accepting the cause would be to blame themselves. Today, apparently, that has become unthinkable, although the classic movie Carrie does remind us that this awareness did at least exist in the ‘70s.
The new feminism
As a consequence of the changing trend in sexual behavior among both men and women, a new brand of feminism has developed that focuses on the sexual behavior of men. It recognizes that some men act very aggressive and can’t take no for an answer. But instead of focusing on the cause of the problem, their response is to stigmatize men by portraying men in general as primordial brutes and potential sexual predators.
Not only that, but men are blamed for everything that’s wrong in society. Men are blamed for women feeling the need to get unnaturally skinny. Men are blamed for women feeling the need to wear make-up. Men are blamed for women’s slutty behavior. Women are always perceived as victims and men always as perps, ignoring male victims and female perps altogether.
Meanwhile, the fact that women are underrepresented in some professions is mention in one breath and mentioned in one breath with the aggression of male sexual predators as “evidence” for this phantom conspiracy called “the patriarchy”.
Elliot Rodger’s killing spree is not an exception. His explanation for why he committed those horrible acts are considered just a classic case of male aggression and the validity of his statements isn’t even considered. Even more so, this even poored oil on the fire of the new feminists and started a brand new Twitter-oriented sub-movement known as #YesAllWomen.
Arguing with these people is counterproductive. Condemning this blatant anti-male sexism for what it is, is merely disregarded as anti-female sexism. Arguing that men and women are equal victims of economic exploitation is pointless, as “the patriarchy” is blamed for everything.
On privilege
Privilege is very real. Privilege makes it easy for some to obtain success and difficult for others. Privilege allows incompetent people to decide over the lives of millions of others while disenfranchising highly competent people. Privilege is wrong. Privilege is a problem that existed in the past and still exists today.
Privilege is mostly class based, though. Neither race nor gender are important criteria with regards to privilege. For a Black woman from an upper-class family it’s a lot easier to become successful than for a White man from a trailer park. And as the current status of Whites in South-Africa shows, Whites risk becoming an underclass threatened to the point of extinction just as much as any other group.
The privileged upper class make up a tiny percentage of the population in this world. This tiny group of people consists of men any women alike and of people of all races. They go to the same schools, the same elite clubs and the same think tanks, where they divide all positions of influence among their own kind.
“Panem et Circenses” (bread and games) is a strategy developed in the Roman empire for maintaining power through superficial means of appeasement that consisted of the provision of food and shallow entertainment for the masses. It was believed that keeping the masses fed and distracted prevented them from revolting against the ruling elite.
“Divide et Impera” (divide and rule) is another strategy developed in the Roman empire. It consisted of artificially breaking up larger concentrations of power into pieces and turning them against one another rather than the ruling power. Not only did it keep the attention of the masses away from their real oppressor, but it prevented them from becoming a powerful united force.
Feminism, liberalism, organised religion and many other movements are part of a modern strategy of “divide and rule”. They were created and are perpetuated to turn brother against brother, child against parent, neighbor against neighbor and husband against wife. Their sole purpose is to see those whose support we need most as our enemies, making us putty in the hands of our masters.
Hedonistic mindless entertainment serves the same purpose. It serves to stimulate selfish hedonism among the masses, dividing us not just as groups but as individuals. It isolates us and turns us against one another. On top of this, it serves as part of a “bread and games” strategy to keep us fed and distracted.
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.
[ … ]
In almost every act of our lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons […] who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.
[ … ]
A single factory, potentially capable of supplying a whole continent with its particular product, cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda, with the vast public in order to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable.
[ … ]
If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it.
— Edward Bernays, father of “Public relations”
What can we do?
If we want to free ourselves, we must first know our enemy. If we want to free ourselves, we must first stop fighting among ourselves.
Blacks and Whites are not each other’s enemies. Neither are men and women, Christians and Atheists, blue collar workers and white collar workers, Republicans and Democrats or whatever labels are used to turn us against one another.
Today, there’s but one division that’s meaningful: the elite vs everyone else. This elite is based on class, on money and on power. It transcends both gender and race lines and it wants us to be each other’s enemies to keep the focus away from them.
Let’s all stand up together, as brothers and sisters in a shared struggle for justice and freedom!
