Grounding my suspicion of feminism
There is no such thing as sexism against men. - Anita Sarkeesian.
Last week, I wrote a blog in which I criticised feminism. Later that day, I was called by a friend of mine who pointed out an error in my reasoning. According to her, I said that I am suspicious of feminism because I do not take kindly to be accused of things that I am innocent of: ‘to call me a terrorist solely because of my gender is insulting.’ Though my friend agreed on it that such a remark is uncalled for, she also pointed out that, because I am suspicious of people who call themselves feminists, I am thereby doing the exact same thing as what I accuse feminism of doing: generalising an entire group of people.
I think we agreed that she would write a response, but that is yet to happen. It might have not been a definite agreement. But since this has been on my mind now, I decided to reread the blog entry. I have come to the conclusion that my friend’s analysis is flawed.
I have, indeed, written that I am suspicious of people calling themselves feminists and equally suspicious of research done by feminists. But this is a suspicion: it is not an accusation, nor is it a generalisation. It simply means that whenever I meet someone who calls him- or herself a feminist, I am suspicious of the manner in which they perceive reality. I have never claimed, nor will I ever claim, that all feminists are wrong in their observations and the conclusions they draw from those observations. But I have witnessed simply too many instances in which a feminist approach or a feminist argument is based more on faith and beliefs than that they are based on actual fact.
Some examples to elucidate my position. I need to dig a bit, but the general idea is as follows:
1. Karen Warren’s 2001 Ecofeminist Philosophy. In this book, one of its chapters is about feminist mythology. Though the particularities vary, the overall tendency by some feminists is this: in the distant past, Europe was inhabited by a people whose ethics was characterised by cooperation and peaceful coexistence. This situation was maintained until an invasive group invaded Europe. These people were the Indo-Europeans and they brought with them patriarchy, and an ethic of competition and warfare. As Warren indicates, there is no evidence for this mythological European, matriarchal past. This prehistoric reading of pre-Indo-European society is similar to that of Susan Brownmiller’s unsubstantiated hypothesis that men discovered their genitalia to function as a weapon. There is no evidence, nor is it likely that such evidence ever arises.
2. Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies’ Ecofeminism. In one of these chapters the argument is made that knowledge acquired through scientific inquiry is given precedence over knowledge that is acquired through tradition. Knowledge is reduced to objective knowledge, which has the presumption to be universal and free of value [Shiva, p. 22]. Admittedly, it is questionable that scientific inquiry is entirely free of value and bias. But the point of science is that its principles are universally applicable. One would expect that Shiva, a physicist, would know that Newton’s law of gravity works as well on Earth as it does on Pluto. Or Kepler-186. That’s sort of the point of what began with the Copernican Revolution. More pointedly, however, is that traditional knowledge may work very well, but then again, it may not. We do not know. We can only know if we test it. Our means of testing are those of scientific inquiry. To make the case here: I hypothesise that medical knowledge and application of that knowledge by midwives, achieved through scientific investigation, results in a lower death rate in births than when midwives rely solely on traditional knowledge.
3. Vandana Shiva and GMOs. Being an environmentalist, Shiva opposes the use of genetically modified organisms. She has been accused by journalist Michael Specter of questionable conduct in the wake of a natural disaster in India. In the wake of a cyclone in 1999, the U.S. dispatched grain and so to help feed the victims, but Shiva allegedly claimed during a press conference that the victims were being used as guinea pigs for the genetically modified staple foods– regardless that these products were already consumed in the US. In her response, Shiva does not deny this press conference. Also, portrayed as an advocate for the poor, she is said to charge $40.000 dollars per speaking lecture including a business class air ticket. Which brings me to:
4. Anita Sarkeesian. This social justice warrior focuses her ‘research’ on tropes in games – or something like that – from a feminist perspective. She analyses how sexism is evident in games, but her methodology is, at best, questionable. At worst, her conclusions are testimonies of either ignorance or outright conscious manipulations. This executive director of the Feminist Frequency non-profit organisation, which has only female employees, had, in 2014, expenses of $64 000 dollars. The organisation’s assets were $384 000 at the end of 2014. Noting that funds are raised by the claim that research is being done so that videos can be made, Feminist Frequency published four (4!) FOUR videos totalling less than 120 minutes in the same year. Also note that commentaries are disabled for her videos, because she is being harassed online.
5. Jonathan McIntosh. Though I am not very much familiar with this guy, he is involved, apparently, in similar projects as Sarkeesian and at a certain point they collaborated. Both raise funds through fundraising on Patreon. However, Sarkeesian’s fund raisingresults exceed McIntosh’ by far. And it is not as if McIntosh is less known. Their object of research is the same, though McIntosh focuses on men. Surely, sexism is not involved here, because women can’t be sexist.
6. The general stupidity of the online feminist community. Rebecca Watson, incidentally considering liberal guys with an interest in science and scepticism but who find feminism distasteful worse than rapists, celebrated the expulsion of Richard Dawkins from a conference for sharing a video. Though the video is childish, sure, it depicts Chanty Binx quite well, who is so taken up in her own activism that she turns a blind eye to her own bigotry. And then there is Julie Bindel, who not only argues that feminism is not for men, but, in the same article, seriously suggests that a specific academic study should be for women only, because they might otherwise not feel safe.
These examples indicate that there is a narrative in feminism that allows for a hierarchical gender dichotomy whilst the ideology simultaneously argues in favour of gender equality. It portrays women as victims, not as participants in a system of oppression. That system of oppression is called ‘patriarchy’ and is traced back to prehistoric times without there being substantial evidence for it; it is a mythology. It clothes symbols (patriarchy, misogyny, rape culture, et cetera) with such an aura of factuality that the ideology’s moods and motivations, established and communicated by those symbols, seem uniquely realistic. That sense of realism is substantiated by equating general and understandable critique to feminist theory with ‘harassment.’ It uses platforms of free speech to generate, communicate, and substantiate untested, or poorly tested, claims about the social world in which we live, whilst simultaneously oppressing free speech by, for example, blocking the possibility to comment or rallying to create ‘safe spaces’ in academic studies, or to lobby to withdraw an invitation at a sceptic’s convention (the irony!) of one of the speakers because he said something offensive. Feminism, in this sense, is inconsistent and maintains double standards at best, and is offensive and oppressive at worst– the latter an testimony of a lack of self-reflexivity.
Having said all this, I must also point out that I am not a blind man. There are gender inequalities in our society. But they work both ways. Some of these inequalities might be biologically determined. But whether or not there is a biological explanation for that men more often achieve high-ranking positions because they are more likely to take risks, that should not mean that therefore one should pay a woman less when she has reached a similar position. It may be that women more often work in day care than men because of their biology, but that does not make such work a women’s only job, nor should it mean that a man working in children’s day care should therefore be thought of as being a paedophile. The concepts of maternity and paternity leave require revision, as well as issues related to child custody.
There are many things I do not know in these discussions. I do estimate that contemporary feminism will not contribute to their solutions. Feminism has historically achieved quite a bit: universal suffrage, awareness of gender equality, and so more. But today, it has been poisoned by radicals and thereby lost its credibility. That is not a reason not to listen to someone who posits himself a feminist. But the above does indicate that suspicion is only understandable. If the argument is sound, I will listen.
Then again, that someone puts himself away in a cupboard. One can hardly expect the other not to put said person away in a cupboard. But that’s a story for another time.
