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I mentioned here many times that I consider the gender (sex) divide the greatest factor in our model of understanding modern political thought and action.
Background; middle-class male, young, Catholic family, Mediterranean, living in a big, poor city. Moved to Central Europe to work in a big èlite public institution with many young people, especially females. History of belonging to Marxist organisations in the past btw.
As a passionate about history, I normally talk about it, especially in a highly-educated environment where discussions about complex topics are the norm.
What I noticed in the past year it is astounding and moulded a lot of my thought. Every time I talk with women about history, and the topics fall on some past event/political regime/ideology/whatever, there is a lot of disinterest towards it from the women's side. Not disinterest in the sense of "I do not care", because as I said it is a highly-educated environment where being uncaring about this kind of thing is uncool, but disinterest in the sense of:
"I understand that in the past things worked a certain way, but the past is always worse than now because women had it worse".
From there, after it happened dozens of times with dozens of different women, I elaborated:
Women are the true accelerationist.
I could not elaborate or argue about past political or moral issues or ideologies or sovrastructures, because, from the other side, the argument is always that every behaviour or ideology of the past is ontologically evil because it discriminated against women.
I will never forget how when I was arguing about how 19th-century European states had probably a higher state-capacity than contemporary European states, I was accused of sexism because I expressed a preference for a non-contemporary political structure. The same happened when I mentioned how I admire Charles De Gaulle (because Macron, while being bad, is better than him because he is more feminist).
The most amazing moment was when I said to a group of women (yes, a lot of weird moments this year) that the loss of Church participation alienated a lot of people and diminished the sense of belonging and social participation of the community in the public thing. They agreed with me (!) but still for them, it is better now because they prefer a more isolated society but with more feminism.
Women are true accelerationist because the consequence of feminism has been a weirdo para-futurism philosophy but without fascism. Everything that can be conducted to the past is suspected as part of a reactionary plot to be judged on moral grounds. No detached interests in History per se, but only moral condemnation of everything that is not the "current year".
For me, it was fascinating to discover how males and females consider history, especially when the topic of "in which historical epoch would you like to live?" and every woman answer "now".
The biggest consequence of this sex divide is, imho, that a feminist liberal society has a huge gap in understanding the context when society begins to decline after drifting from some past ideology or structure. It is not possible for them that something contemporary can be worse than something present in the past.
I would like to receive some input on my "theory" from the residents of the motte, expressed in the English language which is better than mine.
PS: for people who are curious, I never received any sort of cancellation or consequence for my brazen rhetorical behaviour. Europe is not as woke as the US, and I am a kinda of "high-status male" for several reason, so I noticed that women tolerate way more whatever I say.
Yes, I agree with you. There's a sense of solidarity by a modern liberal woman with anything perceived as progressive that overrides debate on certain issues.
I'd like to outline my meta-critique of feminism in relation to this phenomenon. It's a kind of speculative post-Jungian thing and doesn't attempt any evidence so take it with a grain of salt.
The first thing women know is that men are more powerful than them physically - they are stronger and more violent, so the average woman would lose in a fight to an average man. Additionally because of procreation they are more vulnerable- men desire to rape woman more often than they desire to rape men, so even a weak man will be safer on the streets from that kind of violation (though more likely to experience common assault).
Men also have higher representation in the tails of achievement across many different domains - this is not describing the average, but does mean that generally the smartest woman would have usually found a smarter man in her domain (of course there are spectacularly smart woman in the distribution as well).
All this means that deep in their psyches, women feel an inferiority complex in relation to men (men in turn have inferiority around the ability to procreate, hence a push to have the heavenly father dominate over earth mother in Western traditions). Also as an aside both men and women are misogynistic, projecting their existential disgust/despair onto woman as the closest to 'life/creation/existence'.
This inferiority combines with the actual injustice of historical patriarchy, servitude, male domineering that woman have experienced into feminism.
To avoid the knowledge of male primary power, feminism took up the ideas of social constructivism a la Foucault, where power relations determine the way things are. Thus the exclusion of biological science in discourse in favour of blank-slate ideas. And the explicit use of politics and solidarity to wield power.
But, political aims work against truth discernment and so feminism has wandered, and failed to integrate biology and evolution, and has, like a lot of social science, favoured novelty over synthesis.
This political wandering has led to internal factionism, first with intersectionality, which undermines solidarity across the category women, and now gender ideology and queer theory, the bastard sister of gender studies, which undermines the very category of women.
But modern liberal progressive politics demands solidarity across the sisterhood, and so more than anyone, women are responsible for sustaining the politics undermining feminism, and womanhood, itself.
I don't think that both men and women are misogynistic. Rather I think that both men and women are predisposed to hating men due to the essential power structure you outline in paragraph 3 above. If you hate a more powerful person who has power over you, it's righteous and empowering and normal to do so. If you hate someone weaker than you, you are a loser. I am not predisposed to hating women. When I think of my father, I think of him eternally as an adult who subjugated me as a youth, but when I think of my mother I just feel regret for ever having hurt her in any way. Indeed the things I fault my father for are for his weaknesses, not being strong enough, out of this grew my resentment toward him. Toward my mother I would never feel any hatred toward her weakness, to do so would be gruesome, especially as an adult.
As a gay man the only misogyny I can find in myself is a sort of irritation that straight men are attracted to women, but this doesn't really spark a deep seated hatred within me but if anything rather an irritation toward myself that I'm not what a straight man would be attracted to. I'm more predisposed toward hating men and it's downstream of hating myself which I believe all men are predisposed toward. As a young child I was resentful toward women because I imagined they would reject my love but this just made me seek male affection instead, not hate women.
What makes you draw the conclusion that men and women are misogynistic? It's funny that you mention projection in this sentence as I think it's male self-hatred and women's hatred of men that you are projecting onto men and women as misogyny.
Thanks for your input and personal experience. Yes, I think you're right. It seems a poor assumption that both men and women tend to misogyny and ironically wrong even for me, I don't hate women and feel somewhat aligned with them. Also, the cliche of the archetypal feminist is man-hating, so not consistent either if we take that cliche seriously. I'll abandon that bit then as it doesn't seem to pass the sniff test. The bit I'm trying to explain is that misogyny tends to be more prevalent in both men and women than misandry and it seems that in 3rd wave feminism, in upholding ideas that undermine the rights of women and viciously othering and attacking 'terfs', women are being fundamentally misogynistic - the whole trans phenomenon has a misogynistic thrust and it's mainly women supporting it. Perhaps it's just the 'dark mother', the projected dark side of the kindness and nurturing of women.
Though of course, these Jungian analyses could be just a lot of just-so bullshit and it's just contextual...
But persevering with the deep psyche as the explanatory frame, i know from experience an extraordinary amount of men are somewhat or very misogynistic - I wonder why that is, it seems like a mother issue and feels like an early imprint around early rejection in infancy around needs met. I speculate that woman could experience this same imprint and be misogynistic by virtue of mother being the first thing, while man being somewhat peripheral. Though of course many women have very good relationships with their mothers...
In exploring the self-hate, which I know well also (perhaps it's a universal?), I wonder if it is in fact not gendered in it's sense at all.
I think the power structure explanation you outline seems right.
I think it's really a projection of men's inner frustrations with themselves and their situation. They want sex, desperately, and they want it from women. They believe if they were more fit or attractive they'd have an easier chance of getting sex from women. They blame themselves for their lack of sex and try to pin the blame on women because it alleviates them from the pain of pinning the blame on the self. This is not born out of misogyny but self hatred. If the man believed the woman/object of his desire would love him back unconditionally and deservedly, he would have not be acting out in ways perceived as misogynistic. The most confident secure men who are sexually desired by the people around him are not misogynistic because they are comfortable with themselves and have no reason to project their self hatred onto women.
I'm not sure how to interpret this, it depends on if you're male or female. I think that all men are self hating. Women can also be self hating but they often grow out of it and find meaning through family and relationships at a younger age than men do. Many men grow to an old age and never escape their self loathing, or it can fluctuate throughout their lives based on their condition and perception of their lives.
Interesting, yes, I think projection of life circumstances onto the other sex plausibly accounts for a lot of male misogyny. Obviously a lot of different contextual factors might account for it, ie a patterns learned from their fathers.
But not necessarily an infant attachment thing, ie Bowlby. That seems to lead to deeper issues perhaps than misogyny/misandry.
Re the self-hate I just mean that it doesn't seem directed at man or woman per se. It has that empty-like ego quality, at least for me.
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If you are gay, then I'm fairly certain your experiences are not very relevant when discussing the modal man's gender relations. No offense intended, but obviously you are wired differently and thus not a suitable example to study.
I have learned so much about gay men through looking at straight men, I believe we are wired broadly the same but with some small points of difference. I offered my perspective because if I can learn things from straight people then perhaps straight people can learn something from my experiences as well. I don't think you can fully understand gay men without understanding straight men and vice versa.
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Do you have link to that? Not that I disagree, but I know none
You accidently replied to the wrong comment ;)
But here's a source.
An amusing consequence of this was you had suffragettes in the late 19th century stating that women shouldn't be allowed to vote on whether to grant themselves the right to vote.
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What actual injustice?
It frustrates me to no end that the Motte is more than happy to debate HBD and other taboo topics, and criticise mainstream liberal narrative generally, but still generally believes in the feminist myth that is the historical oppression of women.
And it is a myth. The idea of an oppressive 'patriarchy' in history is a produce of feminist historical revision, aided by our modern liberal democratic sensibilities making us believe anything not liberal or democratic as morally inferior.
This is something I've previously argued about both here and on the old subreddit and elsewhere on cyberspace many times in the past (please, read those previous comments if you haven't already). But the conclusion I'm very slowly and reluctantly reaching is that it doesn't matter how much I or anyone else try to argue against it and prove its falsehood.
It doesn't matter how many feminists myths, like the idea that husbands could beat their wives with impunity, are debunked. It doesn't matter how many prominent, power female historical figures are pointed out that shouldn't really exist in a supposed patriarchy. It doesn't matter how much subtlety you try and introduce into the debate around female suffrage including the fact that men were more in favour of women's suffrage than men were. It doesn't matter how historically rights and responsibilities have gone hand-in-hand which each sex preferred a different balance. It doesn't matter trying to explain how men and women having distinct sex roles does not necessarily mean one was inferior. It doesn't matter if you point out all the ways that women actually did have unique privileges that men did not have. It doesn't matter trying to explain that women can, do and did exhibit huge amounts of agency, influence and power in history and in our societies, if in ways often distinct from men. It doesn't matter pointing out that any onerous ritual that women experienced almost always had a male equivalent, such as FGM and MGM. It doesn't matter the ways in which men objectively and materially had it worse than women both historically and in the present, like life expectancy, participation in dangerous work and so on. It doesn't matter that the most important relationships between the sexes (family) is characterised by love, affection and cooperation, not oppression. It doesn't matter how blatantly obvious how absolute rubbish feminist theory to anyone with a brain who reads it. It doesn't matter how many holes you poke in the idea of the feminist idea of a 'patriarchy' (and you can poke so many holes), there is always the 'patriarchy of the gaps' and the historical oppression of women lurking somewhere, somehow as a historical 'fact'.
The conclusion I've come to as to why it doesn't matter is because I think deep down on some innate, primal level, we want to believe in the idea that women are oppressed, historically or otherwise, is true. Men want to believe it because we want to play white-knight-in-shining-armour, our instinctual desire to be a protector and provider for women. Men want injustice against women to be true so we can swoop in and save women from that injustice and be a hero and loved by those women for it. Women want to believe it because it justifies their own special status. It justifies the special treatment and privileges, which they deserve by virtue of their oppression. It's a convenient noble lie long ingrained deep in our cultural consciousness, rendered dysfunctional by modernity. We love to demonise our outgroup by how badly they treat women to demonstrate how virtuous we are. There's no better outgroup to beat on than the past, because they're really bad at fighting back.
To be completely clear, I'm not saying women have never experienced any injustice. But any injustice is specific and not part of a universal, continuous effort ('patriarchy') to injure women, and it has to be put in the context than both women and men have faced injustices historically.
I'm not completely defeatist on this issue, at least not yet. But part of me recognises the futility of fighting human nature, no matter how irrational, self-destructive and maladaptive it might be. But I don't know what the alternative is.
I like your take, we always have to dig deeply into accepted ideas to see how much myth-making. It's something I will 'lean-into' over the next while to see where I land.
However, I was already aware that females contribute a good portion of partner violence - although of course, tending to be less serious harm than male on female violence. I was also aware that key males had been written out of the suffragette story.
I also don't view it as man beating wife with stick through human history. The past is a different country as they say, so it's mistaken to project the modern idea of agency blindly onto previous eras Obviously women have always had agency and our history is shared, there must have always been accommodation of needs in the shared goal of child rearing and woman have been honoured and had certain priviliges over different cultures etc, depending on class. However, and bearing in mind I'm no historian and I shudder to think how little I know of it, but I'd say it's a given that among human hierarchies, women would tend to be lower than men in terms of power. The church asserts this explicitly, and clearly there wasn't even a thought to consider women as distinct entities legally until modern times. So I suspect that while revisionism against some of the myth-making of feminism may be due, it's not going to upend it to the point of there is 'no thing there'.
Feminism fits within a modern liberal view of freedom and opportunity. Here I think it's clear that there was a patriarchy, as evidenced by the efforts required for women to do things that men had always done-get a degree, occupy professional positions of power, own things, receive benefits as single parents etc. Now most women probably didn't object to this world, it was the water they swam in, but for some women it was a grave injustice under the modern liberal terms taking root. Now that doesn't subsume women to some powerless servitude but it is pretty inarguable as a real patriarchy.
I have also observed patriarchy first-hand, though as an outsider, when living in Japan. Again many women have power, many are happy with the status quo, but the hierarchy is plain to see. I'm given to understand that effectively the wife sits underneath her sons in the power structure side of things (though probably worth checking) and language itself reified this in the honorifics etc used when addressing then. Men have a mixed position there, often as salarymen that might only see there children on weekends, and of course are wedded to their own work heirarchies, but equally, are clearly top-dogs as far as society goes. Again this is under the lens of modern liberal values. Japan is a very civil society and there are many great things about it. And if course it's changing. But if you're a young woman wanting to progress professionally in male-dominated fields, you're going to put up with a lot of unjust shit, by virtue of being a woman.
Anyway I take your broader point and I have gone on too long. One of my first posts here was complaining about long posts and here I am....
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Welcome to arguing against Enlightenment Ideology. Its core claim is that it can guide us all to a brighter future, but actually doing that is quite hard, and "brighter" is always relative to the past. Consequently it's easier to lie about how bad the past was, then to actually improve on it.
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