The European Parliament should not criminalise anti-feminism
Feminists should argue their case, not suppress disagreement with it.
I’m an egalitarian — I believe that men and women are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.
So I can’t agree with feminism — the belief that women are entitled to preferential treatment today to compensate for the wrongs of yesterday¹.
Now, I don’t know if you agree with my view. But I hold it in good faith, with as much concern for issues that affect women as I have for the issues that affect men. I certainly don’t think it’s evidence that I have a conspicuously criminal mind.
Some feminists disagree. And under the European Parliament’s “European Framework National Statute For The Promotion of Tolerance (sic)”², they intend to have me criminalised.
The Model National Statute setting out the basis for doing so has been prepared for mandatory legislation in all 28 member states by a group of experts of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation, with the intention³ (my emphasis):
…to go beyond rhetoric and generalities, spelling out concrete and enforceable obligations that ensure tolerance and stamp out intolerance. The ECTR has presented this document in a series of meetings and seminars with international organizations, including the Council of Europe and the OSCE. As a result there is currently a joint ECTR-European Council task force which is working on its implementation.
Section 2(e) of the Statute identifies feminists as a disadvantaged group, equates criticism of feminism with racism, homophobia, and anti-Semitisim, and elevates such criticism to a crime. It demands that members:
… take concrete action to combat intolerance, in particular with a view to eliminating racism, colour bias, ethnic discrimination, religious intolerance, totalitarian ideologies, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-feminism and homophobia
Section 6(a) demands special protection and preferential treatment for such disadvantaged groups, which goes:
beyond mere respect and acceptance … justified by the linkage between historical intolerance and vulnerability.
Section 4 sets out some limitations to tolerance, including female circumcision and the exploitation of women.
The full pathology of the gynocentric worldview is on display here.
We have a demand for the authoritarian suppression of dissent on the basis of an inability to distinguish between respectful disagreement and intolerance, while bizarrely calling for minds open to unfamiliar ideas and mutual concessions between groups.
We have feminism’s signature savage disregard for beastliness toward men: exploitation of men requires neither special protection nor preferential treatment, any more than male circumcision (the latter being a globally significant cause of infection, haemorrhage, and death in infant boys, and scarring, difficulty in urinating, loss of part or all of the penis, and infertility in adult men).
The problem that this nonsense creates is well summarised by Caroline Kitchens⁴:
Unfortunately, hardline gender activists have created a hostile environment for reasoned discussion. They prefer to shout “victim blamer!” and “rape apologist!” whenever they encounter a perspective that does not further their victim agenda. Many social scientists hesitate to broach the topic at all because of the moral fervor and stridency of the activists. But the fervor and stridency are getting in the way of reason and compassion — for both victims and the accused. That has to change.
[1] That’s because the claim that focussing on the needs of women will produce social equality is a non-sequitur: equality would result only if (i) the point of equality could be agreed and, at that point (ii) women stopped focussing on their needs. Neither proposition is particularly plausible. In the meantime, it reduces women to victimhood and, as the woman in the picture pithily observes, causes issues affecting men to be neglected. This is bad for women, and bad for men.
[2] “European Framework National Statute For The Promotion of Tolerance Submitted With A View To Being Enacted By The Legislatures Of European States”. (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/libe/dv/11_revframework_statute_/11_revframework_statute_en.pdf, European Parliament, October 2012
[3] “Model National Statute for the Promotion of Tolerance”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_National_Statute_for_the_Promotion_of_Tolerance, Wikipedia
[4] Kitchens, Caroline. 2013. “Kitchens Responds to Jezebel’s Twisted Attack.” http://www.aei.org/publication/kitchens-responds-to-jezebels-twisted-attack/ Aei.org. October 29.
